P.J. Morse - Clancy Parker 01 - Heavy Mental (27 page)

He didn’t seem like the type to be too comfortable with a gun, so I pulled my pistol from my pocket. His hand started shaking.

“Looks like we’re about equal now, huh?” I asked.

Then I heard a thump on the back of the car. I looked, and it was Wayne pounding on the truck. He must have seen me get tackled and abandoned the Westy in the middle of the street, judging from all the honking.

Travis went for Wayne and punched him in the nose, which immediately gushed blood.

“Wayne!” I screamed.

While I was distracted, Mr. Buckner smacked me upside the head with his gun. I responded with the same. “That one’s from the student whose credit card you stole!”

Travis got in the front seat and started driving. Wayne recovered and pounded the trunk a few times, but we soon started lurching forward.

I yelled, “Your employee told me everything!” That wasn’t true, but I had so much information from the Fake Jorge that I was close enough. “You’d sell out your own wife! You want her in an asylum!” I reached for a button to roll down one of the smoked windows to catch the attention of someone on the street.

Mr. Buckner lunged for me, trying to wave the gun in my face. I swatted it out of the way, underwhelmed. After being so close to death once after the ice-cream truck, I wasn’t nearly as frightened the second time. “Get that thing away from me, you, you
pudge-face
!”

Insulted, he steadied his hands and aimed like he was going to fire for real. I wanted to shoot him, but the crowds of fans were too thick, and it was all too likely that I would shoot someone walking by. So I reared back, threw my legs in the air, and kicked him in the chest, throwing him against the door of the limo. “You call yourself an intellectual?!?” I shouted. I thought to myself that I needed to get Mom a return present for those Pumas.

Travis tried to reach into the back to subdue me, but it didn’t help much. He had to watch traffic, which was moving at a slow crawl down the Embarcadero.

I needed to get out of that car. If traffic cleared up, then chances were good that Travis and Mr. Buckner could drive me somewhere to kill me.

Travis suddenly slowed down in front of a herd of heavy St. Louis Cardinals fans who were lumbering across the Embarcadero. “
Fuuuuck!
” he hissed as the brakes squealed. “Ay!” He turned around and rolled down the window, reaching through the hole that separated him from me and the disgraced chancellor. He uselessly grabbed at my hair, and he tugged some of it out, but he received a quick karate chop in return for his troubles.

When the car stopped, the hefty Cards fans began pounding on the hood of the car, screaming, “And that’s how you people drive! Fuck Clayton! Fuck the whole damn lot of them! CARDINALS!!!”

While they yelled, Mr. Buckner took his eyes off me for a moment. So I kicked him in the hand, which knocked his gun loose. While he scrambled for the gun, I jerked back on the door handle.

I propelled myself out with all my force. I had to get to Sabrina Norton Buckner, tell her about her skunk of a husband, tell her to get a new shrink, and save the UC system—preferably by the seventh-inning stretch.

I looked back toward the car to see Buckner heaving himself out, only to be greeted by surly, drunk Cardinals fans. Travis left the driver’s seat and began throwing punches.

Then a swarm of Gold Rush BBQ windbreakers descended on the scene. I never saw that many Gold Rush employees in one place at one time. They moved like one big silver-and-red army. A burly Gold Rush BBQ employee grabbed Mr. Buckner by the collar and yelled, “You do not leave without paying the bill!” Jamal was there, and he screamed at me, “Go! Go!”

I didn’t need the prodding. With my shoes and Juicy jumpsuit, I figured I could get some protection if I acted like a crazy fan. “GO GIANTS GO!” I screamed at the top of my lungs as I ran through the clusters of people. I grabbed a scalper I recognized, a guy who always frequented the Second and Brannan intersection. “Which inning is this?” If the Giants were hitting, more people would be watching, and I’d have room to run.

“Hey, baby! Where’s the fire? Want some tickets?” He opened up his heavy jacket coat. “Special deal for you!”

I looked back and saw Mr. Buckner trying to break away from the Gold Rush BBQ employees and the Cardinals fans.

“The necklace is mine!” he screamed. “It’s not his! You’re not getting the necklace for that son of a bitch!”

“I’m getting the necklace for your wife!”

“It’s mine!” A Gold Coast employee socked him in the face, but he kept sputtering. “He can’t have it! He got to you, too!”

Then I saw silver glinting from Buckner’s hand. “
Oh, good Lord!
” I thought. “
He really is that desperate!
” I looked for the cops, but all of them were busy trying to corral Travis, who had bloodied up a few of the baseball fans.

Before I could say that I most definitely was not on Dr. Redburn’s side, Mr. Buckner aimed his gun at me.

Jamal leapt for him, but Mr. Buckner fired off a shot in my direction. The scalper shouted, and I kicked his feet out from under him. He took a tumble, but the bullet missed him. Other bystanders went down, all of them grabbing each other and falling to the ground as the bullet crashed into one of the ticket windows.

Chaos erupted. A siren went off. Police swarmed. Once the crazy-ass chancellor started popping his gun, I bolted toward the gate so I could at least get behind a wall. The ticket-takers had run down to see if anyone got hit by the bullet, and I leapt the turnstile like a hurdle.

Then I started running.

I skirted around the edges of the crowd, knocking over people with beers. I smelled like Budweiser. I felt people tugging at my jacket as I aimed for the escalator. “Move right!” I howled. I pulled out my pistol and shouted, “Security!”

An old man started shoving people over indiscriminately. “She’s gotta protect whoever gets the ball—they’ll tear him apart!”

The pistol was surprisingly effective, and memories of past violent scrambles over valuable baseballs made fans move. I squeezed past and looked back to see if the real police were catching up to me. As I moved up the escalator, I asked the old guy, “What’s the score?”

“Bases loaded! Crespo’s up! Get a move on!” He turned to his wife. “Juanita, I told you now wasn’t the time for a hot dog! We’re gonna miss it!”

By the time I reached the opening to the mezzanine, everyone had cleared the paths and tried to get within view of the field. I raced down the back hallway toward the doors that opened onto the private boxes. I didn’t know which box it would be, but I threw open every single door I could, startling people who saw my pistol.

It didn’t take long before I found the right box, as I saw several primly dressed people slowly backing out of one doorway. A woman was in the process of taking off her heels. She was getting ready to run. She backed up enough to hit the nearby popcorn cart and began clinging to it for dear life. A slender man in a coat and tie began emptying his pockets as if he were perfectly ready to give up everything he owned in exchange for his life.

There was a loud pop—the crack of the bat and the crack of a gunshot. They were timed perfectly. “CLAYTON!” the crowd shouted.

It was loud enough to shatter the glass of the popcorn cart, sending the poor guy behind it down. I smelled popcorn burning.

Sabrina must have told Dr. Redburn that she didn’t have the necklace after all, so he took the next best thing—hostages. With the aisles cleaned out to watch Clayton Crespo do his thing, the only people who knew Redburn had hostages were the people inside the luxury box, the popcorn guy, and me. And we were in a ball park absolutely packed with people.

“Son of a bitch,” I muttered.

And then the doctor started talking to me. “Clancy? Clancy, are you there? You’re the clever one, aren’t you? You’re here, aren’t you?”

I didn’t know whether or not to answer and considered trying to take him out. My aim was good, but I wasn’t close enough to the luxury box entrance to see what was going on.

I heard police rushing up behind me. “Freeze!” an officer called. “Drop your weapon!”

So much for taking out Dr. Redburn myself. I kneeled slowly and placed my weapon on the floor.

“Oh, Clancy,” Dr. Redburn called, almost crooning. “Clancy, Clancy, I think you’d better tell the police what’s going on here.”

I screamed, “HOSTAGES! HOLD YOUR FIRE!”

The officers collectively breathed in. I decided to take a chance and moved toward the open box door. “Dr. Redburn?” I turned my head slowly, hoping not to startle the doctor, and I could see a little of what was going on. More overdressed people were splayed on the floor, hands behind their heads.

One of those people was Peggy. I would have known that silver muumuu from anywhere. “Stop, please!” she sobbed. “This isn’t like you, Craig!”

“Don’t act like you know me!” Dr. Redburn replied.

That’s when I saw the full picture. Dr. Redburn had Sabrina Norton Buckner in a tight grasp and the barrel of a gun against her neck. He was backing up toward the glass window of the luxury box.

Behind us, the game was carrying on. The TV sets in the luxury box showed that Crespo was still at the plate. According to the audio, the Cardinals pitcher and catcher were having a conversation, clearly about whether or not to walk him or pitch to him. I imagined the rubber chickens waving in the air because of course the pitcher would make it a walk.

I wasn’t a chicken. I was going to pitch to Dr. Craig Redburn.

I moved slowly into the room. I wasn’t a hostage negotiator, but they moved slowly on television. “Dr. Redburn? Craig? What’s it gonna take to let her go?”

Sabrina Norton Buckner started crying.

Dr. Redburn smiled. His eyes were wild. He let me stew a little bit and then answered, “Her? Oh, she’s coming with me. She owes me a real necklace, not this fake thing she tried to pass off.” He gestured to a satchel slung over his shoulder. I cringed. I had advised Sabrina to give Dr. Redburn a fake.

“I think that you and the cops ought to worry about how far a bullet will travel. Just so you know, I can take out anyone down there. Even Clayton Crespo.”

I heard grumbling and loud whispering outside. The cops were prepared for a full-on assault. But Dr. Redburn would have time to get off a shot or two before a bullet reached him. Easy.

“What do you want, Craig?” I asked again. I heard footsteps behind me. The police.

Dr. Redburn’s finger drew tighter on the trigger. Sabrina Norton Buckner grimaced. “Her and Crespo, and I can do it, too. You let me out of here alive, and everyone’s gonna be happy.”

I was thinking through all the possibilities. He’d kill Sabrina. He’d get me and maybe a cop. He’d fire off a shot and get Clayton Crespo, another player, a cameraman, a bystander. The possibilities were endless, and the place was so packed with people that he was sure to hit a body.

Then I looked at Sabrina Norton Buckner. Her eyes were wide. I knew it was up to Sabrina, all of it. Sabrina either had to take a bullet to give the cops time to fire off a round into Dr. Redburn and save Clayton Crespo and save the whole city, or she had to overpower the doctor, which wasn’t likely. He always had control of her mind, and now he had it over her body.

I tried to get to Sabrina by catching her eye. The socialite’s eyes always seemed empty to me, but now they were full of thoughts and tears. They were filling, spilling over. Her mouth was opening, slowly …

… and the mother of all screams rushed out. Piercing, wailing, beating my Roger Daltrey/Ozzy Osbourne/Axl Rose/Howard Dean Deluxe. It was a mind-blower, an eardrum-buster.

I saw the shocked look on the doctor’s face as he let go, for an instant. At the corner of my eye, I saw an officer’s barrel level down, even with my eyesight, and I dropped to the floor the moment the gunfire started.

When I looked up, a split second later, I saw flowers of blood filling Dr. Craig Redburn’s chest. The doctor fell back toward the box window, arms splayed out, those long fingers that were perfect for the bass guitar pointing at the walls.

The sound of glass shattering reverberated through San Francisco for weeks. Dr. Redburn’s body flew through the air and down on the seats, raining glass and blood on the fans.

The poor bastard never got the chance to let out a scream.

As soon as Dr. Redburn went out the window, Peggy started screaming. “I stole it! I took it from her in the office!”

She reached into her voluminous gown, yanked out a glittering necklace, and threw it on the floor. Then she ran for the window, trying to follow her precious doctor, but the cops tackled her before she could make it.

“I just wanted him to love me!” Peggy screamed. She looked at Sabrina and yelled, “Not you!” Then she turned to me and yelled, “Not you, either!”

Looking at the floor, Sabrina spoke. “It’s so funny …”

Her entire shoulder had turned red. Dr. Redburn had managed to shoot her before the cops got to him. Her body crumpled to the floor.

I couldn’t tell where she’d been hit. I just ran for her. “Sabrina! Stay here! We’re going to help you!”

I grabbed her hand so hard that she stirred. She blinked her eyes and finished what she wanted to say. “It’s so funny … the diamonds don’t look like much anymore, do they?”

CHAPTER 37

WILDFLOWERS

I
SAT IN THE WAITING ROOM
of the hospital, tapping my foot and reading the
San Francisco Chronicle
, which had reveled in the story for weeks. I loved the nicknames they gave all the players—the “mad doctor-rocker,” the “UC’s biggest embarrassment,” the “Gold Rush BBQ heroes,” and the “rock ‘n’ roll detective,” of course.

Travis had been arrested on the scene for trying to bite off the nose of one of the Cardinals fans. He also had a few other assault charges coming. When the cops started investigating him, one of the homeless guys who hung out at the South Park playground said they’d seen Travis creeping around when Sabrina got knocked out in front of my apartment. Add that to the charges Harold was pressing for assault and breaking and entering, and Travis was going to be in jail for a while.