Brett Halliday - Caught Dead

“Turn to the left,” the youth said.

He had a knife at Shayne’s waist. Shayne looked down at the long blade.

“Turn to the left. Anything you say. But I think the damn thing is flooded.”

He went on grinding the starter with the ignition off. Horns were blaring all around them. The policeman at the intersection gestured.

The young man said urgently, “Be careful.”

He slapped Shayne’s hand away from the key and turned it on. The young woman who had got in his way pulled open the door on Shayne’s side and slid in. She had a small. 25 automatic.

“She will drive,” the young man said.

“Hell,” Shayne said with disgust. “What a country. Right in front of the goddamn police station.”

The motor started at once.

“Are you Paula Obregon?” Shayne said.

“Be quiet,” the young man told him.

“This must be one of those MIR operations I’ve heard about. Very slick. I’ve got a gun inside my shirt. Better take it away from me so I won’t be tempted to use it.”

The youth gave him a narrow look. Reaching forward, he found the gun and removed it.

“We are to kill you if you give us trouble.”

“In that case I won’t give you any trouble,” Shayne said, “because I don’t want you to kill me. Nice of you to tell me in advance. Do I talk with you or somebody else?”

“Not with us. There is interest in what you are doing here, and we wish you to discuss it.”

“I’m not arguing.”

They drove for a few blocks in silence. The girl was small and intent, with olive skin, a nicely cut profile, a very good figure in a simple white dress. She had been wearing high heels, but she had kicked them off and was driving barefoot.

The young man said stiffly, “You have just come to Venezuela, I think. I would like to ask you. What do they believe of our movement back in your country-that we are simple puppets of the USSR?”

“You don’t want me to answer that.”

“Yes, I am interested.”

“Nobody’s heard of you.”

The young man drew back slightly. “If you choose to be offensive-”

The girl spoke quickly in Spanish and adjusted the rearview mirror. The young man craned about to look out the back window.

“Cops?” Shayne asked.

“It would seem so. Don’t count on being rescued. They will have to win the argument with us first.”

He brought a long-barreled Luger out of a shoulder holster. The girl veered to the right, accelerating, and put a truck between them and the following car.

“What is it, a Chevvy?” Shayne said. “I had a couple of guys tailing me earlier. It looked like a stock sedan, but I was told it had a beefed-up engine. This Olds is in sorry shape.”

His abductors conferred quickly.

The young man said, “Mr. Shayne, we are going to fool with them a little. Just remain still, take no part. We are quite serious about that. It is life and death.”

“In that case use your head. Your tip came from a guy named Rubino. He called you and said I had some dope on the guerrilla movement and I was going to turn it in. He collected some money from you, probably. Then he saw a chance of collecting again from the cops and he told them to watch out for a kidnapping. But these guys aren’t interested in me, they’re interested in you. They want to find out where you take me.”

“We know that! Please stay quiet.”

“I’m trying to be helpful. If you hope to outrun them, you’d better change cars. You have time. They’re in no hurry to grab you.”

The girl frowned. She waited till she had a free space ahead and tested the acceleration.

“That’s not the problem,” Shayne pointed out. “The front end is out of line.”

“Never mind,” she said grimly, “I heard all about you from Tim Rourke.”

“I thought you must be that girl,” Shayne said approvingly. “I knew she’d have to be terrific, to get him to do anything that dumb.”

She gave her head a quick shake, to show her opinion of compliments. “And one of the things he said about you was that you only fight your way out of something after you’ve made sure you can’t talk your way out.”

“I’m thinking partly about myself,” Shayne said. “If you hit a pole we’ll all go through the windshield.”

“I have no intention of hitting a pole,” she said coldly.

He turned to the young man. “Didn’t you have anybody covering you in another car?”

“No. That would double the risk. Your conversation is disturbing Paula.”

They approached the long Gothic front of the university. Bedsheet banners flew from the windows. There was a heavy concentration of soldiers and police, doing little except lounging around displaying their weapons. The big iron gates into the university grounds were slightly ajar.

The girl tapped her horn and continued past.

“In and out,” Shayne said judiciously. “Yeah, it might work. But when you hit fifty-five watch out for the shimmy.”

She circled a stadium and came back toward the Avenida Las Acacias. Choosing her moment, she shot into the traffic with her horn squawling and the emergency blinkers flashing. Shayne heard a clash of bumpers behind them. The big gate swung open. They passed through, crossed a paved courtyard and down a narrow alley, then on between more Gothic buildings, across another courtyard and out by a different gate, into the botanical gardens.

“Not bad,” Shayne commented. “With a different car I’d make you better than even money.”

She was cornering hard and accelerating hard. She kept glancing at the mirror. As she slowed for the exit from the gardens she gave an angry exclamation.

“They’re talking about us on shortwave,” Shayne said. “That makes the difference.”

Paula and the young man consulted across Shayne. Soon she turned north and began driving faster. Shayne gripped the dashboard with both hands.

“Fifty-three, fifty-four.”

“Stop trying,” she said shortly. “This is a perfectly good car. Enough power. Good brakes.”

“I hope so,” Shayne said, “because when you go off the road I want you to stop in a hurry.”

They headed into the hills. The road was beginning to wind. Shayne looked back. The police car, a nondescript four-door sedan with no markings, was hanging about fifty yards behind.

“What’s the strategy?” he said. “You can’t run away from anybody on this road, in this car. Have you got some kind of ambush set up ahead?”

“No.”

“I never had guerrilla training, but let me make a suggestion. I don’t know if you were in the States long enough to hear about the game of chicken. Here’s how it goes. Two cars come at each other head on, and the idea is to see which driver has the best set of balls. Usually one of the two cars gets out of the way at the last minute. It might work with these guys, if you can make a fast enough turn. I mean it. Come back down and blow them off the road.”

“That’s not one of our techniques.”

“Introduce it. You have a strong motive for staying out of jail. You’re the chick who gave Rourke those cartons, and they’d put you in a cell and forget about you for years. Whereas cops. They’re doing a job. They’ll have the same thing for dinner tonight even if you get away.”

She gave him a look and the young man beside Shayne said something heatedly in Spanish.

Shayne continued. “You must believe in something, or you wouldn’t be mixed up in all this crap. What do the cops believe in? In getting by, like most people.”

“You want me to turn around and head at them and force them off the road? What if they don’t choose to get off? You also will die.”

“I’m betting they’ll chicken.”

She shook her head. “It’s a stupid chance. We’re going up the mountain to the Hotel Humboldt. I know this road. We will beat them by two minutes. Then we come back into the barrios by trails. I first, you second; Julio third.”