Last Ditch (38 page)

By
the time the
first uniform found us, I was gasping for breath and could hear a siren
in the
distance. He took one look at my red face, holstered his revolver and
took
over.

He
lasted until
the siren was screaming in our ears, and then I took over again. Two
breaths
into his mouth. Fifteen compressions of his chest. I was still at it
when Trujillo arrived with the
cavalry.

A
burly EMT in
a whiter-than-white uniform shirt shouldered me aside and began working
on
Wessels. I stood up and leaned back on the pile of lumber. I was so
winded, I
had imaginary snowflakes swirling around me in the air. It was all I
could do
not to try to reach out and capture one in my hand. Trujillo stepped up
into my face, opened his
mouth to speak and then closed it again. Instead, he reached into his
pants
pocket and pulled out a neatly folded handkerchief.

"Here,"
he said. "Wipe your mouth."

Even
down here,
forty feet below street level, the pulsing red and blue fights swirled
through
the air.

Behind
me I heard
a voice say, "He's breathing on his own."

It
sounded as
if sirens were approaching from all directions.

We
stood and
watched as they got Wessels started on oxygen and an IV and then rolled
him
onto a gurney. It took the two EMTs and both cops to lift the big fella
and
carry him out to where they could use the wheels. When they were gone,
I
stepped around Trujillo
and started for the center of the field

"Where
the
hell do you think you're going?"

"Shoot
me," I said and kept walking.

He
came running
up from the rear and spun me around by the shoulder. "Don't be an
idiot," he said. "I've got backup coming."

That's
when I
saw Jimmy, out in what I thought was going to be left field, down on
all fours
clawing his way up the steepest part of the embankment toward an
assemblage of
gray steel beams which rose five stories into the sky. I pointed.
Trujillo followed my
finger.

Trujillo
immediately started after
him. I
started after Trujillo.

We
zigzagged
through the infield until we reached a spot directly below where I'd
seen Jimmy
Chen. He was still there. A gaunt scarecrow of a figure, about
three-quarters
of the way up, down on his haunches, apparently winded and too tired to
continue climbing.

I
reached up,
grabbed the steel handrail above my head and hoisted myself up to the
level of
the box seats. Trujillo
was too short to grab the rail, so I had to lean over, grab his wrist
and drag
him up to the next level with me. He straightened his jacket and then
started
up after Jimmy Chen.

Unfortunately,
his tasseled loafers with their leather soles were not up to the task.
For
every two steps he made it up, he slid back three. I grabbed him by the
arm and
dragged him upward. Pulling both of us, I had to stop twice for breath.
Jimmy
Chen never moved until we stopped for the second time, maybe three
hundred feet
below him.

Trujillo
was wasting his breath
screaming orders
to stop and threatening to shoot. It was too dark to see Jimmy Chen's
face, but
I somehow suspected Jimmy would be about as impressed as the Boys had
been. Trujillo was shouting
again.

"This
is
the Seattle Police Department ..."

I
couldn't
stand it any more. "Will you shut the fuck up?" I said. "I'll
swear you warned him. I'll swear you Mirandized him. Just stop the
screaming." Trujillo
looked insulted and then started upward.

I
didn't have
much choice. If I stayed below him, he was going to lose his footing
and come
rolling downhill like a bowling ball, probably wiping me out on the
way. I got
to my feet and started up.

I
pulled him
the rest of the way to the top. We sat with our backs on the cold
concrete, our
chests heaving, our limbs unwilling to move. Three hundred feet to my
right,
Jimmy Chen dragged himself the last few yards and collapsed. I nudged
Trujillo. He shook his
head.

I
got to one
knee. Below us, down at field level, at least a dozen cops were headed
our way.
I figured I'd wait until they got here. Jimmy Chen hadn't moved and I'd
had all
the excitement I could stand. Trujillo
would have been better off if he'd been similarly inclined.
Unfortunately, he
wasn't. Wanted the collar, I guess.

Whatever
the
reason, when I looked up again, Trujillo
was moving along the top rim of the stadium toward Jimmy Chen. He was
behind
the lights, moving slowly in the near darkness, about thirty feet to my
right, when
he suddenly disappeared from view. I figured he was out of gas and
resting
again. That's when I heard the groaning and started after him.

He'd
fallen in
a concrete hole. Maybe five feet square and three feet deep. He lay
twisted in
the bottom, trying to push himself up on one elbow. I jumped down with
him and
helped him gingerly to his feet. His left shoulder hung way below his
right.
His eyes were glazed with pain.

"Get
me
out of here," he said through his teeth.

"Maybe
we
ought to wait for—"

He
said it
again, so I got him to his feet, laced my fingers together down at knee
level
and invited him to step in. He put his right foot in my hand and his
good hand
on my shoulder. I boosted him up and out and then crawled up beside
him. From
where we stood, two enormous concrete pillars blocked our view of Jimmy.

We
started
moving again. Slowly this time. Concrete holes appeared out of the
gloom at
thirty-foot intervals. We skirted them and kept moving until we finally
moved
behind the last grandstand pillar and out into the right-field
bleachers.

Seventy-five
feet away, Jimmy Chen leaned heavily against the gray steel
superstructure, his
mouth open and gasping for breath. It was an odd moment for a
revelation, but
fatigue does funny things. It was there and then that I realized what
all the
gray steel was for. It and its twin on the far side of the park were
what the
roof slid back upon when it was opened.

I
was still
marveling at the wonders of modern engineering when Trujillo stepped
around me and brought his gun
to bear on Jimmy Chen. It took him two tries. The first time, his
training took
over, and he tried to lift both hands into the classic combat stance.
No go.
The pain in his shoulder turned him white. He leaned back against the
concrete,
took several deep breaths and aimed one-handed.

"Halt,"
he shouted, sidestepping toward Jimmy, his weapon thrust out before him.

Jimmy
looked up
briefly and then turned his back on Trujillo.
He put his right foot up on the first rung of the welder's scaffolding
and
started to climb.

I
was watching Trujillo as he dropped to
one knee, rested his wavering elbow on the other and took aim, so I
don't know
where Gordon came from. The next thing I knew Trujillo had squeezed off
a round.

When
I looked
up, Gordon Chen stood between the little cop and his father, his hands
held
high over his head, his mouth forming a silent scream as the red flower
bloomed
in his chest.

"God,"
Trujillo said
in a rough voice.

Gordon
went
down in sections, first to one knee, then both, and finally flopping
over on
his side. Before either Trujillo
or I could move Jimmy Chen stepped from the scaffolding over onto the
uppermost
rim of the stadium, pulled the oversized stocking cap from his head and
then,
without the slightest hesitation, stepped off into oblivion.

Even
Frank Wessels
looked sad with tubes coming out of his nose. Trujillo sat by the
bedside, with his right
arm in a sling. He looked up when he heard my feet on the floor.

"How's
Wessels?" I asked.

"They
say
he's gonna make it"

"Good."

"Thanks
to
you."

"Just
don't tell anybody I put my mouth on his, okay?" Trujillo grinned.
"They say he might
have brain damage."

"How
will
we tell?"

He
began to
laugh, then frowned and cradled his damaged arm.

"How's
the
arm?"

"Broke
my
shoulder. Got a couple of months at a desk."

"Give
you
a chance to catch up on your paperwork," I said.

He
winced as he
got up out of the chair and followed me out into the hall. "The Price
family's all over the brass," he said. "Want to know what in hell is
going on."

I
made eye
contact. "Curiouser and curiouser," I said.

"The
computer ID'd the stiff in about five minutes. Guy named Jimmy Chen.
Got him
six feet of priors and a psychological profile that would make Ted
Bundy
nervous. Spent the last fourteen years in a Florida
psycho ward. They just let him out a
month and a half ago." He kept checking me for reactions. "Now here's
the interesting part, Waterman. This Jimmy Chen used to be married to a
well-known local lady named Judy Chen." He hesitated and then asked,
"Name mean anything to you?"

I
looked at the
ceiling. Nice tiles.

"There's
a
lot of Chens," I offered.

Trujillo
leaned against the wall
with his good
arm. "Now this Judy Chen is sitting down on a bench on the seventh
floor,
where they've got her son Gordon Chen on life support because he
purposely
stepped out in front of a bullet of mine intended for this Jimmy Chen."

He
inclined his
head. "You do remember our young friend ... the excitable Mr. Chen,
don't
you?"

I
allowed how I
might recall.

He
gave me a
one-handed shrug. "You want to help me out here?"

"No,"
I said. "I don't."

He
licked his
lips and then looked down at his tasseled shoes.

"I
never
shot anybody before, Waterman. Twelve years and I never had it out of
the
holster. I never wanted to shoot anybody. I just wanted to do some
good.
Shooting people wasn't what I had in mind. Especially not somebody who
stepped
into a bullet on purpose. Gimme some help here, will ya?"

"Wish
I
could help," I said honestly.

"There's
still the matter of interfering with a police investigation."

"Was
saving your partner's ass part of the interference?"

He
looked over
at Wessels.

"Depends
on how you look at it."

"You've
got your murderer, Trujillo.
Let it go. There's nobody else left to protect and serve. Anything you
do from
here will just be jerking off in public."

We
had one of
those Maalox eye-contact moments before he sucked it up and played his
hole
card, as I knew he would.

"Well
then." He stroked his chin. "Then . . . what with the murder weapon
belonging to your father's driver, and Peerless Price's body being dug
up in
your backyard, I don't see as how we've got much choice but to publicly
conclude that your father was somehow or other involved in the murder
of
Peerless Price."

I
was ready.
"No matter what I say, you guys are going to cover your own asses," I
said. My turn to shrug. "You know it, and I know it. Why bother with
the
bullshit?"

He
opened his
eyes wide in mock astonishment. "What?" he said. "All of a
sudden, after a whole week of making a major pain in the ass of
yourself all
over town, all of a sudden you don't give a shit?" He snapped his
fingers.
"Just like that."

"Just
like
that," I repeated.

He
eyed me
closely and then ran his hand through his thick hair.

"I
don't
get it."

I
wasn't sure I
understood it, either. It wasn't like I'd made a decision or anything.
I'd been
standing at the rim of the stadium. In front of me, the day's last red
rays
tinted the once white shirts of the crew working on Gordon Chen. Over
my right
shoulder, ten stories down in the construction site, ants in yellow
windbreakers struggled to lift Jimmy Chen's broken body from the
pin-cushion of
black rebar onto which it had fallen.

As
I'd stood
there, it had felt as if a thin sheet of metal had slid from my body,
moving
slowly down from my chest to my legs and finally slipping out onto the
ground,
where it lay beneath my feet like a long silver shadow. In that
instant, I knew
what I'd always known. That there wasn't anything I could do about my
father.
Or my mother, or Peerless Price, or Ralph, or any other long-buried
remnant of
my upbringing. I'd imagined myself a knight on a noble quest; turned
out I was
more like a scavenger nosing about a carcass. Guys who can't account
for their
own motives probably better not be inventing motives for anybody else.
Especially not the dead.

I
guess that's
why I felt so bad about all the moralizing I'd been doing with Ralph.
Turned
out, we weren't all that different. We'd both been carrying that mouse
for most
of our lives. Different pockets maybe, but the same damn mouse. Go
figure.