“You the fella goin’ up?”
“I guess I am.”
“What’s your name?”
“Matlock.”
“Guess you are. Know how to catch a crossbar?”
“I’ve skied. Arm looped, tail on the slat, feet on the pipe.”
“Don’t need no help from me. I’ll start it, you get it.”
“Fine.”
“You’re gonna get wet.”
“I know.”
Matlock positioned himself to the right of the entrance pit as the lumbering machinery started up. The lines creaked slowly and then began their halting countermoves, and a crossbar approached. He slid himself onto the lift, pressed his feet against the foot-rail, and locked the bar in front of his waist. He felt the swinging motion of the lines lifting him off the ground.
He was on his way to the top of the East Gorge, on his way to his contact with Nimrod. As he swung upward, ten feet above the ground, the rain became, instead of annoying, exhilarating. He was coming to the end of his journey, his race. Whoever met him at the top would be utterly confused. He counted on that, he’d planned it that way. If everything the murdered Loring and the very-much-alive Greenberg had told him was true, it couldn’t be any other way. The total secrecy of the conference; the delegates, unknown to each other; the oath of “Omerta,” the subculture’s violent insistence on codes and countercodes to protect its inhabitants—it was all true. He’d seen it all in operation. And such complicated logistics—when sharply interrupted—inevitably led to suspicion and fear and ultimately confusion. It was the confusion Matlock counted on.
Lucas Herron had accused him of being influenced by plots and counterplots. Well, he wasn’t influenced by them—he merely understood them. That was different. It was this understanding which had led him one step away from Nimrod.
The rain came harder now, whipped by the wind which was stronger off the ground than on it. Matlock’s crossbar swayed and dipped, more so each time he reached a rung up the slope. The tiny light in the machine shack was now barely visible in the darkness and the rain. He judged that he was nearly halfway to the top.
There was a jolt; the machinery stopped. Matlock gripped the waist guard and peered above him through the rain trying to see what obstruction had hit the wheel or the rung. There was none.
He turned awkwardly in the narrow perch and squinted his eyes down the slope toward the shack. There was no light now, not even the slightest illumination. He held his hand up in front of his forehead, keeping the rain away as best he could. He had to be mistaken, the downpour was blurring his vision, perhaps the pole was in his line of sight. He leaned first to the right, then to the left. But still there was no light from the bottom of the hill.
Perhaps the fuses had blown. If so, they would have taken the bulb in the shack with them. Or a short. It was raining, and ski lifts did not ordinarily operate in the rain.
He looked beneath him. The ground was perhaps fifteen feet away. If he suspended himself from the footrail, the drop would only be eight or nine feet. He could handle that. He would walk the rest of the way up the slope. He had to do it quickly, however. It might take as long as twenty minutes to climb to the top, there was no way of telling. He couldn’t take the chance of his contact’s panicking, deciding to leave before he got to him.
“Stay right where you are! Don’t unlatch that harness!”
The voice shot out of the darkness, cutting through the rain and wind. Its harsh command paralyzed Matlock as much from the shock of surprise as from fear. The man stood beneath him, to the right of the lines. He was dressed in a raincoat and some kind of cap. It was impossible to see his face or even determine his size.
“Who are you?! What do you want?!”
“I’m the man you came to meet. I want to see that paper in your pocket. Throw it down.”
“I’ll show you the paper when I see your copy. That’s the deal! That’s the deal I made.”
“You don’t understand, Matlock. Just throw the paper down. That’s all.”
“What the hell are you talking about?!”
The glare of a powerful flashlight blinded him. He reached for the guard rail latch.
“Don’t touch that! Keep your hands straight out or you’re dead!”
The core of the high-intensity light shifted from his face to his chest, and for several seconds all Matlock saw were a thousand flashing spots inside his eyes. As his sight returned, he could see that the man below him was moving closer to the lines, swinging the flashlight toward the ground for a path. In the glow of the beam, he also saw that the man held a large, ugly automatic in his right hand. The blinding light returned to his face, now shining directly beneath him.
“Don’t threaten me, punk!” yelled Matlock, remembering the effect his anger had on Stockton at four that morning. “Put that goddamn gun away and help me down! We haven’t much time and I don’t like games!”
The effect now was not the same. Instead, the man beneath him began to laugh, and the laugh was sickening. It was, more than anything else, utterly genuine. The man on the ground was enjoying himself.
“You’re very funny. You look funny sitting there on your ass in midair. You know what you look like? You look like one of those bobbing monkey targets in a shooting gallery! You know what I mean? Now, cut the bullshit and throw down the paper!”
He laughed again, and at the sound everything was suddenly clear to Matlock.
He hadn’t made a contact. He hadn’t cornered anyone. All his careful planning, all his thought-out actions. All for nothing. He was no nearer Nimrod now than he was before he knew Nimrod existed.
He’d been trapped.
Still, he had to try. It was all that was left him now.
“You’re making the mistake of your life!”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, knock it off! Give me the paper! We’ve been looking for that fucking thing for a week! My orders are to get it now!”
“I can’t give it to you.”
“I’ll blow your head off!”
“I said I can’t! I didn’t say I wouldn’t!”
“Don’t shit me. You’ve got it on you! You wouldn’t have come here without it!”
“It’s in a packet strapped to the small of my back.”
“Get it out!”
“I told you, I can’t! I’m sitting on a four-inch slat of wood with a footrail and I’m damn near twenty feet in the air!”
His words were half lost in the whipping rain. The man below was frustrated, impatient.
“I said get it out!”
“I’ll have to drop down. I can’t reach the straps!” Matlock yelled to be heard. “I can’t do anything! I haven’t got a gun!”
The man with the large, ugly automatic moved back several feet from the lines. He pointed both the powerful beam and his weapon at Matlock.
“O.K., come on down! You cough wrong and your head’s blown off!”
Matlock undid the latch, feeling like a small boy on top of a ferris wheel wondering what could happen if the wheel stopped permanently and the safety bar fell off.
He held onto the footrail and let the rest of him swing beneath it. He dangled in the air, the rain soaking him, the beam of light blinding him. He had to think now, he had to create an instant strategy. His life was worth far less than the lives at Windsor Shoals to such men as the man on the ground.
“Shine the light down! I can’t see!”
“Fuck that! Just drop!”
He dropped.
And the second he hit the earth, he let out a loud, painful scream and reached for his leg.
“Aaaahhh! My ankle, my foot! I broke my goddamn ankle!” He twisted and turned on the wet overgrowth, writhing in pain.
“Shut up! Get me that paper! Now!”
“Jesus Christ! What do you want from me? My ankle’s turned around! It’s broken!”
“Tough! Give me the paper!”
Matlock lay prostrate on the ground, his head moving back and f
orth, his neck straining to stand the pain. He spoke between short gasps.
“Strap’s here. Undo the strap.” He tore at his shirt displaying part of the canvas belt.
“Undo it yourself. Hurry up!”
But the man came closer. He wasn’t sure. And closer. The beam of light was just above Matlock now. Then it moved to his midsection and Matlock could see the large barrel of the ugly black automatic.
It was the second, the instant he’d waited for.
He whipped his right hand up toward the weapon, simultaneously springing his whole body against the legs of the man in the raincoat. He held the automatic’s barrel, forcing it with all his strength toward the ground. The gun fired twice, the impact of the explosions nearly shattering Matlock’s hand, the sounds partially muted by wet earth and the slashing rain.
The man was beneath him now, twisting on his side, thrashing with his legs and free arm against the heavier Matlock. Matlock flung himself on the pinned arm and sank his teeth into the wrist above the hand holding the weapon. He bit into the flesh until he could feel the blood spurting out, mingled with the cold rain.
The man released the automatic, screaming in anguish. Matlock grabbed for the gun, wrested it free, and smashed it repeatedly into the man’s face. The powerful flashlight was in the tall grass, its beam directed at nothing but drenched foliage.
Matlock crouched over the half-conscious, bloody face of his former captor. He was out of breath, and the sickening taste of the man’s blood was still in his mouth. He spat a half dozen times trying to cleanse his teeth, his throat.
“O.K.!” He grabbed the man’s collar and yanked his head up. “Now you tell me what happened! This was a trap, wasn’t it?”
“The paper! I gotta get the paper.” The man was hardly audible.
“I was trapped, wasn’t I! The whole last week was a trap!”
“Yeah.… Yeah. The paper.”
“That paper’s pretty important, isn’t it?”
“They’ll kill you … they’ll kill you to get it! You stand no chance, mister.… No chance …”
“Who’s they?!”
“I don’t know … don’t know!”
“Who’s Nimrod?”
“I don’t know … ‘Omerta’!… ‘Omerta’!”
The man opened his eyes wide, and in the dim spill of the fallen flashlight, Matlock saw that something had happened to his victim. Some thought, some concept overpowered his tortured imagination. It was painful to watch. It was too close to the sight of the panicked Lucas Herron, the terrified Alan Pace.
“Come on, I’ll get you down the slope.…”
It was as far as he got. From the depths of his lost control, the man with the blood-soaked face lunged forward, making a last desperate attempt to reach the gun in Matlock’s right hand. Matlock yanked back; instinctively he fired the weapon. Blood and pieces of flesh flew everywhere. Half the man’s neck was blown off.
Matlock stood up slowly. The smoke of the automatic lingered above the dead man, the rain forcing it downward toward the earth.
He reached into the grass for the flashlight, and as he bent over he began to vomit.
28
Ten minutes later he watched the parking lot below him from the trunk of a huge maple tree fifty yards up the trail. The new leaves partially protected him from the pouring rain, but his clothes were filthy, covered with wet dirt and blood. He saw the white station wagon near the front of the area, next to the stone gate entrance of the Sail and Ski. There wasn’t much activity now; no automobiles entered, and those drivers inside would wait until the deluge stopped before venturing out on the roads. The parking lot attendant he’d given the ten dollars to was talking with a uniformed doorman under the carport roof of the restaurant entrance. Matlock wanted to race to the station wagon and drive away as fast as he could, but he knew the sight of his clothes would alarm the two men, make them wonder what had happened on the East Gorge slope. There was nothing to do but wait, wait until someone came out and distracted them, or both went inside.
He hated the waiting. More than hating it, he was frightened by it. There’d been no one he could see or hear near the wheel shack, but that didn’t mean no one was there. Nimrod’s dead contact probably had a partner somewhere, waiting as Matlock was waiting now. If the dead man was found, they’d stop him, kill him—if not for revenge, for the Corsican paper.
He had no choice now. He’d gone beyond his depth, his abilities. He’d been manipulated by Nimrod as he’d been maneuvered by the men of the Justice Department. He would telephone Jason Greenberg and do whatever Greenberg told him to do.
In a way, he was glad his part of it was over, or soon would be. He still felt the impulse of commitment, but there was nothing more he could do. He had failed.
Down below, the restaurant entrance opened and a waitress signaled the uniformed doorman. He and the attendant walked up the steps to speak with the girl.
Matlock ran down to the gravel and darted in front of the grills of the cars parked on the edge of the lot. Between automobiles he kept looking toward the restaurant door. The waitress had given the doorman a container of coffee. All three were smoking cigarettes, all three were laughing.
He rounded the circle and crouched in front of the station wagon. He crept to the door window and saw to his relief that the keys were in the ignition. He took a deep breath, opened the door as quietly as possible, and leaped inside. Instead of slamming it, he pulled the door shut quickly, silently, so as to extinguish the interior light without calling attention to the sound. The two men and the waitress were still talking, still laughing, oblivious.
He settled himself in the seat, switched on the ignition, threw the gears into reverse, and roared backward in front of the gate. He raced out between the stone posts and started down the long road to the highway.
Back under the roof, on the steps by the front door, the three employees were momentarily startled. Then, from being startled they became quickly bewildered—and even a little curious. For, from the rear of the parking lot, they could hear the deep-throated roar of a second, more powerful engine. Bright headlights flicked on, distorted by the downpour of rain, and a long black limousine rushed forward.
The wheels screeched as the ominous-looking automobile swerved toward the stone posts. The huge car went to full throttle and raced after the station wagon.
There wasn’t much traffic on the highway, but he still felt he’d make better time taking the back roads into Carlyle. He decided to go straight to Kressel’s house, despite Sam’s proclivity toward hysteria. Together they could both call Greenberg. He had just brutally, horribly killed another human being, and whether it was justified or not, the shock was still with him. He suspected it would be with him for the remainder of his life. He wasn’t sure Kressel was the man to see.
But there was no one else. Unless he returned to his apartment and stayed there until a federal agent picked him up. And then again, instead of an agent, there might well be an emissary from Nimrod.
There was a winding S-curve in the road. He remembered that it came before a long stretch through farmland where he could make up time. The highway was straighter, but the back roads were shorter as long as there was no traffic to speak of. As he rounded the final half-circle, he realized that he was gripping the wheel so hard his forearms ached. It was the muscular defenses of his body taking over, controlling his shaking limbs, steadying the car with sheer unfeeling strength.
The flat stretch appeared; the rain had let up. He pushed the accelerator to the floor and felt the station wagon surge forward in overdrive.
He looked twice, then three times, up at his rearview mirror, wary of patrol cars. He saw headlights behind him coming closer. He looked down at his speedometer. It read eighty-seven miles per hour and still the lights in the mirror gained on him.
The instincts of the hunted came swiftly to the surface; he knew the automobile behind him was no police car. There was no siren penetrating the wet still
ness, no flashing light heralding authority.
He pushed his right leg forward, pressing the accelerator beyond the point of achieving anything further from the engine. His speedometer reached ninety-four miles per hour—the wagon was not capable of greater speed.
The headlights were directly behind him now. The unknown pursuer was feet, inches from his rear bumper. Suddenly the headlights veered to the left, and the car came alongside the white station wagon.
It was the same black limousine he had seen after Loring’s murder! The same huge automobile that had raced out of the darkened driveway minutes after the massacre at Windsor Shoals! Matlock tried to keep part of his mind on the road ahead, part on the single driver of the car, which was crowding him to the far right of the road. The station wagon vibrated under the impact of the enormous speed; he found it more and more difficult to hold the wheel.
And then he saw the barrel of the pistol pointed at him through the window of the adjacent automobile. He saw the look of desperation in the darting eyes behind the outstretched arm, trying to steady itself for a clean line of fire.
He heard the shots and felt the glass shattering into his face and over the front seat. He slammed his foot into the brake and spun the steering wheel to the right, jumping the shoulder of the road, careening violently into and through a barbed-wire fence and onto a rock-strewn field. The wagon lunged into the grass, perhaps fifty or sixty feet, and then slammed into a cluster of rocks, a property demarcation. The headlights smashed and went out, the grill buckled. He was thrown into the dashboard, only his upheld arms keeping his head from crashing into the windshield.
But he was conscious, and the instincts of the hunted would not leave him.
He heard a car door open and close, and he knew the killer was coming into the field after his quarry. After the Corsican paper. He felt a trickle of blood rolling down his forehead—whether it was the graze of a bullet or a laceration from the flying glass, he couldn’t be sure—but he was grateful it was there. He’d need it now, he needed the sight of blood on his forehead. He remained slumped over the wheel, immobile, silent.