Chapter 55
A set of headlights flashed behind Chuck.
He was ready, had planned the maneuver. He put his left hand on the top of the guardrail and hopped over, turning so he faced the now oncoming lights, prone. The rail was the perfect height to conceal him. He had only a foot or so of ground before it dropped off sharply. He held the underside of the rail with his right hand.
The lights went past without stopping.
Chuck went back up and over, on the road again.
His helplessness almost amused him. How dependent are we on cell phones? How does anyone learn resilience anymore?
And where is a cop when you need one? It would be nice if that detective showed up just about now.
The sound of another approaching car. Same direction.
Same move, this time Chuck’s legs slipped and threatened to pull him down the canyon again. His right hand grab saved him.
The car sped on.
Chuck pulled himself up. This was like one of those dreams where you run in the mud and can’t get anywhere, but you have to, because someone’s chasing you.
The pain in his feet and legs told him it was no dream.
He made up some good distance this time. The air was cold and moist. A slight fog blanketed the source of the lights up ahead, but he would be there in maybe ten minutes.
Ten long minutes that stretched out like a couple of hours.
Stay mad.
As he walked, he remembered staying mad at God. It started when Dylan Bly died and he had his own throat cut. It deepened when he got home and found Julia cold and his own mind fragmented. It softened when he got the job at Hunt and was working toward some sort of truce.
Hardened again when Julia was killed.
Now what? When was there going to be some kind of resolution? Or were questions the only things certain in this life?
Another car. This time coming out of the fog toward him.
How many of these were there going to be? At this rate he’d reach the township by next spring. Part of him wanted to take a chance and flag the thing down. But what were the odds of anyone stopping, even in this last bastion of the hippy movement?
A staggering, bleeding, barefoot specter wandering the canyon road?
Don’t think so.
Chuck stepped over the guard rail again and took his now familiar position.
Face down, he muttered, “For what it’s worth God, I’m willing to start over. Bygones and all that.”
He even laughed. He was remembering a video he saw in high school, an old Burt Reynolds movie. It was about a guy who wanted to commit suicide. At one point he swims out in the ocean, far from shore. Then suddenly wants to live.
So as he’s struggling back toward the beach. He bargains with God. If you’ll let me make it, God, he says, I’ll obey the Ten Commandments. Then he starts to list them.
I shalt not kill.
I shalt not commit adultery.
Then realizing he doesn’t know any more, Burt says, “I’ll
learn
the ten commandments!”
It really was funny because people tend to wait until dire straits, or any kind of straits, to cry out to God.
But that’s what Chuck was doing right now. Only he didn’t know what to bargain with.
He heard the approach of the car, and the stream of light spilling through the guard rail slat.
It seemed to him then that the car was slowing. Chuck looked through the bottom of the rail. The lights brightened and the crunch of tires on the gravel told him something not good—the car was on the wrong side of the road.
His side.
He kept his face down, sniffing dirt.
The crunch of the tires stopped.
Had they seen him hop the rail? What now, dive back down the canyon?
Chuck heard a door open, close. The engine kept idling. The sound of feet on gravel told him it was only one person. If it had been the Serbs, it would have been two, and they would be talking. And rushing.
A beam of light blasted through the rail. Moving. A flashlight.
The pool of illumination jumped the rail and poured over Chuck’s head to the ground around him.
A man’s voice said, “What in the hell are you doing down there?”
Chuck didn’t move.
“Come on now, get up.”
It wasn’t all that easy to. Chuck’s body, coming off the flood of adrenaline, was wanting to dial it in for the night. He felt every joint protest as he got to his feet.
The guy was shining the light directly into his eyes. Chuck put his hand up. “You mind shutting that thing off?”
The light stayed. “What happened to you?”
“You a cop?”
“Ranger. You fall?”
“I need a phone,” Chuck said.
“You need a lot of things it looks like,” the ranger said. “You’re bleeding.”
“Take me in, will you?”
“In where?”
“Your office, wherever. People are looking for me.”
“I don’t want to get blood all over my car.”
“These people have guns. They are serious. And not only that, there’s a dead body right down there.”
“What?”
“Will you just take me in before––”
Chuck stopped, headlights coming around the curve. He ducked behind the ranger’s car. He heard the car speed on by.
“You
are
spooked,” the ranger said.
“I need to get off the street. Now. I’ll pay to have your cruiser cleaned. Just take me in.”
Chuck went to the idling car. Opened the driver’s door.
“Hey,” the ranger said.
Chuck got in and slid over to the passenger side.
The ranger cursed. But he got in behind the wheel.
“You need to tell me what happened.” The ranger was in his mid-twenties, with long blond surfer-hair and an official ranger shirt, with arm patch. But he wore blue jeans and sandals below.
“I will. Get me to your station. I need to make a call.”
“I don’t know who you are,” he said. “I ought to hold you.”
“For what?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“Believe me. You got nothing. I’m going to call an LAPD cop. She’ll tell you. Just get me there.”
“Guys with guns?”
“Real guns.”
“What do you mean, dead body?”
“Yes, dead,” Chuck said. “Don’t worry, I didn’t do it.”
“You don’t look crazy.”
“Just drive, okay?”
“I’m the one—”
“Please.”
The surfer-ranger said nothing more. He drove into town. To the left was what the canyon people would have called a mall—less than a strip in the more populated areas of the county. A grocery store, a funky restaurant decorated in early '70s hippy chic, a bead store. The ranger station occupied the corner after that, at the intersection of three roads, including the main one.
The ranger pulled to a stop in front of the station house.
“Can I at least know your name?” he said, almost apologetically.
“Call me Chuck. You?”
“Chip.”
Chip and Chuck. Sounded like Disney characters. A couple of chipmunks, one on the run from killers. A laugh riot.
The station house smelled of old coffee and incense. The olive drab color was semi-military in tone, but the surfer poster on the wall confirmed the personality of Ranger Chip.
“You want some coffee?” Chip said, lifting the partition at the front counter.
“Just a phone.”
“Right here.” He motioned to a desk with a computer monitor, stack of Post-It notes, and a pink phone.
“Does it work?” Chuck said.
“My partner picked it out. She’s sort of retro-Barbie.”
Chuck fished Sandy Epperson’s card out of his back pocket and punched the number. According to the Frisbee shaped clock on the wall, it was almost eleven.
After three rings she answered. “Epperson.”
“Samson.”
“Where are you?”
“Ranger station in Topanga. I got taken tonight. So did my brother. Stan is still missing.”
“What happened?”
“Can you get out here? It’s real. Guns, kidnapping, it has it all.”
“Um, yes, sure. What’s the address?”
“Let me give you to Chip.”
He could only imagine Epperson’s face as he handed the phone to Ranger Chip. Chip made some preliminary remarks, listened, then gave her the exact address and hung up.
“She’s on her way,” Chip said. “This is real, huh?”
“Where’s the bathroom?”
Chip pointed to the back. “I’ll get a first aid kit.”
Walking back to the bathroom was itself an ordeal. Chuck imagined he looked like something out of a George Romero zombie film. It’s what he felt like, anyway.
And when he got to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, he confirmed it. Dirt and spots of blood gave his face a walking dead glint. His shirt was torn. Around his neck scar were fresh scratches, from brush and small rocks.
Chuck turned on the water and splashed his face. The cold felt good. A nice breeze flowed through the crack in the frosted glass window, carrying smells of the canyon. There was a roll of paper towels on a counter. Chuck tore off a handful and soaked them, dapped at his face and neck.
Okay, you’re on the upswing now. God, thanks are due, but if you can hold back the animals and mobsters and watch over Stan, I’d appreciate that a great deal.
His feet were next. Open cuts, scratches, dried blood and bruises. Chuck sat on the toilet and started cleaning. He thought about Bruce Willis in
Die Hard.
The scene where he runs across broken glass. And didn’t that whole thing start because Willis was in a bathroom when Alan Rickman and his crew took over the building?
That was part of it here, with thugs taking over civil society. You try to do your work and get along, but they intrude in some form or fashion. They—
Chuck heard the front door open. He peeked through the open door and saw Chip at the counter, back toward him.
He heard Chip say, “What can I do for you?”
And then Chip’s head exploded.