The Wind Is Rising 1

by Daniel Steele

  “This is an honor, Mr. Anderson.”

  Then to Davis.

  “Give him back his weapon. Now.”

  He waited until Anderson had replaced it in a hip holster he carried under a sports coat, then motioned for Anderson to walk with him to Hunter. Hunter filled him in on what had happened while he looked us over.

  “Looks like the excitement is over. Nobody got badly hurt, not much property damage, everything’s been paid for. You guys did a good job with the situation but I think everything’s under control now. You can take off.”

  Hunter pointed to Anderson, saying, “But what about-“

  How long have you been on the Department, Hunter?”

  “Five years.”

  “Where’d you come here from?”

  “LA”

  “You still should have heard of him. Richard Anderson and the Gunfight on Fourth Street. That ring any bells?”

  It took a moment and then recognition dawned in his eyes.

  “That’s him?”

  “In the flesh,” Anderson answered with an easy smile. “But seven years is a long time. I’m not surprised most people have forgotten.”

  McConnell and Deal got it first, followed by Davis and Wilkes who stared at him like he was Wyatt Earp reborn.

  “You’re THE Richard Anderson?”

  “Yeah.”

  While everyone - whether they knew him or not stared at him – he stepped forward giving Myra an appreciative look and stuck his hand out. I took it.

  “What are you doing in town, Richard? Filming a new movie?”

  “No. Maybe some commercial work. A documentary possibly. I decided to stop at the Landing for a few drinks for old times sake, and what do I find but the hardest working man in the State Attorney’s Office. And the hottest blonde in town. What is your secret? The last time I saw you, you were married to that hot blonde – whatever her name was –and now I find you with another one. You like to live dangerously. From what I remember, your wife is an Amazon. She could probably snap you in two if you got her pissed off.”

  “Was Richard. We divorced earlier this year.”

  “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know. Divorce is rough. I’ve done it three times in six years and I still don’t have it down to a science.”

  Bianchi offered to bring up some chairs and after a little gentle persuasion, Anderson agreed to sit in for a few minutes. Not before giving autographs to Wilkes, Davis, Hunter and Hammer.

  As waiters hustled to refill drinks and then brought Myra’s Lemon Shrimp Ceviche, the table buzzed with a half dozen different conversations and the background of the band getting ready to come back out.

  “Your name is familiar and I should know who you are, but I can’t get it clear in my head,” Myra said.

  “You came here a couple of years after Richard got famous and left,” I told her.

  “You tell it, Bill. You were here.”

  The conversations at the table faded as everybody stared at Anderson and myself.

  “It was on a Thursday in September 1998. Richard was a police reporter at the TU, alternating with Carl Cameron. He was on a ride-along assignment. Doing a piece on female police officers because there had been a couple of really bad PR scandals about male and female partners doing things they shouldn’t be doing in squad cars. The Sheriff wanted a profile of an upstanding female officer, happily married to a male officer, to offset the scandals.”

  “They gave me the assignment,” Anderson said. “And who would they assign me to ride with but Suzanne Bates, the hottest, sweetest piece of feminine police flesh in the department. Unfortunately, married to a guy whose arms with bigger around than my legs. So I was very nervous, and not just about the dangers of the ride-along.

  “We started the ride along downtown and we were having a good time. She was a sweet girl and I think she kind of liked me. I figured I’d wind up being killed by her husband, but I flirted with her anyway and thought this would just be another feature.

  “Then they sent out a call – a bank had been robbed on Main Street and 20th. They had killed a guard and the first cop responding to the silent alarm and were headed in our direction. Suzanne rode to intercept them and we met them at Main and Eighth. Two other police cruisers joined the chase. But these guys were loaded for bear –rifles, pistols and shotguns. They shot one cruiser’s windows and tires out and they went into a parked car. They hit the side window of the second and glass blinded the driver and they went into the front window of a furniture store on 6th.”

  Myra nibbled at her dish while the rest of us drank. I had a second Tequila Sour. Nobody could take their eyes off of Anderson.

  “But we stayed on their tail. They kept firing at us, nearly killing pedestrians and other drivers at 110 mph plus, but Suzanne was like a tick on a hound. They could not shake us loose. I thought she was going to kill us a dozen times over. But she wouldn’t let them go and she just ignored me when I tried to get her to slow down, that other units were headed our way.”

  He looked up at us from a mug of Tequila that Bianchi had ordered for him.

  “I didn’t realize until later that her husband had been in the unit assigned to the robbery initially. He was in a one-man car. And when they radioed officer down, she knew it had to be him. That’s why she wouldn’t let go. Anyway, we ran them to Fourth Street and they whipped into a side street and didn’t realize it was a dead end until they’d rammed the back end of a liquor store. Suzanne pulled around to block them. but they gunned their motor a couple of times and nothing. They'd blown something in the motor.

  “So we sat there looking at each for what must have been 10 or 15 seconds. Suzanne slipped out using the cruiser for cover and pulled a shotgun out of the trunk. She’d slipped in to sit beside me. She put two shells in it and looked out the window down the alley at them. She hadn’t said a word since she heard about her husband.

  “She pulled her Glock out and laid it on the seat beside her and said, ‘You can get out of here before the shooting starts, Richard. They’re not paying you for this.’

  “I was still wanting to look good in her eyes so I said, ‘What, and miss all the fun’?”

  He looked up and out at the Jacksonville nightline outside the Rose.

  “It’s a funny sound. If you’ve never heard it, you can’t figure it for a moment. Like somebody smashing a tomato with their fist. I heard the rifle shot and then the glass shattered all over me. You don’t have a good sense of time when something like that happens. I just knew that I had blood all over me and wondered where I’d been hit.

  “Then I looked at Suzanne. She was leaning over against her door. Half of her forehead was gone. It was her blood and brains all over me.

  “I wasn’t thinking. I just hunkered down and grabbed my .45 Colt. Left out part of the story. I’m not a gun nut, but my SOB stepfather was retired Army and he had me on a firing firing when I was 10 years old. I could take most rifles and pistols apart blindfolded and put them together again. I got my revenge on him by staying as far away from the military as was humanly possible. But I’d brought my .45 along planning to impress Suzanne on the firing range.

  “While I hunkered down and listened to Suzannne – what had been Suzanne - make funny gasping noises until she stopped – the four sons of bitches in the car at the end of the alley slid out and made a line across the alley. The head honcho, he was carrying a rifle, yelled at me.

  ‘Hey, asshole. The cop is dead. You don’t look like a cop. We need that cruiser. You got a choice. Get out and we’ll let you walk away. Get in our way, and you die here.’

  “I wasn’t even thinking. I just remember looking over at Suzanne and I remembered the way she’d smiled at me. The way those big boobs of hers swelled when she breathed. The color of her eyes. I just remembered her – alive. And I decided there was no way those assholes were going to walk away after killing her.

  “I slid out and stood in the alley. I had her Glock in my left hand, and my Colt .45 in
my right. I stared at those mother fuckers and they stared back at me as if they couldn’t believe their eyes.

  ‘You gave me a choice,’ I told them. ‘I’ll give you one. Throw down your weapons and walk out with your hands up. Or get carried out feet first’.

  “There was nobody in the alley but us. I was thinking what a damn shame it was that there were no witnesses. I was going to die and nobody would know the coolest thing I’d ever said in my life.

  “And then they came at me.”

  The entire table was silent. Until I broke the silence.

  “And when it was over about 45 seconds later as best anyone could tell, all four were dead or dying in the alley, shot to pieces by Mr. Anderson, who took five slugs himself.”

  He smiled at me as I finished. I could tell he’d heard the story a million times. But if I’d been him, I wouldn’t mind hearing it again.

  “Which would have been a great story, but what propelled our friend into the history books was the fact that the owner of the bar was inside when it went down. With her nine-year-old daughter. They’d peeked out – actually the little girl did even though her mother tried to keep her head down. And when the local television people were doing their stories, she told them about Anderson’s ‘hands up or feet first’ quote. It went national the first night, international the second.”

  “When I woke up after surgery two nights later,” Anderson said, emptying his drink, “one of the nurses pushed my bed to the window so I could look out. There were police officers two abreast around the entire Shands hospital, shining their flashlights into the night. They told me they had cops from as far away as Virginia standing out there. It - .uh – it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I’d never seen anything like it before. Never have since.”

  “And that’s the story,” I told Myra, leaning over to kiss her because she’d already started to get that look in her eyes that too many women got around Richard before he headed for Hollywood. He was candy coated sex appeal and I’d seen him cut a wide swathe through Jacksonville before leaving, and I selfishly didn’t want Myra to be another notch for him, metaphorically speaking.

  She glanced over at him and then at me and read me. She leaned against me, placed her hand on my dick and whispered, “You’re my hero, Maitland. Don’t ever forget it.”

  Bianchi said, “I think I’ve seen the movie of that event.”

  “There were two of them,” Anderson said. “There was a quickie TV movie on CBS the same year and a theatrical release in ’99, the one with Kevin Costner. The box office wasn’t bad. Good enough I got a few leads in some small action flicks. But that kind of fizzled.”

  Giada had come up behind him and placed her hand on his shoulder.

  “You were in “Gangs of New York” with Leonardo diCaprio, weren’t you?”

  He gave a small smile as if embarrassed, but I could tell he was pleased.

  “You do have a good eye, young lady. Yeah, I had a two-minute part. Gotten work here and there, but I haven’t burned up the big screen yet.”

  At that point the models, Bianchi, Deel and McConnell got lost in the intricacies of Hollywood productions and deals and who was screwing who and backstage gossip and two very well-known 30-ish sex symbols that nobody could imagine doing a three-way, but the manner in which Anderson set up the scene and matter of fact way he described their bodies had Deel and McConnell almost drooling. I believed the story.

  I sat back and helped Myra destroy the Lemon Shrimp Cerveza while Anderson held court after a second Tequila. I looked back and noticed two attractive brunettes in shorts and tight tight tops had walked up behind him and were hanging on every word. Anderson finally noticed them behind him and looked back.

  The prettier and bustier of the two reached out to place one hand on his shoulder and leaned in toward him.

  “Mr. Anderson, I didn’t want to interrupt but my friend Janine and I – I’m Darlyn – have been big fans of yours since your time in Jacksonville. We’d love a chance to talk, but it’s so loud in here. Could we interest you in coming someplace – quieter – for a drink and – chance to get to know each other better.”

  “I’m staying at the Omni a few blocks from here. If you’d like a chance to – hang out – I’ve love to have you.”

  “We’d love that.”

  He looked back at the table and said, “It’s been really fun talking to you. But you know how it is in the entertainment business. You have to take care of your fans.”

  He reached over to shake my hand.

  “I’m probably going to be leaving tomorrow or Sunday, Bill. But if you can get by, I’d really like to get together with you before I leave.”

  I couldn’t contain my smile.

  “I’ll try to get by before you leave, but probably not tonight. I’d hate to interfere with your – interaction – with your loyal fans.”

  “You’re welcome to come by tonight, Bill. You know the old saying, “the more the merrier.”

  I didn’t even touch that one.

  When he had left with his groupies, Myra leaned over and whispered to me, “Good answer.”

  Bianchi looked around the table. The hormones were so damned thick people should have been doing it under the tables surrounding us.

  “Gentlemen, ladies. Is there anyone who would like to retire to my yacht. I can give the crew the night off and we can have a few drinks and party the night out. There are separate cabins for anyone that would like privacy.”

  McConnell and Deel were up with their girls and walking toward the outside before he’d finished speaking. The other two girls exchanged glances, then grabbed Bianchi by both hands and pulled him to his feet. The smiles were distilled sex. There were obviously some nice benefits to being a wealthy yacht owner who was the ticket to steady work in the modeling business.

  He freed his hands and said something in Italian that probably meant, “keep it warm until I get there.”

  They flounced out of the restaurant to lusting stares from guys and angry ones from the guys’ girlfriends.

  Bianchi looked back at Myra.

  “Ms. Martinez, I hope I’m not being offensive, but I have to ask you one last time. Could I get your number? There are times when demands for a woman – with your look – comes up and you would be perfect for a number of highly paid modeling and photo assignments. I can guarantee there would be nothing inappropriate or dangerous or illegal in any way. My models can tell you I look after them very well.

  He glanced at me guardedly, assuming I was the obstacle he’d have to find a way around, then back at Myra.

  “In all candor, Signorina, it is very seldom that a man in my line of work comes across a woman graced with beauty, such a figure, intelligence and – something indefinable. I can’t even give you a word to describe what I want to say, but you have a - presence. You are a hard woman to forget.”

  She took a sip of the remainder of white wine that remained in her glass.

  “Give me a piece of paper.”

  He reached into a pocket and came out with piece of fine linen parchment and what looked like a solid gold fountain pen. She jotted numbers down. Then he handed her a Blackberry that looked like it probably cost only a little less than my Escalade. I’d seen them and their use had even spread down to the wilds of Jacksonville, but I’d never been bitten by the bug.

  She punched her number into it as well. Bianchi took it, stood up and bowed to us.

  “If you don’t mind, Signorina,” he said, and took a quick photo of her with the Blackberry. “To refresh my memory and pitch you for various assignments. Words don’t do you justice.”

  After he left, paying a large bill and leaving a tip large enough to cause smiles to blossom on the faces of all the servers, Myra swiveled around in her chair to face me.

  “You didn’t want to go with your friends to their yacht?”

  “I guess I’m too old for the orgy scene. I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot of swapping going on out t
here tonight. And I have a feeling I’ll be doing good to keep up with you.”

  She leaned over and stroked me again where it would have the most effect. I grabbed her hand.

  “It’s not that I don’t love that, but I think we’re going to have to walk out of here in a little while and – I can’t really believe it – you’ve already got me hard as a rock for the second time tonight.”

  She pressed down harder.

  “But you’ve got a limited repertoire with me tonight, Bill. If you’d went with those nubile young things, you’d have the whole buffet.”

  “Don’t get into another snit, but I’d rather be doing anything with you tonight than anything I could even imagine with those sweet young things.”

  She sighed.

  “I’ll overlook it this time. But how did you manage to avoid getting hooked up with someone and married early before you ran into Debbie. You’re a romantic Bill. I bet you were one when you were 18. Considering the assholes most women encounter early on – the ones that don’t remember your name after you spend the night with them, the ones that are only interested in what’s between a woman’s legs, you must have stood out like a lighthouse in the fog.”

  “You’re sweet, Myra. Unfortunately, a short, average looking guy could be a Prince, but girls that age – girls any age – don’t respond to good hearts. They respond to good heads of hair, good looks, good height, a great car and big spenders. None of which I was.”

  “Women aren’t that shallow.”

  “I’m not the person to be asking that. In my experience, until I met Debbie, they were just that shallow. And I never really quite understood why she fell for me.”

  “There are a lot of women that would say the exact same thing about men, and probably with better reason.”

  I leaned back to take in all her golden beauty, then leaned the other way to kiss her.

  “Let’s agree to disagree as to which sex is the more shallow and just agree that I’m one of the luckiest guys on the planet. What you see in me I don’t know, but I’m glad you do.”

  We wandered out onto the outside deck of the Rose. Rock music still drifted through the night air from the pavilion. This far away the blaring music dissipated into the air around us and on the walkway along the riverfront, quiet seemed to swallow us up. It was cold enough that she fit naturally into my arms as we walked along. Walking leisurely down the walk away from the courthouse in the direction of the old and now rebuilt federal building, we seemed to have left the city behind. We could have been the only two people on the walk.