Last Ditch

by G. M. Ford

  "Give this gentleman whatever he wants," I said.

  I FOUND NORMAL first. Standing on the comer of Second and Cherry palming a guy by the head. The guy's feet were still moving, but it wasn't doing him any good. Normal had the little guy a foot off the sidewalk and was holding the picture of Jimmy Chen about three inches in front of his nose. I jogged across Second Avenue against the light. I was afraid the big fella might crush his skull like an egg.

  "I asked ya if ya seen this guy," Normal said. The guy stammered out something. Norman waved him around.

  "Normal," I yelled.

  He turned his head in my direction and then slowly set the guy down. The guy went scurrying up the sidewalk at light speed, checking back over his shoulder and rubbing his temples.

  "He knew more than he was letting on," Normal said. "Where's George?" I asked. "Over in Chinatown."

  "Go find Harold and George and meet me in Hing Hay Park," I said. "I've got a different job for the three of you."

  Chapter 25

  The Surveillance Camera above the door whirred my way and clicked to a stop, its electronic eye trained on my forehead. The speaker emitted a series of cracks and pops and what I thought might be the sound of two garbled voices and then snapped silent I stepped back out into the street and waited. It didn't take long.

  The door slid back. Gordon Chen stood in the narrow elevator car. He looked bad, like he'd been up all night with a toothache. His high-style hair hung down over one eye. He needed a shave.

  "Go away," he hissed. "Don't you ever come here again."

  When I smiled and started across the sidewalk, he stepped out of the elevator. "I'll kill you," he said. "If you continue to harass my mother, I'll kill you. Don't think I won't."

  He started a big right-handed haymaker at my head. I moved my head a foot to the left and let the fist sail by, grabbed him by the forearm with two hands and swung him hard in a wide arc, as one would throw a sledgehammer. I used his own momentum to bash him, back first, into the side of a red Toyota Camry parked at the curb. The air shot from his lungs with a wet cough. His face turned the color of oatmeal.

  He began to slide down the side of the car.

  "Ooooooh . . . uuuuuuug," he groaned as he reached the sitting position, gasping for breath, his arms now wrapped around his body.

  I'd had about enough of old Gordo. I had a terrific urge to kick him in the head, but restrained myself.

  "Uuuuuuugh," he wheezed, clutching his chest

  I walked over to the elevator, and pushed the UP button. The door slid shut. Up I went

  She was standing right in front of me when the door slid back, wearing a purple Husky T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Her hair was kept back from her face by a white plastic band and she held a pair of black-rimmed eyeglasses in one hand.

  "Where is my son?"

  "He's downstairs. He'll be up in a while."

  "You hurt him." She made it an accusation.

  "Nothing serious," I said. "Just knocked the wind out of him. He'll get over it"

  It was all one room. The center was a sunken living room. Several green-and-white-flowered sofas facing a rosewood entertainment center. The central area was surrounded on all sides by what amounted to a mezzanine. On each of the four sides four steps led down into the center of the room. On this side, a hall ran the entire width of the building. On my left, a kitchen and dining area. Directly across the way a bank of black-tinted windows looked out over the Port of Seattle.

  When I stepped out into the room, we were only about a foot apart.

  "I don't remember inviting you into my home," she said.

  "I know about Jimmy Chen and the people in the container."

  She stood silent for a moment and then, without a word, turned and walked down into the living room. I followed her. She walked to the far end and stood staring at me, tugging on her lower lip.

  "I know about Peerless Price and the gun my father had Ed Schwartz buy for you. About the night of the big rally up in Volunteer Park, how Ed and Ralph Batista came and took the body and buried it"

  She opened her mouth to deny it, but I beat her to the punch.

  "It's your own fault. You shouldn't have sent the cops the gun," I said. "It just encouraged me."

  "My son's idea," she said quickly. "He hoped it could be traced directly back to your father. That if they had the gun that would be the end of it." She clapped her hands. "Open and shut. You'd go away, he said."

  "The gun told me I had somebody's attention."

  "Hindsight," she muttered. "I kept it for all these years, just in case. A little insurance policy." She shrugged.

  "What I don't understand is how you could give Jimmy Chen a job in the yard."

  She looked me over carefully. "I've had thirty years to ask myself that question. You'd think I'd know the answer by now."

  "Do you?"

  "It depends on what day you ask me," she said. "On my good days, I tell myself that I was being charitable. That he had nothing. No one. No nothing." She sighed. "On darker days, I convince myself I did it because of the guilt. The way I felt . . . because . . . perhaps I had used him. Perhaps I had taken advantage of his youth and lack of character for my own ends." She paused. "I had, after all, ended up with that which was once his."

  She stepped over and sat on the nearest couch. "When I'm really feeling sorry for myself, I tell myself it was for

  Gordon. I tell myself that Jimmy was Gordon's father. I hoped that with my help he might be able to salvage his life. That perhaps my son could have a relationship with his father." She pointed a finger in my direction. "You of all people should understand what it is to live under the shadow of a father. Think of what Gordon has had to deal with. You chafe under your father's legend. Imagine what it must be like to wear Jimmy Chen's ignominy."

  She caught herself and wagged her head again. "Every day, for nearly thirty years, I've cursed Jimmy Chen and said a prayer for those people who perished because of me. Because I put my personal pipe dreams before their safety. I don't need the likes of you to remind me."

  I pulled the folded Identi-Kit picture from my pocket and dropped it on the table in front of her. Behind me, the elevator door slid shut and the car began to move. "What's this?" she asked.

  "Open it up and see."

  She flattened the picture on the table, pushing out toward the edges with her palms. In the soft light, I could see the maze of fine lines and the looseness of the skin on the backs of her hands.

  The sound of the elevator door brought my head around. Gordon Chen stepped to the top of the stairs. He still looked a little green around the gills. Judy looked from the picture, to Gordon, to me and then back to the picture.

  "I don't understand," she said. "This is . . ."

  I looked up at Gordon.

  "You want to tell her, Junior, or should I?"

  "I swear to God, I'll kill you," he wheezed.

  "He's back, you know," I said to Judy. "Jimmy Chen. Your son's been taking care of him. Giving him money. Letting him live in the old apartment in the warehouse."

  She looked to her son for a denial, but he stood at the top of the stairs shaking his head with .his eyes closed, his hair swishing the air. I went on. "Did he tell you that Ed Schwartz was killed down on Eighteen, night before last Did he?"

  Her mouth dropped partially open. "Gordon," she said. His eyes were open now. He began to scream at his mother.

  "All these years, you told me he was dead!"

  "I thought it best," she said quietly. "How could you . . ."

  Gordon wasn't in the mood to listen.

  "He's my father ... Do you hear me? My father . . . How could I not take care of him?" He cut the air with his hand. "After you robbed him of his dignity . . . took away his manhood . . . made him into a circus freak. He's my father," he said again. He pushed his hair back from his narrow face. "He came to me in the street I thought he was a tramp. He disgusted me. I wouldn't let him touch me. I tried to give him a dollar
to go away."

  He looked down at his mother. "He had a picture. Of us. The three of us on the beach at AIM. He was my father." He pointed at me. "This monster that you and his father made was my father."

  I spoke to Gordon. "Your mother didn't know what happened to him, Gordon. It wasn't supposed to turn out the way it did. They were just going to bust him up a bit and scare him out of town. Things got out of hand."

  "Out of hand?" he bellowed. "You call cutting off a man's ears out of hand? You call making a man into an animal out of hand?"

  The picture slipped from Judy Chen's fingers. She got to her feet and started up the stairs toward her son.

  "I don't understand," she said. "Ears?"

  Gordon backed away. "Get away from me. Don't you touch me."

  "Gordon," she said softly.

  "Jimmy Chen won't be a problem for much longer," I said. "By now, there's about a hundred cops showing that picture all over the district They'll have him in custody before very long."

  Gordon Chen's eyes rolled in his head like a spooked horse. His lower Hp trembled. His hands opened and closed. For a long moment, he stood completely still, staring down at his mother, making up his mind, and then, without another word, he threw himself into the elevator car and pushed the button. The door slid shut and he was gone.

  She read the expression on my face.

  "Don't judge my son too harshly, Leo. His life has been difficult It wasn't easy having Judy Chen for a mother."

  "A lot of people would say a guy who drives a sixty-thousand-dollar car and runs a whole corporation has it pretty good."

  She made a face. "The business runs itself. If the figures get out of line the accountants call me. We fix it. Gordon calls people on the phone and sleeps with the receptionist." Her eyes twinkled. "In many ways Gordon has the same problem with being the son of Judy Chen as you have with being the son of Bill Waterman."

  I massaged the idea for long enough to know I didn't like it.

  "What was this about ears?" she said.

  I laid it out for her. Everything I knew. About halfway through, she started to cry. By the time I'd finished, she had herself back together. "My God," was her only comment.

  She walked over to the stairs, went up into the kitchen and got herself a paper towel for her nose. "What now?"

  "Peerless Price. The people in the container," I said. "As far as I'm concerned, that's all ancient history."

  I could see how relieved she was, so I felt bad about what came next. "Ed Schwartz isn't ancient history, though. It's only a matter of time before the cops find Jimmy Chen. God only knows what he's going to say. If I were you, I'd call my attorney." "And you?"

  "What I know stays with me. Jimmy Chen is your problem, not me."

  A buzzer began going off. Two buzzes. A pause. Three buzzes.

  Judy stepped back down into the living room, picked up a remote control and pointed it at the small monitor over the elevator. A black-and-white picture blinked to life. George milling around the downstairs doorway. "Leo. Leo . . . you up there?"

  Judy pushed another button and nodded at me.

  "Yeah, I'm here, George."

  "Norman and Harry are on him. You was right He's headed down by the Dome."

  "Thanks," I said. "I'll be right down."

  She hit the remote and the screen went blank.

  "It seems my son has underestimated you again."

  I stepped over and pushed the DOWN button.

  "He's an excitable boy," I said, stepping into the elevator. "He ought to learn to control himself. He'll live longer."

  She reached in and put a small hand on my arm. "Don't let anything happen to him, Leo. He's all I have."

  Chapter 26

  The building ran ramshackle for an entire block, from South Atlantic all the way down to South Massachusetts. A single-story snake of a building, with a dozen ancient loading ramps lapping out toward First Avenue like filthy tongues. Above a thick collar of Utter, the peeling wooden facade stared out at the street through a dozen roll-up doors, spaced evenly along the block.

  Harold pointed to a white steel door a third of the way down the budding. "Went in the white door. Ain't come back out."

  We were on lower First Avenue, two blocks south of the Kingdome, diagonally across the street from the mess that was scheduled to become the new baseball stadium in the year two thousand.

  I checked my watch. Five fifty-five. Dark had arrived in a hurry. Whatever final flames the sun might have offered had been doused by a thick band of storm clouds hanging low along the western horizon. The street was empty on a Sunday night Quiet enough to hear the roar of traffic on the Interstate, four blocks to the east

  "What're we gonna do?" asked George.

  "I don't know," I said.

  Truth be told, I was in a quandary. On one hand, I definitely wasn't up for any more dancing in the dark with Jimmy Chen. That much was for sure. All I had to do to avoid that little scenario was to call the cops. Cowardly, but effective.

  On the other hand, I felt some unexplainable need to see if maybe I couldn't get Gordon Chen out of there before the shit hit the fan. I couldn't imagine why, either. Hell, I didn't like him a bit. I couldn't think of a single thing about him I liked, other than his car. He was a snot-nosed little mama's boy who couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag. I had a million reasons why I shouldn't care a whit about what happened to his scrawny ass and none of them mattered.

  I pointed to George. "You go across the street and flop in that doorway like you're out of it."

  "Typecasting," Norman suggested.

  I looked up at Normal. "Go around the back. See if there are any people doors in the back. If there are, find a place where you can see them and get comfortable. Harold, you go with Normal."

  "What're you gonna do?" he asked.

  "I'm going to work my way down the front of the building, see if maybe I can't find some way in other than that white door."

  It was a decent plan. The Chens were on foot. George and I would be within line of sight of one another, so we shouldn't have any problem there. If they came out the back, Normal and Harold knew what to do. One of them would follow while the other came running back for us. Not a bad plan. Too bad we never got a chance to see if it would work.

  "Let's go," I said. "Everybody be careful. The old guy is dangerous."

  George started across the deserted street toward his doorway, Harold and Normal linked arms and disappeared around the corner to the right. I got about three steps across Royal Brougham Avenue when Harold and Normal came sprinting back around the end of the building, with a blue-and-white police cruiser in hot pursuit.

  To my left George stopped in the middle of the street, his eyes wide. The squeal of tires told me what the problem was. A second cruiser slid to a stop about ten feet from the old guy. Both uniforms burst from the car with their guns drawn. I checked over my shoulder. Same thing from the first police car. I folded my hands behind my head. The Boys followed suit. Before anybody said a word, a third car wheeled out from behind the building. A silver Ford. Oh, shit.

  Before the Ford squealed completely to a halt, Trujillo came barreling out the passenger door on the run.

  "What the hell are you doing here?"

  I moved my head toward the building.

  "He's in there," I said.

  Wessels leaned out over the Ford's roof, grinning like a possum.

  "I know goddamn well he's in there. We did a house-to-house on the neighborhood this morning. That's what the people of the city of Seattle pay me to do."

  He spoke to the nearest guy in uniform. "You and Roberts take these guys downtown. Book 'em for interference."

  "Book 'em, Danno," Norman intoned.

  The cop pulled his handcuffs from the back of his belt and started for me. Trujillo stomped around in the dust "I warned you. Goddamnit, Waterman. If you and these . . . these ..." He seemed at a loss for a noun. ". . . screwed up this stakeout I swear to God . . ."
/>   "Book 'em, Danno."

  As the cop pulled my right hand behind my back, a dark figure bolted from the white door. I used my left hand to point

  "There he goes," I said.

  Jimmy Chen ran with all the grace of an arthritic scarecrow, but his legs were long and he covered more ground than his awkward stride at first glance suggested. Before anyone could move, he was across the street, running south toward the new Mariners ballpark.

  "Book 'em, Danno."

  The minute Jimmy Chen started up the chain-link fence surrounding the stadium excavation, Trujillo began barking orders. He pointed to the cop who was about to cuff me. "You and Roberts get down to the gate on the east side. Call for backup on the way."

  The kid dangled the handcuffs. "Should I ..." he stammered.

  "Go," Trujillo shouted.

  He pointed at the other two uniforms. "You two, come with us."

  The SPD cruiser roared to life and went screaming up First Avenue.

  Trujillo saved the best for us. "You stay right here. All of you. You hear me? You're under arrest Your asses damn well better be right here when this is over. If you're not here when I get back, I'll charge you with attempted escape. A felony, you hear me?"

  We must have looked terrified, because, without getting an answer, he turned and began running across the street his gun pumping now in his right hand.

  Trujillo and the two uniforms threw themselves into the fence feet first levering themselves up and over in a few powerful lunges. Wessels was out of breath before he ever got to the fence, his knees wobbly, his running fine crooked. It took him three tries to get over and even then, he ripped the hell out of his suit jacket on the way down. I smiled.

  I took my hands off my head and looked over at the

  Boys. "Gone" was the operant word. They were a hundred and fifty yards up the street heeling and toeing it for all they were worth back toward Pioneer Square. Apparently, they had been somewhat less than intimidated by Trujillo's dire threats. I was still pondering what I was going to do next when a movement in my peripheral vision pulled my head to the right.