Reardon obediently brought the car to a halt in the center of the bridge, reached across Dondero’s body, and opened the door. His hand appeared to be aiding Dondero in descending, but in reality he was squeezing the other man’s arm tightly for good luck. “Take care,” he said under his breath. “Get lost,” Dondero replied, equally quietly, and then the door was closing behind him and Reardon was driving off into the darkness of the night, his wheels spraying water on either side.
He drove slowly, as a man would in weather like this, his eyes searching the darkness of the street’s shoulder for any sign of an occupied car, or an approaching vehicle which might be coming to pick Dondero up, but there was nothing for him to see, and his rear-view mirror revealed nothing in that downpour. It was probably a boat, he thought, as they had considered. He thought again of calling the Harbor Patrol, and then decided against it. It was one thing for him to take on the responsibility of following Dondero, if the man coming for him was coming by road, but it was quite another thing to let the responsibility fall into other hands. Other hands might, without meaning to, do something sufficiently suspicious to lead to harm for Dondero. The same held true of Ferguson, or Stan Lundahl, or any of the others. This was something he’d have to do himself, and he knew he had known it ever since he had agreed to the scheme.
He came to Army and passed it without diminishing his speed. He would swing around at the next block, assuming he didn’t see anything in the meantime, and start back slowly; then pull off at the small road just this side of the bridge, his lights out. Anyone coming for Don would certainly not be coming from that direction, not down a dead-end street, and he should be able to pick them up and follow them, using their taillights for a guide.
He turned into the next street, backed out swiftly, and started back down Third Street at the same even speed, thinking. In a way, Dondero was right; to follow could easily lead to disaster. Still, not to follow was unthinkable. The entire idea was what was basically wrong. Even as the thought came, another followed, one he knew to be correct and certain. The thing to do was not to follow anyone, and not to have anyone to follow. The proper thing to do was to get back to the bridge as soon as possible, pick Don up if he had to pull him into the car by his ears, and let the brains at the Hall decide what was really the right thing to do after that!
His mind made up, and satisfied that he had come to the right decision, even though tardily, he stepped on the gas, the car swaying along, shoving water from under the tires in steady spurts. He glanced at his watch and then instantly back to the road, surprised he hadn’t lost control even in that split second. It was still a minute or two before two o’clock; they wouldn’t have come for Don yet. He must have been insane ever to let Don talk him into the stupid idea in the first place.
No car had passed in either direction since he had swung around; in fact, he had seen no car at all on the road since that crazy character off Route 101. And they would never attempt using a boat on the bay in that weather; the best bay captain in the world would be docked tonight, and not taking any chance in that garbage of being sunk by a tug, or another of those hooting monsters out there. As a matter of fact, the chances were the deep-voiced sardonic bastard would simply forget the whole thing on a night like this. He’d probably postpone it until the following night, and probably manage a message, one way or another, to that effect once everyone had gotten soaked to the skin! What a system!
He crossed Army, his speed dangerously high, his eyes alert for any other car, but there were none. The streetlamps fled past; the overhead swinging arcs making the entrance to the small bridge appeared suddenly out of the dark. He slowed down, his eyes searching the gloom for Dondero, a smile quirking his lips at the thought of the half-drowned detective. It would serve him right, getting bright ideas!
His headlights rose as he hit the bridge, his foot pressing insistently on the brake; then they dipped, sweeping the entire expanse.
The bridge was empty. Dondero was gone.
Chapter 11
Tuesday — 1:58 A.M.
Dondero turned his collar up against the rain and watched the taillights of Reardon’s Charger disappear in the fog and darkness in the direction of the Embarcadero and the center of the city. He tried to put aside any thought of his discomfort, concentrating instead on what a real fugitive would do, Italian or otherwise, if the police — for mysterious reasons of their own, not explained to a prisoner — took him to some unfamiliar place on a miserable night like this, and kicked him out of the car. Well, his first thought, quite naturally, would be to expect a gun blast to cut him down, and when this didn’t occur he would probably take the next second or two thanking his saints he hadn’t been brought here to be assassinated, in the manner of some cops in some countries.
After that, the fugitive would probably waste another second wondering why, then, he had been taken there at all. And after that, there is no doubt at all as to what he would do: he would get out of there as fast as he could, and leave the mystery of his release to be explained another time.
He would not know that a person was scheduled to meet him; he most probably would also not know of Lazaretti’s death — although the prison telegraph system was remarkable, and a lot better than Western Union, as what wasn’t; so he would merely assume his release was either an administrative error, or that some unknown friend had greased a few palms. But after spending a maximum of five seconds cerebrating the above, he’d get the hell out of there.
With that final conclusion reached in even less than five seconds, Dondero took one swift look about him and then started off in the direction Reardon’s car had taken. He had taken exactly one squishy step when he realized he was not alone.
“Hold it!”
There was something about the authority of the voice which, though the words were not delivered in overly loud tones, sounded familiar to him as a cop, and would even have been recognizable to him in his role of Italian fugitive. It was the authority of someone with a weapon to back up that authority, and even if Patrone hadn’t spoken English, he would have known what was required of him, just from the tone. Dondero stopped abruptly, waiting, staring in the direction he thought the voice had come from. Then, almost to his relief, he saw the small shape near one corner of the bridge; as his eyes adjusted to the dark he saw that it was a small man with a very large hat and a raincoat that dropped almost to the ground. In that light he almost looked like a large tree stump on which someone had deposited a large hat. Dondero eyed the hat enviously; it was almost as good as an umbrella. He had brought his hands up almost automatically at the command; now he was about to drop them when he saw, extending from the tree stump, a large revolver, apparently taken from beneath the raincoat. Dondero, having been expecting it, was not surprised.
“Over here.”
Dondero shrugged. He had wanted to be picked up, so why be coy about it? Anyway, if he remained where he was very long, he figured the chances were he’d drown. He walked toward the small figure, but as he approached it, it seemed to recede; then he saw that the small man had merely stepped back and was now walking down a narrow path that paralleled the channel in the direction of the bay, looking back over his shoulder with his revolver ever ready.