We walked into the new area. She had her car, a little white Corvair hardtop. She handed me the keys. Meyer clambered into the back seat.
As I backed out of the parking slot, I said, “Morbid curiosity, anyone?”
“Might as well see the end of it,” Meyer said. I circled the block, drifted into the lot on the other side, went up an aisle two parked rows away, turned into an empty slot. Through the tilted back window of the cab we could see her pale head.
The patrol car came in with a deft swiftness, stopped with a small yelp of tires directly behind the cab, blocking it there. The blinker light was revolving, bright even in sunlight. A pair in pale blue piled out with guns in hand. Shoppers stopped and gawked.
The cab door popped open and Del sprang out and took off between the parked cars, running diagonally away from us. The short green skirt did not impede her, and she ran well on those long legs. Yelling at her to stop, the police ran after her. One followed her between the cars. The other sprinted down the aisle to circle her and cut her off.
For a time our vision of the chase was obscured, and then we could see them catch her in an open space. She tried to flail them with the white purse and one snatched it away. She kicked at them, but one got behind her and grabbed her around the middle, pinning her arms, and lifted her off her feet. The other one snapped a cuff onto her right wrist, snapped the other onto his own left wrist. Then she stood docile, head lowered.
A crowd was gathering. The cop tugged at her and she came along with him, through the circle of people. She did not look up. The cab driver was standing with his hands on his hips.
Another patrol car had arrived. I had not seen it appear. Other cops were talking to him and I saw him shrug and point at the drugstore. Two of them marched n with him, hoping no doubt to nail me in a phone booth. They were slipping her into the rear seat of the first patrol car.
I said an exceptionally ugly word with an exceptionally ugly emphasis, and backed out and drove to the highway, and turned north, toward the broad boulevard which would take us over to Bahia Mar.
After a block of silence I said to Merrimay in the bucket seat beside me, “Excuse the language.”
“I think we may have said it simultaneously, Travis. “All three of us,” Meyer said.
“Merrimay,” I asked, “how come you just stood there when Terry was coming at you?”
“I guess the cameras were rolling, and when you have all those extras in one scene, you don’t want to run into a lot of retakes. I guess it just wasn’t real to me, somehow. I was Vangie, and he had tried to kill me, and the instant he got over that fence, I was going to rip most of his face off with my fingernails.” She shifted and recrossed her legs. “I guess he was… out of his mind.”
“Beyond his mind,” I said. “He was over into an area where his mind couldn’t work any more.”
“Then… my impersonation did what you wanted.”
“Beyond my wildest dreams, Miss Merrimay. All I wanted to do was get him so rattled he’d make mistakes. I didn’t hope for such a convenient arrest. They’ve got him now, and they ought to get a very interesting reaction when they let him read what the girl wrote. Meanwhile, I offer a steadying drink aboard the Flush.”
“I’d like that,” she said. “I hope my next acting job gets that big a reaction.” Once we were settled aboard in the lounge, the airconditioners laboring to bring it back down to a lower setting, drinks in hand, our gear transferred from Merrimay Lane’s car to our respective boats, Meyer said, “Something puzzles me, nought, nought, six and seven-eighths. That poisonous little chippy is going to keep mentioning your name at every opportunity. You are not entirely unknown to the local gustapo. And how do you expect to stay out of it?”