No Beast So Fierce (30 page)

My shoulder was against the door. “When I kick it open, break to the left and run right across the street. I'll cover the right.”

From outside there were two gunshots, the sound muffled by the doors, but clear nonetheless. “Two more cars coming,” Aaron said. “I'm going to split, draw them off you.”

“Wait, goddammit,” I called—but there was no transmitter for my words. I pulled Jerry back from the door. “Out the side,” I said, grabbing his sleeve.

A shotgun went off outside. A siren wailed. Another shotgun blast. Pistol shots.

We sprinted for the side entrance. As Jerry burst through the door there was a fusillade of shots from the boulevard; then the screech of tires and the rip of metal. I knew Aaron wasn't getting away.

I ran bent over through the sunlit parking lot, using the few cars for cover. I had the pistol in one hand the sack of jewelry in the other. Jerry was on my heels. Moments before the odds were in our favor; now they were a hundred to one against us.

I dropped to one knee behind a car, Jerry next to me. The gunfight on the boulevard had kept the police from even glancing elsewhere. We hadn't been seen so far. But ahead was a three-foot box hedge, and the sidewalk to the sidestreet. Automobiles went by, none realizing that they traversed a battlefield. Across the street was a medical building. We couldn't cross; we'd certainly be seen. The only way to run was down this side of the street, turning in at the first opening. We'd be exposed to anyone looking down from Wilshire, but we had no choice in the matter.

From around a tire, I saw a prowl car, red light spinning wildly, hurtle across the intersection and swerve into the parking lot behind us. Another swung in and stopped behind the first. Four policemen in black uniforms and white helmets bailed out, crouching behind their cars, pistols raised. They were covering Gregory's side door, believing we were still inside. Their backs were to us.

Jerry tore off his mask and threw it under the parked car. “Where can I put this?” he asked, gesturing with the automatic rifle.

“Hold the motherfucker. We might need it.” I rolled the bag into a bundle and tucked it beneath my arm like a football. “Follow me.”

I sucked in a breath, hurdled the hedge, and started running. The empty sidewalk stretched before me. Jerry began one step behind, but I quickly pulled away. There was no outcry, no shots from behind us. We were near the middle of the block.

I reached the driveway at the same moment that a black and white prowl car turned the corner ahead. I leaped through, feet skidding from beneath me as I hit gravel. I crashed on hip and elbow without dropping anything, came back on my feet scarcely losing a stride. The siren's scream spurred me onward.

The driveway opened into a loading yard. Behind me brakes were screeching as the police car turned in. I leaped left. Crates and boxes were filed against the walls. I looked for a drainpipe to climb to the roof. No time. I drove into the recess of a door, crouched behind a steel drum filled with trash. As I faced out, pistol raised, Jerry appeared. He ran blindly in a line toward a vine-covered storm fence twenty feet away.

The car braked, skidded, and threw up a billow of dust, but only the grill protruded beyond the building.

Jerry had thrown the M16 over the fence, had sprung to the top, one leg hooked over, fingers dug into the wire.

“Hold it!” a voice yelled—the body was hidden by the building.

Jerry stopped, remained hanging—captured. Seconds ticked away.

The policeman's shot made me jump. Jerry dropped, arching in a convulsion, his spine shattered. He lay writhing in the dirt like a dog with a broken back. I was sick to my stomach, waiting for the command to surrender, tensing to charge out shooting. “Chip time,” I muttered.

The unbelievable happened. The policeman sauntered from the alleyway, pistol dangling beside his hip, a twisted smile on his face. He walked toward the wriggling body. He'd seen only Jerry. He didn't know there were two of us.

The black uniform had white sergeant's chevrons. The short-cropped blond hair shone in the sunlight. He was fifteen feet away. Dire necessity guided my actions, but there was joy, too, and joy of hate expressed.

He went down, leg blown out from under him. Blood darkened over hip and thigh. I leaped forward looking for his service revolver. It was in the dust five feet away. His trim uniform became filthy the moment he landed. Pain and shock marred the boyish face. He would beg, plead for mercy, mention wife and children. Policemen never admit begging for mercy, but they do it more often than criminals. Begging would make no difference. Even if he hadn't shot Jerry he was going to die.

He didn't beg. He glared. “You haven't got the guts,” he said. “They'll get you and you know it.”

It was amazing to view a man confronting mortality who believed that retribution is divinely ordained, that righteousness would protect him. “It doesn't make any difference to you,” I said. I put my foot on his neck, forced him down, and put two bullets through his heart. The hollow-point ammunition blew his life out his back. In the last instant, already dead, his eyes registered that he saw the truth.

Jerry still flopped weakly, like a fish expiring on a ship's deck. His eyes were sightless and glassy. Formless sounds mingled with blood from his mouth. Dark arterial blood thickened the dust, turned it into a rich mud. I thought of dragging him to the prowl car and using it for a getaway. I thought of putting him out of his misery.

I could do neither.

Sirens screamed. Cars were careening nearby like a nest of aroused hornets. I pitched the bag of diamonds over the fence and leaped after it. In three seconds I was gathering the sack in one hand and the M16 in the other.

I ran through a back yard of flower beds and trees and a wrought iron bird bath. I had to get off the block before it was surrounded, had to cross one street in seconds. Existence was reduced to that of the beast fleeing blindly before the baying hounds. The future ended seconds away.

As I ran, my eyes scanned the house, looking for a fluttered curtain or other movement indicating that someone had been aroused by the shots, was looking out. All remained still as I tramped through a flower bed, skirted a garage, hurtled pell-mell down a driveway, hitting the street full stride, and pounded across and up another driveway. I hurdled a wooden gate on the run, one that I would have had to scramble over under other conditions—and might not have been able to encumbered by rifle and shopping bag. I was in another back yard. A small dog scampered beside me, yipping and nipping at my heels until I went over another fence.

I was in an alley, confronting a giant concrete wall: the side of a movie theater. The wall forced me to detour to the right, away from Wilshire. At the end of the wall was a narrow passageway. I ducked into it, slowed down, my lungs on fire. Suddenly I stopped, realizing the mask was still on my face and the rifle was dangling in my hand. Anyone who saw me would know what I was. For the first time the paralysis of fear crept into me. My pants were frayed and dusty from where I'd skidded on the gravel, my face was drenched with sweat beneath the mask. It was miraculous that I'd come this far without being spotted. Yet I couldn't stay here for many seconds. Any moment a police car would cruise down the alley behind or the street ahead and the battle would be on.

I moved forward. The fence had a gate and the gate was unlocked. I slipped through into an incinerator and trash area in the back yard of a large, expensive home. The area where I stood was separated from trees and lawn and rosebushes by a lattice fence. A garage wall was ahead of me. Stacked against it were boxes of cans and bottles. I shut the gate and flopped behind the incinerator, out of sight of the house.

The sound of an automobile going down the alley rose and receded. Was it a police car?

I couldn't stay where I was for more than a few seconds. I thought of hiding, going to earth like a fox. It has proven successful in other chases—but none were like this was going to be. They knew I was on foot. Fifty police cars would be in the area in a few minutes. Hundreds of policemen would begin searching.

My only hope was to get away before they collected themselves—if they hadn't already. They'd draw a demarcation line on Wilshire Boulevard because they knew I was south of there. If I could cross it the Saturday crowds would give me some cover.

I dragged a trash box behind the incinerator and dumped it on the ground. I dropped the rifle in, put the shopping bag of diamonds on top. I tore off my dirty coat and tie, stuffed them in. The Browning was too big to hide in my clothes. I dropped it on top and refilled the box with trash.

Refusing to think of the danger, I went out the gate, walked along the passageway and turned up the sidewalk toward Wilshire. It was forty yards away. I began sprinting. An automobile motor sounded behind me. I expected a hail of bullets. The vehicle passed.

Near the end of the building I slowed down, trying to gauge the traffic light so that I would arrive as it changed to green. I'd walk across Wilshire—and for thirty seconds I'd be in sight from the sidewalk outside Gregory's.

The light turned green. I stepped toward the curb. To the left a wonderful sight appeared: a bus was pulling up ten feet away, doors whooshing open—doors of escape. I went to it, momentarily able to glimpse down the sidewalk two blocks away where half a dozen figures were bunched in front of Gregory's. The bus blocked the other side of the street where the panel truck was wrecked. I waited while a graying Negro woman climbed off, grunting and holding dearly to the handrail.

From the top step, as I stood beside the driver getting change, I could look through the front window. A police car cut around the bus, turned down the street I'd just vacated. If I'd not gotten on the bus we would have met in the middle of Wilshire Boulevard.

The bus pulled away from the curb. Police cars were going the other way, three of them with red lights flashing.

When I sat down I was stupefied. Thoughts spun too fast to focus. I began trembling. My mind knew that only danger's beginning had passed. The hounds were still sniffing for scent. When they had it the baying would begin.

I had to get to the apartment, get the .32—the only pistol remaining. I had to pick up my car, clothes, get moving. There figured to be at least several hours, perhaps days, before they got there. All I needed was twenty minutes. I was still oozing sweat, still trembling, and the enormity of the situation was held at bay by shock.

2

T
HE
winding, curbless streets near the apartment were silent except for buzzing insects in the foliage and chirping birds. Going up the stairs (I'd left the taxi a quarter mile away) I wondered if my enemies were crouched in ambush, hidden inside the apartment. It was unlikely, and I didn't really care. Sometimes one is too tired for even life to be so utterly precious.

The apartment was silent, dim, cool, a sanctuary. I left the lights out. The sights were familiar: Allison's unfinished paintings, her flower arrangements, the record albums lying disordered on the sofa. The shell around my emotions was cracked by seeing these things. The first quick ache of sadness shot through me. My life had been a wasteland, but until today I might have turned back, done penance, and been forgiven.

I throttled down the feelings. The game had to be played. My role was hunted cop killer, vicious, unrepentant.

I changed clothes, throwing aside those I'd been wearing. The small revolver was in a hip pocket. My clothes were thrown on a bedspread, the bedspread tied into a bundle. I took the half pound of pot and half jar of bennies; might as well be high while being hunted.

The license plates on my car needed changing. Doing it here was impossible—some neighbor could too easily look out the window and see what was going on. L&L Red's hilltop seemed the best place for that—and to pause while I collected myself and decided what to do. Driving there would be safe. For a few hours, at least, I'd be in the eye of the storm.

An automobile was coming up the hill. Its motor grew louder, faded temporarily as it rounded curves. Suddenly, it was close and recognizable. Allison! She was three hours early.

Footsteps tapped swiftly up the stairs. What could I say to her? “Baby, I just offed a pig and I gotta blow.”

The key turned, the door bounced against the night chain. She rattled the door. “Max! Max! Let me in.”

I peered from a window, revolver in hand. She was apparently alone. I flipped the chain loose and she rushed inside, resetting the latch. She was visibly upset. She knew something. That was frightening.

“They're looking for you,” she said.

“Where'd you hear that?”

“The radio.”

“The radio! You heard my name?”

“A special bulletin.”

Panic swelled up. It was 1:00
P.M.
Unless Aaron had talked there was no way for them to know my name so soon. Even if they'd gotten fingerprints it would take hours to telephoto them to Washington. Wherever it came from, it meant they were closer on my heels than I'd thought. The apartment was no longer even temporary sanctuary. It was a trap.

“I couldn't believe my ears,” she said. “I started home and it came on another station.”

“How long ago?”

“Twenty minutes. I rushed back here so fast I left my towel and glasses. Did you kill a policeman? They've got two men, one isn't expected to live.”

“I know.”

“Aaron and Jerry.”

I was at the window, peering down the hill. Nothing stirred.

“Was it Aaron and Jerry?” she repeated.

“Yeah. Jerry's shot.”

“Poor Carol.”

“Shit! Poor Jerry.” I wasn't really talking to her. I had to think, make decisions. The first thing was to get away from here; then think. I wondered if it made any difference. It would be the same in the end anyway. It would conclude the same way if I smoked some pot, got drunk, and went to bed. The world still swung around the sun, Fingers of despair clutched at my mind. Where had yesterday gone? Fuck yesterday.