Hostage For A Hood by Lionel White Read Free Book Online Page A

time now to explain. Be careful when you go in the back there. Keep your face covered with a handkerchief."
    As Luder and Santino carried the canvas bags out of the truck, Cribbins hurried back to the sedan. He spoke to Mitty, but his eyes were on Joyce Sherwood.
    "Get in the back, Mitty," he said. "And get out of that uniform. We've got just about two or three minutes. When Santino and Luder come, explain it to 'em. I'm going to drive and I'll go west as far as the underpass under the parkway, if we don't run into anyone. I want you to get rid of your guns. Put them in the trunk with the money. Have the boys put the money into the trunk."
    He hesitated for a moment as he had to raise his arms to jerk the blue uniform shirt over his own head. Under it he wore a white shirt. "Hand me the coat from that suitcase," he ordered.
    "We haven't a chance," Mitty said. "They'll git us at the first roadblock."
    "Shut up and do as I say," Cribbins snapped. "They won't get you, at least. I'm dumping you and the others at the underpass. You'll just have to try to keep from being picked up. Separate and you'll have a chance. In any case, you'll be clean if they do pick you up. Try and get to the hide-out as soon as you can, but come separately and be damned sure no one tails you."
    "How about you? What are you going ... "
    "This little lady is going to drive me up," Cribbins said. "It's our only chance—the only way we can get clear with the money."
    "But ... "
    "No buts," Cribbins snapped. "It's the only way. There's just a chance no one will stop a girl and her dog out for a ride in the country with her sick father." He turned then and stared coldly into Joyce's frightened eyes.
    A moment later, as Santino and Luder crawled into the back of the sedan, they heard the low wail of a siren off to the south. A block up the street a man was running toward them, waving his arms.
    "Stay down in the back," Cribbins said. He released the clutch and as the car moved forward, he spoke to Joyce out of the side of his mouth.
    "Get yourself set, sister," he said. "In about ten minutes you're going to take over the wheel. And if you want to stay alive, you'll do exactly what I tell you to do. Just pray that we don't get stopped. You'll be the first one to be shot if we do. And keep the dog on your lap, where it can be seen if we pass anyone. They won't be looking for a dog in a getaway car."
    * * * *
    She and Bart had driven over the road a hundred times. Back when they had first started going together—it seemed a century ago but actually she had known Bart for only a year before they were married—they had taken this road to go north for those marvelous ski trips. And then, in the spring, they would come this way on weekends for picnics in the country.
    They weren't really picnics, of course, but they would drive until they were some forty or fifty miles north of the city and then turn off the highway and find one of those little towns with an old-fashioned inn and there would be a cocktail or perhaps two cocktails and a long, leisurely lunch and the talk and the plans and everything they were finding together.
    Bart had preferred the road to the parkway.
    "Sure," he would say, "I know we can make better time on the parkway and I know Twenty-two is always crowded, but the scenery is nice and anyway we aren't in any hurry."
    It was absolutely essential that she keep her mind on Bart. The initial shock had worn off; she was past hysteria now, past the point where she might faint, or go into a state of shock. Now it was pure and unadulterated fright.
    She must keep her mind busy, think of something, think of anything but that blood-soaked, bullet-ridden armored car driver lying back there beside his truck on the cement pavement. Must think of anything but the lean, hard man who sat tense and waiting at her side.
    God, to think that this was she, Joyce Sherwood, celebrating her first wedding anniversary.
    She lifted her eyes from the road ahead for a