It was a long silence. Then the girl said, "Wow. Interesting."
Thirty-five minutes later, they were in her apartment three stories above Alvarado Street. She was bent naked over some sort of work desk, and Bishop, cupping her breasts in his hands, was driving into her from behind. She was digging it in a big way and was actually beginning to wonder if there really might be such a thing as love at first sight. Bishop was beginning to wonder if there might be a cold piece of chicken or some leftover Chinese in her refrigerator because he hadn't eaten anything but pretzels since forever.
She cried out his name. He grunted the name of the girl on the TV news.
That's when the cops came for him.
5.
Bishop would've known those pounding footsteps anywhere. How the hell had they found him here? He was irritated and thrust into the gasping financial consultant with a muttered curse. He thrust again, stubbornly-again and again-and managed to finish just as the cops started pounding on the apartment door.
"Open up! Police!"
"Oh my God!" said the financial consultant-Bishop couldn't remember her name.
Anyway, he was already pulling out of her. He yanked his jeans off a chair, started stuffing himself back into them. At the same time, Heather-Heather; that was it-she was twisting off the desk, stumbling backward, covering her breasts with one hand and her crotch with the other. She stared at the door, open-mouthed. Then at Bishop. Then at the door.
The police started pounding again.
"Open up! Let's go! This is the police!"
Heather's mouth opened and closed a few times. Then she shouted, "Just a minute! I'm not dressed!"
The police went right on pounding.
Heather glanced at Bishop. He was hopping around, trying to get his boot on. "Hurry up!" she whispered at him fiercely. She snatched her jeans up off the floor, shouting at the same time: "I said just a minute! I'm getting dressed!"
The cops pounded on the door three more times- boom, boom, boom -hard. "We're gonna break this down in a second, lady!"
"You do and I'll sue your fucking balls off!" Heather screamed back.
Bishop laughed. He had his T-shirt on now. He grabbed his jacket.
Heather pulled on her jeans. She shot Bishop another fierce whisper, "Hurry! You can use the fire escape in back!" Her brown eyes were wide with fear and hilarity. Bishop liked that look. He liked the way she gave it to the cops too. He had one arm in his jacket sleeve, and, on impulse, he grabbed her around the waist with it and pulled her to him even as he snaked the other arm into the other sleeve. He kissed her. She was still bare-breasted. He savored the feel of her against his shirt. When he released her, she let out a wild, breathless laugh.
"You really are a bastard!" she said, as if she'd just figured it out.
Bishop laughed too.
"Hurry!" she said. "Go on!"
He went-out the rear window, down the fire escape, through a little backyard garden misty in the cool darkness. Brushing fronds of some sort out of his face and striped with dew, he made his way to a garbage alley alongside the building. He jogged down the alley to a white-picket gate. Pushed the gate open, peeked out at the street.
It was a quiet block of Victorian town houses, streetlamps like bookends at either corner. Two patrol cars were parked against the curb across from Heather's building. Bishop's Harley was corralled between the front fender of one car and the rear bumper of the other. A pair of patrolmen were leaning on the hood of the lead car, chatting, their arms folded on their chests. As they talked, they kept a weather eye on the third-story bay window of Heather's apartment.
Bishop didn't hesitate. He slipped out of the alley. He ambled casually but quickly across the street, went right to his bike. He was so smooth, the cops didn't even notice him until he swung himself into the saddle.
Then one of the cops did a startled double take. "Hey," he said.
Bishop made the Harley roar in answer.
"Hey!" shouted the other cop.
Bishop kicked the bike into gear. It screeched and stuttered out from between the two patrol cars. Then it shot away.
The sudden speed, the thundering noise, the pure insanity of what he was doing set Bishop's inner world agleaming. He laughed into the wind. Slowed around a corner. Blasted up a hill.
He crested the top. He held the Harley there as it rumbled. He heard the sirens behind him, wild and high, like baying dogs. Still, he hung there on the height and looked out over the scene with his cold, pale eyes.
The air was silver with lamplight and mist. The street dipped down steeply from his front tire, a line of modest brick and clapboard houses to his right descending beside it. Beyond, in the middle distance, lay a valley of freeways. Beyond that, the San Francisco skyline rose in the gathering autumn haze. The city's quirky jags, its blocks and spires, shone through the haze, a patchwork of lighted windows. Its glow rose up and washed the sky to a blue-gray nothingness.
The sirens grew louder. A damp wind passed over him. He breathed it deeply. It was refreshing. It was good.
Slowly, then faster, then faster, like water running to a cliff and pouring off the edge, he and his machine curled over the crest of the hill and cascaded down.
He picked up speed, more speed. A sharp turn-a hell of a turn-rose toward him, quick as a thought. He gassed the bike to forty, fifty. Neared the bend. The mist went red, went blue, went red again around him: the cops. He had only an instant to glance back. He caught only a glimpse of them. The two patrol cars, one after the other, came sailing over the hilltop behind him, catching air, their light racks flashing, their sirens howling at the sky. Their tires screamed as they smacked down onto the pavement. The cars gripped tar and fired after him.
Bishop faced forward and went into the turn. He hardly slowed, just took it. The bike leaned over, leaned over more. He laughed again through gritted teeth. It was practically supernatural-he was practically lying on his side, practically skimming on top of the air. Every moment he expected to go rubber up, lay the bike down in flames and sorrow. But no, then he was around the curve, pulling up straight, threading a narrow street lined with parked cars on one side and on the other with October roses.
The cops were close behind him. He heard their sirens, louder. He saw the red-and-blue rack flashers throw their colors into the night. He looked over his shoulder, caught a blurred image through tearing eyes. The lead squad car was ripping around that wicked bend. Its tires smoked. It skidded out to the right, scraped a parked car, and threw up sparks. It yanked itself back toward the planted median, raking a roadside trellis so that flowers flew merrily into the air like it was all some sort of big parade. The blossoms hit the windshield of the second squad car as it came wriggling frantically around the corner. The car's brakes shrieked like a hectoring fishwife.
Bishop's heart raced. His eyes were as bright as a madman's. He felt a thing inside him that was cold and glinting like a knife blade turning to catch the moonlight. Looking ahead, he saw the pavement sailing toward him, felt his bike sailing uncontrollably fast down and down and down the constricted lane. At the bottom the street horseshoed around the rosy median. He could choose to continue forward and let the cops run him to ground in the flatlands of the Mission, or he could try the tight 180 and lose them here and now, racing away back up the hill.
The road swept left. He hit the brakes. He wrenched the bike around. The Harley's rear wheel skidded out from under him. The whole bike skidded, changing direction like a needle on a meter. For a second the machine went sideways across the macadam, heading for the parked cars. Then Bishop gave it gas and it was off again, rising back up the hill in the lamp-lit mist.