The Goldfish Bowl (11 page)

Judith scrambled to her feet. She twisted an ankle and sat down again.

The on rushing car swerved sharply away from her at the last possible second. Judith heard the shrill whine of tyres on pavement. She was splattered with rainwater. The nearside bumper missed her by fractions of an inch, the chrome flashing incredibly bright.

Sid’s face went slack with fear as the squad car abruptly skewed towards him. He tried to run, but found to his horror that he had forgotten how to bend his knees. He opened his mouth.

He screamed, and heard nothing but the scream of the siren.

XI

BECAUSE IT WAS standard departmental policy to team the young with the old and so temper foolhardiness with caution, Paul Furth and Chris Lambert should not have been riding together the night that Andy Patterson was shot and killed.

Furth and Lambert were both rookies, with less than six months’ seniority between them. But Furth’s regular partner had come down with the flu less than an hour into their shift, and since the police union insisted on two men to a car during the night hours, the sick man had to be replaced. And that’s why Lambert had found himself temporarily reassigned from his usual shift as a foot patrolman on the south end of the Granville Street mall. So far, he hadn’t missed the dime baggers, amateur musicians, feisty drunks or bulk-rate hookers one little bit.

As Furth drove slowly around the block-square perimeter of Nelson Park, Lambert thought about how nice it felt to have a roof over his head and a cushion under his ass, a steady flow of warm air across his feet. He glanced at Furth, envying him the luck of his assignment. They turned south on Thurlow. Over on Jervis, the shooting started.

Furth gunned the engine, turned right on Comox and stopped halfway up the block, at a distance from the noisy flow of traffic on Thurlow. Pulling the squad car over to the curb, he turned off the engine and rolled down his window.

The second shot came almost immediately. Lambert opened his mouth to ask Furth why they were just sitting there not doing anything, but before he could speak there was the sound of a collision — the taxi pummelling the white Corvette.

Furth started the engine of the squad car.

Close behind the sound of the third shot came the crash of the taxi hurtling through the floor-to-ceiling windows, an avalanche of shattered glass.

“What the hell was that!” said Lambert.

“Shut up!” snapped Furth, his head cocked to one side, listening.

Another string of shots bounced and echoed off the surrounding highrises. The acoustics were too tricky to get an exact fix on the location, but Furth guessed that the shooter was less than two blocks away, probably on either Jervis or Broughton. He hit all the switches and put the gas pedal to the floor. The Dodge Aspen leapt forward, lights blazing through the rain, siren wailing at a fever pitch.

Lambert shifted his weight to his left hip, and drew his revolver. He felt very, very good. And why not? So far, all he had to his credit was a mixed bag of jaywalkers and drunks. Hardly the stuff of rapid promotions and a meteoric climb through the ranks. But now, for the first time in his short and unremarkable career, he was involved in some meaningful police work. He flipped open the cylinder of his revolver and checked the load. Furth glanced at him, but didn’t say anything.

There were several more shots, each one a little louder than the last. Furth counted three, then a short pause and then three more.

“Left on Jervis!” said Lambert.

Furth was already spinning the wheel. The rear tyres skidded on the wet pavement. He overcorrected and the car slewed sideways, rocking on its springs. The street was narrow, crammed on both sides with parked cars. The steering wheel twitched under Furth’s hands as the squad car’s rear bumper grazed the flank of a carelessly parked station wagon. Furth heard metal grind against metal. He swore loudly, but kept his foot down on the gas.

Furth had just managed to bring the Aspen under control when he saw Judith sitting cross-legged in the middle of the road, spotlighted in the rapidly narrowing beam of his lights. He yanked at the wheel and the Aspen drifted sideways, tyres slithering. Furth caught a brief glimpse of a strained white face, big blue eyes. Then they were screaming down the sidewalk in hot pursuit of a maroon Ford, the wheels on Furth’s side tearing through the uncut spring grass and bumping over the roots of the big chestnut trees that lined the boulevard. An indistinct grey shape ran along a branch a few feet above them, stopped and seemed to double in size. Furth had a fleeting impression of emerald eyes and a toothpaste snarl.

“What the fuck was that?”

“You know something?” said Lambert. “You’re really weird.”

“What d’you mean?”

“That guy back there on the sidewalk, you missed him by inches and didn’t even blink. Then you see a racoon sitting in a tree and go crazy.”

“Wait a minute,” said Furth. “What guy on the sidewalk?”

“The bald guy,” said Lambert.

Furth didn’t know anything about Lambert, he had no way of telling if he was kidding him or what. He decided not to worry about the bald man until later, when he wasn’t so busy driving. Down at the far end of the block, the Ford was making a left turn. Just for a moment, Furth wondered why the car had managed to gain so little ground on them. Then he had the Dodge burning rubber, engine howling as the car shuddered through a tight ninety-degree turn and hurtled down the slippery, blackly-gleaming street.

Lambert, eyes bright, was hunched on the edge of his seat, his revolver clenched in his hand.

Furth leaned over and punched him hard on the shoulder. “Get on the radio, let’s get some backup down here!”

“Calm down,” said Lambert, sounding annoyed. He reached for the microphone, picked it up and pressed the transmit button, then sighed and lowered the mike.

“Something wrong?” said Furth.

Lambert gave him a lopsided grin. “I got no idea where we are. How can I call for backup when I don’t know where to send them?”

“Shit,” said Furth. He pumped the brakes and then hit the gas again. They rocketed down the straight, closing fast on the maroon Ford. “We’re heading south on Bute,” he shouted at Lambert, “between Pendrell and Davie!”

“Pendrell and what?”

“South on Bute!” screamed Furth. “South on Bute!”

They caught the light on Davie, crossing on the green seconds after the Ford had raced through the red, and then Furth saw the flare of brake lights as the Ford swung left on Burnaby. They roared past a parked squad car, but there was no one inside. The Ford turned down Thurlow. A block away, Pacific led straight to Burrard Bridge and the maze of Kitsilano.

“Get a roadblock set up on the other side of the bridge!” yelled Furth.

“What bridge?”

“The Burrard Street bridge!”

“Okay,” said Lambert, “take it easy.” He lifted the mike to his lips and pressed the transmit button, at the same time using his gun hand to brace himself against the dashboard. Fifty feet in front of them, a woman wearing a bright yellow rain slicker bicycled out of an alley and into their path. They were travelling south, down the steep slope that led to the mouth of False Creek. The Dodge aquaplaned down the hill on overlapping sheets of rainwater, fighting gravity and a lack of traction. A collision seemed inevitable.

In his mind’s eye, Lambert saw the car hit the bike, saw the girl cartwheel gracefully over the handlebars and under the onrushing wheels of the police car. He wondered what she could possibly have been thinking of, not to have heard the siren or seen the lights.

At the last possible second the girl took evasive action, twisting her front wheel sharply to the left. A thin layer of gravel had been washed out of the mouth of the alley by the continuing rain. The bike skidded, wobbled, and went over on its side. The girl hit the asphalt and rolled. Furth took a right at Harwood, and accelerated. The Dodge surged forward. Lambert twisted in his seat to look behind him, but the girl was already lost from view.

Furth wasn’t exactly sure why, but they had continued to gain on the Ford. It was less than two hundred yards in front of them when the driver suddenly cut his lights and turned right up an alley. Furth braked hard, and swung in behind him.

The alley was typical of the West End — narrow, filled with potholes, crowded on both sides with illegally parked cars. The Ford reached the far end of the block and raced through the intersection, a dark, fleeting shadow. Furth charged after it, his foot on the gas and his heart in his mouth.

Without warning, the Ford suddenly turned sharply right and vanished. Furth felt his stomach muscles tighten. Chasing the bastard had been bad enough, but now they had come to the gristly part, catching him. He hit the brakes and the Aspen lurched to a stop at the lip of a steeply-pitched driveway that led down to the underground garage of a newish three-storey condominium. The Ford was at the bottom of the driveway, parked at an angle with its front bumper up against the garage’s steel mesh security door.

“Now we’ve got him,” exulted Lambert.

Furth wouldn’t have bet money on it. There were floodlights mounted in the concrete retaining walls on either side of the garage entrance, and more lights scattered among the ornamental shrubbery at the top of the walls, but none of the lights were working. The Ford was hidden in deep shadow, and somehow Furth doubted this was a lucky accident. He flicked a switch, and the quartz spotlight mounted on the right front fender blazed into life. He started to crank the beam around to focus on the Ford. A hot orange gout of flame spouted from somewhere near the front of the Ford. The spotlight disintegrated in an explosion of glass and metal fragments. Shrapnel starred the Apsen’s windscreen.

Lambert yanked open his door. The inside light came on. He bailed out into the rain, Furth right behind him. The sound of the rifle shot echoed down the alley. Furth kicked the door shut, and the inside light went out. He drew his revolver. His hands were shaking.

“What about the shotgun?” said Lambert.

“It’s in the boot.”

“Well, go get it.”

“You get it, if you need it so bad.”

“Where’s the key?”

“The key’s in the ignition. You want it, all you have to do is climb back inside the car. But you can’t do that without opening the door. And when you open the door, the inside light’s gonna come on. You see what I’m getting at, Lambert?”

“You’re saying we can probably get along without the shotgun.”

“Exactly,” said Furth. He hefted his revolver. He was pleased to see that his hands had steadied. “We got the guy trapped. All we have to do is keep him pinned down until the reinforcements get here, right?”

“I guess so,” said Lambert doubtfully.

“We got a problem I don’t know about?”

“Not really,” said Lambert. He gave Furth a twisted, watered-down grin. “It’s just that after you almost hit that girl on the bike, things got a little mixed up.”

“What’re you getting at?”

“Well …”

“You didn’t call in, did you?”

“To tell the truth,” said Lambert, “I’m not too sure one way or the other. Do you remember me not calling in?”

“No,” said Furth, “I don’t.”

“Well then, maybe I did.”

“Wonderful,” said Furth. “What that means is maybe somebody’s on the way and maybe they aren’t.” He heard the faint drone of an electric motor, a low-pitched hum.

“What’s that noise?” said Lambert.

“The garage door,” said Furth. Turning his back on Lambert, he hurried towards the rear of the squad car in a graceless, waddling crouch.

Lambert knelt down and peered under the belly of the Aspen, but was unable to see down to the bottom of the driveway. There was a sudden explosion off to his right. Startled, he banged his head against the underside of the car frame. His hat fell off, into an oily puddle. He picked the hat up and put it back on at a rakish angle. There was another shot. Furth was firing blindly over the boot of the squad car at the Ford.

Lambert scuttled around to the front of the squad car. He took a quick look down the driveway, orienting himself, and then began to shoot, pulling the trigger of his.38 so quickly that the individual explosions seemed to merge together, bouncing off the surrounding buildings in a long, continuous roar. When his gun was empty he risked another quick peek over the hood of the Aspen.

“See anything?” whispered Furth.

“The garage door’s stopped moving.”

“How high off the ground is it?”

“A foot, maybe a foot and a half.”

“You see any movement down there?”

“Nope,”-said Lambert. He ejected his spent shells and reloaded.

“You think we got him?”

“How the hell should I know? You want to take a hike down there and check it out?”

Furth pretended to think about it, taking his time. He became aware that they had gathered an audience, that they were being watched. He looked up and saw that dozens of people were watching them from the windows and balconies of the surrounding apartment blocks and condominiums. He waved at an elderly couple on the far side of the alley. The man shifted his grip on his cane, and waved back. Furth took a bead on the near front tyre of the Ford and let off two rounds. The tyre burst as he fired his second shot, the rush of escaping air sounding like a final, dying breath.

Furth kept shooting until his revolver was empty and he was out of ammunition. “Cover me,” he said to Lambert, and holstered his weapon and stood up. It seemed faintly ridiculous to continue hiding behind the Aspen while all around him people stood exposed and unafraid. Lambert stood too. Furth watched him shoot, listened to the heavy thud of the bullets hitting the Ford. Another tyre blew out, and the vehicle lurched as if it had been mortally wounded. Furth trotted around to the driver’s door of the Aspen. He yanked the door open, grabbed the keys out of the ignition and hustled back to the rear of the car to open the boot.