Metzger's Dog

it.”

Suddenly the man’s face changed. The squinting eyes widened, the pinched expression flattened, and the mouth hung open as the man disappeared from the glare of the lights and the van glided past.

Kepler was holding the .357 Magnum in his hand now. First he lunged across Immelmann to reach the side window, but Immelmann’s long, lanky shape was trapped in the way. Immelmann bent his elbows like wings and tried to pull his bony knees to his chest, but he only succeeded in jerking a kneecap into Kepler’s chin. Chinese Gordon could hear Kepler’s teeth clap shut with a click. Kepler dropped to the floor and scrambled toward the back of the van.

Chinese Gordon studied the dark silhouette of the security man in the rearview mirror. The man was running now, a fat trot that seemed to bounce and jolt his body up and down without bringing it much nearer to the van.

Kepler shouted, “I’ve got the box off, Chinese!”

Immelmann said, “What for?”

“He’s going for the kiosk, you idiot! The telephone!”

Chinese Gordon stopped at the traffic light and glanced ahead for an opening in the stream of cars. Kepler was waving his pistol and shouting, “You’ve got to take out the kiosk, Chinese! Now, before he gets to the phone!”

Chinese Gordon pressed the three buttons under the dashboard. The generator whirred, the fan hummed, and the back door slid open. In the mirror he could see the lighted parking kiosk, a tiny outpost in the darkness, centered in the crosshairs. He could see the parking guard’s chubby shape trotting along, his hat now gone. Chinese Gordon grasped the remote-control switch in his right hand. Ten minutes could make all the difference.

He said, “Hold onto something” and flicked the switch with his thumb. The gun roared, the van jolted forward, and Chinese Gordon’s view was obscured by flame and smoke and movement. When he looked through the rearview mirror again, he could see that the kiosk was gone. Strewn along for a distance of a hundred feet beyond were pieces of burning wood and chunks of pulverized cinder block. He could see the parking guard crawling on his hands and knees down the center of the street at amazing speed.

Chinese Gordon stepped on the gas pedal and pulled out into traffic, the van trailing smoke out the back door and side vents. Cars along the boulevard had pulled over and stopped, as though the terrible noise had stunned them. Chinese Gordon turned on the flashing lights and leaned on the horn as he hurtled down the street among them. He squealed around the corner on two wheels and headed for the freeway entrance.

Immelmann moved to the rear of the van to help Kepler close the door. “I wonder what they earn,” he said.

“What?” shouted Chinese Gordon.

Immelmann smiled. “You know, those parking guys.”

8                   Chinese Gordon’s body was hunched forward over the steering wheel, his right foot still on the gas pedal and his teeth clenched as the van knifed into the space between two cars and shot up the Harbor Freeway. He drove with ferocious tenacity, first shuttling from lane to lane to dodge slower cars that floated by like drifting swatches of color, then easing into the wake of a long-haul semi that moved up the left lane with a frightening gallop that meant an empty trailer and the driver’s firm intention to keep the engine straining at least until he had to gear down on the grapevine at Bakersfield.

Kepler said, “Figure seven or eight minutes for that sorry bastard back there to realize he’s not dead. Figure a minute to remember to call the police, and maybe five minutes for them to decide he’s not crazy and start trying to do something constructive.”

Immelmann thought for a moment. “Fifteen minutes, then. That’s about what I figured. We’ve used up about five.” He smiled. “So in about ten minutes either they’ll have us or they won’t get us.”

Chinese Gordon said, “We can’t make Van Nuys in ten minutes, even following this maniac.”

“True,” said Kepler. “They’ll have the choppers over the freeway before then anyway.” He turned to Immelmann. “Thank the good Lord that Old Chinese has a plan.”

“I do?”

“Of course,” said Kepler. “You always do.”

“Well, I don’t exactly have one at the moment, but I’ve been thinking about it.”

“See?” said Kepler to Immelmann. “What’d I tell you? He doesn’t have the faintest idea of how to get out of this, but he’s thinking.”

Chinese Gordon took the ramp from the Golden State Freeway behind the semi and then veered to the right lane, picking up speed. He passed two more exits before he saw the sign he remembered. “Good,” he said. “How long since we left the campus?”

Immelmann said, “About six or seven minutes.”

Chinese Gordon drifted onto the exit ramp and coasted onto another ramp at the end. He drove north on the Glendale Freeway to Foothill Boulevard and then cruised up Foothill Boulevard.

“I see your plan,” said Kepler. “You’re going to keep turning onto smaller and smaller roads until finally the road and everything on it just disappears.”

“Close,” said Chinese Gordon as he passed a hamburger stand. He brightened. “It’s right up here.” He drove along what seemed to be empty fields for a distance onto a gravel drive and followed it a hundred yards into the trees and stopped before a chain link fence.

“What’s this,” asked Immelmann, “a garbage dump?”

“No,” said Chinese Gordon. “It’s a junkyard. Get the lock on that gate.” Immelmann jumped down and trotted to the gate. He examined the padlock for a moment, seemed to fondle it in his hand, and then tugged it open.

“Amazing, isn’t he?” asked Chinese Gordon.

“Yeah, just like Houdini,” said Kepler. “What are we doing here?”

“I know it’s not a great plan, but it’s all I could think of.” Chinese Gordon glanced at his watch. “It’s been about fifteen minutes and we’ve put a good fifteen miles between us and the college. That’s something, but by now they’ll have helicopters, maybe even roadblocks on the freeways. If we don’t do something, we’re finished.”

“Agreed,” said Kepler. “Three Fools Killed in Shootout with LAPD.”

Immelmann was waving them forward, and Chinese Gordon obeyed, inching along with the headlights off. Immelmann closed the gate and snapped the padlock, then climbed into the van.

They drove up and down the aisles of car bodies, some crumpled and distorted, others merely pillaged, a hood or a bumper gone. There were automobiles of all kinds, some sitting stranded on blocks without tires, others looking as though they had been parked just for a moment. There were whole sections of the place devoted to cars of one brand, other areas that seemed to defy classification. Chinese Gordon drove on until he saw a zone where the rusting hulks of metal seemed to rise higher than usual, then turned down the aisle toward it.

There were campers, pickup trucks, even two tow trucks, and then the vans. There were vans of every make and description, every combination of colors. He found an opening and parked next to a van that lay on its side like a sleeping hippopotamus.

They got out and stood in the darkness. Immelmann removed the magnetic signs from the van’s sides and the yellow light from the roof and stowed them neatly inside, while Kepler peered into the cooler. The three sat down in a row on the ground beside the van. Kepler popped open a can of beer that sounded unnaturally loud, and passed it to Chinese Gordon, then popped two more. In the huge expanse of abandoned, rusting metal there was no motion, no sound. In the unnatural silence Chinese Gordon could hear the sizzling sound of his beer foaming out of the top of the can and dripping onto his lap, but he was too deep in concentration to be distracted. The next stage of things had to be perfect. It had to be something that—

“Listen,” whispered Immelmann.

There was only the sound of the beer fizzing in the hollow cans, a quiet, comforting, metallic sound. As Chinese Gordon listened, the sound seemed to swell, to grow. Something else seemed to be adding to it, augmenting it, a deeper, more rhythmic sound. He whispered, “Into the van.”

They scrambled in and huddled around the warm barrel of the automatic cannon. They all knew the sound too