Damnation Alley (2 page)

"Drive or don't drive. Take your choice. But remember, if you drive and you make it, all will be forgiven and you can go your own way. The nation of California will even pay for that motorcycle you appropriated and smashed up, not to mention the damage to that police car."

"Thanks a lot." And the winds boomed on the other side of the wall and the steady staccato from the windowshields filled the room.

"You're a very good driver," said Denton after a time. "You've driven just about every vehicle there is to drive. You've even raced. Back when you were smuggling, you used to make a monthly run to Salt Lake City. There are very few drivers who'll try that, even today."

Hell Tanner smiled, remembering something.

". . . And in the only legitimate job you ever held, you were the only man who'd make the mail run to Albuquerque. There've only been a few others since you were fired."

"That wasn't my fault."

"You were the best man on the Seattle run, too," Denton continued. "Your supervisor said so. What I'm trying to say is that, of anybody we could pick, you've probably got the best chance of getting through. That's why we've been indulgent with you, but we can't afford to wait any longer. It's yes or no right now, and you'll leave within the hour if it's yes."

Tanner raised his cuffed hands and gestured toward the window.

"In all this crap?" he asked.

"The cars can take this storm," said Denton.

"Man, you're crazy."

"People are dying even while we're talking," said Denton.

"So a few more ain't about to make that much difference. Can't we wait till tomorrow?"

"No! A man gave his life to bring us the news! And we've got to get across the continent as fast as possible now, or it won't matter! Storm or no storm, the cars leave flow! Your feelings on the matter don't mean a good goddamn in the face of this! All I want out of you, Hell, is One word: Which one will it be?"

"I'd like something to eat. I haven't . . ."

"There's food in the car. What's your answer?"

Hell stared at the dark window.

"Okay," he said, "I'll run Damnation Alley for you. I won't leave without a piece of paper with some writing on it, though."

"I've got it here."

Denton opened a drawer and withdrew a heavy cardboard envelope, from which he extracted a piece of stationery bearing the Great Seal of the nation of California. He stood and rounded the desk and handed it to Hell Tanner.

Hell studied it for several minutes, then said, "This says that if I make it to Boston I receive a full pardon for every criminal action I've ever committed within the nation of California . . ."

"That's right."

"Does that include ones you might not know about now, if someone should come up with them later?"

"That's what it says, Hell, 'every criminal action.'"

"Okay, you're on, fat boy. Get these bracelets off me and show me my car."

The man called Denton moved back to his seat on the other side of his desk.

"Let me tell you something else, Hell," he said. "If you try to cop out anywhere along the rouL, the other drivers have their orders. They will open fire on you and burn you into little bitty ashes. Get the picture?"

"I get the picture," said Hell. "I take it I'm supposed to do them the same favor?"

"That is correct."

"Good enough. That might be fun."

"I thought you'd like it."

"Now, if you'll unhook me, I'll make the scene for you."

"Not till I've told you what I think of you," Denton said.

"Okay, if you want to waste time calling me names, while people are dying...”

"Shut up! You don't care about them, and you know it! I just want to tell you that I think you are the lowest, most reprehensible human being I have ever encountered. You have killed men and raped women. You once gouged out a man's eyes, just for fun. You've been indicted twice for pushing dope, and three times as a pimp. you're a drunk and a degenerate, and I don't think you've had a bath since the day you were born. You and your hoodlums terrorized decent people when they were trying to pull their lives together after the war. You stole from them and you assaulted them, and you extorted money and the necessaries of life with the threat of physical violence. I wish you had died in the Big Raid that night, like all the rest of them. You are not a human being, except from a biological standpoint. You have a big dead spot somewhere inside you where other people have something that lets them live together in society and be neighbors. The only virtue that you possess, if you want to call it that, is that your reflexes may be a little faster, your muscles a little stronger, your eye a bit more wary than the rest of us, so that you can sit behind a wheel and drive through anything that has a way through it. It is for this that the nation of California is willing to pardon your inhumanity if you will use that one virtue to help rather than hurt. I don't approve. I don't want to depend on you, because you're not the type. I'd like to see you die in this thing, and while I hope that somebody makes it through, I hope that it will be somebody else. I hate your bloody guts. You've got your pardon now. The car's ready. Let's go."

Denton stood, at a height of about five feet, eight inches, and Tanner stood and looked down at him and chuckled.

"I'll make it," he said. "If that citizen from Boston made it through and died, I'll make it through and live. I've been as far as the Missus Hip."

"You're lying."

"No, I ain't, either, and if you ever find out that's Straight, remember I got this piece of paper in my pocket,
 
'every criminal action,' and like that. It wasn't easy, and I was lucky, too. But I made it that far, and nobody else you know can say that. So I figure that's about halfway, and I can make the other half if I can get that far."

They moved toward the door.

"I don't like to say it and mean it," said Denton, "but good luck. Not for your sake, though."

"Yeah, I know."

Denton opened the door, and, "Turn him loose," he said. "He's driving."

The officer with the pistol handed it to the man who had given Tanner the cigarettes, and he fished in his pockets for the key. When he found it, he unlocked the cuffs, stepped back, and hung them at his belt; and, "I'll come with you," said Denton. "The motor pool is downstairs."

They left the office, and Mrs. Fiske opened her purse and took a rosary into her hands and bowed her head. She prayed for Boston, and she prayed for the soul of its departed messenger. She even threw in a couple for Hell Tanner.

The bell was ringing. Its one note, relentless, interminable, filled the square. In the distance, there were other bell notes, and together they formed a demon symphony that had been going on since the dawn of time, or at least seemed as if it had.

Franklin Harbershire, President of Boston, swallowed a mouthful of cold coffee and relit his cigar. For the sixth time he picked up the fatality report, read the latest figures, threw it down agath.

His desk was covered with papers covered with figures covered with ashes, and it was no good.

After seventy-six hours without sleep, nothing seemed to make sense. Least of all the attempt to quantify the death rate.

He leaned back in his leather chair, squeezed his eyes shut, and opened them again. From the inside they had been like wounds, red, swimming red.

He was aware that the figures were by now obsolete. They had also been inaccurate in the first place, for there bad to be many undiscovered dead, he knew.

The bells told him that his nation was sinking slowly into the blackness that always lies a half-inch below life, waiting for the crust to weaken.

"Why don't you go home, Mr. President? Or at least take a nap? We'll watch things for you. . .

He blinked his eyes and stared at the small man whose necktie had long ago vanished, along with his dark suit coat, and whose angular face now bore several days' dark growth of beard. Peabody hadn't been standing there a second ago. Had he been dozing?

He raised his cigar, to discover that it had gone out again.

"Thank you, Peabody. I couldn't sleep if I tried, though. I'm just built that way. There's nothing for me to do but wait, here."

"Well, then, would you like some fresh coffee?"

"Yes, thank you."

Peabody seemed gone for only a few seconds. Harbershire blinked his eyes, and a cup of fresh coffee was steaming beside his right hand.

"Thank you, Peabody."

"The latest figures have just come in, sir. It seems to be tapering off."

"Probably a bad sign. Fewer people to do the reporting, and fewer to handle the figures. . . . The only way we'll really know will be to take a count of the living, if there are any living, when this thing is passed, and then subtract from what we had to begin with. I don't trust these figures worth a damn."

"Neither do I, really, sir."

Harbershire burned his tongue on the coffee and drew on his cigar.

"The drivers may have made it by now, and help may be on the way."

"Possibly," said Harbershire.

"So why don't you let me get you a blanket and a pillow, and then you stretch out and get some sleep. There's nothing more to do."

"I can't sleep."

"I could find some whiskey. A couple shots might help you to relax."

"Thanks. I've had a couple."

"Even if the drivers don't make it, this thing may dry up on its own, you know."

"Maybe."

"Everybody's keeping to himself now. We've finally gotten across the idea that congregating is bad."

"That's good."

"Some people are leaving town."

"Not a bad idea. Head for the hills. May save their necks, or some of ours, if they've got it."

He took another sip of coffee, more gingerly this time. He studied the blue smoke ladders that bent above his ashtray.

"What about the looting?" he asked.

"It's still going on. The police have killed a dozen already this evening."

"That's all we need, more deaths. Take a message to the Chief. Have the cops try to arrest them, or only wound them, if possible. Let the public think they're still shooting to kill, though."

"Yes, sir."

"I wish I could sleep. I really do, Peabody. I just can't take much more of it."

"The deaths, sir?"

"That, too."

"You mean the waiting, sir? Everyone's been admiring the way you've borne up...”

"No, not the waiting, damn it!"

He gulped more coffee and puffed a great cloud of smoke into the air.

"It's those goddamn bells," he said, gesturing at the night beyond the window. "They're driving me out of my mind!

They descended to the basement, the subbasement and the sub-subbasement.

When they got there, Tanner saw three cars, ready to go; and he saw five men seated on benches along the wall.

One of them he recognized.

"Denny," he said, "come here," and he moved forward, and a slim, blond youth who held a crash helmet in his right hand stood and walked toward him.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked him.

"I'm second driver in car three."

"You've got your own garage, and you've kept your nose clean. What's the thought on this?"

"Denton offered me fifty grand," said Denny, and Hell turned away his face.

"Screw it! It's no good if you're dead!"

"I need the money."

"Why?"

"I want to get married, and I can use it."

"I thought you were making out okay."

"I am, but I'd like to buy a house."

"Does your girl know what you've got in mind?"

"No."

"I didn't think so. Listen, I've got to do it, it's the only way out for me. You don't have to."

"That's for me to say."

". . . So I'm going to tell you something: You drive OUt to Pasadena to that place where we used to play when we were kids, with the rocks and the three big trees_you know where I mean?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"Go back of the big tree in the middle, on the side where I carved my initials. Step off seven steps and dig down around four feet. Got that?"

"Yeah. What's there?"

"That's my legacy, Denny. You'll find one of those old strongboxes, probably all rusted out by now. Bust it open. It'll be full of excelsior, and there'll be a six-inch joint of pipe inside. It's threaded, and there's caps on both ends. There's a little over five grand rolled up inside it, and all the bills are clean."

"Why you telling me this?"

"Because it's yours now," he said, and hit him in the jaw.

When Denny fell, he kicked him in the ribs, three times, before the cops grabbed him and dragged him away.

"You fool!" said Denton as they held him. "You crazy, damned fool!"