Howard Fast - The Case of the Poisoned Eclairs

As he approached the top of Laurel Canyon Pass, where Mulholland Drive intersects it, and where Laurel Canyon Boulevard sweeps on down into the San Fernando Valley, another choice faced him. If indeed the yellow Porsche was ahead of him, it had three choices: to continue ahead and down into the Valley, to turn right and follow Mulholland Drive to Cahuenga Pass, or to turn left on Mulholland. Since he couldn’t see the car he hoped he was following, if indeed he was following it, he could toss a mental coin. Except that it was not in Masuto’s manner to toss coins for lives, even mental coins. Just as he himself was in violent motion, so, he believed, was the killer. The killer would do what he had done twice before, turn left and westward on Mulholland Drive and let the road be the murderer.

Masuto saw the traffic light at the top of the pass now, red, with a line of cars stopped in front of it. He pulled into the left-hand lane, providentially empty, and roared up to the top of the hill, taking a left turn on two wheels and then racing down Mulholland Drive, his headlights cutting a crazy twisting beam through the night.

It was, Masuto remembered, one mile and seven-twentieths, as Officer Commager had read it from his report. It was not history repeating itself, but the tortured, maniacal mind of a sick man. There was a limit to how fast any car could go on this road. Masuto pressed his car to that limit, screaming around the curves, with the whole sparkling spread of the San Fernando Valley a thousand feet below him, with his tires skidding almost to the edge of the sheer drops that lined the road.

And then he saw it in front of him, the yellow Porsche, the motor hood in back of the car open, and the man, standing there bent over the motor, and then straightening up to see the car approaching. At that point on the road, there was a shoulder of earth off the right lane. A car could park there while the traffic went by-yet there was almost no traffic on Mulholland at this hour-and that was where the Porsche stood, off the road, its nose facing the edge of the cliff.

Masuto’s brakes screamed and his tires skidded as he headed straight for the Porsche. Then the man had a gun in his hand, and he began to fire at the oncoming car. It all happened in the space of a second or two, the man standing and shooting, three holes in the windshield, the bullets so close that Masuto could almost feel them as he ducked down behind the wheel, and then the scream of a black-and-white’s siren. Masuto opened his car door and propelled himself out, skinning his hands on the road, rolled over, pulling out his gun-and then saw the man who had fired at him leap over the edge of the parking place into the black, mesquite-covered hillside.

The black-and-white pulled up alongside his car, and two Los Angeles cops leaped out, covering him with their drawn guns.

“Just drop that gun, mister, nice and easy.”

Masuto let his gun drop.

“Are you that crazy bastard who just drove up Laurel Canyon?” the other cop asked. “Because if you are, we are going to throw everything the book says at you.”

“I’m Detective Sergeant Masuto of the Beverly Hills police. There’s a girl in that car who needs attention, if she’s still alive. So call an ambulance.”

“Just don’t move, mister.”

The other went to the Porsche. “Get an ambulance, Joe.”

“Is she alive?” Masuto wanted to know.

“She has a pulse. She has a bad crack on the head, but she’s alive. Who did you say you are?”

“Masuto, Beverly Hills police. If you’ll let me put my hand in my pocket, I’ll show you my badge.”

“All right, but nice and slow. I got a nervous finger.”

Masuto took out his badge and handed it to him. While he was studying it, the other officer looked at the Datsun.

“Three bullet holes in the windshield. What in hell goes on here?”

The officer called Joe was handling Masuto’s gun, smelling it. “Not fired,” he said.

The other cop gave Masuto’s badge back to him.

“Let me look at the girl,” Masuto said.

“Better not move her.”

“Where’s the guy who did the shooting?”

The door of the Porsche was open. Mitzie was slumped behind the wheel, a huge welt on the side of her head. She stirred and groaned.

“I asked you, where is the guy who did the shooting?”

Masuto pointed down the dark, mesquite-covered hillside. “He went down there.”

“Then that’s where we ought to be looking.”

“In the dark? Forget about that,” Masuto said.

“You’re pushing a lot of weight around here for a Beverly Hills cop.”

Now a second black-and-white pulled up, and with it, the ambulance. Sergeant Jack Kelly, in the second black-and-white, knew Masuto.

“Thank God for a friendly face. Kelly, will you tell these guys that I’m legitimate? They almost shot me.”

“What goes on here?” Kelly asked.

“A damn lot,” Masuto said. “Down there”-pointing over the edge “-is a man who’s wanted for three killings in L.A. and for a fourth in Beverly Hills. The woman they’re putting in the ambulance is the witness who’s going to hang him. If you talk to Pete Bones downtown, he’ll fill you in. But what’s important now is that no one gets near that woman. Her name is Mitzie Fuller-”

“Hold on, Masuto. If that son of a bitch is down there, we ought to be down there looking for him.”

“In the dark? He’s half a mile away by now. There’s a whole ring of houses around the canyon. All he has to do is pick up a car and get out, and maybe by now he’s done that. Don’t worry about him. I know where to find him. The important thing is the girl. Hold up there!” Masuto called out to the ambulance driver. And to Kelly, “I’m going with the ambulance. The keys to my car are in the ignition. Can you have someone drive it over to the Beverly Hills station on Rexford?”

“What about the Porsche?”

“Are the keys in it?”

Kelly looked. “They’re there.”

“Send them both to the station, and give the keys to whoever’s on duty. I’m going to steer the ambulance to All Saints in Beverly Hills.”

In the ambulance, Mitzie Fuller opened her eyes and began to cry. She tried to talk. Masuto put his finger across his lips. “Later, Mitzie, later.”

“I want to tell you-” she managed.

“I know. There’s nothing to tell me. Don’t try to talk.”

“She’ll be all right,” the attendant said. “She wouldn’t be talking like that if it were anything worse than a bad concussion.”

“I hope so,” Masuto said, and then dropping his voice, “you might get an inquiry. Any inquiry. Just say you took her to All Saints in Beverly Hills.”

“You don’t want it kept quiet?”

“No.”

Mitzie was trying to talk again. “He wanted to kill me-”

“I know, Mitzie. The danger’s over. I want you to rest.”

It was almost ten o’clock when they reached the hospital. Mitzie Fuller was taken into the emergency room. Masuto went to admissions, where Sister Claridge was on duty.

Sister Claridge managed to squeeze a smile out of her long dour face. “What now, Sergeant? What awful things do you bring us tonight?”

“It’s the nature of my work, Sister. We brought a lady into emergency. Her name is Mitzie Fuller, and she has a concussion. In other words, someone hit her over the head and tried to kill her.”

“It just gets worse, doesn’t it, Sergeant? Worse and worse.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps it’s always been this way. The point is this: I want her put in a room, but I want the records to show her in another room. In other words, when inquiries come, I want whoever it is directed to the second room.”

“Why?”

“Because someone may try to finish the job, and I’ll be in the room he comes to. I don’t want her there.”