Джон Макдональд - The End of the Night

Though it was not anticipated that the target vehicle would leave the pike until much later, this eventuality had to be covered with great care.

Pursuers and pursued rolled at a steady sixty miles an hour through the hot late afternoon toward the shadows of dusk gathering far to the east. Other vehicles moved steadily along with them, vacationers, salesmen, people heading for an evening in Philadelphia. A few cars caught up with them and moved slowly by, made cautious by the patrol car to the rear which they had recently edged by, eyes flicking back and forth from the highway to the speedometer.

At Central Control men watched the big electric map and talked in low tones. It was particularly important that there should be no news break. The Mercury had a radio. So far the lid had been kept on. And any news break which hinted at what was going on would bring a thousand idiots in their cars onto the pike, hoping to see blood.

The tanned young man is driving. Eyeglasses is in front beside him. Hernandez and the girl are in back. The girl seems to be asleep. It is a four-door vehicle.

The group of men made an executive decision. They checked with the New Jersey Turnpike. The interchange between pikes was an inefficient and potentially dangerous place to try to take them. The same tail car would follow. The Jersey people said they would be all ready and waiting by the time the guest arrived. The tail car was informed.

At 6:35 the target vehicle transferred at the interchange to the New Jersey Turnpike. The remote tail dropped off and a new patrol car picked up its function. It contained three officers, and heavier armament.

The break came at 7:18 when the Mercury slowed, moved over to the exit lane and entered the service area. With the unmarked tail car a hundred feet behind, it moved past the parking lot and the Howard Johnson’s to the banks of gas pumps.

The tail car reported. Control said, “Can you take them there?”

“It isn’t too good. Lots of cars at the pumps. Kids running around, but... hold it! The driver got out and the one with glasses is behind the wheel. The one who got out is pointing over toward the waiting area beyond the pumps. Looks like they’ll park it here. Now it looks good.”

“You got Car 33 with you, and we can back you up with 17 in... four minutes, and 28 in six minutes.”

“Put 17 down there ahead on the grass, ready to plug access back onto the pike just in case. We’ll take the driver right now.”

Kirby Stassen went first to the men’s room, from there to the cigarette machine, from there to the crowded order counter for take-outs where, When his turn came, he ordered four hamburgers and four coffees to go. When they were ready, the girl put them on the cardboard tray and put it on the counter. As Stassen reached out with both hands to pick it up, a big hand reached from the left and another from the right, and the cuffs snapped down snugly, with metallic efficiency, onto his wrists. He tensed for a moment, looking neither to left nor to right, staring incredulously at his wrists, then let all the air out of his lungs in a long, gentle sigh. The men who held the ends of the two sets of cuffs yanked his arms down to his sides. The few people who saw it gasped and murmured.

They walked him to the manager’s office, searched him roughly and thoroughly, handcuffed his wrists behind him and left him there under the cold eye of an enormous trooper in uniform.

When Nanette Koslov came clacking out of the women’s room in her slacks and high heels, hips swinging loosely, sullen hair bouncing against the nape of her neck, two large men moved in from the side and grabbed her, each one clamping one hand on her wrist and the other on her upper arm. Her scream silenced all the clatter. With her eyes gone mad, with foam at the corners of her mouth, she bucked and spasmed with such strength that the two strong men could barely hold her, and one of them, twisted off balance, went down to one knee. But they gained control, and half ran her into the private office. They held her arms straight out while the dining-room hostess, agreeable to this extra duty, searched her, found the knife, placed it on the corner of the desk. Nanette Koslov was still taut, waiting, savage as an animal, so they cuffed her by wrists and ankles to a heavy office chair.

Hernandez and Golden waited in the car. It was too far away from the main building for them to have heard Nan’s animal screamings. The long minutes passed. Golden got out of the car and stared toward the building. The dying sun glinted orange against the lenses of his glasses. He shrugged and started toward the building at a half trot. A man who had been stooped low, came angling out from behind a parked car at a dead run. Before joining the State Police he’d had three pro seasons with the Steelers. It was like hitting a rag doll with a hurtling sack of bricks. Golden went out and stayed out for twenty minutes. The glasses skittered forty feet across the asphalt without breaking. When the ex-defensive guard was halfway to his target, a man who had crawled into position suddenly rose up and filled the open window beside Hernandez with his big shoulders, his face wearing an expression of hard joy, rock-steady hand aiming the barrel of the .38 at the center of Hernandez’ face.

“Just move a little bit,” the officer pleaded in a half-whisper. “Move a finger, an eyeball. Move anything.”

Hernandez sat like a statue. A man opened the other door and got in. The wrists were so large the handcuffs were set at the last notch. After they got him out of the car, lumbering, docile, dazed, they found, wedged into the seat, a .45 Colt automatic pistol, army issue, with a full clip and a round in the chamber. It later proved to have been in the glove compartment of the stolen vehicle.

They were loaded in patrol cars and taken off the turnpike, jailed on suspicion of murder, printed, photographed, identified, given prison issue denim, and locked in isolation cells.

The finding of Helen Wister had been on the radio and television newscasts since seven. That story was vastly fattened by news of the capture released in time to hit the nine o’clock news.

The Stassens would have had the news before nine, had they been home. They were at a large cocktail and buffet dinner party. At nine they were just beginning to eat. Somebody turned on the television set. It was ignored until somebody yelled, “Hey! Listen to this!”

They listened. Ernie Stassen had a five-martini edge. She put her plate down with great care and went over and turned the set off, and turned and looked at all the other guests. She wore a curious smile. The room was very silent. “That’s all nonsense, of course,” she said in a high, flat voice. She laughed like a windup machine. “It’s a ridiculous mistake.” Walter got his wife by the arm and got her out of there. All the way out she talked about the mistake in her high, wild voice. When they got home the reporters were there, waiting for them, and it had just started to rain.

Millions heard the news and were gratified the four had been taken. Thousands realized they had been on the turnpikes at the same time. They told their friends, and had a sense of having participated in something historic. After the detailed account was published, hundreds upon hundreds changed their stories, a little bit at a time, until at last they were able to convince others as well as themselves that they had seen it all, that they had been in grave danger, that they had held themselves in readiness to assist if there had been any slip. Every big news story creates throngs of imaginary heroes.

At Bassett, Nebraska, reporters did not arrive at the Koslov farm until the following morning. Anton Koslov in his muddy barking accent had one statement to make. His daughter, Nanette, was dead. She had been dead long time. No more talk about Nanette. Go away.