CHAPTER 26

It was afternoon when Walt got hold of me. I was adrift in Clive McNair’s theories about madness and its treatment. He inverted almost everything I had ever heard. It was like reading the Queen of Hearts’ translation of Freud.

Kelly buzzed Walt through and I was ready for a break.

“Leo, Walt. I’ve been in touch with Steinmetz and the D.A.’s office. Mitchell has withdrawn her affidavit. No more drug bust. I told him we wouldn’t expose her past. We’re drawing up a live-and-let-live agreement. The D.A. is another matter. He wants her to return to L.A. and agree to be deposed for an internal investigation. In return for her cooperation he’ll waive the fugitive charge. I think it’s a good deal. They aren’t acting like they’re out to get her. She has to go back with one of their people, but after the deposition tomorrow, she’s free of all charges.”

“Who’s coming for her?”

“A guy named Melrose, Burton Melrose. He’s on a plane already. He’ll be here to pick her up about six-thirty tonight. Then he’ll turn right around and take the eight-ten back. He’s going to take custody of her here at my office.”

“Fine. I’ll let her know and make sure she gets there.”

“Come a little early. We need to discuss a retainer for what we’ve already done and the deposition. One last thing, Leo. The photograph she has. I don’t want that to return with her. Have her bring it with her and we’ll keep it in the safe here.”

“Will do. Talk to you later.”

I disconnected Walt and dialed Ellen Piersall’s number.

“Hello.” It was Darla.

“Leo Haggerty. Walter O’Neil just spoke to me. He’s arranged for somebody from the D.A.’s office to escort you back to California. The drug bust has been dropped in exchange for not blowing the whistle on Stephanie Mitchell. You agree to be deposed tomorrow and tell the D.A. about the porno film offer, and they’ll drop the fugitive charges. Walt says you should take the deal. They’ll pick you up at Walter’s office about six-thirty tonight. What do you say?”

“Sure. I can do that.”

“Any problem getting there?”

“Hold on, let me ask Ellen.” I heard her footsteps going away from the receiver and her faintly calling “Ellen.” A couple of minutes went by, then she said, “Ellen has some huge meeting scheduled for tonight. She can’t rearrange it. Can you pick me up instead?”

“Yeah, be in front ready to go at quarter-past five. Walt wants you to be there early to talk about a retainer. Bring the photo of you and Stephanie Mitchell. Walt wants to keep that here.”

“Sure. Ellen said she’d help with that. By the way, she and I worked some things out. When she comes to L.A. she’ll stop by to see me. See if she can handle my lifestyle. And when I want a break from work—you know, too much lumber in my diet—I can come out here and stay with her.”

“Hey, I hope it works out for you. See you after five.”

I went back to work wading through McNair’s infinite regress of mirrors and his fluid theories where there were no patients, no doctors, only journeyers. Where the “insane” saw things normals could not or would not, and they were punished for their wisdom. He railed bitterly at the constricted, desiccated perceptions of people who wanted not just safety but comfort at any cost. The mad, he said, were the indigestible failures of the culture’s “vise of normalcy” that squeezed out the juices of sex, danger, mystery. Auschwitz was the logical end point of normalcy. Purity was the root of all great evils. The most lethal invention in man’s history had been the mirror, not the club.

I thought about giving Darla a copy of one of his books to read on the flight back. They were kindred spirits. Unrepentant outlaws.

At five Kelly came in to see if I needed anything before she left.

“No. Go on home. I’ll see you tomorrow. Anyone else here?”

“No. You’re it. See you tomorrow.”

We smiled at each other and I watched her walk down the hall. A good-looking woman. I wondered what she’d look like naked. Hell, I wondered what anybody would look like naked. It was seven years since I’d seen any woman naked except for Sam and over a year since I’d seen her. My awakening desire confused me. I knew I felt better that Darla was off the hook. A little less guilty, a little less numb. I wasn’t sure I wanted this, though.

I locked up the office and drove out Route 7 to 123, then climbed up the ramp to the overpass. I passed between the Scylla and Charybdis of Tysons Corner. I automatically reached for my wallet as I went through the force fields of consumption. Under the Beltway and then into McLean.

Darla was in the window as I pulled up. She came out, locked the door behind her, and hurried to the car. I opened the door for her and she scooted in.

“You taking anything back?” I asked.

“No. Ellen’s going to ship it back for me as soon as I get settled. She put me back on her credit card and gave me some traveler’s checks until I get things sorted out. I fucked up my credit rating big time when I left. It’s going to take awhile to fix it up.”

We continued down 123 to the George Washington Memorial Parkway and took it west along the river to the Beltway. There’s no good place to be in a car during Washington’s rush hour. There isn’t a single road that is up to the demands of peak usage. Some are parking lots, others are creepy crawlers. The parkway is a creepy crawler until it dumps out at the parking lot for the American Legion Bridge.

It took fifteen minutes to cross the bridge and then we rolled slowly until the I-270 cutoff, the first major spoke into suburbia, siphoned off a substantial number of cars. Ten minutes later we were heading down Old Georgetown Road and into Bethesda, my boyhood home. Walt’s office was near the center of Bethesda at the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and East-West Highway. Right at the heart was the Hot Shoppes Restaurant, there since the antedeluvian 1960s, now dwarfed by hotels and office buildings in every direction. It established the border between Whitman High School and BCC and, like all good frontier outposts, had seen its share of turf wars in the parking lot. The good old days when you fought with your fists and each school had its champions to defend its honor, man to man. Nowadays it was drive-by shootings with fifteen-year-olds in the gunner’s seat.

I pulled into the near empty lot in front of Walt’s building and we walked to its metallic facade. The round building had a crenelated roof line that made it look like a kitchen disposal at rest. I checked my watch. We were a half hour early.

Darla and I walked into the lobby.

“Before I forget. That picture of you and the baby. Where is it?”

“Right here in my purse. Why?”

“Walt wants to keep it in his safe. He doesn’t want it to fall into anyone else’s hands. It’s too valuable. In fact, why don’t you give it to me? That D.A.’s guy is going to search you before he cuffs you.”

“Okay, wait a minute, let me get it.” Darla stopped, opened her purse, and rummaged through it. “Here it is,” she said, and handed it to me.

The elevator opened. “Thanks, Darla,” I said, and slipped it into my jacket pocket.

Darla’s eyes dilated in shock. She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward her.

“What the—” I blurted as she hauled me along.

“Come on,” she whispered. “That guy. It’s—”

I looked over my shoulder. A man stepped out of the elevator. A hard-looking man with a white scar through his upper lip.

“Shit,” I muttered, and turned away, pulling Darla in my wake. We raced through the empty lobby to the fire stairs. I heard our pursuer’s footsteps clacking on the hard tile floors.

I pulled open the door to the stairway and shoved Darla through ahead of me. “Run!” I yelled into her hair. The fire door was down a short hall. We sprinted toward it.

“Freeze. Police. One more step and I’ll shoot.” The hall wasn’t short enough.

I stopped, put up my hands, and turned around. Darla did the same and came up alongside me.

“No. Get behind me. Turn back to back,” I said. She didn’t argue.

The shooter closed the gap.

“Stand aside. She’s coming with me.”

“I don’t think so, pal.”

He cocked the hammer on the pistol.

“Don’t do something stupid here. If you’re a cop, and I think you are, you can’t just go blowing people away. There’re rules for shooting fugitives. This’ll never fly. I’m not moving until you drop the gun. You want us, shoot us. Then try to explain how your bullet went through me facing you and her with her back to you while we were fleeing to a locked door.”

Darla pressed herself against me and matched her silhouette to mine as best she could. If he was a cop, he’d check the door. A hit man had no shooting team to answer to, and we’d be drawing flies real soon. Come on, sport, step aside. I’m not ready to go yet.

He moved a pace to his left and saw the NO ENTRY sign painted on the door. I hate security buildings.

“No problem. I knee-cap you at an angle, you go down like the sack of shit you are, then I put one in your smart face and take the slut anyway.” I heard something hit the floor.

“What’re you doing?” he snapped.

“What do you think? I’m taking my clothes off.” Something else hit the floor. “You won’t get far with me like this and I sure won’t look like I was fleeing, will I? I came in dressed and then got naked to run away?”

He was thinking. That was good. He was making this up as he went along. We had to keep him off balance. If his gun was a cold one he’d have used it already. He must not have been expecting anyone to be with Darla. He’d have waylaid her and strong-armed her into a car. No need to shoot her. He strangles her, dumps her somewhere, and shows up at Walt’s on time like nothing’s happened. He almost missed her anyway with her new looks. If I hadn’t called her by name we’d have gone right by him.

Darla threw her underwear over my shoulder like I was a changing curtain.

Reluctantly he uncocked his gun, turned, and ran. Once his back was to me, I pulled my piece and took off after him.

“Hey, what’re you doin’?” Darla yelled as I careened toward the closing door to the lobby, caught it with one hand, and staggered through it. Out front, I saw him dashing across the parking lot. He ducked behind a car and fired a shot past me.

I crouched and zigzagged to another car. Counting one, two, three, I popped up to get a look at him. The good news was that he wasn’t behind my car. The bad news was he was behind the engine block. I lay down on the ground, held my pistol out, and fired along the ground. My first shot was angled wrong and ricocheted into the quarter panel. I adjusted and squeezed off two more. They bounced off the concrete and went under the car. My target moved down the car’s body. I had the advantage and had to keep the pressure on. Got a surprise for you, meet the chassis smasher. I popped up on to one knee, locked my arm down on the hood, and started firing through the car body. Two hundred and thirty grains, full metal jacket, hot loaded to 1,000 f.p.s. He might as well have been hiding behind a block of Vaseline.

With a flurry of aimless fire he broke from behind the car and loped across the parking lot. I left my cover and went after him on a parallel track. He hopped a divider to the sidewalk. I stopped and yelled at him to halt. He didn’t. I fired a warning shot over his head. He spun awkwardly, tried to get off a shot, and lurched into the street.

The car hit him head on and he went over the roof like a gored matador. I holstered my gun and ran to the body. The driver was still in the car. Stunned and afraid to see what he’d done. I had to move fast. There’s always a brief interval after an accident when everybody is reacting and nobody is moving.

The impact had broken his neck and flattened his skull. I looked around. There was nothing I could do for this guy, but I could help myself. I reached into his jacket pocket, found his wallet, pulled it out, and slipped it into my pocket. Nobody seemed to have seen me do it.

I stood up and casually walked away from the body as people got out of their cars and came over to help. One man looked at me as if to ask “So you’re just going to walk away?” I told him the man was dead and I was going to call the police and an ambulance. That satisfied him, and I walked back to Walt’s office. Darla was out front, fully dressed. I took her by the elbow and guided her back to the car.

“Don’t look at anything but the car,” I said.

“What happened?”

“He got hit by a car. He’s dead.”

“Who was he?”

“I don’t know yet, but I lifted his wallet. Wait until we get in the car.”

I opened the car door and Darla slid in. She reached over to open my side as I walked around the car.

I pulled out of the lot slowly, turned away from the accident, and disappeared into Bethesda. I came out near Bradley Boulevard, turned onto it, and meandered through a residential section. I turned at Burning Tree Road and drove by the creek through the overhanging trees. At the end of the green cathedral the road widens, and I pulled over and stopped.

Darla tapped me on the shoulder. “What are you thinking?”

“Oh, something an old friend of mine used to say: ‘Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.’ I may get to find out if that’s true.” I pulled out the wallet and flipped it open.

Darla leaned over to read the driver’s license.

“Burton Melrose. The guy from the D.A.’s office who was supposed to take you back.” I said.

“But he’s the guy who wanted me to go to Mexico with him. To make a tape.”

“I know. I know.” I rubbed my forehead. This case had more false bottoms than a spy’s suitcase.

“Remember when you said that if you went to Mexico it was forever? I don’t know if Mexico is forever, but it’s sure still with you.”