Dog Eat Dog (31 page)

Not so good was the forty yards of open space between the greenery and the stop sign. The big light on the freeway turned the lawn into the Dodger Stadium outfield. First, he would have to charge across the open space and hope nobody spotted him—and then hope that their doors were unlocked.

As he moved into a hiding position, he remembered nature films with the lion crouched in the grass, tail twitching.

Headlights. A stake bed truck with Mexican farm workers paused; then proceeded up the ramp. Damn, they went to work early. Not even a rooster was up yet and they were en route to the fields already.

Another car appeared. It passed in silhouette and had one occupant. It slowed and stopped.

Troy leaped forward, the pistol banging against his body under the sweatshirt, which was now soaked with sweat. He needed his good hand to open the car door.

He was still thirty yards away when the bright brake light went off and the car started to move. He closed for another few seconds; then it quickly opened the distance. He stopped. He was panting. For some reason he remembered that the prey escape the charging lion most of the time.

Had the driver seen him? No, his acceleration had been slow and even.

He walked back, sucking cool air into his lungs. He sat down on the wet grass behind the bushes. After a minute’s rest, he refastened the leg iron chain, several times wrapping the strip of bed sheet around his leg and pulling it as tight as he could. He was hot and sweaty and the chill predawn air gave him goose bumps. He took the pistol from around his neck. It slowed him. He would carry it in his hand until he reached the car; then he would tuck it under his arm during the second he needed to reach for the car door. He practiced the motion a couple of times. Please, God, let it be unlocked.

Another car, an old Cadillac Seville with the humpback. It went by. Two figures.

Troy started the moment it passed, running behind it, hoping that neither looked over their right shoulder.

The Cadillac’s brake lights went on. It was stopping ahead of him. He ran to catch up.

The car stopped as he arrived. He lunged, tucked the pistol in his armpit, and reached for the back door. The handle went down, the door opened. Troy dove into the back.

At that moment the car started moving. The driver hit the brakes. Troy crashed into the back of the front seat. Pain shot from his wired jaw to his brain. The pistol fell on the floorboard under him.

The woman screamed. The driver turned his head, the movement pulled his foot from the brake. The car rolled into an embankment of iceplant and stopped. He was a black man with a thin mustache and the scent of aftershave.

The woman kept screaming as Troy rolled and twisted and pushed himself up; he could feel the pistol under his knee.

The car filled with brilliant light. The blast of an air horn. A giant truck rolled by, the disturbed air buffeting the car.

Troy’s fingers closed around the pistol. “Shaddup!” he yelled.

She twisted around and pressed her back to the door frame.

“Tell her,” Troy said to the man, raising the pistol.

“Shhhhh,” the man said, reaching out to give his wife’s arm a hard shake. “Quiet down.”

“Back up … move this car,” Troy said.

“Okay … okay … just don’t hurt us.”

“I’m not gonna hurt you … as long as you do what I say. Now back the motherfucker up and let’s roll.”

“Up on the freeway.”

“Yeah. Where the fuck did you think—”

“You said back up.”

“Let’s go. C’mon.”

The Cadillac backed off the iceplant; it was still across the lines off the ramp itself.

More headlights, two cars, one honking to warn them as it blew by.

The Cadillac soon gathered momentum up the ramp and moved onto the freeway. He was rolling. He had a chance. It was hard to believe that he had gotten this far. It was enough to light the candle of hope.

“Take our money and the car,” the woman said. “Let us go.”

“Naw … I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

Her husband answered for her: “Because we’d call the police right away.”

“No, we wouldn’t—”

“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 came 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.