Read Dirty Harry 04 - The Mexico Kill for Free Online Page B

stopped for a red light, the Chevy nearly crashed into him. There was a noisy plaintive screech of tires and a further paroxysm of hornblowing.
    Harry was rather amused by the frustration he was causing the joker behind him, and he had no intention of making life easier for him. On Bay Street the Chevy’s driver became even more desperate; if Harry wasn’t going to allow him to pass on his side then he was bound and determined to pass him on the other. What this meant was that he had to maneuver the Chevy onto the curb, half-on, half-off, in the process upsetting a couple of garbage cans which rattled noisily to the ground and terrified some unwitting pedestrians. Harry was just about to cut him off on the right—which was not difficult—when he reconsidered. For the first time he noticed in front of him—three cars ahead—a black Mercedes which was, like the Chevy, doing whatever it could to surge ahead and overcome the trap of early evening traffic. It occurred to Harry that whoever the three gentlemen in the Chevy were they had a serious interest in the gentlemen in the Mercedes. Just what that interest was was, at this point, hard to figure. So Harry decided to let the scenario go ahead without his interference—at least at this juncture. Accordingly, he got out of the way.
    The blare of horns on all sides of him, growing to an earsplitting crescendo, signaled that this chase-in-progress had caught the attention of other drivers in the vicinity. They didn’t like being cut off or suffering dented fenders that would draw skeptical questions from their insurance agents. But like it or not, that was just what was happening. The two cars in their fight to penetrate the traffic lurched ahead, their drivers evidently oblivious of the damage they were causing. The sickening sound of metal against metal was repeated again and again. But gradually, in recognition of the frightening resolve of these beserk people, other drivers drew out of their way, allowing them freer passage as Bay Street yielded to Marina Boulevard. Inadvertently, they paved the way for Harry who raced after them.
    The men in the Mercedes and those in the Chevy were too intent on one another to pay attention to Harry. And besides, he was as anonymous as the car he drove; there was nothing to connect him to the police save his two-wave radio, which he considered using, then decided not to. All that would happen, if he alerted them, was that the drivers of the respective cars would be stopped and given summonses for speeding. And the way they were driving, accelerating with every passing block, these were not the sort of people, who would find a summons for exceeding the limit by forty miles per hour a particularly humbling experience.
    Better to wait, Harry thought, and find out what these people were really about. That might not be a sensible policy, but it was one that he had no compunction about adopting. On the AM station he had going Jimmy Smith was driving hard on the organ, backed by an ingenious guitarist and a drummer propelling up a harsh primal rhythm. What the number they were playing was Harry didn’t know but it sure was a terrific accompaniment to the car chase in front of him.
    The Mercedes shot ahead on Marina, then veered left and headed south down Presidio Drive. Traffic was lighter on this stretch, and the two cars were that much more conspicuous. The Mercedes was speeding in the direction of Golden Gate Park; the line of trees at its perimeter could be made out in the dusk.
    It was not possible to tell whether the Mercedes had a destination or was simply trying to elude the Chevy. Harry, however, was beginning to get the sense that of the two possibilities the latter was the more likely.
    The Mercedes was entering the park, the Chevy was gaining on it though Harry couldn’t believe that it would ever catch up. But he hadn’t reckoned on the driver of the Mercedes. He was apparently not equal to the car or what it could do.
    The