the traffic with her horn squawling and the emergency blinkers flashing. Shayne heard a clash of bumpers behind them. The big gate swung open. They passed through, crossed a paved courtyard and down a narrow alley, then on between more Gothic buildings, across another courtyard and out by a different gate, into the botanical gardens.
“Not bad,” Shayne commented. “With a different car I’d make you better than even money.”
She was cornering hard and accelerating hard. She kept glancing at the mirror. As she slowed for the exit from the gardens she gave an angry exclamation.
“They’re talking about us on shortwave,” Shayne said. “That makes the difference.”
Paula and the young man consulted across Shayne. Soon she turned north and began driving faster. Shayne gripped the dashboard with both hands.
“Fifty-three, fifty-four.”
“Stop trying,” she said shortly. “This is a perfectly good car. Enough power. Good brakes.”
“I hope so,” Shayne said, “because when you go off the road I want you to stop in a hurry.”
They headed into the hills. The road was beginning to wind. Shayne looked back. The police car, a nondescript four-door sedan with no markings, was hanging about fifty yards behind.
“What’s the strategy?” he said. “You can’t run away from anybody on this road, in this car. Have you got some kind of ambush set up ahead?”
“No.”
“I never had guerrilla training, but let me make a suggestion. I don’t know if you were in the States long enough to hear about the game of chicken. Here’s how it goes. Two cars come at each other head on, and the idea is to see which driver has the best set of balls. Usually one of the two cars gets out of the way at the last minute. It might work with these guys, if you can make a fast enough turn. I mean it. Come back down and blow them off the road.”
“That’s not one of our techniques.”
“Introduce it. You have a strong motive for staying out of jail. You’re the chick who gave Rourke those cartons, and they’d put you in a cell and forget about you for years. Whereas cops. They’re doing a job. They’ll have the same thing for dinner tonight even if you get away.”
She gave him a look and the young man beside Shayne said something heatedly in Spanish.
Shayne continued. “You must believe in something, or you wouldn’t be mixed up in all this crap. What do the cops believe in? In getting by, like most people.”
“You want me to turn around and head at them and force them off the road? What if they don’t choose to get off? You also will die.”
“I’m betting they’ll chicken.”
She shook her head. “It’s a stupid chance. We’re going up the mountain to the Hotel Humboldt. I know this road. We will beat them by two minutes. Then we come back into the barrios by trails. I first, you second; Julio third.”
As the houses dropped away on either side she built up her speed. The curves were sharper and tighter and the surface of the road deteriorated rapidly. Suddenly, as she came out of a curve, the car traveled sideward on loose pebbles and the front wheels began to shake. She attempted to break the shimmy by fighting up into a higher speed, but without success.
The road curved in and out of the creases in the dry slope, climbing toward the bent end of another long hairpin, where it would switch back on itself at a higher level. Above, it was lost in mist. Paula had her left knee braced against the wheel. A slight cross-ripple in the road added to the shake. The ground fell off abruptly to the left. The police car was almost directly below them now.
“There aren’t any side roads,” Shayne said. “They’re giving us room. You’ll have time to turn.”
The youth suggested something.
“Speak English,” Shayne said. “It was my idea.”
The exchange continued for a moment.
“O.K.,” the girl said. “We’ll do it. This is our fastest speed and it’s too slow. But I wish I knew what was in your mind.”
“I set this up, for Christ’s sake!” Shayne said angrily. “Don’t you realize that? I want to talk to you. Everybody said it couldn’t be done. It turned out to be easy. Use your head. How can I turn you in? I don’t know anything about you. I planted that with Rubino.”
She spared him one quick raking look before she went into the curve. The front end shuddered dangerously. She fed the motor gas and cut in sharply. The curve was poorly banked and she had to go to the brakes again as the car chattered toward the outer edge.
“You’ve got it,” Shayne told her. “Now kick her around.”
But she couldn’t correct in time and they rode up on the inner slope, striking a boulder. She braked hard and came back in a short arc, stopping a scant foot short of the drop. She hauled at the wheel. The road was barely wide enough to permit two cars to pass abreast. She went back, forward, and back, and on the next arc she was facing directly down the mountain. Her friend Julio had his Luger out the window. The other car could be heard laboring up toward them.
“Now,” Shayne said. “Pass on the outside and give them a chance to jump.”
She rapped the wheel for luck and shot back around the curve, gaining speed rapidly. The police car was now less than twenty yards away. Paula took the exact middle of the road. Julio waved the Luger and yelled.
“They’ll move,” Shayne said calmly. “Hang in there.”
They were in third, well short of the shimmy point, but apparently hitting the boulder had knocked the front wheels further out of line. The front end of the car was bucking like a jackhammer. Shayne grabbed the wheel, and was able to hold them straight for a moment. He had one clear glimpse of a frightened face at the wheel of the police car. Then something snapped in the steering linkage. They angled off the road and tried to climb the slope.
The police car slithered around them, brakes screaming. Magically, a single rubber-tired wheel appeared on the road ahead, rolling very fast.
Shayne felt the Olds starting to go. It fell over, hitting hard on its side, and slammed back onto the road with its three wheels in the air.
Dust rose around them. The sudden stillness seemed very loud.
Shayne and the others were tumbled together in a confused heap. The car was no longer moving, but he had the feeling that it was sticking over the edge, where a slight change in equilibrium would send it rolling and bouncing on down the mountain.
Withdrawing one arm, he unlatched the door carefully. It pulled out of his hand and banged back against the side of the car. He was relieved to find, looking out, that the car was securely lodged in the middle of the road, where it would stay until a wrecker came up from the city to get it.
“Well, you can’t win every time,” he remarked.
Julio was scrabbling for his Luger. Shayne crawled over him and out of the wrecked car.
The police car was backing toward them. It stopped, and one of the cops, swearing steadily and fiercely in Spanish, jumped out to cover Shayne and the guerrillas with a submachine gun.
“Watch it,” Shayne said. “The kid has a pistol.”
Either the cop understood English, or he picked up Shayne’s meaning from his tone. He approached warily. Reaching into the car, Shayne found the Luger, pulled it out by the barrel and tossed it at the Venezuelan’s feet.
“Some people are rats,” the girl said. “I knew it. I knew it.”
“I’m not the one who turned over the goddamned car.”
She was caught. He helped her pry herself free. Julio, holding one leg in both hands, was biting down hard to keep from making any sounds.
“This guy is hurt,” Shayne told the cops. “Hold it-here’s another couple of guns.”
He threw out his own. 38 and Paula’s. 25. Then he tried to help the youth. His injured leg was twisted beneath him, and Shayne saw a splinter of bone.
“It’s broken,” the girl said.
The doorframe had been forced violently inward, trapping the boy’s foot. Shayne tried to lever it back. He felt
