Red Highway (11 page)

Hazel's heart began thumping. At first she didn't know what to do. She thought of leaving, but there was only one way to get to the ground floor, and that led down the very staircase that the officer would soon be using to get to her room. Then she remembered Virgil's letter.

Swiftly, because she fancied she heard the trooper's heavy tread on the staircase, Hazel punched open the overlapping panels that were used to adjust the volume on the Victrola, drew out the letter that Virgil had sent her from Drumright, and set fire to it with the aid of a kitchen match. The flame took hold and bloomed a bright yellow, hungrily devouring the thin paper. She dropped the flaming fragment into an empty glass on the pantry table just as she heard a board creak outside her door, then slapped it out with her hand and wafted the dry smoke through the open window. Then she answered the door.

The trooper was so big he filled the tall doorway. He was holding his campaign hat in his hands. Hazel felt herself growing faint, and forced a smile. “Yes?”

“State police, miss,” answered the trooper in an official-sounding baritone. “I'm Sergeant Fowler.”

“Is there something I can do for you, Sergeant?”

Fowler's eyes were hard. “Yes, ma'am. You can stay right here.”

Hazel put on a surprised expression. “Whatever for? Is there something wrong?”

“There won't be, if you do what I say.” He stepped into the room without waiting for an invitation. His well-cropped hair almost touched the ceiling, and Hazel was reminded of the difference between Virgil's height and Fowler's. And Virgil was far from short.

He stood just inside the doorway, looking around. Hazel caught her breath when his eyes lighted on the glass, but they moved on again, sweeping the rest of the apartment. “What's in there?” he demanded, indicating the door on the opposite wall.

“Just the bedroom,” she replied, and injected a seductive note into her voice. “Would you like me to show it to you?”

“No.” The sergeant actually blushed and turned away from the door.

“Look, Sergeant, would you tell me what this is all about?” She was becoming angry.

Fowler looked at her smugly. “Quit the playacting, lady. You know as well as me that your boyfriend's coming to see you. Maybe tonight.”

“What boyfriend?”

“Ballard. Virgil Ballard, as if you didn't know. Your boyfriend. The one who sent you the letter you just burned—” he nodded toward the glass with the curl of carbon in the bottom—“and put out with this hand.” He took her right hand and turned it over, revealing the black smudge on the bottom of her palm.

Hazel snatched her hand away. “You've got it all figured out, haven't you, Sergeant?” There was a knife edge in her voice.

“We try. I'm sending an officer up to stay here with you until we have Ballard in custody—or dead. I wouldn't worry about him; unlike your boyfriend, Officer Gordon is a perfect gentleman.” He put on his hat and opened the door, then gazed down at her. “Behave yourself.” Then he left.

Hazel waited, steaming, until the big sergeant's footsteps retreated down the stairs. Then she grabbed her purse from the table and headed for the door.

A blocky-looking policeman was standing in front of the door. He touched his hat brim. “Officer Gordon, ma'am,” he said. “I'll be out here if you need me.”

Hazel slammed the door so hard it disappeared behind the jamb.

The hood of the little coupe glowed red in the rays of the departing sun as Virgil braked to a stop in front of the Picher Print Shop. He climbed out and looked up at Hazel's bedroom window, but the fierce glare from the west made a completely opaque surface of the single pane.

The street was deserted. It was that time of day when the worktime activity of the small town had ground to a stop and everyone was taking a breather before launching into their nocturnal pastimes at the cafe and the tiny speakeasy at the other end of the town. For this reason, Virgil felt no suspicion when nobody appeared on the sidewalk. He did, however, feel lonely, and almost wished that Alex Kern had joined him instead of remaining in Commerce. Almost, but not quite. It had been hard enough to talk Alex into laying over an extra night before heading across the state line without having him drive. Of the two, Virgil was the only real driver.

He stepped up onto the sidewalk, shot one glance back at the car to reassure himself that the trunk lid was locked securely over the single machine gun he had brought with him, and turned toward the print shop. He was just about to push open the door when he noticed something strange.

It took him a few seconds to realize what it was, and when he did, he began backing carefully across the sidewalk toward his car. The presses weren't running. Virgil knew the old printer who ran the shop, knew him well enough to know that he never let his presses cool off until well after sundown. But the silence that had greeted him at the door was enough to warn him that something had interfered with the printer's schedule, and that something could only be one thing. With this in mind, he backed off the curb and drew his new Luger from its holster beneath his jacket.

“Freeze!” shouted a voice from behind him.

Virgil whirled to face a local policeman standing in the middle of the street, his revolver steadied in two outstretched hands. Virgil fired from the hip. His bullet struck the officer's cap with a sharp slap and sent it spinning off his head.

The cop, surprised, hesitated for an instant before returning the fire. It was all Virgil needed. He hit the street and rolled just as the bullet passed through the spot where he had been standing, and came up on the driver's side of the car. He snapped off a wild shot that nevertheless sent the policeman ducking for cover on the opposite side of the street. Then something smacked the side of the coupe, and Virgil turned to see a uniformed state trooper in the doorway of the print shop, a curl of smoke spiraling up from the barrel of his pistol. The fugitive fired point-blank at him and missed.

Now men in uniform came pouring out all over the street. They appeared in the alleys, came out of the buildings, and rose from behind low board fences alongside the sidewalks, each bearing a weapon. Some had shotguns, and Virgil saw the sun glint on their barrels as they were brought into play. Lead screamed from every direction, skinning within inches of Virgil's head and plowing deep into the wooden frame buildings that lined the street. It had suddenly become very difficult to survive in Picher, Oklahoma, if one's name was Virgil Ballard.

Chester Hollis was cemented to his stool in the cafe up the street, watching the spectacle openmouthed. The skinny cook had fled screaming out the back door after the first shot. On the range behind the counter, Hollis' coffee, unattended, boiled over and sizzled on the hot griddle. He paid it no heed.

The snapping and popping and zinging that came to his ears from the other side of the big plate glass window was something new in his experience, as was the sight of armed men darting back and forth and firing at each other. It was like a movie, only real, larger than life, and being played for his benefit alone. He wouldn't have missed it for all the oil in Oklahoma.

The object of it all, the man crouching beside the bullet-spattered automobile, suddenly rose and fired at some unseen danger to his left. Hollis slid off the stool to see what it was. At that instant, the plate glass window bloomed at head level, collapsing in a shower of flashing pieces. He never heard them hit the floor. The bullet struck him in the forehead and he sat back down, dead.

Virgil laid down a pattern of gunfire in a half circle around him and leaped behind the wheel of the coupe. A bullet smashed through the windshield and whizzed past the brim of his hat as he hit the starter. The engine exploded into operation, the tires squealed, and the car careened down the middle of the street, its driver hunched low behind the dashboard.

Then the second part of the trap sprang shut. Without warning, a black and white patrol car pulled out of a side street and stopped, blocking the north end of the main thoroughfare. Virgil hit the brakes and tore the wheel to the left. The white coupe screamed into a 180-degree turn, its rear end skidding around within inches of striking a lamppost on the right. Then it leaped forward again, hurtling southward.

Another patrol car came out to block that exit, and thus drive home the last part of the trap. Virgil saw its nose come sliding out of the alley and stomped down on the accelerator. The engine howled. A blast of wind whipped his hat off and bounced it into the back seat. Through the windshield he saw the body of the police car join the nose, could make out the features of the officer in the driver's seat as he turned to watch the coupe slow down.

But Virgil didn't slow down. The foot pedal was against the floorboards now, and the roar in his ears had cut out every other sound. The scenery sped past him, a shapeless blur. He grimaced and slumped down in his seat in preparation for the impact that was coming.

The driver of the patrol car stared, his mouth working soundlessly. He stopped the car two thirds of the way across the street and disappeared beneath the bottom of the window. The coupe's engine became a whine. Then they collided.

Metal screamed against metal in a grotesque parody of human anguish. The torpedo-shaped prow of the Buick coupe hooked the patrol car's left front fender, lifted it, and sent the front end of the black-and-white arcing into a fire hydrant near the curb. From it erupted a gray-white geyser of shimmering water, the drops of which screened the mangled escape vehicle's movements as it left Picher behind a shower of mud.

From her vantage point at the window, Hazel watched Virgil as he came backing around the front of his car, firing his Luger about him. She had wanted to throw open the window, to lean out and see everything that was happening, but Officer Gordon's firm grip on her arm had held her back. He had joined her a moment after the white Buick had been sighted, and it had been his thick hand across her mouth that had stopped her from calling out when Virgil stepped onto the sidewalk. Now she was forced to sit and watch in silence, knowing that there was nothing she could do to help.

Moments after the collision and subsequent escape of the fugitive vehicle, the door in the apartment opened and Sergeant Fowler came in, removing his hat before it was crushed against the ceiling. His face was strangely calm.

“How the hell did he get away?” asked Officer Gordon incredulously, then remembered Hazel and blushed. “Sorry, miss.”

Fowler was unmoved. “We'd of got him right off the bat if we didn't have to rely on the locals. But he won't get far.”

“What makes you say that?” Hazel challenged.

“Because very few people escape an all-points bulletin on foot. One of those bullets drove right through his gas tank.” He stood looking at her for a long moment, then beckoned to Gordon, and the two went out, leaving Hazel alone with her thoughts.

It is getting light in the east, but it will be a long time before the sun comes up to challenge the black ceiling of the clouds. The rain is coming harder now, pelting the puddles and washing down the steep hill which the lawmen are climbing. It forms eddies in the gutter, pounds on the empty oil drums beside the nearby service station, and begins to wash away the brown stains on the pavement.

Special agent William Parnum holds his machine gun with the muzzle pointed downward, so that the water will not enter the barrel. The flashlights of his men dart back and forth like fireflies on both sides of the street, probing and searching the darkened garages, sweeping the empty lots and back alleys. No response.

Up ahead, the single unarmed agent is having trouble keeping the hounds' leashes from tangling. They have calmed down to some degree, and are wandering around, crossing and recrossing each other's path in search of a scent, their noses loudly snuffling the wet pavement. Their wet coats glisten in the pale beam of Farnum's light.

None of this makes any impression on the chief of the government men, for his mind is elsewhere. His ears are attuned to every sound outside of those his fellow officials are making, his eyes constantly roving in search of any unexplained movement. Six months ago, four special agents in Kansas City lost their lives while escorting a prisoner to jail because they weren't paying attention to what was going on around them. Nothing like that is going to happen here, if Farnum can help it. He rubs his eyes occasionally, to clear them of raindrops. He is cold; but so, he knows, is his prey.

From here, the street climbs steadily upward, heading toward the rolling prairie ridges on the horizon. Houses, shops, and offices face each other across the wide street. Any one of them could be a refuge for the one they seek, but the bloodstains continue up the street.

A front door is flung open with a bang on Farnum's right. He wheels, clapping his Thompson to his hip. A hand appears across a lighted threshhold and a large brown cat is deposited onto the porch. It shakes itself, stretches the length of its legs, and, as the door is slammed shut once again, ambles down the wooden steps onto the street. The lawmen chuckle, the tension relaxes for a moment. Then they resume the hunt.

Chapter Eleven

August 1, 1931.

“Snap off. It's time to go back.” The fat guard was a black shape against the setting sun.

Virgil stretched mightily and went over to throw his shovel into the back of the truck along with those of his fellow prisoners. Then the half-ton Model T started up and took off, leaving the guards and the convicts to make their way back to McAlester on foot.

Slowly, because they were tired, the gray-clad men formed a single line and, prodded by the rifle-toting guards, began marching down the narrow dirt road. In the lush treetops far above their heads, two unseen birds whistled a mournful goodnight to each other that must have pared the convicts hearts to the core. Everything else was so damned free. But the road stretched onward relentlessly, unheeding in its inevitable progress toward the world that existed behind stone walls.