No One Rides For Free - Larry Beinhart (19 page)

"All right," I said, feeling armed and
dangerous. I followed him down Rhode Island, left on New Jersey, then
a couple of blocks down to Franklin. Franco was right about the
neighborhood. My white face was a full moon in a midnight sky.

RUSH 1, freshly polished and gleaming black, sat in
the middle of the block, two doors down from Alexander's address.
Franco rolled on past. I pulled up next to the Firebird and got out
of my rental Dodge. Together the two cars looked like beauty and the
basset hound. I looked the Firebird over, with no attempt to be
inconspicuous, twirling my own keys in my hand. The keys slipped.
When I bent down to pick them up, I slapped the little transmitter up
inside the back bumper.

There was an open space, four cars back, and I rolled
into it.

Every person who passed gave me a lookover. It ran
the gamut from the ill-disguised corner of the eye squint to the
confrontational strut. I could feel eyes in the windows as well. The
topper was a cute-as-a-button six-year-old on a chopped bike with a
bright blue-and-red-striped banana seat, who circled me twice, popped
a wheelie, came down at my open window and said, "I know who you
is, man."

Several citizens entered Alexander's building and
came right back out. They were either quick-stop shopping or dropping
in to mention that "the man" was on the block. Or both. I
saw a face at what I thought was his window.

When he came out, he came out in a rush. To my
surprise, LeRoy's description was reasonably accurate. He was six
two, light brown, about 170, with a scar that slashed the right side
of his face from his yellow eye to his heavy upper lip. He banged his
rear bumper backing up, cursed, slammed the automatic into drive,
crunched the accelerator and burned rubber out.

He tore right on Fifth and up to Florida as the light
was changing. I almost lost my rear bumper but stayed with him, not
wanting him to lose me too easily. I called Franco and, to my
surprise, got through.

"Don't worry, kid, the directional is working,
we ain't gonna lose him."

I stayed with the Firebird, heading north on Georgia.
He cut left across traffic onto Farragut, gaining a beat. I thought I
saw his taillights making another quick left onto Arkansas, but when
I got there he was gone.

"He just made a circle," Franco said. "I
got him. North on Georgia."

I got back on the avenue, trying to catch up. I
caught a glimpse of him bearing right onto Piney Branch, but it was
just evasive tactics. He made about six turns just to get back onto
Georgia, but when I got there, heading north again, I didn't see him.
Franco's directional had him heading southwest and away.

I headed in that general direction until Franco said
he had stopped moving. "Stay put while I find him," 
he said. I did. "Come on up to Kalmia and Myrtle," he told
me. It took a couple of minutes to find on my map. When I saw Franco
parked behind him, got out of my car and into his. It was a beautiful
area, bordering Rock Creek Park, hilly, full-grown trees, lots of
landscaping with big, expensive, one-of-a-kind homes. Very expensive.

"Well, well, well," Franco said with
immense satisfaction, "pigeons coming home to roost .... See
that house, last one you can see on the curve? " It was two
stories, twelve rooms, stone, set back deep, with a large garage set
off to the side.

"I don't see the car," I said.

"
I got it figured for the garage ....You ever
hear of Mark Wellby?" I shrugged in reply and he continued, "He
is to the District what Nicky Barnes or Ricky Sams used to be in New
York. He is the heavyweight. They call him the Doctor."

"I remember something about him, the name from
somewhere," I said, "something very odd."

"He wanted to put a statue in one of the parks,
but the city wouldn't let him," Franco said.

"
That's it," and I remembered that it had
been a memorial for Rashaan Roland Kirk. Wellby had commissioned a
design—with Kirk possessed by jazz, tenor sax in one side of his
mouth, clarinet in the other—was ready to have it cast, offered to
pay for installation in any public place and for its maintenance in
perpetuity. Nobody seemed upset when he was turned down, but I for
one thought it was a great idea. I had seen Roland Kirk play.
 

20
THE
LATE SHOW

"
WHEN YOU SHAKE
the tree, the fruit falls down," Franco mumbled to himself.
"I'll be a son of a bitch. Doc Wellby.

"This is what we're gonna do," Detective
Polatrano instructed. "My guess is that the Doctor is right now
telling the pigeon to fly away. Probably on the next flight out of
Dulles to nowhere. If he heads for the airport, we pick him up. If he
does something else, we follow and find out what. You lead, I back
up. If he panics, that's OK. If he comes back here, I get on the horn
with some friends in the department, and they get to visit Doctor
Wellby with a warrant. They will like that very, very much."

It sounded reasonable. It was his town. I agreed with
it. About forty-live minutes later the garage door opened. A
full-sized black Buick came out. Franco and I ducked as it went past.
I had enough of a glimpse of the men inside to know that Alexander
Jr. was not one of them.

Twenty minutes later, the garage opened again. This
time I it was the pigeon and the Firebird.

He took it easy, as if the Doctor had instructed him
not to do something dumb, like get picked up for speeding. We
followed a roundabout route, with me fairly far back. I lost him
once, but Franco, behind me, figured it out from the beeper. We
started north, then back south, and Alexander led me into Rock Creek
Park. It was a beautiful night, aromatic with trees, flower scents I
didn't recognize and the smell of fresh-cut grass.

We went down Beach Drive, through the center of the
park, east on Military Road, then south on Ridge Road. It was hilly
and twisty, and suddenly he floored the Pontiac. I put the pedal to
the metal, I juiced the goose. But we just didn't have it. I was
losing him.

Which was the way it was supposed to go. I called
Franco to tell him that the suspect had made his move, but there was
no answer. I tried a second time. As I did, I caught some movement
off to my right.

A large black shape was roaring at me and I knew we
were headed for a collision. I tried to avoid it. That took me up on
the shoulder. It wasn't until my wheels were skidding on the grass
that I realized it was deliberate and they were going to keep on
coming.

Their car was heavier than mine. Worse, I was already
going in the direction they wanted me to, over the edge. I was
bashing against saplings and shrubs when they leaned into me. I tried
the brakes. It was right about then that the left side wheels tried
to ride on air.

The car tumbled in slow motion. I had the leisure to
see the leaves caught in the turning patterns of my headlights. I had
time to think about seat belts. About why I wasn't wearing mine. As I
clutched the wheel to keep my head from bashing on the roof beneath
me, I could not think of a single valid reason not to wear a seat
belt.

During the next roll, the walkie-talkie came by. I
grabbed it in passing and yelled, "Mayday, mayday!" I
released it when my head hit the side window. But on the next
half-roll the walkie-talkie came back by itself and hit me dead
center in the crotch. I very much hoped Franco was on his way. The
car kept rolling until the front end hit a large tree. That stopped
the tumble, which was nice even if it stopped wheels up. We kept
moving, in a kind of spin and slide, riding on the roof, banging from
tree to tree.

When it finally stopped I was sort of hanging upside
down, severely hunched, with the weight of my body on my neck and my
chin attempting to penetrate my breastbone. I twisted over sideways,
untangled my legs from the steering wheel and came down with a thump
on the roof.

I felt panic, the kind you feel underwater without
enough breath left. The driver's side door was stuck. I tried the
passenger side. The handle worked and the door cracked open.
Unfortunately there was a tree just outside.

I wriggled over to the driver's side. I told myself
to suppress fear, to be calm, to be rational, to be professional. It
was then that I decided to pull up (down?) the dumb little lever that
keeps the door locked. When I did that, I could open it.

The tree on that side was farther away, but not
farther enough.

Finally I had a stroke of genius. At another time it
might have been a perfectly average thought, but at the time a
comic-strip light bulb went on over my head: windows! I could roll
down (up?) the window. The conflict between phraseology and reality
plagued me. Which way was up? Why did I care? The conflict had to be
resolved. And it was. I decided to roll the window to "the open
position. " That is how the mind of a pro operates under stress.

I slithered out. It wasn't graceful, but it was out. 
There was blood in my eyes, salty, stinging and obscuring my vision.
I wiped it away. Then I started checking for injuries. Then I heard
the noises. I looked up the hill and saw two men coming. They had
guns, and neither one was Franco.

They saw me at the same time I saw them. One kept
coming; the other raised his weapon. I dived; he fired. He missed. I
did an imitation of a snake, writhing with my head and body as close
to the ground as they could get. I moved behind a boulder, an
excellent defensive position.

With one hand I reached up to clear the debris from
my eyes; with my other I reached for my gun. It wasn't there. It had
fallen, I assumed, when the car was tumbling.

I was alone, at night, in the woods. Two large people
with guns were chasing me. My own gun was lost and they were between
it and me. It was the stuff that dreams are made of and I did exactly
what I would have done in a nightmare--panicked and ran.

"I hears him," I heard, and I dove for the
ground. Whatever type of shooter he was using, it went off like
thunder, the sound rolling down the slope, across the bottom and up
the other side. I imagined the bullet going where my body had just
been. It may have.

I started crawling again, trying again to believe
what I had heard about Indians, that it was possible to move without
cracking a twig. Once again, myth shattered on the rock of reality.
Fortunately they made more noise than me. The gun boomed again. Using
the sound for cover, I dashed a few yards and dived.

"Did you see something to shoot at?"

"Mebbe I did, yeah," the shooter said.

"That fucking cannon, too fucking loud. Ain't
you got a silencer'?"

"No."

"Then don' use it less you got a good shot, you
gonna bring someone down on us."

"Where the fuck he gone to?" the other one
mumbled. What a reassuring inquiry, I thought, wondering the same
about Franco.

"You head that way, I go this .... "said
the one with the silencer.

Now that they were split, I thought I might have a
chance of jumping one. I didn't actually want to, but it was possible
that I was going to run out of choices. As I went along on all fours,
I found all sorts of fallen branches, all waterlogged, soft and
moldy, and not of weapon caliber.

I heard the crashing coming closer.

My knee hit something hard. It turned out to be a
piece of pipe. Normally I would have been upset to find it there. I
think trashing public parks is the worst sort of antisocial behavior,
and I never liked James Watt. But context is everything, and I fell
in love with that piece of iron. It was just a bit over two feet
long, like a squash racket.

I went creeping through a new set of bushes. They had
thorns and I didn't enjoy it. Finally I came out the other side, kind
of rolling over and looking up. There he was: a mountain with muscles
and a gun.

I gathered my feet under me. He heard the movement
and began to turn. As he did, I stepped in and swung, aiming my
racket at the gun. One thing I am good at is keeping my eye on the
ball. Otherwise you swing where you think the ball is going to be,
rather than where it actually is.

I connected. The gun flew.

It was far from over. He had size on me. I'm sure he
was often embarrassed when people mistook him for a wall. He was also
very fast. He started swinging before I was even ready for a second
shot. His fist, with his weight behind it, caught me low in the ribs
and I went over backward.

He came swarming, playing sack the quarterback. I
rolled. He kicked. It caught me on the ribs again. He brought his
foot back for another shot. I saw the boot coming at my head and
lifted my shoulder up and in the way. He connected and lifted me off
the ground. I flipped over again.

I continued the roll and somehow came up on my feet
out of his immediate reach. When he charged, I went sideways and
back, my shoulder hitting a tree. I rolled around the trunk and
started running. He shifted direction and came after me.

I stopped abruptly, planted my foot, dropped low. As
he came in, I swung a perfect backhand pipe to his knee. It went with
an audible crunch. An immensely gratifying sound. He went over
tumbling. He shrieked. It felt very good to know he was crippled, I
hoped, for life.