From the top step, as I stood beside the driver getting change, I could look through the front window. A police car cut around the bus, turned down the street I’d just vacated. If I’d not gotten on the bus we would have met in the middle of Wilshire Boulevard.
The bus pulled away from the curb. Police cars were going the other way, three of them with red lights flashing.
When I sat down I was stupefied. Thoughts spun too fast to focus. I began trembling. My mind knew that only danger’s beginning had passed. The hounds were still sniffing for scent. When they had it the baying would begin.
I had to get to the apartment, get the .32—the only pistol remaining. I had to pick up my car, clothes, get moving. There figured to be at least several hours, perhaps days, before they got there. All I needed was twenty minutes. I was still oozing sweat, still trembling, and the enormity of the situation was held at bay by shock.
2
THE winding, curbless streets near the apartment were silent except for buzzing insects in the foliage and chirping birds. Going up the stairs (I’d left the taxi a quarter mile away) I wondered if my enemies were crouched in ambush, hidden inside the apartment. It was unlikely, and I didn’t really care. Sometimes one is too tired for even life to be so utterly precious.
The apartment was silent, dim, cool, a sanctuary. I left the lights out. The sights were familiar: Allison’s unfinished paintings, her flower arrangements, the record albums lying disordered on the sofa. The shell around my emotions was cracked by seeing these things. The first quick ache of sadness shot through me. My life had been a wasteland, but until today I might have turned back, done penance, and been forgiven.
I throttled down the feelings. The game had to be played. My role was hunted cop killer, vicious, unrepentant.
I changed clothes, throwing aside those I’d been wearing. The small revolver was in a hip pocket. My clothes were thrown on a bedspread, the bedspread tied into a bundle. I took the half pound of pot and half jar of bennies; might as well be high while being hunted.
The license plates on my car needed changing. Doing it here was impossible—some neighbor could too easily look out the window and see what was going on. L&L Red’s hilltop seemed the best place for that—and to pause while I collected myself and decided what to do. Driving there would be safe. For a few hours, at least, I’d be in the eye of the storm.
An automobile was coming up the hill. Its motor grew louder, faded temporarily as it rounded curves. Suddenly, it was close and recognizable. Allison! She was three hours early.
Footsteps tapped swiftly up the stairs. What could I say to her? “Baby, I just offed a pig and I gotta blow.”
The key turned, the door bounced against the night chain. She rattled the door. “Max! Max! Let me in.”
I peered from a window, revolver in hand. She was apparently alone. I flipped the chain loose and she rushed inside, resetting the latch. She was visibly upset. She knew something. That was frightening.
“They’re looking for you,” she said.
“Where’d you hear that?”
“The radio.”
“The radio! You heard my name?”
“A special bulletin.”
Panic swelled up. It was 1:00 P.M. Unless Aaron had talked there was no way for them to know my name so soon. Even if they’d gotten fingerprints it would take hours to telephoto them to Washington. Wherever it came from, it meant they were closer on my heels than I’d thought. The apartment was no longer even temporary sanctuary. It was a trap.
“I couldn’t believe my ears,” she said. “I started home and it came on another station.”
“How long ago?”
“Twenty minutes. I rushed back here so fast I left my towel and glasses. Did you kill a policeman? They’ve got two men, one isn’t expected to live.”
“I know.”
“Aaron and Jerry.”
I was at the window, peering down the hill. Nothing stirred.
“Was it Aaron and Jerry?” she repeated.
“Yeah. Jerry’s shot.”
“Poor Carol.”
“Shit! Poor Jerry.” I wasn’t really talking to her. I had to think, make decisions. The first thing was to get away from here; then think. I wondered if it made any difference. It would be the same in the end anyway. It would conclude the same way if I smoked some pot, got drunk, and went to bed. The world still swung around the sun, Fingers of despair clutched at my mind. Where had yesterday gone? Fuck yesterday.
“Get your ass out of here. In twenty minutes you can come back. I’ll be gone. If they pick you up, demand a lawyer, keep demanding one even when they ask your name. Don’t say one word except you want a lawyer.”
“I’m not leaving. I came to help you.”
“Help me! You asinine, stupid bitch! You’re outta your fuckin’ mind, cunt. This ain’t a nit-shit game or a B movie. The best you’ll get is a jolt in prison with me, and you might get your head shot off. When they run up on me it’s court in the street. I don’t give a fuck if I’m standing in a kindergarten. I’m not going to surrender.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“No! No! Split! Stupid cunt!”
Tears puffed her eyes, but she was undaunted. Unable to speak, she shook her head in defiance. “I love you.”
“Oh God! That’s all I need. Love! I’m a cop killer.”
“You need someone to help you. How can you buy food, go anywhere, rent a place to hide? Please …”
She spoke the truth. She’d be useful—at least for a few days, if I lasted a few days. I’d tried so hard to drive her off because I wanted her so badly. I didn’t want to die alone. I pressed a forefinger to her lips to silence her pleas. “Okay, okay. You bought yourself some misery. You’ve got ten minutes to get everything you’re taking with you. Just throw them in a blanket and tie up the ends. I’ll be back to help.”
I ran downstairs and pitched the bedspread of clothes into the GTO, then raced back to help Allison.
The automobile was stuffy from sitting outdoors, and I opened the windows to let in a breeze. On the way down the hill, my panic diminished. While in the apartment I’d had one thought: get moving, flee the trap. Now there was even a kernel of excitement, almost pleasurable, the anticipation of a journey. I’d always wanted to drive around the country, see things, and now fate was giving me the chance, probably the last chance, but for the moment it didn’t matter.
Through the rear view mirror I could see Allison following in her car. I began thinking. Two cars were a handicap. One had to be sold, and it was Allison’s. It was registered in her right name, and if we kept it and had to abandon it, the police would be able to trace her identity. Mine would soon be on the hot list, but with bogus license plates it would serve for a few days.
Griffith Park was nearby—in a line to L&L Red’s—and I needed to tell Allison what to do. I pulled into the park, following the zoo road, and swung to the curb beside a golf course. Allison pulled up behind me.
I told her to sell the car for cash. Knowing she would never find Red’s Cabin—which had no address—I gave her Mary Gambesi’s address and told her to meet me there. And to wait if I wasn’t there. Allison listened to my instructions. Her face was flushed. She nodded understanding. The new game excited her. She would do what I said, but something in her demeanor indicated she was playing a role, perhaps unconsciously; she didn’t understand the true gravity of the situation.
“When you get to that address, just tell the woman I told you to meet me there. Don’t tell her anything. She might not know what’s happened. If I’m not there, just sit tight.”
“You won’t leave me, will you?”
“Don’t act simple. Nine chances out of ten I’ll be there first.” While I drove to Red’s, taking a circuitous route to stay on freeways and out of the slums as much as possible (in the slums one was more likely to meet police cars), the realization grew of just how completely my world had been blown asunder. If I managed to retrieve the
diamonds, it was impossible to sell them through Eric Warren, or any other fence. If I could flee the country with them, they’d be marketable in small amounts somewhere else, but not in the United States.
An inkling of just how alone I was came, too. The gunshots in the dirt-loading yard had destroyed every relationship. Everyone had to be treated as if an informer. As for Allison, circumstances forced me to trust her. There could be no prearranged meetings. I knew human perversity, realized the motives behind someone dialing a telephone: reward in money, tacit permission to deal drugs, dismissal of a criminal charge, pure maliciousness, or fear of being involved in something too serious. I couldn’t afford to trust criminals. They might be trustworthy, but I couldn’t take the chance.
I refused to examine the odds; truth might bring despair. I knew, however, that in the computer era, with everyone on file, it was impossible to disappear. Perhaps in India, or deepest Africa, but never in the United States. Everything went into the computers—car purchases, getting a job, renting a dwelling. My fingerprints could be checked in Washington in thirty minutes from anywhere in the country. I couldn’t even pay taxes, for that would ring bells in the computer.
Hope consisted entirely of getting out of the country, off the North American continent, out of the Western hemisphere. I needed a passport—and had no idea of how to get one.
I shut off these thoughts. First things first. Get to Red’s, get the shotgun, go back for the diamonds. It wasn’t a long future to plan, but it was longer than I’d had running through back yards and alleys.
Red was getting out of his car when I came up. He saw me and waited. From the look on his face it was obvious that he knew about the murder. His first words confirmed it: “Man, you can’t stay here!”
The terror-stricken words were not unexpected (once I thought about it), but they made me both queasy and angry. Red was a coward. I’d known that all along. Yet I’d been good to him, a friend, and on the basis of friendship he should screw up his nerve. I felt the flame of despair—and then fury jetted red to my brain. I wrenched the door open and sprang out, drawing the revolver. “Cocksucker!”
“Man! Max,” he yelped, stepping backward, throwing up his hands as if they could ward off a bullet.
“I don’t want to stay here, motherfucker!”
Red’s heel caught on a large rock, causing him to sit down in the dirt. His hands remained up, stretched toward me. “I didn’t mean it that way,” he said. “I meant they’ll be here looking for you.”
I lowered the gun. “Don’t sweat it, Red. I just came for my shotgun.”
“I’ll get it.” He scrambled to his feet and went toward the shack. I followed him. “Johnny Taormina called me,” Red said. “I was at the pool hall. That’s how I found out. Too many people know we’re partners. Somebody’ll send ’em here—no shit!”
“Yeah, okay.” What he said was true, but it would be quite some time before they got this lead.
Red yanked the crippled sofa aside, wrenched up a floorboard, and brought out the shotgun wrapped in a towel. He reached down again and came up with the extra ammunition.
“Goddam, Max, I’m sorry if you thought wrong. I love you like a brother. If I wasn’t certain they’d be here …”
“Forget it.”
“What happened? What went wrong?” He was following me outdoors.
“The fuckin’ wheels came off.”
“Jesus, it’s shitty … just when you were starting to roll.”
“Yeah.” I was in the car.
“Man, if you need me, call the pool hall. I wouldn’t come up here without warning.”
“I’ll do that.”
When I drove down the hill, L&L Red was busy with a rake, effacing my tire marks from the dirt. It made me smile. Red was indeed a survivor.
I hadn’t changed license plates. It wouldn’t be safe to trust Red to know them. But I had gotten the shotgun, it was under a sweater on the seat beside me.
Minutes later I was on the freeway heading toward Mary’s, wondering what kind of reception I’d get. If necessary, I’d hold her and her children hostage until Allison came. If her attitude was like Red’s there’d be no choice.
Halfway to El Monte, I spotted two highway patrolmen on motor-cycles behind me. They were closing fast, weaving through the heavy traffic. They weren’t using their red lights. I restrained the impulse to stomp the accelerator. I’d never outrun them in this traffic, and they didn’t seem to be after me. Yet I checked the shotgun and eased the small revolver to the seat directly behind my rump. They were splitting apart to pass on each side. If they tried anything I’d ram into one, crush him against the divider fence—then shoot the other one.
They zoomed by without looking toward me, the rumps of their motorcycles saucily upflung. I rubbed sweaty palms dry against the seat, one at a time, and realized that for the rest of my life every policeman I saw would arouse the same dread and consternation.
Fifteen minutes later I was in the driveway, pulling to the rear where the bungalows faced each other. Between them were clothes lines and a dozen yards of parched lawn. Mary was there, gathering laundry. She was barefoot, in faded jeans and a man’s unpressed white shirt tied at the bottom and rolled above the sleeves. Another woman in faded print dress was in the small yard, waiting with a large basket of laundry and a pair of toddlers.
Mary’s radiant smile declared that she was unaware of the news. “Howdy, stranger. Where you been?”
“Busy.” I nodded at the woman and smiled. She smiled back, a gesture without significance. “Where’s Joey and Lisa?”
“The Lord knows. Go on inside. There’s coffee on the stove. I’ll be there in a minute.”
As I went around the bungalow I could see over fences into other back yards. The afternoon was absolutely silent. The hushing scene made me pause at the doorway. Clouds drifted overhead, edges dissolving like smoke. In my mind I could visualize the city’s swarm, each going about his business. No more than a handful would care about the killings or the hunt. My friends in prison would talk for a while about my predicament, but it would be no big thing, a few minutes passing conversation and, because it was November, they’d become more involved with the point spreads on football games. Some policemen would be enraged, but when it got down to it my crime and fate meant virtually nothing except to my little ego—the ego that refused to believe the center of the universe was anywhere else, a very human belief.
I was sitting down with the coffee when Mary came in, the large basket held in front of her. She smiled at me in further greeting.
“You need a clothes dryer,” I said.
“They cost money … and if I had money there are other things a lot more important than a dryer.” Mary put down the dried clothes and got herself a cup of coffee. She sat down to talk with me, chattering gaily, asking me nothing, glad to see someone beyond the circle of her children and the Darins. She mentioned getting a letter from Joe that sent his regards to me, and told of how Lisa was getting boy crazy.
When she finished the coffee she excused herself, saying that she had to start dinner. While she began getting out pots and pans, taking things from the refrigerator and slicing string beans, I sat stupefied at the table. A quagmire of exhaustion engulfed me. It was beyond mere physical tiredness. It was the mind demanding escape from reality. It wasn’t a new experience. Whenever I had been arrested and knew they had the goods, I felt this same overpowering need for sleep. The moment they locked me in a cell I went to sleep, avoiding the situation.
I almost went to sleep at the table. Mary spotted me, eyes twinkling. “You’re wiped out,” she said. “What happened, your girl toss you out?”
“No. She’s on an errand for me right now. She’s supposed to meet me here.”
“Why don’t you take a nap? Use Joey’s bed.”
I went into the bedroom, giving her a hug of affection on the way. The small revolver went in a shoe beside the bed. If the police sneaked in while I slept and it wa
s under the pillow I’d never get a chance to use it. The shoe was just as quick to get at, and if they got into the room I might be able to reach for my shoes without getting blasted.
Sleep came instantly, without dreams.
Allison shook my shoulder, though for several seconds my mind resisted coming awake. Her scent was my first recognition, followed by my whereabouts. Then full recollection of everything exploded into focus. Her face was shadowed softly, for the windows were curtained with the darkness outside and light came solely from the doorway.
“It’s seven o’clock,” she said.
“How long have you been here?”
“Two hours, talking to Mary. I let you sleep.”
“Does she know anything yet?”
“No. And the kids are watching a rock show on TV. I was ready to ask them to put something else on if they turned on the news.”
“You’re a pretty slick broad.”
“I got eighteen hundred dollars for the car,” she said, reaching into her handbag for the money. “Where do you want it?”
“Keep it for now.” I moved over so she could sit down. I put a hand at the small of her back and reached down behind the tight waist of her stretch pants, feeling the soft panties and flesh. “You got rid of the bathing suit.”
“In a gas station.” She reached back and took my hand away. “Max, this isn’t the time for that. You make me nervous.”
“I’m just affectionate.”
“It’s just not the time. I called Carol. Jerry’s dead. The police were there and she told me to call back.”
“You shouldn’t have called. Don’t do it again.”
“She’s my friend. Imagine what she feels like.”
“The phone might be bugged. I’ll send her some money in a few days. In fact, don’t get in touch with anybody that we know.”
No Beast So Fierce Page 24
