"Oh, God!" I kept saying over and over to myself. "Oh, God!..."
My foot had the accelerator on the floor, pushing the needle on the speedometer up and around. The tires shrieked at the turns protestingly, then took hold once again until another turn was reached! I was thankful for the rain and the hour again; no cars blocked the way, no pedestrians were at the crossings. Had there been I never would have made it, for I was seeing only straight ahead and my hands wouldn't have wrenched the wheel over for anything.
I didn't check my time, but it seemed like hours before I crowded in between cars parked for the night outside the apartment. My feet thundered up the stairs, picking their way knowingly through the semi-darkness. I reached the door and threw it open and I tried to scream but it crammed in my throat like a hard lump and stayed there.
Lola was lying on the floor, her arms sprawled out. The top of her dress was soaked with blood.
I ran to her, fell on my knees at her side, my arms going to her face. The hole in her chest bubbled blood and she was still breathing. "Lola..."
Her eyelids fluttered, opened. She saw me and her lips, once so lusciously ripe with the redness of life, parted in a pale smile. "God, Lola!'..."
I tried to help her, but her eyes told me it was too late. Too late! Her hand moved, touched me, then went out in an arc, the effort racking her with pain. The motion was so deliberate I had to follow it. Somehow she managed to extend her forefinger, point towards the phone table, then swing her hand to the door.
She made no sound, but her lips moved and said for the last time, "I love you, Mike." I knew what she wanted me to do. I bent forward and kissed her mouth gently, and tasted the salt of tears. "Dear God, why did it have to happen to her? Why?"
Her eyes were closed. The smile was still on her face. But Lola was dead. You'll always know one thing. I love you. No matter where you are or when, you will know that wherever I am I'll be loving you. Just you.
The joy was gone. I was empty inside. I had no feeling, no emotion. What could I feel... how was I supposed to act? It happened so fast, this loving and having it snatched away at the moment of triumph. I closed my eyes and said a prayer that came hard, but started with, "Oh, God!...
When I opened my eyes again she was still pointing at the door, even now, in death, trying to tell me something.
Trying to tell me that her killer was outside there and I had come up too fast for him to get away. By all that was holy he'd never get away! My legs acted independently of my mind in racing for the door. I stopped in the hall, my ears tuned for the slightest sound... and I heard it. The soft tread of feet walking carefully, step by step, trying to be quiet. Feet that expected me to do the natural thing and call for the doctor first, then the police, and let just enough seconds go by for the killer to make his escape.
Like hell!
I didn't try to be quiet. I hit the stairs, took them two at a time, swinging around the banister at the landing. Below me the killer made no pretense at secrecy any longer and fled headlong into the street. I heard the roar of an engine as I came out the door, saw a car nose out of the line as I was climbing into mine and rip out into the street.
Chapter Fifteen
Whoever drove that car was stark mad with terror, a crazy madness that sent him rocketing down the avenue without the slightest regard for life. Maybe he heard my wild laugh as I closed the distance between us. It could be that his mind pictured my face, eyes bright with the kill, my teeth clamped together and lips drawn back, making me lose all resemblance to a human being.
I was just one tight knot of muscle, bunched together by a rage that wanted to rip and tear. I couldn't breathe; I could only take a breath, hold it as long as I could, and let it out with a flat hissing sound. A police, car picked up our trail, tried to follow and was lost in the side streets.
Every second saw the distance shorten, every second heaped more coal on the fire that was eating at my guts and blurring my vision until all that was left was a narrow tunnel of sight with that car in front on the other end. We were almost bumper to bumper as we turned across town, and I felt my car start to go over, fighting the speed of the swerve. It was fear that led me out of it and back on four wheels again, fear that I would lose him. The tires slammed back to the pavement, pulled to the side, and when I was straight again, the car in front of me had a half-block lead.
The sharp jolts of trolley tracks almost snatched the wheel from my hands, then it was gone and we were going west towards the river and the distance between us closed to yards, then feet. I knew where he was heading... knew he wanted to make the West Side Highway where he could make a run for it without traffic hazard, thinking he might lose me with speed.
He couldn't lose me now or ever. I was the guy with the cowl and the scythe. I had a hundred and forty black horses under me and an hourglass in my hand, laughing like crazy until the tears rolled down my cheeks. The highway was ahead all of a sudden and he tried to run into it, brakes slamming the car into a skid.
If the steep pillar hadn't been there he would have done it. I was on my own brakes as I heard the crash of metal against metal and saw glass fly in all directions. The car rolled over once and came to a stop on its wheels. I had to pull out and around it, brakes and tires adding a new note to that unearthly symphony of destruction.
I saw the door of the other car get kicked open. I saw Feeney Last jump out, stagger, then turn his gun at me. I was diving for the ground when the shot blasted over my head, rolling back of the pillar, clawing for my gun when Feeney made his break for it.
Run, Feeney, run. Run until your heart is ready to split open and you fall in a heap unable to move but able to see how you are going to die. Run and run and run. Hear the feet behind you running just a little bit faster. Stop for one second and you'll be as dead as hell.
He turned and fired a wild one and I didn't bother to answer him. There was panic in his stride, wild, unreasoning panic as he ran head down to the shadows of the pier, heading for the black throat of the shed there. The darkness was a solid wall that shut him out, then enveloped me because I was right behind him, pitch-black darkness that threw a velvet cloth over your eyes so that you might as well be blind.
I hit a packing case with my hands, stopped, and heard a body trip and fall, curse once and crawl. I wanted to keep my eyes closed because they felt so bright he couldn't miss them in the dark. Things took shape slowly, towering squares of boxes heaped to the ceiling with black corridors between them. I bent down and untied my shoes, kicked them off and eased into a walk without sound.
From the other side of the room came the rasp of hoarse breathing being restrained, Feeney Last, waiting for me to close the interval, step between himself and the gaping doorway where I would be outlined against the blue night of the city.
Hurry, I thought, before he gets wise. He'll know in a minute. He'll understand that rage lasts only so long before giving way to reason. Then he'll figure it. I stepped around the boxes, getting behind him, trusting to luck to bring myself through that maze to the end. I found an alley that led straight to the door, but Feeney wasn't standing there where he should have been. My foot sent a board clattering across the concrete and automatically I pulled back into the protection of the crates.
And I was lucky because Feeney was stretched out on the floor under an overhang of the boxes and the shot he threw back over his shoulder missed me by inches.