“Wait a second, Smitty,” someone said. “Aren’t those arc lights? Don’t they need like five or ten minutes to warm up? No way can you turn them on suddenly like you think you can.”
“Shit,” Smitty said through clenched teeth. “Shit, shit, shit. Now what do we do?”
“They ain’t arc searchlights. They’re surplus Navy signaling lights,” came from Lew, a Navy veteran. “I was the one who went to the army surplus store and got them.”
“So?”
“They’ve got blinkers on ’em. They’re designed to be left on, but no light gets out until the blinkers are opened. They’re used for Morse code signaling.”
“You’re sure? Check ‘em out quick! If we can’t surprise them, we’re screwed! They’re on the way here and I sure as hell ain’t got no back up plan.”
CHAPTER 40
In just a moment or two Lew had run outside, met the truck and confirmed that they were indeed surplus Navy signal lights. We were back in business.
“Okay, you seem to know about them, so go out and get the lights set up on the streets the way I said. They need to be pointed exactly down the middle of each street so when we open the shutters the whole street will be lit up. Got it?” Lew jumped to do Smitty’s bidding.
“Okay, we’re running out of time,” Smitty said to the rest. “You guys divided up into three groups like I said?” They said they were.
“Okay, here’s what you have to do. Each group go down a different street for three or four blocks and get out of sight. Take your shotguns along. Watch for one of the cars coming onto your street. This time of the morning there ain’t gonna be much traffic. You should be able to spot them easy. When they park and get out, follow them quietly – make sure they don’t know you’re behind them. Carry your shotguns at the ready.”
“We just walk behind them?”
“Yep. Here’s what will happen, I hope. When they’re close, all of a sudden the search lights’ll flash on in their faces and they’ll be temporarily blinded. They’ll also realize they’ve walked into a trap. They’ll turn to get back to their cars only to see a half dozen guys with shotguns waiting for them. With any brains at all, they’ll give up without a shot.”
“How soon?”
“I don’t know when they’re coming – we just know they are. So I want you guys to get going now and get into position. Make sure they don’t see you when they drive up, and don’t let any of the neighbors see you. Everyone jumped to their feet and headed for the door.
“Josie, I’ve got a job for you,” Smitty told his daughter. “How well do you know the neighbors?”
“Actually pretty well, Dad. I’ve been gardening and stuff up here enough that I’ve met pretty much all of them.”
“Well enough to call them at one-thirty in the morning?”
“If it’s important, sure.”
“Here’s what I want you to do. Try to reach each of them. Tell them that you just found out that a movie studio will be shooting a movie scene on our street sometime in the next hour or so. Tell them that at first the studio was planning to shoot it without telling anyone because it would be dark anyway and they wanted the streets to be empty, but then they changed their minds. They need to use searchlights in one portion and they’re afraid that everyone will wake up and come outside, or worse yet, call the cops. That’s why they called you.”
“Okay.”
“Tell them the director said they’re welcome to watch from their windows, but please don’t come outside ’cuz it’d ruin the shoot. Tell them it’ll only take maybe thirty minutes or less. Can you do that?”
“I can call them – but I can’t guarantee they’ll buy it.”
“Try! I’m going out to make sure the searchlights are set up right.”
I sat by Josie as she called the neighbors. Surprisingly, it went easier than she’d hoped or expected. The first lady she reached happened to be a big movie buff and was enthused about the idea from the get-go. Unfortunately, she was full of questions.
“What’s the movie? Who’s in it? When can we see it? Do they need any extras?” And on and on. On the other hand, she volunteered to call some of the other neighbors for Josie, which more than made up for the aggravation.
Josie re-emphasized how important it was that no one should be outside during the shoot, but they could feel free to watch from their windows. The use of the word “shoot” made me nervous, given what I was expecting, but I crossed my fingers and didn’t comment.
Between Josie and her neighbor, they reached all but two houses where the owners apparently were away. She reported to her dad. “Great!” Smitty said, “We’re gonna cream them – I hope!”
There wasn’t anything for me to do except to watch in amazement. Amazed that anyone thought this crazy idea would work. Smitty was going to start world war three right here in the Oakland hills. Everybody but me was gung-ho for the idea, even Josie was pitching in enthusiastically. It was going to be a complete disaster and I’d end up dead or in jail.
CHAPTER 41
The guys were hidden in the street, the searchlights with their crews were at the ready, the neighbors had all been warned. Each searchlight crew had a cell phone, ready to relay Smitty’s command to turn the lights on. They’d set the cell phones on shaker mode so they wouldn’t ring. One shake and the lights went on. All we needed now were the bad guys. Smitty was like a football coach at half time, getting everybody revved up and anxious to get on with it.
While Smitty was outside, Smitty’s cell phone rang and I answered it. It was one of the Richmond bike guys, calling to tell Smitty that three cars had turned off onto one of the streets coming up here. He said they were driving real slow like they didn’t want to attract any attention. He estimated they were about fifteen minutes away.
I’d tried to tell Smitty that his plan had no chance, but he wouldn’t listen. Told me to shut up and help. I’d volunteered to stay inside and answer the phone. Now I ran out to tell Smitty how close they were. He alerted his crews, then told me to get back inside and turn off all the house lights. As he was walking back into the house he grabbed his cell phone and set it on shaker mode. Then called the guys at the lights and told them, “they’re coming, the next call will be to turn on the lights.”
Once inside, he took Josie and me aside and ran through the drill. His comments were for both of us, but his eyes stayed only on Josie. “Okay, you two,” he said. “I want you to do just what you told the neighbors to do – stay inside and watch from the windows. No argument! You know where the guns are. Get ’em and have ’em ready, just in case. My bet is that Carpenter’s trying to do to us what we tried to do to him. He wants to take away our base. I don’t think any guns‘ll be used by either side, but be careful!”
Josie whispered a question to me. “So – what do you think of Dad’s plan? Really.”
“It’s nuts!”
“Why?”
“There’re so many variables – and so many guns. So much left up to chance. What if they don’t use the streets? What if the lights don’t work? What if they charge instead of turning and running?
“What can we do?”
“Wait and hope!”
Five minutes went by. Seven minutes. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes and still nothing.
Suddenly bright lights. All three of the searchlights came on, almost simultaneously. Just as Smitty had said, they were really powerful, lighting up the whole street for several blocks.
Like the proverbial deer in a headlight, on the street nearest to us stood six men, stopped in their tracks with genuinely startled expressions on their faces.
It seemed like a minute they stood there, though it was probably only a few seconds before they turned and bolted down the street. They only took a few steps before they stopped. Below them, equally well lit up, were our guys, strung out in a line, completely blocking the street. Holding their sawed off shot guns at the ready.
The intruders were in complete disarray. Slowly they s
tarted raising their arms in surrender. It was all over, at least on our street. We couldn’t see what was happening on the other streets, but suddenly we heard a popping sound and one of the lights went out.
Less than two minutes later one of the searchlight crew came in and told us everything was okay.
“What happened to the searchlight?”
“One of their guys snapped off a quick shot and got the searchlight before he realized they were surrounded. We’ve got them all rounded up and we’re disarming and tying them up right now.”
“How many were there?”
“Eighteen or twenty.”
Smitty came in. “Quick,” he called, “we gotta get all the equipment off the streets and our prisoners hidden before the neighbors get too inquisitive!”
The gang rushed out, herded the prisoners inside and, with Smitty in the lead, went back out to drag the searchlights into the garage. As they were bringing the last one in, we heard an odd sound from outside. Smitty went back out to see what is was, turned around and called back to us,
“Well, I’ll be damned. The neighbors are applauding!”
With that he walked to middle of the intersection, took a huge bow and then another. What a ham! Walking back into the garage with a huge smile on his face, he waved to the rest of the houses, then came in.
Inside, he was met with more applause. He’d just pulled off a major confrontation with a military precision that was remarkable. The whole idea was his, from beginning to end. He conceived it, marshaled his troops and executed the plan to perfection. I wondered what he might have accomplished in some other life.
On the other hand, what the hell was he going to do with eighteen or twenty prisoners? That’s what I asked Smitty,
He was still on an emotional high. Still having fun, enjoying the moment.
“How the fuck do I know?” He gave a little laugh. “Well, we could shoot ’em. Course we’d have to get rid of the bodies somehow and I suppose Josie’d object to that. Hell, I don’t know. Give me a minute. I’ll figure out something!”
CHAPTER 42
Originally the El Cerrito cop had said it looked like some of the goons were wearing uniforms. It turned out they were just khaki pants and shirts. Several had guns in their pockets or stuck in their pants.
They looked like ordinary guys, someone you might bump into on any street corner. I’d been expecting Carpenter’s goons to look like – well, goons. These guys were pretty young. Some looked like they might still be in college. Our guys relieved them of their guns and patted them down just to make sure.
I wondered what kind of a bill of goods Carpenter’d sold them.
Sitting on the cement floor of the garage, tied up, they didn’t look remotely threatening. If anything, they looked like they were in shock. This obviously wasn’t what they’d signed up for.
“Let’s empty all their pockets and see what we’ve got,” Smitty said.
I asked one of our guys if he knew which one of them had shot the light. The kid he pointed at looked to be about sixteen. He looked frightened. In fact, as I looked carefully at their faces, they all looked young and scared.
The guys set to work, finding wallets, keys, candy, gum, smokes and various sorts of identification.
“Double check any photo IDs against the guy whose pockets they came out of,” Smitty reminded our guys. “Make sure you get the right ID with the right guy. Later on, we’ll get all this organized and over to the chief. He’s sending fingerprint kits over to see if there’s warrants or anything on any of ‘them.”
I asked Smitty if he’d arranged all that earlier. He hadn’t.
“Nope, I just now called him. I didn’t tell him anything about how we caught them. Just told him they’d walked into our trap and we caught ‘em real easy. If any of these guys have outstanding tickets, or warrants, or are on probation, he can hold them. If he can’t, I don’t know what the hell we’ll do with them.”
He pointed to three of our guys, who dropped what they were doing and came over to see what he wanted.
“We need to get rid of these guys and their cars. Find the cars and bring them up here. We’ll move the guys down to Richmond in their own cars.
“Josie, you go down in the morning and take Case with you. You’ll have to figure a way to feed these idiots too, can’t let them starve to death on us.”
By that time it was after four in the morning. It took a little time to shoehorn our prisoners into the three cars and send them on their way to Richmond. Then everyone hit the sack.
CHAPTER 43
Next morning, as we were backing Josie’s cycle out of the garage, a couple of the neighbors wanted to know if we knew how the shoot went last night. Josie told them that as far as she knew it went fine. In fact they’d left some of their equipment in our garage. They asked her who it was that came out and took a bow at the end. She laughed and said, “Oh that was just my dad, acting silly.”
We’d come down to the body shop on Josie’s cycle, but needed a car to get the groceries. There were several sitting around they said we could use. I looked at the registration to be safe. The way they had used the garbage company truck stuck in my memory – I didn’t want to be arrested driving a stolen car. The one we got was registered to their company.
Josie said we needed to go to a big store. She had a list of personal things they needed. Advil, aspirin, Pepto Bismal, Tums. One guy wanted something called Smooth Move, which to my embarrassment Josie had to explain was sort of a laxative. I’d kind of forgotten the average age of these guys.
Josie drove the car the same way she rode a motorcycle, with a kind of careful abandon. Fast, but smart. The word nimble came to my mind. It had been a little scary on the bike with her, but it wasn’t scary in a car. It also wasn’t as satisfying either. I couldn’t snuggle up to her backside in the car. I decided to bring it up.
“You know, I have to say I enjoyed the motorcycle ride yesterday much more than I’m enjoying this.”
She looked at me questioningly. “Why?”
“The seating arrangement.”
“Thatwas fun, wasn’t it?” she said noncommittally. “When this is over, we’ll have to do it again. Maybe you can really learn to ride and we can go places together.” Not as appealing, in all honesty, but I decided to let it go.
“Will you be my teacher?”
“With pleasure, sir.”
Progress!
Josie, I noticed, was glancing repeatedly in the rear view mirror. “Something wrong?”
“Don’t turn around,” she cautioned me. “I think we’re being followed. When I tell you, adjust the side view mirror and see if you can spot them. I’ll tell you when we’re making a left turn and your side of the car can’t be seen. Wait, wait, wait – now!”
I quickly rolled the window down and adjusted the mirror so I could see the cars behind us from my side. “The second car back, a blue sedan. Can you spot it?”’
“Got it.”
“It’s been there almost since we left the garage. Turn for turn, but always a couple of cars behind.”
“I’ve got the car but I can’t make out the driver,” I said. “I think there are two people in it, but I’m not sure.”
Josie said she was going to make a number of turns and that I should pretend we were looking for an address. She wanted to see if they really were following us.
A couple of corners later it was very obvious that they were.
“Call Dad,” Josie told me. “Tell him what’s happening and where we are. Tell him I’m heading for the big Safeway in Richmond. He’ll know which one it is. Hopefully there’ll be a big crowd there and we’ll be okay.”
Smitty answered on the first ring. He told us to keep on doing what we were doing.
“I got two guys on bikes on their way”
“I’ll park as near the entrance to the store as I can,” Josie told him as the Safeway appeared around the next corner.
We both wanted to believe our follower
didn’t know we’d spotted him. He didn’t drop back or anything, like he would have if he thought we were on to him.
When we pulled into the parking lot it was really full. No parking places anywhere near the doors. Even the disabled parking places were full which meant that we had to park near the edge of the lot. Plenty of cars around but very few people.
I could see the other car in our mirror, parked one row over and a couple of cars behind us. Just as I started to tell Josie that as long as they stayed in the car we’d be okay, both her door and mine were thrown open and we were confronted by two men, both holding guns.
Then the guys from the other car came strolling over, at which point they proceeded to congratulate each other on their double tailing plan. They’d let us see and concentrate on one car while the other one followed further behind and surprised us. Have to admit, it worked
In a few moments they had our hands tied and we’d been thrown into the back of the second car. They didn’t blindfold us, just tied our hands. The passenger turned so he was facing us, holding his gun loosely in one hand. With his other hand, he called someone and reported, “We got ’em. On our way.”
CHAPTER 44
Josie had no idea where we were going but I knew almost immediately. We were on the streets that led to Carpenter’s house. I couldn’t tell Josie. The guy with the gun had said, “No talking.” I wasn’t about to debate the matter.
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