Chapter 10
I waited until I saw the back end of the Audi round the corner before I sprinted across the street and threw myself into Molly. I started her up and accelerated as fast as I could without laying rubber, all four tires pumping power into the pavement, hurling the lightweight car forward like an eager racehorse. Rounding the block, I spotted the Quattro’s distinctive tail pattern as it turned onto another residential street.
Turning one block early, I scrabbled to pull my racing harness on and snap the buckles while steering with my knees, a technique I’d learned, believe it or not, from a traveling pastor in my younger days. Once I was wedged in tight I goosed the throttle, and then slowed to take the next curve.
The Audi crossed in front me as I slowed and pulled over to the curb. I made sure to aim the dash-cam at it as it went by. Maybe Mickey could use electronic trickery to pull the number off the mud-smeared plate.
As my target rolled out of sight I picked up speed again to keep him in view. Whoever this guy was, I could hope he would lead me to something, anything, even if not Talia herself.
Or maybe I’d follow him right to her. Stranger things had happened. As every poker player knows, sometimes you have to get lucky, and winning was about putting yourself in a position to get lucky.
That’s what I was doing.
I followed the Audi out of the neighborhood and onto Andersen Drive, running southwestward through light industrial buildings and behind shopping centers. I thought for a moment he would head south toward the Golden Gate and the City, but instead he cut over to cross the long bridge to Richmond, a dense semi-suburban city jammed between the water on the north, west and south sides and the hills overlooking the San Pablo Reservoir to the east.
By trailing him at the limits of my vision I hoped not to spook him. He accelerated to over seventy on the bridge, but that wasn’t unusual. In fact, doing so was a routine precaution against surveillance, upping the stakes and forcing any watchers to work harder.
A one-car tail was hard to maintain. Law enforcement pros used at least three ground vehicles, one trying to stay in front and two rotating from the rear in order to minimize the footprint. A helicopter with a long-range stabilized camera, such as those used by TV news, was even better. Best of all was to plant a tracking device on the car itself, especially one of the new GPS-enabled ones, and stay out of sight entirely. But I didn’t have a tracker. I’d have to get Mickey to make me up one, though there was still the problem of planting it.
My quarry took the second exit into town, dumping onto Cutter and then turning north onto Harbour past the MLK memorial park into the midst of a bustling, mostly nonwhite neighborhood. Not a dangerous one by any means, just hardworking lower-middle-class folks relaxing after work.
Kids played on the sidewalks under the watchful eyes of mothers, squads of teenage boys sauntered here and there, tossing basketballs to each other and launching lustful looks at groups of girls in too-tight clothing, who sent the sizzle right back. I could almost smell the hormones wafting here and there on the late afternoon breeze.
I had to pull in closer, dodging bicycles and jaywalkers, but it appeared the Audi’s driver had slowed his frenetic pace as well. I got the impression he was searching for something. Eventually he reached Barrett and turned west toward the railroad cargo terminal, a major reason for Richmond’s existence.
Such operations needed large swaths of commercial buildings – warehouses, transloading facilities, unpretentious offices. Good places to hide out, I thought.
Through these demesnes I followed the Audi, turning onto Richmond Parkway, the artery carrying scores of big trucks to and from their appointments with the business of shipping. The driver meandered northward past the Richmond Country Club and its associated golf course.
Eventually the neighborhoods changed, becoming more white-collar and, frankly, white. The Audi turned onto Hilltop and headed for the eponymous Hilltop Mall, a suburban megachurch dedicated to the worship of consumerism, built in the mid-seventies on a former Chevron petroleum handling facility. I wondered if all the ladies getting their makeovers at Macy’s or Emporium knew about the spills beneath their feet, or cared.
On the other hand, these were people who applied toxic chemicals directly to their faces in order to conform to society’s standards of beauty.
Then again, I had to admit I used makeup too. My feeling consisted of sour grapes, I supposed, or perhaps envy aimed at those with nothing to hide more distracting than a pimple or two.
My mental diatribe on the ills of suburbia ended when the driver spotted me – or I assumed he did. Perhaps he just decided to test out the capabilities of his vehicle in the enormous oval mall parking lot. Most of the cars clustered inward toward the central complex, leaving the edges largely free of obstruction.
The Audi wove between concrete planters, orphaned vehicles and lightposts, probably hitting sixty. I cruised on the ring road trying to keep him in sight. After a minute of this, he slalomed around a speed bump and shot across the street a hundred yards in front of me, ignoring all traffic signs. Behind him I could see a mall guard with flashing yellow lights, vainly trying to keep up.
I laughed. The most that guy could do was chase him away and call the incident in. I wondered what caused the Audi driver to play that way, calling attention to himself. I sped up to follow. When I turned off the ring road I found myself back on Hilltop heading the other way. My quarry had made a circuit and reversed course.
I punched Molly to catch up, blazing past Mercedes, BMWs and Escalades, but found I wasn’t overtaking him fast at all. Why became clear when we crossed San Pablo. I was pushing up on ninety, my foot glued to the floor and more than three hundred horses roaring behind my dashboard when I ran the red light just as the yellow faded.
He must have spotted me after all. If I hadn’t matched his acceleration he would have trapped me behind four lanes of traffic heavy with semis from the port. As it was, I hung onto him like a starving blue tick, all thought of stealth blown away like thistledown in a hurricane. The speed and risk vaulted me into the zone of concentration so welcome and familiar, the place I loved and lived whenever I could.
Now it’s on, you son of a bitch, I thought. You ever see one of those animal shows where the cheetah goes after the gazelle, following every twist and leap with utter concentration? That was me, my eyes fixed on the German sport sedan and my mind running every possible scenario at lightning speed.
I had to catch this guy. I had to beat Talia’s location out of him. That was all there was to it. Him or me is what it came down to. If I could make it happen, I’d run him down, drive him into a wall or a ditch, push him until he made a mistake. My rally skills should keep me close and my cop training should let me take his wheels out from under him.
The standard maneuver for this is called a PIT, for Pursuit Intervention Technique. In simplest terms it meant knocking the rear of a fleeing vehicle sideways, causing it to slide to an abrupt stop in a somewhat controlled manner if everything worked as planned. Then, several pursuing squad cars would surround the perp and block him in.
Of course, it could also cause the Audi to roll. That was okay by me, because I didn’t have the luxury of blocking vehicles. My best result would be him crashing, and then me with a boot on his broken wrist for five minutes of intensive interrogation before an ambulance showed up and I had to bug out.
Nothing ever goes as planned, though. This mother was good. Really good. There were a dozen ways to avoid giving me a chance to PIT him and he used them all. Twice we were kissing bumpers down short straightaways, NASCAR style, but I couldn’t get a line to put Molly’s corner against his rear quarter to do it. Like a track racer, he kept me from passing.
Though the Audi undoubtedly had more top end and its V8 pumped out more horsepower, it was heavier than Molly and not as nimble, so on these city streets he shouldn’t get away. Still, I had to watch both him and the situation in front of us, while he only had to a
void crashing and look for a place to lose me.
That came when he got onto the freeway northeast toward Sacramento. Within ten seconds we were up over one hundred again, swerving among cars and laying on our horns. Over the next several minutes he pulled away by skillfully using his greater stability and better top-speed gearing, leaving me slamming my palm on Molly’s steering wheel and spitting epithets.
Within a minute, I’d lost him.
I caught sight of rollers – squad car lights – as they came on well behind me. We must have either passed a speed trap or an officer had spotted our race while he traveled in the opposite direction. I maintained my highly illegal velocity until I dove off the next off-ramp somewhere in Fairfield, following the surface streets away from the freeway before turning south. Meandering back the way I came on the country roads between towns, I eventually cruised back to the City, still spitting with frustration.
It was one thing to screw up, but I hadn’t. Had his car been less of a monster and his skills been poorer I’d have taken him down, but that Audi came out of the factory costing a hundred thousand dollars, and money bought capability worth every penny.
It’s a screwed-up world when the scumbags have all the best toys, I thought. Then again, I had dash-cam recordings of the Audi. Maybe Mickey could work his magic.
With no other leads I headed to my office. On the way I dialed Cole Sage, but got nothing again. What kind of investigative reporter didn’t even answer his private line?
I called the Chronicle main number and eventually, after being handed off several times, played the sister solidarity card to get the prim voice on the other end to admit Cole was on assignment out of state. That was all I could drag out of the woman, so I left another message to call me before giving up.
I was on my own, again. Naturally.
Mom says I’m a loner, and maybe she had a point. I could have kept the M&Ms around as my posse. Maybe I should have. Maybe I’d regret it later.
What can I say? I am a rock. I am an island.
Loose Ends - California Corwin P.I. Mystery Series Book 1 Page 11
