Free Fall in Crimson

by John D. MacDonald

  “Do any of the troops do any retailing on their own?”

  “It could happen, but I don’t think it would be a big thing. It really wouldn’t go with the image they try to project. It would have to be a situation where there was a heavy cash-flow problem, a man out of work. Or maybe a favor for a friend.”

  “Suppose a man in Lauderdale got a call that somebody would meet him at such and such a time way up the line, over a hundred miles away. And when he went up there to buy, the man who called him wasted him, and though there were no witnesses, maybe the machine the biker was using was identified as to make.”

  “Recently or way back?”

  “Two years in July.”

  “That’s very heavy action, Sergeant McGee. What kind of machine?”

  I dug the piece of paper out of my shirt pocket. “The man who saw the track says it was the rear K-One-twelve of a set of ContiTwins, deep enough to indicate a quarter-ton machine, so he guessed a BMW Nine-seventy-two.”

  “Pretty reasonable guess. But it could have been an HD, or a Gold Wing Honda, or a Kawasaki KZ series, or a big Laverda or Moto Guzzi, or a GS series Suzuki, or an XS series Yamaha. All burly machines. Big fast bastards. But sweet and smooth. You almost can’t stress them. And they could all wear ContiTwins. Where did it happen?”

  “Up near Citrus City, on the turnpike. A man named Esterland who was dying of cancer.”

  “I think I remember news on the tube about that. Sure. But there wasn’t any mention of drugs or bikes.”

  “Not enough to go on, so it didn’t get in.”

  “Where do you come in, Trav?”

  “A little favor for the guy’s son. Ron Esterland. By the way, he’s an artist too. Had a big sellout show in London.”

  “Hey, I know the name. Didn’t make the connection. Saw some color plates of his work in Art International. Pretty much okay.”

  “So what should I do next?”

  “I don’t understand why the buy should have been set up so far out in the boonies. But I can tell you that any one of those kinds of horses I named would be owned by somebody known to the brotherhood. Up by Citrus City and from there on up, it’s a different turf. Up there you’ve got the Corsairs. But there’s a lot of interclub contact, when bikers from both clubs go to out-of-state rallies and rendezvous. I think that maybe, if it was nearly two years ago, it’s become part of the legend.”

  “How so?”

  “Trav, these people go back to a kind of tribal society. Myths and legends. Whoever was involved would keep his mouth shut and make his woman keep her mouth shut. But after a long time there’s not much heat involved. Maybe his woman has switched riders. With lots of beer and grass and encampments in the night, the word gets out. A little here and a little there, and it gets built up into something a lot wilder and more romantic than it was. Do you understand?”

  “Sure. I think so.”

  “If you can find a legend that seems to fit and then unravel it all the way back to the way things really were, you can maybe—just maybe—come up with a name. And even that won’t mean much. It’ll be a biker name: Skootch or Grunge or BugBoy. And there’s turnover among the troops. Some get into heavy action and get put away. Some of them, when the fox gets pregnant, decide to pack up and get out.”

  “Can you find out if there’s a legend about Esterland?”

  “I can listen. I can poke around a little but not much, because it makes these people nervous. I get along fine because I carry good merchandise, and my people do good work, and the prices are right, and the law has never learned a thing out here. And if you learn anything from me about that little party …”

  “You don’t need to say it. Now, something else. A couple of biker movies a few years ago. Chopper Heaven. Bike Park Ramble.”

  “Saw them when they came on the cable. What do you want? Some kind of critique?”

  “Whatever.”

  “The outlaw bikers came off meaner and nastier than they are as far as tearing up civilians is concerned. And they came off a little more clean and pure than they are the way they act within the group. Enough stimulation, and they get into gangbang situations. And if anybody finks to the law, man or woman, they can be a long slow time dying in the piney woods. Technically there were very few mistakes. A lot less than usual. I understand they used outlaw bikers as technical advisers. The sound track was too loud. And those pack leaders were just a little bit too evil to be real. They came out close together, those two movies, at least five years ago. Probably seven years ago. The straight clubs are still bitching about those movies because they think the civilians can’t tell the difference between outlaw and straight. I see they still run them on syndication, late at night. Why do you ask?”

  “Ted, I’m just rummaging around in this thing, kicking stones, shaking the bushes. The fellow who wrote and produced and directed those two movies stood to maybe get hold of a lot of money due to the killing of Esterland.”

  “How could that be, for God’s sake?”

  “Esterland’s daughter was dying, in a coma. No chance of recovery. If Esterland survived her, most of the money would go to a foundation. If he died first, the daughter would get it; and then it went to the mother, who was still legally married to Esterland, on the death of her daughter a couple of weeks later. And that movie person, Peter Kesner, is or was close to Mrs. Esterland.”

  “Way way out there on the end of a long stick, pal.”

  “For two and a half mil, net, you can think up some very strange things. People will take a lot of pains over that kind of money.”

  “Did Kesner need money that bad?”

  “I’ll probably go out there and see what’s going on. I haven’t really decided. I’m on expenses, but I don’t want to waste my friend’s money.”

  “I heard over the grapevine you’d tapped out, Trav.”

  “In what way?”

  “The quiet life. The straight life. Peddling boats or some damn thing. Heard you got scuffed up and turned into a nine-to-five person. When I heard it, I said there was no way. I said you were too used to conning the world, knocking heads, saving maidens. I said that you could lose an arm and a foot and an ear, but when they rang the bell, you’d still slide down the pole and hop onto the truck.”

  “Meyer said the same thing, but in a slightly different way.”

  “How is that old egghead?”

  “As hairy and beloved as ever. He’s being entertained by a chain of small newspapers.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “You’ll be in touch?”

  “I get even a whisper, I’ll give you a call. Look, send Mits on in with a Dr Pepper. Thanks.”

  I went out and found her rinsing glasses and told her what Ted wanted. She nodded and I said, “He doesn’t look too great.”

  She straightened up and turned to face me. “He isn’t too great. That’s for sure. These last weeks, he’s been going down. It makes me nervous.”

  “Can you get him looked at?”

  “I’ve tried. You better goddamn believe it.”

  “I believe it. He is a strange and special guy.”

  “I know.”

  “He’s very fond of you, Mits.”

  “I know that too.”

  “Look, here’s my number. Any real bad turn, you can phone me and I’ll be out here with a doctor.”

  “You can’t get a doctor to make a house call.”

  “How much would you like to bet?”

  The shiny black eyes looked me over, and suddenly the impassive brown face broke into a big smile that wrinkled the nose and squeezed the eyes almost shut. “No bet. Thanks.”

  When I went out, there were two large bikers staring into the front of my pickup. They had opened it up.

  “Something I can do for you?”

  They turned to stare at me. Whiskers and hair and hard little eyes, like professional villain wrestlers.

  “That’s a Merc you got in there, right?”

  “Close. It�
�s a big Lincoln.”

  “Custom heads?”

  I edged past them and closed the hood. “Yes, and some other goodies.”

  “What’ll it do?”

  “Absolutely no idea.”

  “Too chicken to take it all the way?”

  “Not exactly. The needle sits against the pin at one twenty.”

  “Why do you keep the outside looking like shit?”

  “I wasn’t aware that it did.”

  One looked at the other and said in a higher voice, “He wasn’t aware that it did. Look, you use it to run something? Is that why it looks cruddy?”

  “Right now, I run myself home. Okay?”

  The near one grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back as I started to step up onto the running board. “Maybe you’re not through answering questions, Ace.”

  It made me feel tired. I took his hand off my arm. “Friend, it has been nice having our little chat here. I do not want any childish hassling. Nobody has to prove anything. Okay?”

  The screen door opened and Ted came wheeling out onto the concrete walk. He said, “Hey, Mike. Hey, Knucks. What’s happening?”

  “You know this guy?”

  “I know him. So?”

  “Do you know he’s got a smart mouth and a funny-looking truck?”

  “My sincere recommendation, Knucks, would be don’t mess with him.”

  “Don’t mess with Ace here? You kidding? This cat is over the hill.”

  I looked at Ted, wondering why he was setting me up. I said, “What are you trying to do?”

  He shrugged. “It’s been dull around here, sarge. And good old Knucks here has a nasty habit of trying to grope Mits every time she walks by.”

  With an inward sigh I moved a few inches farther out of range. I’d been working out faithfully of late, and was right at two-oh-five, which is a very good weight for my six foot four. I look as if I would go about one eighty. The big advantage I had over these too-lardy fellows was a great deal of quick. Quick is what counts. Without the quick, they get to hit you in the face, and that is both demeaning and discouraging. Also, it hurts a lot. The secondary advantage is, of course, quite a few years of scrabbling around, learning that the healthiest attitude is to inflict maximum pain in minimum time.

  And the way to create an opening is to create rage. I smiled at them. “Knucks? Ah, you are Knucks. You better recheck your tendency to grope the ladies. You look faggoty to me, pal.”

  He came roaring and swinging, big roundhouse right and left blows, too smart to be a headhunter. At least not yet. He wanted to cave my ribs in first. I trotted about twenty feet backward, just out of range, and when I estimated he had picked up enough speed to compensate for the heft of him, I clapped both hands on his right wrist, rolled backwards, got my feet into his belly just as he was tumbling over me, and gave him a very brisk hoist, while still clinging to the wrist. He whomped the dust like a sack of sand dropped off the top of a building. As I released him, rolled to the side, and came up, I guessed from the sound of impact that good old Knucks was out of the game.

  I focused on Mike, coming at me at a half run, right fist cocked. I had time to decide whether to go under it, inside it, or outside it. Outside seemed best, but he waited so long I had to do a Muhammad Ali lean to get my face the final inch out of the way. I felt the breeze of it. He ran on by and was just starting to turn when I heel-stomped him in the back of the knee. He went down and came up, fighting for balance, arms spread wide. I hopped very close, braced my right heel, and pivoted so as to put my hips, back, shoulder, and arm into a very short straight right that went wrist deep into the bulge a few inches above his very fancy brass belt buckle.

  He lay down in a fetal position and began throwing up. Knucks was sitting up cradling his right arm. His face was all screwed up like a schoolyard child trying desperately not to cry. His arm came out of the shoulder at a slightly unusual angle.

  Ted said, “You’re not getting older. You’re getting better.”

  “They might not take kindly to all this, later on.”

  “You heard me advise them not to mess with you.”

  “They are fat and they are slow. Not exactly a proud victory.”

  “And they are not legitimate members of any club, Trav. Anybody moves against me, and the Fantasies take care of it. Right, Knucks?”

  “Jesus, Ted! Jesus Christ! I can’t stand it. Help me, somebody.”

  By then the mechanics had moved in. They gave me quick looks in which wonder and disbelief were mingled. Mike was moaning to himself and trying to sit up. They were being given all necessary assistance, so I waved to Ted and Mits and got into Miss Agnes and drove off eastward toward the coast, wondering if this would become one of the ongoing legends and be distorted out of all relation with reality. Showdown at the Oasis. Fat and slow and dumb. Dumb was the most serious sin. Without the dumb additive, they would not have charged, would not have tried to hit. They would have waited, circled, grabbed, and given me a very bad day. Pale-eyed stranger whips over five hundred pounds of angry meat in a shade over fourteen seconds. It had worked very very well, better than I had any right to expect. So I should not get carried away and come on fearless with the next couple of bikers, who might very well be just as quick and just as able. Or might feel more comfortable with knife or gun or piece of pipe.

  What I did not want, most of all, was to become some kind of symbol of challenge, so that their buddies would look me up to take a chop and try their luck. I wanted no part of any OK Corral syndrome. I had long outgrown that kind of testicular lunacy. People who become legends in their own time usually have very little time left.

  Nine

  On Saturday morning I saw that the Byline was gone and knew Meyer would have a shortened cruise rather than none at all. I had some ideas to throw at him. He always seems to know which ones to field and which ones to let roll on out to the warning track. I took a swim, took a beach walk, and intercepted a Frisbee with the back of my head, an incident that seemed to strike horror into a group of fourteen-year-old ladies. I gave it back, into the wind, with all the wrist flick I could put on it, and by great good fortune it stood still after it reached them. They stared at it, and one of them reached out and picked it out of the air.

  So it made a game. Three of them on one side, one of me on the other. It is a great game for running, stretching, and leaping. Usually in any group of teens, one out of three will give promise of growing up into a dog. But not one of these. Comely maidens all, and very competitive. They whirred that championship plastic at me with sincere attempts to whack my head off with it. They were practicing catching the Frisbee behind their back and under a leg, and I served up floaters to give them a sense of achievement. Their brown leaping bodies and half-formed breasts and hips instilled in me such a wistful lechery, I wondered if it might be best if I turned myself in. They could put me away where I’d do no harm.

  The game broke up. We had never exchanged a name. They went trotting into the sea, and I went walking back to Bahia Mar. After my shower, I got out the battered old looseleaf address book and sat in the lounge in my robe, turning pages, looking for the right California connection. And in the L’s I found Walter Lowery, both his business phone in San Francisco and his home phone in San Mateo. I brought the phone on the long cord over to the curved yellow couch, swung my feet up and tried the San Mateo number, got a recorded announcement, got a different number from information and entered it in my book, and tried it.

  “Hello?” said a cautious female voice.

  “Marty?”

  “No. This is Ginny. Who is this?”

  “My God, you sound all grown up, Gin. This is T. McGee, your honorary uncle in Florida. Your father around?”

  “Hi! I’ll get him. Hold on.”

  After a long minute he came on and said, “Obviously, sir, you are an impostor pretending to be a friend I used to have.”

  “Time flies, friends flee, temperance fuggit. Look, maybe I’m coming out th
ere.”

  “People usually know whether they are coming out or not.”

  “Then let’s say I will be out. When is not certain. I am out of touch. You still have the office in Los Angeles?”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “Is Lysa Dean still a client?”

  “Let’s say she doesn’t have as many legal problems as she used to. But yes. We’re still on a retainer arrangement.”

  “And you do remember recommending me to her?”

  “Indeed I do. Let’s say she was very satisfied with your performance professionally, and furious as hell at you about something else, which she never explained.”

  “I get the impression she’s doing a lot of game shows.”

  “Indeed she is. At very good rates. She’s in demand because she is really very quick and often very funny, which is rare out here with most actresses. And she gets some cameo roles now and again.”

  “She gave me the impression—back when I knew her—of knowing everything about everybody out there.”

  “Gossip is a hobby with Lee.”

  “Did she ever marry that forty million dollars from Hawaii?”

  I heard him sigh. “She came close, buddy. Really close. He was on the verge of getting his annulment through the Vatican when his wife came down with leukemia. So what could he do? He settled a nice little bundle on Lee, and they kept up the relationship, and he died of a heart attack last year. His wife is still living.”

  “Lee live in the same place?”

  “Same house. Beverly Hills. She redecorates it every twenty or thirty minutes.” I read him the address out of my book and he confirmed it.

  “Have you got her unlisted number?”

  “Before we go into that, Travis, if she feels toward you like I think she feels toward you, you won’t get past hello. Secondly, it is quarter to ten out here, and she won’t even lift the edge of her sleep mask or take out an earplug until noon.”

  “So I’ll call her at four o’clock my time. And I will never tell her where I got the number. And I will try to keep her from hanging up on me.”