'Melodramatic, isn't it?' Tucker asked.
Shirillo shrugged. 'The Mafia itself isn't a staid and sober organization; it's as melodramatic as an afternoon soap opera. It's all the time playing scenes straight out of cheap movies: bumping off rivals, beating up store owners who don't want to pay for protection, fire-bombing, blackmailing, peddling dope to kids in junior high school. The melodrama doesn't make it any less real.'
'Yeah,' Harris said, glancing uneasily out the rear window, 'but could we go a little faster, do you think?'
The road curved gradually eastward now and narrowed as the huge pines and occasional elms and birches crowded closer-like patrons at a play getting restless for the last act and the climax of the action. Abruptly, the trail slid downward again, and the dust dampened and became a thin film of mud.
'Underground stream somewhere nearby,' Tucker said.
At the foot of the hill, the land bottomed for a hundred yards before tipping over another slope. Here, shrouded by overhanging trees and flanked by thousand-layer shale walls, the Dodge choked, coughed, rattled like Demosthenes talking around his mouthful of pebbles and expired with very little grace.
'What's the matter?' Harris asked.
Shirillo was not at all surprised, for he'd been expecting this for some time now. He was surprised, though, by his own serenity. 'The gas tank was holed when we turned onto the dirt track,' he told them. 'I've been watching the indicator drop little by little the last half hour-must be a small hole-but I didn't see any sense in putting everyone on edge until we were actually empty.'
They got out and stood in the small glen where a trace of early-morning fog still drifted lazily through the trees, a ghost without a house.
Harris slung his machine gun over his left shoulder, by the black leather strap, and he said, 'Well, the road's too damn narrow for them to get around the Dodge. If we have to walk, so do they.'
Tucker said, 'We're not going to walk so long as they're right behind us with a good car.' His tone left no room for debate. 'We'll take that Mustang away from them.'
'How?' Shirillo asked.
'You'll see in a minute.' He ran around the nose of the Dodge, opened the driver's door and threw the shotgun on the seat. He tossed their rubber masks into the road. Unspringing the handbrake, he put the gear shift in neutral. 'The two of you get behind and push,' he said.
They braced opposite ends of the rear bumper, while Tucker put his shoulder to the doorframe and walked slowly forward, keeping one hand on the wheel to prevent the car from wedging against the shale that loomed close on both sides. At the point where the road began to dip, Tucker picked up the shotgun and leaped out of the way. 'Let her go!'
Shirillo and Harris stood back and watched the black car rumble clumsily down the first few yards of the descending trail. As the slope grew steeper, the car gathered speed, veered to the left. It struck the shale wall, sparks flying, screeching, went toward the right like an animal seeking shelter, slammed into the other stone bank, skidded as the trail abruptly angled down, jolted in a rut they couldn't see from the top of the run. It started to turn around as if it had had enough and would come back up the hill, then it gracefully rolled onto its side with a resounding crash that slapped over them like a wave. It slid another two hundred feet before it stopped, its undercarriage facing them.
'The conservationists would love us,' Shirillo said. 'We've started our own war on the automobile today- three down in less than an hour.'
'You want them to think we wrecked?' Harris asked. When Tucker nodded he said, 'What about our footprints here in the mud?'
'We'll have to hope they don't notice them.' Half a mile behind them, the steady drone of the Mustang engine became audible. Tucker picked up the masks and distributed them, slipped on his own. 'Move ass,' he said. 'Stay to the side of the road, by the wall, so the prints going down won't be conspicuous. By the bank, there should be enough loose shale to hide our trail.' He took off, the others close behind, the fallen shale shifting under them, damp and slick. Twice Tucker thought he would fall, but he kept his balance by running faster. They made it behind the shelter of the overturned Dodge only a moment before the Mustang appeared at the top of the hill.
'What now?' Harris asked. He had unslung the machine gun.
Tucker looked farther down the hill, behind them, saw that the shale diminished considerably on both sides only a short distance ahead. 'Stay down and follow me,' he said, moving off in a fast duck walk.
When they reached a point where they could get atop the banks that had hedged the trail all the way down the slope, Tucker looked back to see how visible they were from above. He couldn't see any of the road beyond the overturned Dodge; good, it was safe to assume they couldn't be seen, either. He sent Pete Harris to the left, took Shirillo with him on the right, climbed the now diminutive bank, slipping once, scraping his knee on loose shale, ignoring the flash of pain When they were in the woodlands that lay above the road, he looked across and waved at Harris, who signaled with his machine gun in response. Cautiously, they made their way back to the spot where the Dodge had flipped on its side, edged to the brink of the shale walls and looked down.
The Mustang was parked twenty feet above the wreck, doors open. The two men who had been in it moved warily in on the Dodge, pistols drawn.
'Don't move at all,' Tucker told them.
They were good, if surprised, and they listened.
'Remove the clips from your pistols-but keep them pointed at the ground. You're covered from both sides of the road.'
The two men did as they were told, reluctantly but with the evident resignation of professionals who knew they were cornered. Both were large in the shoulders, dressed in lightweight summer suits that didn't seem to belong on them. Gorillas. Figuratively and almost literally. They would look much more at home in a zoo, railing at visitors through iron bars.
'Now,' Tucker said, 'look up at me.'
They looked up, shielded their eyes from the bright sky, grimaced at the shotgun.
'Now look across the road.'
They turned as if connected, stared up at the Thompson in Pete Harris's hands. Tucker couldn't see their faces, but he knew they were properly impressed, for he could see their shoulders draw up in an instinctive urge to crouch and run.
'Now throw your guns up here,' he told them. When he had both pistols tucked into his belt, he pointed at the dirt-streaked Mustang and said, 'Who was driving?'
'Me,' the taller of the gorillas said. He jammed both hands into his pants pockets like a sulking child and looked up at Tucker from under his brow, waiting to see what came next.
'You a good driver?'
'I do okay.'
'Which of you is better?'
The man who had not been driving pointed at the man who had and said, 'He is. He drives for Mr. Baglio when-'
'Enough!' the driver snapped.
The smaller man blanched and shut up. He looked at Tucker, then at his partner. He rubbed at his mouth as if he could scrub out what he had already said.
'Get back in the Mustang,' Tucker told the driver, 'and bring it right up to the Dodge.'
'Why?' the driver asked.
'Because, if you don't, I'll kill you,' Tucker said. He smiled. 'Good enough for you?'
'Good enough,' the driver said, starting for the Mustang.
Tucker said, 'Don't try backing out of range. That gentleman over there could blow the car apart before you'd gone ten feet.' To the second gorilla Tucker said, 'Stand over against the wall. Stay out of the way and be good.'
'You won't get away with this,' the gorilla said. Clearly, though, he expected that they would. His grainy, broad-nosed face was covered with more than a patina of defeat; the expression was deeply rooted. He was one of those who hadn't any faith in himself unless he could get his hands on his adversary. At this distance he was feeling exceedingly inferior.
