Alarm Call

by Jardine, Quintin

  I didn’t expect our accommodation to be ready at ten thirty-five in the morning, but it was. Their two best bedrooms were contained within a corner suite, with a view over Union Square itself. The Campton Place calls itself one of the world’s leading small hotels, and the fittings and furnishings live up to that claim. We settled in, and I was able to have the shave I had forgone in Vancouver. Once I was done, I appraised myself in the mirror. There were a few creases around my eyes that I didn’t like; crossing time zones does that to you, and when you’re nearer forty than thirty, they don’t go away. I really did need a haircut too. But what the hell? There would be people in Vegas to take care of all that stuff.

  I surrendered the bathroom to Prim and went to my bedroom to call Susie. At first, she wasn’t best pleased when I told her we were in San Francisco . . . it’s on her places-to-see list, but we’d never got round to it . . . but she calmed down when I told her why we had gone there. ‘Do you think he’s ready to hand the kid over?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s what I’m hoping, but it won’t be that easy. Union Square’s a public place and it’ll be at its busiest at three o’clock. I’m guessing he’s picked it for his own security, reckoning that I won’t go for him if there are crowds around, but I’ll be amazed if he brings Tom with him. Prim would just go berserk and grab him.’

  ‘But where would he leave him, if they’re alone?’

  ‘Any number of places. He could be in a hotel with a baby-sitting service. There are big stores around here; there might be a crèche in one where you can leave your baby to be looked after while you shop. Or . . .’ I hadn’t really considered this before. ‘. . . he might not be alone. He might have an accomplice.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘Sure. His dear old mother, for one; she’s had time to jump on a plane and get out here.’

  ‘Whatever it turns out to be, just you be careful. You’ve got a position to protect, so don’t go getting involved in any rough stuff.’

  ‘Who? Me?’ I laughed. ‘I won’t get in any fights, Mummy, I promise. Let me speak to Janet.’ I had another earnest conversation with my daughter, in which I promised to take her to California as soon as Jonathan was big enough to come with us, then spoke to Susie again. ‘Anything else for me?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. Is there something wrong with your cell-phone? Mark Kravitz has been trying to get through to you, and so has the general manager of the Merchant’s Hotel in Minneapolis.’

  ‘What the hell did he want?’

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  I dug out the Sony Ericsson and tried to switch it on. I’d been so busy using my international adaptor to power my laptop that I’d forgotten to charge it. The thing was as dead as Kelsey’s nuts . . . that, incidentally, is a popular American saying, and no, I have no idea who Kelsey was, or what killed them, although I’ve heard some interesting suggestions.

  ‘I’ll get back to him,’ I told her, ‘when I’ve got time, once this bloody thing’s charged up again.’

  ‘Okay. Let me know how you get on.’

  ‘Will do. Love you.’

  Prim was waiting in our sitting room when I went back out. ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked.

  ‘We’re going to relax.’ I checked my watch: it was just short of midday. ‘We’ve got three hours to kill, and my stomach’s still on Central Standard Time, so I’m going to fancy lunch soon. Let’s go to the seaside.’

  She saw the sense in that, so we left the hotel and walked a couple of blocks, where we jumped a cable car and rode it down to Fisherman’s Wharf. We walked around for a while, breathed in a lungful of the sea air . . . I cherished it, for I knew how dry it would be in Vegas . . . then ate lunch at Ana Mandara, Don Johnson’s place on Beach Street: sweet blue crab soup, then wokked beef tenderloin with onions and peppery cress, and a side order of steamed jasmine rice.

  The cable car got us back to Union Square at two thirty. I suggested that we go back up to the suite, where we overlooked the square and could see everything and everyone, but Prim vetoed that idea. ‘Maybe he won’t show himself until he sees us,’ she said. She had a point, so we found ourselves a seat near the Manila Bay monument and waited.

  Her eyes were everywhere, scanning every face in the crowds, but recognising nobody. As three o’clock drew closer she became more and more restless, but in the circumstances I forgave her that. Eventually she could sit still no longer. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get up and go nearer the monument; maybe he can’t see us down here.’

  I knew that if he was looking, he could see us well enough; at that moment the square was full of Japanese tourists . . . that nation is full of tremendous, energetic and very well-organised travellers . . . so we were liable to stand out. I went along with it, though, because I didn’t want her blaming me for anything that went wrong.

  We rose from our bench and walked towards the white stone pillar, mingling with the crowd of Japanese. I realised that some of them actually looked Chinese, and decided that two different tour groups must have converged on the square at the same time. There were a lot of them, but I was quite a bit taller than most of them, so I reckoned we were visible. As I looked around, scanning for Wallinger, my eye was caught by two black guys. I’d seen them in action earlier when we’d got off the cable car, and their pitch had made me laugh. I was near enough to hear as they did it again.

  One was carrying a tin with a slot in the top, but there was no doubt that he and his mate were collecting for their personal charity. His companion did the pitching. He fastened on to a Chinese couple and asked them, ‘What’s the greatest nation on earth?’ The Chinese man looked uncertain, so the guy shouted his question again, drawing quite a bit of attention, until finally he laughed and bellowed, ‘Donation!’

  It was worth a buck, and the sucker duly shoved a note into the tin.

  I was still looking at them when all hell broke loose behind me. A woman screamed, high-pitched, then Prim grabbed my arm. ‘Oz!’ she yelled, above the sudden hubbub. I turned and saw a man, as tall as I was, and with the same hair colouring, in the act of turning and taking to his heels, legging it out of the square.

  I didn’t even think about it; I went after him. He shot off towards the corner, then swung into Stockton Street. This guy’s confident, I thought to myself. He’s running uphill. He was too, and running bloody fast at that. I didn’t yell after him or anything like that. I saved my breath and dug in.

  He ran a full block, with me in pursuit about ten yards back, close enough for him to hear me, not gaining, but not losing ground either. We came to a cross street but the lights were at ‘Walk’: my quarry and I ignored them and kept on running.

  I’m not as fast as I was fifteen years ago, but when I try I can still shift a bit. For all that, the gradient was beginning to hurt, and I reckon he’d have got away from me, if he hadn’t done something very stupid. He looked back over his shoulder to see if I was catching him.

  When you’re running flat out, it’s important that you look where you’re going, otherwise you won’t see the fat bloke who steps out of a doorway and into your way, just like he didn’t. He knocked the obstacle flat on his arse, but he lost momentum and I was on him. I hit him in the back with my shoulder, in a spear tackle, knocking him full-length, face down. I landed on top of him, then got to one knee and turned him over.

  I didn’t expect the gun at all, but there it was in his hand and it was aiming my way. I knocked it sideways just as he fired. I felt a sudden flash of heat on my cheek, and a sudden searing pain near my ear. Before the lunatic could fire again I clamped my left hand around his wrist, and hit him, awkwardly, but seriously hard, with my right. The punch was half hook half uppercut, and not even Iron Mike ever threw one with more lethal intent than I did then. The guy’s head snapped back, hitting the concrete of the sidewalk. He went out like a light, but that didn’t stop me hitting him again, just for luck.

  I tore the gun from his unresisting hand, flicke
d on the safety and stuck it in my belt. Then I stood up and put a foot on his throat, in case he came round and had any thoughts about going anywhere else in a hurry. Only when I’d done all that did I take a good look at him. He was my size, yes, and had the same colour hair, yes, but no way did he look anything like me or like Paul Wallinger’s picture. The big ragged scar on his forehead was a drawback for a start, and so was the fact that he was dark-skinned. I saw something else too, a gent’s leather handbag, tucked into his belt.

  The fat bloke from the doorway had regained his feet and was looking on. The gunshot had sent everyone in the street diving for cover, but now that the situation was under control they began creeping out to see what had happened.

  Porky looked down at the supine figure under my foot. ‘Fucking muggers!’ he snarled, then spat on the guy.

  ‘You do that again, pal,’ I said, ‘and when he wakes up I’ll give him his gun back and tell him it was you.’

  A circle had formed around us, but it parted to let two biker cops through. I thought they might have been inclined to arrest both of us, but they were experienced officers and they knew what had gone down.

  ‘His gun’s in my belt,’ I told them, lifting an arm so that one of them could withdraw it. Somehow I thought it was better that way. ‘The bag that I reckon he stole is still in his.’

  The other cop bent over and retrieved it; as he held it up a man in the crowd started shouting excitedly in Japanese. ‘It’s yours, sir?’ the officer asked, while his buddy rolled over the still unconscious thief and cuffed him.

  ‘Jesus,’ Cop One exclaimed, ‘he’s well under.’ He looked at me. ‘What did you hit him with?’

  I held up my right hand. ‘This, and the pavement. Since he was trying to shoot me I thought it was the best thing to do.’

  He looked at me. ‘Buddy, he was more than trying: he scored a homer. You’re bleeding.’

  I put my hand to my face; it felt sticky, and I realised that the left side of my head was bloody sore. ‘Shit!’ I swore. ‘What does it look like?’

  The off icer turned my head around and peered at it. ‘Looks like he’s torn up the top of your ear. It’ll clean up, though.’

  ‘How quick, though? I’m due to start shooting a movie next week.’

  He took another look at me. ‘Hey, Keanu Reeves!’

  ‘Don’t you start,’ I barked at him. ‘I agree, we’re around the same height, but Keanu’s a couple of years older than me. Plus, I’m a harder puncher than he is.’

  Cop Two sneered at his mate. ‘You fucking dip-shit.’ He laughed. ‘That’s Oz Blackstone, the English guy; he’s in Miles Grayson’s big-hit sports movie. I caught it last week. Nice job, Oz.’

  At last! Fame in America.

  ‘Which?’ I asked. ‘The movie or nailing him?’

  ‘Both. We got grounds to charge this guy with attempted murder. You wanna proceed?’

  ‘Too fucking right I do. He might not miss the next guy he shoots at.’

  ‘He didn’t miss you, remember. One and a half inches to the right and you’d have been minus the back of your head.’

  The mugger was starting to come round. ‘You want another shot?’ asked Cop One, as they hauled him to his feet.

  ‘Certainly.’ I hit him again. I was standing and balanced this time so I got some real leverage into the punch. It turned him into two hundred pounds of dead weight all over again. The crowd gave a small cheer.

  ‘Shee-it!’ Cop Two whistled. ‘You’re right. I saw those Matrix movies; Keanu don’t hit nothing like that hard.’

  Chapter 22

  The cops called for a wagon for the mugger and a paramedic crew for me; they were genuinely anxious that I had my ear patched up, so I went along with it.

  They followed me on their bikes to the emergency room. The repair work didn’t take long; once my ear was stitched back into its customary shape and taped over, the two bikers even flanked the car that took me to the central police station in Vallejo Street. When we got there, I was welcomed by the station commander himself, a captain called Steyenheusen; word had got round.

  I made a formal statement, saying that I’d gone in pursuit of the man . . . they told me that his name was Leo Hoorne and he had two previous convictions for assault with a deadly weapon . . . and that when I’d apprehended him he’d fired at me. The fat bloke and three other bystanders had given identical statements. Captain Steyenheusen reckoned that Mr Hoorne would be an old man by the time he got out.

  They took me back to the hotel after that; well, not quite after that. They took me back after I’d run the gauntlet of the television and newspaper reporters who were waiting for me outside. The Public Affairs Office had been beating the drum; in fact, they’d made me into a civic have-a-go hero.

  I downplayed it, but not too far: you never shun positive publicity in the movie business. On camera, with blood staining the collar of my shirt, I fed them the expected modest ‘Shucks, it was nothing’ line. I assured them that my wound wasn’t serious . . . although I agreed with the woman who said that if I’d been a fraction slower I’d be dead. I told them that I’d been seriously impressed by SFPD. I told them that I hoped that Mr Hoorne looked upon his years inside as an opportunity for self-improvement . . . that raised a laugh. I told them that I was merely on a visit to San Francisco, before going on to Vegas to start work on Everett Davis’s new movie Serious Impact. Happily nobody asked me whether I was there on my own.

  The story was all over the local TV news by the time the cops dropped me back at the Campton Place, to face the only person in San Francisco who didn’t think I was a hero.

  ‘What the hell were you thinking about, chasing off after that guy?’ Prim blazed at me, when I let myself back into the suite.

  ‘It happened in an instant,’ I told her. ‘When I heard you shout I thought that it must have been Wallinger. That’s who I thought I was after till I caught up with him.’

  ‘You caught him?’

  ‘Where the hell do you think I’ve been for the last three hours?’

  I picked up the remote and switched on the television, then zapped though the channels till I found the local news station.

  There I was, on top of the pile, British movie star, Oz Blackstone, accidental tourist, accidental fucking hero. They tailed the piece with a quote from Cop Two, Officer Ronnie Rastrow: ‘He sure hits harder than Keanu Reeves.’ I liked that one. ‘Eat your heart out, Keanu,’ I said to the screen.

  Prim stared at me. ‘You were shot?’ she gasped.

  I turned my head and showed her my ear.

  ‘Bloody hell! You’re an idiot!’ Then, in the midst of her anger, she gave me some very good advice. ‘You’d better phone Susie right now, regardless of the time in Scotland. If she wakens up and sees that on the news tomorrow . . .’

  She was right: I’d have been better off dead. I went into my room and called her right away, even though it was two in the morning back home. Susie had often complained about being unable to sleep properly when I was away; plus, there were wee Jonathan’s teeth.

  As it turned out she was asleep. I waited till she was properly awake, then told her. ‘There’s been this thing. I caught a mugger. There was a shot fired.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s okay, honest, no damage done. But the telly people here are getting silly, and I didn’t want you to hear it from them first.’

  ‘You’re sure you’re okay?’

  ‘I’m fine; it was just a wee nick.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s just a graze, love, really.’

  ‘It’s just a what?’

  It took me ten minutes but finally I was able to calm her down. ‘While all that was going on,’ she asked, ‘what about this man Wallinger? Did he turn up?’

  ‘Do you know?’ I told her. ‘I have no idea.’

  I left her to a certainly sleepless remainder of the night and went back into the living room of the suite. ‘Wallinger,’ I said to Prim. ‘Did
he show?’

  ‘Yes, he did,’ she replied, bitterly. ‘Just at the very moment you turned into Charles Bronson and all hell broke loose. When I shouted it was to tell you I’d seen him.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘Nothing. All the commotion must have panicked him, for he just turned on his heel and disappeared into the crowd.’ She glared at me. ‘And where were you when I needed you, Captain Fucking America?’

  ‘Getting fucking shot,’ I reminded her. That seemed to soften her; a little.

  ‘What will we do now?’ she asked me, quietly.

  For the first time since we started our quest, I found that I didn’t care quite as much as I had at the outset, then had an immediate flash of guilt at the thought of her missing kid. Not that I told Prim any of that, though: to her I said, ‘Be a good girl: go into my room and get me my laptop. There’s a modem point in the wall over there.’

  She did as I asked, and watched as I set it up. I ran it on battery, not bothering with the power unit. I went straight into AOL. There was some Spam, sneaked through the filters, a raft of messages from media people, wanting interviews, no doubt, and in the middle of it all, a fresh message from Wallinger.

  You blew it in Union Square, people. Don’t mess up in LA tomorrow. Damon and Pythias, Westwood Village, same time.

  ‘Bastard,’ I muttered. ‘I’m getting heartily sick of dancing to your tune. If you don’t show tomorrow, well ... I’m an all-American hero now. I’ll put my friends the cops on your trail.’

  Prim frowned at me. ‘You won’t really do that, will you?’

  ‘Maybe. I just get the feeling we’re being fucked about, and I don’t like it. This is about extortion, love, plain and simple; you know that. Maybe I should use whatever clout I’ve got with the police.’

  ‘Yes, and maybe that’ll mean I never see my son again. Don’t say that, Oz, please.’

  ‘I’ll sleep on it. But let’s stay positive: he probably will show tomorrow. Better make sure we get to LA on time.’