Death Benefits_ A Novel Part 33

"The FBI?" said Stillman. "They picked up the phone, but I didn't get to tell them what was on my mind. I think that was our chance to yell for help, and n.o.body heard us."

41.

Stillman drove up New Hamps.h.i.+re Street, keeping the Blazer at a speed that would not attract attention. "In some circ.u.mstances, I might consider driving one of these things down the bank of a stream somewhere and hoping the water's not deep enough to swamp it. But the reason they built a mill and a bridge along this stretch is that this is the narrows. The river is deeper and faster by the town, and the banks are steep."

"I have another idea," said Walker. "It's not a great one."

"Tell us, and we'll insult it ourselves," said Mary.

"When we first saw the police station, there were sixteen cars in the lot, remember?"

"Sure," said Stillman.

"Well, there don't seem to be anything like that number on the streets tonight."

Stillman's expression seemed to intensify. He turned at the next corner and turned again to go east. "You're absolutely right. There are definitely going to be a few in the lot. At least one might have the keys in it. If not, I can probably-"

Mary said doubtfully, "You want to go to the police station to steal a police car? Why is that better than this thing?"

Stillman spoke quietly, as though trying not to alarm her. "Because this one has been seen, and we're going to have to try to run the bridge."

Stillman accelerated as he went up each block, then slowed at each corner to look both ways before he accelerated again. Suddenly, he swerved to the right. Ahead of them was a police car, parked a yard from the curb on the right. A policeman was out of it at the front door of one of the houses. The door opened and he stepped inside the house. The second cop was getting out of the car on the driver's side. He saw the Blazer's headlights coming toward him, so he stood and waited.

Walker and Mary ducked down as Stillman pa.s.sed him. Stillman said, "This one's going to cross the street on foot. Looks like they're going house to house. There he goes. Hold on tight."

Walker tried to articulate what he was thinking, but Stillman acted too quickly for him to speak. Stillman stopped the Blazer, then threw it into reverse. He turned in his seat to stare out the rear window, backing up fast. There was a loud, sickening thud, and Walker sat up and watched in horror as the man flew ten feet back, hit the pavement, and rolled.

Stillman stopped, flung his door open, and jumped out, bathing the interior of the Blazer in light. Mary and Walker got out too, as Stillman ran to the injured man. He knelt, then stood up, carrying the man's sidearm in one hand and his keys in the other. He dashed to the police car and got in. When the others were beside him, he accelerated down the street.

"Do you think he's dead?" asked Mary.

"No, but he thinks he is, and he'll probably stick to that opinion until they get him to a hospital." Stillman drove hard for a block, then said, "Serena, honey, crawl over into the back seat. Put your lap belt on, but lie down low. There's not enough room up here."

Mary turned and climbed to the back. Stillman slapped the policeman's pistol against Walker's chest. "You take this." He let go.

Walker caught the gun before it could fall into his lap. Stillman said, "That's got a police-only fourteen-round magazine. In a minute, I'm going to have to drive down Main Street with my head held high, so I can see where we're going. When we get near the bridge, there will be a lot of people waiting with guns. At that point, I would appreciate it if you would use that pistol. If all you do is kick up some dust and get them to duck instead of taking a calm and steady-handed aim at my forehead, I'm going to be pleased. If you also happened to hit somebody, it would improve our chances of causing hesitation and uncertainty."

Walker said nothing. He examined the pistol to be sure he knew where the safety was, adjusted his hand on the pistol grip, and tested the weight, then turned to look over the seat at Mary.

Mary put her hand on Walker's shoulder. Her face was ashen.

Stillman was now nearly to the corner of Sycamore Street. He braked gently as he went into the turn. "All right, ladies and gentlemen. I think this has to be our street. We've got to have room to build up a little speed before we hit the bridge."

Walker and Mary touched hands over the back of Walker's seat, and then Mary put her head down in the back. "I'm ready," she said.

Walker turned to face the winds.h.i.+eld and gripped the pistol. "Me too."

Stillman glided to the corner, stopped to look both ways, then drifted ahead slowly and turned west onto Main. He accelerated smoothly until the car was going about forty miles an hour, then held it there. Walker saw Grant Street go by, and looked at the speedometer, but Stillman's speed was constant.

Walker saw that a few pedestrians were still out on the sidewalks, making their way home, but most of them had already gone inside, presumably to complete the thorough search that the chief had suggested.

As they pa.s.sed Grant Street, he had a glimpse of another police car with its lights flas.h.i.+ng, moving fast along New Hamps.h.i.+re in the direction of New Mill Systems, or possibly toward the place where Stillman had hit the cop.

He looked out the rear window and saw another police car followed by three of the newly arrived rental cars making a quick turn off Main at about Birch Street. He began to feel a small, tentative hope that stealing the police car had been the best thing to do. As they pa.s.sed pedestrians, he saw each of them look up to see the patrol car moving past, but then some looked away to talk to their companions, and some half-turned to look back at the other cars coming down Main toward them.

Stillman's eyes kept flicking up to the rearview mirror. He reached to the console and turned on the radio. There was buzzing and squawking, so he turned the channel k.n.o.b twice and heard a female voice. "Officer down. Repeat, officer down. Location the three hundred block of Maple. Suspects have been spotted at New Mill Systems. All prowl units respond. Repeat-"

Stillman switched it off. "They got the order mixed up," he said. "That's why they're all going the wrong way." When Walker said nothing, he glanced at him, and looked alarmed. "You've got to be up to this. They're doing their absolute best to kill us right now."

Walker said, "I know. I'm not forgetting."

Stillman's eyes snapped ahead again. He took a deep breath and his face set in a look of stony concentration.

Franklin Street flashed past, and Walker could feel that Stillman was accelerating again. He saw the speedometer nudge up to fifty. Far ahead, there were two police cars parked at oblique angles on the bridge, with their front b.u.mpers nearly touching. Walker saw that Stillman was not slowing down. He was going to try to punch through between them.

Walker turned on the radio, plucked the microphone off its hook, and pressed the thumb switch. He gave his voice a laconic radio monotone. "Can you get those two units off the bridge, please? We got an injured man in the back."

He could see that one of the men standing on the bridge had heard. He got inside one of the cars, and Walker saw him turn his head to stare up the street at the approaching police car.

Stillman flipped another switch on the dashboard, and Walker saw the black hood beyond the winds.h.i.+eld reflect blue, then red, then blue again as Stillman sped on.

"Looks as though they're buying it," said Stillman.

But the radio buzzed with sudden life. "Give ident.i.ty of the victim. Repeat, ident.i.ty of the victim," pleaded the female voice. Another voice, a male, broke in. "I'm Code Six at the scene, and the victim is still here. He's Darryl Potts and he's not in the back of any car yet." "First caller, give your code and location." "I see him. He's on Main, heading for the bridge," said a new voice.

Walker pressed the talk switch again. "I see him too. He's trying to clear the way to get Darryl to the hospital. Move those units now!"

The dispatcher cut through the growing cacophony, her voice artificially calm. "Cancel the last request. Close the bridge. Repeat, close the bridge and stop all traffic."

Stillman's foot stomped on the accelerator, and Walker felt his head snap back against the headrest. The wind rus.h.i.+ng in the window tousled his hair and flapped his s.h.i.+rt sleeve. Walker dropped the microphone and used his thumb to slip off the safety of the pistol. He stared out the winds.h.i.+eld. There were more men at the bridge now, a few climbing up from the riverbed and the others trotting from the Old Mill parking lot.

Walker put his right arm out the window, raised the pistol, and aimed at a group of them standing in front of the cars. He fought the wind to hold his aim steady, squeezed off the first shot, and saw a man jerk and fall. The others scattered, some jumping aside, some running toward the backs of the cars.

Walker fired at them, not aiming along the sights anymore but pointing the gun as though he were pointing a finger, pulling the trigger, then fighting the recoil and lowering the muzzle in time to fire again. His shots. .h.i.t the ground in front of the cars, throwing gravel and bits of pulverized asphalt into the air, punched holes in car doors, smashed windows and winds.h.i.+elds, spraying gla.s.s.

As they came closer, he leaned out a bit farther, brought his arm in front of the winds.h.i.+eld, and fired over the hood at the car to his left, then aimed again at the car to his right, trying to scatter his fire as widely as possible. Each time he saw any movement or caught a partial glimpse of a man beside, above, or below a car, he fired at it. Usually, a head or leg quickly jerked out of sight in a reflex of alarm, but there were a couple of shots when he felt an intuitive sensation between hand and eye that told him he may have hit something.

He sat back in his seat but kept pulling the trigger until the second before Stillman plowed into the s.p.a.ce between the two cars. There was a sudden, jarring jolt that slapped his seat belt against his hips and his chest, a bang of metal, then a sc.r.a.ping and buckling punctuated with the crack and s.h.i.+ver of gla.s.s. There was a feeling that everything in his body that could move had been tugged, strained, and shaken-his bones, his internal organs, his brain. He had blinked at the last second, and opening his eyes seemed to do no good.

His mind began to clear, and he noticed that the car was still moving. It was dark because both headlights were broken. He spun in his seat to look behind. One of the cars had gone through the fragile railing of the bridge and was toppling into the water. There were men around it, some beginning to struggle up the bank to get out of the way, but one of them was lying in the water.

Two men stepped toward the road and fired guns, so Walker put the pistol into his left hand and aimed a couple of shots in their direction. The men only went to their knees and fired more shots. A round hit the rear window, and gla.s.s exploded into the car, stinging Walker's face. He turned to the front and saw that the shot had left the car through the upper part of the winds.h.i.+eld between his head and Stillman's. Stillman switched off the flas.h.i.+ng lights and kept driving on into the dark.

Stillman found a silver handle beside him, manipulated it, and a spotlight went on. "Here. See if you can aim this at the road."

Walker reached across Stillman, took the handle, then pushed and pulled it until the beam threw a faint glow on the road ahead. Stillman accelerated into it. "You can let go now." The car sounded as though the engine was laboring, and there was a sc.r.a.ping noise that seemed to rise in pitch as the car went faster.

Mary's voice came from a s.p.a.ce just behind Walker's shoulder. "Do you think there's any chance they haven't blocked the other bridge-the one with the roof on it?"

"None," said Stillman. "I'm just trying to make it to the woods." He looked into the rearview mirror. "s.h.i.+t."

Walker looked back. The scene at the bridge was still chaotic, but the four police cars from the Old Mill parking lot were pulling onto the road now, following.

"Got any ammunition left?" asked Stillman.

"I don't know," said Walker. "How do I tell?"

"Let's forget it and hope you do. This long straight stretch is where they'll try to catch us. I'll keep the ride as smooth as I can for the next ten seconds. If you could put a bullet anywhere on the front car, it would dampen their enthusiasm a bit."

Walker said, "Wait until I'm in the back seat. I can't hit anything with my left hand." He unfastened his belt and slipped over the seat, then turned and pulled his legs over after him. Mary crouched in the corner of the seat to give him room. He rolled down the side window behind Stillman, but it only went down halfway. He stuck his arm out over it and said, "Ready."

Stillman steered the car, keeping it as steady as he could. Walker detected the sensation that it was not going as fast as it had been, but the wind blew at him from the back, pus.h.i.+ng his hair forward and making it flutter at his forehead. He aimed the gun carefully between the two headlights and squeezed.

The headlights swerved suddenly, then swerved back and forth a couple of times as though the driver were struggling for control, then straightened. Walker could tell that the car was farther behind now. He leveled the pistol again, but when he pulled the trigger, the gun gave a feeble click.

"Good enough," said Stillman. "That should do it. Sit back and hold on." He switched off the spotlight, and the road ahead disappeared. He drove on for ten seconds, twenty seconds, then wrenched the steering wheel to the right. They went across the shoulder, b.u.mped hard over a ditch, the car losing its rea.s.suring contact with the earth, then came down and bounced violently.

Stillman drove across the gra.s.sy field, b.u.mping and bouncing as they hit small rises and ruts, but after a moment he was accelerating again. Walker raised his head to stare forward over Stillman's shoulder, and saw that the fields weren't quite invisible. Ahead he recognized the deeper darkness of one of the old barns, and beyond it, the black line of trees at the edge of the woods.

Stillman drove around the barn, then turned to glide into the dark enclosure. He stopped. "Time to put this car out of our misery."

Mary tried to open her door, but couldn't. "I forgot it was a police car." She crawled over the seat to the front, and got out. Mary stretched, then bent to test her back for injury.

As Walker emerged from the car, he said, "Are you all right?"

"It's all going as I'd planned," she said. "Except that I always hoped I'd get to die in my prom dress."

"You still might," said Stillman. "But first we have to get through the hard part." He walked toward the front of the barn, looked out at the road, flung the car keys into the field, and began to run.

42.

They ran across a broad field that afforded no cover, not even variation. The ground had been tilled and plowed and leveled two centuries ago, and now it was covered with clover and gra.s.s that could not have been taller than four inches. Directly ahead of them the sky ended in a dark smear of thick foliage, and below it, the shadowy trunks of trees began to emerge from the darkness.

Stillman was a generation older than the others, but as he ran, Walker watched the broad back straighten, the thick, heavily muscled arms pumping, the legs pounding the ground like pistons. It was hard to imagine him moving any faster. Mary ran with her teeth clenched in a hot, ferocious determination, as though she were not merely straining to use the little time that was left to get herself out of the sight of enemies but trampling them, trying to get each foot to hit as many times as she could. Walker gradually built his speed as he ran with her, trying to keep himself a half step ahead to make her run faster. The strategy seemed to nettle her, and she responded as he had hoped, stretching her strides to make her small, light frame come abreast of him, her feet seeming barely to touch the ground until she and Walker caught up with Stillman, then split apart on either side of him, das.h.i.+ng into the woods.

They did not stop until they reached a low thicket that impeded their forward motion and made them pause to search for an opening. In a moment, Mary had found a way around it, and Walker and Stillman followed her into a small, weedy clearing. They crouched to keep their heads below the top of the thicket and looked back through the upper branches.

Walker had expected to see the headlights of police cars bouncing along across the field toward them, or at least spotlights like the one mounted on the car they'd stolen, sweeping back and forth to light up the three running figures for the rifles. There was nothing. The cars had vanished. "Where are they?"

Stillman said, "Looks like they went ahead to wait for us. What do you suppose we ought to know that we don't?"

Mary said, "Everything. They've been living here for two hundred years. They probably know what we're going to do before we think of it."

"I think we have to a.s.sume that's close enough to the truth," said Stillman. "Let's try to do something irrational, that doesn't fit."

"Like what?"

"I don't know.... They must know we turned off on this side of the road. Maybe we could get on the other side of it and swim the river on the upstream side of the bridge."

Walker said, "That's irrational, all right. We just went to a lot of trouble to make it to the woods, where they couldn't see us. That would put us in plain sight for forty feet."

"Only if they're looking at the road. They're all in the woods, and probably on the downstream side of the bridge, watching for us to try to cross here."

Stillman stared into Walker's eyes for a moment, his face close in the darkness as though he were trying to read something behind them. "What do you think, Serena?"

"I think ...I think it will kill me to go across that open road."

Walker said, "Well, then-"

"But," she added quickly, "I think they'll know that. They'll take one look, and think no sane person would do anything but get into the deepest part of the woods and crawl until he reached the river. I think we should do it."

Stillman subjected her face to the same scrutiny he had turned on Walker. Then his eyes squinted. "You know, this could be the last time the three of us get to talk like this-maybe the last time any of us gets to talk to anybody-so we'd better agree on how this is going to work."

"Okay," said Walker.

"I go first, then Serena, then you, single file along the edge of the woods"-he pointed-"that way. I'll stop for a bit to be sure my theory doesn't have any obvious holes in it, then cross. If no guns go off when I do, you cross. When we get far enough from the bridge, we'll cut into the woods toward the river. If anything goes wrong-"

"We run into the woods," said Mary.

"Right," said Stillman. He began to turn toward the road, then stopped. "If we get separated, forget the other two and concentrate on getting yourself out. That's our only hope: that one of us gets out. You're not abandoning us, you're saving us."

He looked at the others, waiting for a word that never came. Reluctantly, Walker nodded, then Mary.

"All right," he said. "Let's get started before they have time to get comfortable."

He set off, moving toward the road at a fast walk, still just inside the edge of the woods, where their silhouettes would be lost among the dark shapes of the trees. When he was close to the road, he stopped and waited for the others to catch up. They squatted and remained still, listening. In the distance they could hear the chirping of frogs along the river, but it did not escape Walker that there should have been some much closer: the frogs were silent because there were men along the river near the bridge.

Stillman slipped off without warning. Walker could not tell whether it was because he was satisfied that no one was near or he was responding to some sense that the moment was right. Walker strained to hear, but there were no new sounds as Stillman drifted silently across the road. He listened for ten breaths, then patted Mary's shoulder, and she hurried across too. Walker waited again, but he began to have the uneasy feeling that his chance was about to pa.s.s. He crossed as quietly and quickly as he could, not stopping until he found the others in a set of low bushes just inside the woods a hundred feet beyond the road.

Stillman instantly stood and moved off, still keeping them under the trees. They continued toward the south for at least ten minutes. Now and then Walker would fall behind and look back, letting the others move ahead so he could be sure that any sound he heard would not be theirs. When he was satisfied, he would turn again and let his longer strides bring him up within a few feet of Mary's back. As they went, he began to lose the uneasy feeling that they were being watched. The noise of the frogs had been constant for a long time now, and he had seen nothing in the woods to indicate that anyone had come this way recently.

Stillman made the turn toward the river. When Walker reached the place where he had turned, he saw what Stillman must have been waiting for. There was a path. It seemed to be an old one, because there were spa.r.s.e tufts of weed growing in it. Most of the bare spots were hard, with the tops of big rocks just at the surface. The path was deep, but it was narrow, only a foot wide at its extreme. He bent low to study it, trying to make his eyes discern what they could in the dark. He wasn't sure it was even a path. It could have been the bed of a small stream that emptied into the river during heavy rains, because its incline seemed relentlessly efficient, diverging only to go around the small rises and then straightening again toward the river.

He remembered paths like this from when he was a boy in Ohio. He and his friends had come across them frequently when they were in the woods, making their way to the remote fis.h.i.+ng spots that were reputed to be the best. The boys had never been able to agree on what the paths meant or how they had gotten there. Walker had always argued that they were deer runs, on the grounds that if he had antlers he wouldn't want to get them caught cras.h.i.+ng his way through bramble bushes and thickets. His real reason was that he had wanted to believe that he was penetrating forests that were still wild and alive.

Walker stopped again beside a big tree to watch and listen. He heard nothing, and silently ratified Stillman's judgment. He had probably chosen this path because there was nothing on it: no dry leaves to crackle, no twigs to snap under their feet. As he moved forward again, a cloud of mosquitoes began to whine around his ears and bounce against his face. He felt the irritated, panicky sensation they always provoked, but he resisted the urge to swat them. He gently waved them out of his eyes, zipped his stolen jacket to the neck, and kept going. The mosquitoes meant they were getting close to water, probably a low, swampy area where there were standing pools.