Lone Wolf #2: Bay Prowler by Mike Barry Read Free Book Online Page B

“Hand me the gun,” the guy said quietly. “Hand it over now.”
    Slowly, Trotto dug inside his clothing. No time to try anything now. He wouldn’t think of it. If you’re a professional, you know when you’re beaten, it was as simple as that. You accept challenges if they are possible but you don’t break against rock. This guy was rock. He was out of Trotto’s class. He was willing to admit it. The hell with it. Beaten was beaten.
    He handed the gun, barrel first to the man outside. The man looked at the gun, looked at Ferguson, cracked open the gun and cleaned out the chambers. He dropped the bullets out onto the sidewalk as if they were pellets of candy.
    “Now what?” Trotto said.
    “I’m thinking,” the guy said. He looked at Trotto intently, motioned. “Unlock the back door,” he said.
    Trotto twisted around slowly, opened it. The guy held the gun on him and got into the back seat. He closed the door with a sold
thunk,
locked it and seemed to lean forward pressing the barrel into Trotto’s neck.
    “This is no good,” Trotto said. “People will see. You can’t get away with this.”
    “Leave that to me,” this Wulff said. “Don’t worry about my welfare. I make out. Start driving.”
    “All right,” Trotto said. He hit the ignition, something he should have done five minutes ago, of course. Too late, too late for all false chances. The car started with a little whine. 1971 Fleetwood, full power gear. No front seat/rear seat partition, the only option missing but otherwise the works. It didn’t seemed to have stopped Ferguson from dying in it, unfortunately.
    He dropped the car into drive, pulled out from the curb at a whisper. Ferguson, dead or not, was bleeding all over the front seat; the cushions, the mats, even the dashboard had little speckles of his blood. Who would have thought that there was so much blood in a dead man. “I can’t drive this way,” Trotto said mildly. “I just can’t.”
    “What’s wrong?” Wulff said, “there’s no blood on the windshield is there?”
    “You don’t understand. I think I’m going to get sick.”
    Wulff seemed to sigh. That was all right; Trotto had been afraid that he was going to laugh. “That’s all right,” he said, “you’ll get over it. The sick feeling passes sooner than you think and then you’re just riding next to a dead man.”
    “Someone’s going to spot us,” Trotto said. “I tell you, these windows aren’t one-way. Some cop is going to look in and see this corpse here and ask questions.”
    “I see,” Wulff said slowly. “Tell me, do you think that it might be better to just stop here and dump him into traffic then? You’re perfectly free to do that if you really must.”
    “No. No I’ll skip it.”
    “I think that’s a good decision.”
    “What do you want?” Trotto screamed, his control breaking spontaneously, like a rubber band pulled and pulled and finally severing into raw, painful halves, smashed back against his senses, “what the hell do you want from me?”
    “I want to take a drive.”
    “We’re
taking
a drive. If you want to kill me,
kill
me, but I can’t take this.”
    “I’m sure you’ll be able to,” the man said quietly. “Everything takes some getting used to, that’s all. I also want to have a talk with you.”
    “So talk!
Talk!
”
    “I always wanted to see the Golden Gate Bridge,” Wulff said. “Why don’t we head there? I think that I want to go north anyway. That’s the best way, isn’t it?”
    “It depends.”
    “Let’s try it. And on the way we can have a conversation.”
    Trotto felt the nudge of the barrel against his head again. “Go on” the man said, “get to it. You’re still alive aren’t you? You son of a bitch.”
    Wulff and Trotto and a dead man hit the freeway to see what they could see.

V
    The Golden Gate Bridge, Wulff decided, was much narrower than he would have thought; in the movies all you saw was this great arching span rearing high above