Highway 61 (26 page)

I automatically moved into a Weaver stance just as I had been trained to do at the police academy, the Beretta in my right hand, my left hand supporting it, my left arm close to my body, my head slightly bent to align the gun sights on the target. Only there was no target. Whoever had fired on Vicki and her bodyguards must have seen or heard me coming and backed off. I swung the gun slowly to my right and then to my left. Bystanders were gathering, attracted by Vicki’s screams like moths to a flame, yet I saw no one with a gun.

“Get up,” I said.

Vicki’s screams had become howls of anguish.

“Get up,” I repeated.

I reached down with my left hand, clutched her elbow, and pulled upward.

“Get up, dammit.”

She rose reluctantly. I had parked my Jeep Cherokee close to the door of the coffeehouse, where Vicki should have parked her SUV. I spun her toward it and gave her a push. She staggered but kept her feet.

“Go, go, go,” I said.

I kept swinging my gun right, then left, in a short, controlled arc, searching for a target, trying hard not to be distracted by the bodies on the pavement in front of me. Vicki was moving at a snail’s pace, her body racked with fear and sorrow. I turned, grabbed her arm above the elbow, and half pulled; half pushed her toward the car.

That’s when they shot me.

The bullet smacked high into my back between the shoulder blades. The force of it propelled me forward until I fell to my knees, yet it did not penetrate the Kevlar vest. Which isn’t to say that it didn’t hurt. I felt as if I had been hit by a fastball delivered by a pitcher with major league potential. Yet knowing that the vest worked, that it had stopped the bullet, made me feel wonderful.

I pivoted on my knees and looked behind me. A shadow was ducking down behind what appeared to be a Toyota Tercel, a subcompact I didn’t think they even made anymore. I threw four shots at it. The bullets smashed into the rear quarter panel where the shadow had fled. I was point shooting with one hand from the shoulder, a not particularly accurate firing position, yet if I missed it wasn’t by much.

Vicki had resumed screaming.

“You’re shot,” she said.

I thought it was nice that she noticed.

I scrambled to my feet and pulled her to the Cherokee. I opened the passenger door with my key and stuffed her inside, all while gazing behind me and sweeping the lot with the sight of my gun. I circled the SUV, keeping it between Vicki’s assailants and me until the last possible moment, then dashed to the driver’s door, opened it, and climbed inside.

I started up the vehicle and drove off. There was a maze of unmarked thoroughfares throughout the massive parking lot. I chose to ignore them. I threaded the vehicle through the spaces between parked cars until I found an opening. I hit the accelerator and aimed for the lot’s high curb. A curb can be easily jumped as long as you remember to hit it at about a forty-five-degree angle at a speed under forty-five miles per hour. The Cherokee made the jump and began skidding down a grassy hill toward the boulevard bordering France Avenue. Vicki bounced in her seat and her head banged against the roof of the Cherokee as we jumped another curb and landed on France heading in the wrong direction.

“Put on your seat belt,” I said.

Vicki started adding actual words to her cries.

“Oh my God, we’re going to be killed,” she said.

I wove around two vehicles coming straight at me and a third driven by a man who was smart enough to turn hard to his right while I cranked the wheel to mine, missing him, and pushing the Cherokee across the median into the proper lane. I accelerated hard even as I glanced through my side and rearview mirrors, searching for a trailing vehicle. Vicki fastened her safety harness.

“What is happening?” she asked.

“Who knew you were going to be at the coffeehouse?”

“No one.”

“Think.”

“No one.”

“Then you were followed.”

“We weren’t followed. We were extra careful. Sean and Tony—oh, God, Sean and Tony.” Up until then I didn’t know the kids had names. “They shot them. They shot them. Do you think they’re dead?”

I didn’t answer. By then I could see a high-performance German sedan coming up fast on my left in my sideview mirror, and I was starting to worry about me becoming dead. I was outmatched. My Jeep Cherokee was unstable. There was a very real chance that it could tip over when cornering at high speeds, unlike a vehicle with a low center of gravity and a powerful engine like, say, my Audi or whatever the hell the shooters were driving. Also, the Cherokee had four-wheel drive, which was swell for off-road excursions yet greatly reduced its acceleration. On the other hand, I didn’t just learn how to shoot at the police academy. I also learned how to drive.

The shooters were about two car lengths behind me when I swung the steering wheel of the Cherokee hard to the right, jumped another curb, careened across the lawn of a small office building, and ended up on a side street heading west. The shooters followed, yet by the time they made the turn I was already a full block in front of them. I was relieved to see that they weren’t leaning out the windows of their vehicle and spraying the street with bullets the way they do in the movies.

Not the Joes,
my inner voice said.
Professionals. They’re the guys who followed you last night.

The most important thing to remember in a high-speed pursuit—especially if you’re the one being pursued—is not to crash, because even if you survive the accident you’re going to be a sitting duck. That’s why high speeds are not recommended. By keeping your speedometer under sixty miles per hour, you’ll have greater control of your vehicle, and evasive maneuvers will be easier to accomplish. At least that’s what I was taught. ’Course, if I had a superior car, I would have been able to flat outrun the sonsabitches.

“I can’t believe you killed my Audi,” I said.

“What?” Vicki asked.

She was turned in her seat and staring out at our pursuers.

“Never mind,” I said.

“What are we going to do?”

“I’m working on it.”

I let the Cherokee drift to the far side of the narrow street as I approached the corner. I started braking the car, gradually at first, then more heavily, as I downshifted. I swung the steering wheel hard to my right again, making sure my tires were as close as possible to the inside edge of the corner as I turned, then stomped on the accelerator. It is a commonly held belief, sustained by most Hollywood action movies, that the best way to handle a corner is to blast through it. Not so. Any NASCAR fan will tell you that the speed at which you exit a corner is far more important than the speed at which you take the corner. If you don’t believe me, just ask the guys chasing us. Even though my taillights warned them in ample time to prepare for the turn, they still lost ground.

Unfortunately, they gained half of it back when a woman in a Subaru backed out of her driveway in front of the Cherokee, forcing me to brake nearly to a stop. Vicki screamed into my ear as I accelerated around the woman.

“I wish you would stop doing that,” I said.

The area of Edina located between France Avenue and Highway 100 on the east and west and Highway 62 and Interstate 494 on the north and south was mostly residential. There were plenty of high-priced houses, parks, and at least three lakes that I knew of. Most of the time it was a fairly quiet neighborhood. However, at six thirty on a Saturday night, it was alive with traffic. The Subaru wasn’t the only car I encountered. I had to ease around several others as well as avoid a handful of pedestrians. I turned on my high beams, but they didn’t help much. What I should have done was replace my sealed-beam headlights with quartz-iodine headlights that throw off twice the light and would have allowed me to see better at night. I should have bought the best radial tires money could buy and filled them with run-flat puncture repair foam in case they were shot. I should have invested in better shocks and springs. I should have paid the extra twenty thousand dollars to armor the Cherokee against a .30 caliber rifle round. My psychiatrist ex-girlfriend called such thinking hindsight bias, which was one of the reasons we broke up. She had an answer for everything.

Yet even without the extras, I continued to gain ground. I took a left, then a right, two more lefts, circled a lake, took another right and then a left again. Each time I felt the Cherokee listing precariously against the turn, yet it always remained on all four wheels.

Somewhere along the line, I lost the shooters. To make sure, I blasted through a stop sign and drove two blocks going the wrong way on a one-way street before I found a quiet avenue without streetlamps, parked, and shut down the Cherokee.

“What are we doing?” Vicki asked.

“Waiting.”

“Why?”

“Because I have no idea where I am, and I’m afraid that if I start wandering around looking for a familiar landmark, they’re going to find us again. We’ll sit for a while.”

Despite the chill in the air, I rolled down the window. I could hear the sound of traffic like surf in the distance, yet I had no idea where it was coming from. Vicki leaned back in her seat. She closed her eyes and rested her hands in her lap. She inhaled, held her breath for a beat, then slowly exhaled, and I thought she was doing some kind of Zen breathing exercises to control her emotions. It didn’t do any good. After a few moments her shoulders began shaking, followed closely by the rest of her body. She wrapped her arms around herself, leaned forward, and rested her head against the dashboard. Long, painful sobs drowned out the traffic noise.

“It’s my fault,” she said. “It’s all my fault.”

I didn’t say a word. What was I going to do? Argue with her?

We sat there for what seemed like a long time, yet was only a few minutes, until I saw the car. It had its high beams on and was coming fast.

“Nuts,” I said.

Vicki’s head came off the dash. She swung around and looked out the rear window.

“Are they back?” she asked.

“Get down,” I said.

Vicki did what I asked without hesitation.

I slid down in my seat as well.

The German car flew past, and for a moment I thought it had missed us.

It got half a block before it slammed on its brakes. Its squealing tires sounded like an alarm.

I immediately fired up the Cherokee and threw it into reverse. I accelerated until I was traveling backward at about thirty miles an hour. I got off the gas, cranked the steering wheel all the way to the left until the car spun ninety degrees, jumped back on the accelerator, and straightened out the steering wheel until I was driving nearly fifty miles an hour in a straight line.

“Yes,” I shouted. “Yes, yes, yes. Did you see that?” I patted the dash of the Cherokee. “Good car.”

I glanced at Vicki. She didn’t seem nearly as thrilled by the maneuver as I was.

I made a few turns, yet it didn’t take long before the shooters were back on my bumper. The Cherokee just didn’t have enough giddy-up.

The shooters feinted right and then left, causing me to swerve to block them. It was obvious that they were trying to pull up alongside, either to shoot us or run us off the road. It was just as obvious that they preferred to come up on my left. I decided to let them. I didn’t know what else to do. I was running out of options.

“Hang on,” I said.

It was a simple act of pure desperation.

When the shooters feinted to the right, I purposely moved too far to block them, giving them the opening they wanted. They accelerated hard, coming up on my left side. When their front bumper was even with my passenger door, I pulled up hard on the emergency brake. The Cherokee skidded across the pavement, making a sickening high-pitched screeching sound. The shooters flew past. I released the brake, downshifted, and stomped on the gas. The Cherokee lunged forward. The shooters tried to escape, but it was already too late. I rammed their bumper on the left-hand side with the right-hand side of my bumper as though I were trying to pass but didn’t give myself enough room. At impact, the rear of the German car started sliding sideways toward the right. The driver tried to compensate. He spun his wheels in the direction the car was skidding—like any good Minnesota driver who hits a patch of ice—but instead of slowing, he stepped on the gas. His tires gained traction. The car shot off in the direction it was pointed, off the road, up a boulevard, and into a tree.

Vicki looked back, but I didn’t.

*   *   *

I worked my way west, using the bridge at Edina Industrial Boulevard to cross Highway 100. I drove along Normandale Boulevard until I entered the City of Bloomington, then hung a right at West Seventy-eighth Street. From there I drove to the back of the parking lot of the elegant Hotel Sofitel.

“What are we doing now?” Vicki asked.

“We have to get rid of the car.” I opened my door and slid out.

Vicki followed me. “Why?”

I circled the Cherokee and examined the damage to my front end. The right-side headlight was broken. Beyond that, the damage wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be; I was guessing not more than a thousand dollars’ worth of body work, including paint.

“Because it’s possible you weren’t followed to the coffeehouse,” I said. “It’s possible that I was followed. I didn’t see a tail, but someone could have tagged my car with a bumper beeper or something. That would explain how the shooters found us after we parked.”

“What’s a bumper beeper?”

“It’s an electronic bug with a two-mile range that attaches to the underside of your car with a magnet. It’s usually kept in a small metal box with two skinny antennas sticking out. Unfortunately, we haven’t got enough time or light to do a sweep. Nuts.”

“What?” Vicki asked.

“Your clothes. They’re covered with blood.” I looked at the hotel behind me. “You can’t go anywhere looking like that.”

Vicki looked down at her violet sweater and white tank top. The red splotches were clearly visible in the lot’s harsh lights. She picked at the stains as if they were pieces of lint she hoped to pull off her clothes, starting slowly and delicately at first, then increasing in speed and fury until she was grabbing and slapping herself in a frenzy. She moaned loudly, and I quickly searched the lot for witnesses.