stucco house. He considered that Isadore Goldman was just a name to him; considered that he really didn't want to die. He wanted to shoot the tall blond mercenary somehow; wanted to go home to Michigan again. Like thriller- chiller novel endings.
'Blue. This is White Flag,' Brooks Campbell whispered into the car's crackling shortwave radio. 'You guys all awake?'
'Peter?' Meral Johnson winked into the car's rearview mirror. 'Awake?'
'He's just going out for a roast beef on rye,' Peter said, feeling electricity, anyway. 'I'm wideawake, Meral.' He grinned at the fat policeman. Neither of them talked to Campbell.
Easygoing and, to Peter's eyes, unconcerned, Duane Nicholson shuffled across the villa's front lawn in Indian moccasins, casual slacks, some sort of sky blue surfer's shirt. A very expendable type, Peter couldn't help thinking. The kind of guy who always got shot first in adventure movies. Having walked the length of the house, the curly- headed hood disappeared into a dark three-car garage.
Minutes later a duu-white Corvette rolled out onto the driveway. Low slung on the driver's seat, resting comfortably behind a stained pigskin steering wheel, the Las Vegas mobster wheeled the powerful car out to the dirt access road. Then bolting and roaring Re an animal that wasn't used to restraints, the Corvette chugged toward the Shore Highway.
Izzie Goldman's man was heading into Coastown.
Sitting on the backseat of one of five surveillance cars, Peter had already clicked his mind into combat readiness. Just in case. He figured the punk hoodlum was going to dinner, though. Everyone in the surveillance cars figured the same thing.
Tryall, San Dominica
A shadowy figure thrusted itself up a long sliver of dock due west of Coastown's twinkling pocket of electric lights.
to the running man's back, dark tuna boats lay on the horizon of the Caribbean. Beyond the fishing boats were several thousand miles of open sea. Then the southern extremes of Europe.
For this last night on San Dominica, Damian Rose had chosen a beige security guard's uniform. Pitch black makeup was smeared on his face and hands so that from a distance he looked like a native. An M-21 with a complicated-looking sight was slung over his left shoulder; a heavy sugar-cane machete was tied to his waist.
Looking both ways and back over his shoulder first, he started across a wide field toward a distant, narrow road.
Peter glanced at his watch: 8:35.
The Chevrolet Corvette and three surveillance cars were creeping slowly down Charles Henry Street on the northern outskirts of Coastown. The cars slunk up a crowded side avenue with old wrecks of American autos lined along both sides. Black children in colorful rags darted in and out of the parked cars. Slouch-hatted Rude Boys whacked the hoods of the passing night traffic.
The dusty Corvette swept up a dark, crowded lane that looped around and then ran alongside Queen Anne's Park. The park was still jam-packed with laughing, running blacks practicing for Labor Day Carnival, the official end of the tourist season.
'He's on to us,' Brooks Campbell whispered inside the white Charger. 'What the fuck is that bastard doing?'
On the side of a damp, grassy hill, Damian Rose waited calmly with his M-21 and machete. Not sixty yards away, completely unaware of Rose, Clive Lawson stood with an Uzi submachine gun resting on his hip. He too waited.
On the backseat of the Charger, Peter was absorbing flashing pieces of Queen Anne's Park. Nearly subliminal stuff. Men and boys in flowing white shirts. Dancing bonfires. A few purplish clouds moving fast in a high wind.... It was a little like being on patrol-a strange, worthless night patrol dreamed up by the usual morons. Shoot anyone who doesn't answer to the name Carl Yastrzemski. 'He's leading us to the tall blond man.' Peter answered Campbell's earlier question. 'He's doing exactly what you wanted him to do.... All we have to do is figure out why. ' Just then the Corvette swung wide around a big City of Coastown truck. The Corvette took an impossibly sharp, skidding left-then the low-slung car started to accelerate up a hill as if it were flat ground.
'Brace yourselves, gentlemen,' Metal Johnson yelled out.
The steep hill came and went-then swept down roller-coaster style on quiet, narrow side streets.
An unofficial Grand Prix race was beginning. People along the sidewalks were screaming at the fast-moving, souped-up cars.
Eight thirty-nine. Damian checked the M-21 carefully. Checked the ammo.
Clive Lawson still had the submachine gun on his hip.
His stomach floating up in his chest cavity, his heart pounding like a tight bass drum, Peter watched Isadore Goldman's man shoot down a narrow, unmarked driveway.
'White Flag' nearly missed it.
A green Mazda missed; spun off into berry bushes. Harold Hill's blue Cougar made the hairpin turn in the middle of the road.
Another quick right turn followed in unfair progression. An immediate impossible left. Then a frightening straight, four-block-long speedway appeared out of nowhere.
One catch: the speedway was blanketed with people.
From the bouncing rear seat, Peter watched a blur of panic-stricken blacks running wildly. They'd been loitering around the street, catching the cool breeze.... Now they were diving onto the dirt sidewalks. A few crazy ones seemed to be imitating toreadors, flapping shirts and sweaters at the passing, weaving cars. A woman was hit-bang.
Eightforty-three.
