Alicia wouldn’t even let me see the kids. I was in bad shape. I suddenly needed a place to stay. I had friends in town, but didn’t want to be a bother. I went to the Best Western Motel and tried to pay with my Master Card. The clerk swiped the card several times and stood holding the credit card and looking at me.
I felt weird. At last, I asked “Is there a problem?”
The man put his finger in his collar and moved it under his tie. Finally he responded. “Do you have another card? This one’s declined.”
I removed a second card, then a third, then a fourth. Alicia had shut down all the accounts. I had a little money stashed at the office. I said to the motel clerk. “Save me a room. I’ll be back in 30 minutes with cash.”
CHAPTER NINE
I parked my car and ducked under the yellow police tape that surrounded the entire building. A smiling police officer greeted me right as I opened the front door.
“Hello, Doc. Remember me?”
I looked at the young policeman. He was short, African-American, and had a baby face. I shook my head. “You look familiar, but I’m sorry, I don’t recall… I’m not good with names.”
“I’m Willie Wilson. You took care of my boy, Terrance. His brother hit him in the face when they were playing football together and cut his lip pretty bad. Broke his cheek bones, too. You fixed ‘em and sewed him up about two years ago.”
Although I still didn’t remember the case, I smiled. “Does he have much of a scar?”
“Nope. You did a good job. And you never charged us a penny. That was cool of you. I never forgot that.”
“Well, I’m glad I was able to help,” I said as I started down the hall. As I opened the door to my office, Willie said, “Get lawyered up, Doc. From what I hear, you’re in for a shit storm.”
I spent time looking at my prize-winning orchids, and I thought about my life. Most of all, I missed my kids. I really wanted to see them but it seemed like, at least for now, my wife wasn’t going to let me back in my own home. And she wasn’t even allowing me to talk to them on the phone. I wished I could do something to help them get through what was going to be a rough time.
All I could do now was focus on what was at hand. I might be going to jail for a crime I didn’t commit. I was confused and overwhelmed by it all.
Suddenly I was awakened from my thoughts by a deafening noise. What was that? I bounded from my office and ran to Willie. I could see him sitting in his chair at the end of the hall. “Is everything alright?” He didn’t answer. I ran over to him, “Willie? Willie?”
He sat deathly still with his chair leaning back against the wall.
My heart thundered in my chest as I moved to him. Wilson’s eyes were open and staring straight ahead. Blood trickled into his left eye and all the way down his neck, coming from a half-inch hole in the mid-forehead. Blood flowed from the back of his head, steadily feeding a growing pool around his chair. A gun lay on the floor beside him.
I touched Wilson’s bloody neck and checked for a pulse. There was none.
A hallway door banged shut. Someone was running down the outside hall. I picked up the policeman’s gun and ran from the office. The light was dim in the hall. I heard a shot and hit the floor. The assailant shot twice more at me and then took off. As I heard the door open, I jumped up and aimed Wilson’s pistol at him. I pulled the trigger twice, but the gun didn’t fire. I looked down to see that the magazine had been removed.
I ran out the door and watched as a black SUV spun its wheels on the pavement and roared onto Garden Avenue.
Within minutes, three police cars were there. Harris jumped from one as it rolled to a stop and yelled, “What the fuck were you thinking?” and then shook his head and stared at me.
I was covered in Wilson’s blood. Why did I pick up that stupid gun? And what was I thinking when I checked Wilson’s bloody neck for a pulse? I knew damned well he was dead.
I handed the police-issue pistol to him. Of course, my fingerprints were all over that gun. And unfortunately, it turned out that the gun was used to shoot Willie.
With his handkerchief, Harris took the weapon from me and handed it to one of the other officers. Harris then went to the side of the dead policeman and stood silently for a moment with his head bowed in reverence, as two white-suited EMTs watched. He knelt to inspect the head wound close up. Without saying a word, he gestured to another detective who handcuffed me.
I started yelling at Harris as they dragged me away to the police car. I knew that shouting would make me looking like a maniac, and I didn’t care. “I didn’t shoot Wilson! I was trying to get his assailant! Find the guy in the black SUV who was shooting at me! He’s the one who killed Wilson!”
Harris signaled for the cop holding me to stop. “What’d he look like?”
In the excitement of the chase, I couldn’t recall any distinguishing features. “I don’t know. It was dark.”
Harris shook his head and looked at me as if I were a little kid who just got caught shoplifting candy from a drugstore. “I imagine this is your supposed ‘gigantic blond guy with a ponytail’ again, right? C’mon, Doc, you can’t expect me to believe that.” Harris shook his head in disgust and turned to the other policemen. “Take the doctor.”
“But—”
“Jesus Christ, Dr. James,” Harris muttered.
CHAPTER TEN
Nicole Banzar sat in a class in the Marshall Taylor School of Drama. She had an interest in one of the students, Harold Simpkins. She had met him in Texas two months earlier and had encouraged him to enroll in drama school. She even paid his tuition. His instructor told her that after a full six weeks of acting school, Simpkins could still use more classes. That didn’t matter to Nicole. It was time.
Nicole looked Simpkins over. About thirty years old, he was very thin, had sparse, sandy-colored hair, a soft chin, and a serious overbite. His unattractive appearance probably accounted for his failure to gain parts at the local community theaters.
When the class finally ended, Nicole told Simpkins she had something to talk to him about. She took him to a bar owned by a friend from Turkey and told him she was working for the government, and had acting job for him. “There may be a terrorist cell operating on the eastern seaboard, with plans to bomb cities in America. We need you to help make their identity known.”
He flatly refused, saying he wanted nothing to do with her employer, the CIA.
“Here, this is an advance payment,” she said, laying $1,000 in front of him. “Take it, Harold. You need this.”
He shook his head as she offered him the money.
“Nope. I need the money, but I ain’t working for the CIA against no terrorists.”
“But I haven’t finished my offer. The CIA will give you ten thousand for helping this country. Your name will be in every newspaper in the country.”
He looked at her, still shaking his head.
“And I’m attracted to strong heroic men like you. You’re just the kind of guy I’d like to be my boyfriend.”
That did it. Simpkins accepted the assignment and the money.