by James Tarr
“Eddie—” Wilson began, but the phone was dead. In the rearview, he saw Eddie open his door and step out. He just pushed the door gently to, then walked around the front of his vehicle to the curb.
“The fuck is he thinking?” Wilson said, turning his head. Parker and Gabe both looked over and saw Eddie walking past them on the sidewalk. His eyes were red, and he looked terrible, like he hadn’t slept in days.
“Is he back on the rock? The fuck’s he doing?” Parker said.
Wilson was frozen in indecision and borderline terror. Meanwhile, Eddie walked down the sidewalk like he didn’t have a care in the world. He passed the first parked car, then the second. As he approached the Mustang, he suddenly veered off the sidewalk onto the grass strip between the sidewalk and curb, and they saw a pistol appear in Eddie’s hand.
Dave had noticed the black Charger in his rearview right as he’d pulled to the curb. He wouldn’t have paid it any attention if it had driven by him, but he saw it park three cars back. After so many years of surveillance he tended to notice everything, and even though there wasn’t anything particularly suspicious about a vehicle parking on the street in this neighborhood, his antenna were always up when he was working. He’d been followed himself a few times by angry claimants, and always checked his six when he was working.
Staring at what he could see of the car in his side mirror, Dave kept the ‘Stang running and shifted it into neutral. He gave a little tug on the e-brake to keep the car from rolling. The house he was supposed to be watching was six up on the left. Garage door closed, no vehicle in the drive, no cars parked any closer to it than his. So much for the wife’s suspicions.
His eyes flicked back to his side mirror. Still nothing. Nobody had gotten out of the Charger. He wondered if it was a Troy cop. He couldn’t remember what color their cruisers were, but almost every department in Michigan was rolling Chargers for cruisers now. Nobody’d had a chance to call the cops on him for looking suspicious, but maybe they’d been driving through the neighborhood….
Keeping an eye on his mirror, he grabbed his phone and called in to the P.D.’s non-emergency line.
“Troy dispatch.”
“Good morning. I’m a P.I. doing a surveillance in your city today, thought I’d call in and let you know where I’m at, in case you get any calls about me sitting in my car, looking suspicious.”
“All right. Where you going to be?” Dave gave the female dispatcher his location, color and type of vehicle, license plate, and contact phone number. “Okay. Are you armed?” she asked.
“Yes ma’am.”
“How long are you going to be out there?”
“Only until nine or so, but then I’ve got someone relieving me.”
“Make sure he calls in.” There was a pause. “Do you—don’t you live right in that subdivision?” Dave realized she must have run his plate while he was talking to her.
“Yeah. Long story.”
“What kind of surveillance?”
Dave didn’t have to tell her, and he wouldn’t tell her which house he was watching, but it didn’t hurt to be as nice as possible. “Domestic.”
“Good luck.”
Dave disconnected the call and dropped the phone into his passenger seat. Still nothing from the Charger. Maybe somebody had gotten out of the passenger side, and he’d missed it. He thought about shutting off the Mustang, especially with the price of gas, and his hand strayed toward the keys. Then he saw another car pull onto the street and park behind the Charger.
Must have been waiting for a friend, he thought, but he still kept staring into his side mirror. Fifteen seconds later he saw the door of the new car open and a guy get out and walk between the cars to the curb.
Golfers, he thought. In this neighborhood, at seven on a Saturday morning? He’d bet money on it. Michigan had the highest number of golf courses per capita in the country, or had until recently, which was odd considering it was too cold to golf six months out of the year. It was a few seconds later that he caught movement in his passenger door mirror. The guy hadn’t walked to a house, he was heading down the sidewalk. Toward Dave. Dave watched him walk closer, simply because there wasn’t anything else to watch. The street was dead, nothing happening.
The guy was in his thirties, nothing unusual about his appearance. Black, but there were a number of black families living in the neighborhood. But as the man grew closer, even though he wasn’t looking at the Mustang, Dave began to get a weird feeling. He didn’t fidget in the seat, and kept facing more or less forward, but he pushed in the clutch with his left foot. Then, very gently, he deactivated the emergency brake. The big engine continued to rumble, but the car, two wheels against the curb, didn’t move.
“Where are you going, dude?” Dave muttered, watching the guy. The man was so close now that he wasn’t visible in the rearview at all. He was small in the side mirror, OBJECTS ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR, but suddenly Dave noticed that he’d stepped off the sidewalk and was on the grass, right at his rear bumper. He whipped his head to look over his shoulder just as the man raised his hand, and Dave saw the pistol.
In slow motion Dave slammed the car into first, left foot coming off the clutch even as his right foot stomped down on the gas. His side window exploded as the engine roared, the car filling with razor-edged glitter, back end sliding out as the crazy horsepower was unleashed on the rubber. More explosions, gunfire, back window shattering, guy now in the middle of the street, rapidly growing smaller, bucking gun in a two handed grip.
“The fuck is he doing? Eddie!” Wilson yelled, watching Eddie stand in the middle of the street and fire half a dozen rounds at the Mustang roaring away. Eddie then turned and sprinted back down the middle of the street toward them.
“Jesus, fuck, let’s get out of here,” Gabe said.
Eddie ran past them and piled into the Monte, and a second later was roaring past, tires squealing. He wasn’t driving like he was trying to get away, he was taking off like—
“Is he fucking chasing him?” Parker said, staring.
Roo had been like a kid brother, lovable but always on the edge of getting in trouble. Wilson had been keeping him out of trouble for years, and the reflexes took over. He started the car and took off after Eddie.
Dave wasn’t thinking, he’d reverted back to primordial caveman terror mode, blindly running from the monsters, and almost wrecked his car at the end of the long street. At the last minute he slammed on the brakes and just barely made the turn, then floored it again. The houses whipped by on either side, then he had to slam on the brakes again and downshift to take the corner hard right onto Square Lake Road.
There was hardly any traffic at that time of the morning, and it was a good thing, because he hit the corner wide and sloppy, all the way across both lanes and nearly into the grass on the far side. Thank God there was no oncoming traffic. He got back into his lane and floored it, feeling the G forces push him into the seat.
Panting, his brain finally started working, and he began to back off the accelerator as he saw how fast he was flying down the nearly empty street. Then he saw the Monte Carlo slewing around the corner behind him, tires squealing. Dave couldn’t take his eyes off his rearview as he stomped on the gas. Two seconds later the black Charger came around the corner onto Square Lake in a power slide, both cars hurtling after him. It was like a horror movie. What the fuck was going on?
There was a car in front of him but no oncoming and Dave swerved around it like it was standing still. The intersection with Dequindre was up ahead, and there were cars stacked up before it. Cars in front of him in his lane stopped at the red light, cars on the other side of the intersection. He couldn’t see to the right because of a liquor store, but there was a vacant lot to the left, and past it he could see there was no southbound traffic. Dave downshifted and hit the horn hard as he angled across the incoming lanes and took the turn left at fifty miles an hour, tires squealing. Dequindre northbound had almost no cars on the road, and he
stomped the gas. The Mustang’s engine roared, and the wind coming in the blown out window buffeted him. He checked the mirror, and saw the Monte, with the Charger only a second behind it, take the corner just as fast as he had.
“Why are you chasing me?” he screamed.
Half a mile up Dequindre expanded to two lanes in each direction across from Beaumont Hospital. He was going crazy fast. Knuckles white on the steering wheel, he checked his speed. A hundred miles an hour, over double the speed limit. A check of the mirror showed the other two cars still behind him, a few hundred yards back. Were they gaining on him? A hundred miles an hour and they were gaining on him? What the fuck? Who were these guys? He pushed the accelerator down.
Intersection with South Boulevard up ahead. Yellow light, one car just coming to a stop in the right lane, Dave flew through the signal just as the light turned red. Everything a blur. Bridge under M-59 up ahead, no traffic in sight. Checked the rearview as he went under the freeway, big green sign flashing over him—the cars chasing him had had to stomp on their brakes to avoid hitting the cars on South Boulevard, but they were still coming. Who the fuck were these guys? Had he been shot? It didn’t feel like he’d been hit, but he had so much adrenaline pumping through his body he felt like he could rip the steering wheel off the column. He didn’t dare take his hands of the wheel no matter what, it felt like they were vibrating. Driving way too fast to take his eyes off the road even for a second to check for blood.
Shit, he realized, he should have jumped on the freeway. No way they could keep up with him on a straightaway, not with his horsepower. Too late for that now.
Jim Bonniker put his change in his pocket and then balanced the plastic-wrapped Danish on his coffee cup lid so he could have a hand free to open the door. As he stepped into the sunlight he looked down past the Danish to his gut and sighed. Married twelve years to the same wonderful woman, but he’d put on five pounds for every year of marriage. And not five pounds of muscle. Shit. It wasn’t working too many hours, it was the kids. Three kids, all of them involved in something different, gymnastics, Boy Scouts, swimming… who had time to work out? At least the vest made it look as if some of that weight was muscle.
A totally random thought popped into his mind as he walked across the gas station’s lot to his cruiser—Danish pastry was capitalized, as was Dumpster. Who would have thought that Dumpster was capitalized, but apparently it was a trademarked name. You learned the weirdest stuff helping your kids with homework. And yet deputy wasn’t. Somehow it didn’t seem fair. Another random thought—thank God their uniforms were brown. All the coffee he’d spilled on himself over the years……
He put the coffee cup—with the Danish capital D still perched precariously atop it—on the roof next to the light bar and grabbed for the keys hanging off his duty belt. He’d left the car running to power the radio and computer, but had locked the door. Over the roof of the cruiser he could see the BMW dealership next door, all the shiny new cars waiting to be bought. Wouldn’t that be nice? Maybe one day, when he wasn’t paying private school tuition for three…..A sudden roar made him snap his head around, and he saw a black Mustang burst out from underneath the M-59 overpass. It went flying past…holy shit, how fast was he going? Eighty? A hundred? The engine sounded massive.
Bonniker ripped open his door and jumped into the Crown Victoria. Before he could even get his door closed two more cars whipped past going almost as fast as the first. Were they chasing the first car? Racing? On a Saturday morning? He threw the car into gear and let the acceleration slam his door shut, and never noticed the coffee and Danish flying off the roof.
“Radio, I’ve got three vehicles northbound on Dequindre from M-59 at triple digit speeds!” he yelled into his handset breathlessly, forgetting to even identify himself. Even with his cruiser floored, the cars up ahead were still pulling away from him. What the hell were they doing? Somebody was going to end up dead.
Dave almost lost it at Auburn Road, zig-zagging through the cars stopped at the light with his horn going, sliding through the intersection almost sideways, but he straightened it out. He downshifted and stomped the pedal again. Once he was sure he had the car under control he checked the rearview. Shit. They were still back there, although he’d gained some ground on them, maybe a quarter of a mile. If he kept driving this fast, he was going to die in a spectacular fireball. How long were they going to chase him? For that matter, where the fuck was he going? He was driving this route because he’d driven it a hundred times, because it was familiar, but there weren’t any cops or police departments ahead. He knew what was, though.
Two cars behind him, he didn’t know how many people, but if they caught up to him they were both bigger and heavier vehicles, they’d be able to force him off the road easy. He was done being terrified, that had worn off; now he was angry. Pissed. The whole thing was out of control. Better to regain control of as much of the situation as he could, and he was a better shooter than he was a driver, anyway. Fuck it.
Trusting to fate, he flew through the intersection with Hamlin blindly, a row of spruces blocking his view of the westbound lanes. Behind the spruces was a trailer park—yep, done surveillance there, a tiny corner of his mind said. Past the combination gas station and 7-11 he pounded the brakes. A narrow blacktop road ran off to the right and he nailed the turn onto Forest, downshifted and hammered the gas for just a few seconds, then hit the brakes and turned off onto the dirt road to the left. A cloud of dust obscured his view of the two cars behind him as they roared up on Dequindre.
High grass-covered berms, the highest berms in the state, came down close to either side of the road. He knew the range would be empty this early in the morning, and if he parked across the road his pursuers wouldn’t be able to get by him. Past the berm on the right was a small pistol bay, and—
Dave slammed on the brakes instinctively as he saw the half dozen vehicles parked on the grass ahead. What the fuck—he suddenly realized they must be having a club member work bee. Not good. Not good at all. At the last moment he twisted the wheel to the side and yanked the e-brake, and the Mustang spun sideways on the dirt road. The following dust cloud engulfed the car as Dave bailed out of his door and ran to the trunk. Did he have time? As he ran to the back of his car he looked up but he couldn’t see anything past the swirling road dust. Focus, focus!
He opened the trunk and for a second didn’t see it, but the black rifle case had been thrown off to the corner. The roar of approaching engines was loud in his ears as he found the zipper on the case and ripped it down the side. Don’t look up, don’t look. Smooth is fast. He as much ripped the case off the rifle as pulled the rifle out of it, then scrabbled at the flap of one of the exterior magazine pockets.
His hands were clumsy as he finally extricated a loaded magazine and looked up from the open trunk. The Monte Carlo was almost on top of him, skidding to a stop through the dissipating dust cloud. Dave moved sideways, behind the Mustang, shoving the thirty-round magazine into the oversized mag well of his rifle, and for some reason he looked over his shoulder behind him. Three or four guys he recognized, fellow shooters, were standing outside the nearest bay and staring curiously in his direction, one of them with a circular saw in his hand.
“Line’s going hot!” Dave screamed at them reflexively, chambering a round. After years of hearing the range warning, it just flowed naturally from his lips. The black guy who’d shot at him on surveillance jumped out of the Monte Carlo gun in hand.
“Just fucking die!” Eddie yelled wild-eyed, running at Dave. He fired and Dave flinched as he felt the bullet whip past his head. He fired again as Dave got his rifle up to his shoulder in practiced movement, thumb down, safety off, finger on the trigger, big glowing red rectangle of the Trijicon scope’s reticle centered on the man’s chest. Dave pulled the trigger but it had no effect, the man kept running at him, shooting wildly. Shit, had he missed? There was no way he’d missed. Trigger, press, trigger, press.
Dave fired
and kept firing until the man went down, a hurt look on his face. Brass cases glittered in the air, the sound of the rifle huge in the quiet morning, but it seemed distant, as if his ears weren’t working right. The Charger came sliding sideways to a stop, passenger door six feet from the rear door of the Monte. The cloud of dust enveloped Dave, and he couldn’t see the Charger for a second. Realizing he was just standing there, wide open, he dropped to one knee behind the hood of his car. As the dust blew by him he saw the passenger door of the Charger hanging open. Someone popped his head around the back of the Monte and fired at him, and Dave heard the thuds as the bullets hit the Mustang.
He felt oddly calm, and didn’t flinch at all. Everything seemed to be happening to someone else, almost as if he was watching a movie in slow motion. Fuck these guys, whoever they were. He’d been shot at before and walked away, and that was before he’d ever fired a round in competition, before he knew anything about anything. The back end of the Charger wasn’t more than twenty-five yards away….he’d shot plenty tougher matches than this, and he had his favorite rifle in his hands.
Dave put the glowing red triangle on the man firing at him and began pulling the trigger as fast as possible. His competition rifle had almost no recoil, and he could see the bullet impacts in the scope—dark holes appeared in the Monte Carlo’s bumper and the plastic tail light shattered as the high-velocity rounds ripped right through. The man, plastic shards of tail light in his hair, fell to the ground underneath the car, yelling, and then the driver’s window of the Mustang blew out beside Dave’s head.
He ducked behind his car instinctively, but not before he saw someone running behind the Monte Carlo, maybe trying to flank him. Dave dove sideways, planting his shoulder into the dirt, and in rollover prone stuck his rifle underneath his car. He was looking for feet to shoot but saw nothing. Where was he?