by Erik Carter
Get Real
Erik Carter
Copyright © 2018 by Erik Carter
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
San Francisco, California
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Author Note
Thank You
Readers Club
Acknowledgments
Also by Erik Carter
San Francisco, California
The 1970s
Chapter One
Where, oh where is Jonathan Fair?
Those were the last words that Special Agent Dale Conley read before he looked up from the newspaper and saw the windshield in front of him explode.
He’d only glanced down for a moment.
He was in the passenger seat. His chest collided with the seatbelt, and the impact took his breath. There was a hot, searing pain as the belt dug into his collarbone. It was gonna leave one hell of a mark. His head snapped forward, hair flying in front of him. The newspaper left his grasp. Arms flailed. His lunch—a nice Caesar salad, lightly blackened chicken breast, and iced tea—slid up his esophagus. An awful metallic sound. The car’s hood enveloped the telephone pole. Screeching. The smell of burnt rubber. Centrifugal force as the car swung to the side. Dale smacked into Yorke’s shoulder. More screeching.
And it stopped.
“Shiiiiit!” Yorke screamed and smacked the steering wheel.
Dale turned. Deputy Marshal Hanna Yorke craned her neck to look through a halfway intact section of the windshield. Stunned gawkers stared at the car from either side of the street. Yorke eyeballed a small boy on the sidewalk nearest the mangled car, who stared back with wide eyes and the protective arms of an adult wrapped around his chest.
Evidently he was the reason Yorke had suddenly veered off the street and onto the sidewalk.
“Told ya we should have taken my car,” Dale said. “Handles a lot better than this box.”
Yorke glared at him for a split second before going for her seatbelt. She fumbled with it.
“Shit!” she said again before freeing herself.
Dale and Yorke quickly scrambled out of the car.
Jonathan Fair was in front of them, on foot. He was halfway down the block on Chestnut Street, heading up the hill to its crest on the next crossroad, Hyde Street. People jumped out of Fair’s way, some pointing with amazement at the man all of San Francisco was trying to find. His trademark shaggy hair—early Beatles style—shone in the mid-afternoon sunlight.
Dale and Yorke dashed after him, Yorke getting a lead on Dale. They’d been working the assignment for a couple days now, and though they hadn’t seen any action to this point, Dale was not surprised by Yorke’s athletic prowess. At about five-foot-ten, she wasn’t a whole lot shorter than Dale, and her long, powerful legs propelled her forward, pistons pounding into the cement. She was tough and blunt, and even though her tall frame was packed with muscle, she was terribly attractive with a perfectly-proportioned, feminine figure.
As they moved east on Chestnut Street, up the hill toward Hyde, Dale knew that Fair would likely hang a left, going down the hill and toward the Fisherman’s Wharf area, trying to make it to the water and the crowds.
But that’s not what Fair did.
He went the opposite direction, going farther up the hill. Dale and Yorke followed. Russian Hill stretched up before them, climbing into the bright, blue afternoon sky. Ahead, Fair was still at a sprint, but the steep grade had slowed him down.
It slowed Dale down too. His legs burned, and his lungs felt compressed. He caught up with Yorke, and he could hear her labored breathing, their exhalations forming an odd rhythm.
Dale broke a sweat, and he worried about his beard. He reached up and made sure it was secure. It was a fake, something he had to wear for the duration of this assignment, and he wondered if the adhesive would stand up to his sweating.
Fair pushed through some people on the sidewalk then glanced back. Dale caught a momentary glimpse of Fair’s famous square-framed glasses that, along with his mop top, were his signature look.
Ahead of Fair was a woman carrying a mounded bag of groceries. Fair swiped the bag out of her hands, she screamed, and the contents rolled down the steep sidewalk toward Dale and Yorke. Apples, soup cans, a couple heads of lettuce all thunked on the cement then came tumbling rapidly toward them. Dale leapt into the air—as did Yorke—and when he landed, he came down on a plastic sack full of ears of corn. He stumbled forward a few steps, nearly tumbled over, then regained his traction.
Since Fair hadn’t gone down the hill toward the safety of tourist crowds at Fisherman’s Wharf, Dale assumed he was leading them one block south to Lombard Street, seeking a different, closer group of tourists: those gazing upon the world-famous block of incredibly steep city street with eight hairpin turns. “The crookedest street in the world,” it was called. One of the many famous sites in San Francisco.
Ahead, a crowd hovered around the corner of Hyde and Lombard, the top of the one-block stretch. It was a varied mix, everyone from plainly-dressed tourists from Iowa or Illinois or wherever to gaudily-clad local hippies, still living out the previous decade’s spirit in the epicenter of counterculture life. People aimed their cameras down the hill, snapping shots of the famous S-curves and ornamental gardens. Posing, laughing. The hippies loitered about; one was playing guitar.
There was excited commotion from the crowd as Fair sprinted up to them.
It’s him!
Oh my god! Jonathan Fair!
As Dale predicted, Fair took a left onto Lombard, plunging into the crowd, and headed down the famous stretch of street. As Dale and Yorke rounded the corner, Dale saw that Fair wasn’t running down one of the sidewalks that ran on either side of the street; rather, he was on the street itself with its sharp, hairpin turns.
And vehicles.
Surrounding the curves were triangle-shaped sections of garden with beautiful, exotic plants. All flowers and shiny leaves and twisty trunks. The cars makin
g their way down the one-way street crept along at a snail’s pace. The famous block was more for beauty than for travel, and those on the street were likely out-of-towners. Fair ran through the first curve and around one of the cars.
As Dale’s feet plunged downward onto Lombard Street, he felt his stomach drop. Russian Hill was one of the original “Seven Hills of San Francisco,” and while it wasn’t the steepest...
It was really damn steep.
Dale had serious doubts that running through the curves of Lombard Street would leave all three of them vertically inclined. Or without broken bones.
He felt his body being pulled in front of him, and his rapidly pumping legs nearly kicked his own behind. In the distance, he could see the shimmering water and Bay Bridge. It would be a nice view had he not felt like he might die at any moment. There was a sense of familiarity, and it took Dale only half a second to realize what it was: it felt like he had just cleared the top of a rollercoaster’s first hill, gaining that initial rush of momentum that would propel him through the whole ride.
“Oh my god,” he said.
He had gotten ahead of Yorke, and he could hear her behind him. “Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!”
Dale closed on a pickup truck with plates from Utah. It rounded one of the hairpin corners, and Dale smashed into the tailgate.
The driver leaned out the window and screamed at him. “Hey!”
Dale hooked his arm into the corner of the truck’s bed and used it to propel him around the turn. Ahead of him, Fair was pushing past another couple cars. He had put some distance between them. He was now two curves ahead.
Dale heard a metal thud, something whacking into a car. He stole a glance back. Yorke was on the ground. Her knee was in her hand and she clung to the cement ledge around one of the patches of garden, trying not to slide down the hill.
Dale reached out to the car creeping in front of him, trying to slow himself down so he could get back up the hill to Yorke. He looked over his shoulder again.
Yorke frantically waved him away. “Just go! Go!”
Dale released his hold on the car, continued descending the hill. Farther down, Fair cleared the last hairpin turn and continued onto the straightened street. A Mustang honked at Dale as he cut in front of it, and then the last curve lay before him. He leapt over the final corner of garden, his boots brushing through the ornamental foliage.
Before him, Lombard Street was now a straight shot. Straight but still incredibly steep. From his heightened vantage he could see all the way down the hill, deep into the city. If anything, he was going faster now without creeping vehicles to grab onto. His lungs screamed at him, and his head began to feel light and airy. He could lose control at any moment.
He looked back. Yorke had recovered and was following after him, still navigating the curves.
Dale ignored his swimming head and willed himself on, forcing his legs to go faster, ignoring the lava flowing through his thighs.
Fair had picked up the pace on the straight stretch. The man was flying. There were fewer people on this part of Lombard, and Fair gained more and more speed. At the end of the block, he veered to the left where there was a multi-story apartment building. He jumped up, grabbed a fire escape, and yanked the ladder down, started climbing.
This gave Dale a moment to catch up, and for a second, he closed the gap as he reached the fire escape, wrapped his fingers around the rough, rusted metal rung, and pulled himself up. As he scrambled to the second floor, he looked up and saw the soles of Fair’s shoes frantically ascending the escape. Fair’s steps clanged against the metal and reverberated through Dale’s hands. Then the noises stopped. On the third floor, Fair yanked open a window and pulled himself into the building.
“Dammit,” Dale said.
It was bad enough that innocent people had been endangered on the street, but now Fair was going into a residential building. Where people lived. Bad things could happen.
Dale reached the third floor, stuck a leg through the open window, and paused momentarily to look down, searching for Yorke. She’d made it to the building, but she continued past the fire escape.
Closing a trap, Dale thought. Nice.
Yorke was smart.
Dale found himself in a typical big-city apartment hallway. It wasn’t a rat’s nest, but it wasn’t luxurious by any means. Worn carpeting on the floor. A slight musty odor. Doors lined the walls. Fair sprinted away from him, feet pounding on the floor, and as he pulled to the right, toward one of the apartment doors, Dale anticipated what the guy was going to do.
Dale had been in this situation before. Fair was going to run through some innocent person’s home, trying to find a way out of the building via another fire escape. Just like in the movies. And aside from the fact that when Dale followed him, the two of them would be invading someone’s home—which angered Dale deeply—he also knew that the residents might very well defend themselves.
This was a bad situation.
Fair tried the doorknob. Locked. Then he kicked the door hard. Once, twice. A cracking noise on the third kick as the doorframe splintered. Fair darted inside and slammed the door behind him.
Dale reached behind his back and took out his Smith & Wesson. He slowed down as he reached the door, took a deep breath, and positioned himself outside the doorframe. Things had moved at a frantic pace to this point, but now he needed to come to an abrupt stop and take a moment for method and strategy.
He had to clear the apartment.
He kept the gun in his left hand, and with his right he carefully reached around and pushed the broken door open. It squeaked on its hinges. Fair could be all the way through the apartment by now. But he could also be waiting, hidden behind a couch or table. And Dale didn’t know if he was armed. Or, alternatively, the person living in the apartment might be armed.
Oh, boy...
Dale took a breath and cleared the corner.
All Dale’s planning and predictions came right back in his face. Literally. As he crossed the threshold, the door came flying back at him. Fair had been hiding behind it, waiting for him.
The wood smashed into Dale’s nose, pain tearing through his face. His eyes instantly watered. He stumbled back a few feet, his motorcycle boots clomping on the floor.
He heard Fair slip past him and take off down the hallway again.
Dale shook his head, cleared his vision, and saw Fair pushing through a metal door and into a stairwell exit.
Dale bounded after him.
Into the stairwell. Cool, dark, slightly dusty. Their footsteps echoed around Dale as the two men descended the steps. Fair was making his escape from the building. But Dale was catching up with him. He was on his heels.
There was a burst of light below as Fair opened a door and exited the stairwell. Moments later, Dale rushed through the door, into the light, and was hit with the smell of detergents, fabric softener, and the sounds of washers and dryers. It was a laundromat on the building’s ground floor—a long, shotgun-style room with machines on either side. A woman with a laundry basket was near the entrance, and she screamed when she saw them, moved to the side.
Fair was only a few feet in front of Dale now, and Dale swiped at him, missing. Fair reached out to a basket sitting on a table as he dashed past and grabbed a handful of whites. Threw them back.
The clothes hit Dale in the face. They were warm from the dryer, and they smelled springtime fresh. He brushed them off.
Fair had gotten a few feet farther away from Dale. He was going straight for the glass door leading out to the street. It was propped open, letting in fresh air and bright sunlight. Traffic flowed on Lombard Street beyond. Fair looked back at Dale, made eye contact with him through his square glasses, grinned a victorious grin.
Dale reached desperately but missed. Fair was almost to the doorway.
And then something appeared from outside the building.
An arm. Held straight across the doorway. Rigid. Like a metal rod.
Fair h
adn’t turned back around before he ran right into it.
The arm caught Fair in the throat, and his legs flew forward while his head snapped back. For a moment, Dale saw Fair suspended horizontally, floating in the air, lost in time and space.
And then he landed with a painful thud on the ground.
The arm retracted, and its bearer walked through the doorway.
Yorke.
Dale sprinted up and looked to the ground. Fair was squirming in agony, but there was still that smile on his face. He laughed. A crazy laugh.
And his hair was askew. Completely out of line with his head.
Dale reached down, grabbed a handful of the hair, and gave it a tug. It came off. A wig. Underneath, the man had a short, blond buzz cut. He continued to laugh, maniacally, twisting on the ground.
Dale looked at Yorke. “It’s not him.”
“Ya think?” she said, clearly annoyed with Dale for pointing out the obvious.
She stared at the man, enraged, her teeth bared and grinding.
A small crowd began to form around them on the sidewalk.
Dale took the square-framed glasses off the man. They weren’t traditional square-frames with rounded corners. The lenses were perfect squares, sharp corners with ninety-degree angles. The famous Jonathan Fair glasses. Dale lowered his sunglasses and looked through the man’s lenses.