I CHARGED OUT OF WATERFALL PARK JUST in time to see Davenport struggling with the lock on his car. A Nissan Pulsar with diagonal taillights. Barber pole striped taillights.
By then I had drawn my gun. “Stop or I’ll shoot,” I yelled across the lot. It was an empty threat. The park behind the parking lot was full of people and the school band had launched into a spirited version of “Louie Louie.”
I didn’t dare risk a shot, but Davenport didn’t know that. He turned and looked at me, and then sprinted away down the aisle of cars with me running after him. He turned left up Washington and then ducked into the alley halfway between Occidental and First. I can run pretty damn fast in a pinch, and I was gaining on him as we came tearing down the alley toward Yesler and James.
I wasn’t far behind him, but again there was a crowd of people in front of us, and I couldn’t risk firing the .38.
Falling in with a large group of pedestrians, Davenport crossed Yesler while I dodged through to a chorus of honking horns. I was still in the middle of James, when he, along with a crowd of fifty or so people, filed down a steep iron-railed stairway beside the Pioneer Building.
That was when I realized that the group of pedestrians was actually part of a tour, a walking guided tour that makes hourly visits through what’s known as the Seattle Underground, an area of town that was cemented over shortly after the great fire of 1889. Third floors were arbitrarily declared ground floors and the streets and sidewalks were raised to that level. Bottle-bottom glass in iron grids was built into the sidewalks to provide light to the businesses that continued to prosper down below there for the next ten to twelve years.
In the mid-sixties, fueled by post-World’s Fair euphoria, an enterprising Seattle entrepreneur had mucked out and shored up parts of the underground and had begun offering guided tours in the city’s dusty, rubble-filled basement.
I had gone on the tour once myself, with my son’s Cub Scout den, and I knew from that visit that the stairs beneath the Pioneer Building formed the entrance to the last portion of the tour. It ended there with a locked door leading into the Underground’s museum and gift shop.
So Christopher Davenport had made a big mistake. He had allowed himself to be trapped in a box canyon, a dead end.
The tour’s guide had gone on ahead into another dimly lighted room while the last straggler held open the metal screened gate to let me in. “I got stuck in traffic,” I said apologetically.
“No problem,” he replied, and hurried off after his wife and kiddies.
I expected the place to be cool and quiet, but instead, just inside the door, a barred wooden gate led off to the left where three huge air-conditioning units threw off a tremendous amount of heat and noise.
“Come on in here so you can hear,” the guide called from the next room. I did as I was told, edging into the room where a group of fifty or so people stood clumped around an old tin bathtub while the guide did a five-minute memorized talk. I worked my way through the crowd, looking for my quarry, but Davenport wasn’t there.
When the guide wasn’t looking, I sidled into the next room, where lighted displays showed various old-time store windows. My feet sounded hollow on the heavy wooden planks. This room was cool and damp and lined with cobwebs. Chris Davenport was nowhere in sight, and there were no side passages where he could have hidden. I tried the door to the museum, but it was securely locked.
I knew that once the guide had finished her talk, the audience would be free to wander around on their own for a few minutes before the door leading into the museum and gift shop was unlocked and the people were herded back upstairs.
There was no way for Davenport to get out ahead of time, and he was not mingling with the group. So he must have slipped away in that first room somewhere. Chances were, he was still there.
The guide was just finishing her talk as I came back through the middle room. She gave me a reproving glare, but I ignored her and went back to the entrance with its heat and noise, where muted sunlight filtered down the stairs and sifted in through the metal grating.
I could see now that there was a crawl space that led back up past the air-conditioning units. Davenport had to be there. It was the only place left where he could be hiding. Stepping quietly, I moved to one side of the wall just inside the door and waited.
A good five minutes passed. Soon I heard the guide’s voice. “Everybody out?” she called.
I didn’t answer. I stood pressed against the wall with the sweat running down my face, dripping into my eyes, blinding me. I didn’t wipe it away. The waiting seemed to go on forever; then, suddenly, I heard a noise, a muffled scraping noise that was different from the steady thrum of motors.
He was back there, in with the mechanical equipment. I had him trapped. He moved forward cautiously, fumbling with the metal bar used to shut the wooden gate and discourage tourists from taking a wrong turn and straying off the guided path. Still I didn’t move. I stood, holding my breath, wanting to have him clearly out in front of me before I made a move and showed myself.
Davenport backed into the light. He was carrying something in his hand, something heavy-looking.
“Stop right there,” I commanded. “Drop it.”
Instead, he swung around toward me. He was holding a hunk of iron grid studded with thick, purple glass. He moved so quickly that the piece of metal whacked into the barrel of my .38, knocking it loose from my hand and sending it skittering across the wooden walkway.
In a split second I had to choose between going for him and going for the gun. The Smith and Wesson was too far away. I dove for Davenport’s knees and knocked him away from me. He grunted in surprise as the piece of metal dropped from his hand and fell harmlessly away.
We were even now. No, that’s not true. We weren’t even, I was better off. I could tell from the way he fell that he didn’t know how, that he had never played a day’s worth of tackle football in his life. Chris Davenport was a goddamned wimp.
He tried to squirm away from me, scrabbling toward the gun, but I caught him by the legs and hauled him back. I flipped him over on his back and held him one-handed by the neck of his shirt, while his bulgy little eyes almost popped out of his head.
“Let me go. You’ve got nothing on me,” he screeched in panic. “You’re choking me.”
My knee was right there beside his crotch, itching to turn him into a tenor. Maybe even a soprano.
“I’ve got more on you than you know, you worthless little shit! After what you did to Kimi…”
“I didn’t do that, I swear. It was Tabone. It was all Tabone’s idea.”
“Don’t bother to confess,” I told him. “I don’t want to hear it, slimebag. I haven’t read you your goddamned rights.”
I pulled him to his feet. He stood there swaying, pulling at his throat as though I really had been choking him. I pushed him toward the wall and started to retrieve my gun when he whirled on me, aiming a vicious kick at my head. Even though I dodged to one side, the toe of his foot still caught my cheekbone. I lost my balance and fell. On my hand. My right hand. My broken fingers screamed with newfound pain.
Up until then I hadn’t been mad. Not really mad. Not with the black-blooded rage that filled me now. He had scrambled up the steps toward the gate and was tugging at it, but the gate was locked with a lock that required a key on either side. It wouldn’t budge.
With my left hand, I grabbed his leg and twisted it. I’m not often surprised by my own strength, but adrenaline does wonders. Davenport went down hard, yelping with pain. I fell on top of him, pinning him to the dusty wooden plank floor.
Our faces were only inches apart as he struggled to get loose, bucking and pitching in a futile attempt to throw me off while I hung on desperately, with my one good hand knotted in a handful of shirt directly under his Adam’s apple.
“Listen, creep. Tell me one thing. Who used the bottle?”
“Tabone,” he squeaked. “I swear to God, it was Tabone. I only watched.”
And that was when I hit him. Right in the braces. With my splints. The braces popped apart, twanging like so many broken guitar strings, turning the inside of his mouth to hamburger. He screamed in pain and grabbed for his mouth as blood spurted from between his lips. He wasn’t fighting anymore. Gingerly, I got off him and stood up. He rolled over on his side, coughing and spitting blood.
“Too bad, creep.” I said, backing away. “Looks like you’ll have to be rewired.”
I left him lying there. He wasn’t going anywhere. Retrieving my gun, I went into the third room, where I pounded loudly on the gift shop door. When the guide opened it, she looked me up and down in stunned surprise. Covered with muck and dust and blood, I could have stepped right out of Nightmare on Elm Street.
“What?” she demanded irritably. “You again?”
I nodded. “I think maybe you’d better call 911. There’s a guy out here who’s hurt. He’ll need an ambulance.”
“What about you?” she asked.
“You’re right,” I answered. “Have ’em send two.”