snapped the shutter, its eye would be all the way open.
The siren had been engineered to penetrate traffic noises and scare slower cars to the side of the road. It was heart-attack music. It didn’t quite get to Shayne, who had been expecting something like it, but it worked well on the two men in the trailer, who must have been already considerably on edge. The door flew open, spilling light. One of the men jumped out. It was Gold, the Commissioner. He had a dispatch case swinging in one hand. Shayne snapped a picture, advanced the film, and snapped another as Gold stumbled and went sprawling.
Canada, inside, was standing at the control console, his head cocked. He felt in one drawer, then another, and brought out a gun.
Shayne tried for another picture with both men in it, but he wasn’t in time. The light went off.
The man on the ground retrieved his dispatch case and ran to the parked Chrysler. The engine sprang to life. As the car came around, the headlights swept across the trailer and showed Canada in the doorway. Shayne got a shot of that, for what it was worth.
Gold’s driving reflexes were ahead of the automatic shift. As the car rocketed away, its rear wheels kicked out a cascade of dirt and gravel. Shayne brought the glasses to bear on the area in front of the trailer. The big man was running, seeming to flutter all over inside his loose clothes. The bullhorn continued to clamor. Canada wrenched open the car door. Something stopped him. Sensing someone’s presence in the car or warned by the fact that the overhead light didn’t blink on, he stepped quickly to one side.
Hearing the Cadillac door open, Pam thought for an instant that their plan was working. One shift of weight, and the trap would close.
But Canada was wary. Gold’s headlights were sliding rapidly north. In another moment, the Chrysler would rejoin the anonymous stream of traffic on the Interstate. So that danger, the danger of being caught here together, was nearly over.
Now it was up to Downey, who claimed to be an expert on persuading criminals to surrender. This they hadn’t rehearsed. The siren closed off abruptly. Pam stood absolutely still, listening for movement. She had the impression, without hearing it happen, that Werner had slipped out of the Cadillac.
“Mr. Canada,” Downey called on the bullhorn, his tone slightly mocking. “Larry Canada. We saw your Cadillac drive in. If you’re here, say something.”
There was no answering sound.
“We could shoot you, Mr. Canada. We don’t want to do that. We’ve got a group of professionals here, and just so you’ll know I’m not shitting you, I want my people to make some noise.”
Pam struck her gun against the bucket. Werner, some distance away, mooed like a cow.
Downey had moved. “You remember Eddie Maye. We did that, Mr. Canada, so you’d know we’re serious people. You’re the man with the real dough. We wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”
In the silence that followed, Werner remarked in an almost conversational tone, “Watch out, he’s got a gun.”
“But so have we, don’t we? If we have to shoot him, make it a flesh wound. Plenty of flesh there to choose from.”
Suddenly the mercury lights flashed on. Downey’s masked figure stood at the foot of one of the light poles, his hand on the master switch. Werner was out in the open, in front of the Cadillac. He jumped for cover as the fat man, backed up against one of the conveyor belts, fired at him. The lights went off.
“No,” Downey called from a new place. “No, no, Mr. Canada. That was foolish, because we’re jumpy, you know? We could make a mistake. Think about it a minute. How did we know you’d be out here? We’ve been getting this ready a long time. We’ve got a good place to take you. We laid in a lot of steak and bourbon. We know you like lime pies. We got three in the freezer. What the hell, all we want is money. We’re going to weigh you, and go for about three thousand bucks a pound. Tell you what I want you to do. I’m going to roll my flashlight out in the open. Toss the gun out where we can see it. You know that’s the smart thing to do, the only thing.”
A lighted flashlight rolled across the dirt. The spill from its beam showed Werner, to Pam’s surprise, on the conveyor belt above Canada, the chloroformed cloth in one hand. Canada whirled and fired, and in two jumps was at the door of the trailer and inside.
“Use your head,” the bullhorn shouted. “There’s a phone in there, but what good’s it going to do you?”
Suddenly there was a thunderclap, a whistle, an immense sigh, and with a tremendous groaning and clanking the big mixer came alive and began to revolve. The belts ran up to the loading hatches empty, and came back empty. It didn’t change Canada’s situation inside the trailer, but it was a loud announcement that he didn’t intend to surrender.
Pam didn’t hear Downey approach. He touched her, and a spark jumped between them.
“Cover the door. Shoot him in the leg if he comes out. Keep it low-take your time.”
He ripped off his sweat shirt and wadded it into a ball. There was a gas pump several vehicles away. He felt his way to it, gave the sweat shirt a good soaking, then circled to the trailer, keeping low. He smashed a window. A match flared. When the sweat shirt caught, he scooped it up on his gun barrel and threw it in.
Inside, Canada could be seen, his back to the console. Downey yelled, “Go on being stupid. We’ll set the trailer on fire, you’ll really be cooked. We want to be nice to you. Girls, anything you want, name it.”
Nothing else in the trailer had caught, and the blaze was already beginning to die.
“We’ll give you a short count,” Downey called. “Throw your gun out first. At the count of three, I’m going to strike the Goddamn match.”
Canada shook himself and made a placating palms-out gesture. The pistol came spinning into the light. Then the huge figure loomed in the doorway, turned sideward to get down the steps. As he reached the ground, Werner moved in with the chloroform.
Chapter 9
Shayne was watching the action from the high cab of a Euclid payloader. He stepped across to the next vehicle, a bulldozer-backhoe, and turned on its radio. Moving only when the bullhorn was roaring, he went deeper into the park, turning on radios at random. On the return, he stopped to take off the brake of the scraper he had picked out earlier, and let it roll out to block the road. The hot plant began banging and clattering, and he was able to move more freely. He found the ignition key under the floor mat and checked the controls. The bullhorn was calling on Canada to surrender. Canada came out. A masked figure pounced on him from behind, and a second masked man ran up and helped hold him until he slumped to the ground.
The Cadillac’s headlights came up. A third figure appeared. Together they struggled to get their heavy captive into the back seat of the car. Shayne waited. When the job was nearly complete, he picked the transmitter off the dashboard. He looked at the highway for an instant before committing himself, but there was still no sign of reinforcements.
“Hold it,” he called harshly. “Right there.”
The sudden command traveled from the payloader to all the live radios in a great circle around the Cadillac and came back, echoing from one metallic surface to the next. He had the volume all the way up everywhere, and it produced a pretty effect. One of the figures wheeled back, his gun raised. The words had come from everywhere at once, and there was nobody to shoot.
“Drop your guns,” Shayne commanded. “Hands on the hood of the car. All of you.”
The man with the gun continued to wheel.
“You told Canada not to be stupid,” Shayne said. “Don’t be stupid yourself. One wrong move, and you’re dead. Drop the guns. Now.”
One warning shot might have tipped the balance. The figure in the open lowered his gun without dropping it and dived for the car. The headlights winked off.
All the radios clamored: “Open up when the car moves.”
Shayne pressed the starter switch, and the powerful engine came to life as the Cadillac jerked forward. He turned on his headlights. They were oversize, like everything else about the enormous machine. Caught in a blaze of light, the Cadillac came back. It went forward again, heading not for the road Shayne had blocked, but deeper into
