Last Ditch

by G. M. Ford

  Gordon Chen was straggling over the fence about ten yards north of where the others had crossed. Instead of jumping down from the top, like the others, he climbed down. Probably didn't want to mess his hair.

  Instead of following the others up the concrete ramp, Gordon began running along the fence line, heading east toward the freeway.

  Without willing it so, I found myself crossing the street.

  "Oh, Christ" I muttered, beginning to jog. Timing my steps like a high jumper, I sprang upward, stuck the toe of my right sneaker about halfway up the fence and pushed myself to the stiff-armed position on the top rail. I steadied myself for a moment, brought my left foot up even with my hands and then launched myself up and over.

  I squatted on the packed dirt and checked things out. The site looked like a medieval castle under siege. A maze of wooden concrete forms rose like battlements for as far as I could see in either direction. The tops of the walls bristled with black steel reinforcing rods. Everywhere scaffolds and ladders leaned against the walls like remnants of a long-ago battle.

  Overhead, four giant yellow cranes loomed ten or twelve stories into the night sky, defining the corners of the stadium, their yellow superstructures lighted as a precaution against low-flying planes.

  I went after Gordon Chen, looping off to the right following the fence, jogging past a dozen Porta Potties, moving carefully in the dim fight until I came to a broad concrete road leading down into the bowels of the stadium. I figured this must be where they brought in the heavy equipment. I took a chance and followed the pavement inside.

  In the near darkness, my eyes had trouble sorting out the jumble. I stood for a minute, allowing my nervous system time to adjust.

  It was like a giant dirt bowl. Around the perimeter, dim halogen banks lighted the tops of the walkways, pushing long shadows down along what would someday be the seats, their timid luminance utterly lost among the dark clutter spread out over the future field of dreams.

  The field itself was a morass of banded lumber and wet piles of dirt and gravel. Out in the center a steam shovel sat idle, its great steel jaws open and at the ready. A scattered herd of pachydermatous cement trucks grazed contentedly among the rubble.

  I moved fifty feet to my left and started up the dirt embankment toward the top of the stadium. The ground was firm and packed from thousands of footfalls. I stopped about two-thirds of the way up and took stock. I could see the cops. Wessels was two hundred feet in front of me, his gun in his right hand, creeping along beside a row of banded four-by-fours. One uniform was skirting the left edge of the field and one the right. Trujillo had climbed to the peak of a mountain of dirt out in the middle of the field by the steam shovel. He spread his arms and then moved them quickly inward, signaling the uniforms to move quicker.

  No Jimmy. No Gordon. I waited.

  It didn't take long. Below me, I could hear Wessels' labored wheezing. The noise was probably why my eyes picked up the movement before he heard it Both of us were too late.

  Jimmy Chen stepped out of a gap in the piles of lumber with his arms raised above his head. Frank Wessels got about half turned when Jimmy brought whatever it was he held aloft straight down like an ax. The sound reminded me of the time I dropped a cantaloupe while screwing around in the supermarket. Sort of a wet thunk. Wessels went down in a pile. Jimmy Chen stepped back into the darkness and disappeared.

  I began to shout "Trujillo. Over here."

  He looked around. I yelled again and waved my arms.

  "Here."

  When his head snapped my way, I pointed. "Down here. He got Wessels. Call for an ambulance."

  I didn't wait for an answer. I began moving down the embankment as fast as I dared. Ahead of me, the wall separating the box seats from the field bristled with steel whiskers. If I got out of control, I could end up skewering myself like a kabob.

  When I got back to the edge of the pavement, I hopped down and began running. I missed Wessels the first time. He was one row of lumber further out than I'd estimated, lying in the fetal position on his left side, his service revolver nearly touching his nose.

  Even in the deep shadow, I could see it wasn't good. A seeping furrow ran straight down his forehead toward his nose. His breathing was ragged and rattled in his chest; his lips were covered in blood.

  I knelt by his side and placed my fingers on his neck artery. His pulse was irregular and unstable. I still had my hand on his throat when he coughed up a mouthful of blood and stopped breathing.

  "Here," I shouted. "Here."

  As much as it pained me, I pinched his nose, pulled his mouth open, cleared the airway with my fingers, just like in the book, and commenced CPR. Two breaths into his mouth. Fifteen compressions of his chest. "Over here."

  Two breaths into his mouth. Fifteen compressions of his chest. "Over here." I got into a rhythm. Breathe, push, scream. Breathe, push, scream. Breathe, push, scream.

  By the time the first uniform found us, I was gasping for breath and could hear a siren in the distance. He took one look at my red face, holstered his revolver and took over.

  He lasted until the siren was screaming in our ears, and then I took over again. Two breaths into his mouth. Fifteen compressions of his chest. I was still at it when Trujillo arrived with the cavalry.

  A burly EMT in a whiter-than-white uniform shirt shouldered me aside and began working on Wessels. I stood up and leaned back on the pile of lumber. I was so winded, I had imaginary snowflakes swirling around me in the air. It was all I could do not to try to reach out and capture one in my hand. Trujillo stepped up into my face, opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. Instead, he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a neatly folded handkerchief.

  "Here," he said. "Wipe your mouth."

  Even down here, forty feet below street level, the pulsing red and blue fights swirled through the air.

  Behind me I heard a voice say, "He's breathing on his own."

  It sounded as if sirens were approaching from all directions.

  We stood and watched as they got Wessels started on oxygen and an IV and then rolled him onto a gurney. It took the two EMTs and both cops to lift the big fella and carry him out to where they could use the wheels. When they were gone, I stepped around Trujillo and started for the center of the field

  "Where the hell do you think you're going?"

  "Shoot me," I said and kept walking.

  He came running up from the rear and spun me around by the shoulder. "Don't be an idiot," he said. "I've got backup coming."

  That's when I saw Jimmy, out in what I thought was going to be left field, down on all fours clawing his way up the steepest part of the embankment toward an assemblage of gray steel beams which rose five stories into the sky. I pointed. Trujillo followed my finger.

  Trujillo immediately started after him. I started after Trujillo.

  We zigzagged through the infield until we reached a spot directly below where I'd seen Jimmy Chen. He was still there. A gaunt scarecrow of a figure, about three-quarters of the way up, down on his haunches, apparently winded and too tired to continue climbing.

  I reached up, grabbed the steel handrail above my head and hoisted myself up to the level of the box seats. Trujillo was too short to grab the rail, so I had to lean over, grab his wrist and drag him up to the next level with me. He straightened his jacket and then started up after Jimmy Chen.

  Unfortunately, his tasseled loafers with their leather soles were not up to the task. For every two steps he made it up, he slid back three. I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him upward. Pulling both of us, I had to stop twice for breath. Jimmy Chen never moved until we stopped for the second time, maybe three hundred feet below him.

  Trujillo was wasting his breath screaming orders to stop and threatening to shoot. It was too dark to see Jimmy Chen's face, but I somehow suspected Jimmy would be about as impressed as the Boys had been. Trujillo was shouting again.

  "This is the Seattle Police Department ...
"

  I couldn't stand it any more. "Will you shut the fuck up?" I said. "I'll swear you warned him. I'll swear you Mirandized him. Just stop the screaming." Trujillo looked insulted and then started upward.

  I didn't have much choice. If I stayed below him, he was going to lose his footing and come rolling downhill like a bowling ball, probably wiping me out on the way. I got to my feet and started up.

  I pulled him the rest of the way to the top. We sat with our backs on the cold concrete, our chests heaving, our limbs unwilling to move. Three hundred feet to my right, Jimmy Chen dragged himself the last few yards and collapsed. I nudged Trujillo. He shook his head.

  I got to one knee. Below us, down at field level, at least a dozen cops were headed our way. I figured I'd wait until they got here. Jimmy Chen hadn't moved and I'd had all the excitement I could stand. Trujillo would have been better off if he'd been similarly inclined. Unfortunately, he wasn't. Wanted the collar, I guess.

  Whatever the reason, when I looked up again, Trujillo was moving along the top rim of the stadium toward Jimmy Chen. He was behind the lights, moving slowly in the near darkness, about thirty feet to my right, when he suddenly disappeared from view. I figured he was out of gas and resting again. That's when I heard the groaning and started after him.

  He'd fallen in a concrete hole. Maybe five feet square and three feet deep. He lay twisted in the bottom, trying to push himself up on one elbow. I jumped down with him and helped him gingerly to his feet. His left shoulder hung way below his right. His eyes were glazed with pain.

  "Get me out of here," he said through his teeth.

  "Maybe we ought to wait for—"

  He said it again, so I got him to his feet, laced my fingers together down at knee level and invited him to step in. He put his right foot in my hand and his good hand on my shoulder. I boosted him up and out and then crawled up beside him. From where we stood, two enormous concrete pillars blocked our view of Jimmy.

  We started moving again. Slowly this time. Concrete holes appeared out of the gloom at thirty-foot intervals. We skirted them and kept moving until we finally moved behind the last grandstand pillar and out into the right-field bleachers.

  Seventy-five feet away, Jimmy Chen leaned heavily against the gray steel superstructure, his mouth open and gasping for breath. It was an odd moment for a revelation, but fatigue does funny things. It was there and then that I realized what all the gray steel was for. It and its twin on the far side of the park were what the roof slid back upon when it was opened.

  I was still marveling at the wonders of modern engineering when Trujillo stepped around me and brought his gun to bear on Jimmy Chen. It took him two tries. The first time, his training took over, and he tried to lift both hands into the classic combat stance. No go. The pain in his shoulder turned him white. He leaned back against the concrete, took several deep breaths and aimed one-handed.

  "Halt," he shouted, sidestepping toward Jimmy, his weapon thrust out before him.

  Jimmy looked up briefly and then turned his back on Trujillo. He put his right foot up on the first rung of the welder's scaffolding and started to climb.

  I was watching Trujillo as he dropped to one knee, rested his wavering elbow on the other and took aim, so I don't know where Gordon came from. The next thing I knew Trujillo had squeezed off a round.

  When I looked up, Gordon Chen stood between the little cop and his father, his hands held high over his head, his mouth forming a silent scream as the red flower bloomed in his chest.

  "God," Trujillo said in a rough voice.

  Gordon went down in sections, first to one knee, then both, and finally flopping over on his side. Before either Trujillo or I could move Jimmy Chen stepped from the scaffolding over onto the uppermost rim of the stadium, pulled the oversized stocking cap from his head and then, without the slightest hesitation, stepped off into oblivion.

  Chapter 27

  Even Frank Wessels looked sad with tubes coming out of his nose. Trujillo sat by the bedside, with his right arm in a sling. He looked up when he heard my feet on the floor.

  "How's Wessels?" I asked.

  "They say he's gonna make it"

  "Good."

  "Thanks to you."

  "Just don't tell anybody I put my mouth on his, okay?" Trujillo grinned. "They say he might have brain damage."

  "How will we tell?"

  He began to laugh, then frowned and cradled his damaged arm.

  "How's the arm?"

  "Broke my shoulder. Got a couple of months at a desk."

  "Give you a chance to catch up on your paperwork," I said.

  He winced as he got up out of the chair and followed me out into the hall. "The Price family's all over the brass," he said. "Want to know what in hell is going on."

  I made eye contact. "Curiouser and curiouser," I said.

  "The computer ID'd the stiff in about five minutes. Guy named Jimmy Chen. Got him six feet of priors and a psychological profile that would make Ted Bundy nervous. Spent the last fourteen years in a Florida psycho ward. They just let him out a month and a half ago." He kept checking me for reactions. "Now here's the interesting part, Waterman. This Jimmy Chen used to be married to a well-known local lady named Judy Chen." He hesitated and then asked, "Name mean anything to you?"

  I looked at the ceiling. Nice tiles.

  "There's a lot of Chens," I offered.

  Trujillo leaned against the wall with his good arm. "Now this Judy Chen is sitting down on a bench on the seventh floor, where they've got her son Gordon Chen on life support because he purposely stepped out in front of a bullet of mine intended for this Jimmy Chen."

  He inclined his head. "You do remember our young friend ... the excitable Mr. Chen, don't you?"

  I allowed how I might recall.

  He gave me a one-handed shrug. "You want to help me out here?"

  "No," I said. "I don't."

  He licked his lips and then looked down at his tasseled shoes.

  "I never shot anybody before, Waterman. Twelve years and I never had it out of the holster. I never wanted to shoot anybody. I just wanted to do some good. Shooting people wasn't what I had in mind. Especially not somebody who stepped into a bullet on purpose. Gimme some help here, will ya?"

  "Wish I could help," I said honestly.

  "There's still the matter of interfering with a police investigation."

  "Was saving your partner's ass part of the interference?"

  He looked over at Wessels.

  "Depends on how you look at it."

  "You've got your murderer, Trujillo. Let it go. There's nobody else left to protect and serve. Anything you do from here will just be jerking off in public."

  We had one of those Maalox eye-contact moments before he sucked it up and played his hole card, as I knew he would.

  "Well then." He stroked his chin. "Then . . . what with the murder weapon belonging to your father's driver, and Peerless Price's body being dug up in your backyard, I don't see as how we've got much choice but to publicly conclude that your father was somehow or other involved in the murder of Peerless Price."

  I was ready. "No matter what I say, you guys are going to cover your own asses," I said. My turn to shrug. "You know it, and I know it. Why bother with the bullshit?"

  He opened his eyes wide in mock astonishment. "What?" he said. "All of a sudden, after a whole week of making a major pain in the ass of yourself all over town, all of a sudden you don't give a shit?" He snapped his fingers. "Just like that."

  "Just like that," I repeated.

  He eyed me closely and then ran his hand through his thick hair.

  "I don't get it."

  I wasn't sure I understood it, either. It wasn't like I'd made a decision or anything. I'd been standing at the rim of the stadium. In front of me, the day's last red rays tinted the once white shirts of the crew working on Gordon Chen. Over my right shoulder, ten stories down in the construction site, ants in yellow windbreakers struggled to lift Jimmy C
hen's broken body from the pin-cushion of black rebar onto which it had fallen.

  As I'd stood there, it had felt as if a thin sheet of metal had slid from my body, moving slowly down from my chest to my legs and finally slipping out onto the ground, where it lay beneath my feet like a long silver shadow. In that instant, I knew what I'd always known. That there wasn't anything I could do about my father. Or my mother, or Peerless Price, or Ralph, or any other long-buried remnant of my upbringing. I'd imagined myself a knight on a noble quest; turned out I was more like a scavenger nosing about a carcass. Guys who can't account for their own motives probably better not be inventing motives for anybody else. Especially not the dead.

  I guess that's why I felt so bad about all the moralizing I'd been doing with Ralph. Turned out, we weren't all that different. We'd both been carrying that mouse for most of our lives. Different pockets maybe, but the same damn mouse. Go figure.

  I met Trujillo's gaze. "You do whatever you have to do," I said.

  He wasn't ready to give it up. He hugged his bad arm with his good and leaned back against the wall.

  "Gonna be a public relations nightmare," he prodded.

  He winced when I put my hand on his shoulder.

  "It's old news, is what it is," I said. "Time to get over it."

  JUDY CHEN SAT on the padded bench staring down into her lap. I got down on one knee in front of her. Tonight, she looked her age. Dark circles surrounded her eyes. The lines at the comers of her mouth were so deep she could have been made of wood. "How's Gordon?"

  "He's going to live. That's all they'll say." I reckoned how it could be worse, and she agreed. "The cops have ID'd Jimmy," I said. She moved her head slightly. "I know." "All you've got to do is handle your end. There's nothing coming from anywhere else."

  She looked at me for the first time. "'Thank you," she said.

  I told her she was welcome and then held up a finger.

  "One thing, though."

  "What?"

  "Just between you and me and the lamppost, Judy. I don't for one minute think you made Peerless Price lay down on the floor so's you could shoot him in the back of the head, Mafia style." I shook my head. "No way," I said. "You didn't shoot Peerless Price."