by Don Winslow
Lou does. He takes out his Glock and gently sets it on the bed.
“Open the case, let me see,” Davis says.
Lou puts the case on the bed, twirls the combination lock and opens the lid. He takes out his pistol and points it at Davis.
Crime 101: Always have a backup.
“Drop the gun,” Lou says. “I’m a police officer. I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”
“I’m not going to prison,” Davis says. “I’ll shoot before that.”
“You’ve never killed anyone,” Lou says.
“First time for everything.” Davis gives him a long look. “But you have.”
“And I hated it.”
Davis knows he’s fucked up. Violated the rules of Crime 101, and now his only chance is to get back to them.
Crime 101: Everyone has a price.
“I’ll tell you what,” Davis says. “I take the jewels and leave the cash. You do what you want with it.”
Lou juts his chin at Shahbazi. “What about him?”
Everyone has his price, Davis thinks. Crime 101. “What’s he going to do? File a complaint on a case full of illegal stones? Five million, you can disappear wherever you want.”
The gun is getting heavy in Lou’s hands. He feels them start to quiver. “You remember how The Getaway ends?”
Davis is puzzled. “Yeah. Doc gets away.”
“That’s in the movie,” Lou says. “In the book there’s an epilogue. Doc disappears, but it doesn’t end well.”
“So that’s a no?” Davis asks.
His finger tightens on the trigger.
The door crashes in.
Ormon has the MAC-10 up, sees Lou first and swings it on him.
I’m dead, Lou thinks.
Except Ormon’s head explodes.
Lou turns to see that Davis has fired.
Davis turns the gun back on him.
But he doesn’t pull the trigger.
“So,” Lou says, “what are we going to do?”
“Arrest him!” Shahbazi yells.
“Shut up,” Lou says. “You have enough stored away to live?”
“Not lavishly.”
“But enough to live,” Lou says. “Then get in your car and drive. Don’t ever come to San Diego again.”
“What?!” Shahbazi says.
“Did I not tell you to shut up?” Lou asks. He says to Davis, “Let me put it this way—what would Steve McQueen do?”
Davis smiles. “He’d drive.”
“So drive,” Lou says. “It’s Crime 101.”
Crime 101, Davis thinks.
Always do what Steve McQueen would do.
Lou keeps the gun on Davis as he walks out the door.
“You’re letting that thief get away?!” Shahbazi yells.
“The thief is lying on the floor,” Lou says. “The infamous 101 Bandit.”
He looks down at the small young man with the bright yellow hair. The young man isn’t going to get any older.
“I’ll have your badge,” Shahbazi says.
“You’ll have jackshit,” Lou says. He already hears the sirens coming, so he has to make this fast. “What you’re going to do when the cops come is listen to what I tell them, nod, and say, ‘What he said.’ Then you’re going to go to your niece’s wedding, give out the gifts and be the big man. Do we have an agreement here?”
They have an agreement.
Davis drives.
North, up the 101.
Through Del Mar, past the racetrack.
Past the pink neon sign by Fletcher Cove that proclaims SOLANA BEACH, past the Tidewater Bar, Pizza Port, Mitch’s Surf Shop and Moreland Choppers. Down the hill to the long stretch of beach at Cardiff, then up past Swami’s and Encinitas, past Moonlight Beach, the old La Paloma Theater, underneath the sign that arcs over the 101 and reads ENCINITAS.
Then along the railroad tracks and eucalyptus trees of funky Leucadia, up to old-fashioned Carlsbad, past the abandoned power station, its smokestack evocative of both Springsteen and Blake.
A sight he knows that he will never see again.
He drives through the day and through the night, stopping only for gas. Through San Clemente, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Seal Beach, Long Beach, Redondo and Manhattan. Around Marina del Rey, through Santa Monica, Malibu, Oxnard and Ventura.
Then the westward jog past Santa Barbara, north to Pismo and Morro Bay. Daylight finds him in Big Sur, then Monterey, then Santa Cruz.
San Francisco, across the bridge.
Stinson Beach, Nick’s Cove, Bodega Bay.
Jenner, Stewarts Point, Gualala.
Point Arena, Elk, Albion.
Little River, Mendocino.
He stops in Fort Bragg.
A small Craftsman house just east of the highway north of town. He bought it years ago and, to keep it clean and safe, has never gone back.
Until now.
Now it will be home.
Crime 101: If you can get away, get away.
Lou finishes the last bite of his hot dog and wipes the mustard off his lip with the back of his hand.
Behind him the Solana Beach sign glows pink like sunset.
They bought his story. Why wouldn’t they? “Legendary cop foils jewel heist, kills ‘The 101 Bandit.’” The suits in the department weren’t happy at all about his “lone wolf, cowboy” tactics and his grandstanding, but what were they going to say? He had cleared a dozen major jewel thefts and now taken two dangerous criminals off the count.
Bob Nelson had been more than willing to play ball, to go along with the story that Detective Lubesnick had deliberately replaced him that day in order to set up the sting. The ex-cop’s bosses at the security agency weren’t thrilled about it either, but they couldn’t very well fire an employee who had helped to stop a multimillion-dollar robbery.
The last Lou heard of Sharon Coombs, she’d gotten a job adjusting auto claims with an insurance company in Pittsburgh.
And Angie?
They went through with the divorce, and he heard she was dating some financial adviser.
Lou stayed in Solana Beach, not in the apartment with the whitewater view—he couldn’t afford that for too long—but one in Seascape Chateau that has no view but is still close to the beach. He likes the lifestyle, likes going to the Solana Beach Coffee Company for the breakfast burritos. He even takes in a yoga class about once a week.
Now he pulls his Honda Civic onto the PCH and drives north, past the Tidewater Bar, Pizza Port, Mitch’s Surf Shop and Moreland Choppers.
Lou has come to love this road like a man loves a woman.
He could drive it all day and all night.
His new license plate is one of those black retro California jobs.
It reads:
CRIME 101.
For Mr. Elmore Leonard
The San Diego Zoo
No one knows how the chimp got the revolver.
Only that it’s a problem.
Chris Shea didn’t think it was his problem, though, when the call first came over the radio that a chimpanzee had escaped from the world-famous San Diego Zoo.
“Call Animal Control,” he responded, not considering runaway monkeys to be a police matter.
Then the dispatcher added, “Uhh, the chimp appears to be armed.”
“Armed?” Chris asked. “With what, like a stick?”
He’d seen something on Animal Planet about chimps using sticks as tools or weapons, which apparently was significant for some reason Chris missed because he got up to make a sandwich.
Or maybe it was baboons.
Or maybe it was the National Geographic Channel.
“Witnesses are reporting that the chimp is carrying a pistol,” the dispatcher said.
Well, Chris hadn’t seen that on Animal Planet. “What kind of a pistol?”
“A revolver.”
Well, that’s a break anyway, Chris thought. It could be worse—a Glock or a SIG Sauer. “Where’s the chimp now?
”
The dispatcher cannot get off the track of copspeak. “Suspect was last seen heading east on The Prado.”
Which is not a break. The central walkway of Balboa Park is squarely within Chris’s zone in Central Division, and he has to respond. It’s also bad news because on a hot July night a lot of people will be strolling in the park, including a lot of tourists, and the last thing the chief or the mayor wants is a CNN headline about a visitor to “America’s Finest City” getting gunned down by a chimpanzee.
“Responding,” Chris said, and rolled into the park.
Now he’s standing beside five other cops watching the chimp climb up the wall of the Museum of Man. That’s what I need tonight, Chris thinks, a chimp with a firearm and a sense of irony.
What makes it even worse is that Grosskopf is standing there shouting into a megaphone. “Drop the weapon and come down!”
Chris likes Grosskopf, who is always more than sincere about trying to do a good job, but the cop isn’t the sharpest spoon in the drawer. “Fred?”
“What?” Grosskopf lowers the megaphone and looks annoyed.
Chris says, “I don’t think it understands English.”
“You think . . . what,” Grosskopf says, “some African language? Don’t we have that Somali guy in Anti-Crime?”
“I don’t think it understands any language except, like, chimp,” Chris says. And he’s pretty sure they don’t have a single chimpanzee in the entire department. A few gorillas, maybe, but no chimps.
There follows a brief discussion about calling Fish and Game, but a chimp is neither.
Harrison suggests the fire department. “They do cats in trees, right?”
He calls the fire guys, explains the situation, listens for a second and then hangs up.
“What did they say?” Chris asks.
“To go fuck myself.”
“They said that?” Chris asks.
“Not in so many words,” Harrison says. “What they said was that, yes, extracting an animal from a tree or a building is generally their business, but the fact that said animal possesses a firearm makes it our business. I don’t know, it was hard to hear through the laughing.”
A crowd has gathered.
Chris looks at Harrison. “You’d better move them back. Set up some barricades.”
“Why?” Harrison asks.
“What if the chimp pulls the trigger?” Chris asks.
“Why would it do that?”
“Because it’s a chimp, I dunno,” Chris says. “Crowd control. Now.”
The crowd has started a chant. “Don’t shoot the chimp, don’t shoot the chimp.”
“We’re not going to shoot the chimp!” Chris yells. Although he’s not so sure. If it starts pulling the trigger . . . they’re going to shoot the chimp.
A woman in a safari jacket pushes her way through the crowd and comes up to Chris.
“Carolyn Voight,” she says. “I’m with the zoo’s Primate Department.”
“How did the chimp get a gun?” Chris asks.
“I blame the NRA,” Voight says. She’s pretty. Tall, blue eyes, her blond hair pulled into a ponytail under her official zoo ball cap.
Chris says, “Seriously, though . . .”
“I have no idea,” Carolyn says. “I also have no idea how Champion got out.”
“‘Champ the Chimp’?” Chris asks.
She shrugs, like it wasn’t her idea.
Grosskopf has overheard the conversation and tries to establish rapport. With the chimp. “Champion, drop the weapon and come down! No one has to get hurt here.”
Again, Chris is not so sure. Champion is hanging from a security camera by one hand (or paw?) and is waving the pistol around with the other, and the weapon could easily go off.
“Did you bring a dart gun?” Chris asks Carolyn.
“No.”
“I mean, isn’t that what you guys do?” Chris asks. “Like, shoot them with a dart and knock them unconscious?”
“Even if we could,” Carolyn says, “he would get hurt in the fall.”
“Should we bring the hostage guys in?” Grosskopf asks.
“To negotiate?” Chris asks.
“Yeah.”
“With a chimp.” Although, to be honest, Chris thinks, they’ve negotiated with a lot of guys who had lower IQs than Champion here, who is at least smart enough to figure out how to break out of a cage. “What would we offer him?”
“Bananas?” Grosskopf asks.
“Actually, that’s a myth,” Carolyn says. “Chimpanzees and bananas. Kind of a stereotype.”
Chris can see the editorial now. SDPD PROFILES PRIMATES. CHIEF PROMISES FULL INVESTIGATION.
With utter seriousness Grosskopf asks Voight, “Do you have any idea as to what motivated Champion to escape?”
“It could be sexual,” Voight says.
“Sexual,” Grosskopf repeats.
“Alicia recently rejected his mating overtures,” Voight says, “and he took it very badly. We had to separate them.”
Better and better, Chris thinks. Now we have a heartbroken, horny chimp with a gun and anger issues. He asks Carolyn, “Did Alicia file a restraining order?”
“What?” she asks. Then, realizing he’s joking, adds, “I don’t think that domestic violence is a laughing matter.”
“Nor do I,” Chris says, desperately hoping that Sergeant Villa will stir himself from the station house and come over to take charge.
“Maybe,” Grosskopf says, “we could bring Alicia here, and that might tempt him to come down.”
“So this is your plan,” Chris says. “You want to bring another chimp onto the scene, hope that the original, armed chimp will climb down from that tower and fuck the unwilling female chimp in front of a crowd of dozens of citizens and tourists.”
“I can’t allow that,” Carolyn says. “Anyway, Alicia is not in estrus at the moment.”
“What does that mean?” Grosskopf asks.
“She’s not in the mood,” Chris says. I dunno, maybe dinner and a movie. Or maybe there’s such a thing as “chimpanzee porn,” although he’s afraid to ask, because if there is, it’s not knowledge he wants taking up residence inside his head.
Grosskopf is on another bent. “Does Champion have access to television?”
“I don’t think so,” Carolyn asks. “Why?”
“I’m wondering if he could have seen anything that would teach him how to handle a firearm,” Grosskopf says.
Chris is about to say something sarcastic when Carolyn says, “Actually, the custodian’s booth in the night house has a television. Champ might have seen that.”
“Does it have premium cable?” Grosskopf asks. “Because HBO and Cinemax can be very violent. If Champion was watching, say, Game of Thrones—”
“He has a revolver, not a Valyrian blade,” Chris says.
“I’m just saying, the gratuitous bloodshed—”
Sergeant Villa has rolled up. He gets out of his car, takes in the situation and says to Chris, “Shoot the monkey.”
Harrison says, “Actually, Sarge, it’s not technically a monkey, it’s a chimpanzee, which is a—”
Villa’s glare stops him.
“Sergeant Villa,” Chris says, “this is Carolyn Voight from the San Diego Zoo.”
“Please don’t shoot him,” Carolyn says.
“Ma’am, he’s armed with a deadly weapon,” Villa says. “I can’t allow him to put civilians in jeopardy.”
“How about you go get a dart gun and we put a net up?” Chris asks. “Champion goes to sleep, falls into the net, we all go home.”
“A dart won’t reach him from down here,” Carolyn says.
Chris looks at the building. “I can climb partway up.”
Villa grabs him by the elbow and walks him a few steps away. “Are you kidding me, Shea? You want to take all this trouble for a goddamn monkey?”
“Well, yeah.”
Villa looks over toward Carolyn. “Why do I think it’s not t
he monkey you’re interested in?”
“That’s deeply cynical, Sarge.”
Villa walks back to Carolyn. “You have ten minutes to get the dart gun and the net set up. But if Cheetah up there as much as touches the trigger . . .”
“Cheetah?” she asks.
“Tarzan? No?”
Carolyn shakes her head.
“Ten minutes,” Villa says.
Carolyn takes off.
A news truck rolls up.
“Why doesn’t life just bend me over and fuck me in the ass?” Villa asks. He says to Chris, “Go talk to them.”
“Why me?”
“Because I hate them.”
A reporter gets out of the truck and walks over, followed by a cameraman shouldering the camera like it’s a rocket launcher or something. Chris recognizes the reporter—he’s seen him on the late news.
“Bob Chambers,” the reporter says. “We heard something about a chimp?”
Chris points up at the Museum of Man, where Champ is hanging by one paw, gesticulating with the other, and screaming noises that Chris interprets as simian for “Fuck you!”
“Shit,” Chambers says. “Is that a gun?”
“I’m afraid it is.”
“What’s your name?” Chambers asks.
“Shea. Officer Christopher Shea.”
The cameraman says, “Rolling.”
“I’m standing with Officer Christopher Shea outside the Museum of Man in Balboa Park, where a chimpanzee armed with a pistol has scaled the building. Officer Shea, what are we looking at here?”
“What you just said,” Chris says.
The camera pans the crowd as Chambers says, “Protesters have gathered, chanting, ‘Don’t shoot the chimp—’”
“Well, they’re not protesters exactly,” Chris says.
“No? What are they?”
They’re people with nothing better to do at night than prowl Balboa Park, Chris thinks, but he says, “They’re bystanders. I mean, they’re not actually protesting anything.”
“They’re demanding that you don’t shoot the chimpanzee.”
“We’re not planning to shoot it. Unless—”
“Unless what?”
“It shoots first,” Chris says.
“Is that official SDPD policy?” Chambers asks.
“I don’t think we have any official policy on armed primates,” Chris says. “I mean, it’s not really the sort of thing you’d—”
