Mouthpiece by L. Ron Hubbard Page A

utilize the radio to locate his wrecks upon the pain of
a severe fine and even more severe sentence.
    T enth and Lynch Boulevard met at an angle near the city limits. Only
street lights gleamed. The ghosts of darkened houses haunted the background of
the highway. It was from one of those that the call had come, for certainly no
one stood about the wrecked machine.
    Bill skidded to a stop and looked down into the ditch. The
car’s nose was crumpled against the far bank. Segments of the white rail jutted
out through the motor’s base. The front wheels had torn loose from the inverted
body and lay alone and smashed fifty feet away. The taillight shone like a wet
ruby.
    â€œThey must be dead,” murmured Bill and climbed down. Out
of the odds and ends in the back of the truck he took a heavy-duty lamp, and
with this swinging at his side, he stumbled down the slippery bank and peered
through the gaping rear window.
    But no bodies were in sight. Bill scratched his head and
looked up at the highway. He grinned a little when he realized that he had
beaten the squad car again. Perhaps he had better drive off and wait for them
to come up. Otherwise he’d be arrested probably.
    He knew better than to move the wrecked car. There was
something mysterious about it. A man didn’t leave so flashy a machine even
though it was wrecked badly.
    Bill started to turn back, but something stopped him. A
round, hard something which bruised his lean ribs. A thin, bitter face hovered
over his shoulder, the black eyes hard. The face seemed to be suspended in
midair, completely without support. The man’s black topcoat finished the
illusion.
    â€œJust stand there!” rattled the man. “Put your hands up
a little.” He ran his fingers over Bill’s pockets, frisking him for a gun. The
sensation was like that of a snake crawling.
    Another face came up on Bill’s left. “I got him covered,
Carbonelli. Get the stuff out of the bus and let’s go.”
    â€œWhat’s this?” inquired Bill.
    â€œWe’re playing tag,” snarled Carbonelli. “You’re it. You
made good time getting here, and I’ll see to it that you make better time
getting away. Bumping one more guy won’t make no difference to us.”
    The other’s voice was like the bite of acid. “Yeah,
he’ll drive us all right. And I’m glad, for one.”
    Carbonelli bristled. “You didn’t help matters any by
grabbing the emergency, you dumbhead.”
    â€œYeah, but you put us in the ditch, didn’t you? And
right before the bulls cracked wise that we’d left the state. We had a clean chance
to hide out right here.”
    Bill Milan could hear the radio still going in the
wrecked car. It was faint and sputtering, but the words were distinct.
Something about a woman thinking she’d heard a burglar in the house and would
the police come up and investigate. Bill wondered that the radio still worked.
    The two men were scowling at each other through the
rain, their faces lighted by the beam from the wrecker. Their nerves were raw
and their working jaw muscles were tight.
    â€œOkay, Krone,” grated Carbonelli. “Okay. When we get out
of this we’ll split up, get me? I’m sick of your face and sick of your lip. You
bumped those guys and you didn’t need to!”
    Krone leaned forward as though about to strike. His gun
shifted away from Milan and covered Carbonelli. “I ain’t in the bank business
for my health, pally. Get that and get it right. We got the stuff, didn’t we?
And we got it because I bumped those guards. All right, shut up!”
    Bill Milan, unobserved, swayed back a little. His hands
came slowly down to shoulder height. His fists were hard knots. Standing as he
was between the pair and the headlights of the wrecker, his movements passed
unobserved. With the sudden intensity of lightning, he struck. Krone took it on
the side of the jaw and