by Lee Hurwitz
“Just come with me. Trust me, we can work things out.”
Evelyn grabbed a glass of wine and hurled it toward Hightower’s head. Hightower deflected it with his hand and it crashed to the floor. Now everyone in the room, including Sean O’Brien, was looking at the table. Hightower noticed O’Brien but didn’t have time to process it.
“You are in danger,” he told Evelyn. “I can’t waste time with you here. There are people in DC who want you dead. Powerful people. People I can’t…”
The waiter was back. But it wasn’t the manager with him. It was the bouncer. Hightower stood up and shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. He made some professional judgments. About six five, two eighty. Weightlifter type. Some baby fat, not much. Shaved his head, like that basketball player Charles Barkley. Maybe he thought he needed an edge, for intimidation. Hightower figured he was slow, a little inexperienced with his fists, relied on his size and strength.
“Hey, my brother, let’s take this outside, why don’t we?” The bouncer had an easy smile, half-opened eyes. Hightower knew this fucker’s game. He’d take Hightower outside and try to pound the shit out of him. This was one guy Hightower would not be reluctant to shoot. Not at all.
“Brother?” Hightower arched his eyebrows. “Are we related?” He noticed the way the guy stood, like a gunslinger, with his legs open. Hightower could reach down casually, like he was about to tie his shoes, and then ram his fist into the guy’s balls. Then, when he bent over, gasping for breath, Hightower could ram his elbow into the guy’s face, breaking his nose and flooding his nasal passages with blood.
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Evelyn weeping. Or—no. This was some sort of post-drug drip. He recognized it, and an idea hit him like lightning.
“She snorted coke in the john!”
Instantly the room became silent. Oh, shit, I’ve done it now, Hightower thought. Then he heard Yvonne Brown speak.
“Oh, my God!” she said reverently. “It’s Jimmy Ray Mallory.”
Hightower looked up and saw the actor striding toward them. Like everyone else in the room, Hightower automatically noted that Ambrosia was not with him. The tabloids were full of stories of the breakup of their three-year-old marriage.
Mallory seemed coiled, intense, like he wanted to bust somebody up. You’ve come to the right place, buddy, Hightower thought.
A dozen flashbulbs went off.
Mallory whirled around. Hightower remembered that the actor had once done thirty days for punching out a photographer—what did they call it, a paparazzi. Well, if he punched out everyone who took a picture now, he’d be out of commission for two, three years.
Hightower hoped Mallory would do it anyway. But instead he just turned heel and stalked out.
Evelyn bolted past Hightower, Jimmy Ray Mallory, and the bouncer and ran toward the restaurant entrance. She grabbed Yvonne. “THEY’RE AFTER ME. COME ON WE’RE GETTING OUTTA HERE.”
“What are you talking about?”
“COME ON, DO YOU HAVE YOUR CAR KEYS?”
She dragged Yvonne toward the entrance. Evelyn and Yvonne were now running toward their car with Hightower and Hawkins in hot pursuit. O’Brien joined the throng of customers at the entrance and watched as the four of them ran out of the restaurant. “My respect for you has shot through the roof,” Dollinger chortled. “I had no idea you were acquainted with such lively ladies.”
“She’s a cokehead,” O’Brien uttered, remembering what he heard Hightower shout. Is DC government my own personal curse? he thought. Am I doomed to have it follow me around for the rest of my life? “She’s bad news,” he said aloud.
Evelyn and Yvonne reached her car before Hawkins and Hightower reached them. Yvonne jumped into her car as Evelyn barreled in after her. As Yvonne started the engine and threw the car into reverse, Hightower grabbed Evelyn with his right arm.
Evelyn screamed at the top of her lungs. “LET ME GO. GET AWAY FROM ME.”
The bouncer reappeared. He put a ham hand on Hightower’s arm.
“Let her go, fella.”
Hightower maintained his grip on Evelyn.
“Let her go or I’ll have you arrested.”
Hightower turned to the bouncer, opened his jacket, let the asshole get a good look at the .32. “I’ll kill you, motherfucker,” he said, loudly enough so that only the bouncer could hear, meaning: I’ll kill you for sport.
But as he did this Evelyn broke free and dashed into Yvonne’s car. Yvonne floored it and they screeched out of the parking lot.
“Where should we drive to, Evelyn?”
“ANYWHERE, YVONNE, ANYWHERE, JUST DRIVE.”
As Yvonne tore out of the parking lot, Hawkins’ car tires screeched. Good old Hawkins! Hightower sprinted toward the car and they took off after the two women.
“Who are these guys?” Why are they after you?”
“They’re bad guys.” Evelyn’s throat was full of fear and cocaine and adrenaline, and she wanted to die. “They’re very bad guys.”
Yvonne wanted to ask more but she knew that this was all her old friend was going to tell her. She accelerated up Le Jeune Road, trying to get away from the men two cars back. But after some aggressive driving, Hightower and Hawkins were now tailgating them.
She swerved suddenly, without signaling, onto Route 90, heading east. For a moment she thought she lost them. That moment lasted long enough for Evelyn to stop shaking before she saw them again, swerving through traffic, in her rear-view mirror.
Yvonne didn’t know what to do. Her first thought was to drive to a police station, but hadn’t she heard Evelyn say something about one of their pursuers being a police sergeant? Was Evelyn in trouble with the law?
She was at Route 95, the Interstate. North or South? She chose at random, and honestly did not know which way she was going until she saw the ocean at her right. That, she thought, was probably a mistake.
They flew out of town, parallel to the ocean, with the Caddy—the only other car on the road—in hot pursuit.
Hightower couldn’t believe his luck. While they were in town he couldn’t do anything but follow her. Now, out in the sticks, he could take her with the driver as the only witness.
“Accelerate,” Hightower said.
“Right.” Hawkins pushed the gas until he was right on their bumper.
“Cut her off,” Hightower said, and Hawkins swung into the left lane and smoothly sped up until he was three-quarters of a car length ahead of Yvonne and Evelyn. Then he swerved right. The little Corvette was no match for the Caddy. It sped right into a shallow canal, where its wheels spun uselessly.
Hightower got out of the car, breathing deeply. He walked through the water to the Corvette’s passenger-side window and rapped with his knuckles. Evelyn hunched down. She was crying, he thought.
He rapped again. “Ms. Boone, please open the window,” he said, as loudly as he could. “I just want to talk.”
“Let me do this, Hi,” Hawkins said. He had gotten his baton out of the car and was measuring the passenger-side window with it.
Evelyn screamed, and then rolled down the window.
“Please don’t,” she wailed.
Hightower leaned in. “Evelyn, remember, we won’t hurt you,” he said. “We’re here to help you. Now calm down and come with us. We just want to talk to you. That’s all.”
No response from the two frightened women sitting in the front seat.
After about thirty seconds, Hightower said, “Look, I want to make this easy for you Evelyn. We’re wasting time. You have my word. I won’t hurt you. Now let’s go.”
After another thirty seconds, Evelyn nervously unlocked the passenger side door. “I don’t want to get wet,” she explained.
“What the hell are you doing, Evelyn?” Yvonne shouted.
“I’ll be all right, Yvonne.” If these guys had wanted to kill her they could have done it already. Killed them both. So whatever was going to happen, they were planning to let her live. At least
for a while.
But if she didn’t go with them they would kill her, kill her and maybe Yvonne, and she had already brought so much misery into her friend’s life she couldn’t stand it.
What a fool the younger one is. How easy it was to outmaneuver him at the Marriott. She knew the older one was capable of murder, but based on her encounter with him at The Fun Factory, she was not that impressed. If she was to engage in a battle of wits with these guys she liked her chances.
“I’ll be okay,” she repeated, and allowed Hightower to carry her to dry land. She got in the Seville.
“Here’s some money for your troubles, ma’am.” Hightower sloshed back to the passenger-side window, reached into his wallet and counted out ten hundreds. When Yvonne wouldn’t take them from him—wouldn’t do anything but cower over her steering wheel—he put them down on the passenger seat.
Hightower got into the back seat with Evelyn. The car tires screeched as Hawkins sped away to the north toward Delray Beach.
Hightower expected that Evelyn’s friend would call the police and report her abduction. There was also Sean O’Brien and the other witnesses at The Fun Factory. And Jimmy Ray Fucking Mallory. The sooner that they got out of town, the better.
The next state north was Georgia. Okay, they were now on their way to Atlanta.
The ten-hour drive would give Hightower time to try to reassure Evelyn that he had no intention of harming her. And also, to make up a plan. A plan that could satisfy the Mayor and would leave this poor woman alive.
He had Hawkins put on a Miles Davis tape. Cool jazz had a way of putting everything in perspective. Once they were out of Miami-Dade County, beyond the reach of the Miami Police Department, he began to put on perspective. Thank you, Miles.
Hawkins drove north on Route 95 and ran past Delray Beach and floated gently northwest, past Fort Pierce and Melbourne. Hightower held his breath as they passed several Florida Highway Patrol speed traps. The highway patrol was watching for drivers exceeding the speed limit. Hawkins slowed down to 65 and the three people in the car looked like all the other Floridians going to Disney World for the weekend.
In the rearview mirror Hightower was able to study the sad woman beside him. Miles wasn’t doing it for her, he concluded. What a miserable break she had caught! He wanted so much to reassure her.
He turned to her. “Evelyn, you have my word. We will not, repeat, not harm you. We are police officers. We are sworn by the badge that we wear to protect people and not harm them. After we get settled in Atlanta, we’ll work things out and we’ll be back in Washington in a few days. We’ll make things as comfortable as we can for you. You have my word.”
Evelyn looked out the window at darkness. She said nothing. She thought, they don’t know who I am.
Chapter 5
Hightower was nervous about staying on Route 95, which was the obvious route to Washington, so at Savannah he had Hawkins switch over to Route 16 and when they hit Macon he got on 75, going north. They hit the outskirts of Atlanta at about ten the next morning and Hightower directed Hawkins to Route 285, and then east on Route 20. From her occasional moans, he guessed Evelyn had fallen into a fitful, troubled sleep.
“Where are we going, Hi?”
“I don’t know. I’ll know it when I see it.”
“I don’t see why we can’t stay in Atlanta,” Hawkins grumbled. “It’s closer; has nicer hotels; there’s stuff to do.”
Hightower watched Evelyn breathe. He had not slept with a woman for over seven years. Not since the time that nut shot Reagan. That night he held Deborah close to him and they had made love and Deborah wept until they both fell asleep. In the morning he found a note on his bed stand. He never heard from her again.
“We’re not on vacation, Hawkins,” Hightower said, still watching her. It was this sleeping part he missed. Not the sex. He had had plenty of half-hour rides with prostitutes and bar sluts. But he had forgotten how sweet it was to watch a woman lose her guard to fatigue; to watch her relax, unfurl, like a flower; to see sleep invade her body like a lover; to watch her unconscious, vulnerable, in another world. “Atlanta is not exactly the place to hide out when people are looking for you.”
“Why not?” Hawkins asked. “There are a million people there just like us. Out here we’re in redneck country.”
“Out here we’re in the car, Hawk.” In her sleep, Evelyn stirred and turned, trying to find a comfortable position. She found his shoulder.
“Right. I mean, who notices three Black folks in a big city? But now we’ll be—what’s that word?”
“Just drive the car, will you?”
“Conspicuous. Know what I’m saying? We’ll be conspicuous.”
Hightower sighed. They were in the Deep South, but November mornings were still cold. He wanted to take his jacket off and cover Evelyn’s chest but he had sweated in it all day and he figured it smelled rank. “Where do you want to stay, the Atlanta Ramada? The first time we walk her to an elevator, she’s gonna scream at the top of her lungs. We’ll be okay. Trust me.”
“Where are we staying?” Hawkins said sullenly. “The Bates Motel?”
“Trust me,” Hightower repeated. He watched Evelyn stretch, sigh, and unfurl, and then, surprising himself, he went to sleep.
They got two rooms at the Abelman Motor Inn—one with two twins and one with a queen-size. Hightower asked the clerk where they were.
“Why, sir, you are in the great municipality of Conyers, Georgia,” the clerk said, making a courtly little bow. He was sweaty and Hightower guessed he had been there all night. “May I ask which side you are on?”
“Which side?”
“The side of God,” he made a large gesture; God was apparently on his right, “or of mammon? You see, we have both sides covered here. Conyers is famous for its magnificent Churches and for its houses of ill repute—most of which, I must say, are no longer operating.”
Hightower was guessing that the man—the kid, really—was getting a referral fee from the churches. Maybe from the whorehouses, too. Aloud he said, “I’m on the side of getting my room and going to sleep.”
“Conyers is also the home of DeForest Kelly.” When Hightower looked blankly at him, he said, “Dammit, Spock, I’m a surgeon, not a roto-rooter man.” He laughed uproariously at his own joke, or whatever that was.
“The key, please,” he said. He had no idea what the kid was talking about, and no intention of finding out.
Hightower sent Hawkins for take-out. When he was gone Hightower turned on the television.
“Anything in particular you like?” he asked. She said nothing. “I could try to find a movie.” He flipped through the channels, hoping to come across an all-movie channel. But the hotel didn’t have cable and he was stuck with the four networks, plus public television. “You like the soaps? Channel 8’s got…”
“You know that if you harm me, Officer Moore, you’ll have the FBI on your tail in no time. And that will be least of your troubles,” Evelyn blurted. “I have friends in DC. They all knew that I went to Miami. My friend back there and the people in the restaurant, they all saw you. I don’t know what Sean O’Brien was doing there, but he recognized me. You can’t hurt me and expect to get away with it.”
Reluctantly, Hightower turned from the window and drew a deep breath. “My name is Aloysius Hightower. I know you saw me shoot Sharon Scott.
“There’s something I think you should know. I was a homicide detective for twelve years before I became one of the Mayor’s bodyguards. I’ve seen dozens of murders. Most of them were over domestic disputes. All it takes to kill someone is to hit them upside their head with a blunt object. That night, I saw a woman strike Mayor Watson repeatedly with an ashtray. Blood was spurting out of his head. She was getting ready to hit him again. I could have rushed her. But she might have got him in the temple and killed him or left him brain-damaged. I couldn’t take that chance. Police live in a dangerous world. We live or die by somebody’s split second decisions. Unl
ess you’ve been a police officer, you really don’t know what goes on.” Was that the start of a smile on her face? More like it, he thought. “See, I meant to shoot her in the arm. Regrettably, she turned away and the shot hit her in the head and killed her. I regret this very much. But I didn’t have a choice. Same thing happened when I was in Nam. Got a bronze star and a purple heart for it. We had Viet Cong coming at us from all directions. You had to react quickly and kill or be killed. It’s that simple.”
Hightower heard a bustle by the door. It was Hawkins, arms full. “I found the Colonel,” he said after Hightower unlocked and opened the door. “They had chicken!” Hawkins smiled widely as Hightower relieved him of his burdens. “I found pj’s for you, Ms. Boone.” He held out a pink flannel muumuu which could have fit Mama Cass.
“That’s absurd,” Evelyn said.
“Go mess up the bed in the other room,” Hightower instructed.
“What?”
“Go mess up the other bed. We’re all gonna sleep right here, but the other bed’s gonna have to be messed up or they’ll get suspicious.”
“The chicken’ll get cold,” Hawkins grumbled.
“The chicken’s already cold. Go mess up the bed.”
When Hawkins left, Evelyn stared at Hightower. He took it as a sign she wanted to hear more. “I did three tours in Nam. Went over when I was eighteen. I saw lots of people killed—Americans, civilians, Viet Cong. Over time, I was able to deal with it. When I was in homicide, it was troubling, very troubling, to see murders every day on the streets of the nation’s capital. But I had to deal with it so I did.”
“Apparently.”
“I’m a decent man, Evelyn.”
“Sergeant, let me tell you what I see. The mayor is a whoremaster, and you are his hired killer. That young woman became inconvenient, and so she was eliminated. And now I’m next.”
Hightower looked away. “I can see how you would think that,” he said. He looked up again. “Can I ask how old are you, Evelyn?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“I don’t guess more than thirty. Maybe less. When were you born—’58? Let me tell you how it was for a Black man who was born in 1947. I remember riding in a streetcar with my mother. And when a white man came into the car and wanted to sit where she was sitting, she’d have to get up and stand so he could sit down.”