Fringe The Zodiac Paradox

by Christa Faust

  She cut off when, as though he had heard her, Latimer turned his head and looked right at them. He did a double take and stomped on his brakes, nearly causing the cars behind him to rear-end him.

  “Damn,” Walter uttered.

  “No, no,” Nina said, knuckles white on the wheel. “We’re still good. He still can’t turn around. He still has to go all the way to Oakland.”

  Bell shook his head.

  “But he can call it in, can’t he?” he asked. “And I’d be willing to bet that’s exactly what he’s doing right now.”

  Walter craned his neck as the black unmarked cars started to disappear under the upper tier. Latimer was, indeed, on the mike. He was shouting, the cords of his neck standing out like cables, obviously putting out an all points bulletin, or whatever they called it.

  He was alerting the cops.

  All of a sudden the maze of San Francisco wasn’t just a puzzle of traffic snarls and one-way streets. It was a trap, poised to close on them.

  Nina swerved the Beetle into the left lane and started speeding up. Walter turned to her, but Bell beat him to it. He put a hand on her arm.

  “Steady,” he cautioned. “We still can’t give ourselves away.”

  She slowed again.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “The good thing is,” Walter said, “Latimer can’t possibly know where we’re going. He’ll tell them we’re headed west. Change directions and we’ll throw them off.”

  Nina whipped around a corner, still too fast, and started heading north. Walter slammed against the door, then pushed himself upright.

  “Nina...”

  “Sorry. Sorry.”

  The walkie-talkie crackled. Leslie’s sharp, whip-crack voice came through the static.

  “Everything okay?” she asked. “What the hell just happened?”

  Walter looked out the back window. He could see her at the wheel of the passenger van, holding the walkie-talkie and looking a bit surprised. The others were swinging into the street behind her, swaying a bit on their wheels.

  Nina grunted and picked up the walkie-talkie.

  “Everything’s fine,” she said. “Almost missed my turn, that’s all. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Not for them,” Bell muttered. “The police won’t have descriptions of them.”

  “Fine,” Leslie said over the crackly speaker. “But give us more warning next time.”

  Nina let out a breath, and put down the walkie.

  “With luck,” she said. “There won’t be a next time.”

  She took them up the side street to Market, then turned west again, which deposited them into the middle of mid-afternoon traffic. Bell scanned for police cars. Walter reflexively checked his watch.

  “Plenty of time,” he said, seemingly half to himself. “Plenty of time. We’ll get there. We’ll hide the car. Everything will be fine.”

  But as they passed Stockton Street, the walkie-talkie squawked again.

  “Nina? Bell? Come in?” Leslie said. “We have to find a bathroom. The dose isn’t agreeing with Payton’s digestion.”

  A crackle and a laugh interrupted Nina as she tried to respond, then a loud scraping noise and Gary’s voice, singing loud and off-key.

  “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz! Oh, what a relief it is!”

  More shuffling noise, then May’s calm voice replaced Gary’s.

  “Knock it off, Gary!” she said. “Sorry about that, Nina.”

  “No problem.” Nina clicked off, then keyed in again. “Okay, Leslie, find a bathroom. Just get to your location as quickly as you can.”

  “Roger,” Leslie said. “Over and out.”

  Behind them, Walter saw the white passenger van peel off and take a left at the next street.

  “We shouldn’t be splitting up,” Bell said. “It just multiplies what can go wrong.”

  “Like herding cats,” Nina said.

  Two blocks later, a red light stopped them. Walter looked out his side window and found himself staring at a cop in the next lane. The officer was an older man, with a thick salt-and-pepper mustache and aviator glasses, sitting in the passenger seat of a cruiser and talking with his partner, who was driving. Walter nearly jumped and drew back, but forced himself to move slowly, so as not to draw their eye.

  He leaned back in his seat, hiding his face.

  “Don’t look, but there are police next to us,” he said out of the side of his mouth.

  Nina and Bell looked anyway, then turned back.

  “Crap,” Nina said. “He’s looking.”

  “Green light,” said Bell.

  Nina nervously hit the gas too fast, and they surged forward. Then she eased off, and drove up the street with her hands white-knuckled on the wheel. Walter angled his head to look in the rear-view mirror. The cruiser was easing in behind them, putting itself between them and Kenneth’s Volkswagen bus, and the cop in the passenger seat was talking on the microphone.

  “That’s it,” Walter said. “We’re sunk.”

  “What should we do?” Nina asked. “Abort?”

  “Keep driving,” Bell said. “Nice and slow.”

  Another block of agonized crawling, with Walter’s fists clenched so hard his knuckles creaked, and finally the cop in the passenger seat nodded to the driver, and the driver flipped a switch. With a whoop that made all of Walter’s hair stand on end, the siren and lights came on, and the cop’s voice came through the cruiser’s megaphone.

  “Please pull to the side and turn off your engine.”

  “No way,” Nina said. “We’ll never talk our way out of this and even if we could, there’s no time!”

  “But...” Bell began.

  “Sorry, baby,” she said.

  Nina stomped on the gas just as the light ahead of them was turning red and roared across the intersection to a cacophony of blaring horns. The cruiser leapt after them, but had to swerve and brake in order to avoid crashing into the crossing cars.

  It was through in another second, but Nina had bought them a block and a half lead.

  Walter put a hand to his chest. He could feel his heart thumping through his shirt, like an angry prisoner protesting unfair treatment.

  Bell was clutching the door handle and the dash to stop himself from being thrown around.

  “You’re out of your mind,” he said. “You can’t outrun the cops. It never works in real life. Never! Especially not in a goddamn Volkswagen Beetle!”

  “Maybe not for long,” Nina said. Teeth clenched, she barreled through another red light and kept going. “But hopefully long enough. I have an idea.”

  “Oh, God,” Bell muttered.

  On the seat beside her, the walkie-talkie was a confused clutter of voices. Kenneth’s nasal whine won out in the end.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked. “What’s going on?”

  Nina snatched up the walkie-talkie, driving onehanded as she barked into it.

  “Kenneth!” she said. “May! Listen to me. Don’t do anything stupid. They don’t know any of you guys. Just keep driving up Market. Act normal. I’ll check back in with you all as soon as I can.”

  “Are you sure?” May asked.

  “No,” Nina replied. “But do it anyway, will you?”

  “Well, okay,” Kenneth said. “If you say so...”

  He didn’t sound so sure. This could all go to hell at any moment. There were too many factors, too many variables.

  Walter looked back. The police car was swerving through another intersection, and gaining.

  “What are you going to do? What’s this ‘plan’?” he asked.

  “Shut up,” Nina snapped. “I’m working on it...”

  Bell hissed as she narrowly missed a car in an oncoming lane. Nina cried out so suddenly that Walter flinched, afraid they were about to hit something, but she was pointing excitedly ahead. Walter looked forward, following her gesture.

  Down a long green mall that angled due west on the north side of the street, he could see the dome
d neoclassical massiveness of San Francisco’s city hall. And in front of it, what looked like a massive throng of people, all waving signs and banners.

  “Perfect!” she cried.

  She tore onto the next side street, Grove, which bordered city hall on the south, and roared toward the edge of the crowd that was spilling out of the plaza and into the street. Walter could make out some of the signs now. In fact, they were becoming clearer by the second.

  Transportation Workers on Strike!

  We Want a Living Wage!

  Bell’s feet stomped the floorboards as if he could work the brakes from the passenger seat.

  “What on earth are you doing!” he asked.

  “Losing our tail,” Nina said. “I hope.”

  41

  Walter looked behind them. He didn’t see how it was possible. The police car was fishtailing after them into Grove, only a block and a half behind. There was no way Nina could lose them, when they had line-of-sight on her.

  “Okay,” she said. “Be ready to get out. And don’t leave anything behind. Sorry, Nitida.” She patted the Beetle’s dashboard. “But we won’t be coming back.”

  Bell looked incredulous.

  “We’re getting out?”

  “Stay if you want,” Nina snapped. Her foot was still all the way to the floor. “But I’m not coming to visit you in jail.”

  Walter gripped the seat back.

  “Nina,” he called. “Look out!”

  Several seconds beyond the last possible second, Nina stomped hard on the brake, sending the car into a screeching skid that stopped just inches from the shrieking, scattering crowd.

  “Out!” She grabbed the walkie-talkie and shouldered out through her door. “Out!”

  Walter and Bell threw open their doors and staggered out as Nina ran around the car and hooked arms with them.

  “Into the crowd. Come on!”

  Walter looked back as he followed her, and saw the police car skidding to a stop right behind her Beetle. The two cops spilled out, guns raised.

  Nina raised her voice.

  “Don’t let the pigs through, brothers!” she called. “They’re here to bust up the protest!” The crowd roared and seemed to fuse into a single, solid organism behind her as she dragged Walter and Bell through it and across the plaza.

  Bell looked over at Nina, face lit from within with admiration and other, more complicated emotions.

  “That... that was brilliant.”

  She shook her head.

  “Not unless we get to the park, it isn’t.” She raised the walkie-talkie and clicked in. “Kenneth. Are you there? Have you reached McAllister yet?”

  “Uh...” A long crackly pause. “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, take it when you reach it, and keep an eye out. There’s a protest going on at City Hall. A lot of traffic and a lot of people. When you arrive, look for us.”

  “Uh, okay.”

  “What about me?” It was May’s voice.

  “Just head over to the park on your own, May. And just stay calm. We’ll meet you there.”

  “Roger.”

  Walter pulled up short, hauling the others back.

  “Cops!” he hissed.

  Nina and Bell looked around. A line of policemen stood and blocked off the steps of the city hall, and more were walking through the protest, keeping an eye on the picketers.

  Nina slowed her step and took a deep breath.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “They’re not looking for us. As long as we don’t stand out, we’re fine. Just take it slow, and try to look like you’re here for the protest.”

  A crowd of men and women in bus driver uniforms marched past in the direction they wanted to go, all shouting and raising their fists. Walter, Bell, and Nina followed in their wake, chanting along with the rest.

  “More say! Higher pay! More say! Higher pay!”

  The marchers turned at the north side of the square, and started south again, but Walter, Bell, and Nina left the train and melted into the crowd that had gathered to watch it all.

  They were almost to McAllister Street.

  “Kenneth,” Nina called in on the walkie-talkie. “Where are you now?”

  “I’m on McAllister, about a block from the plaza,” he replied. “You sure this is where you want me to be? It’s completely jammed.”

  “That’s fine,” she said. “Just keep coming.”

  Nina squeezed through to the street side of the crowd, then pulled back. There were cops there, trying to move everybody onto the sidewalk, but people were streaming across the street in both directions, weaving through the cars and slowing traffic to a standstill.

  “Do you see them?” she asked.

  Walter craned his neck and looked east, but all he could see were people’s heads.

  Bell, however, nodded.

  “He’s moving, but it’s slow.”

  Walter looked back into the plaza, scanning for the cops that had chased them there. He couldn’t see anything in that direction either, and the shouting of the protesters drowned out all other sounds. He felt as if he was in a cornfield on a windy night, with wolves prowling somewhere nearby. He’d never know they were on him until he felt their teeth in his leg.

  Nina ground her teeth, frustration creasing her brow.

  “All we’ve got to do is stay here and stay calm,” she said. “Just stay calm.” But she looked about as calm as a chihuahua in a firecracker factory. All that adrenalin still seemed to be churning through her veins. Walter was feeling anything but calm, himself.

  He looked east, going up on his tiptoes.

  “Another half block,” he said. “Almost there.”

  He looked behind again, and his heart seized up. Through a gap in the crowd he could see the cop with the salt-and-pepper mustache. He and his buddy were striding across the plaza, scanning for them. He grabbed Bell’s arm.

  “Duck down!”

  “What?” Bell frowned.

  “The police are here!” Walter said. “You’re too damn tall!”

  Bell crouched down, dropping his head between his shoulders. There was a guy holding a huge sign to their left. Walter pulled Bell and Nina behind it, then snuck a look around it and back toward the plaza.

  The two cops were walking along the edge of the crowd, heads moving constantly. Walter pulled back, heart hammering, just as the one with the mustache started to look his way.

  Had he seen?

  Was he coming?

  “There’s Kenneth’s bus. Come on.” Nina took his arm.

  Walter turned toward the street and followed Nina and Bell as they stepped off the curb. One of the cops in the cordon stepped up to stop them, but Nina pointed past him.

  “Our ride’s here,” she said sweetly. “We’re just trying to get out of this mess.”

  The cop waved them by and kept pushing the rest of the crowd back. In the minibus Kenneth, Judy, and Simon were looking for them. Judy saw them first and threw open the side doors.

  “What happened?” she asked, her little ferret face looking even more anxious than usual.

  “Tell you later,” Nina replied, pushing past her onto the back bench and lying down with her hands over her head. “William. Walter. Lie on the floor.”

  Walter squeezed down between the seats under Judy’s feet while Bell did the same under Nina’s.

  “Close the doors!” Nina said. “Quick!”

  Judy pulled the doors closed again and looked down at Walter.

  “Don’t look down!” Nina whispered. “Pretend we’re not here! Act natural! Relax!”

  Judy raised her head, quivering, and kept her eyes front.

  “Anybody coming?” Walter whispered.

  “Not yet. Not...” She pressed a thin spidery hand to her mouth. “Oh, God. They’re right outside. They’re—” She held her breath for a tense moment, then let it out. “They’re crossing the street. They’re looking through the crowd over there.”

  Walter closed his eyes and let o
ut his own held breath.

  “So what happened?” Kenneth asked over his shoulder, keeping his eyes on the street. “Why did the cops chase you?”

  “Why do you think?” Nina asked. “Keep driving.”

  Kenneth grunted, annoyed, but did as he was told. It took ten more minutes to get through the crowd and get moving again. Walter thought it was the longest ten minutes of his life.

  42

  Leslie sat in the idling van. They were in the parking lot of a fast food joint called Butchie Burger, waiting for Payton to come back from the bathroom. The restaurant’s mascot was an anthropomorphic Boston Terrier in checkered pants and a bow-tie, holding a huge hamburger. He seemed to be leering down at Leslie with a maniacal grin.

  She looked at her watch, even though it had been less than a minute since the last time she’d looked at it. They were bleeding time at an alarming rate.

  She had no idea why she’d wound up being assigned the weakest team members. She liked to think it was because she was the strongest leader, and Doc Rayley figured she could handle shepherding these two lame ducks. But she was afraid it was more likely a kind of subtle punishment for her refusal to dress and behave in a traditionally feminine manner.

  “Do you think Payton is going to be okay?” Susan asked.

  Speaking of traditional femininity, Susan was the dictionary definition. Cloying floral perfume, perky smile, vapid gaze. But Leslie didn’t want to write a sister off just because she’d been brainwashed by patriarchy. Never one to miss out on an opportunity to encourage free and radical thought among women, she reached into the inner pocket of her coat and pulled out a mimeographed flyer.

  “He’ll be fine,” she said, handing the flyer to Susan. “Listen, if you’re not doing anything tomorrow night, why don’t you stop by my place for the weekly meeting of our feminist consciousness-raising group.”

  Susan looked dubiously at the flyer.

  “What kind of group?” she asked.

  “Consciousness raising,” Leslie repeated. “It’s nothing uptight or structured or anything like that, we just meet once a week to share our experiences and feelings and talk about the ways in which we have been oppressed by the male-dominated culture.”

  “Oh,” Susan said. “Um... thanks.”

  Payton picked that moment to show up, sipping a large strawberry Butchie shake. Leslie frowned at the shake as he slid open the back door and climbed into the van.