Moratorium

by Chuck Sampson

  The masked man flung what appeared to Cyrus to be shiny, small, coins at his door, right below his window. They clacked against cruiser like loose rocks banging against a fan blade. Startled by the assault, Cyrus veered into the adjacent lane, nearly hitting the side of the truck. The car swerved back into the on ramp as he jerked the steering wheel hard to avoid the collision, causing the tires and occupants to screech in unison. The assailant ducked back into the cab and the driver accelerated the pickup; its engine roared like muffled shotgun blasts down the freeway.

  Cyrus stomped the gas pedal of the squad car to give chase. The Monte Carlo heaved forward and gained speed. As soon as the cruiser reached maximum velocity, Cyrus heard a loud pop and the car lurched to left. He tried to correct its direction, but the steering wheel spun around freely, like a dime store pinwheel. The car kept going where its momentum and the road friction propelled it-straight toward the high, white, concrete barrier separating the car’s occupants from the southbound freeway traffic. He stomped the brake with his foot- nothing. The barrier wall became magnified for a split-second and then disappeared. He peered up through his windshield and read a large, rectangular, white sign with red lettering. Authorized Vehicles Only, it said. Well at least we’re not breaking any traffic laws on our way to glory. Not yet, anyway, Cyrus thought to himself as they passed though the opening. Bumping across the median, he spotted the glint of chrome from the front bumper of an eighteen wheeler barreling around the wide freeway turn of the south bound lane, less than fifty feet from where his squad car was heading. “We’re going to get hit, he’s too close.” Cyrus said.

  The loud hiss of the truck’s air brake and the piercing squeal of the smoking tires drowned out his voice. He read the big, silver, MAC letters on the side of the truck’s hood as it passed them and clipped the rear left side fender. The force of the impact shoved Max into the dashboard and Cyrus into his steering wheel. Air-bags popped into their faces and pinned them both up against their head rest. The car spun around full circle before hitting the soft sand off the freeway. The Chevy rolled over and skid on its top to a complete stop about thirty feet past the road edge into the soft sand of the freeway shoulder.

  Cyrus hung upside down by his seat belt, his head only a few inches from the top of the car. Dazed from the force of the now deflated air bag, Cyrus gagged on the smell of the discharged potassium nitrate. Once the stench from the noxious fumes dissipated, he recognized the odor of gasoline.

  “Get out,” he said. His hands shook as he flipped the lever on the seat belt buckle to release the strap, but it didn’t budge. The center console, now pushed against his seat, had caught the tag end of the strap. He heard the click from Dana’s seat belt and assumed he was free and getting out of the car. Cyrus turned toward Max and noted that his seat belt was also jammed. The sharp cackle of sparking electronics startled him. The distinct, tar-like aroma of burning insulation filled the car. He felt a strong tug on his seat belt and looked back behind him, it was Dana. A look of astonishment covered Cyrus’ face, “Get out,” he said.

  “Shut up and help me.” Dana shot back.

  Cyrus nodded his head in agreement and pushed the side of his seat away from the center console, straining his big arms to push as hard as he could. Dana reached in the gap and freed the seat belt strap. Cyrus came down on top of Dana, knocking him over. They righted themselves and crouched down on their knees. Flames flickered from beneath the car dashboard and the thick smoke choked them. The small fire’s fumes burned their eyes and blurred their vision. Cyrus searched for Max’s seatbelt.

  “Get out, Max.” Cyrus found Max’s safety belt and pulled. When Max didn’t respond, he noted his eyes were shut and his arms were dangling like a string-less puppet.

  He glanced over to Dana and said, “Help me.”

  Dana and Cyrus freed Max. One at a time, with Dana leading the way, they crawled through the back window. As Cyrus squeezed his large frame through the small opening, he ripped his shirt nearly in half. Both back pockets of Dana’s jeans were gone. Covered in sweat and ash, they each grabbed Max by an arm and pulled him clear. Flame and smoke now filled the front seat of the squad car. Together, they carried Max as far from the wreckage as they could before Cyrus collapsed in the sand, about thirty feet away. He gasped repeatedly, like a leaky foot pump. He wiped the sweat from his blackened face and shook his head.

  “This is far enough,” he said to Dana, “Don’t worry; cars never blow up like in the movies. They just-“

  The sound of a loud whoosh coming from the trunk cut him off. They shielded their eyes from the bright flash expanding rapidly in front of them. A fiery rooster tail of bright, orange, flame shot up into the black sky and a sharp, thunderous, crack of the exploding gas tank deafened them. Pieces of sheet metal and glass from the explosion filled the air and landed all around them.

  “Except when the car has a trunk full of emergency road flares.” Cyrus raised his arms over his head as he spoke.

  They sat and waited for the ambulance and fire trucks to arrive. Not much else we can do now, Cyrus observed, we have no cell phone or car radio. Cyrus stayed alert for anyone in the area, just in case their accident was no accident. He reached into his jacket to check for his chief’s special. He hadn’t felt this vulnerable since his days on the East German border, when he was an MP. He felt that same rush of adrenalin course through him again. He stayed by Max and crouched down low. He signaled for Dana to do the same.

  “Shouldn’t we flag someone down?” Dana knelt down beside him in the sand.

  “No, we have to stay out of sight. By the way, how did you get out of your handcuffs?”

  “Your buddy, Max, put them on me pretty loose. I pulled them off as soon as the car stopped sliding.”

  “Lucky for us all,” Cyrus said, “At least the car wreckage will shield us from sight by anyone on the freeway. This may have been an accident or we may have been sabotaged. I am not taking any chances.”

  Jeff Moon, alias Professor, adjusted the side view mirror to see if the squad car was still following. He grabbed his Al Gore mask and repositioned it so he could get a clear view.

  “Finally, we got the old porker to push his car faster than the speed limit. Slow down, now,” he said to the driver, a young, pony tail-haired, man wearing a blue Hawaiian style shirt covered with yellow flowers.

  “I don’t see them, Professor. The cruiser’s tie rod must have snapped like we planned- I mean you planned. They’re dead for sure.”

  “Get off at State Street, make a u-turn at the light, and take the 101 south bound onramp.”

  “Man, that’s back the way we just came. I don’t know, Professor. What if they are waiting for us?”

  Professor’s face hardened to stone. With a quick, smooth, motion, he pulled a black nine millimeter from the front pocket of his black hoodie and pressed the barrel against the driver’s head. The pony-tailed man hit the brake and swerved across three lanes, narrowly missing several cars as he swept by. He held the truck steady in the far right path, less than a mile from the State Street exit.

  “Okay, okay, I am turning. Put the gun away.”

  “Don’t argue with me again, understand?” Professor put the gun back into the pouch pocket of his hoodie.

  “Yes, no problem. I understand. I got to go back to the garage anyway.”

  With white-knuckled hands, the driver clenched the steering wheel. He shook his sweaty head, and cursed under his breath. Guiding the truck down the off ramp at State Street, he followed the rest of Professor’s directions without a word. Once they were back on the freeway heading south, the driver turned his ball cap around. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of gum.

  “Hey Professor, want some gum?”

  Professor shook his head no. The driver took the stick and popped it into his mouth.

  “Aren’t you hot in that mask? How come you never take it off?” he said between chews.

  “Shut up and keep your eyes
on the road.”

  The look on the driver’s face turned grim. They rode the rest of the way to the site of the wreck in silence. The lanes of traffic in front of them slowed to a crawl and shifted to the far left. Smoke billowed from the right shoulder. Professor jumped into the truck’s small back seat and leaned against the tinted window so no one could see him. Three ambulances and two large fire trucks were parked on the side of the freeway. Professor observed closely as two EMTs shoved a body, covered up completely on a gurney, into the back of one of the ambulances. Once they got by the first fire truck they caught sight of the squad car, or what was left of it, turned over and blazing. The driver grinned.

  “Whoa, look at that mess, Professor; nobody survives both a roll over crash and a fire.”

  They continued slowly down the freeway and once they passed the scene, Professor returned to his seat in the front. After a few minutes of silence, the driver spoke.

  “This is the first time I ever killed anyone Professor. I did pretty good, right Professor?”

  Professor nodded.

  “Then how come you won’t let me see who you are? Don’t you trust me, Professor?

  Professor let out a loud sigh and the driver ducked his head down low, like a frightened dog. Putting his hand back in the pocket of his hoodie, Professor turned toward the driver and put his face close to his ear. The driver felt Professor’s hot breath on his neck and his hands shook so hard he could hardly keep control of the truck.

  “No one has seen my face since 1997, when I left Stanford, except for four people. I trusted them; three of them betrayed me so I had to kill them. If I take off my mask, you better be sure you can handle the consequences if you get in a tight spot with the law.”

  The driver raised his hand slowly, “That’s okay, Professor, I kind of like the mask anyway. Not that I would betray you, but you know those cops can be pretty tricky and I ain’t all that smart.”

  Professor chuckled and leaned back into his seat, “You got good enough sense to know your limitations, unlike the three people I had to put a cap into.”

  “What did those three guys do?”

  “They betrayed me to the FBI, two of my former students and one colleague.”

  “What about the fourth guy? You said four people have seen you without your mask and you killed three of them. Who is the fourth one?

  Professor sat up straight his seat.

  “The fourth one, Mike Tanner, was the only other person, besides my Dad, that I ever cared about. That bastard surf jock, Dana Mathers, killed him.”

  “Why didn’t you shoot them, Professor? Then we would know for sure they were dead.”

  “How was I supposed to do that, genius? Ask them to meet me in some deserted alley unarmed? You’re right, you are not very smart. The main goal is to commit the murder without getting caught. So it’s not always perfect or pretty, but you can always try again if you miss the first time.”

  When they came to the left turn lane on the freeway that leads to La Conchita, Professor put his hands on the dash, leaned forward in his seat, and peered out the front windshield toward the opposite side of the road.

  “Make a u-turn and let me off at the oil farm.”

  The driver turned his head and started to speak, but Professor cut him off.

  “Don’t ask, just drive. I’ll call you later. One more thing, you have seen my face before-you just didn’t know it was me.”

  The fireman EMTs checked Max’s vital signs and then loaded him onto a gurney. Cyrus and Dana followed them to a waiting ambulance and stood by silently as they rolled the gurney into the back; Max was still unconscious. Pieces of twisted, scorched, grey metal were strewn all along the side of and on the freeway. The squad car was a smoking, mangled, mass of grey and black steel. The acid like fumes burned Fleming’s eyes and the sharp odor of burnt gasoline mixed with tar torched his nostrils. Traffic in the northbound lane was stopped. Rubberneckers in the southbound lane drove by at a crawl. The firemen had extinguished the fire and now the smoke was everywhere. Two other EMTs led Cyrus and Dana to another ambulance. The three of them were taken to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital on Bath Street, less than five minutes away.

  Max regained consciousness en route. The doctor decided to keep him overnight for observation. Dana and Cyrus were released after a short examination. He called the dispatcher and had a car sent over. He and Dana rode back together.

  Arriving back at the station, covered in black ashes, clothes ripped, and smelling like burnt rubber, Cyrus led Dana to Rudy’s office. He ignored stares from fellow officers as he walked quickly down the hall with Dana following behind. Cyrus only nodded to Bailey when she asked him if he was all right. Then he unlocked the office, let Dana in, and shut the door on the crowd behind him. He didn’t have the energy to answer everybody’s questions. I am going to keep myself and Dana away from the press as long as I can. I can’t believe this is happening. We catch this bum almost in the act of committing murder and now it looks like he going to walk, just because he pulls off another feat of heroism. This doesn’t change anything. Mathers is still a good collar. Dana sat down in the chair across from his desk.

  Cyrus nodded toward the black couch behind him, “You can lie down on the couch and rest if you like. I got a make a call to my boss.” Cyrus was still shaking and his head and shoulders ached.

  Dana looked up at Cyrus, who was punching out Rudy’s phone number and said,

  “What just happened? Were we in an accident or did somebody just try to kill us?”

  “The squad car’s steering gave out as far as I can tell. I am sorry I put you at risk.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  Cyrus nodded and then spoke into the phone, “Yeah, Rudy.”

  “So what happened?” Rudy said, “I can’t tell from the news. Is everyone O.K.?”

  “Mathers and I are all right, but Max has a concussion. He’s at the hospital and the doctors say he’ll be fine. They just want to be sure, so they’re keeping him overnight.”

  “Get a cop on duty to take Dana to jail and go home. I’ll make a call and have the guards give him new clothes and let him clean up. We’ll talk about the details tomorrow. Get some rest.”

  “Okay, Rudy,” Cyrus said and hung up. He ran his hands through his hair and sighed,

  “Dana, I want to thank you for saving Max and me. If you hadn’t helped, we’d have both been torched. I don’t know why you did it, but thanks just the same.”

  Dana stood up from the chair and moved in close to Cyrus.

  “Maybe I helped you and Max because I am a normal, decent, human being, not a murderer. I didn’t kill Mike Tanner, Detective Fleming.”

  “All the evidence says otherwise.” Cyrus replied, then to himself he said, He’s not going to persuade me he is innocent; just because he was a hero tonight doesn’t mean he wasn’t a killer yesterday.

  “The evidence is false, Detective Fleming.”

  Cyrus started to ask him questions, and then he decided against it. The Mathers case belonged to the DA now. “Then the jury will let you go and you have nothing to worry about.”

  “Don’t you understand? Someone planted that bat at the beach.”

  “The eyewitness who picked you out of a lineup said she saw you put it there. That’s why we found it so easily.” Cyrus bit his lip.

  “She’s lying.”

  “Why would she lie? You said so yourself you’ve never seen her before. If she’s lying, then your lawyer will trip her up, don’t worry.”

  “I don’t care about going to jail as much as I care about not hurting Kelsey. I didn’t kill her brother. I want you to believe me, Detective Fleming.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the eyewitness identified that scar on your back, the bat has your fingerprints all over it, and you and Mike Tanner hate each other and had a public fight the day before.”

  “The eyewitness is lying. The bat is mine, I already admi
tted it. I don’t know how it ended up buried in the sand, but I didn’t put it there. Mike and I have been fighting off and on for the last two years, ever since I starting dating his sister. I admitted I argued with him but he was no threat to me. I didn’t hate him; I felt sorry for him. Besides, I love Kelsey too much to ever harm Mike.”

  Cyrus didn’t answer. He stood there looking at Dana for several minutes. Finally, Dana turned away and sat back down in the chair. He held his head in his hands and slumping forward, he said,

  “I’m not asking you to take my word; I just want you to do your job. I want you to find out who is framing me.”

  “You have to stop talking about your case with me, not without your lawyer present.”

  “I need to prove to Kelsey that I didn’t kill her brother. I don’t care about jail. Believe me; I’ve been through a lot worse than anything there is to go through in prison. I just can’t stand the thought of her thinking I killed her little brother when I didn’t do it.”

  Several loud knocks on the office door startled them. “Detective Fleming?” a voice from the other side of the door said.

  “What is it?”

  “Officer Dietrich and Marsh, we’ve come to pick up your prisoner.”

  They took Dana back to the bailiff’s office where he was waiting to escort Dana back to the county jail.

  Chapter 9

  On the top floor of the Chevron Corporate office in Ventura, the solitary figure of Maverick Duncan strolled down the long hallway, which led to the lone office at the end. Rays of sunshine cut through a series of large windows on his right and brightened the barren, sky-blue, wall to his left. Hands in his pockets, wearing tight-fitting, flared jeans, and frameless, prescription sunglasses, he rolled a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other as he went. The thud from his black cowboy boots tromping on the wood inlay floor, echoed along the way. Arriving at his destination, he stopped in front of a large set of double doors and read the cereal-box-sized, bronze sign -Kwan Li, Director. Without hesitation, he opened the door wide, walked through the doorway, and into the room. The large glass window which covered at least half of the back wall of Kwan’s office revealed to him a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean and the jagged, black, cliffs of Santa Rosa Island.