The Rocketeer (21 page)

Meantime the Rocketeer, barely in control, zoomed over the heads of musicians, bouncing off a wall and ricocheting back across the room like a pinball.

Now the speeding rocket man couldn’t help but draw attention away from the drenched Dumont, and people were shouting and pointing, a few diving for cover. More, though, were standing and pointing and crying out, “It’s the flying man!” “The guy in the papers!” “The Rocketeer!”

The Rocketeer caught a glimpse of that Sinclair creep and darted toward his table. He was eminently pleased to see the actor fall to the floor to get out of his way and then high-tail it toward the mezzanine. Let him know who was boss, that was for sure. But then he realized that he couldn’t just keep buzzing around the inside of the club. Someone might get hurt—either clubgoers, or himself, if someone got lucky with a gun. He was fast, but not bulletproof.

Cliff, desperate to find a way out, cut his thrust by half and did a series of touch-and-go hops across a group of tables, scattering dishes and setting fire to napkins and tablecloths.

It was at that point that patrons realized that the flying man either might not be in control, or, worse, that he might be dangerous. That was when panic began to set in, and the fickle crowd, rather than hang around and admire the pyrotechnics, leapt to their collective feet and began to stampede for the exit.

Eddie Valentine, up in his office, heard the alarmed screams and shouting. He went to the window and all he could see was a surge of people, his nice, sedate club transformed into an orgy of chaos.
“What the hell?!”
he snarled.

He ran out of his office and was immediately caught up in the floor of panicked patrons. He fought his way back toward the main room, gasping and shoving, his feet being mashed into the ground and his ribs and stomach being pummeled. He was going to be black and blue the next morning, he knew, and as far as he was concerned, whoever had caused this nightmare was going to be blacker and bluer.

Jenny stood on the curb in utter frustration, about ready to give up and just hoof it home, even though it was miles.

And then a cab pulled up.

And no one was in it.

And no one was around.

She couldn’t believe it. She looked around one more long moment, unable to accept that finally, after umpteen tries, she wasn’t going to be shoved, pushed, manhandled, or tossed to one side.

She started for the cab, triumphant, and then a tidal wave of people poured out of the South Seas Club, all shouting and screaming and all wanting cabs. Jenny was lost in the crush.

The Rocketeer made another pass over the musicians, who were now trying to flee along with the patrons. He bumped into the giant plaster clam shell, tipping it shut. Six musicians were trapped in the mammoth mollusk, their arms and legs protuding and flapping around helplessly. “Sorry!” called Cliff, not that he could be heard through his helmet or over the sounds of his rocket and the screaming.

Sinclair shoved his way through to Rusty and Spanish Johnny, who were helplessly watching the Rocketeer zip around and make a shambles of things. They were thugs, that was all. They could function perfectly if given orders, but if a new situation arose, they were paralyzed until someone told them how to handle it.

That someone was now Sinclair, who snapped to Rusty, “Get those doors closed! We’ll trap him like a fly!” And then he spun toward Spanish Johnny and said, “Shoot him down!
Now!”

Spanish Johnny, relieved at having been told what to do, pulled out his .45 and started firing into the air, trying to draw a bead on the Rocketeer. Stevie and yet another thug, Monk, took the shots as a signal and they also opened fire. A hail of lead now filled the air of the South Seas Club.

Outside the club, Jenny heard the shots and ran to one of the porthole windows. Then she ducked back reflexively as a helmeted man buzzed past, a blur propelled by some sort of rocket on his back . . .

“Oh, my God,” she breathed, remembering everything that Cliff had told her and realizing just who that blur was. “Cliff—!”

She ran for the main door, oblivious of the bullet that blew out the window she had just been peering through. She got to the doors just as they were slammed shut and locked by some thuggish man with red hair. Her pulling on them did nothing.

Cliff rocketed around the club, bouncing off walls and tearing through decorations. Everywhere he went there would be another of the thugs, sealing off another possible escape route. They were also blocking off the handful of patrons who had not managed to get out before the main doors had been sealed, and Cliff felt anger and mortification that more innocent people were getting caught up in this crazy game of his.

The cloths that the rocket had ignited began to smolder and burn, and smoke began filling the club.

Below, Cliff could see a man in a suit arguing with Sinclair. The man was shouting, “Goddammit, Sinclair! Stop!” At least the guy seemed concerned about the welfare of others, and had the moxie to shout at the crazed actor.

But Sinclair bellowed back, “Keep out of this, Valentine!”

“You’re wrecking my club!”

“Put it on my bill!”

The Rocketeer angled down and then up, and a stray bullet shattered Eddie’s mermaid tank. It was exactly the wrong move. A thousand gallons of water cascaded forth like a tidal wave, and riding the crest of the wave was a startled and somewhat terrified little mermaid. Sinclair leapt adroitly out of the way, but Valentine was bowled off by her and sent tumbling to the floor.

Cliff spotted, out of the corner of his eye, the giant emerging from the service door with clothes singed and hatred in his piglike eyes. Knowing that he had to stay out of the grip of those massive arms, the Rocketeer angled in the opposite direction, swooping under the mezzanine and sliding the length of the bar, knocking glasses and bottles in all directions. Glass shattered all around like a series of grenades going off.

At the end of the bar was an escargot buffet table, the centerpiece of which was that snail ice sculpture. The Rocketeer slammed into it at full speed, tipping the table, and snagged the eye stalks of the half-ton ice snail. His mind moving even faster than his rocket, Cliff immediately saw the possibilities, and an instant later had transformed the snail into an icy rocket sled that was anything but sluggish. Clutching firmly onto his escargo-cart, the Rocketeer shot toward the main exit, which no one was watching because it had been locked and bolted. He left an icy slime trail behind. Anything or anyone getting in his way was going to be mowed down in a very ignominious fashion.

“He’s got a battering ram!” shouted one of the gangsters.

Sinclair, his patience taxed beyond endurance, tossed aside all notions of discretion and grabbed the .45 out of Stevie’s hands. He opened fire on the speeding snail, bullets chewing into it and spraying crushed ice into the air.

The eye stalks that served as the Rocketeer’s handles snapped off, and Cliff veered, swooping out from under the mezzanine and arcing high across the floor.

The snail kept going, hurtling on its own. It smashed through the doors, unstoppable in its half ton of velocity. The grateful remaining patrons now streamed through the reopened door . . .

And unseen by the Rocketeer, one plucky young woman, shouting, “Cliff!” shoved her way in and ducked behind a column, searching the smoke for some sign of him.

In the meantime, the Rocketeer spotted another potential escape route, a window situated toward the top of the club. Sinclair looked up, saw the means of escape, and also saw the fishnet hanging over the ceiling. Not wanting to take the time to explain what he wanted done, Sinclair grabbed the tommy gun from Monk and opened fire on the support ropes as the Rocketeer swooped to make his escape.

Cliff glanced down disdainfully in the direction of the machine gunfire. Figures that it was Sinclair aiming the thing, he thought smugly. The Limey creep hadn’t even come close to hitting him.

And that was when the net, severed of its supports, fell on the Rocketeer, snaring him and bringing him crashing to the floor, completely entangled.

Cliff immediately cut the engine. Hogtied as he was, he might very well set himself on fire in a matter of seconds. And then he heard the shouts of “The rocket! Get the rocket!” It was Sinclair, and leaving concerns for his own life behind, Cliff boiled at the thought of the no-good bum getting the last laugh at his expense. This was more than life and death. This was personal.

Lothar converged on Cliff just as the Rocketeer thumbed the ignition buttons. Like a rocket-powered wrecking ball, the Rocketeer leapt off the ground, shrouded in the net. He collided head-on with Lothar and gave it everything he had, but the giant had a grip on him and couldn’t be shaken loose, even though the Rocketeer dragged him in circles around the dance floor.

They rolled to a tumbled stop, and the world was swirling so much around Cliff that he was forced to cut the ignition once more. Even if he’d managed to get off the ground again, he was so dizzy that he would have just smashed headlong into something. Maybe even driven his head down to somewhere around his hips.

And as he waited for the few seconds he needed for the world to stop spinning, Lothar very graciously did not provide them. Instead, the behemoth came up behind him and threw a massive bear hug around the Rocketeer, pinning his arms at his sides. Cliff felt such power in those huge arms that it seemed as if the giant could break him in half without serious strain.

Cliff gasped and tried to struggle free, but there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t even draw a breath, much less the strength he needed to liberate himself—and he doubted he would have had that strength, even with air in his lungs.

Suddenly there was the sound of a crash, and the giant moaned and sank to the floor. Released of the choking grip, Cliff hungrily sucked air into his lungs and spun in time to see the giant falling to his knees. Lying next to him on the floor was the shattered remains of what appeared to have been a plaster sea horse. It was as if someone had appeared from behind and beaned the giant a good one.

Cliff had no time to speculate further, for he saw more of the goons moving through the thickening smoke, weapons at the ready. As they closed in, Cliff jabbed the ignition buttons once more.

The engine fire and the Rocketeer arced upward, propelled by the screaming rocket pack. Directly overhead was the skylight, and the Rocketeer threw his arms over his head and smashed through it like a linebacker.

He struck the skylight with the impact of an artillery shell, every bone in his body shaking. The stained glass tropical scene exploded, dropping rainbow shards onto the dance floor in a deadly, jagged hail.

There were the sounds of machine gunfire once more, but the skies were beckoning to the Rocketeer and he knew that he had made it . . .

And then, as if issuing a reminder to him of just how close things could be, a bullet caught him a glancing blow to the helmet, creasing the bronze. The Rocketeer spiraled away, leaving a twisting curl of flame across the Hollywood sky.

Within the South Seas Club, smoke all around her, Jenny emerged from a line of potted palms, brushing the dust from the plaster sea horse off her hands. She felt a small sense of accomplishment. Cliff had risked life and limb to warn her and save her from dangerous men—not the least dangerous of which, it seemed, was the man who had attempted to wine and dine her. Well, she was going to have a lot to say to the police, to the director, to anyone who would listen. As she dashed for the door, she thought to herself,
We’ll see who’s the patsy, Mr. Neville Sinclair!

A shadowy figure stepped from the smoke and grabbed her by the arm, just a few feet shy of her escape. She started to struggle and then gasped as a small automatic pistol was pressed into her ribs.

And into her ear breathed a voice that mere hours before would have made her swoon had it been whispering the selfsame words in a different setting. “Don’t go,” urged Neville Sinclair, jabbing the pistol farther into her side. “Our evening has just begun.”

D
ressed in a smoking jacket, looking the picture of elegance, Neville Sinclair moved down a hallway of his Hollywood Hills home, satisfied with the way things were going. He had just emerged from his radio room. This communication had been far more satisfying than the previous one—especially when he had been able to tell the recipients that he would be able to come through with the rocket pack on time after all. He stopped at a door, smoothed his hair, unbolted the lock, and entered.

He stepped into his richly furnished guest room. It was dimly lit, but the casual eye could make out a large mirror poised above the bed, and large portraits of nudes decorated the walls. This particular guest room had hosted a number of female luminiaries that would dazzle even the most casual of autograph hounds. Now, though, it was occupied by someone who was a virtual nobody—to everyone except Sinclair. To him, she had become the most important individual in the world.

Well, the second most important. The first was cutting through the skies of Los Angeles somewhere. But she could bring the Rocketeer down to earth.