‘They’re gonna kill us.’ It was a surprisingly mousy voice, frightened but slow from whatever she was using.
‘How many?’ Kelly snapped at her.
‘Just these two, they’re going to -‘
‘I don’t think so,’ Kelly told her, standing. ‘Which one are you?’
‘Paula.’ He was covering his target.
‘Where are Maria and Roberta?’
‘They’re in the front room,’ Paula told him, still too disoriented to wonder how he knew the names. The other man spoke for her.
‘Passed out, pal, okay?’ Let’s talk, the man’s eyes tried to say.
‘Who are you?’ There was just something about a .45 that made people talk, Kelly thought, not knowing what his eyes looked like behind the sights.
‘Frank Molinari.’ An accent, and the realization that Kelly wasn’t a policeman.
‘Where from, Frank? – You stay put!’ Kelly told Paula with a pointed left hand. He kept the gun level, eyes sweeping around, ears searching for a danger sound.
‘Philly. Hey, man, we can talk, okay?’ He was shaking, eyes flickering down to the gun he’d just dropped, wondering what the hell was happening.
Why was somebody from Philadelphia doing Henry’s dirty work? Kelly’s mind raced. Two of the men at the lab had sounded the same way. Tony Piaggi. Sure, the mob connection, and Philadelphia …
‘Ever been to Pittsburgh, Frank?’ Somehow the question just popped out.
Molinari took his best guess. It was not a good one. ‘How did you know that? Who you working for?’
‘Killed Doris and her father, right?’
‘It was a job, man, ever do a job?’
Kelly gave him the only possible answer, and there was another scream from the front as he brought the gun back in close to his chest. Time to think. The clock was still ticking. Kelly walked over and yanked Paula to her feet.
“That hurts!’
‘Come on, let’s get your friends.’
Maria was wearing only panties and was too stoned to do any looking. Roberta was conscious and afraid. He didn’t want to look at them, not now. He didn’t have time. Kelly got them together and forced them down the stairs, then outside. None had shoes, and the combination of drugs and the grit and glass on the sidewalk made them walk in a crippled fashion, whimpering and crying on their way east. Kelly pushed at them, growled at them, making them move faster, fearing nothing more grave than a passing car, because that was enough to wreck everything he’d done. Speed was vital, and it took ten minutes as endless as his race down the hill from SENDER GREEN, but the police car was still there where he’d left it. Kelly unlocked the front and told the women to get in. He’d lied about the keys.
‘What the fuck!’ Monroe objected. Kelly handed the keys to Paula, who seemed the best able to drive. At least she was able to hold her head up. The other two huddled on the right side, careful to keep their legs away from the radio.
‘Officer Monroe, these ladies will be driving you to your station. I have instructions for you. You ready to listen?’
‘I got a choice, asshole?’
‘You want to play power games or do you want some good information?’ Kelly asked as reasonably as he could. Two pairs of sober eyes lingered in a long moment of contact. Monroe swallowed hard on his pride and nodded. .
‘Go ahead.’
‘Sergeant Tom Douglas is the man you want to talk to – nobody else, just him. These ladies are in some really deep shit. They can help you break some major cases. Nobody but him – that’s important, okay?’ You fuck that up and we’ll meet again, Kelly’s eyes told him.
Monroe caught all the messages and nodded his head. ‘Yeah.’
‘Paula, you drive, don’t stop for anything, no matter what he says, you got that?’ The girl nodded. She’d seen him kill two men. ‘Get moving!’
She really was too intoxicated to drive, but it was the best he could do. The police car crept away, scraping a telephone pole halfway down the alley. Then it turned the corner and was gone. Kelly took a deep breath, turning back to where his own auto was. He hadn’t saved Pam. He hadn’t saved Doris. But he had saved these three, and Xantha, at a peril to his life that had at turns been both unintentional and necessary. It was almost enough.
But not quite.
The two-truck convoy had to take a route even more circuitous than planned, and they didn’t arrive at the destination until after noon. That was Hoa Lo Prison. The name meant ‘place of cooking fires,’ and its reputation was well known to the Americans. When the trucks had pulled into the courtyard and the gates were secure, the men were let down. Again, each man was given an individual guard who took him inside. They were allowed a drink of water and nothing more before assignment to individual cells that were scattered around, and presently Robin Zacharias found his. It wasn’t much of a change, really. He found a nice piece of floor and sat down, tired from the journey, resting his head against the wall. It took several minutes before he heard the tapping.
Shave and a haircut, six-bits.
Shave and a haircut, six-bits.
His eyes opened. He had to think. The POWs used a communications code as simple as it was old, a graphic alphabet.
A
?
?
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
L
M
N
0
P
Q
R
S
?
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
tap-tap-tap-tap-tap pause tap-tap
5/2, Robin thought, the novelty of the moment fighting through fatigue. Letter W. Okay. I can do this.
2/3, 3/4, 4/2, 4/5 tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap … Robin broke that off for his reply
4/2, 3/4, 1/2, 2/4, 3/3, 5/5, 1/1, 1/3
tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap
1/1, 3/1, 5/2, 1/1, 3/1, 3/1
Al Wallace? Al? He’s alive?
tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap
HOW U? he asked his friend of fifteen years.
MAKIN IT came the reply, then an addition for his fellow Utahan.
1/3, 3/4, 3/2, 1/5, 1/3, 3/4, 3/2, 1/5, 5/4, 1/5
Come, come, ye saints …
Robin gasped, not hearing the taps, hearing the Choir, hearing the music, hearing what it meant.
tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap
1/1, 3/1, 3/1, 2/4, 4/3, 5/2, 1/5, 3/1, 3/1, 1/1, 3/1, 3/1, 2/4, 4/3, 5/2, 1/5, 3/1, 3/1
Robin Zacharias closed his eyes and gave thanks to his God for the second time in a day and the second time in over a year. He’d been foolish, after all, to think that deliverance might not come. This seemed a strange place for it, and stranger circumstances, but there was a fellow Mormon in the next cell, and his body shuddered as his mind heard that most beloved of
hymns, whose final line was not a lie at all, but an affirmation.
All is well, all is well.
Monroe didn’t know why this girl, Paula, didn’t listen to him. He tried reason, he tried a bellowed order, but she kept driving, albeit following his directions, creeping along the early-morning streets at all of ten miles per hour, and, at that, staying in her lane only rarely and with difficulty. It took forty minutes. She lost her way twice, mistaking right for left, and once stopped the car entirely when another of the women vomited out the window. Slowly Monroe came to realize what was happening. It was a combination of things that did it, but mainly that he had the time to dope it out.
‘What did he do?’ Maria asked.
‘Th-th-they were going to kill us, just like the others, but he shot them!’
Jesus, Monroe thought. That cinched it.
‘Paula?’
‘Yes?’
‘Did you ever know somebody named Pamela Madden?’
Her head went up and down slowly as she concentrated on the road once more. The station was in sight now.
‘Dear God,’ the policeman breathed. ‘Paula, turn right into the parking lot, okay? Pull around the back… that’s a good girl … you can stop right here, okay.’ The car jerked to a halt and Paula started crying piteously. There was nothing for him to do but wait a minute or two until she got over the worst of it, and Monroe’s fear was now for them, not himself. ‘Okay, now, I want you to let me out.’
She opened her door and then the rear one. The cop needed help getting to his feet, and she did it for him on instinct.
‘The car keys, there’s a handcuff key on it, can you unlock me, miss?’ It took her three tries before his hands were free. ‘Thank you.’
* * *
‘This better be good!’ Tom Douglas growled. The phone cord came across his wife’s face, waking her up, too.
‘Sergeant, this is Chuck Monroe, Western District. I have three witnesses to the Fountain Murder.’ He paused. ‘I think I have two more bodies for the Invisible Man, too. He told me I should only talk to you.’