Avoiding one lightpole his wheel clipped the curb and the Chrysler swapped ends and skidded backwards, straight into a delivery truck.
The engine was still running. He had trouble getting the shift lever into first but he made it, and with the wheel cranked over, did a wheel-spinning 180 and got under way as the Trans-Am came thundering down on him with the guy leaning out of the passenger window spraying lead.
Several cars crashed together getting out of the way. One car ran through a parking lot and buried itself in a plate-glass window.
Ahead was a park, one of those blocks from which the major avenues in the city radiated. Harrison Ronald went through it. If he didn’t the Trans-Am might gain more ground than he could afford to lose.
The front end parted with mother earth as it bucked the curb, but the rear wheels impacting the obstruction brought the nose down with a crash that jammed the front bumper into the concrete in a shower of sparks.
Luckily the park was deserted on a December night. He braked hard and slid around the statue in the center and jam accelerated. The dome of the Capitol was dead ahead.
The front wheels were vibrating badly now and he gripped the steering wheel tightly to hold on.
A skidding right turn, doing about sixty or seventy, onto Constitution Avenue westbound. Okay, goddammit, where are the cops?
Almost on cue he heard a siren over the unmuffled roar of the engine.
Yet the Trans-Am was gaining.
The Mall — he would go across the grass of the Mall. Everybody and their brother would see them. Even as he considered it another burst of bullets came through the car.
Something stung his ear.
He swung right, hard, the car skidding out of control. It used the whole road and then some, bouncing off parked vehicles, but he ended up headed north on First.
The damned Pontiac was still with him.
He swung left onto D Street. Aha! Ahead on the left was the Labor Department building and the ramp that went under it down onto I-395. If he could make that turn and get down onto the freeway …
A semitractor crept around the corner and filled the street. He slammed on the brakes. Skidding again. Off the brakes, just by the truck on the right, slamming over parking meters, then hard right, down a couple blocks, left, on the gas.
The Pontiac was gaining. Hadn’t they had enough? The siren — was it closer?
Ahead was the mall on the south side of the National Collection of Fine Arts. He went for it.
And a bus.
A huge bus, coming from right to left. He braked hard. Another bus following. He could make the gap. He shot through.
Behind him he heard tires squealing, then the sound of a crash.
Harrison Ronald applied the brakes firmly. He avoided some drunks and trash cans, then turned left on Ninth, joining with traffic.
In the rear seat Tooley looked very very dead. His lips and tongue were swollen, protruding, as were his eyes, which were focused on nothing at all.
Sometime during the chase one or more of the bags holding the cocaine had split, and the white powder was all over the passenger seat floor.
Harrison Ronald got out a hanky and wiped the stick shift knob, the light switch, the dashboard, the mirror, the steering wheel. Jesus, his prints were all over this car. Still …
He turned some corners and pulled into the first vacant spot by the curb he came to. He wiped the door lever and took a last wipe of the wheel. Then he switched the ignition off and got out. Pocketing the key, he took two seconds to rub the handkerchief over the outside door handle, then walked away. On the sidewalk he took the car key off the ring which also contained the key to his apartment. After wiping it with the cloth, he dropped the car key into the first trash barrel he came to.
Three blocks later he found a pay phone that still worked. He dialed 911 and reported the car stolen. When the dispatcher asked his name, he hung up.
The wailing of the sirens echoed from the buildings and seemed to come from every direction. There was blood on his cheek and his left ear was burning fiercely. His left arm was burning too. Blood there on his jacket.
The second number Harrison Ronald Ford dialed was the home phone of FBI Special Agent Thomas F. Hooper. “We have to talk. Now. A difficulty has arisen.”
Harrison Ronald Ford was sitting on the steps on the south side of the Lincoln Memorial when Hooper came around the corner and slowly climbed up toward him. The spot Ford had selected was in the shadow, out of the spotlights that illuminated the columns around him.
“You okay?”
“Fucking arm feels like it’s on fire.”
The undercover man had removed his undershirt in a subway restroom and torn it into strips. He had his shirt and jacket unbuttoned now and sat holding one of the folded cotton strips against the groove in his left tricep.
“How bad is it?”
“Just a crease. Hurts like hell, though,”
“Want to go to a doctor?”
“Nah. After a while I gotta go see Freeman and they’ll do the doctoring there.” Bullet wounds treated by a doctor had to be reported to police, so Ford didn’t want to try and explain to Freeman how he had gotten away with a stunt like that.
In the dim light Hooper inspected Ford’s face, then used one of the pieces of tee-shirt to swab the wound.
“You were lucky.”
“That’s true.”
“You’re gonna run out of luck.”
“Has to happen.”
“Why don’t you quit now. We’ll bust McNally, go with what we have.”
Harrison sat in silence, thinking about it. Fifty feet away a couple held each other close and sat looking at the lights of the city. From where they sat, off to the left, they could see the white obelisk of the Washington Monument against the black sky. “How many casualties?”
“Ten dead, apparently. Plus that guy you killed in the car.”
“He was going to kill me when we got to where he wanted to go.”
“I understand. It was justified.”
“I had to do it.”
“I understand! Christ, don’t sweat it. He was a shithead. He had it coming.”
Harrison removed the makeshift bandage from his arm and held it out where he could see it. Fresh blood. He was still bleeding. He refolded it and ran it back inside his shirt.
“I didn’t know what to do. There’re never any cops around when you
“All out on the freeway writing speeding tickets,” Hooper agreed. After a few moments, he asked, “Who’s the Chrysler registered to?”
“Some derelict. The address on the registration certificate is a vacant lot. Freeman McNally owns it but you’ll never prove it. And my prints are all over it.”
“Any of his prints on it?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Too bad.”
Yeah, it was all too bad. Eleven people dead! Holy shit!
“C’mon. You’ve done enough. Let me take you to the doctor. We’ll do a taped debrief tomorrow and I’ll have you on the plane to Evansville tomorrow evening.”
“Got a cigarette?”
“No.”
“Reach inside my coat here and get one and light it for me, will ya?”
Hooper did so.
“Y’know,” Harrison Ronald said after a bit, “I think this little deal is gonna get me in tight with Freeman. Somebody tried to rip him off. He’s gonna be curious as a cat about what I know and then he’s going after somebody.”
“What do you know?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
“Maybe we could dream up something for you to know.”
“Too dangerous, man. He’d check it out. If it doesn’t check out, I’m dead. Just like that. Lying to Freeman McNally is like playing Russian roulette. You tell one and stop breathing while you wait to see if your brains are flying out the side of your head.”
“There’s got to be a profit in this for us someplace,” Hooper said.
“A few more days. You’ll see. Just a few more days.” Harrison Ronald sighed. “C’mon, help me up. My ass is frozen and my legs are getting stiff. I gotta go see Freeman.”