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Chapter 71
Jack turned into the bathroom and waited in line for a urinal. At first he couldn’t go and then fear emptied his bladder as the shorter cop walked in. His partner wasn’t with him-probably calling for backup. The rest of the occupants emptied out. Two big guys, tatted up in tank tops with shaved heads, loitered by the door, giggling. Jack shook himself and started to stuff himself back into the too tight pants.
The cop smiled, stared at his crotch and said, “No need to put that away, big boy.”
Now the strange expression made sense. Any other time, let’s say when he wasn’t fleeing for his life from a global conspiracy with a bounty on his head, he would have known what that expression meant. Should he let the cop blow him? Take his number and arrange to meet him and not show up?
“I’d really like to slam this down your throat, but I’ve got a screaming case of herpes.”
The cop shrugged and headed into one of the stalls. Jack washed his hands, curiously not shaking, picked up the bag of food, decided not to push his luck and left. The distance to the ground seeming a lot higher than just the boots could make it. He wanted to run screaming back to the hotel, but instead practiced the bandy legged walk that went with the outfit.
For some reason the lyrics to the “Streets of Laredo” went through his head.
“I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy.”
These words he did say as I slowly passed by.
Come sit down beside me and hear my sad story
For I’m shot in the chest, and today I must die.”
Jack couldn’t remember the rest of the song, but that stupid stanza played over and over in his head as he fought the urge to sprint back to the hotel.
Dvora would flip if he didn’t use the damn code. He stood in front of the door shifting his weight back and forth from one leg to the other, his feet sore from the boots, having to pee again already. Finally it came to him, two quick knocks, pause, then three quick knocks again.
She opened the door, dragging him in and dropped the Sig on the chair. Part of him noted automatically that the safety was off. Good disguises notwithstanding, he was positive management would check if they heard a gunshot.
“I didn’t get it done.”
He told her the story and watched her face. She sat quiet for a moment and then, with the same concentration he had seen her use for everything she did, asked him questions.
“We need fake I.D. to use the credit cards, buy a car, in case we get pulled over by a cop, right?”
“Right.”
“What groups need and buy them now?” She asked.
“The biggest buyers in the City right now are the Chinese and other Asians, people from south of the border and members of the former Soviet Bloc: Russians, Ukrainians, Poles and Czechs.”
He glanced over her shoulder and tried to figure out why the fire blazing behind the reporter on the TV screen looked so familiar. The fire was where his house used to be.
They had turned the sound down so low that it took a few seconds to turn it up. What he heard made him forget to take his finger off the volume button, until the sound blasted out of the cheap speaker as noise, “…at approximately one forty-five this afternoon. The explosion threw masonry from the cinder block house more than a hundred yards. Known dead are Zelda and Jerome Dalrymple, family friends of the fugitive Jack McDonald, and Margaret Linden-Smith; a nurse employed to care for Meghan McDonald, Jack McDonald’s sister. Miss McDonald would have been in the house recovering from injuries suffered in a robbery three weeks ago, but this reporter has learned Miss McDonald was removed and placed under protective custody at approximately 7:00 PM last night by Captain Yan of the San Francisco Police.”
The reporter paused to press the earpiece into her ear. She was standing on Paradise Drive with the flames as a backdrop. The wind blew in from the Gate. Her carefully coifed blonde hair stood nearly straight out like a flag in the wind. She shivered inside the thin red blazer that went perfectly with her white blouse and black skirt.
“…this just in. A preliminary report by someone close to the Marin County fire department indicates the explosion occurred because of a faulty fitting on a diesel generator that was apparently being tested. We are now returning to the studio where Captain Yan will be interviewed by our Ron Coffman.”
The picture switched to the TV studio. Ron Coffman was wearing his “Someone has died and I must be appropriately concerned” face.
The reporter turned to face the camera and said. “There can be very few of our viewers who are not aware of Captain Yan’s exploits. Captain Yan, as a young detective sergeant, led the team that apprehended the ‘Racist Rapist.’ Also early in his career, as a lieutenant in homicide, he led the investigation that snared the infamous ‘Cabbage Patch Killer.’ Not since the Zodiac Killer has a criminal so traumatized the populus of our fair city. He now heads the investigation into the brutal gangland-style execution of Donald O’Hare.”
The Captain wore a conservatively cut suit, a rep tie and a button down shirt so white it looked blue. The reporter turned more toward Captain Yan and leaned slightly forward as he asked.
“Captain, can you tell us why you placed Miss McDonald into protective custody early this morning, and is there any connection to Donald O’Hare’s murder?”
Captain Yan smiled an apparently gentle smile. If Jack were the reporter he’d make damn sure he moved out of San Francisco. Or, the man could obey all speed limits and do no jaywalking or littering for the next twenty years.
“If it is safe to say that watering your lawn, through evaporation and eventual condensation, causes rain, then is safe to say these events are connected. Miss McDonald’s protective custody is a legal necessity because we believe she has quite unknowingly obtained information materially significant to an investigation.”
“Bless you Captain Yan,” Dvora said.
Captain Yan settled back in his chair and, beaming at the correct camera like a kindly uncle, asked, “I believe you asked me here to update the public on the investigation into the murder of Donald O’Hare?”
They watched Yan give answers to questions that weren’t asked and ignore questions he didn’t like until the commercial break. Then they watched the newshounds interview each other for the next hour, interspersed with shots of the burning wreckage that used to be Jack’s house. As they watched, Dvora fidgeted, with trips to the bathroom. He knew what was coming. After the last trip she stood in front of him, much of her usual confidence gone. “I want to be, should have been, have to be, with Meghan. I know, I can’t do anything, but…” She stopped knowing she didn’t have to finish.
But! But, they might not miss next time and Meghan could be dead and if Dvora wasn’t with her she would want to be dead too and blame herself for the rest of her life. But, his plan was so foolish she had been nuts to come along. But, Captain Yan was going to catch them anyway, so why not give up? But. But. But. But, he knew he was going to leave her by the road soon anyway. Having her leave on her own was better, less guilt.
“Okay,” was all he said.
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