NO SOONER HAVE I climbed into the smart car and revved the engine then the sedan with the dented hood—the one I pounced on hours earlier—comes around the corner. Hearty and his muscle. Just like I’d hoped.
They follow a half block behind me, keeping a respectful distance. I can imagine what they’re thinking: I’m not likely to do something too rash as long as there’s a possibility that they might kill some kid named Ezekiel who may belong to my bloodline.
I wonder if they know about Fred. Dead Fred.
I lead them down the peaks of Potrero Hill into the Mission flatlands. I’m waiting for something, an idea, a strategy. And then a wrinkle appears, wrapped in an industrial-strength pickup truck. I see it on the corner of Van Ness as I pass through on Sixteenth. I can’t believe my eyes. It’s being driven by the guy who killed Fred.
I recognize the long features, a mullet, upturned jacket collar and absence of any worldly conscious. In the streetlight glow, I see him catch my gaze, and then his dull black eyes widen. He’s noticed the sedan behind me, and its driver and passenger. He clearly didn’t expect to see them in the picture.
Interesting.
So maybe these guys aren’t pals after all. If not, what’s their relationship?
The pickup tries to turn behind me, but the sedan speeds ahead and cuts it off. No, definitely not pals. So it’s me, Hearty and his muscle, and then the pickup.
I pass a taqueria and a late-night Mexican bakery and hear my stomach growl. I glance in the rearview mirror. I see the passenger in the sedan craning his neck back to eye the killer in the pickup. He turns back to the driver, looking wary. This slow-speed chase is looking more and more like a three-way standoff, not two against one.
But how did the guy in the pickup know to find me, or us, if the group isn’t in cahoots? Could he also be tracking Fred’s phone?
I look at the clock. It’s 11:25. I glance again in the rearview mirror. I see the thug in the passenger seat glance behind him, then put something on the dashboard. A gun.
Near the freeway underpass, I slow down at a red light. Wondering just how much trouble I’ve gotten myself in by working under the assumption that I simply must be smarter than these meatheads. But these meatheads have guns and some killer motivation. Fred’s phone rings.
I look down. Private caller. The light turns green. I open the phone to answer the call and hit the button to put it on the speaker setting.
“Clock’s ticking.” It’s Hearty.
“Nifty plan,” I say.
“What’s that?”
“Call me while I’m driving so that I get distracted and crash into a truck.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t allow you to die until I get the thumb drive. It’s non-negotiable. The information on it is irrelevant to you but is important to very important, and powerful, people. The technology can’t fall into the wrong hands.”
Technology. Interesting word choice.
“Whose hands would that be?” I ask.
In the second I wait for him to respond, the phone beeps. Another incoming call. Private number.
“Hold on.”
“What?”
On the phone, I click to take the other call.
“You took Mr. Sandoval’s phone.” It takes me a second to recognize the voice of Fred’s killer. But I’m not surprised to hear from him.
“Do you always refer to the people you kill with such formality?”
He grunts.
“I could use it to dial the cops right now,” I say.
“But you haven’t. You should. I’m sure they’d like to know the whereabouts of the guy who gook that poor dead guy’s phone, same guy whose fingerprints are all over his office.”
I want to kill him.
Behind me, someone honks. Then another honk. I look up. I’m cruising too slowly as I pass the Opera House. But I’m lost in a thought, an idea, the outlines of one, fueled by my intensifying hatred for all these guys, and what I saw on that thumb drive.
I say: “Fred’s phone isn’t the only thing I found in his office.”
“Meaning what?”
I punch the accelerator, the car pushing forward like my thoughts. The guys following me don’t seem much like they like each other. Maybe they’re competing for this thumb drive. Willing to do anything to get it. I need to up the stakes.
I take a flier, vaguely remembering something I read on the thumb drive, a couple of the searches.
“Colorado Springs.”
“What about it?”
“A guy in a tight house race. He seems to have a thing for watching the rough stuff. The kind of videos where women really do not seem to be enjoying themselves. At least, that’s what I infer he’s into from his Internet searches.”
“You’re bullshitting.” It’s not clear if this terrifies or thrills him.
“Maybe he doesn’t hurt anyone himself. Just watches the videos. No biggie, right? Everyone’s got their deal. The thing is, it’s not just him.”
“What?”
“Another guy out of Denver. Similar tastes. Probably just a coincidence. Though they do come from the same party.”
No response. Heavy breathing. I’ve got him, even if I’m not sure how.
“It could throw the whole election,” the horse-faced killer finally blurts.
Now I’ve got it, or I’m pretending to. “Craters the party in Colorado.” Which party, I don’t know. I’m riffing. “At least with the female voters. And it’s just the beginning. It could cost an entire party the house, the senate, who knows? Everything.”
“Who knows about this?”
“Fred, me . . .” I pause, just for an instant. “That guy in the sedan behind me.”
“You gave it to him?!”
“You killed Fred.”
“He was threatening me, this country. It was self-defense. This is bigger than you, bigger than me. It’s about the country.”
“Save it for Oprah when you get out of prison. Hold on.”
“What?”
I click back to Hearty, my brain racing.
He says: “You have the drive. What are you proposing?”
“Slow down. Two words for you: Colorado Springs.”
On my right, I’m passing the Tenderloin, my apartment a few blocks to the right, then a mattress store that has been offering the same grand-opening prices for a decade.
“What about Colorado?”
I give Hearty the same spiel I gave the other guy, but with a twist. I tell Hearty the other guy already knows the story, all the info. I lay it on thick. “And Colorado is just the beginning,” I explain. “One state after the next, one race after the next. Could change everything.”
“You’re bullshitting,” he says. I nearly laugh. These guys sound like parrots. Parrots who are frothing at the mouth, carrying heat. Hearty protests: “How could you give it to that guy? He’s a killer.”
“Not of kids. Gotta run. Battery’s low.”
I hang up, just as I reach Bay Street, a fork in the road. To the right, downtown. To the left, the marina, the Golden Gate Bridge. I see the light in front of me start to turn yellow. I slow down to let it turn red. I squirm around in the tiny cockpit so I can open my window and pull the thumb drive from my pocket.
I hold the drive out the window, extending it high with my long ostrich wing. Showing it to my trackers. Look, guys, the most dangerous secrets in America. Come and get it.
I peel through the red light and turn left.
My dutiful trackers follow: continuing our cartoonish caravan; the putt-putt smart car valiantly peaking at 45 miles an hour, the dented sedan, the ominous pickup. I am trying to leave the impression that I’m trying to get away. But I’m not really. I’m just getting the last of the choreography together in my head. Pick the right location. Somewhere dark, shrouded, free of innocent bystanders.
I take a right toward the water, heading to the marina, reminding me of Santa Cruz, those idyllic days by the water with Meredith. I put her out of my mind with a glance in the rearview mirror, see the attentive thugs.
Looming above me, the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s bottom half gleams in the moonlight, the upper spans splotched with fog. I’ve seen a million pictures taken of moments just like these, aiming to capture the swirling beauty of man’s attempt to triumph over nature, a gorgeous engineering feet, but with nature, in the way of the fog, getting the last word.
That’s it. Just what I’m looking for. Not the bridge, the view. It’s given me an idea of a place where I can get a tactical advantage, if there is even one to be had.
I’m pushing the accelerator as I putt-putt my tin can up and through the Presidio. I’m trying to get some distance between me and the thugs, but manage just fifty yards or so. Within a few minutes, I’ve powered through the ritzy Sea Cliff neighborhood and found myself in the quiet, tree-shrouded edge of the public golf course that hovers along the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Without warning, I pull my car over in a spot along the seventeenth hole. I unfurl myself, climb out, and start ostrich-loping.