The Man From Uncle 02 - The Doomsday Affair - Whittington Harry - Страница 3

"Make him stay after school, Esther!" one of the other women laughed.

Reminded that she was not in the corridors of her school, the large woman released Solo's arm, flushing slightly. She said again, "You should look where you're going."

Solo nodded, trying to step through them and the confusion they created. They milled around him and the bronze-skinned guide like sheep, all bleating at once.

He managed to reach the brink of the flock and he backed away, still nodding, but headed toward the street exits again.

"Look out!"

The woman and her French poodle yelped at the same instant. Solo stopped cold, turning.

She was as tall as Solo in her spike heels. She was metallically sleek from her stockings to her hat, as if her beauty were something anodized upon some long-submerged framework.

He found himself startled because she was all in pink, and the carefully trimmed poodle was dyed a matching pink. The color brought back the room in the hotel at Waikild, and the dead girl.

He stepped around the pink, yapping dog, aware that the herd of women was milling around, bleating toward him again.

He ran for the doors. He went through them, but the delay had given the China doll all the time she needed to elude him.

He stopped on the sun-bright walk, looking around. Cars were lined in the parking area. He brought his gaze back to the walk. The girl was gone. He had lost her.

Solo stood unmoving for a moment. The sharp pop of a starting motorcycle snagged his attention and he heeled around toward it.

The cycle missed, caught, and smoke flared. The cycle raced out from between two cars, coming directly toward Solo and the exit of the airport.

Solo stepped forward, seeing the bright muumuu of the China doll behind the cycle operator. The boy wore a gaudy purple and yellow shirt and skin tight pants. His thick black hair was cropped close to his skull. His ancestry was a wild mixture of Hawaiian, Chinese, Polynesian. He was stocky, keg-chested, shoulders bunched with muscles, a bull neck, thick lips, a flat wide nose, black eyes under thick brows, a narrow forehead.

The girl clung to the boy, both her arms locked around his stout midriff.

Solo moved out, trying to slow them down. He saw the boy lower his head, feeding gas to the machine. It popped loudly and raced past him.

Solo leaped back to the curb.

He wasted no time trying to figure their direction. The flower girl and her beach boy had only one idea, getting out of here.

Solo ran to the rented car and leaped into it.

He came out on the road and far ahead of him he saw the motorcycle swing out on Dillingham Boulevard without slowing down. The screech of brakes, the protesting clatter of horns struck at him.

He settled down to the business of driving and attempting to keep the reckless cyclist in sight. The small vehicle bounced along the inside lane, cut in between speeding cars. They passed the Oahu prison and sped across the Kapalama drainage canal into downtown Honolulu.

Brakes screeched as the cycle went left off Dillingham onto narrow Robello Street. Solo pulled over, slowed and made the turn. He was just in time to see the two make another left on busy King Street, again without stopping or slowing down.

He was forced to stop at the intersection of King. The cyclists went right on Banyan Street off King, going into the Palama Settlement. Solo followed as swiftly as he could.

The beach boy whipped his cycle right on Vineyard and right again on River Street, going to Beretania.

Solo turned out onto Beretania, watching the cycle ahead through the traffic. He saw them slow down. He had figured they were attempting to shake him, but he felt now they had some destination in mind, a place where they could ditch the cycle and lose him at the same time.

The boy swung his cycle right on Aala, but was forced to straighten out, blocked by a Chinese dragon dance, loud with fireworks.

The cycle rolled uncertainly now, the boy jerking his head, looking both ways. The girl stared across her shoulder. They flicked between moving cars, forced back to King Street. Here the boy made a hard right turn into the intersection at Hotel Street and poured the gas to it.

Solo kept after them, fighting through the afternoon traffic of downtown Honolulu until it ended at Thomas Square.

The boy turned to King Street and then left again to Kalakau Boulevard, going toward Diamond Head. He sped past Fort De Russy, now in the Waikiki beach area, passing the high rise hotels, the Royal Hawaiian, the Outrigger, going left at Kapiolani Park on Kapahulu Avenue, doubling back toward King Street.

Solo stayed in pursuit, realizing that since the beach boy and the flower girl had been forced out of Aala, they were now trying to lose him. Only the brightness of their garb and the flitting of the cycle through the cars kept him on their trail.

The boy went left again on King Street, racing toward downtown Honolulu. Solo stepped harder on the gas.

A traffic signal caught the cyclists at Nuuanu Avenue. The boy sat a moment, bracing his leg on the pavement, both he and the girl staring across their shoulders. Suddenly the boy said something to the girl and then he whipped the cycle right against the light, pedestrians leaping to safety, yelling in shock and rage.

Solo followed, seeing the gaudy-hued pair far ahead. The cycle climbed, made a turn on Pacific Heights road. Solo was forced to slow down on the narrow, twisting street, but the beach boy saw the curves as a challenge. The road curved back to Nuuanu Avenue, and again the cycle whipped right, running scared and going inland. They went past Iolani School, the Royal museum, climbing past the Country Club golf course toward the high ranges and Nuuanu Pali Pass.

Solo glanced at his speedometer, seeing that he was doing sixty. Hillside homes and wide-spreading banyans whipped past him on the wind. On the outskirts of town he could gain on the cycle.

He stepped harder on the gas, pulling alongside the cycle. The boy and the girl stared at him for a moment, the boy's dark face pulled in a wind-smashed grimace, the girl showing only fear.

"Talk!" Solo shouted across his car toward them. The car shivered on the road. "Only want to talk!"

The beach boy slowed the cycle. Exhaling, Solo took his foot off the accelerator, letting the car slow. When the car was down to thirty miles an hour, the boy suddenly spurted forward on the road, going faster than ever.

Swearing, Solo stepped down on the gas.

The narrow road seemed to whirl upward through the green ranges—hairpin turns, broken-back curves. Cars headed makai, south toward the ocean, swerved, their horns crying out in anguished protest.

Solo pulled the car close behind the cyclist, blowing his horn at them.

The girl turned, gazing at him across her shoulder, her face set, her hair wild in the wind.

Solo shook his head, motioning her to pull the cycle over. When the boy turned, Solo waved his arm toward the roadway shoulder. The boy's face rutted into a savage laugh that refused. He shook his head, then jerked his gaze around.

It all happened at once. A car came down the road, around a curve. The boy had allowed the cycle to wander toward the middle line; now he wrenched it hard to the right as he negotiated a wide curve that brought them out on the narrow plateau of Nuuanu Pali Pass.

Solo caught his breath, seeing what had to happen, even before the cycle's front wheels struck the shale, volcanic rock on the roadway shoulder.

The cycle quivered, going out of control. The. boy fought it, and the rear wheel bounced far out off the pavement. The boy pulled the cycle around hard. The front tire struck a pothole. The cycle bounded upward, striking against the concrete wall and going over it. Tourists in the parking area turned, screaming.