Last Ditch (37 page)

"Thanks,"
I said. "I'll be right down."

She
hit the
remote and the screen went blank.

"It
seems
my son has underestimated you again."

I
stepped over
and pushed the DOWN button.

"He's
an
excitable boy," I said, stepping into the elevator. "He ought to
learn to control himself. He'll live longer."

She
reached in
and put a small hand on my arm. "Don't let anything happen to him, Leo.
He's all I have."

The
building ran
ramshackle for an entire block, from South Atlantic all the way down to
South Massachusetts. A single-story snake of a building,
with a dozen ancient loading ramps lapping out toward First Avenue
like filthy tongues. Above a
thick collar of Utter, the peeling wooden facade stared out at the
street
through a dozen roll-up doors, spaced evenly along the block.

Harold
pointed
to a white steel door a third of the way down the budding. "Went in the
white door. Ain't come back out."

We
were on
lower First Avenue,
two blocks south of the Kingdome, diagonally across the street from the
mess
that was scheduled to become the new baseball stadium in the year two
thousand.

I
checked my
watch. Five fifty-five. Dark had arrived in a hurry. Whatever final
flames the
sun might have offered had been doused by a thick band of storm clouds
hanging
low along the western horizon. The street was empty on a Sunday night
Quiet
enough to hear the roar of traffic on the Interstate, four blocks to
the east

"What're
we gonna do?" asked George.

"I
don't
know," I said.

Truth
be told,
I was in a quandary. On one hand, I definitely wasn't up for any more
dancing
in the dark with Jimmy Chen. That much was for sure. All I had to do to
avoid
that little scenario was to call the cops. Cowardly, but effective.

On
the other
hand, I felt some unexplainable need to see if maybe I couldn't get
Gordon Chen
out of there before the shit hit the fan. I couldn't imagine why,
either. Hell,
I didn't like him a bit. I couldn't think of a single thing about him I
liked,
other than his car. He was a snot-nosed little mama's boy who couldn't
fight
his way out of a paper bag. I had a million reasons why I shouldn't
care a whit
about what happened to his scrawny ass and none of them mattered.

I
pointed to
George. "You go across the street and flop in that doorway like you're
out
of it."

"Typecasting,"
Norman
suggested.

I
looked up at Normal. "Go around
the back. See if there are any people doors in the back. If there are,
find a
place where you can see them and get comfortable. Harold, you go with
Normal."

"What're
you gonna do?" he asked.

"I'm
going
to work my way down the front of the building, see if maybe I can't
find some
way in other than that white door."

It
was a decent
plan. The Chens were on foot. George and I would be within line of
sight of one
another, so we shouldn't have any problem there. If they came out the
back, Normal and Harold knew
what to do. One of them would follow while the other came running back
for us.
Not a bad plan. Too bad we never got a chance to see if it would work.

"Let's
go," I said. "Everybody be careful. The old guy is dangerous."

George
started
across the deserted street toward his doorway, Harold and Normal linked
arms and disappeared around the
corner to the right. I got about three steps across Royal Brougham Avenue
when Harold and Normal came sprinting back around the end of the
building, with a blue-and-white police cruiser in hot pursuit.

To
my left
George stopped in the middle of the street, his eyes wide. The squeal
of tires
told me what the problem was. A second cruiser slid to a stop about ten
feet
from the old guy. Both uniforms burst from the car with their guns
drawn. I
checked over my shoulder. Same thing from the first police car. I
folded my
hands behind my head. The Boys followed suit. Before anybody said a
word, a
third car wheeled out from behind the building. A silver Ford. Oh, shit.

Before
the Ford
squealed completely to a halt, Trujillo
came barreling out the passenger door on the run.

"What
the
hell are you doing here?"

I
moved my head
toward the building.

"He's
in
there," I said.

Wessels
leaned
out over the Ford's roof, grinning like a possum.

"I
know
goddamn well he's in there. We did a house-to-house on the neighborhood
this
morning. That's what the people of the city of Seattle pay me to do."

He
spoke to the
nearest guy in uniform. "You and Roberts take these guys downtown. Book
'em for interference."

"Book
'em,
Danno," Norman
intoned.

The
cop pulled
his handcuffs from the back of his belt and started for me. Trujillo
stomped around in the dust "I
warned you. Goddamnit, Waterman. If you and these . . . these ..." He
seemed at a loss for a noun. ". . . screwed up this stakeout I swear to
God . . ."

"Book
'em,
Danno."

As
the cop
pulled my right hand behind my back, a dark figure bolted from the
white door.
I used my left hand to point

"There
he
goes," I said.

Jimmy
Chen ran
with all the grace of an arthritic scarecrow, but his legs were long
and he
covered more ground than his awkward stride at first glance suggested.
Before
anyone could move, he was across the street, running south toward the
new
Mariners ballpark.

"Book
'em,
Danno."

The
minute
Jimmy Chen started up the chain-link fence surrounding the stadium
excavation, Trujillo began barking
orders. He pointed to the cop who was about to cuff me. "You and
Roberts
get down to the gate on the east side. Call for backup on the way."

The
kid dangled
the handcuffs. "Should I ..." he stammered.

"Go,"
Trujillo
shouted.

He
pointed at
the other two uniforms. "You two, come with us."

The
SPD cruiser
roared to life and went screaming up First Avenue.

Trujillo
saved the best for us.
"You stay
right here. All of you. You hear me? You're under arrest Your asses
damn well
better be right here when this is over. If you're not here when I get
back,
I'll charge you with attempted escape. A felony, you hear me?"

We
must have
looked terrified, because, without getting an answer, he turned and
began
running across the street his gun pumping now in his right hand.

Trujillo
and the two uniforms threw
themselves
into the fence feet first levering themselves up and over in a few
powerful
lunges. Wessels was out of breath before he ever got to the fence, his
knees
wobbly, his running fine crooked. It took him three tries to get over
and even
then, he ripped the hell out of his suit jacket on the way down. I
smiled.

I
took my hands
off my head and looked over at the

Boys.
"Gone" was the operant word. They were a hundred and fifty yards up
the street heeling and toeing it for all they were worth back toward Pioneer Square.
Apparently, they had been somewhat less than intimidated by Trujillo's
dire threats. I was still
pondering what I was going to do next when a movement in my peripheral
vision
pulled my head to the right.

Gordon
Chen was
straggling over the fence about ten yards north of where the others had
crossed. Instead of jumping down from the top, like the others, he
climbed
down. Probably didn't want to mess his hair.

Instead
of
following the others up the concrete ramp, Gordon began running along
the fence
line, heading east toward the freeway.

Without
willing
it so, I found myself crossing the street.

"Oh,
Christ" I muttered, beginning to jog. Timing my steps like a high
jumper,
I sprang upward, stuck the toe of my right sneaker about halfway up the
fence
and pushed myself to the stiff-armed position on the top rail. I
steadied
myself for a moment, brought my left foot up even with my hands and
then
launched myself up and over.

I
squatted on
the packed dirt and checked things out. The site looked like a medieval
castle
under siege. A maze of wooden concrete forms rose like battlements for
as far
as I could see in either direction. The tops of the walls bristled with
black
steel reinforcing rods. Everywhere scaffolds and ladders leaned against
the
walls like remnants of a long-ago battle.

Overhead,
four
giant yellow cranes loomed ten or twelve stories into the night sky,
defining
the corners of the stadium, their yellow superstructures lighted as a
precaution against low-flying planes.

I
went after
Gordon Chen, looping off to the right following the fence, jogging past
a dozen
Porta Potties, moving carefully in the dim fight until I came to a
broad
concrete road leading down into the bowels of the stadium. I figured
this must
be where they brought in the heavy equipment. I took a chance and
followed the
pavement inside.

In
the near
darkness, my eyes had trouble sorting out the jumble. I stood for a
minute,
allowing my nervous system time to adjust.

It
was like a
giant dirt bowl. Around the perimeter, dim halogen banks lighted the
tops of
the walkways, pushing long shadows down along what would someday be the
seats,
their timid luminance utterly lost among the dark clutter spread out
over the
future field of dreams.

The
field
itself was a morass of banded lumber and wet piles of dirt and gravel.
Out in
the center a steam shovel sat idle, its great steel jaws open and at
the ready.
A scattered herd of pachydermatous cement trucks grazed contentedly
among the
rubble.

I
moved fifty
feet to my left and started up the dirt embankment toward the top of
the
stadium. The ground was firm and packed from thousands of footfalls. I
stopped
about two-thirds of the way up and took stock. I could see the cops.
Wessels
was two hundred feet in front of me, his gun in his right hand,
creeping along
beside a row of banded four-by-fours. One uniform was skirting the left
edge of
the field and one the right. Trujillo
had climbed to the peak of a mountain of dirt out in the middle of the
field by
the steam shovel. He spread his arms and then moved them quickly
inward,
signaling the uniforms to move quicker.

No
Jimmy. No
Gordon. I waited.

It
didn't take
long. Below me, I could hear Wessels' labored wheezing. The noise was
probably
why my eyes picked up the movement before he heard it Both of us were
too late.

Jimmy
Chen
stepped out of a gap in the piles of lumber with his arms raised above
his
head. Frank Wessels got about half turned when Jimmy brought whatever
it was he
held aloft straight down like an ax. The sound reminded me of the time
I
dropped a cantaloupe while screwing around in the supermarket. Sort of
a wet
thunk. Wessels went down in a pile. Jimmy Chen stepped back into the
darkness
and disappeared.

I
began to
shout "Trujillo.
Over here."

He
looked
around. I yelled again and waved my arms.

"Here."

When
his head
snapped my way, I pointed. "Down here. He got Wessels. Call for an
ambulance."

I
didn't wait
for an answer. I began moving down the embankment as fast as I dared.
Ahead of
me, the wall separating the box seats from the field bristled with
steel
whiskers. If I got out of control, I could end up skewering myself like
a
kabob.

When
I got back
to the edge of the pavement, I hopped down and began running. I missed
Wessels
the first time. He was one row of lumber further out than I'd
estimated, lying
in the fetal position on his left side, his service revolver nearly
touching
his nose.

Even
in the
deep shadow, I could see it wasn't good. A seeping furrow ran straight
down his
forehead toward his nose. His breathing was ragged and rattled in his
chest;
his lips were covered in blood.

I
knelt by his
side and placed my fingers on his neck artery. His pulse was irregular
and
unstable. I still had my hand on his throat when he coughed up a
mouthful of
blood and stopped breathing.

"Here,"
I shouted. "Here."

As
much as it
pained me, I pinched his nose, pulled his mouth open, cleared the
airway with
my fingers, just like in the book, and commenced CPR. Two breaths into
his
mouth. Fifteen compressions of his chest. "Over here."

Two
breaths
into his mouth. Fifteen compressions of his chest. "Over here." I got
into a rhythm. Breathe, push, scream. Breathe, push, scream. Breathe,
push,
scream.