“YEE HA,” WHITEY yelled. The Caddy bounced onto Long Beach Boulevard and threw me back and forth in the seat. He turned south, the same direction as Helen, slewing the rear end. Calvin Ivory was nowhere to be seen on the street or sidewalk. Helen stopped running and shrugged as we drove past.
“Pull over, pick her up.”
“Naw. She needs the exercise to burn off all that man-hating spunk. She’s a real man-eater, you know what I mean?” He continued south to Mulford and turned left, then made another quick left on California.
“Where are you going? You don’t know which way he went. He probably kept going south on Long Beach.”
“This is the way I’d be going.” He turned off the headlights and slowed to a crawl, looking right and left, his eyes those of a predator. Whitey was pure crook from the top of his head right down to the bottom of his dirty little toes.
“How did you find us?”
“I wasn’t looking for you, pally. I was following the money. I sat out front of that cheesy barbecue joint for hours waiting for that sleazy broad Ruby to leave. I knew she’d take me to Ivory and she did. I figured since you wanted to talk to him so bad, he’d be the one to take me to the money. Didn’t know she was comin’ to meet you. I want that ten percent reward. That’s two hundred grand. You’d have to rob fifteen banks to get that kind of dough. The great thing about this money, no one’s going to call the cops about it and it’s tax-free. The same as if I dug it up. It’s all about finders keepers, right?”
“Like you’re worried about taxes.”
“I could be worried about taxes.”
Up ahead brake lights blared red as a car pulled to the curb. A shadow came out of the dark and got in.
“Go. Go,” I said. “Get up there to that car.”
Whitey gunned the Caddy. The acceleration shoved us back in the seats. “This car’s got some real balls,” he said.
I put my hand up on the dash. “Yeah, and the owner’s not going to appreciate the way you’re treating it.”
“Quit your whinin’. Two hundred grand, baby. I get my money, first thing I’m gonna do is buy me a real clean 1973 Fleetwood Eldorado convertible, white with red leather interior.”
The car of movie legend every sneak thief, burglar, and armed robber talked about.
We came up fast to the back of the car. The Lexus. With Ruby driving. Whitey didn’t let off the pedal and rammed them at speed. The collision jarred my teeth. The Lexus’ trunk lid flew open as the car slewed out of control. It caromed off a parked car, over the curb, and slammed into a large elm tree in the front yard of a house with a spectacular crunch of metal, glass, and steam.
The occupants didn’t wait even one second. Ruby and Ivory bailed out and ran.
The Caddy’s engine rattled and banged when Whitey put his foot on the accelerator to give chase. The front grille must’ve shoved back into the fan. The engine seized. I bailed out and ran after Calvin Ivory. I yelled at Whitey, “Go after Ruby.” I couldn’t take the time to look and see if he did what I’d asked. I had a limited supply of energy and wind and if I didn’t overtake Ivory in the first minute or two, the odds were I’d never see him again.
He was young and bold and highly motivated. He pulled away, leaving me far behind, the both of us running in the street. He was getting away. I stopped and leveled my .357 at him. But a pistol shot at that range, in low light with a moving target, would do nothing but make him run faster. And in the residential area, the miss would jeopardize the safety of unsuspecting citizens.
Headlights came up behind me. I spun. Out of instinct I pointed the gun at the windshield. The car skidded to a stop. Bent over, taking in huge gasps of air, I yelled, “FBI, I need your car.”
A heavyset African American woman, about twenty-five, looked scared until I said FBI.
“FBI? Hell no, you’re not taking my car. I paid—”
I pointed at Police Killa, getting farther away by the second. “That man is wanted for murder and he’s getting away.”
“Why didn’t you say so? Get in.”
“I need to dri—”
“Get your ass in the car.”
I ran around and squeezed into the older Toyota Tercel. She gunned the car. The four-cylinder engine didn’t have the horsepower to get out of the way of itself, but it did have enough to gain on Calvin Ivory. That was all that mattered. He’d started to slow. He cut the corner southwest at Imperial Highway across the parking lot of Bobo’s Burgers and running west.
“What’s your name? Mine’s Bruno.”
“I’m Sheila. What do I do when I catch up to him?” Her knuckles blanched white on the steering wheel.
“Hit him.”
Her head whipped around.
I put my hand on the wheel, still trying to catch my breath. “Watch what you’re doing.”
She did. “I don’t know if I can hit—”
I pulled on the wheel and turned us into the parking lot of Bobo’s. We entered the steep driveway hard and bounced. My head banged on the roof. A man and woman carrying a bag of burgers with a cup carrier containing chocolate malts abandoned their meal, tossing it in the air, and dove out of the way. We ran over their late-night snack. Mashed it into the asphalt.
Up ahead Calvin ran onto Imperial Highway, cutting across. Cars stopped for him.
We bounced out of the parking lot onto Imperial and had to wait for the stopped cars to move out of the way. Calvin ran west, widening the gap. “Go. Go.”
Sheila’s Tercel jumped out in front of oncoming eastbound cars that skidded to a stop to avoid broadsiding us. “Sweet baby Jesus.” She eased into westbound traffic that also stopped. Imperial was an alternate tributary to LAX and always had cars.
Calvin Ivory gained a full block on us, but he was out of breath and slowing. We were almost back to where we’d started, Long Beach Boulevard. He cut into the Yum Yum Donuts. Sheila slowed, hesitating, not knowing what to do, not wanting to think I’d been serious about running him down.
He made it to the sidewalk and into the parking lot of Yum Yum. I again took hold of the wheel and pressed my foot down over hers on the accelerator. Police Killa heard the engine pitch shift and looked back over his shoulder, fear plain in his expression a second before the Toyota slammed into him.
He flew up, crashing on the hood and denting it, and then smashed into the windshield, which instantly spread into a milky spider web. He rolled off and thumped hard on the asphalt.
I jumped out and slapped the roof. “Thanks for the ride. Your federal government owes you a huge debt.”
Calvin Ivory struggled to his feet and staggered off in a drunken sailor’s gait.
“What about my car?” Sheila said. “Look at my windshield—it’s all caved in.”
I pulled out the last envelope with money, took out ten hundreds, reached in, and handed them to her. Her face lit up. The entire car wasn’t worth five hundred.
I took off after Calvin.