Chinese Cooking for Diamond Thieves (25 page)

“Still there?” I asked.

“Yep,” she said.

“My car's parked at the bottom of the hill west of the Art Museum, on Valley Drive,” I said. “We're going there now.”

“Stay where you are.”

“Nope,” I said. “It's too crowded. Somebody's going to get hurt.”

“Tucker—” I heard her say. And then my phone was back in my pocket.

We were at the outer edges of the festival, still walking. I was still holding Corinne's hand. There were enough people around I didn't think the two would do anything too extreme. At least for the moment. There weren't nearly enough people for us to blend into the crowd, though. And, with every step we took, the crowd was thinning. If we stopped moving now, we would be obvious. If we kept walking, we were soon going to be on our way down the hill, heading toward the street where the car was parked, right out in the open. I thought of that gun Eyebrows had stuck in my face. I'd already made a choice, though.

“Car's down there,” I said. “We need to get there as fast as we can.”

“Okay,” Langston said. I looked over at Corinne. She nodded.

We ran.

Rule #57: There's often a “however” in life.

 

The Art Museum was built on the highest hill in Forest Park. It looks out east to the long slope of Art Hill, with its statue of Louis IX on a horse, his sword lifted high. In the winter, there could be a couple of hundred sledders on the hill in front of the museum. On the south side of the museum, the shoulder of the hill slopes away from the museum buildings and the big, open space where the festival was still going on. We were at the top of the shoulder. When we started to run, we went down its grassy flank. There were some big trees. Their branches already had leaves, so it was shady under them, with dapples of sunlight in places. The ground was steep enough for us to move fast. I kept my strides short, though. I wanted to sprint but didn't. I didn't want to start running full tilt and risk stumbling. The ground was too uneven to go all out. Langston and Corinne were taking the same strategy. Running with quick, short strides, all of us abreast, all of us watching the uneven ground as we went over it.

I hadn't heard a lot of gunfire before. I went a couple of times with my father when he had to qualify, for his job, at the state police range over in Concord. It was exciting for a few minutes. The reality was that after the first few dozen rounds were fired, it got kind of boring. It wasn't boring now. Also, the sound was a lot sharper and louder than it had been at the range with my father, where I'd had on ear protectors. The first shot rang sharp, crisp. The air was clear, low enough in humidity that the crack carried. I involuntarily hunched when I heard the shot. I felt a sharp tug between my shoulder blades where the muscles in my back gave a quick spasm. Like stiffening my back muscles was going to stop a bullet. I tried to shrug my shoulders to loosen things. It's hard to do when you're running. I looked right, then left. Langston and Corinne were both still upright, still running. I took those as good signs.

In about thirty seconds, we were most of the way down the hill, into the woods near the bottom of the slope. The trees got thicker there. The ground cover was dense, overgrown. There wasn't any way a park mower could have gotten into the tangle here. There wasn't any grass to mow. Long ropes of grapevines twisted around on the ground, and the only other cover was a heavy mat of dark leaves, damp. I could smell the dirt and wet mulch where we kicked them up as we ran. Corinne was a couple of strides ahead of me. She tripped on a vine, went down to one knee, but before I could reach her, she was back up and getting her stride. It was impossible to get into the kind of flat-out, loping stride that would have given us much distance. On the other hand, all the trees made us harder targets. And if we were slowed down trying to get through it, so were the two coming after us. At least I hoped so. I fought the urge to turn and look back. I didn't want to risk falling if I did. And if they were behind us, there wasn't much I could do about it anyway.

Off to the left was a rock the color of concrete, about the size of the kitchen table in our apartment. It was rounded, with a silhouette that reminded me of a crouching bear. Or maybe a tiger coiled to spring. I was considering it as I ran and listened for the sound of another shot. Multitasking. I didn't think I was doing a very good job of any of it. Even so, I was distracted by the rock. I wanted to ask Corinne about it.
Hey,
I wanted to say,
that rock over there. Think it looks more like a bear or a tiger?
I didn't.

And then we were all three past the rock, and I heard a second shot and then a dull, clunking sound like someone had dropped a golf ball on a sidewalk. I heard Langston make a
huuhh
sound. He was a couple of paces behind me.

“You okay?” I yelled. I twisted around to see where he was. Hearing that noise from Langston, I felt my face flush. I suddenly wanted to throw up the fried rice I'd been eating only ten minutes ago but what seemed like about six months ago.

“Branch clipped me,” Langston said. “I'm okay.” He huffed. His face was pink. But he wasn't struggling. I glanced again at Corinne. She looked the same. She'd tied her hair back earlier in the day. She looked grim, determined. She was staring at some finish line up ahead, I thought. I wondered where it was. The Toyota had been a dependable machine, taking me all the way from New Hampshire out here, including a trip back to Buffalo to pick up Corinne. It was sucking a lot of oil, true. It was still a good car. It wasn't bulletproof, though. I didn't have a plan for what would happen after we got to it. I thought about how this seemed to be becoming a habit for me, making impulsive decisions and hoping that once made, something would open up for me. Then I thought that I was perhaps being just a little too introspective for a guy running down a hill through the woods with a couple of low-level Chinese gang thugs shooting at him.

I felt a quick flash of relief. I could see the road lined with parked cars. Another car was pulling up and stopping, double-parking, blocking off the street. Both doors opened, and I saw Mr. Cataldi jump out and take a squatting position, pointing his gun directly at the three of us. Behind him, on the other side of the car, I could see Ms. Masterson's head and shoulders over the hood. She had a gun pointed at us as well.

“Get! Down!” she shouted. We did. All three of us. Corinne was close enough to me I could reach out and push her. I put my hand between her shoulder blades and shoved, and since she was already leaning over, scouting for a place to land, she went down fast. It sounded like all the air in her lungs came out at once. I dived. Corinne's elbow clipped my cheek as we went down. The carpet of dead, wet leaves was thick, sloppy. I went face first into it. My shoulders were hunched. My right arm hugged Corinne; she had her left arm around my neck. I heard Langston hit the ground, along with a squishy sound as he plowed into dank mulch. I tensed, waiting for the shots. Wasn't much I could do about it, short of burrowing into the clammy, matted leaves. I gave it some consideration. Instead of the shots I expected, I heard Mr. Cataldi.

“Stop! That's all! FBI!” Mr. Cataldi shouted, then it was Ms. Masterson again. “Put the gun down! Put the gun down now!”

Corinne was trying to suck air in through her mouth in short staccato bursts. I could feel my pulse in my temples. I realized there was a rock digging into my left knee. Then I heard the wail of sirens, way off in the distance, drawing closer. I lifted my head just high enough to turn and glance at Langston. He stared back, a big smear of dirt covering most of one cheek. There was a dried leaf, ragged and torn, hanging from his hair, right in front of his face. He didn't pull it off. He just left it there, keeping his face as close to the ground as he could.

“Wow,” he said.

Mr. Cataldi and Ms. Masterson were both trotting toward us. As they got closer, Ms. Masterson said, “Are you all okay?” They both had their guns out, both pointed up the hill past us. Ms. Masterson stopped where we were. Mr. Cataldi kept going, up the hill toward the two who'd been chasing us.

“Okay,” I said. I pulled my knee off the rock and got my leg beneath me and sat up.

“
All
of you!” she said again. “Tell me if you are okay?”

“Okay here,” Langston said. He pushed up with his hands and sat on his knees.

Corinne rolled over. The front of her jeans and shirt were streaked with mud. “Okay,” she said. She sat up.

Ms. Masterson ran past us, following Mr. Cataldi up the hill. Below, the road was thick with police cars, lights churning. Cops were coming up toward us, at least a dozen of them. I looked over my shoulder. The Curl and Eyebrows were both face-down farther back up the hill, arms behind their backs. Mr. Cataldi was putting handcuffs on the Curl.

Corinne sat with her legs out in front of her.

“That was an experience,” I said. I realized I was shaking a little.

“First for me,” Langston said.

“Me too,” Corinne said. “And that was enough.”

The three of us stayed where we were, sitting on the damp, mulchy ground, which wasn't all that comfortable but which seemed, at least for the moment, at least for me, far preferable to doing anything so strenuous as actually trying to stand up. I had a feeling, given the way I was still shaking, that effort was going to take a while.

“Come on,” I said. “Brisk run in the park. Who feels like jogging home?”

They both shot me expressions that told me they didn't appreciate my humor.

“You two are the reason our generation's in such poor shape,” I said. But like them, I stayed right where I was.

Rule #97: When you get tired of having things happen to you, start making things happen yourself.

 

Five minutes later, when I did try to stand, I made it okay, but my knees were still wobbling. The last time they'd felt that way, I thought, was when the same two guys had pointed a gun at me. My knees didn't feel any weaker or wobblier now than they had then, I didn't think. Overall, I decided, though, that between having a gun pointed at me and having one shot in my direction, the latter was worse.

Langston was on his feet too, bent over, arms straight, hands on his knees, trying to get his breath. We were surrounded by cops. All of them talking at once, their radios chirping and crackling. One of them was giving directions to somebody. Ms. Masterson had come back to where we three were. The Curl and Eyebrows were being taken down the hill by four cops who were not being entirely solicitous in the way they pushed the two along. I glanced back at Langston. He straightened as I watched, then I saw him flinch. He rubbed his hand on his butt, pulled it away, and looked at it. He looked up at me, then showed me his palm. There was a dark blotch on it. I thought it was dirt.

“What the hell?” he said. He seemed perplexed. He twisted around to stare at his butt, and when he did, he swiveled in my direction. I could see a dark stain over one of his pants pockets. He touched it, more gingerly this time, and pulled his hand up to look at it again, as if he wanted to be sure.

“I got shot,” he said. “In the ass. Can you believe it?”

Corinne was standing beside me now, gently yanking a twig from her hair. The front of her jeans was damp and dark from her knees all the way up to her waist. It looked like she'd tried to slide into third on a muddy baseball diamond.

I looked at Langston. “Are you going to live?”

“Do you think it could have hit any vital organs?” Langston asked back.

“In your ass?” Corinne asked.

Langston was trying to walk in small circles now, hopping and flinching with each step.

“There's some pretty important stuff in that immediate vicinity,” he said.

Then one of the cops noticed Langston's limp and said, “Whoa, there.” He took Langston by the shoulder. “We're going to need you to stand still here for just a minute.”

“What's taking so long?” Ms. Masterson said.

“Park's jammed,” another cop said. “Some big Chinese festival going on.”

“Better be on the lookout for some opium dealing,” I said. “Any time those people get together . . .”

“He's just been shot at,” Ms. Masterson said to the cop when he cocked his head at me. “He's a little wired right now. It's the adrenaline talking.”

“No,” Langston said. “He talks like that all the time.”

“He has some deep-seated issues with Asians,” Corinne said.

“All three of them,” Ms. Masterson told the cop, “are a little odd. But basically harmless.”

The cop shrugged. “We're trying to get the ambulance through on a service road, and they're lost. Should be here in a second.”

It took a little longer than that. The EMTs, when they got there, lowered the gurney so Langston could slide onto it. He did, favoring his left side. When one of the EMTs told him to lie flat on his back, he said “Are you serious?” He lay on his right side. We told him we'd follow him to the hospital. He said he hoped he would still be alive by then. The EMT said that in his professional opinion that was a pretty good possibility.

 

Corinne and I sat in the waiting room at the ER. We'd ridden over with Ms. Masterson about half an hour after we'd watched Langston loaded into the ambulance. We'd stood around at the park for a while first. Now we were sitting around in the ER. It was less fun than it sounded. We were both still wet. We looked like we'd spent the afternoon crawling through the woods. Ms. Masterson had stayed with us the whole time and had asked us both about a dozen times if we were sure we were okay. My cheek was a little puffy where Corinne had clipped it when I dived beside her. Other than that, we told her, we were both okay. She asked me why I hadn't followed her orders and stayed where we were. I considered some clever responses. But I was still too wired to come up with anything good.