'Til Death (87th Precinct) - By Ed McBain Page 0,16

as a warning to approaching motorists. As a further precaution, a huge blinking DEAD END sign flashed in the exact center of the wall. Since the time that excavation for gravel had begun in the area behind the wall, leaving the rocky cliff and the steep drop, only one motorist had driven through the wall and over the cliff. He’d been killed instantly, and it was learned later that he’d been drunk, but the accident had been enough to warrant the yellow-and-black paint job and the blinking light.

The limousine gained momentum as the car hurtled toward the end of the hill and the painted stone wall.

“That’s a bad turn at the corner,” Tommy said. “Be careful.”

“Mister, I’ve been driving for twenty years,” the driver said. “I never missed a wedding yet, and I never yet had an accident.”

“Yeah, well there’s a steep cliff behind that wall. A guy was killed here once.”

“I know all about it. Don’t worry, you ain’t gonna get killed. When you been married for fifteen years, the way I have, you’ll maybe wish you did get into an accident on your wedding day.”

The car sped for the bottom of the hill and the turn. The DEAD END sign blinked monotonously. Clutching the wheel in two massive fists, the driver swung it sharply to the left.

There was an enormous cracking sound that jolted the automobile.

The car did not turn to the left.

With something like awe in his voice, the driver said, “Jesus, it won’t steer!”

From outside the car, passers-by saw only a vehicle that was wildly out of control, the front wheels pointing in opposite directions as the limousine hurtled forward toward the sidewalk, the stone wall, and the cliff beyond.

Inside the car, the passengers only knew that the driver could not, for some reason, steer the limousine. In a last desperate effort, he swung the steering wheel to the right and then the left, his foot automatically leaping to the brake pedal. The car swung in a screeching arc toward the sidewalk, its back wheels leaping the curb, the rear end swinging toward the wall and the cliff.

“Brace yourself!” Carella shouted, and the men in the car tensed for the shock of impact, surprised when the shock was not as great as they expected, startled with the knowledge that something had intervened to prevent the powerful smash through the stone wall, amazed when they realized the something was a lamppost.

The car ricocheted off the unbending steel pole, swerved in another wild arc, bounced forward onto the front wheels finally, coming to a dead stop as the brakes took hold completely and irrevocably.

The men in the automobile were silent.

The driver was the first to speak.

He said only, “Wow!”

One by one, they climbed out of the car. Kling had banged his head on the roof of the car, but otherwise no one was injured. The car itself had fared worse. The entire right side was smashed in where the limousine had collided with the lamppost. A crowd was gathering on the sidewalk. A policeman began shoving his way through it. The driver of the Cadillac began talking to him, explaining what had happened.

Carella walked to the steel lamppost and slapped it with an open hand. “We can all get down on our hands and knees and kiss this baby,” he said. “If it hadn’t stopped us…” He looked over the stone wall, and then wiped his forehead.

“What the hell do you suppose happened?” Kling asked.

“I don’t know,” Carella said. “Come on.”

Together, they walked to where the driver and the patrolman were squatting on their hands and knees at the front of the car.

They waited.

“Sure,” the driver said to the cop. “That’s it.”

“Yeah,” the cop said. “Boy, you were lucky you hit that lamppost. A guy was killed here once, you know that?”

“What is it?” Carella asked.

“The steering linkage,” the driver said. “There’s a steering tube under there, connected to the tie rod ends. Well, the one on the right side busted. And without that tie rod end, I didn’t have any control.”

“It looks like more than that,” the patrolman said.

“What does it look like?” Carella asked.

“It looks like somebody worked on that thing with a hack saw!”

At 3:30 P.M., Tommy Giordano and his best man stepped from the rectory of the Church of the Sacred Heart and walked to the altar. In a loud stage whisper, Tommy asked, “Have you got the ring?” and Jonesy nodded in assurance.

Angela Carella, resplendent in white, entered the back of the church