Mouthpiece (8 page)

B
ill's rugged face was etched by the slanted panel light. His
hatless head was buffeted by the wind which blasted into his window. His strong
hands handled the heavy wheel as though it were made of light paper. The
speedometer went up to sixty and stopped. Beyond that it did not register.

“Want me to run without lights?” he asked.

“What you trying to do?” rasped Krone. “Get us picked
up?”

“No—I was just trying to be helpful, that's all.”

“I'll bet!” snapped Krone from the far side of the cab.
“You're hoping some bicycle bull will spot us. If one does, and you don't act
right, both you and him will be kissing angels.”

A darkened farm slid by occasionally. The highway
unwound like a black snake uncoiling. The rises were dark pits into which the
headlights dipped. The white railings fluttered by, echoing the motor's roar
through the cuts.

Above the windshield an old alarm clock swung uneasily
by a string, ticking faintly. The hands pointed to midnight and then crept on
around to two o'clock.

Krone was nervous. Holding a satchel on his knees, he
stared back down the road, watching for possible pursuit. He gave Carbonelli's
shoulder a convulsive grip.

“There's a cop!” he grated. And to Bill, “Step on it,
you!”

“No!” rapped Carbonelli. “Slow down and let him come up.
If we keep on running, he'll have us stopped in a town.”

Bill Milan slowed down. The motorcycle's headlight
lanced out in front of them, throwing their shadow. It swung close. Milan pulled over to the side and stopped. He could feel Carbonelli's leg muscles tighten.
The bandit's gun was masked by his topcoat.

The officer stopped and threw his leg over the gas tank
of his mount. With slow, deliberate movements, he leaned the motorcycle against
the truck's running board. He drew off his gloves without looking into the cab.
Then he extracted his book from a breast pocket and fluttered the pages. Rain
dripped down his slicker, running from the peak of his rubber-covered hat.

“Driver's license, please,” he said.

Bill handed it over.

The officer began to copy the name down on a ticket.
When he had finished making it out, he handed the license back. Bill took the
ticket and examined it.

The officer took the number from the front license plate
and wrote it down. Then he asked for the ticket back and put another check on
it.

“One headlamp is out,” he announced. “And your taillight
isn't burning. You wrecking guys may get away with speeding, but you got to
have lights, understand? Get 'em fixed up at the next service station and after
this watch 'em.”

“Okay,” said Bill. He wiped his palm on the side of his
leg and somehow lost the ticket. It fluttered down to the floor. Bill reached
for it, feeling around the base of the gearshift lever, using his left hand,
which was awkward.

“Where you headed for?” demanded the state policeman.

“Guy stuck in the ditch
about ten miles up the road,” said Bill. “I'm on the . . . I'm . . .” He swallowed nervously. He put his left
hand on the outside of the cab and lifted it in an expression of what's-the-use. “I mean I'm on my way to get him out, see?”

The officer nodded. “Remember to get those headlights
fixed, understand?” He kicked his motorcycle into life and turned it around,
heading back down the road through the rain.

Bill Milan sighed and started up again.

“You shoulda seen that when you got out to look at the
tire,” accused Krone. “I oughta bump you for that.”

“The rain shorted it out,” said Bill defensively.

Carbonelli snorted. “Well, you put on a pretty good act,
anyway.”

The Fiat lurched ahead. The clock above the windshield
swung back and forth, jerkily. The odds and ends in the back rattled and
clanked in tune with the dripping chain hoist. Bill Milan's hands were tense on
the wheel. He eased off on the accelerator before they hit the curves, and then
before their inertia could throw them off the poorly banked road, he shot the
gas to the bellowing engine and blasted out into the straightaway. The wheels
caressed the shoulders in repeated skids, but each time Bill brought the truck
back with throttle and steering gear. He was driving as only a race driver is
capable of driving.

Carbonelli's face was white in the light of the panel.
Krone, though he continued to look back occasionally, watched the road ahead
with a strained expression. Krone held both satchel and door side. Each time
they roared around a curve, Krone's feet pressed hard against the floorboard as
he put on the mental brakes.

“Hell!” cried Carbonelli. “I can't stand it anymore. I
can't, I tell you! Stop this thing!”

Krone shook his head. “They'll catch up with us if we
stop now.”

“That's all right. We'll stop. There's an old house down
in the woods on the next hill. We'll stop there. And don't try nothing, guy,
when we do, see?” he snarled at Milan.

“I can't pull off into the mud!” said Bill. “We'll get
stuck.”

“Don't worry none about that,” growled Krone. “Just pull
off to the side of the road and park for a few minutes. That's all.”

“And don't forget to fix them lights,” warned
Carbonelli, shifting his gun.

Bill slammed on the brakes. The heavy truck skidded to
the right. He fed it the throttle and straightened it out. He slammed the
brakes on again.

“What you trying to do?” screamed Carbonelli. “Kill us?”

For answer, Bill hit the muddy shoulder and clamped a
hand around the emergency. The back of the truck slued around, making a long,
wide gash in the muck. They stopped. Both Carbonelli and Krone sighed with
relief.

“Don't forget them lights,” again said Carbonelli.

Bill climbed down. “I'll have to hook this flashlamp to
the rear for a red light,” he said. “It's got a red bulb in it.”

“Then snap into it,” growled Krone. And when Bill
disappeared around to the end of the truck, he muttered to Carbonelli, “This
guy is a pipe. Dumb as they make 'em. We won't waste much time bumping him.”

“Naw,” said Carbonelli. “I got it all figured out.”

When Bill Milan had fixed the connection on the front
headlamp, the two climbed down into the slanting drizzle and ordered him to
walk down the narrow path toward the woods. But before he went, Bill reached
back into the cab under the panel.

“What you doing?” demanded Krone.

“Fixing the light connection,” said Bill. “That's what
shorted those two lights out.”

“Okay. But snap it up.” Krone fidgeted, still clinging
to the satchel.

Carbonelli searched through the back of the truck and finally
brought forth some lengths of wire.

Bill started down the path, walking easily. The two
followed him, glancing back, as watchful as a pair of jungle cats. Bill stopped
before a low stone house and started to enter.

With a swift movement, Carbonelli darted up behind him.
The gun butt swooped down, glittering in the light of Krone's flash. Bill saw
the shadow of the weapon. He dodged sideward. Carbonelli swore and struck
again. Bill whirled on him and struck out. Krone swung the heavy satchel. It
whistled down and caught Bill between the shoulder blades.

Bill's breath sighed out of him. His knees buckled. He
crunched down on his lame leg. Carbonelli followed up the satchel blow with a
strike to the head with the gun. Bill sprawled in the mud.

“The damned fool thought we was just going to lock him
up,” said Krone. “Didn't he get the surprise of his life.”

Carbonelli knelt and went to work with the iron wire. He
tied Bill's wrists and ankles and then fastened them together down the back.
“There's a river over there about a hundred feet,” he said. “If we can find a
log along the bank, nobody'll be able to tell just where he was thrown in.”

“That's smart stuff—that's smart.” Krone eyed the road
nervously. He could see the lights of the truck. “But let's make it snappy.”

Carbonelli picked up Bill's shoulders and dragged him
down the sloping bank. The water was muttering along the banks, whipped by the
rain. The stream was not large, but it was uniformly deep, deeper than a man's
head. It ran almost perpendicular to the road and south from it. A floating
burden might not come to rest for some miles, possibly near an entirely
different highway.

Krone found the log. It was high on the grass, its bark
slimy with water. Krone threw his shoulders into it and rolled it down close to
the water's edge. With Carbonelli's help he launched one end.

They tied Bill with his back against the log. Bill's
head lolled to one side, the blond hair streaming damply into the black water.
With a grunt, Krone thrust the log out into the stream. Almost immediately, it
rolled over, placing Bill's face beneath the surface. The current caught at the
wood and whirled it away beyond the range of Krone's flashlight.

They turned and plodded up the
bank toward the car. The lamp that Bill had placed at the rear made the mud
glow red.

B
ill Milan came alive at the first touch of the water.
Instinctively, he drew in a long breath before his head rolled under. But
before he could collect himself enough to hold the air in his lungs, he
expelled it in a gasp of dismay. He fought to free his wrists, but the wire
buried itself in his flesh.

The log rolled, allowing him to get another breath of
air. His face was shoved under once more. This time he held his breath, waiting
for the log to roll. After seconds, each one an hour long, the tree trunk
shifted unsteadily. Bill caught his third gulp of air. But he knew that this
could not last. Sooner or later the log would roll the wrong way and he would
be under long enough to lose consciousness. After that—well, there wasn't any
use to worry about that.

Bill went to work on the wire. He wondered what kind it
was. If it happened to be copper he stood but little chance of breaking it by
bending. He made himself pull his wrists at different angles. The torture was
unbearable, but he kept on. The log shifted, dragged back and forth by the
stream, caught in eddies and released again. The rain ruffled the surface. The
night was blacker than ink. Unseen, the bank went by slowly.

His wrists were bleeding, raw. His mind was whirling
with the lack of oxygen. He gritted his teeth and tried to keep from getting
panicky, working his wrists and trying to keep sane.

Abruptly his right hand came free. Immediately he
stroked out and righted the tree trunk. After that he lay still, fanning the
water to keep upright, thankful of the opportunity to breathe as much air as he
wanted to breathe.

Bill Milan knew that he was not yet free. And besides
that he had lost his only stock in trade, his wrecker. The last of the prize
money he had won at Indianapolis had gone into his business and without the
Fiat he was as good as ruined. But if he had figured right . . .

After a few minutes of rest, he was able to free his
left hand. After that, he worked at his back until it too was unlashed. His ankles
were easy. Silently, he slipped off the log and struck out for the shore he
could not see.

With ground under his feet again, Bill put his hand in
the water to determine the current and struck out upstream toward the stone
house. The way was dark. He ran into trees, tripped through windfalls. He made
as good time as possible, but even that time was slow. He had no idea how far
he had gone in the river.

After a year of hours, he struck
a trail and followed it. The going was better but he was continually losing the
edge and finding it necessary to locate the path once more. The rain was giving
way to a gray light in the east. Bill knew that it must be close to dawn. If he
could make it before the sun came, he could . . .

T
he stone house sat in the middle of a small clearing. The first
thing Bill saw was the outline of his truck. It had been clumsily hidden by
chopped brush, but even in the darkness it was recognizable. The rain had
almost ceased.

Bill stopped, crouching in the bushes, waiting for
something to happen. And that something was not long in coming. Carbonelli came
to the window and thrust his head out.

“I guess it's stopped raining,” said the thug in a
disgruntled voice.

“Sure,” Krone's voice snapped from inside. “You said
that an hour ago.”

“Well, I can't help it, can I? We'll have to get that
truck fixed as soon as it's dry enough to work on. Damn this rain! It must have
shorted all the wires.”

“That was a bright stunt of yours.” Krone's voice
growled nastily. “Some guy'll find that dumb driver and they'll trace back up
this stream and nail us. I'm for clearing out of here on foot and trying to
swipe a car in the next town.”