Firetrap (28 page)

58. RICKIE CARTER ERRS ON THE SIDE OF CAUTION

RICKIE CARTER, SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
>

We're riding in the back of the van, me and two guys I've never seen before, a couple of pugs from one of the boxing gyms. One of them has half an ear missing. I get the feeling they're from California because of something they said and because of the faded gang tattoos on their arms. Click and Clack. That's what they told us. They're going to do the work. Me and Jerome are the holders. Jerome's driving. Jerome's the only one I know. Was in Walla Walla with me on an armed robbery beef. Jerome's good people. He's the one who knew the fat man who's following us in the stolen BMW, the only one of us who is not a brother. Had to be brothers, Jerome said. All four of us had to be black.

Jerome's getting three big ones, and I'm getting two. Once we get the bike down, we jump out the back and we hit him so hard he don't know which way is up. Jerome says this guy on the bike is bad, and even the fat man is planning to err on the side of caution. I heard that phrase on the TV.
Err on the side of caution.
First I thought it was about basketball: “air on the side of caution.” Then somebody told me.

The main thing is to make it look like he got caught in these riots. People see a bunch of brothers pounding somebody, they automatically associate it with the club burning down, 'stead of four hired soldiers of fortune. That's what Jerome calls us. Soldiers of fortune. I like that.

Ordinarily, I don't go around picking on strangers unless they're fronting me, but the fat man told us all about this guy. Seems he raped a kid. Got away scot-free. Laughed about it afterward. Jerome and I figure this guy deserves what we're going to give him and maybe a little more. Little white girl, he said, so scared afterward she hid in a closet for a week. Damn. Nothing I hate worse than a rapo.

It's just getting dark, and the fat man signals Jerome that the bike is here. We've been parked across the street from the Douglass-Truth Library, which been standing since I was a kid. I ain't never been inside, but someday I'm going to see what it's about.

The motorcycle flashes by and the fat man pulls out fast and flicks his hand as a signal for Jerome to follow. We're heading up Yesler, and I can see the BMW following the bike, turning left down one of the residential streets. Jerome swerves hard, following the BMW. In an instant the beamer has the bike tipped over and the rider is down. Musta tapped his rear wheel with his bumper.

The two Cs bail out before we're done rolling.

By now Click and Clack are walking over to him like they're offering to help. Nice touch. The fat man is sitting in his BMW with the engine idling, like he's waiting for his insurance agent.

They're walking toward the biker dude, asking if he needs help, and before the dude can answer, Click hits him in the face and he's on the ground and there's blood all over. I mean, all over. And for the first time I realize he's a brother. We're hustling over to get in on the action when I say to Jerome, “Hey, man. I thought he would be white.”

“He's white enough, man. Let's get him.”

“Man, I thought this was supposed to be some sort of riot thing.”

“Don't worry about it.”

“How do we know we got the right guy?”

“The fat man picked him out, didn't he? It's him.”

They must have really smacked him, because he's not moving. Jesus, Clack hits him with those brass knuckles, he doesn't see it coming, and now he's probably dead. I mean, he's not moving a muscle. I'm not going up for Man One. I'll flip for the prosecution. Hell, I wasn't even near the guy.

The two Cs circle the downed man from either side, and Click rears back as if he's going to kick the dude in the thigh, maybe test how bad he's hurt, but before he can kick him, the dude does some sort of break-dance move and boots Click in the nuts. Click goes down so fast he falls on the dude, but Clack is already working it and he's got his boot in the air coming down on the dude's helmet. Only for some reason I never quite figure, he misses, and then he's reaching down and there's blood coming out through his jeans, but if the dude's got a knife in his hands, I can't see it. I don't know where the blood came from.

With Click and Clack temporarily out of commission, Jerome and I glance at each other. We move around real quick, and Jerome goes in and there's a tussle, and the guy isn't even off the pavement yet, but they're wrestling, Jerome and this cat. Jerome lets out this squawk and I move in and all of a sudden my mouth closes like a clamshell and I've bit off half my tongue. No shit, my tongue is flapping.

I'm on my knees on the pavement, and my teeth hurt and my tongue is killing me and there's blood all down the front of my jacket. The bastard kicked me in the mouth. And then before I can get up, Jerome is lying on the ground real still, and the dude is up and kicking Clack in the head—Clack the only one of us still standing—with those motorcycle boots, kicking up high over his head like a dancer or something, and Clack goes down like a sack of steer shit. The dude turns, kicks down hard on Click until I know Click isn't going to be breathing easy for months. Just as the BMW tears out of there, he turns to me.

He takes a step forward, but I've been in brawls before and I have a length of pipe with me and I whip it out, but he's moving like a bird, and the next thing I know the bike has crushed my back. Like somebody threw it on top of me. Only I think it's the other way around. I glimpse a piece of the sky as it's happening, but it still takes a second to realize he's somehow thrown me over himself and I've landed on the bike, and damn, I think my back might be broken.

I hear sirens in the distance.

This was supposed to be a cakewalk. Easy money. Half an hour of work. Damn that Jerome.

Then the dude has hold of my jacket and is hauling me off the bike, dragging me away. I smell something burning and wonder if my clothing was touching the hot pipe on his bike. I don't feel burned. But then, I don't feel anything. The dude is looking at me like he feels sorry for me.

A moment later they're cuffing his hands behind his back.

As I lay there trying to figure out what happened, I know I'm headed for the hospital and from there to stir. There's no way around it. On the other hand, maybe if we get a good lawyer, maybe…

And then the fire department people are here. Two of them are putting something stiff and uncomfortable around my neck, and one of them says, “Is that Captain Brown over there? Hell, that is Captain Brown.”

“One of these guys tagged his bike with a car. The rest was some sort of road rage thing, I guess.”

“You're shitting me. Brown did this himself? There's four patients here.”

“Brown's been studying martial arts since he was a kid. I heard he's even been to Brazil to study.”

In the hospital they give me some dope and I am X-rayed, and then somebody comes in and tells me I have a spinal cord injury, and then some cops try to tell me Jerome already answered all their questions so I better answer, too, but I know that is bullshit because Jerome wouldn't turn over on me. And then I wonder if we're ever going to get paid.

59. BIKER CHICK STRIKES TERROR IN HEART OF SEWARD PARK NEIGHBORHOOD

TREY
>

When the phone rang at ten
A.M
>., I was still in bed, nursing a fractured cheekbone and twelve stitches. My face had swollen so that I looked like a Frankenstein creature, but at least I hadn't needed surgery. I skipped the pain meds, but now that my head was clear and the junk they'd given me at Harborview had worn off, I wanted a hit of Vicodin so bad I could taste it. Still bandaged himself, Johnny had stayed over to nurse me—it made him feel important. The phone had been busy all morning and I'd been letting the machine pick up until I heard Estevez's voice.

“You all right?” she asked.

“More or less.”

“What happened? You sound funny.”

“A mouthful of stitches is what happened.”

“Stone called here last night, but I was out. He's wondering why I haven't reported to him in three days. What happened to your mouth?”

“I had a little discussion with a few guys last night. Remember Renfrow? I think he was there, but the windows of his car were smoked over, so I'm not sure.”

“Oh, my gosh, Trey. How badly did they hurt you?”

“I'll tell you about it later. There's one last interview I think we should do.”

“I'll pick you up.”

“I thought we'd go over on my bike. Is that okay? Wear something comfortable. A warm jacket.”

“In an hour? I'll meet you at your place.”

“Better make it an hour and a half. I have to bang some dings out of my bike.” I gave her my address.

Ninety minutes later I was on the sidewalk in front of the house with a rubber mallet and a large chunk of metal when a motorcyclist rode across the parking strip onto the sidewalk and shut the motor off, walking a Harley-Davidson Sportster toward me with a leg on either side. The rider wore a white helmet and full leathers.

“You ready?” Estevez asked, removing her helmet and shaking out her voluminous hair.

It took me a few moments to believe what I was seeing. “You never told me you had a bike.”

“You never asked. Does that hurt? You should be on medication.”

“I'm saving the meds for later.”

It was almost noon when we left. We took nonarterials. Estevez handled her bike well. I wanted to ask her how long she'd been riding, but as long as we were moving, neither of us could hear the other over the sound of the bikes.

I'd spent the morning on the phone and on the Internet, trying without success to track down any public information on Silverstar Consolidated. I couldn't find anything, but I knew who to ask.

Chester McDonald was in his driveway washing his Benz when I roared up the slope, skidding to a halt in front of him. I tipped the bike on its kickstand and shut off the motor. Behind me, Estevez shut off her bike. “You got some answering to do, Chester.”

“I want my attorney. What right you got to come—”

“Talk, you bastard.”

McDonald dropped his head, and I knew the combination of fear and being cornered had finally gotten to him. “You get me my crutches?” Estevez picked up the crutches and handed them to him. Once he had them under his shoulders, he said, “I sold it to Silverstar Consolidated last February. After that, all I did was manage the place. Before the fire they didn't want me to make it public that they were buying up property, and after the fire they didn't want people to know they were squeezing nickels out of the place. All they cared about was bringing in a few more bucks. Nobody thought it would hurt anything to skip some stupid regulations.”

“What else?”

“The guys running the club…”

“Chaps,” I said.

“And Campbell,” Estevez added.

“They was trying to cut corners. Somebody from Silverstar Consolidated told me and them to go right ahead. He would fix it downtown. They weren't supposed to be having parties. The building department told them not to. But they came to me and I spoke to…”

“Renfrow? Barry Renfrow?”

“He said not to worry about it, that the owners were highly connected, and if we could squeeze some more rental money out of the place before it came time to tear it down, so much the better. It was all so stupid. It was only a matter of a couple hundred dollars a week. But that's how they were. Every little penny. Said that's how rich people stayed rich.”

“Who were the owners?”

“Silverstar Consolidated.”

“That's a holding corporation. The real owners.”

“Renfrow told me the real owner was Harlan Overby. I remember the name because I read about him in a magazine the next day. When the light-rail came through, they were going to tear it down and put up something that would make some real money.”

“You sure Harlan Overby was the owner of the building?” I asked.

“That's what Renfrow told me.”

Estevez looked at me and said, “We need to talk.”

We fired up our bikes and cruised down the hill to Seward Park, driving around the park loop until we found an outlook over the lake. A couple in an older Toyota left when they saw two black people on Harleys. I reminded Estevez about the tape India had given me, and she said, “We could give this information along with the tape to the TV station. Or the Z Club Citizens for Truth. If they can connect Renfrow to the attack on you last night…”

“Maybe we should let things cool off before we drop a gasoline bomb on a campfire. You play that tape in public, there's going to be maximum civil unrest. This whole city has been on the verge of a meltdown. Even my brother got caught up in it.”

“We write the report. We release it and you release the tape a little later. Keep them separate?”

“But soon. We have to do this soon.”

A day later, when a prize pig flew out of an airplane and through a roof in West Seattle, the news guys forgot about chasing me around for quotes on the assault. A week passed in which I took a different route from my house every time I left, sometimes riding the Harley, sometimes taking the car, and more often borrowing Rumble's truck. Though I didn't believe they would try it again, I didn't need to get ambushed a second time. The swelling in my face subsided; I went back to work. I needed to ride Engine 28, needed the normalcy of the abnormal our job provided to feel like myself again. Over the course of several dinners, Estevez and I negotiated the wording in the report. We continued to squabble, though the tenor became less adversarial and more playful, and I realized that without meaning to, I was beginning to fall in love with Jamie Estevez.

60. GEE, I'LL HAVE TO GIVE A REALLY SAD SPEECH

STONE CARMICHAEL
>

“Jesus, Stone. You should have warned me your brother spent the last twenty years studying martial arts. And the clowns I hired—the doctors thought one of them was going to be in a wheelchair the rest of his life, but luckily he's starting to get some feeling back in his legs. I hate to see guys get hurt. One of the others lost a testicle, for God's sake.”

“You're the one who's supposed to do the intelligence,” I said. Renfrow was in front of me in my father's old office in the Key Tower, breathing heavily the way he always did. “A testicle?”

“I guess you could say I was the one who got him interested in martial arts all those years ago. Hated to do that to the kid. He was game, though. He just kept getting back up. I couldn't even watch. That's what scares me now. He's going to keep coming…I know he is. It's his nature.”

“What are you planning?”

“I got somebody watching the house. It's only a matter of time before we get the tape, if he's got it. Beyond that, I'm not calling the shots here. You are. We should have Tasered him, but people start using Tasers, the cops get suspicious.”

“Next time let's be prepared for every contingency, okay?”

“Like the contingency he's going to bang your wife and steal a tape out of your machine?”

“Hey, shut up! You're the employee here! Don't forget that!”

“Maybe so, but I work for Overby.”

“Yes, and he's working this out with me. When I'm governor next year, you'll still be the employee. And Barry. Don't mention my wife again.”

“Sure. Fine. No problem. Guy bones my bride, I guess I'd be a little touchy, too.”

“Fuck you.”

“Hey. It never happened. I doubt they even did anything. Geez. I was having a little fun.”

Together we watched traffic on the street below. I said, “I didn't think it was that big of a deal. The club guy wanted to cut some corners with the fire department. The building's only going to be up a few more months. So when you came to me, I said, yeah, go ahead, we'll cover you. And then…just like that, fourteen people are in coffins and mobs are in the streets and Seattle's skyline is on the cover of
Newsweek.
If people ever find out Overby owned the building and I was promising immunity from the fire inspectors, all hell will break loose.”

“We can stop it right now.”

“How?”

“I called an old acquaintance on the East Coast. He tells me there's nobody easier to eliminate than a professional firefighter. All you have to know is
where
they work and
when
they work. I hate to do something this drastic, but he's put us in a corner, hasn't he?”

“How would it work?”

“Firefighting is an inherently dangerous job. People fall in holes. Roofs cave in.”

“And when might this happen?”

Renfrow pulled a small card out of his wallet and said, “I've got the fire department work schedule here. When would you like it to happen? My friend back east is free any time.”

“Let's do it the night of the party. And don't make him into a goddamn hero this time, okay?”

“That's going to be a tough order. Dead firemen are always heroes. When it's finished, I'll swing by the party and inform you that the city's had another tragedy.”

“Gee, I'll have to give a really sad speech.”

“Your star always shines during a tragedy.”

“Doesn't it, though?”