Tie Die

by Max Tomlinson

  “Well, if there is, every eye will be on you in that outfit.”

  “Please don’t hate me because I’m gorgeous, Coll,” Alex said as she drove. “It’s not like I can help it.”

  A smile found its way across Colleen’s face. “I don’t hate you.”

  “Likewise,” Alex said, winking from behind a blue lens.

  The car was silent inside for a while, apart from some cool jazz oozing out of multiple speakers. The ride was equally smooth as the luxury car softened the rough Mission streets.

  “Try to park across the street from the terminal, Alex, and stay with the car. Just observe and report. Take photos. Nothing else. If the drop isn’t a success, I’ll find you, and we’ll secure the cash.” Colleen continued: “And if anything squirrely happens, I want you to simply take off.”

  Alex turned right at a stop sign with an old THE VIETNAM WAR bumper sticker under the word STOP, turned left at the next block, then took a right on Mission, into busy SF morning traffic. A beer truck trundled along in front of her.

  Alex cleared her throat. “Do you think … this girl Melanie … is still …?”

  Alex’s sister had been brutally murdered in the late sixties when Alex was a teenager. Colleen had tracked down the killer. Alex was no stranger to family tragedy.

  “I have to think she’s alive, Alex,” Colleen said. “But, honestly—I don’t know.”

  They drove in silence for a few minutes.

  “You have your camera ready?” Colleen asked.

  Alex nodded at the back seat. Colleen turned to see a Polaroid camera on the beige leather seat.

  Alex studied the rearview mirror. “I hope you catch those fuckers, Coll.”

  “Ditto. But right now, I’ll settle for Melanie.”

  Alex gave Colleen a knee squeeze as she drove. “Just don’t go getting yourself hurt and expecting me to make a fuss over you.”

  “Yes,” Colleen said, pressing her hand over Alex’s. “I would hate that.”

  Twenty minutes later, they passed the Steinway Piano Gallery.

  “Pull over here,” Colleen said. “I’ll walk the last couple of blocks. I don’t want anyone seeing you.”

  Alex did.

  Colleen got out of the car, grabbed the gym bag, leaned down, and looked inside. Despite Alex’s sunglasses, her eyes were sharp.

  “Thanks, Alex. It really means a lot.”

  “Please be careful, Coll.”

  “You, too.” Colleen shut the door with a soft thump and patted the roof twice.

  She zipped up her brown bomber jacket. Slung the bag over her shoulder, walked the last couple of blocks until she got to the station. Buses pulled up. Office workers were pouring out of the Transbay Terminal. The kidnappers had picked an opportune time of day for the drop. Rush hour. Crowds of people to hide amongst. She took a right, past the Wagon Wheel Café, and the Fun Terminal where the inane ringing of pinball machines and video games wafted out into the gray morning. She caught a glimpse of Alex’s white Jag, parked on the far corner of Mission.

  Inside the Transbay Terminal, hectic with commuters flooding into San Francisco, the low ceilings reverberated with noise. Colleen found the pay phone across from the snack bar. This was the place where Steve Cook was to take the call. A short man in a blue wind-breaker, with a thatch of mousy hair sticking out from under a Giants cap, was on the phone, his back to Colleen. Damn it. She checked her watch. Eight fifty-five. Five minutes to go. She went over to the diner, sat on one of red leather stools, set the gray gym bag with the $20,000 in it down by her feet, ordered a cup of coffee she didn’t want. No one was expecting her, as far as she knew. She lit up a Virginia Slim to create the illusion of relaxation and waited, scouring the bus station, looking for anyone suspicious in the morass of people. Voices, footsteps, and the clattering of handcarts echoed off the tiles and ceiling. Moran was out there, too, somewhere, watching.

  Halfway through her cigarette, the short man in the windbreaker hung up the pay phone and left. She checked her watch. A couple of minutes before nine.

  Colleen picked up the bag, went over to the phone, looked around. She saw Moran now, standing by a news kiosk not far from the snack bar, going through magazines on a rack. He looked over briefly. She returned an imperceptible nod.

  She set the gym bag on top of the hanging phone books.

  “I need to use the phone,” a man’s voice said.

  She turned, cigarette in hand. Always a good impromptu weapon, if need be.

  And saw a big swarthy guy, bordering on obese, with small eyes sunken in a pie-shaped face. He wore a grubby dark duffle coat, rumpled dungarees, and scuffed shoes. He needed a shave.

  She couldn’t give up the phone. The kidnappers were about to call.

  And maybe he was one of them.

  “I’m waiting for a call,” Colleen said. “My daughter missed her bus from Portland.”

  “I need the phone.”

  “Well, you’ll have to wait your turn.”

  He squinted at her. Trying to figure her out? Was he expecting Steve? “When is she calling?” he said. “Your daughter?”

  “Nine,” Colleen said, hooking her arm through the gym bag to secure it, “to let me know when she’s going to arrive. I won’t be long.”

  He eyed the gym bag furtively.

  That did it. Something wasn’t right.

  “Thank you for your patience,” she said curtly.

  He huffed, lumbered over to the café, sat on a stool, drummed his fingers on the countertop, watched. She looked for a bulge in his coat, but it was a big coat, and he was a big dude.

  She made brief eye contact with Moran, leafing through Sports Illustrated, who looked at her questioningly. His eyes shifted to Duffle Coat, then back. She couldn’t really nod but she blinked. Moran got it, nodded back.

  The phone rang.

  This was it.

  She took a drag on her cigarette, heartbeats rapping nicely, answered with a curt hello.

  “Who’s this?” a metallic voice said. The sound whooshed in and out, masked by electronics.

  She had to put one finger over her free ear to block an announcement being made that reverberated through the station. The big guy in the duffle coat was still perched on the stool, his hands now jammed into the pockets of his coat. Moran, at the magazine rack, kept his eye on him over the top of his magazine.

  “Not who you think it is,” Colleen said.

  “Where the hell is Steve?” the robot voice on the other end of the phone said.

  “Steve couldn’t make it.” Colleen shifted the gym bag up on her shoulder.

  “Why the fuck not?” Getting angry. Good. Maybe she could draw him out.

  “Put Melanie on the phone,” she said.

  “Just shut the fuck up and listen to me. Leave the money by the phone. Someone will contact Steve when we have your little package ready.”

  Colleen turned, phone to her ear, eyed Duffle Coat by the snack bar. He was watching her, hands in his coat pockets, apprehensive. He caught her look. He was definitely here to pick up the cash. It made sense. He had expected Steve. Moran was still watching through the magazine rack.

  “Let me speak to Melanie,” Colleen said.

  “When we’re good and ready.”

  We. Colleen took a deep breath through her nose. “If you think I’m leaving a bag of money here, without Melanie, you are seriously mistaken.”

  “What do you fucking think this is, cunt? Do as you’re told. Put the fucking money down. Then walk away.”

  She did her best to discern any kind of uniqueness out of the caller’s robotic voice. No luck. She took a puff on her cigarette, looked around casually for anyone else suspicious. No one, so far. Duffle Coat stood up, hands still in his coat pockets. Pretending not to stare at her. But getting antsy. He could tell it wasn’t going right.

  Moran was watching.

  “It’s been great chatting with you,” Colleen said. “Let’s do it again soon. You know who to
call. But we need to see Melanie alive before anything happens.”

  “You want to tell Steve you killed his daughter?” The caller swore, using a word she didn’t know. Having spent a decade in prison, she thought she knew them all. But, then again, the voice was altered, and the line wasn’t perfect, and the bus station was pandemonium. But it sounded something like “spite.”

  “Melanie first,” she repeated, her heart hammering with the threat.

  The caller hung up.

  Damn!

  Colleen looked over at the coffee shop.

  Duffle Coat was standing, glaring at her. Moran was next to the magazine rack.

  She stood where she was, bag in hand.

  “Tell whoever it is you work for it’s no go,” she said. “Not until we see Melanie.”

  His small eyes popped open as he put two and two together. His hand came up inside his coat, pointing something at Colleen. Her heart did a hundred-meter dash.

  Moran came around from the magazine rack, his hand inside his jacket. Ready to pull a gun.

  “That’ll be enough of that,” he said to Duffle Coat.

  Duffle Coat spun, mouth falling open when he saw Moran.

  “Get away from me,” Duffle Coat said, moving quickly for a big guy, putting distance between him and Moran. Colleen came at him, too, and he raised his hand inside his coat, pointed what had to be a gun into a crowd of commuters walking by. “One more step and someone gets it.” His arm was shaking, but his hard frown said he was determined.

  Moran’s hand was under his arm, ready to draw.

  “Just stay away from me!” Duffle Coat barked.

  The three of them froze.

  A standoff.

  “What’s going on?” a woman passerby shrieked. “What’s he doing?”

  A flurry of activity caused the crowd to heave around them. Voices picked up.

  Duffle Coat backed away to the rear of the station, into the swarming crowd. Gone.

  She couldn’t risk it.

  Colleen said to Moran, “We can’t afford to get some innocent person killed. We’re not going to get Melanie this time.”

  Moran nodded. “I’ll follow him, Hayes. You get that bag to a safe place.”

  “Good luck,” she said.

  Moran turned, picked up the pace, pushed back toward the rear of the terminal.

  Shit!

  Colleen hoped she hadn’t overplayed her hand. She hoped Melanie Cook was still alive. And stayed that way.

  9:04 a.m. A lot could happen in four minutes.

  She headed for the exit at the front of the terminal, bag in hand. She’d stow the cash in the trunk of Alex’s car, get hold of Steve, bring him up to date. The crowd was tightly packed, pressing for the doors. More commuters had poured into the station.

  Frustrated wasn’t quite the word.

  Colleen was just about to exit the front of the Transbay Terminal in a throng of people when someone came up behind her, quick, jabbed something hard in the small of her back.

  Something a lot like a pistol. A bolt of panic shot up her spine.

  “Stop right there,” a thin voice whispered. “Don’t turn around.” He sounded young. Like a punk. “Drop the fucking bag.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “I said ‘drop the bag,’” the guy behind Colleen said.

  The gun pressed to her back, Colleen had frozen twenty paces from the main doors. Almost free. Commuters poured around them like a stream around a boulder. One or two started voicing their displeasure at being delayed.

  “Get out of the damn way!” one said.

  “Really!” said another.

  So there were two of them, Colleen realized: this guy and Duffle Coat. He pressed up close against her. He needed a bath. “Drop it on the ground, already. Or I’ll drop you.”

  “There’s about a thousand witnesses,” Colleen said, her heart thumping. She prayed Moran might show. But he’d gone after Duffle Coat.

  “No one will hear a thing with all this noise,” the man said. The gun stabbed her spine, making her jerk. He was probably hiding it inside a jacket. “Last chance.”

  She did her best to quell the fear of being shot and killed.

  “Stay cool.” She eased the gym bag off her shoulder, let it down, and before it even hit the tiles, he shoved her, hard, slamming her into a mob of people who immediately protested as she fell onto them, losing her balance.

  She scrambled to get back up, but he’d already snatched the bag, taken off for the doors. He was the little guy who’d been on the phone when she first got to the terminal, wearing a Giants cap and a blue windbreaker.

  “Watch out!” she yelled. “That guy just robbed me! He’s got a gun.”

  Commotion rose. Shouts and people pushing.

  Heart thundering, Colleen righted herself, broke into a sprint, shot outside, where she looked around frantically. A sea of heads in a small plaza in front of 1st and Mission.

  Where the hell was he?

  There!

  She spotted the Giants cap, to her left, moving fast through the crowd to 1st Street, toward the Fun Terminal. She went after him, shouting.

  “Stop him! Giants cap! He kidnapped a girl!”

  One or two people flustered, spinning to look at her, and that didn’t help. Most people paid no attention. Didn’t want to get involved. Or she was coming off as a crazy lady. She pushed on, reached 1st, across from the arcade. The roar of a motorcycle filled her ears.

  Then she spotted the Giants cap, blue windbreaker flapping, crossing 1st, running past the arcade, and the Wagon Wheel coffee shop. She heard the motorcycle roar off down 1st, in the opposite direction, fading away.

  Dodging cars, she tore after the little guy, shouting for people to stop him. Horns blared as she zigzagged across the street. Once on the other side she saw the Giants cap turn left around a corner, south on Mission. She raced after him, drawing air in like a bellows, fueling her brain and body, laboring to keep her thoughts coherent.

  At Mission she cut a hard left, leaving the Transbay Terminal behind her. Where was he? She kept going and spotted a Giants ball cap on the sidewalk. Damn! That would only make him that much harder to follow.

  There. There he was, scurrying across Mission Street about half a block up in a barrage of car horns.

  Colleen broke into a fresh run, looking for an opportunity to cross Mission. It was bumper to bumper with noisy, rush-hour traffic.

  She sucked in air and shot out into the middle of the street, running down the double yellow line. Car horns screamed. But she was covering ground.

  The little guy was on the other side of Mission now, getting close to 2nd Street, pumping his fists as he ran.

  With a flash of alarm, she realized he no longer had the gym bag in his hand.

  Shit!

  Had he stashed it somewhere? Handed it off?

  She kept going, knowing he was the only one who could answer that question. She hurtled across the middle of the intersection at 2nd amidst squealing tires. A blast of horns.

  He’d crossed 2nd. She was ahead of him. She just had to cross over, get out of the street.

  One more gulp of air and, heart thumping, she sprinted across two lanes of traffic to his side of the street, blocking his path.

  She turned, faced him.

  He saw her, his mouth dropping open. He reached inside his jacket, pulled a revolver from his waistband.

  People yelled as he raised the gun. He fired. A wild shot. The crowd scattered amidst shouts and screams as the shot ricocheted off the buildings. Colleen flinched, dropping to the ground, her jeans ripping at one knee. It would hurt like sin when the adrenaline wore off. But that was later. She rose back up to see her little guy spin around, head back across Mission, trying any which way to lose her.

  She kept on his tail. Darted back out into the street after him. She was gaining.

  A white Muni bus groaned as it loped toward the Transbay Terminal.

  She scurried after the little guy. Ti
res screeched. Horns blasted.

  She caught up to him in the middle of Mission, grabbed at his thin, slippery jacket. He yelped, broke free, charged in front of a green Monte Carlo that slammed on its brakes just in time, bouncing. The horn screamed. A flurry of Spanish profanity came from within.

  Colleen leapt across the green hood, sliding on her butt, landing on the asphalt on both feet on the passenger side, clutching at the blue windbreaker again. The little guy pulled away, but she had the jacket tight in one hand, and yanked it, making him reel around to face her.

  The gun came up and he fired another crazy shot. She recoiled as he broke free. He swirled back around.

  The white Muni bus bore down. She jumped back.

  He was going to try and beat it to the curb, put it between him and her.

  He charged in front of the bus as the airhorn blew.

  The thump of his body hitting steel was followed by a raspy scream.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Am I free to go?” Colleen asked.

  “No,” Inspector Owens said to Colleen. “You’re still not telling me the whole story.”

  She sat at a table in a windowless interrogation room on the fifth floor of 850 Bryant, where she’d spent most of the day. Her torn jeans had been cut away at the knee, which wavered between aching and stinging. But the wound had been cleaned up and bandaged.

  On the other side of the table from Colleen sat SFPD Inspector Owens, in a trendy brown suit with big lapels, big-knotted blue tie, red-and-white striped shirt with a long-pointed collar. When the disco look finally infiltrated Owens’ wardrobe, its time had come. His Prussian crew cut, graying at the temples, was freshly trimmed. He shook his head, and his jowls shook slightly.

  “There’s not much more I can tell you,” she said, leaning forward. She craved a cigarette. “I have no idea who the guy was—apart from the fact that he was working with the kidnappers.” The little guy who had grabbed the gym bag full of money, which had somehow disappeared during the pursuit, had died in the ambulance on the way to SF General. He’d had an illegal .38 but no ID.

  Owens continued: “You need to see how serious this is. A man killed running from an investigator who doesn’t have her license … shots fired. And no gym bag containing twenty K anywhere.” Owens eyed Colleen suspiciously. “Unless you grabbed it.”