I FINALLY STRUGGLED to my feet just as Ned pulled up and parked in the middle of the parking lot away from the cluster of emergency vehicles that now dominated the area close to the bank; Chino PD, San Bernardino County Sheriff, and a fire truck had all responded due to the crashed vehicles. Ned got out and walked around his car, checking the damaged front end, mainly the bumper, contorted and drooping on one side. Coffman and Gibbs headed toward him. When Coffman pointed to something on Ned’s head, he reached up to his right ear. His hand came back with blood, and I rushed toward him. I saw Gibbs’ look of concern as he broke away and flagged down one of the Chino PD guys. I heard him yell, “Hey, call paramedics for my partner, he’s injured!”
Now I really moved. “Ned, you okay?” I asked.
“Shit, yeah, I’m okay. It’s just a scratch.” He put his hand up to the side of his head and came back with more blood than before.
Coffman took the cigar out of his mouth and pointed to the spiderwebbed windshield, the bullet holes, and then back to Ned’s head. “That’s a gotdamn bullet graze. That’s what that is. Ned, my boy, that little shitass missed killing you by an inch or less.”
“Naw, it’s probably just broken glass. Sorry. I lost him, Bruno. Gadd got on the freeway and floored it. I saw him get on, but I was too far back. By the time I got on, he was in the wind. I got this beast up to a hundred miles an hour, thought it was going to rattle apart. I went at least twenty miles, never saw him. He must’ve got off somewhere in between. That asshole’s slippery.”
“That’s okay. Maybe you should sit down.”
“I’m fine. Let’s go round up Gadd and D’Arcy. Gadd deserves a good ass kickin’. It really pisses me off that he got away when he was the one who put all this in motion. He made us do this.” Ned swung his arm toward the smashed-up Pontiac still parked in front of the bank, then touched his head and looked at his hand again, the blood still wet and not yet tacky. Some started to run down his neck and onto his shirt.
Coffman said, “You’re gettin’ checked out by the medics, and that’s an order.”
“Sarge—”
Coffman took his cigar from his mouth and squinted in the smoke. “Sarge, my achin’ ass. No bullshit this time, Ned. You’re gonna get checked out if I have to hold you down myself.”
Sirens from down the street echoed off the houses en route to our location, further disrupting the quiet morning.
Coffman turned to Gibbs. “You write this mess up and walk it through for arrests warrants on Gadd and D’Arcy. Bruno, get on the phone and get a telephonic search warrant for the place on Willowbrook. I don’t want to dick around with this. I don’t want to give these two any time to think. I want to hit the Willowbrook house by …” He looked at his watch. “It’s almost noon now, so no later than three. Let’s shoot for three. Get on it.”
Stunned, I checked my watch. How had the time slipped by that quickly? Three o’clock for a search warrant and two arrest warrants. Just three hours to write them and get them signed was a pipe dream under any circumstances.
I moved over and peered into the driver’s compartment of Ned’s vehicle. For the two wild shots the kid threw, he did pretty damn well. Lucky shots. One impacted right where Ned’s head should’ve been, dead center on the driver’s side. The other went wide and low but still struck the windshield at the corner of the passenger side. With a car barreling right at me, I didn’t know if I could’ve done any better.
I stood up on the doorsill and pointed to the windshield. “Not to sound like an uncaring fool, but, partner, how did that bullet miss you?”
Ned smiled. “Wasn’t my turn, I guess. I ducked. Saw him throw down on my truck and scrunched down a little.”
“Bruno,” Coffman said. “What’d I say? Get your ass to a phone and get that telephonic search warrant started.”
The paramedics pulled up and shut down their siren.
“I’m going with Ned to the hospital. I can use a phone there.”
“No, I want—”
My glare cut him short. He knew that if it came to taking care of Ned or jumping into a telephonic, Coffman would lose no matter what kind of threats he threw my way.
The paramedics set down their gear and put on latex gloves. Ned made half an effort to shoo them away and then relented. One paramedic asked him questions as he filled in the information on his clipboard. The other daubed with a gauze pad at the laceration above Ned’s ear.
I looked on. “Son of a bitch, Ned, you can’t see this,” I said. “Coffman’s right—this cut looks more like a furrow. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Cut the crap. It was a piece of shrapnel. The bullet fragmented when it went through the window. Check the gun. I bet you’re gonna find it loaded with some round-nose, all-lead bullets circa 1966 or some shit like that. I’m good. Just bandage me up, we got police work to do.”
The paramedic said, “You’re going to need at least ten stitches.”
“I don’t have time to wait in any packed ER. We have to keep rolling on this case or we’re gonna lose the momentum; we’ll lose the other two responsible for this cluster fuck. Right, Bruno? Tell ’em, Bruno.”
I said to the paramedic, “You don’t see any sign of a concussion, do you?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ned said. “Of course they don’t, because there isn’t any.”
“Listen,” the paramedic said and hesitated. He looked at the bullet holes in the windshield and then at the smashed-up getaway vehicle in front of the bank. “We can run you over in the squad. My wife works today and she’ll get you moved right up to the head of the line. An hour, tops.”
Ned offered him his hand. “I’m in for that, thanks.”
The paramedics packed up their gear, and Ned followed them over to their squad as he held a blood-soaked pad to his head.
Chino PD crime scene techs worked the scene like four busy little ants, taking photos, fingerprints, and measurements. I didn’t say a thing to them, got in my damaged car, backed up, and pulled away. They all yelled, “Hey! Hey!” One ran a short way after me before giving up.