She looked up blankly, then mechanically took her left arm from around Kells and grasped the wheel. She let the clutch in and the big coupe slid away from the curb.
“Duck down Gardner.” Borg snapped on the dashlight, pulled Kells’ overcoat and suit coat off his shoulder, ripped his shirt open and looked at the wound on the outer muscle of his left arm. “Crease,” he said. Then he glanced through the rear window, went on: “Turn right, here — no — the next one. This one’s full of holes.”
Granquist was bent over the wheel, staring intently through the dripping windshield. She jerked her head at Kells, asked: “Why’s he coughing blood?” She spoke in a small, harsh, breathless voice.
Borg shrugged, went on examining Kells. He glanced again through the rear window, said: “Here they come — give it everything.”
They swung around a corner and the car leaped ahead, the engine throbbed, thundered. When Borg looked back again the headlights that marked the pursuing car were almost three blocks behind them.
He had bent Kells forward, was examining his back. He said: “He’s bleeding like a stuck pig from a little hole in his back. Wha’ d’ya suppose done that?”
Kells straightened suddenly, sat up, struggled into his coat. He looked at Granquist, smiled faintly and put up one hand and rubbed it down his face. He said: “I guess I passed out — where we going?”
“Doctor’s.”
Kells said: “Don’t be silly. We’re going north — fast.” He started coughing again, took out a handkerchief and held it to his mouth.
Borg said slowly: “I thought south — I guess I’m a lousy guesser.”
“I told the cab driver who turned us in, north — they’ll probably figure us for south — the Border.” Kells spoke hoarsely, with a curious halting lisp. He leaned forward and began coughing again.
Granquist swung the car right, around another corner. Borg was looking back. After a couple of blocks, he said: “I think we’ve lost ’em.”
Kells sat up again as Granquist turned east on Sunset Boulevard. He said: “The other way, baby — the other way.”
“We’re going to a doctor’s.” She was almost crying. Kells put his two hands forward and pulled the emergency brake back hard. The car skidded, turned half around, stopped.
Kells said, “Drive, Fat,” wearily. He looked down at Granquist, went on patiently: “Listen. We’ve got one chance in a hundred of getting away. Every police car and highway patrol in the county is looking for us by now...”
Borg had opened the door, jumped-out. He ran around the car and opened the other door and climbed in. Granquist and Kells moved over to make room for him.
Then, before Borg could close the door, a car bore down on them on Borg’s side — a car without lights. Yellow-orange flame spurted from its side as it swerved sharply to avoid hitting them — Borg sank slowly forward over the wheel, sank slowly sideways, fell outline door into the street. The car was going too fast to stop suddenly — it went on toward the next corner, slowing. Flame spurted from its rear window; the windshield shattered, showered Kells and Granquist with glass.
Kells moved very swiftly. He crawled across Granquist, slammed the door shut, had flipped off the emergency and was headed west, in second, before the other car had turned around. He shifted to high, pressed the throttle to the floor. Granquist was slumped low in the seat. Kells glanced at her, asked: “You all right, baby?”
“Uh huh.” She pressed close against him.
They went out Sunset at around seventy miles an hour, went on through Beverly Hills, on. At the ocean they turned north. The road was being repaired for a half-mile or so; Kells slowed to thirty-five.
Granquist had been watching through the rear window, had seen no sign of the other car. She was close against Kells and her arm was around his shoulders. Her eyes were wide, excited. She kept saying: “Maybe we’ll make it, darling — maybe we’ll make it.”
Kells started coughing again — Granquist held the wheel while he leaned against the door, coughed terribly, as if his lungs were being torn apart. Rain swept in through the broken windshield. Kells took the wheel again, said in a choked whisper: “I’ll get a doctor in Ventura — if we get through.” He stepped on the throttle until the needle of the speedometer quivered around seventy again.
There were very few cars on the road. A little way beyond Topanga Canyon, Kells threw the car out of gear, jerked back the brake. He said: “I guess you’d better drive...” Granquist helped him slide over in the seat, crawled across him to the wheel — they started again. Kells leaned back in the corner, was silent. As they neared the bridge south of Malibu, Granquist slowed a little. There was someone swinging a red lantern in the middle of the road. Then she pressed the throttle far down, veered sharply to the left past a car that was parked across the road.
She glanced back in a little while and saw its lights behind her, pressed the throttle to the floor.
The road curved a great deal. Granquist was bent forward over the wheel — the rain beat against her face; her eyes were narrowed to slits against the wind and the rain.
There was the faint sound of a shot, two, behind them, a metallic thud as a bullet buried itself somewhere in the body of the car. Kells opened his eyes, turned to look back. He grinned at Granquist and his face was whiter than anything she had ever seen. He glanced ahead, said: “Give it hell, baby.”
Then he groped in his pocket, pulled out the big automatic. He smashed the glass of the rear window with the muzzle and rested the barrel on his forearm, sighted, fired.
He said, “Missed,” swore softly.
He fired again, and as the car behind them swerved crazily off the road and stopped, said, “Bull’s-eye,” laughed soundlessly.
They passed two cars going the other way. Kells, looking back, saw one of them stop and start to turn around. Then they went around a curve and he couldn’t see the car any more.
He glanced at the speedometer. “You’ll have to do a little better. I think there’s a fast one on our tail now.”
She said: “The curves...”
“I know, baby — you’re doing beautifully. Only a little faster.” He smiled.
Granquist asked: “How’s the cough?”
“Swell — I can’t feel it any more.” He patted his chest. “I feel a lot better.”
She braced herself and used the brake hard as they went around a sharp curve.
“There’s a pint of Bourbon in the side pocket. We got it from Jake back at the trick speakeasy...”
Kells said: “My God! Why didn’t you tell me about it before?” He reached for the bottle.
“I forgot—”
She jerked the wheel suddenly, hard, screamed between clenched teeth.
Kells felt the beginning of the skid; he looked outward, forward into blackness. They were in space, falling sidewise into blackness; there was grinding, tearing, crashing sound. Falling.
Black.
There was a light somewhere. There was a voice.
Kells moved his arm an inch or so, dug his fingers deep in mud. The rain beat hard, cold on his face.
The voice come from somewhere above him, kept talking about light.
“I can’t get down any farther,” it said. “We got to have more light.”
Kells tried to roll over on his side. There was something heavy on his legs, he couldn’t move them, couldn’t feel them. But he twisted his body a little and opened his eyes. It was entirely dark.
He twisted his body the other way and saw the narrow beam of a flashlight high above him in the darkness. The rain looked like snow in the light.
He pushed himself up slowly, leaned on one elbow, saw something white a little distance away. He got his legs, somehow, out of the dark sharp metal that imprisoned them and crawled slowly, painfully toward the whiteness.