“Charlene!” the man admonished. “Don’t lie.”
“If we gave our word …”
“He wouldn’t believe us.”
“I can’t afford to,” Troy said. “But I’m not going to hurt you if you don’t try anything. If you do, well …”
“What do you want us to do?” the man asked.
“Right now I want you to turn on the news.”
“You got it.”
Because the sun was nearing the eastern horizon, the all-news stations from L.A. and San Francisco were thick with static, but neither had anything about the suspected killer on the loose in central California. At least his mug shot wasn’t flashing on TV screens. He was tired, too, and had several spots with throbbing pain. They beat counterpoint to each other.
Troy snapped awake. He had started to doze. He moved over to the corner on the right and pressed the button to lower the window. The chill air was sucked in against his cheeks. That would keep him alert. Something was under his butt. He raised up and reached.
A zipper attaché case. Papers and a Bible, its soft leather binding worn and frayed. Pages were loose. It was a Bible often studied.
Troy could see the back of the woman’s head and a partial profile of the man, who seemed about sixty. It was hard to be sure. “Look here,” he said. “I’m sorry about this … and I don’t want to hurt you … but I’m desperate … and I’ll kill you if you try anything. Got it?”
“We won’t try anything,” the man said.
“Just let us go—” She was trembling visibly.
“Charlene!” The man cut her off. “He won’t do that … so don’t demean yourself.”
After a long pause, Troy leaned forward. “I can’t … I can’t take the risk, y’know what I mean?”
The man nodded.
“I am really sorry.” He had started to say “fuckin’ sorry,” but the Bible and the rectitude made him drop the vulgar. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Charles Wilson … and this is my wife Charlene.”
“The Reverend Charles Wilson,” Charlene added.
Troy smiled. Despite everything, Charlene was making sure that her man got his due recognition. How long before they were missed? He saw no luggage. That meant they weren’t planning to be anywhere overnight. “Where you going?” he asked.
“We’re coming back,” Charlene said. “We’ve been visiting in Berkeley. We saw our son’s baby girl for the first time.”
“Anybody expecting you?”
“No … but—” she stopped, as if remembering.
“But what?”
“Never mind. I … I forgot.”
“What’s she talking about?” Troy asked the reverend.
“We’re supposed to call our son when we get home.”
“We’ll call him. Tell him you decided to take an extra day.”
“Another thing,” the reverend said. “My wife’s a diabetic. She needs to eat something real soon.”
“Get off on the first ramp that has services.”
Daybreak simply turned the black sky to pewter, and vague shapes acquired substance. At the first ramp the Cadillac turned off—a truck stop, several gas stations, one with a small motel and a McDonald’s that competed with a small coffee shop. The gas station restrooms were off to themselves, and the parking lot was empty except near the coffee shop.
Troy and the minister went into the men’s room with the reverend’s suit bag. Troy kept the door ajar so he could watch the car while he changed. The pants were a little big in the waist and a couple of inches short to the cuff. If he let them hang loose on his hips, they were long enough to avoid absurdity. An overshirt also worked. The sleeve was big enough for the cast to go through. He left the cuff unbuttoned and rolled it up. He left the shirttail out to hide the pistol in his waistband.
At the McDonald’s he repeated the m.o. He left Charlene in the car, which he could watch through the window, and took the reverend inside. He waited while the minister called his son and lied: “Mom’s feeling a little tired, so we’re going to stop a night in San Luis Obispo … Yes, sure … We’ll call tomorrow.”
Phone call over, they stood in the line to place an order. In the line beside them, a pair of truck drivers were talking and Troy heard “road block … San Luis …” It wasn’t where he had been, so it had to be ahead. If he had doubts about what he’d heard, they were dispelled by the expression on the reverend’s face. He, too, had heard the conversation.
Back in the old Cadillac, while Charlene drank orange juice and ate an Egg McMuffin, Troy looked at an Auto Club map from the glove compartment. California had mountain ranges running north and south, and major highways paralleled the mountain ranges. Smaller two-lane highways went east/west through the mountains. He would head east almost to the Nevada border and take the farthest north/south highway toward L.A. The odds were greater against them blocking that highway—and if they wanted him that bad, fuck it, they deserved him.
Troy had the reverend turn around and head north for twenty miles to a state road through the mountains. It was narrow, its curves tight, and in places the recent storms had washed rocks down the cliffs. It was slow going, but it was also safe. In an hour the only vehicle they saw was a pickup truck pulling a horse trailer. Going the same direction, it was even slower than the Cadillac. They had to follow the horse’s ass for nearly an hour before they could pull around and away. Then the gray sky slowly opened and the rains came down. Radio reception was poor down between the mountains, but by afternoon they were out of the first range of mountains in the long Salinas Valley. By then the manhunt was not only mentioned on the all-news stations, but was on the five-minute hourly news carried on nearly every station. The first time it came on, the Reverend Wilson and his wife immediately exchanged a glance that Troy saw from the backseat. “Turn that up,” he said. “… addition to the charges pending from the parking lot shootout, the fugitive is wanted by Corrections as a parole violator. He has a history of extreme violence and is known to be armed. Events leading up to the present manhunt began last Tuesday in the Safeway parking lot …”
Troy listened with an eerie detachment, as if the grim tale being recited was about someone else. Damn, he told himself, they sure do overrate a sucker. It was gallows humor. He knew the power of the state was focused against him. His mug photo was being printed for thousands of police car dashboards—and probably flashed on countless television screens across California. He’d known men who’d had this kind of heat—everybody looking for them. None had gotten away for long. Files and computers combined to mark everyone in the industrialized world, and most of the Third World, too. Gone were the days when a fugitive could disappear forever into South America or the Far East.
In bits and pieces. Troy got to know Charles and Charlene Wilson. They had been married for thirty-four years and were still in love. Each was more concerned about the other than themself. And after their initial terror diminished, they were concerned about him, too. Troy despised most of America as hypocrites, professing a code of virtue while living by one of expediency. The herd went along with the herd, and what might have been wrong when done by an individual was acceptable, even moral, when done by all. Charlie (as she called him) and Charlene followed their own consciences and what they thought Jesus would want. “We judge not,” she said. “That is for God. We try our best to walk in Jesus’ footsteps.”
“And we fall short much of the time,” the Reverend added. It was mild rebuke for her sin of vanity. She nodded; she understood. Their words and demeanor toward each other—and toward him once their fear subsided sufficiently—made Troy feel scorn for their ignorance, and painful guilt for their simple goodness. No hypocrites here. Such innocents as these were a large part of his decision to prey on drug dealers. Remorse mixed with anger (what else could he do, give up?) and made his stomach burn.
Without warning, on a tight curve, the car started to skid. The reverend hit the brakes. The back end broke loose and cam
e around so they were hydroplaning sideways, a hill on one side and a precipice on the other.
The car went into the hillside instead of over the cliff.
“I can’t … drive anymore,” the reverend said. “I just can’t.” He held up his hands. They were shaking.
“I’ll drive,” Troy said. “You two ride in the backseat together. You won’t try anything, will you?”
They shook their heads. Still, he put the pistol between his legs on the driver’s seat.
The road map showed another pass through the mountains east of the Salinas Valley. Near the summit the rain turned to snow, slowing them more. It took the rest of the day to zigzag through the mountains. By nightfall they were near Tehachapi and the rain had been replaced by a thick fog that filled the canyons between the peaks. Troy had no idea what was beyond the headlight beams that bounced back from the wall of fog. He now felt hopeful of reaching his sanctuary of Los Angeles.
Ahead in the fog he saw a pulsing red light. It hung high over the middle of an intersection and flashed red in every direction. He braked, then wondered if he should continue straight ahead or turn. Still undecided, as he rolled into the middle of the intersection, he hit the brakes and peered out for a road sign.
He decided to turn. As he let the steering wheel come straight, the car was filled with flashing blue light. A police car had come up behind them. He had been looking ahead and was unaware of its presence until the flasher went on, sending fear and despair through him.
Should he punch the gas and run?
No. He had no idea where he was or where he would be going.
“Pull over!” a policeman bellowed through the amplified bullhorn.
The light came from directly behind, so bright that he could see nothing else. Had they come forward immediately, they could have taken him without a struggle. He was too drained; he had to put his mind in a state to shoot it out. It wasn’t an attitude one could maintain constantly.
Seconds ticked away. He squinted and looked at the glaring lights in the mirror. They were radioing in the license number.
“Stay where you are,” he told the hostages; then reached between his legs for the .38 and opened the door handle with his elbow. They had waited too long. He was ready in his head. He slid out, holding the pistol next to his thigh.
“What’s wrong, officer?” he asked as he stood up. He could only see the headlights and grille. He raised his left hand to block the glare. His breathing was fast and shallow; he felt drained and enervated. Thank God he wasn’t shaking visibly.
“Don’t move, mister,” said the amplified voice. Now Troy saw the shape outside the open driver’s door.
Troy took a step forward. “We’re kinda lost,” he said.
“Freeze!” yelled a new voice. It was to his left. He looked and saw a second officer on an embankment across the road, a shotgun braced against his shoulder, aimed at Troy.
“What’s wrong with you? Don’t point that—”
“It’s him!” echoed the amplified voice.
Troy reflexively turned to look at the police car. That officer was pulling his pistol.
Troy raised his .38 and fired in one motion. It was a dozen years since he’d practiced, but it was twenty yards and he’d once been really good with small arms—plus the officer had neglected to put on his bulletproof vest. The lead slug hit him just below the collarbone and angled down through a lung and out his back. It made him drop his weapon and go down on his knees.
Troy turned and squeezed. He didn’t hear the shotgun, but he did hear what sounded like a handful of pebbles striking the car trunk. It tore into his cheek and shoulder and knocked him sideways but failed to knock him down. Not buckshot. That would have torn him apart. It was—bird shot.
He righted himself and fired three times to a pattern. His shots were drowned by a second blast from the shotgun. This time it hit him head-on, chest and stomach and neck. It knocked him down on his back. He was torn up by the bird shot, but none of the wounds was really serious. He was unaware of the fact, but his third bullet had nicked the officer’s chin, went through his throat and out the side. He fell backward over the embankment.
Troy’s brain spun. Through his daze, he heard a pistol firing. The shots were rapid and many. Troy opened his eyes. The officer beside the police car was sitting down; he had his thirteen-shot, nine-millimeter semi-automatic pistol in a two-hand rest. He was emptying it through the backseat of the Cadillac. The bullets tore through trunk and upholstery and buried themselves in the bodies of the Reverend Charles Wilson and his wife, Charlene.
Troy felt around and was unable to find his pistol. He crawled from the glare to shadows and fog. Near the edge of the road, he lost consciousness.
Now he felt it, he was moving; he was on a stretcher. He kept his eyes closed. If they discovered him awake, they might work him over or tighten the chains, as if they weren’t too tight already.
They stopped. He heard doors being opened; then he was sliding inside. From the babble, Troy heard an occasional word and fragments of sentences: “… no pulse … in the irrigation ditch and drowned …” “… two in the car look like Swiss cheese …” “Madigan’s gonna feel terrible when he finds out he killed two innocent citizens …” “He thought they were perps.” “Let’s roll.”
The doors slammed; the ambulance started to move. Then it stopped. Troy opened his eyes and looked. He could see the intersection full of police cars, their flashing lights eerie in the fog.
Footsteps approached. He could see a figure at the driver’s window. A new voice: “How’s this scumbag? Is he gonna die on us?”
“Naw. He’ll live to go to the gas chamber.”
Derisive laughter. “Fat chance of that. Okay … move it …”
The ambulance began to move. It gathered speed. Its siren began to wail. Troy closed his eyes and went out again. His dreams this time were terrible.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1997 by Edward Bunker
cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
This edition published in 2011 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media
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