“Miles, are you telling me all this is about Genesoft?”
“Yes, I think so. I got their shipping reports for the new product. The shipped to supermarkets in Southern California, in the Bay Area and back East. Even here in Timberline. They sent free products to several restaurants in Nevada City too, all over the Goddamn state—starting two weeks ago.”
CHAPTER 14
Lieutenant Bell looked at the name written in dark pencil lead under the window of the jail cell: Willis Good. It stood out amongst the other graffiti. Something about it made it stand out, centered under the window. Bell read the Latin: In hoc lacrimarum valle. He’d gone to a Catholic high school and managed three of the words, but was at a loss for lacrimarum. He smiled: a Latin graffito seemed fitting after what he’d been through.
He stepped closer to the Plexiglas windowpane and looked out on the street below. It was snowing and the Christmas lights strung over the intersection were swinging in the wind. A car stopped in front of the Bank of America, which was built on a slight knoll; a long flight of granite steps led up to the entrance. Bell watched three men get out of the car. The lieutenant caught sight of a pistol tucked quickly under a jacket. He turned around and looked at the cell door they’d locked behind him. He thought of calling out, but hesitated. He looked again out the window and down on the street. The car had pulled up the street; the men who had gotten out were walking quickly up the steps to the bank.
Bell turned around. He saw the MPs at the door of his cell.
“Lieutenant.”
“What are you doing? I thought you guys had left,” Bell said, moving from the window.
“We got a call from the Colonel. He said they’re going to drop the charges. You’re to come back to base immediately,” the MP said. Bell heard the key move in the door’s steel lock. The cell door swung open and the young MP stood aside, making way for the deputy who had opened his cell door. The young military policeman seemed embarrassed by the sudden turn of events.
“So, the U.S. Army made a mistake,” Bell said. The Colonel who had arrested him had probably understood finally what was going on out there, and that Bell had been telling the truth about what had happened to his sergeant.
“Won’t be the first time, sir,” one of the young men said.
Bell walked out of the cell and followed the MPs down the stone stairway. They walked out of the jail and piled into the U.S. Government van waiting for him outside in the alley.
“You guys don’t mind driving with a crazy man then, I take it?” Bell said. The two MPs didn’t answer.
“The colonel said he wanted me to give you his apologies, sir,” the driver said.
Bell was looking again at the car that had pulled up in front of the bank. The driver, an older black man, was holding the wheel with both hands as if he expected something other than his wife to come out of the bank. The car’s windshield wipers moved slowly over the glass, pushing snow out of the way.
“Apology not accepted,” Bell said. The van’s engine started. The driver pulled out onto the street from the alley.
The black man at the wheel of the Ford glanced up at the van as it pulled onto the street and passed him. Bell thought of telling the van’s driver to stop. He contemplated going back and warning the sheriffs that there was probably a bank robbery in progress—right across the street, no less. But he didn’t. He told himself there were much more important things going on in the world, and said nothing.
Something about the way the Ford was parked, or perhaps the cloud of white exhaust coming from the primer-gray Ford Explorer’s tailpipe, or the hard glancing look of the stranger sitting behind the wheel of the car caught Quentin’s eye as he stepped out from the Copper Penny, where he’d been looking for Lacy. It was snowing hard enough that he had to pull up the collar to his coat. Instinctively, and despite the fact he was looking for Lacy on the street, Quentin glanced again at the Ford, this time unbuttoning his coat.
His right hand found and rested on the butt of his automatic. The black man behind the wheel, a stranger to him, looked at the sheriff and then into the Ford’s rearview mirror. Quentin, hand firmly on his pistol, started to cross the icy street. All his internal alarm bells were going off.
Quentin’s radio crackled as he stepped off the curb. He turned it up enough to hear it as he walked toward the Ford.
“Sheriff, we got some kind of riot at the K-mart. Attack by some kind of gang—Sheriff, are you there? Quentin?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” Quentin said, as calmly as he could. “I think we have an armed robbery in progress across from the station, at the Bank of America.”
“Could you repeat, Sheriff? There’s something wrong down at the K-mart. I think you better get down there. I’ve sent—did you say armed robbery?”
Quentin had stepped down into the dirty snow-covered street. The man behind the wheel of the Ford was staring directly at him, the black man’s eyes intense, his hands gripping the steering wheel.
“I said, I think we have an armed robbery in progress,” Quentin repeated carefully, holding the button down on his radio. A car passed him, coming between him and the Ford. He recognized the driver, a neighbor, who waved. He didn’t wave back. He drew his pistol. He used the cover of the car’s passing to pull it out of the holster. He slid the radio’s handset back into place, lowered his pistol and hit the safety on the Sig, making it hot. He simultaneously pressed the pistol against the back of his thigh, which he hoped would keep it out of the black man’s sight line.
The deputy was speaking to him again over the radio. Quentin’s heart had kicked into overdrive, thumping hard enough for him to feel it beating. His vision started to close down, the adrenalin creating a tunnel-vision effect: the front of the Ford, the black man’s face staring at him over the steering wheel, now all distant and sitting at the bottom of the tunnel.
Walking slowly, Quentin turned his head and glanced up at the steps of the bank. A women and a child were heading up the stairs of the bank building. The young woman stopped and motioned to Quentin with her hand, as if she were warning him of something.
Quentin, thinking he’d missed a car, turned to his left. The street was clear. He tried to re-focus on the black man in the Ford. The girl on the stairs was yelling something; he couldn’t quite make it out. He was having trouble finding the black man’s face at the bottom of the adrenaline-created tunnel. Then he heard the scream behind him and was shoved forward, viciously. He knew he was going to lose his balance and fall. He tried to get his gun hand up, away from him, so that he wouldn’t shoot himself.
He landed better than he thought, his pistol in front of him; he was facing the front wheel of the Ford he’d been heading toward. He heard the scream again and something was on him, jumping up high on his shoulder. He felt himself being dragged over the street. When it stopped, his face was shoved down hard against the rough salted-and-snow-covered asphalt. He saw the asphalt come and go. He almost lost consciousness, his head slammed down hard again on the asphalt.
On the edge of consciousness, Quentin heard the scream again. Then a gunshot, very loud and very close. He felt the pressure on his neck ease. He saw something roll to his right. A body came into view. A car horn honked loudly as his vision returned to normal, and he could see clearly again. He tried to get up, his pistol still in his right hand.