Too Many Crooks (12 page)

She shook her head dazedly. Those sirens were louder now; they couldn't be much more than half a minute away.

"Get in!"

"I'm afraid."

It took me no more than two seconds to make up my mind. If Lilith got in the car, she might get hit if the cops started shooting, as she obviously realized. And they'd sure as hell be shooting. In about twenty seconds now, I figured.

"Then run," I said. "Run like hell. Carver must know you saw what happened. He'll kill you, baby."

"Stables," she said. "The horses. They can't follow me if I ride." She looked as if she were going to faint. Then she shook her head and said, "Shell, I know they tried to kill you, I saw what happened. I'll stay in town. If you need me."

I wasn't going to argue. "Where. Where can you go?"

She bit deeply into her lip. Suddenly she spoke in a rush. "Craig—Dorothy Craig. She'll help me. I'll be there if you need me."

She ran toward the back of the house as I jerked the gears into low and the car leaped forward on the curving drive. The sirens' scream was almost upon me. They couldn't be more than a block away and I knew if I turned to my right and tried to outrun them they'd be on me in seconds. The only chance I had was to turn left, straight at them, and hope I made it past, got far enough away to outrun them before they could turn around to give chase.

Trees blocked my view of the road on my left where their cars would be, rushing toward me, but I had to chance it, pray that they wouldn't be dead ahead in the street when I swung into it. I shoved the gearshift into second as I hit the end of the drive, twisted the wheel hard to the left, and felt the tires skid as I saw the car on my left roaring down upon me. I jerked the steering wheel to swing the Cad away, my foot jamming the gas pedal hard against the floor.

I saw the police car lurch as the driver instinctively jerked the wheel, then my Cad shuddered as the rear fender of their swerving car glanced against the Cad's fender, the Cad lurching and the jar traveling up into my clenched hands. But the Cad stayed on the road and I straightened it out, kept the gas pedal down.

A block away another black police car was speeding toward me. They couldn't have missed seeing what had happened, and the car's front dipped suddenly as the officer driving slammed on the brakes. As the distance between us lessened, the other car slued left and stopped crosswise in the road ahead of me.

I held my breath and squeezed the steering wheel, eyes staring at the police car as it skidded a little too far, completely blocking my half of the road but leaving space behind it. Enough. Maybe it was enough. I pulled on the wheel, trying to miss the back of that car without hitting the soft dirt on the road's edge, and the car was a blur on my right as I flashed past it. At the same moment, I heard a gun crack and felt splinters of glass sting my face.

The left wheels hit dirt off the road and the Cad fishtailed crazily. I fought the wheel, letting up on the gas until I felt the tires bite solid asphalt again, then I jammed the accelerator down once more. The speedometer needle swung up to eighty, hung, then hit eighty-five, ninety. Reflections in the rearview mirror were too blurred and distorted from this high speed on a rough road for me to recognize anything but I knew the two police cars must be a good mile behind.

I was heading for a road just this side of Seacliff, a two-lane highway that stretched inland toward the hills there, and the thickly brush-covered country. Half a dozen or more roads branched off the highway, and though I didn't know which one I'd take if I reached them, I was going down one of them. At the highway I slowed barely enough to make the turn, glancing behind me as I pulled left. There was a glimpse of one car, far down the road, then I concentrated on the highway ahead. With any luck, I'd get away, but it would be only a momentary respite. Police radios would be busy now, putting out the word on Shell Scott. A dangerous character, Scott, armed, approach with caution—to be interpreted in my case as "Shoot on sight." I could imagine the cops standing over Blake's body and swearing to get me.

The first turnoff was half a mile from the intersection behind me, the second was half a mile farther on. I kept going to the second one, looked as I slowed and turned. The road was still clear. The boys behind me would have at least two roads to check; with luck they'd take the wrong one.

Thirty minutes later and approximately forty miles from Seacliff, I was driving twenty miles an hour on a narrow road, looking for a spot where I could turn off. No other cars were in sight and the sun was halfway down the western sky. Some trees and scrubby growth lined both sides of the road, and finally I found a spot that suited me. Fifty yards on my right was a small grove of trees, thick enough to hide my car and me. I pulled off the road and drove over the hard-baked ground pitted with holes and small gullies, staring intently ahead to keep the car wheels from dropping into the bigger holes. I made it, parked out of sight from the road in the trees' shade, and turned off the motor. I lit a cigarette and leaned back against the seat, closing my eyes. I'd had it now: I'd had it good. By this time there'd be all-points bulletins out on me, the teletypes would be clicking all up and down the West Coast.

I couldn't run any farther, either. Because as more time passed without their getting me, the word would spread along the wires till it covered the whole country. If I ran, it would just get worse, bigger, uglier. And running wouldn't help me, anyway. I had to stay here and prove, somehow, that even though I'd killed a cop, it hadn't been murder but justifiable homicide. And I didn't have any idea how I was going to do it.

With just Norris and his gang against me, it had been bad enough. Then it had turned out that Carver and Blake and the chief himself were on the other side, out for my blood. And now all the other cops, not only in Seacliff but all over the state, would be looking for me. All the good cops, the 999 out of 1,000, good ones, brave ones, decent and honest ones, would be after me, not knowing they were on the same side as the crooks and thugs and murderers.

Yeah, I'd had it. I'd had it good.

It was dark when I awakened. I sat up in the front seat, stretched the kinks out of my bones, then turned the dash lights on while I checked my wrist watch. Nine-thirty p.m.

My stomach rumbled emptily and I remembered I hadn't eaten since an early breakfast. Before napping I'd gone back and rubbed out any traces of tire marks where I'd driven off the road, and with a supply of food I could probably stay here indefinitely; the cops couldn't search every clump of trees in Southern California. But sitting here wouldn't help me out of the hole I was in, and the hole was probably getting deeper.

I smoked my last cigarette and turned on the radio. At ten o'clock I dialed KNX and listened to the news. I'd made the news broadcast. There wasn't much, just "A well-known Los Angeles private investigator, Sheldon Scott, is being sought in connection with the slaying of a Seacliff police officer. The policeman, Franklin Blake, was shot and killed by Scott during a gun battle this afternoon in Seacliff. Scott escaped driving a Cadillac convertible." The rest was more description of me and the Cad.

I turned the radio off. There'd been nothing about Carver, nor why there'd been a gun battle, naturally. No mention of Lilith Manning, either. I hoped she'd got away. Without her testimony—if there ever came a time when I could use testimony—I was sunk.

I sat for a few more minutes, then got out of the car and drained some water from the radiator, mixed it with dirt, and smeared the thin mud over my license plates. No headlights were in sight on the highway, so I drove to it and turned left, headed back the way I'd come. Four miles from my hideout there was a small one-pump gas station combined with a kind of country store and living quarters for the owner, which I'd noticed this afternoon. It was my main reason for stopping where I had. There was a phone booth outside the small building, too. The lights were still on when I reached the gas station, but before I pulled into it I opened the glove compartment and took out a beat-up hat I keep there, smoothed it out, and stuck it on my head. Then I turned in and parked alongside the pump.

In a moment, an elderly man came out and I told him to fill the tank. "Check everything, will you? Battery, tires, the works."

He nodded, and I slid out on the far side and walked to the weather-beaten phone booth. I got the Seacliff operator and had her ring Dorothy Craig's number. The phone buzzed a dozen times and finally the operator said, "Your party does not answer."

I swallowed. "Miss, I'd appreciate it if you'd give me Miss Craig's address. I'm coming into town and it's quite important that I see her. I'm afraid something may be . . . wrong."

In a moment she gave me the address, 4872 Carwell Street. I knew the general area, and at least it was on the outskirts of town. That was a help—if Lilith could get there. Or had been there. And if she was still alive, and this Dorothy Craig was really a friend of hers.

"Operator," I said, "if you have a phone listed there for Elizabeth Lane, will you ring it, please?"

She rang, the phone was answered, and I stuck two quarters into the slot. Then I recognized Betty's voice saying, "Hello."

"Hello, Betty." I stopped for a moment. If the police knew I'd become fairly well acquainted with Betty, there might be a tap on her phone. It wasn't very likely, but I couldn't take the chance that this conversation would be overheard by them. So I said, "Sorry I couldn't make it. I meant to bay at the moon outside your window, but I—"

I heard her gasp. "Shell!" she said. "Oh, Shell, Shell—"

Well, that tied it, if anybody was listening. Of course, I could be any of thousands of other Shells.

I said sadly, "Yeah. This is, uh, Shelley Winters."

"Shell, are you all right? Where—"

"Listen, baby. This is all real cute if your phone's tapped. Get out of there fast, go to a pay phone, and call me back." I gave her my number.

She understood quickly enough, and hung up.

While I waited for the phone to ring, I stuck my head out of the booth and called to the man gassing the car, "Got anything to eat here?"

It was too dark here for him to see me, but he glanced in my direction. "Too late for the grill. Got some factory-packed sandwiches."

I had him throw a dozen into the front seat with some Cokes, and then the phone rang. It was Betty.

"Shell, are you all right? Did you really—"

"If you mean did I shoot Blake, I really did. But not till he took a few shots at me. Blake and Sergeant Carver and Chief Thurmond are all in with Norris and his gang. They're the biggest crooks in town. I tumbled, so the chief sent his two boys to kill me. And I mean murder me. They tried, and they missed. I didn't. That's the whole story—and who'll believe me?"

There was no answer for several seconds, then she said softly, "I will, Shell. What are you going to do?"

"Baby, you've got me. I called hoping you might have found out something new, something that might help."

"I'm sorry. Nothing else since I saw you. I wish there were." She paused a moment. "I just knew you were all right, Shell. But how did it all happen?"

I told her. I told her every bit of it, including what I knew but couldn't yet prove. "That's it, but you can't print it. If you did, they'd know where you got your info, and that would be all, baby."

She was quiet a moment, then said, "Yes, it sounds fantastic. But it does explain a lot."

"Yeah. Including the reason for ten thousand cops itching to grab me. Listen, there wasn't much time to chat with Lilith Manning, but like I told you, she said she was going to this Dorothy Craig's. If she could get there. Apparently she was willing to stick around in case I need her as an eyewitness later. But I don't know where she is. I called Craig's but there was no answer. You ever hear of the gal?"

"I've met her, but I don't know much about her. Rather striking brunette, no visible means of support. Girl about town, you know. But I can check with her. Do you think something's happened to Miss Manning?"

"I don't know. Something will, if Carver or Thurmond spots her. If you do check, do it from ten miles away. Don't get personally involved, because these guys are nasty playmates."

"Besides wanting to help you, Shell, there's a big story in this for me if it works out."

"And a big hole in your pretty head if it doesn't. Honey, you're the only person in town besides Lilith that I know I can trust, and I couldn't contact Lilith."

"You wouldn't have phoned if you could have reached Miss Manning?"

"That's not what I meant. I'm going into town later—not tonight—and I'll need to know what the status quo is. But if I don't phone you again, at least you'll know the story."

She started to say something, stopped, then went on. "When you get in, come to my place. You've got to have someplace to— to hide. You can't just walk the streets."

"No, ma'am. Good way to get you killed, too. Maybe somebody's already staked out at your place."

"Then meet me somewhere."

We had a two-minute argument about it, but finally I told her I'd meet her at a restaurant called Lanny's. Another two minutes of argument and conversation and she asked if there was anything she could get for me. Half kidding, I told her.

She chuckled and said, "I can get the razor and the hair dye. All of it except Aladdin's lamp and the tank."

"Skip those, then. Skip them all if you want to."

"You're not coming in now?"

"No. Tomorrow night. About nine, say. The town will probably be almost as hot for me as it is now, but maybe the cops' eyes will be tired by then. Anyway, I've got to come back sometime. So, if I get in at all, I'll see you at Lanny's about 9 p.m.

"Shell . . ."

"What?"

"I— Nothing. Just . . . be careful."

"Sure." I hung up. I tried the Craig number again, without any luck, paid the gas-station attendant, made myself wait for the change, then went back to my trees and to sleep.

I eased on the brakes and swore softly, turned around in the street, and headed back. Another roadblock ahead, the second one I'd hit so far. I'd switched off the headlights when I first saw the glow ahead, and I doubted that I could be seen turning around. It was almost 8 p.m., and I was still five miles out of Seacliff.