Dirty Harry 12 - The Dealer of Death Read online

  MAD DOG

  VIGILANTE COP!

  That’s what the papers are calling Dirty Harry. Some dude who’s no friend of Harry’s has lifted his prize Magnum and is blasting some of his worst enemies out of this world.

  Harry wants to get his name clean, his gun back, and put an end to the “dead man” who’s playing Harry’s hand in a game of life and death.

  Harry threw himself down, firing two shots, both of which caught the man at the bottom of the stairs in his gut. His face bore a look of unmistakable surprise and sudden shock. Somehow, even as he was thrown back against the further wall, he managed to maintain hold of the M10 which he discharged at a furious rate.

  But his aim was way off, which was understandable as his main concern at the moment was getting the business of dying done, and rather than hitting Harry, he cut his friend down, savaging him with a hail of bullets that blew out his vitals, strewing them all over the stairway.

  The blood and viscera made the going slippery, but Harry proceeded with caution. There was still a third man out there . . .

  Books by Dane Hartman

  Dirty Harry #1: Duel For Cannons

  Dirty Harry #2: Death on the Docks

  Dirty Harry #3: The Long Death

  Dirty Harry #4: The Mexico Kill

  Dirty Harry #5: Family Skeletons

  Dirty Harry #6: City of Blood

  Dirty Harry #7: Massacre at Russian River

  Dirty Harry #8: Hatchet Men

  Dirty Harry #9: The Killing Connection

  Dirty Harry #10: The Blood of Strangers

  Dirty Harry #11: Death in the Air

  Dirty Harry #12: The Dealer of Death

  Published by

  WARNER BOOKS

  WARNER BOOKS EDITION

  Copyright © 1983 by Warner Books, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Warner Books, Inc., 75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y. 10019

  A Warner Communications Company

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 0-446-30054-3

  First Printing: April, 1983

  DIRTY HARRY #12

  THE DEALER

  OF

  DEATH

  Opening Round

  “Hey, friend, can I give you a lift?”

  The vagrant raised his sorrowful eyes toward the man in the Camaro, but because he could not believe these words were addressed to him, he did not stop.

  The man in the Camaro trailed him though, and again he called out to him in a voice that was certainly genial enough. “Well, if I can’t give you a lift maybe I could treat you to a drink?”

  This time the vagrant did pause. He was a man in his mid-forties. The hardness of his life and the long days and nights of unending intoxication had taken their toll on him, and he appeared older than his years. His body still retained its strength, however, almost in defiance of the abuse he had inflicted on it for so long.

  “A drink you say?” He was naturally suspicious. Living on the streets had taught him caution.

  “That’s right.” He displayed a full bottle of bourbon for the vagrant to see.

  It looked mighty inviting, but having been the victim of so much bad luck in his time, he failed to comprehend that his luck should suddenly have changed.

  “Why me?”

  “Why you?” The man laughed. “Because I like you.” He laughed again as if to some private little joke. “No, the real reason is that I’ve just had a very good day and I feel like sharing it with somebody.” Anticipating the question that was sure to follow, he went on, “And in any case, you remind me of someone I know, someone who’s very close to me. Let’s just say, it’s my way of showing my appreciation.”

  “Philanthropist, are you?” the vagrant said, warily approaching the car.

  The owner of the car was surprised by the use of the word. Maybe the man was educated? In the tatters he wore, with the alcohol on his breath, there was no way of telling.

  “Something like that.”

  What he did not say, was that the man the vagrant reminded him of was himself. That was about as close a relationship as one can get.

  At first, they just sat in the car sharing the liter of Jack Daniels, passing it back and forth. It was all the man behind the wheel could do to keep from recoiling at the stench of his guest. But he smiled, he joked. He did his best to reassure the vagrant he had nothing to be afraid of.

  The vagrant at first drank greedily from the bottle, but little by little, he began to relax. “This is too good to be true,” he muttered. “Let me introduce myself.” And he did. But his host was barely listening, though he maintained a fixed smile on his face. “And what be your name?”

  He should lie, but he thought: Hell, it won’t make any difference in a little while. And besides, it was something of a risk, letting the man know his name, and it was his nature always to take the risk. It had gotten him in a great deal of trouble, to be sure, but it made him feel alive. Nothing was more important, he believed, than to feel one was alive.

  “James Gallant,” he replied slowly. “James William Gallant.”

  The vagrant didn’t recognize the name and took the hand in his and gave it a vigorous shake. “Pleased to meet you. And what is it you are celebrating?”

  Deciding that he had nothing to lose by divulging the truth, Gallant said that morning he had left prison after doing time for six and a half years.

  Being on the fringe of society himself, with his share of nights spent behind bars for creating a public nuisance, the vagrant was not dismayed by this information. On the contrary, he congratulated him, but he was interested to learn what James William Gallant’s crime had been.

  “Murder.”

  “Ah, murder.” This put a whole new perspective on things. “Who did you kill?”

  “A cop.”

  “A cop.” The vagrant shook his head in bewilderment. “And they let you go after only six and a half years? I thought they put cop-killers away for life. No offense intended.” He was drinking from the bottle with more enthusiasm now.

  “And none taken, friend,” said James William Gallant. “Well, let’s just say I let myself out.”

  “Oh.” The vagrant wasn’t quite sure how to react to this. He was pretty far gone with all that he’d been consuming throughout the day, and it was with some astonishment that he now realized how dark it was, but he wasn’t so smashed that he was immune from the fear that was gradually mounting inside of him. It wasn’t much initially, the fear, just a small round ball at the pit of his stomach, but it was beginning to expand, and he resolved to get out of the car as soon as he could, no matter how much bourbon was left in the damn bottle.

  The thing of it was, this Gallant fellow looked so reasonable, and rather handsome, almost the way he would look, if he got himself cleaned up. “You must be pretty clever to escape like that,” he noted.

  “Oh, I am, I am very clever,” said Mr. Gallant.

  “And to go and get yourself a nice new car too. People never in jail a day in their lives, they never would be able to get a car nice as this one.”

  “That’s right, friend, that’s how it is.”

  There was still a goodly portion of bourbon left in the bottle; they’d been drinking it and drinking it, and yet they didn’t seem to be getting close to the bottom.

  Finally, the vagrant said he had to be going.

  “So soon?”

  The block, this close to the Embarcadero, was nearly empty, and the evening darkness was compounded by a mid-spring fog rolling in from the Pacific. Even if there was somebody closeby one wouldn’t have been able to see him.

  “It’s getting late . . .”<
br />
  “Late? You run a tight schedule, is that it?”

  There was laughter in his voice, but the laughter was no longer buoyant, a little savage. The vagrant placed a chapped hand on the door. He did not know whether he could stand, let alone run if running proved necessary. But certainly the fog would shroud him. How easy it would be to get lost in the fog. By morning, he knew he would scarcely remember this incident.

  “Very tight schedule,” mumbled the vagrant.

  “Ok, then, if you have to go you have to go. You can take the bottle with you. It’s all right with me.”

  The vagrant nodded and smiled ludicrously and struggled with the door until he managed to get it open. The man who called himself James William Gallant had turned into a blur. He had two heads, not just one. He had two hands on the wheel, and two raised in the air. In these two raised hands were two instruments that very much resembled knitting needles. They were, in any case, silver and long. Very long.

  The vagrant leaned to the left, intending to leap out of the car, but his vision was so out of focus, he failed to lean in the appropriate direction. Not that it would have mattered had he been able to see with absolute clarity, for the alcohol had made his movements clumsy and slow. The only beneficial aspect of the alcohol was that it took the edge off the pain as the needle penetrated the back of his neck. There was a sharp sting, a flash of light, a rush of blood to the throat, then a warm darkness.

  The wound, fatal as it was, was not very large, nor was there much blood. This was why James Gallant had chosen the instrument he had. He maneuvered the vagrant’s body back onto the seat and shut the door. The fog, he noted, was still dense. The weather could not have been more cooperative.

  The stench from the vagrant was bad before, he thought, but now it was worse.

  Gallant was consoled by the fact that it would all be over soon. Breathing through his mouth, he drew the lifeless man up close to him. He changed clothes with him although this meant that he smelled every bit as badly as his victim. When this was done, he started the ignition and drove the car he’d stolen that morning north in the direction of Fisherman’s Wharf. His purpose was to find a patrol car and crash into it.

  Under ordinary circumstances—though it was questionable whether James William Gallant had ever in his life encountered such a thing as ordinary circumstances—smashing into a patrol car was not something he would have elected to do. Better just to drive around San Francisco until he was cited for going through a stop sign or a speeding violation, anything that would precipitate a chase. But with the fog mounting, it was unlikely he could draw attention to himself. That was all right. The fog would help him in any case.

  In the North Beach area, where the lights of Broadway and Columbus were sufficiently garish to dispel the encroaching mist, Gallant spied a black and white. He looked to his right to make certain that the vagrant’s body was well below windshield level; then he began to weave through traffic, provoking a furious outburst of blaring horns. Eliciting just the reaction he had hoped for.

  The patrolmen couldn’t help notice him. Gallant assumed that while they gave chase, they would be checking out his license plate number. Naturally they would learn that the car belonged to one of Soledad Prison’s wardens and that it had been stolen by an escaped prisoner named James W. Gallant. He’d be grievously disappointed if they proved inefficient.

  While it had been several years since he’d last been behind the wheel of a car, he had lost none of his driving skill. It was true what they said, it came right back to one.

  Directing his car toward the shoreline, he delighted in the plaintive whine behind him. He was a little drunk himself, and he scarcely paid any attention as to where he was going. It was enough that he was headed in the general direction of Golden Gate Park and the Pacific Ocean. He wanted to make a spectacular exit from the world.

  From the sound of it, other patrol cars had joined the chase. He kept glancing up at the rear view mirror so he neglected to see what was happening on the road in front of him. But out of the corner of his eye he saw that someone—a man or a woman he couldn’t tell—was in his path, making an effort to get out of his way. But not fast enough. There was a solid thud followed by a strangled cry. To Gallant’s vast surprise, the person he’d hit—an elderly woman he saw now—had been knocked up onto the hood and there for an instant she remained: a vision of blood in a hairnet and furcoat. If there was any life left in her, it was surely crushed by the tires as they ran over her.

  All Gallant could think about was getting this whole business over with. He didn’t know how much longer he would be able to tolerate the smell of death and decay surrounding him on all sides. The windows were wide open, but even the San Francisco night air seemed stale.

  Somehow he had driven up onto a sidewalk. Ashcans clattered and toppled as the car barreled ahead. The fog had thickened along the shore. Fisherman’s Wharf, if that was what it was, looked like something one might see in a dream: ghostly shadows with strange bright lights emerging every now and again from the murk.

  His left fender made a horrible wrenching noise as it came apart. He saw he’d sideswiped a red Buick, though he hadn’t the faintest notion how he’d done that. He didn’t remember the Buick being there. Well, he guessed he was drunker than he’d thought. He had rarely got hold of booze in prison, so his system was more susceptible to it than it had been in the old days.

  Where the hell was he? No landmark presented itself. Up ahead, there was a large clump of trees. Golden Gate Park? No idea. The sirens were beginning to annoy him. Have to put an end to this, he decided.

  A bough sheared off and came to rest on top of his hood, the leaves turned bright crimson in the blood of the lady he’d killed some miles back.

  He heard the roar of the ocean pounding against the rocks before he glimpsed it. He had to shake himself in order to act. I should never have gotten this drunk, he muttered. I should’ve left the drinking to this asshole. The dead vagrant seemed to watch him with open glassy eyes.

  The patrol cars were gaining on him, but they were still some distance back. He could resort to short cuts, run over old women and tear through wooded terrain. It wouldn’t do to smash up city property as whimsically as he had his stolen vehicle.

  He opened the door on his side, careful to keep one hand on the wheel. The ocean must be just below him. The stretch of land barely visible in front of him came to a point, then stopped. Beyond that, Gallant figured, there’d be a drop of several hundred feet.

  A massive tree was in the way. He hadn’t noticed it and was astonished when it snapped the open door off. The car was hurtling toward the abyss at eighty miles an hour. Even when he thought to remove his foot from the gas, it failed to slow the car significantly. Momentum and gravity were carrying it forward.

  Better get the hell out of here, he decided, reaching over to move the dead man into position. It had to be done in one deft, and miraculously quick motion.

  Everything was happening much faster than he’d anticipated. A wire mesh fence came into view at the land’s end, but there was no question it would do nothing to forestall the Camaro’s progress. He hesitated for a moment, gazing wide-eyed at the ground flashing by, then leapt . . .

  God, it hurt. His legs in particular. He only hoped nothing was broken. Propping himself up on his hands, he managed to get a glimpse of the speeding car as it broke through the mesh and soared for an instant into the air before disappearing. It was a wonderful sight.

  A moment or two later, there was a resounding crash which echoed from rock to rock as the battered machine went clattering down the slope. Even before it got to the bottom, the engine exploded, igniting the darkness with a bright orange ball of flame.

  Gallant succeeded in getting to his feet. He could barely walk, but he felt certain nothing was broken. In time, the torn muscles would mend. Hiding himself in the underbrush, he watched as first one, then a second patrol car drew to a halt just before the damaged fence. More sirens
could be heard in the background.

  The four officers got out of their black and whites and ambled over to the edge and looked down. The Camaro was by now a blackened hulk, silhouetted by the bright golden fire.

  “Nobody could live through that,” one officer remarked.

  “Well, that should put an end to the murderous son of a bitch,” another said with evident satisfaction.

  “What do you think makes somebody like that tick?” the first asked.

  No one seemed to have an answer to the question. Even the man hiding in the bushes didn’t know. But the diagnosis of his psychological state was something he left to others. He had achieved two objectives he’d set for the day: he’d escaped from jail in the morning and managed to convince the police he had killed himself in the evening. Now he intended to get on with his third objective: killing the man who’d put him in jail in the first place—Harry Callahan.

  C H A P T E R

  O n e

  The front page was what Sheila Richmond generally got to last. She started in back with the features, barely paid attention to the economic news—though it was something she thought she should know—ignored the sports section completely, and only then did she peruse the headlines. While she seldom found the paper enlightening, and never encouraging, she enjoyed the leisure that went with reading it. Bathed in the sunlight poring through her kitchen window, it was the one hour she had to herself, squeezed in between getting her six-year-old off to school and starting out to work herself.

  Unless it was a major fire on Polk Street, just a block away from where she lived, or a hike in her utility bills, the news stories rarely had a personal impact.

  This morning, however, was an exception.

  This morning she could feel her heart hammering mercilessly in her chest; her temples throbbed, and she felt the blood drain from her face. This morning, a man’s name was on the front page which she had hoped never to hear of ever again.