I abandoned the hopeless wrestle with the gears and picked the hammer off the seat with my right hand. Nicky had me by the neck and he was squeezing hard. That hampered the hammer-wielding and the cozy confines of the cab didn’t leave much room for swinging it. I pushed it instead. Straight into Nicky’s nose. A direct hit. His forehead was already bloody from the bang I’d delivered with the back door. The bleeding nose gave him a companion piece in crimson.
Nicky was tenacious. Through the blood and pain he held on to my neck. His hand was weakening, but he didn’t need to maintain the hold for long. Help was now fifty yards away. Grimaldi and his gun were covering the ground at a rapid pace. I whapped at Nicky with the hammer. It caught him on the left cheek. He kept his grip. I felt a choke deep in my throat where Nicky’s fingers pressed at me. I gave him another whap on his right cheek. He let out a scream. But he wouldn’t quit. Another whap, smack on the bleeding nose. That got results. Nicky let go of my throat. His hand went limp and fell away. Nicky’s eyes blinked, his head wobbled, but he didn’t fall to the ground. I used the hammer to tap him once lightly in the chest. He dropped from sight. A real gamer, that Nicky.
Grimaldi’s first shot zipped through the windshield a foot to the right of where I was sitting. He was thirty yards away, crouching and gripping the gun with both hands straight out in front of him. I ducked in my seat and went back to the clutch and gearshift. Another shot from Grimaldi produced another hole in the windshield. This one was two feet farther to the right. The crouch and all the Hill Street Blues shooting style weren’t doing much for Grimaldi’s aim.
During the non-stop action, the tussle with Nicky and the shots from Grimaldi and the sprinkling of tiny pieces of windshield glass on the seat beside me, the truck’s engine hadn’t stalled. Small mercies. It kept on roaring. And when I heaved at the gearshift in ultimate desperation, I got something to work. The truck lurched ahead. I’d found a gear, not the right gear but something that put the truck in forward motion. It wasn’t making for a smooth journey. The truck lurched. Then it leaped. It felt as if the damned thing were leaving the ground and taking miniature hops. I wouldn’t be going anywhere fast.
Grimaldi was holding his fire, probably waiting for a clear shot. He might have to wait awhile. The truck’s heaving and bucking made me a difficult target. Grimaldi was off to the right. I caught a glimpse of him, still crouched, still holding the gun at arm’s length, backing away, looking for a shooting angle. The truck, carrying on like a kangaroo, cut down his chances.
My hippity-hoppity progress carried me down the row of trucks, past Grimaldi, and almost to the office building. The gate was beginning to shape up as a realistic objective. I examined the rearview mirror for a sighting of Grimaldi. He was nowhere in range. While I was examining, the truck stopped hopping and skipping. It stopped altogether. The engine had stalled.
Without the roar of the motor, the yard was suddenly still. I could hear Grimaldi’s footsteps on the pavement. He came into view in the rearview mirror. He was about fifty yards back of the truck and he was dashing toward it. He had his gun at the ready. His strategy seemed clear. He’d come up from the rear, directly behind the truck, under cover and out of sight, and circle around until he had an unimpeded pop at me with the gun.
I needed a strategy of my own. Never mind taking another crack at starting the truck. Too unreliable. I couldn’t leave the cab and take off on foot. Grimaldi would pick me off. In the matter of weapons, my hammer didn’t measure up to Grimaldi’s pistol. The possibilities of escape had become less than infinite.
I looked around the interior of the cab. The lever that operated the bin on the back of the truck stuck out of the floor. It had three indicated positions: Release, Lock,and Hold. It was in Lock. The chains that held the bin in place were overhead and had two positions: Secure and Release. It was in Secure.
Back to the rearview mirror. Grimaldi had drawn to within twenty yards. He was holding on course toward the back of the truck. I put my right hand on the lever and my left hand on the chains. I waited and watched Grimaldi. Fifteen yards away. Ten yards. Then he disappeared. He was too close to the truck for the mirror to catch him. I counted one, two, and pulled simultaneously on the lever and the chains until both hit the same position.
Release.
The silence of the yard was broken. So, I gathered from the tumult at the rear, were many other things. The noises came swiftly on one another. The sound of chains unravelling was first followed instantly by a thick scrape of metal, then a whoosh of air and the crash of a very heavy object thudding into the pavement. The heavy object had to be the truck’s empty bin. No other heavy object back there.
I gave myself sixty seconds of careful listening before I dared to sneak a peak from my perch in the cab. The sixty seconds brought quiet back to the yard. It brought no sound of activity from Grimaldi. I stuck my head a few inches out the window. The bin was gone from the back of the truck. Without it, the truck looked naked. I climbed down from the cab and walked slowly toward the truck’s rear. I had two reasons for taking it slow. One was wariness of Grimaldi, the other was the ongoing case of shakes in my legs.
The bin had flipped over. It rested upside down on the pavement. The sudden release of both lever and chain, not the usual way those controls were operated, had sent the bin into a 180-degree mid-air turn. It went up, flopped over, and smacked to earth.
Grimaldi and his gun were not to be seen.
I banged my fist on the side of the bin.
“Hey, Charlie,” I shouted, “you in there?”
I didn’t think Grimaldi heard my voice. The walls of the bin were too thick. But he heard my pounding. He pounded back. His pounding had an angrier quality than mine.
Grimaldi wouldn’t be keeping any appointments in the immediate future. Not even for the funeral of the woman he had killed. Charles was immobilized. I’d caught him. Like a rabbit in a snare. A Grimaldi in a bin.
I walked across the yard and into the Ace office building. My legs had a new steadiness. The envelope from the bank was on Grimaldi’s desk and the cheque was inside. I carried it across the street to the Volks in the Majestic’s parking lot. Noon-hour customers were arriving. Couple of beers, a hamburger, and the nurse in the shower. Zowie. I unlocked the trunk on the Volks, tucked the cheque behind the spare tire, and went back to the Ace office.
I made my phone calls from a secretary’s desk on the street side of the corridor. The first and briefest call was to the cops. The dispatcher said it might take an hour to get a cruiser to the Ace property if I couldn’t be more specific about the crimes I was reporting. I told him murder, fraud, burglary, and a nasty attitude. The dispatcher said he’d put in a rush call for all cruisers in the area.
When I got Ray Griffin, he wanted to quiz me on the phone. I told him to come on out to Ace and he’d earn himself a banner headline. Ray didn’t bother telling me they’d done away with banner headlines. He said he was on his way. Tom Catalano said nothing about being on his way. He asked on the phone if the cheque was valid. Yes, I said, and he asked if it was in a safe place. Another yes. He said he’d let Wansborough know and, oh yes, he said to me, nice work.
The person who answered at the CBC radio arts program took two minutes to pull Annie out of the editing room.
“Here’s the choice for this evening,” I said to Annie. “Sweat over your tapes or come with me and sip Dom Pérignon.”
“You forget,” Annie said. “I’m the girl who doesn’t perspire.”
“How’s eight o’clock at Scaramouche?”
“You’re teasing.”
“When it comes to champagne and expensive restaurants,” I said, “I don’t tinker with the truth.”
“You’ve closed the case or however lawyers phrase it.”
“I’ve got Alice’s killer.”
“You’re a darling.”
“Just