The Rocketeer (4 page)

T
he tan Ford roadster whipped down the narrow cliffside road, and Lenny crouched in the rumble seat as the sounds of sirens alerted him to the proximity of their pursuers. He whipped around his tommy gun and opened fire. Wilmer, gripping the wheel for all he was worth, was made nervous by the fact that his gaze barely cleared the dashboard. The blasting of the tommy gun drowned out the sirens, and for that he was appreciative. He also floored it, trying not to think about the fact that one curve taken too quickly would mean the end of this little adventure, his freedom, and quite possibly his life.

He glanced only once at the case that sat on the passenger seat next to him. Cripes, enough was enough. After this little escapade, he was going to turn in his resignation. He’d put in enough good years with Eddie Valentine that he figured (hoped, prayed) that he’d be entitled to some sort of decent compensation. Eddie was a mug and all, but he dealt square. And Wilmer was simply getting the sudden feeling, deep in his gut, that maybe he’d been pushing his luck a little hard lately and now might be the time to get out while the getting was good.

Of course, all he had to do now was get away from the feds and cops who were breathing down his neck. That’s all. Just get away from them, and then he’d never pull another job again. That’s all. Just this one more time.

Lenny, in the meantime, was undisturbed by such considerations as alternative career paths. For him, nothing beat the feeling of what he was doing right now: firing on the representatives of the law with everything he had. Cops and feds and judges and everyone in the system, they always acted so high and mighty. They always came across as if they were so much better just because they drew paychecks while he drew blood. Well, bullets were the great equalizers, and Lenny felt very much in the need of some serious equality right about then. The tommy gun spit out bullets in rapid succession and he chortled, the image of the girl on the road completely gone from his mind.

Wolinski gripped the wheel of the Plymouth ferociously and cast an annoyed glance at Fitch, who was hanging out the window and trying to take careful aim. “Hey, Fitch!” snapped Wooly. “You trying to save on ammo?”

“I can’t get a clean shot!” Fitch shouted back in frustration. “I wish that black-and-white would get out of our way!”

At that moment a volley of tommy gunfire shredded the cop car’s front tires. The car spun out, careening off the road like a top, the sounds of the policemen screaming drowned out by the screeching of the rear tires and the constant barrage of machine gunfire. Fitch and Wooly ducked as bullets ribboned across their windshield, blowing it out in a shower of glass.

Fitch brushed shards of glass off the front of his jacket as Wooly said dryly, “Careful what you wish for.” Fitch shot him an annoyed glance, then aimed his revolver out the window and started blasting. Wooly, eyes on the road, wondered why the hell the bad guys always had automatic weapons that could wipe out a platoon and the good guys got stuck with revolvers. Hardly seemed fair.

In the roadster, meantime, Wilmer was the first to feel the effects of Fitch with an unobstructed view. A slug tore off Wilmer’s tweed cap. He touched his scalp with one hand while gripping the wheel. No blood. Then he checked the rearview mirror for a graze, and yelped in alarm when another slug shattered the mirror and his reflection.

He saw a back road and turned the car hard. The roadster angled off as Lenny reared up, tommy gun blazing. He stitched a pattern of bullets across the Plymouth’s grille, blasting it into fragments. Steam belched up from the ruptured radiator. In the Plymouth, Wooly slammed an impatient fist against the dashboard and squinted, trying his best to see through the huge gust of vapor that was now billowing into his face. But he had to slow down to compensate for it. Fitch yelled obscenities and Wooly did the best that he could, but he began to worry that the roadster was really going to get away. And if they did, the first thing he was going to do was requisition a tommy gun.

In the roadster, Wilmer glanced triumphantly over his shoulder as he accelerated up a hill. He chuckled low in his throat as he watched the Plymouth fall back, then turned his gaze back to the road and screamed in alarm.

Chugging right toward them from the other direction was a Model-T truck. The damned thing was so wide, it was taking up the entire road. At the wheel was a farmer who was frantically waving them off. Clearly he hadn’t expected to encounter anyone on this road. Who would come down this stretch of nowhere anyway?

Wilmer cursed his luck. Even when he caught a break he couldn’t catch a break. This bleak thought went through his head as he angled hard to the right, leaving the road altogether. The abrupt change of direction and bumps sent Lenny tumbling to the floor of the car, and he yelped loudly when the roadster bounced over a ditch and sailed into a bean field.

Behind them, the Plymouth carrying the two FBI men bore down on the truck. But Fitch had seen where the Ford had gone and he pointed furiously to the right. Wooly whipped the steering wheel around and the Plymouth sideswiped the truck as it pursued the roadster into the field.

The steam was subsiding now, which was good news and bad news. The bad news was that it meant they were in serious danger of overheating. The good news was that now Wooly could see. Even this, though, was promptly aggravated when the roadster churned up a cloud of dust behind them. Wooly and Fitch coughed violently and Fitch almost lost his grip on his gun.

Lenny, in the meantime, was laughing loudly as he slammed a drum of fresh ammo into his gun. This was all going great. It had been so simple. Sheila drives by with Lenny and Wilmer hiding in the back, waves to the feds, makes nice, and then a minute or two later becomes the damsel in distress. They had to fall for it. And they did. Shame about Sheila, but that’s the way the cookie crumbled.

Then he heard something from overhead and whipped the tommy gun skyward.

There was a plane coming up over the hill, heading in their direction. It was black and yellow and shaped like nothing Lenny had ever seen, but it was moving like a son of a gun.

It might be nothing, Lenny reasoned, but on the other hand, it might very well be something. Just like the feds to have a backup plan. Well, backup plans were just fine and dandy. Lenny didn’t subscribe to that notion though. He went through life with one plan—if it moved, shoot it. And if this was just some innocent plane jockey out for a spin, well, that was just his tough luck now, wasn’t it?

Lenny opened fire on the oncoming GeeBee.

Cliff didn’t know what was happening at first. He heard something like a series of explosions, and then the plane was shuddering as if someone had lit a bunch of firecrackers on the underside of the fuselage. For one wild moment he prayed that that was all it was: someone’s stupid, brainless idea of a joke. He didn’t see the bullet holes ripping through the underside and through the engine, but he became suddenly aware that there was more than just a lot of noise and jostling when a ricochet cracked his windscreen.

He barely had time to adjust to his mishap when the engine sputtered and began to emit grayish smoke.
Ahhhhh, why me? It was going so great!
thought Cliff in exasperation as he watched his instruments go haywire. That he might die was secondary to the concept that he was going to be embarrassed after all his boasting that he could master the GeeBee with one wing tied behind his back. Well, with his instruments doing the trots, it was the equivalent of both wings and his rudder tied behind his back. He fought the controls, but it was a losing battle.

Lenny looked up with satisfaction, watching the stubby plane spin around in the sky, clearly out of control. Gray smoke was billowing from the front and he patted his tommy gun affectionately. And then he stumbled back, landing hard in the rumble seat as the car fishtailed out of the bean field and back onto a winding road. Then he caught a glimpse of a sign that read
CHAPLIN AIRFIELD
, 1
MILE
.

“Wilmer!” he shouted, and when Wilmer glanced back he continued, pointing frantically. “Head for the airstrip! I can fly a plane!”

The feds’ car had now jumped out onto the road behind them, skidding around before coming under control. It didn’t matter though. Unless that Plymouth could sprout wings, Lenny and Wilmer were going to be in the clear within the next few minutes.

Cliff struggled with the stick, feeling as if he were trying to keep the plane in the air through sheer muscle power and force of will. Through clenched teeth he muttered to the crippled engine, “That’s it . . . don’t die on me now.” He barely managed to keep the GeeBee from plowing into a hillside as he continued hurried words of encouragement, both to the plane and to himself. “Eaaasssssy does it . . . no more surprises, okay?”

Someone up there in the heavens that Cliff was always reaching for decided to show just how seriously they were taking Cliff’s heartfelt plea of “no more surprises.” A rod blew through the cowling, and Cliff’s canopy was instantly coated with a thick stream of brackish motor oil. Whacked controls, a stubborn stick, a failing engine, and now—just to make it interesting—he was flying blind. Great. Just great.

He pounded frantically on the windscreen, trying to punch his way through the bullet-riddled glass. He shouted everything he could think of in frustration and then, to his amazement, the glass gave way. Air blew into Cliff’s face, a bracing, stinging sensation—

—and another plane was coming right at him.

Cliff screamed and jerked back on the stick, uttering a quick prayer. Not that they had been doing any good until then.

This one did, though, as the GeeBee jumped upward, clearing the oncoming obstruction with inches to spare.

Cliff glanced back to see who the hell he’d almost hit, and then his eyes widened in disbelief. It was a highway billboard advertising some movie called
Wings of Honor.
Smack in the center of the billboard was a painted image of a warplane and an actual propeller mounted on it to give it a realistic three-dimensional effect. It spun wildly in the GeeBee’s wake, and had been just a bit too realistic for Cliff’s personal taste.

Through a eucalyptus grove hurtled the roadster, with the Plymouth right after them. They hadn’t put enough distance between themselves and the feds for Wilmer’s taste, and he was doing everything he could in a last-ditch effort to do so before they reached the airfield.

The feds were getting closer and, damn! They were now running a parallel track with the Ford roadster. Wilmer ducked down as Lenny opened fire once more, exchanging a furious hail of bullets with the Plymouth. Bullets were ricocheting everywhere, perforating the trees and leaves.

Wilmer spotted two eucalyptus trees to his right and angled quickly toward them. They were side by side, but there was enough of a gap in between them—he thought. He held his breath, certain that they would be able to get through, uttered one more quick prayer that this was the last job, honest to God, and then the Ford shot through the two trees. Paint scraped off either side of the roadster—it was that close a squeeze. But it was enough and the Ford made it through. Up ahead he could make out the outlines of airplane hangers.

Wooly whipped the Plymouth around, right on the track of the Ford. The side-by-side trees loomed ahead, and he saw the Ford disappearing into them. He slammed down on the gas as Fitch, bracing himself against the dashboard, warned, “She ain’t gonna make it . . .”

“Yes, she will!” shouted Wooly. Wooly was determined. Wooly was positive. Wooly was unstoppable.

Wooly was wrong.

The car slammed to a jarring halt, caught between the two trees, tires spinning helplessly.

“Like I said,” continued Fitch calmly.

Wooly gave his partner an annoyed glance and then threw the car in reverse, grinding gears. The car moaned and so did Wooly as the two front fenders ripped clean off.

Fitch quickly surveyed the damage. In addition to the absent fenders, smoke and steam were still billowing out, and the sides and front were more holey than a football field of nuns.

Their heads were going to be on the block as it was. If the crooks got away with the stolen case, Fitch and Wooly might as well just make a hard left and keep on going until they drove into the Pacific.

“Move it!” shouted Fitch. Wooly did so, going around the trees this time, in steadfast pursuit of the fleeing roadster.

The roadster tore out across open ground behind the hangars. Wilmer was looking around furiously and then saw one with an open door. He drove into it and screeched to a halt, allowing himself a small sigh of relief. They weren’t remotely in the clear, but there was something vaguely comforting about being in an enclosed area. He grabbed the patent leather case and turned toward the rear of the car. “Let’s go, Lenny!” he started. “We can’t get caught with the—”

His eyes opened wide. Lenny would never be caught now, because he’d caught something—a bullet. He was slumped to one side, staring at Wilmer with glazed, dead eyes. Wherever Sheila was, Lenny was now with her.

Wilmer felt a tremble go through him. It just as easily could have been him. He felt the same guilty sort of relief that any soldier feels when the trooper next to him in line has taken the bullet.

“Lousy feds,” he muttered.

In the distance he heard the screech of tires and the sputtering of an engine that could only be one that had sustained the sort of punishment Lenny had inflicted on the Plymouth. Backfiring, chugging, but determined. The feds would be there in minutes, checking through the hangars.

He was going to get caught. After all this, on the edge of a clean getaway and a new life, he was going to get caught. He couldn’t fly a plane. Maybe the roadster could still outrace the feds. Sure. There was a better than even chance. But what if he couldn’t? And he got nailed holding the contents of the case?

His mind was racing as fast as the GeeBee that was wobbling into view in the distance, but he paid it no heed. For his frantic gaze had fallen upon a vacuum cleaner that had been designed in that obnoxious art deco style. Wilmer couldn’t stand that look, but suddenly it was starting to grow on him, especially when he saw the duffel bag next to the vacuum cleaner.