Thank Gods the heliport was just a few blocks south from Tudor City. I could see the excursion choppers coming and going from the pads by the river.
We sped under a highway and raced across a parking lot to Manhattan Charter Services.
There was Raht, waving us further on. We stopped in the shadow of a big helicopter.
“What kept you?” said Raht. “We been paying overtime. I thought you were in a hurry!”
“Get this baggage aboard!” I screamed at him.
“When they’ve been paid,” said Raht.
I raced back to the office and showered out hundred-dollar bills. I raced to the cabs and showered out twenties.
The baggage started to move aboard. I even helped.
In the scramble, I lost the identity of the box that held Heller’s viewer.
Oh, my Gods, was I already too late?
PART FIFTY-FIVE
Chapter 5
We piled in.
Teenie said, “Hey! So this is how you run your white-slave ring. Choppers! How updatey!”
“What’s that?” said the chopper pilot, turning around in his seat.
“Don’t pay any attention to this (bleeped) kid!” I raved.
“If you’re doing something illegal,” said the pilot, “You’ll have to go back to the office and pay extra.”
“No, no!” I cried. “We’re trying to save a man’s life. And even that isn’t illegal in New York.”
“Might be,” said the copilot thoughtfully. “There’s several guys I know of it would be illegal not to kill. There’s a woman, too. You ever hear of the mayor’s wife?”
“Oh, Gods, please start that engine!” I wept. “I’ll pay you both an extra hundred, personally.”
“Well, where do we go?” the pilot said.
Yes, there was that! I had the address written on a piece of paper. I shoved it into the pilot’s hand. “And get ready with your ladder! We’ve got to snatch him off a roof.”
They started up. We soared into the air. The skyscrapers of Manhattan pressed against us to our left, the East River to our right. Below us stretched Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, a multilane white ribbon, crowded with cars.
The UN buildings flashed by. North of there, the pilot turned inland. I watched anxiously.
High-rises were going by under us.
The pilot pointed. “There’s your address,” he yelled above the roaring beat of blades.
I looked.
I stared.
There was nobody on the roof!
We hovered.
“I bet he thought you weren’t coming,” said Raht.
I glared at Teenie. It was her fault.
Then I dived for the pile of baggage in the back of the big cabin. I anxiously pawed through my boxes.
The viewer fell out. I grabbed it. I turned the volume up all the way.
HELLER WAS PARKED BELOW LOOKING AT THE HIGH-RISE!
“I’ll go in and ring the bell,” said Heller. “You cover me, Bang-Bang. If he’s home, he might come out shooting when he recognizes who it is.”
“NO!” said the Countess Krak in the back of the cab. “There’s no sense in making this into a shooting war. He probably is not home, as it’s working hours. I’ll just take my shopping bag and go up and see his mother.”
“I don’t like it,” said Heller. “You don’t have to fight in wars. It isn’t ladylike.”
“I’ve done just fine lately,” said the Countess Krak.
“That you have,” said Heller, “and I admire you and Bang-Bang for it no end. But this guy is the worst rat I have ever heard of. He actually pretended to be my friend. And all the time he intended to knife me. He’s as bad as an Apparatus ‘drunk.’ I’d better go.”
“Inky,” said Teenie. “If you’re in such a god (bleeped) hurry, this is no time to be watching a crime drama. You’re weird!”
“This is a crime drama that will fry your god (bleeped) ponytail and put it in a shredder,” I said. “Shut up and let me think.” And I tried desperately, my screams muffled by the throb of the chopper rotors.
“Well, well,” said Raht, looking over my shoulder at the viewer. “So that’s what the 831 Relayer serves to boost! An eye bug!”
“Shut up, you silly (bleepard),” I hissed. “You’ll get us both vaporized for a Code break!”
“Better you than me,” said Raht. “Hey, look here!” He was pawing through my baggage. “Another one!” He turned it on. He glanced at mine and then back at his. “You’ve got the lady bugged, too!”
“Well, what do we do?” the pilot shouted back at us. “Go home?”
“Christ, no!” I yelled at him. “Keep hovering. Let me think!”
My life was hanging not by helicopter blades but by a thread. Heller and Krak—especially Krak—would tear this planet apart if they found out I was behind their woes.
I looked out the window, forcing myself to overcome the nausea caused by height.
There was the orange cab! I could even see Corleone Cab Company on its door. ONE WAS OPENING! HELLER WAS GETTING OUT!
I started praying in Italian, suppressing my impulse to scream in Voltarian. Maybe Jesus Christ would overlook my many sins and come to my rescue like a good fellow. Heller was always praying and he was winning. It just could be that it did some good! For I was completely out of ideas.
“What’s that chopper up there?” said Heller.
“Probably a police plain wrapper,” said Bang-Bang, getting out. “They cruise around the East Side all the time to disturb the residents.”
“That rules out shooting, Jettero. Let me take this shopping bag and show his mother the latest in headwear. After all, she’s a woman. This is where I come in.”
THE BACK DOOR OPENED! KRAK WAS GETTING OUT!
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” I prayed in Italian. “I will be a good boy. I will burn Teenie’s joss sticks on your altar. I will lay off swearing!” Then I stopped and slumped. There was neither hope nor solution. The Countess Krak was on the pavement, walking toward the high-rise entrance door. Bang-Bang and Heller, like a skirmish line, were flanking her. It was all up. I might as well start writing my will.
MADISON SOLVED IT!
The Excalibur open touring phaeton came flashing out of the underground garage at sixty miles an hour, exhaust pipes flaming!
Madison had apparently despaired of being rescued from the roof and, seeing “Corleone” on that cab, had panicked and fled in his car!
It barely missed knocking Bang-Bang down!
“It’s him!” Heller shouted. “Get in the cab!”
They converged upon the old hack.
The doors weren’t even shut when Heller had it moving.
He turned on a dime and, tires screaming, shot after Madison.
“Our man!” I screamed at the pilot. “He’s in that open car! Follow him!”
The chopper spun on its blades and moved after the phaeton.
Madison was heading east, tearing around corners. He was trying to get to Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, where his speed would count for something.
After him streaked the cab.
A new problem churned in my mind. That Excalibur might look like a 1930 has-been with all its separate exhaust pipes, long hood and huge chrome lamps, but I knew how fast it could go. Everything under that antique veneer was the most modern high-speed machinery ever built into cars. It could do phenomenal speeds. And Madison, hunched over the wheel below us, was driving with all his might, his brown hair whipping in the wind.
But behind him came that old cab. True, it was slower. True, its cornering was nowhere near the Excalibur’s. But it was driven by a championship space pilot.
Oh, Gods, it wasn’t solved after all. Madison would not look up. He was in pure panic. He could only go so many miles on that multiple lane for which he was heading.
“GO TO CONNECTICUT!” I screamed at him, unheard. Oh, if he would only turn north, he stood a chance of outdistancing the cab and then we could switch on a
bullhorn and tell him to stop while we picked him up. It was his only chance.
He raced closer to Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. He rocketed up an approach ramp, chrome flashing in the sun.
HE TURNED SOUTH!
Oh, Gods, he was done for. He would run out of freeway! Sheer panic must be driving him!
We followed, high above him.
The orange cab was up the ramp and flying south in pursuit.
Madison was diving in and out of startled traffic, doing at least a hundred miles an hour.
I doubted that cab could do more than eighty at its best.
Madison might have a chance.
And on that chance depended my own future life. If he was caught, I was done for completely. Under the Countess Krak’s helmet he would babble like a running brook!
A new thought hit me like a lightning bolt. Madison would reinforce the involvement of Bury and the Countess might take it into her head to run up the whole chain. If she did that and found me, she would also add it up and find Lombar. And Lombar would find me for permitting it!
I was caught in a nutcracker!
I seemed to be in the center of a whirling, screaming circle of demons. That was what I got for praying to Jesus Christ!
Madison caused two trucks to sideswipe. One, a semi trailer, shot sideways to block the whole road. But Madison was through! Going like the roaring wind!
THE HIGHWAY WAS BLOCKED!
Heller was stamping on his brakes. He slowed. He sized up the scene.
Then suddenly, he rocked the cab by hitting a divider, went straight at the rail, skidded against the bars and shot back onto the highway. He was around the obstruction. Feeding throttle, he raced after the Excalibur!
But Madison had a distance advantage now and he was making the most of it. Due to a turn in the road, I could see by Heller’s viewer, Madison was out of sight.
From our high vantage point, we could see Madison increasing that lead. He was past Bellevue Hospital now. Traveling at that speed, it did not take him any time at all to pass East 14th Street.
There was hope!
He slewed on every one of the slight changes of direction of Roosevelt Drive. But in less than three minutes, he was going to run out of highway! He would dead-end at the bottom of Manhattan at the Ferry Terminal!
Way back, relentlessly, came the speeding cab.
“Raht,” I said, “get that pickup ladder down. We’re going to snake Madison out of that car.”
“You must be crazy!” Raht said. “You’ll break your neck!”
“No, you will,” I said, “for you are the one that’s going down.”
“NO!”
“That’s an order,” I said, unholstering a gun. “There’s lots of hospitals around if you fall.”
“I already know that,” he said grimly, but he gestured at the copilot and the ladder began to descend.
“This is nuts,” the pilot said.
“That’s what you were paid to be,” I said.
“Not from a racing car!”
“Five hundred more,” I said. The emergency was my life.
“Here we go,” the pilot replied.
But Madison got other ideas before he spotted ours.
He had passed the Williamsburg Bridge across the East River. He had passed the Manhattan Bridge. He was on the Elevated Highway and heading toward the Brooklyn Bridge.
He looked back. Apparently he could not see the orange cab, as it was too far behind him.
He braked!
He turned right!
He went screaming down a ramp off the Elevated Highway.
With a yank of the wheel, he made the Excalibur turn violently, almost half about. He dived down the street below the Elevated Highway.
I suddenly knew what he was going to do. He was going to hide on a dock as he had done before!
There were a lot of long piers jutting out into the river.
I jabbed the pilot anxiously and pointed.
Sure enough, the Excalibur’s nose was pointed at the long pier and it was coming out!
The pilot spun our craft. I gestured at Raht with the gun and he went down the ladder.
We were right in front of the Excalibur now, traveling at its speed. Raht on the ladder just ahead of the car tried to signal Madison to stop.
Madison was in such a panic, he was giving Raht no attention.
I leaned out of the door, wind whipping me from the blades, to yell at Madison to stop.
He was glaze-eyed. He just kept going!
I fired my gun to attract his attention.
That did it!
Madison saw us!
He only had about a thousand feet to go with the dock ahead of him.
The pilot was pretty good.
He put Raht right beside Madison.
Raht grabbed the man by the arm.
Madison, the crazy fool, grabbed at his suitcase in the back!
Up went the pilot!
Madison and suitcase came out of the car!
The vehicle was shooting forward.
IT WENT OFF THE END OF THE PIER!
There was a huge splash.
The copilot was rolling the ladder up.
Raht, then Madison, came to the floor of the chopper.
It circled away downriver.
Cars had stopped on the Elevated Highway above, drivers unloading to go to the rail and stare.
I saw the orange cab brake at the end of the traffic jam. And then I looked at my viewer.
“It went over!” said Bang-Bang. “I saw the tail end of it as it hit the water.”
“The same car?” said Heller.
“The same car,” said Bang-Bang.
“Was he in it?” said Heller.
“I couldn’t tell,” said Bang-Bang. “The warehouse obscured it. I think that chopper was trying to arrest him for speeding and drove him into the drink. I couldn’t see what it did.”
“I better go down,” said Heller. “Take the wheel.” He jumped out of the cab and ran off.
“They’ll probably find the body,” said the Countess Krak.
“Hell—beggin’ your pardon, ma’am,” said Bang-Bang, “that East River is so full of gangsters that got theirselves taken for a ride, you’d never be able to separate him out.”
“Good riddance,” said the Countess Krak. “Serves him right for talking about my Jettero that way!”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Bang-Bang, “I’ve noticed it don’t seem healthy. There’s Jet signaling from below. That means in Army language he’s spotted something and is going further.”
I freaked. Maybe some bystander had observed the helicopter snatch.
“Head for the West Thirtieth Street Heliport,” I shrieked at the pilot, “clear over on the other side of Manhattan.”
With luck, we would make it yet.
Maybe their Jesus Christ would hear me after all!
Then I heard the Countess Krak’s voice on her viewer. “Maybe if we went over and got the yacht we could search the East River and make sure that Madison is dead.”
I freaked.
That yacht was my target now. I had to get there first!
If I didn’t, all my plans would come to an abrupt and horrible end!
PART FIFTY-FIVE
Chapter 6
As we flew, J. Walter Madison raised himself off the floorboards.
Above the beat of the chopper blades, he said, “What were you shooting at?” His eyes were pretty wild.
“Didn’t you see the sniper on the roof?” I said nervously. “He almost got a bead on you, but I nailed him.”
“I saw him fall,” said Teenie. “Nose dive.”
I blinked. Did she just make things up or did she think she saw things that didn’t happen? Maybe she was not only a pathological liar but also a pathological walking delusion! Oh, it was a good thing I was kidnapping her!
“Maybe they thought I drowned,” said Madison hopefully.