Dirty Harry 06 - City of Blood Read online

  But Owens plodded on, too committed to this venture to allow his fears to deter him. Nowhere was his man Death visible on the bamboo-railed paths, but he felt certain he must be close by. As he kept going, various statues intended to guard the Shinto shrines came into view. And for a moment Owens felt that their sightless eyes were in fact registering his presence just as they had registered Death’s. Farther on, he came to a seated bronze Buddha whose serene countenance intimated at an existence far more secure than that of the average San Francisco cop.

  As Owens came nearer the Buddha, Death suddenly, silently materialized and just as silently strolled away. Only the rustle of the manicured bushes that he brushed past told Owens that he was not just a hallucination. The way he seemed to glide, this dark menacing figure, was almost as if he was otherworldly, without substance, though of course he was very much substance, all seven feet and two hundred eighty pounds (Owens guessed) of him.

  So he followed him, despairing that he would ever be rewarded for his efforts. Followed him throughout the park, to Stow Lake favored by picknickers and boaters, past the Conservatory, down along Arguello Boulevard, past the Arboretum on South Drive, now onto the archery field . . .

  This is getting absurd, Owens realized, he’s just going to keep walking all night, and Harry will think I’m an ass for playing along with him. But it was also possible that Death was acutely conscious someone was stalking him—in tiring, Owens recognized that he might have unwittingly betrayed himself—and was only seeing how far he could take him.

  From the archery field Death made his way to the golf course that lay adjacent to it. Because the green was so exposed Owens was obliged to stick close to the woods and shrubbery that extended about a good part of its perimeter. At a certain point though he had no choice but to give up his place of concealment. Otherwise, he would lose sight of Death again.

  The odyssey was growing endless. Death had sufficient stamina to endure what constituted a grand tour of Golden Gate. Owens no longer had much of a sense of where they were anymore. He could not orient himself by any landmark. Here was a baseball field, here a football field, here a tennis court, over there a checker pavilion. Now the smell of horse manure told him he was nearing a stable; now he found himself in the shadow of a bandstand that at this late hour looked particularly desolate. There are twenty-seven miles of footpaths in Golden Gate Park, and by one in the morning Owens had the feeling that he and Death had traversed them all.

  Then, in a thickly wooded area that bordered on a baseball diamond, Owens looked up to see that Death had vanished again. Was he not paying enough attention? How could he have slipped so easily out of view? Owens peered into the gloom, thinking that maybe in his dark robe Death had managed to camouflage himself.

  Owens started towards the woods, deciding that he would draw out his gun. He was more nervous now than he had been any time since he had begun this surveillance, though he could not say why. After all, Death had dematerialized before, in the Japanese garden, and nothing had happened.

  Owens stopped, listening, straining his eyes to detect a pattern in the darkness, but everything was submerged and ambiguous in the absence of any light. Even the moon was uncooperative, having sunk out of sight hours ago.

  Cicadas he heard, the disturbance of low-lying brush as some animal, possibly a squirrel, darted through it, that he heard. But otherwise nothing.

  Until a moment later, when the unmistakable sound of footsteps, soft but firm and purposeful, reached his ears from behind him. He turned, quickly, no longer bothering to maintain the pretense of a drunken derelict lost in the park, his gun trained on the direction from which the footsteps were coming.

  It was Death all right, looming up in front of him, seeming taller, more formidable than he had ever appeared in the distance. How he had gotten in back of Owens Owens couldn’t possibly imagine, but that was hardly worth worrying about now.

  The sight of a .356 Magnum did not seem to intimidate Death. It was difficult to tell whether he even noticed it. And while Owens struggled to announce that he was a police officer, he wondered on just what charges he could engineer an arrest. Despite his terrifying aspect and his penchant for straying for hours through the precincts of Golden Gate Park armed with a scythe, Death had not committed anything that could remotely be considered a crime.

  Nonetheless, Owens had been a cop long enough to know that even without rational grounds for suspicion, this was a dangerous character who, with each step he took closer to Owens, seemed to get progressively more dangerous.

  “Police officer, stay where you are.” Owens wondered whether he’d made himself heard, his voice sounded so feeble. Compared to this, last night’s confrontation with a surly white asshole and a drug-crazed black was child’s play. He regretted that he’d gone so far in tracking this man down.

  There was nothing to indicate that Death had heard him. The skeletal mask he wore made it impossible for Owens to determine if there’d been any reaction. He repeated himself, more loudly.

  Still didn’t make any difference. Death kept coming, inexorably closing the distance that separated them until they were no more than five or six feet apart. Owens realized that he ought to stand his ground, but he could not help backing away. Besides, if Death got right up on top of him he would have no room to maneuver or to fire his gun if he was forced to do so.

  Death produced a sound that might have been laughter, but whatever it was it was obscured by the blockage of the mask. He now leaped forward, mocking Owens’ efforts to retreat, and as he did this he raised his fearsome weapon above his head and swung it so that it described an arc, which if completed would take a substantial chunk out of Owens’ neck.

  Owens instinctively shifted his body to the left, discharging his gun at the same time. But because he did not shift quite enough, the blade grazed his shoulder. A savage burning pain caused him to cry out, but he retained his balance and ignored the blood that welled quickly from the wound.

  There was no question, given his aim and their proximity, that he had hit Death. The blood that now appeared on the black robe, right where his pelvis should be, indicated to Owens that the bullet had penetrated. The sight of it also reassured Owens that his antagonist was human, something he was almost ready to doubt.

  But while he might have been a mortal, Death surely did not act like one. The wound might not have been there at all, for he continued to advance on Owens, swinging his scythe back and forth, almost in a leisurely manner, without any aim of striking Owens. He seemed to be enjoying the swishing sound it made through the air as though he was trying to terrify Owens further before dealing him a decisive blow.

  Owens, however, had no intention of waiting around for that. He maintained a steady pace backward so that the distance between the two of them never grew too small. “Stop right there or I’ll fire again,” he declared.

  But Death kept coming. Owens did as he promised, firing into what he thought must be the man’s stomach. Death grunted, but that was all. His momentum was not hampered the least bit. And again Owens fired and again.

  At least Owens had the satisfaction of seeing that his bullets had hit their mark each time, for now there were four patches of blood on the folds of the black robe, two at chest level, one in the abdomen, the last in the thigh. Soon the blood stains began to merge until half the front of Death was covered. It looked as though someone had painted him with crimson paint just to contrast with the black background.

  Owens was astonished, and not a little horrified, to see that though he’d been successful in hitting the man, he had failed to bring him down. Death again lunged, bringing down his instrument hard, but this time Owens was more agile and leaped out of its way altogether, firing once more, this time in the direction of the head. But because of his sudden movement the trajectory the bullet took brought it into the upper chest. Again Death emitted a sound that Owens construed to be a cry of pain, but that was all. The blood from this, the highest wound on his body, tric
kled slowly down his robe.

  But he kept right on coming.

  There would be no time to insert another clip into his gun, Owens realized, and unless the cumulative effect from these five wounds soon took hold and Death collapsed, he might not escape after all.

  Moreover, the injury he’d sustained was agonizing him, though it probably wasn’t very serious. While Death might be able to endure so much pain and loss of blood, he doubted that he could.

  He began to run, but still backward because he did not want to risk turning away from his assailant. But running backward in the dark is no easy thing to do. Suddenly, Owens stumbled over a branch that had broken off from a tree directly overhead. Though he struggled to regain his balance, it wasn’t possible, and he fell awkwardly, sprawling in a plot of ivy. For a moment his gun loosened from his hand, but he was able to keep hold of it finally, not that it necessarily was going to do him very much good. For Death, more hideous than ever with blood dripping off him, was now looming over him, his scythe raised high before he brought it down on Owens.

  Owens fired again, hitting him this time in the face, but while a part of the skeletal mask fell away, replaced by a big bloody hole, it was hardly the fatal wound Owens had hoped it would be. He realized that the bullet had probably penetrated the cheek, gone in one side and right out the other. When Death turned his head and Owens could glimpse the whole of it he saw that he was correct in his assessment: the bloody hole on one side of the mask was matched by a corresponding hole on the other.

  This only caused this creature to appear more grotesque than before. What was he dealing with here, Superman? Owens wondered, rolling away from the scythe as it came down, slicing out a swath of ivy in the process.

  But his reprieve was sure to be temporary. Death still commanded all the power in this situation. Could be he lacked all feeling, which was why none of the pain registered. Whatever explanation there was, it scarcely mattered to Owens who strained to get himself off the ground.

  Death was slowing down somewhat, not much but enough so that when he swung again, the scythe failed to hit Owens and only struck the sole of his shoe as he scrambled to get up. A slice of the sole went flying into the air.

  All at once Death, frustrated in his efforts to dispose of Owens, caught up with him and clasping him by the shoulders threw him back down to the ground. The pain that resulted from the gloved hand wrapped about his slashed shoulder more than the force his assailant applied was what disabled Owens.

  Now it seemed it was all over, that he had come to the end, and that he now had no choice but to resign himself to his fate.

  C H A P T E R

  E i g h t

  Harry, peering into the distance, beheld two figures, one a bloody spectacle clad in some kind of black garment, the other a blur of cloth and flesh supine on the ground. Of one thing he was certain—the man in the black robe was readying to kill his victim with a scythe.

  It must be Owens, he reasoned. Hearing gunshots, he’d rushed as fast as he could in their direction. Now, without taking the trouble to aim carefully, there being no time, he fired his .44. He did not bring down the black-robed monster—for Harry recognized even from this distance that the size of this man was incredible—but he did distract him from his objective.

  He fired again just as the black-robed figure turned to discover where this latest irritation was coming from. What astonished Harry was that this man did not do what anyone else would have done—bolted or ducked and taken cover. No, he just stood where he was, observing Harry’s progress across the landscape with what might have been mild curiosity.

  Then, abandoning Owens, he abruptly broke into a trot, evidently deciding that he would rather take on Harry instead. His speed was surprising. Behind him he left a zigzagging trail of blood on the grass.

  For a moment Harry was too stunned to do anything. He could not believe that anyone so bloodied could remain ambulatory. But the fact was that it looked worse than it actually was, for many of the bullets Owens had fired had failed to penetrate to vital organs, and instead had been absorbed by the fat and muscle that lay in the way.

  With surprising speed, the scythe-wielding madman was upon Harry, flailing his weapon. Up close, he was a more grotesque sight than from across the field. The whole lower half of his mask was smeared with blood, which bubbled continuously from the slit that allowed his lips to show through.

  Harry fired again from a crouch, calmly aiming at the man’s chest. The blast did manage to slow the madman’s momentum, sending him staggering back, his hands clutching at the latest wound. But much to Harry’s astonishment it did not stop him. Redoubling his efforts, with a tenacity that was little short of miraculous, he came again at Harry and, just as Harry fired, whipped the scythe through the air, catching the gun with a sharp whack and with such force that it knocked the .44 out of Harry’s hands.

  Still, he had not been quick enough to forestall yet another wound, this time above the heart. He was lurching about like a drunk, barely capable of taking advantage of his triumph in relieving Harry of his weapon. Anger, sheer overwhelming anger, was all that was fueling him now. That and a determination to take somebody with him before he succumbed to all these wounds, which inevitably he would.

  The .44 hadn’t flown very far. Harry could glimpse it out of the corner of his eye: a gleaming object a yard or so over to his right. But there was no way he could retrieve it without risking his life.

  So instead he assumed the stance of a quarterback and rammed right into the frenzied creature, something he obviously had not expected, for he tumbled over onto the ground, still gripping his scythe but finding it a clumsy thing to use effectively from such an awkward posture.

  Nonetheless, Harry could feel its sting as the madman attempted to stab him with it. The point of it, however, never dug more than a fraction of an inch into Harry’s skin since the man had not enough purchase to deliver any reasonably fatal blow.

  Worse than the shots of pain that the tip of the scythe produced was the smell of blood that clung to every inch of the man. Harry was half-bathed in it, too, and he imagined that by now his antagonist probably had more blood outside him than in.

  The madman clutched hold of him, as in an embrace, and it was difficult for Harry to extricate himself. Then, with a surge of energy, the madman somehow managed to roll over to his side, and Harry lost his advantage. With an arduous effort that betrayed his draining energy and blood, the madman raised himself to a vertical position. As he did he sustained two rounds in his back—both from Owens, who came racing in their direction, a new clip in his Smith and Wesson.

  The first round caught Death in the hollow between the shoulder blades. The second lodged higher up in the neck, simultaneously severing the spinal cord and eliminating all sensation in his body—not that he seemed to have much to begin with.

  These wounds appeared to have made some impact—the man could no longer move. His knees buckled and threatened to give way, but, maybe out of sheer obstinacy, he remained standing, swaying back and forth.

  Harry, just now rising from his prone position, seized hold of Death’s hand, tearing the scythe from his loosened fingers. Death hadn’t the strength to resist any longer. Then Harry struck out with the scythe that his assailant would have preferred to impale him with, embedding it to halfway down the blade in the monster’s chest, enough so that the tip of the instrument protruded out his back, which meant that a prodigious amount of flesh, muscle, fat, and inner organs had had to be gone through.

  Death sagged, his legs finally did give way, but not before Owens, not more than six feet away, discharged his .356 straight into his head from the back. There was not enough tissue to protect the skull, and the rounds traveled through it without meeting much resistance, shattering the bone, opening up the brain, tearing it into bloody pulp-like shreds before emerging out through the face. All at once there was no longer anything to be seen of the mask, for an abundance of blood and gray matter and bone fragmen
ts came pouring out, obscuring what the bullets had not obliterated.

  Death collapsed completely, falling on the scythe so that he pushed even more of the blade through his ravaged body. He didn’t fall all the way, but rather remained partly suspended on it, just a few inches above the ground. Weirdly, he wasn’t completely dead, though he was about as close as you could get without being there. Or maybe death just hadn’t registered in some of the extremities because for a few moments a limb would twitch, a hand would reach tentatively out, then drop back again.

  And then there was no more motion. Blood dripped noisily into the viscous pool that had already formed.

  Death was at last truly dead.

  For several seconds neither Harry nor Owens exchanged a word. What, after all, could they say?

  Such was the awesomeness of this experience that both men had temporarily forgotten about their pain. Owens, who’d staunched the bleeding of one of his assailants the night before, now had to do the same for himself, tying a shred of coat over his shoulder which continued to bleed, though less profusely. The back of Harry’s jacket had been ripped in several spots, and here and there blood could be seen in those places where the scythe had cut into the skin.

  At last Owens spoke, “I don’t know as to whether I’ve ever seen anything like this. I didn’t think the son of a bitch was going to die. One out of a million people could take what he did and still be walking.”

  “Try one out of a billion. This must have been what it was like bringing down Rasputin.” Rasputin’s assassins had variously tried to poison him, shoot him, drown him and leave him to die of exposure—all in the course of the same night. He just hadn’t wanted to go out easily.

  Now Harry reached forward and, ignoring the blood and disgorged tissue as best he could, drew away what was left of the mask. But that didn’t do much good at all. There was so little remaining of the face that they would never know what he looked like.