Donald Hamilton - The Poisoners

It was quite a race for a while, up into the pass and down the other side. In sports cars, it might have been fun, but neither of our vehicles had been designed for competitive mountain driving. I could see him, behind me, sweating over the wheel of the sturdy four-wheel-drive job that wanted to plow right off the road in the curves. I had the opposite problem. The heavy rear end of the wagon had a tendency to whip around whenever I got gay with the power.

He was a good driver. I remembered being told that he'd been a motorcycle racer once. He may have been better than I was, although I'd done a bit of sports car racing in my time, but it didn't really matter. The road was too narrow and my car was too wide and had too much power for him to get up alongside, and a little ahead, where he'd have to be to nudge me over the edge. At last, desperate at being blocked every time he tried it, he stuck his big revolver out the jeep's window, left-handed, and fired a couple of shots. However, there are very few men who can shoot well from a moving car, particularly if they have to steer the car, and neither of the bullets hit the station wagon.

Finally, as we roared down the curves and switchbacks, he was reduced to trying to ram my rear bumper to send me, he hoped, out of control and off the road. Just how a straight push down the road was supposed to accomplish this desirable purpose wasn't readily apparent, but it's something they're always doing in the movies, and I guess he figured he'd better try it and see if they knew something he didn't.

It was, of course, what I'd been waiting for. It was why I'd held my speed down in the straights where the big Ford engine could easily have given me a good lead. Now I let him nudge me once, lightly, and did some frantic jockeying through the next set of curves to make him think I'd been terrified by the contact.

Another straightaway showed ahead. I jacked up the speed to tease him along. In the rearview mirror I saw him coming in beautifully, straight as any bullfighter could wish, to ram me again. I slammed my brakes on hard and slid down in the seat to support my head and neck since the headrests provided didn't look as if they'd take a lot of strain.

Under the influence of the brakes, the nose of the station wagon went down, of course, and the rear went up. I heard him skidding in the gravel behind me as, too late, his brakes locked up; that would put his nose down, the way I wanted it, to run his bumper under mine. Then he hit. It was quite a crash. Metal bent and tore; but I'd already determined that my gas tank was located in one of the fenders; there wasn't much except bodywork that he could hurt back there.

We slid to a stop, locked together. Before he could do any shooting, while he was still standing on his brakes, I hit the gas pedal hard, praying that he hadn't wedged me so high in the air that my rear wheels had lost traction. They did spin a bit; then they grabbed hold, and the station wagon tore free with more tortured-metal sounds. Looking into the mirror as I pulled away, I saw that Charlotte Devlin's big trailer hitch had done a fine job. It had driven through Willy's grill, fan, and radiator like a spear. A lot of steaming brown water was pouring out onto the road.

The jeep was still running, however. Willy came after me recklessly, knowing that he had only a little driving time left, but I stayed ahead of him without too much trouble. Behind me, the four-wheel-drive job began to steam like a tea kettle; finally something got too hot and seized, and it slid to an abrupt halt in the middle of the road. I stopped the station wagon a hundred yards farther on, out of easy pistol range, and took out my little Smith and Wesson. I had him on foot. It was time to complete the assignment.

"Helm!" That was Willy, shouting. "Helm, drop your gun and walk this way with your hands up!"

I looked that way and sighed. It was too bad. His dossier said he'd been a good agent once, and maybe he still was, except where I was concerned. You can't afford to hate-any more than you can afford to love- in this business. It clouds the judgement.

He'd dragged Bobbie Prince out of the Jeepster, and had pushed her down the road ahead of him until they were clear of the clouds of steam and other fumes billowing from the crippled vehicle. Now he was standing there with a gun-presumably his big.44 Magnum although I couldn't see it-thrust into her back. Well, from that position he'd find it rather difficult to shoot me. I started walking. I figured it would be best to get within twenty-five yards, and twenty would be better.

"Drop it, Helm! Drop it or I'll shoot her!"

It was the same old tired routine. They will keep on trying it. One day I'll have to sit down and count how many times it's been tried on me.

I suppose he knew we'd been to bed together. He knew she had thought enough of me to turn me loose; he presumably figured I'd feel myself under a certain obligation, even if I wasn't passionately in love with her. In any case, I came from a nation noted for slushy sentimentality about children, dogs, and women.

It was too bad. Of course, he was hampered by the fact that he didn't just want me dead; he wanted me dead on his terms. He hated me too much to simply kill me painlessly; he wanted to have his fun first. And, like so many of his kind, he was under the delusion that he had a monopoly on cold-blooded ruthlessness. He was banking on the fond belief that nobody could possibly be as mean as he was.

"Stop right there, or I'll blow her spine right out through her belly!"

I lifted my gun and shot him in the right eye.

When I awoke in the hospital, that was what I remembered immediately: the narrow mountain road, the steaming jeep with the smashed grill, and the stocky man hiding behind the tall, slim, blond girl who watched me steadily. She knew what I was about to do-what I had to do-~-and what it might do to her. I hoped she realized I had no choice. If I was fool enough to throw down my gun as ordered, Willy would simply kill both of us after he'd amused himself sufficiently. This way there was a good chance for me and a small chance for her, depending somewhat on my marksmanship.

I remembered the shot. I remembered the good, pistol-man's feeling of knowing it was right, even before the bullet hit. I'd done the best I could. The rest was up to luck or fate or God. There was a moment when it looked as if I might be allowed to get away with it. Then a dying nerve sent a final message to the dying muscles of Willy's hand, and I heard the muffled roar of the big revolver still pressed against Bobbie's back..

After a little, I walked up to the two bodies in the road. I checked first on the man. Willy was quite dead. I kicked the.44 Magnum into the roadside ditch nevertheless, before kneeling beside the girl. She was still alive, just barely. Her blue eyes looked up at me, wide with shock and pain. I started to say something stupid about being sorry for the way things had worked out, but it was no time for such foolishness. Being sorry has never yet put a bullet back into the gun that fired it.

"I wish…" Bobbie whispered. "I wish…"

They always wish for something. They never tell me what it is. Her voice just kind of stopped. I remembered kneeling there in the road with my gun still in my hand containing one empty cartridge and four loaded ones, but there was nobody left to shoot… Now I was lying in a hospital bed with a bandaged head and a pounding headache, trying to remember where I was and why I'd been brought there.

Somebody knocked on the door. Mac came in before I could clear my throat and issue the invitation. I watched him approach, vaguely flattered that he'd come to see me on my bed of pain, wherever it might be. He doesn't get out of Washington much, and I didn't really think I'd been transported that far while unconscious from causes I still couldn't recall.