Brett Halliday: Lady, Be Bad

There was little movement in the side streets, and the only vehicles he saw were either the wrong color or the wrong shape. Once he had Salzman come down to look more closely at a white sedan. It proved to be a low-priced compact.

They began taking wider and wider casts as they ran farther out on an imaginary radius, and soon, for part of the time, they were over open country. At a gesture from Shayne, Salzman went still higher. Shayne was shifting back and forth from one side of the great curving windshield to the other.

Twice more they went down for a closer look. The second time Shayne touched Salzman on the shoulder and said, “That’s the one I want.”

It was a heavy three-or-four-year-old DeSoto. Even moving at high speed on open highway it was making too much exhaust. The sun was up, and the speeding car cast a long, lively shadow. It was traveling due south on a two-lane highway. A mile or so ahead of its present position, a curving unpaved road wandered away through trees to the west, to join another north-south highway leading back to town.

“Set down ahead of him,” Shayne said. “See what he does.”

Salzman overtook the DeSoto, planed up and over, and after picking up a hundred-yard advantage, began to settle toward the highway. The DeSoto cut its speed sharply, swung out on the shoulder and went into a violent seesawing turn.

“Now we chivvy him a little,” Shayne said.

The helicopter came up and around, hanging behind the DeSoto at an elevation of only two hundred feet. The road ran straight for five miles, with no side roads, paved or unpaved.

“This about right, Mike?”

“Just fine,” Shayne said grimly.

Picking up the transmitter, he signaled the tower. When a voice answered, coming in strongly, Shayne identified himself and gave the helicopter’s location and bearing.

“Take this down,” he said. “We’re pursuing a cream-colored DeSoto hardtop convertible, tag number-” He peered down, shading his eyes against the sun, and read the digits. “The driver’s a killer. We can hold him on this stretch of road, but we need a roadblock. Notify the highway patrolmen. Over.”

The DeSoto was slowing again, and Salzman throttled down to keep the interval.

“A killer, is he?” he said casually. “I suppose he’s armed.”

“No, probably not,” Shayne told him. “He thought he was in the clear. The first thing he’d do would be to throw away the gun.”

“Then we’d better turn him again. If he gets into town he can lose us.”

“Not if the cops are on the ball. They must have cars available. It’s been a big night for everybody.”

The radio voice called. Shayne picked up the transmitter and answered.

For an instant, after throwing the switch to receive, he heard only a meaningless crackle. Then that cut out and the voice said hesitantly, “Shayne? The Captain says-well, he says they don’t want any crap out of you, and to get your ass down out of there unless you want a bad mess of trouble. Unquote.”

Shayne grinned. “If he’s still on the phone, tell him we’ll handle it ourselves. We’ll keep him posted.”

Salzman looked around when Shayne closed the transmission. “I’m not getting combat pay, Mike.”

Hand signals told him what Shayne wanted. He went back to full throttle, shooting over the DeSoto at a rising angle. Shayne flattened his face against the side window. The car below had slowed to a crawl. The windshield reflected the sun, but Shayne saw two people in the front seat, the passenger partially screened by an open roadmap. The DeSoto was still heading north when Salzman dropped down behind the trees for a shallow approach to the airfield.

“Stay on his tail,” Shayne shouted as the wheels touched down a few yards from the Ferrari.

He leaped out. The helicopter swooped up and away. He slid smoothly into the waiting bucket seat of the Ferrari and without wasting time on the seat-belt brought the powerful car around in a tight circle. He was passing out through the broken gate as he felt the beat of the chopper overhead. On the highway, he waited for a lead. The helicopter seemed to hesitate. Then, spotting the fugitive DeSoto, it cut across the grid pattern and took up a position behind it.

Shayne took a parallel street. The two cars were mismatched. When Shayne’s Ferrari was well out in front he made two fast rights in succession. The DeSoto loomed up ahead, moving fast. He came about at a slant, blocking both lanes. The other car rocked and slid, and shot away into a side street.

Shayne was after it in an instant. The helicopter passed him and fell in between the two cars. Shayne waved. Salzman caught the signal, overtook the DeSoto and began to settle. This gave them their bracket.

Houses fell away on both sides. On an open stretch of road, Shayne ran up close behind the DeSoto, entering the spume of exhaust, and rapped his front bumper, already banged by the collision with the gate, against the DeSoto’s back bumper. Shayne’s fingertips played lightly with the wheel. His left foot was on the brake, so he was riding brakes and gas at the same time. He gave the accelerator a quick savage goose, ramming the other car hard, then increased the brake pressure and fell back.

When the interval opened to a car-length he hit the gas and zoomed into the left-hand lane. He kept control all the way. When his rear wheels were abreast of the front wheels of the DeSoto, he began to bear in, and ran the other driver off the road.

His opponent lost courage at the last moment. As the fenders clashed he went to his brakes. Shayne sheered off, and heard a slither and a crunch in his wake. His own brakes were on. Even before he came to a complete stop he jammed the stick into reverse and came back, stopping a few yards from the DeSoto, which had come all the way around to point back up the road. In the dying moments of its skid, it had broken off two highway posts.

The driver, on the shoulder of the road, was bent over fumbling with something. It was Boots Gregory, whose tattooed wrist had said that he was looking for trouble. He had found it. With trembling hands he was trying to set some crumpled papers on fire.

But he couldn’t make his lighter work. He dropped the papers and faced Shayne, his face wild. Shayne held his eyes. He feinted with a tiny head movement. As Gregory went with the feint Shayne nailed him. Gregory hit the DeSoto on the way down, putting one more dent in its side.

Anne Braithwaite was strapped into the front seat, using both seat-belt and shoulder-belt. She was staring straight ahead, her face white and blank.

“Are you hurt?” Shayne said.

Her teeth unclenched. “Scared,” she said faintly.

The helicopter came down. Salzman, beckoned by Shayne, ran toward them. Shayne gathered the papers Gregory had been trying to burn, and restored them to a lawyer’s letter-size cardboard folder. On the floor of the front seat was a small drawstring bag. Opening it, Shayne found it filled with roulette plaques, each bearing the little embossed seal-in this case a coronet-which identified the one casino in the world where it could be exchanged for money.

A siren began to cry. Anne scratched frantically at the catches of her seat belts. Shayne helped her. After she left the front seat he searched the car. Then he searched Gregory.

“No gun,” he observed.

“Which is lucky for you,” Anne said.

Gregory was trying to sit up when a highway patrol car, its siren dying, pulled in. A highway patrol captain jumped out, his revolver drawn.

“You gave yourself away with that radio call, Shayne,” he announced. “All we had to do was look for a helicopter. You’re under arrest.”

“Shayne’s under arrest?” Anne said bitterly. “Brace yourself, my dear man. You have a few surprises in store.”