Стюарт Стерлинг - Collection of Stories

One route went to Plattsburg and Rouses Point — the border. The other, to Ausable and ski country. She’d told him she was going to Placid. She’d expect him to think she was trying to throw him off the trail. He decided she would head for Placid. Via the Ausable fork.

It wasn’t quite a toss-up. If she laid her course due north, there’d be another ninety miles in which to catch her — and whoever the garlic-eater was, with her. If she took the Placid route, the Demon knew a short cut that would save him five or six miles and possibly — just possibly — bring him back into the highway ahead of her to cut her off.

It wasn’t a road he’d have picked for Minnie to negotiate on a slick night. It was steep, narrow and as full of curves as a spiral staircase. But it was shorter.

He passed an ambulance going full clip — lost the long white car in his rearview mirror within half a mile. Port Henry was a flash-bulb view of huddled stores, one lighted building — the engine house.

A dog raced alongside him as he swerved into the Ausable-Placid road at the green, nipped at his heels. He twisted the throttle grip, startled the dog into a backflip. Three miles out of town, at the foot of the mountain, he swung right, began to climb.

He hobbled and straddle-walked up the steepest part, hopped and joggled to brake his speed on the precipitous down pitch. Halfway down he let Minnie feel her gas on a looping U-curve, realized his mistake the instant he saw the faint amber gleam of a lantern bobbling along in the middle of the narrow road.

A chicken wagon, going to the freight shed at Westport — two ancient Percherons hauling a cart piled high, wide and handsome with crates full of clucking hens.

There was no room to pass, no time if there had been room. He pulled onto the shoulder. There wasn’t any shoulder. It was a ditch, full of water, frozen over. Like stepping on a piece of soap in the bathtub!

Minnie slipped sideways, kept going in spite of the power the Demon poured to her. They went off the road, through the remnants of a low rail fence, into a plowed field saw-toothed with ruts. The Demon took a header.

The farmer on the chicken truck swore at him. The horses shied. The chickens made the night hideous. Minnie backfired like a three-inch rapid fire.

The Demon wiped the blood off his nose, spat out a mouthful of dirt, made sure no bones were broken. Then he lifted Minnie, examined her with more care than he had himself. She had a bent crashguard and a smashed headlight. But her wheels were in alignment. She would take him where he had to go.

He dragged her back to the road, lit out again. When he hit the Placid through highway, he saw a wrecker towing a Model T coupe that had mashed its radiator against a narrow bridge.

“Seen a green ’47 Buick sedan come past, last few minutes?”

“Ain’t seen a single soul,” the garageman answered. “Not for the last half-hour.”

The Demon whacked Minnie’s gas tank. “We’ve caught her,” he whispered. “We’ve got her in a trap.”

But before he’d covered two miles toward Port Henry he was mentally booting himself. The Buick couldn’t have been more’n five or six miles ahead of him before he shot up over that short cut. By now, the girl would have caught up with him, even counting the time he’d saved on the cut-off.

Maybe she’d had a blowout or something. Maybe.

More likely she’d crossed him up, taken the straight road to the border. Nothing for the Demon to do but find a phone and report in.

He didn’t like the idea much. When Cap Matthews found the Buick had slipped through the bottleneck, one goose would be cooked. For keeps!

“Whoa!” He scuffed to a drag stop.

A dirt road branched off at a sharp angle, almost paralleling the highway back toward Port Henry. A signboard at the turn said Trout Landing — Lake Resorts. The signboard glistened.

He dismounted, touched it. It was wet. Spattered slush that even now was freezing, silvering like Christmas tinsel.

The sign was at least twelve feet off the concrete. The car that had splashed slush as far and wide as that must have been taking the turn at fairly high speed. The gruel of sleet and water on the roadbed wasn’t deep enough to have sprayed to that distance if the vehicle had kept to the straightaway.

The Demon used his flash on the cement. A car had slurred around there. In a three-quarter circle. The marks of the tires hadn’t been obliterated by the steady sleet, either. They’d been 6.50s, he figured.

The stuff splashed on the sign would have frozen solid if it had been there more than a few minutes. If the car was the Buick, it couldn’t be far ahead. Quite an “if,” he realized.

He nosed Minnie along cautiously. Around a bend lurid neons quivered in a St. Vitus invitation:

The vibrating vermilion illuminated a half-dozen parked cars — but no ’47 Buick.

Beyond were gas pumps, a glow of bluish fluorescence. In the garage a man in a mackinaw lay on his back under the sedan with the Maryland pads.

“Little trouble?” The Demon saw no sign of the girl.

“Chains.” The man swore wearily. “Lady oughta be chained up herself, if she insists on driving tonight.”

“Where is she?” The man rolled out from under. “Eatin’, I s’pose. Anything wrong?”

“Just checking.” He couldn’t say more, with only a whiff of garlic to go on, could he? “Use your phone?”

“Right there. Help ‘self.”

The Demon got through to headquarters. Cap Matthews wasn’t there. Russ Drake was on the board. He repeated the message, as per regulations.

“Ten-seventeen peeyem, Trooper Ames calling from Port Henry fower two, One-Eyed Jack’s,” — hey, that sounds like a wild joint, Demon — “escorting to Cee Point green ’47 Buick sedan Maryland VR 21 dash 744, owner Catherine — oh, K as in Kokomo, huh? — Caudle, Baltimore, EmDee, driving, for investigation Wistor case. No one else in car. Right?”

“Think so, Russ.” If there was anyone else in the car, he’d know pretty quick! “Anything on that Comstock break?”

“Yair. Medini was reported driving a ’40 or ’41 Ford station wagon through Mechanicville toward Albany, ten minutes ago. Guess he figured the northern routes were too hot.”

“Must have.” Medini — sixty miles south, ten minutes ago! That was that. So much for garlic! “I’ll call in from the Point, Russ.” He hung up.

He’d have to go easy with the girl, now. Wasn’t a thing to connect her with Brad’s murder.

She’d come the route she told him she meant to. She’d even followed his advice about the chains. And if there had been anything — or anyone — in that trunk compartment, would she go into the cafe and leave the car like this?

As far as that slowing down before she hit the roadblock, and afterwards, anyone might do that in weather that was only fit for a walrus. She’d said she believed in playing it safe.

He went in the cafe. She perched on a stool at the lunch counter, nylons neatly crossed. When he took the adjoining seat, she recognized him, smiled.

“The nice cop.” Then she frowned. “Say, you hurt yourself!”

“My girl scratched me.” He watched her carefully — no sign of alarm at all. “She plays rough sometimes.”

“Anybody’d think—” she laughed at him over the rim of a thick, white mug — “you were following me.”

“I was.” He ordered Old Black Joe.

“Should I be flattered? Or frightened?”

“They just want to ask you some questions back at Crown Point.”

She set her cup down slowly. “Who does?”