In the outer office, the secretary didn’t pause in her typing, even when I stood right up against her desk. “Is there a public phone around here?”
“Are you sure you don’t want to just use mine?” she said in exaggerated indignation.
“No, I’m afraid the call’s private.”
“There’s one downstairs to the right of the door.”
“Thanks,” I said, and tipped my hat. She never looked up.
I went downstairs and crossed the lobby to the payphone. It wasn’t in a booth, just bolted to the wall. I had the operator put me through to the Chronicle and asked for Pauly Fisher. There was a long pause during which I watched the flags dangle listlessly on their poles, and then Fisher came on. “I’ve got news for you,” he said.
“Give.”
“I talked to a friend in the Harbor City police department, a real veteran. You talk to them down there?”
“I don’t think we’re friends right now.”
Fisher snorted. “Well, there’s at least one other case, a few years back. Same thing. Cut neck, cut thighs.”
My pulse went up. “Name?”
“A Drusila Carter. She was working as a temp in a cleaning service. No record, family in the Midwest. They never even brought in a suspect.”
“Anything else?” I said.
“My friend on the force said he thought he remembered the case being made a low priority. What are you onto here, Dennis? Should I be checking other parts of the city?”
“No,” I said. “I just want to see things that aren’t there.”
“Like hell they aren’t there.”
“Thanks, Fisher,” I said in a voice to end the conversation. Then before he could hang up: “Hey, you know anything about Merton’s kids?”
He wasn’t fooled by my attempt at sounding casual. “Is that what this is about, Merton’s kids?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.”
“Well, I can’t say I know much about them. Just what’s in the society pages. The girl’s a knockout, she’s got brains, they gave her an east coast education, but she has a tendency to get lonely and to get photographed when she does. Twenty? Something like that. The boy’s a few years older and there’s got to be something wrong with him because for a few months he’ll be all over the movie scene and then for a few months he’s gone. I’d guess it’s dope. All those rich kids are users.”
“All right,” I said. “Thanks again, and call if you get anything else.”
“This better be as good a story as I think it is,” Fisher said. “And you’d better not give it to anyone but me.”
I made noises he could interpret however made him happy, then hung up.
I crossed the lobby to the exit. He was opening the outer door as I was opening the inner door, and I hurried two steps and slugged him on the chin with all of my one hundred and eighty pounds. It was like punching a bag of unmixed cement. Mitch stumbled backwards, holding onto the door handle to keep from falling, although he wasn’t really in any danger of it until I took advantage of his momentary imbalance by throwing myself against his chest. He went down and I rushed past him out the door.
The sand-colored coupe sat at the head of the circular drive with the tall thin man at the wheel. He stood on the gas when he saw me. I ran along the building back towards the security office and my car. The Packard started without any trouble, and I was able to pull it out and make it to the first intersection before the coupe appeared in my rearview mirror.
The way I had come into the studio would require the guard to unlatch the chain again, which would take too long, so I turned left towards the main entrance, where I could ram the wooden gate if I needed to. I pushed the car as fast as I could between the soundstage buildings, causing people to jump out of the way and one car to swerve and honk furiously. The coupe stayed behind me, but gaining.
As I reached the front gate, a blue Lincoln was just pulling out. I gunned the motor, slipping under the black-and-white gate arm as it began to close. It banged off the back of my car. My front bumper bottomed out, scraping against the road as the shocks absorbed the decline to the street. I took advantage of the blocked lane of traffic trying to get into the studio and turned right onto Cabarello.
I went through one light and then a second with no sign of pursuit, and then the coupe appeared several cars back and one lane over. Either it wasn’t so essential that they keep me in sight or they were confident they could catch up later. The traffic on the main thoroughfare acted as a barrier, but it also prevented me from getting away. I wove my way between the cars, changing lanes frequently, and made a sudden left turn at Underhill without signaling, earning me more angry honking.
I stepped on the gas, shifting up to third gear, and then to fourth, going much too fast in too highly populated an area. The coupe was behind me, doing the same, and it appeared to be gaining again. I pulled up the hand brake and jerked on the wheel, making a hairpin turn onto a residential street, then released the brake and flooded the engine as I sped down the block. I repeated the maneuver at the next corner, slamming my tail end into a telephone pole, almost losing control of my spin, until I managed to pull the car straight again. I was moving parallel to Underhill, still heading south, in the direction of Hollywood Park Racetrack.
I eased up on the speed, downshifting as my rearview stayed empty, and then brought it down to twenty-five, watching the mirror more than the road. When the street I was on hit California Avenue, I turned left and joined the traffic at a normal speed. It was only four blocks later that the sand-colored coupe was visible, weaving between the cars, two blocks behind me. I increased the gas, and made the turn onto Amity that would descend into the Valley, going through undeveloped rock formations before bottoming out in Hollywood Park. The winding road was clear of traffic, and I continued to increase my speed as best I could as the road switched back and forth, all the while descending.
The view behind me at first remained clear as well, but soon the sand-colored coupe would appear just before each curve, playing peek-a-boo behind the rock walls. Each turn, the coupe would stay in sight just a little bit longer, and soon they were taking one turn just as I was taking the next. We passed a produce-and-flowers shack built on a sandy lot where the space beside the road jutted out far enough. Around the next bend, there were more buildings on the left. Soon the rock wall would fall away from the right as well, and we would be back in a residential area. It would be better for me then.
But an explosive crack caused me to jerk the wheel, veering into the oncoming traffic lane, while looking behind me to find that the coupe was no more than thirty yards behind. There was another crack. Mitch was leaning out the passenger side window, trying to steady a gun as he aimed at me. Neither shot had cracked my windows, so I decided he must be aiming for my tires. I pulled onto the right side of the road, and another car flashed by, the sound of its horn dropping through the registers. As it passed the coupe, the thin man pulled into the oncoming traffic lane and gunned his car, bringing it within a few feet of my left taillight. Mitch shot again. The bullet pinged off of the body of my car. The sky grew to the right, the rock receding and houses appearing below. The sand-colored coupe’s front right wheel was even with my back left wheel. I took my foot off of the gas and jerked the steering wheel hard to the left. I slid along the front seat from the impact, my bruised ribs bringing my stomach up to my throat and the taste of vomit into my mouth.
The coupe veered off to the left while its driver tried to regain control. A red car, maybe a Chrysler, maybe a Pontiac, appeared, nosing out of a residential street ahead. The coupe slammed into it, causing the red car to spin ninety degrees, and bringing the coupe to a stop after a forty-foot skid that left a trail of burnt rubber on the pavement. I managed to maintain control of my Packard and I continued on, watching the rearview for two more blocks, unconvinced that the coupe was out of commission. But they remained where their car had stopped.
I wondered if it had been Knox or Merton’s secretary who had called them in, or if maybe I had been followed this morning without noticing after all, but in the end I decided it didn’t matter.
There was a siren already in the air. I put all my weight down on the gas pedal.
The racetrack was only another ten minutes away.