2nd Chance (23 page)

If I could only get into Coombs’s hotel room…
I felt torn between heading home and possibly making the biggest mistake of my career. My rational voice said,
Lindsay, go home, get him tomorrow… He’s going to mess up soon.

The pounding in my heart said,
Uh-uh, baby… stay on him.
[_
p. Rattle the fucker._]

I swung my Explorer onto Seventh and headed for the Tenderloin district. It was almost nine o’clock.

My car seemed to drive itself to the William Simon. My chest felt tight and pressurized. Pete Worth and Ted Morelli had night watch, and as I pulled up, I spotted them in a blue Acura. They had orders, if Coombs left, to follow and radio in. Earlier that day, Coombs had sauntered out, strolled conspicuously around the block, and finally settled in a coffee shop to read the paper.
He knew he was being watched
.

I climbed out of my Explorer and went over to Worth and Morelli. “Any sign?”

Morelli leaned out the driver’s-side window. “Nada, Lieutenant. He’s probably up there watching the Kings game. The scumbag. He knows we’re stuck down here. Why don’t you go home? We’ve got him covered for the night.”

Much as I hated to admit it, he was probably right. There was nothing much I could do here.

I started the engine again and flashed a wave to the boys as I passed by But at the corner, on Eddy, some controlling impulse restrained me from leaving. It was as if something were saying,
What you want is here
.

He knows he’s being watched… And?… He wants to show up the SFPD
.

I drove down Polk, back toward the William Simon. I passed pawnshops, an all-night liquor store, a storefront Chinese take-out. A parked patrol car sat at the end of the block.

I drove past the rear of the hotel. Several garbage cans outside. Not much else. The street was deserted. I turned off my lights and sat there. I don’t know what I was expecting to happen, but I was driving myself crazy.

I finally climbed out of the Explorer and went inside the back door of the hotel.
Rattle the fucker
. I was thinking about going back upstairs to talk to Coombs again. Yeah, maybe we could watch the Kings game together.

There was a narrow, dingy bar just off the lobby. I took a peek inside, saw a couple of real skulls, but not Frank Coombs. Goddamn it, a murderer was here in this hotel, a cop murderer, and we couldn’t do a thing about it.

A movement near the back stairs caught my eye. I ducked back inside the shadowy bar. A real oldie was playing on the juke, Sam and Dave’s “Soul Man.” I watched a person coming down the stairs, casting glances around like
The Fugitive
.

What the hell was this?

I recognized the camouflage jacket, the floppy hat pulled over his face. I stared hard to be sure.

It was Frank Coombs.

Chimera was on the move.

C
OOMBS
DUCKED
into the kitchen of a greasy spoon attached to the hotel. I waited a few seconds, then I followed him.

Now I was the one keeping my head down, casting furtive looks. I saw Coombs, but he’d changed. He’d put on a white kitchen jacket and a greasy chef’s hat. I remembered my cell phone and then that it was dead. I wasn’t on duty; I hadn’t really needed it.

Coombs walked right out the back door of the hotel. Before I had a chance to signal the patrol car, discreetly, he ducked into an alleyway.

I looked down the alley and saw that it angled toward the street where I was parked. I ran for my car.

Thank God I could still see him. Coombs hurried across the street, not twenty feet in front of my car. I hoped I’d have a chance to signal the patrol car, but I didn’t.

Coombs ducked into an empty lot, heading toward Van Ness. I was angry at our people – they had let him out. They had blown it.

I waited until he disappeared into the lot, then I spun the Explorer around and headed toward the intersection. At the light, I made a right, throwing on the car lights. The busy street was crowded. A Kinko’s, a Circuit City, people passing by.

I watched where I thought the empty lot might come out.

I sat there, scanning up and down the block.
Could he have beaten me out here? Could he have slipped into the crowd? Shit!

Suddenly, up ahead, I spotted the camouflage jacket slinking out of an alley between the Kinko’s and a Favor shoe store.

He’d dumped the cook’s jacket and hat.

I was pretty sure he hadn’t seen me. He looked around in both directions, then, hands in pockets, started south toward Market. I wanted to run him down with my car.

At the next intersection, I spun the Explorer around and headed back on the other side of the street, about twenty yards behind Coombs.

He was pretty good at this. He moved well. Obviously, he was in shape. Finally, he seemed satisfied he’d made a clean escape. He
nearly
had.

At Market Street, Coombs jogged into the middle of the street at a
BART
station. He hopped an electric bus heading south.

I followed as the bus continued south on Mission. Each time it stopped I slowed on the brakes, craning to see if Coombs had jumped off. He never did. He was taking it out of the city center.

Out near La Salle Heights, at the Glen Park station, the bus hung at the stop for a few seconds. Just as it was starting up again, Coombs hopped off.

It was too late for me to stop. I had no choice but to pass.right by. I hunched low; every nerve in my body on edge. I’d been on lots of stakeouts, tailed dozens of cars, but never with so much at risk.

Coombs hung on the platform, scanning in both directions. I had no choice but to continue on. In the rearview mirror, I watched him. He seemed to be following my car as it faded out of sight.

Damn…
All I could do was drive. I was incredibly angry, so pissed. When I was sure I was out of sight, I accelerated, climbing a residential hill, cutting a three-point U-turn out of a driveway, and prayed Coombs would still be there.

I sped across the street and spun around to the Glen Park station from the other side.

The sonofabitch was gone!
I frantically scanned every direction, but there was no sign of him. I pounded the wheel in anger. “Fucker!” I yelled.

Then, about thirty yards ahead, I spotted a mustard-colored Pontiac B6nneville pulling out of a side street, then stopping at the side of the road. The only reason I fixed on it was that it was the only thing moving.

Suddenly, there was Coombs. He ducked out of a storefront and jumped into the Bonneville’s passenger’s-side door.

Back at ya,
I said to myself.

Then the Bonneville sped away.

So did I.

I
FOLLOWED
, ten car lengths or so behind. The Bonneville spun onto the entrance ramp for 280 and headed south. I hung at a distance, my pulse racing. I was pretty much running on adrenaline now. I had no choice except to follow Coombs as best I could.

After a few miles, the Bonneville signaled and veered onto the exit for South San Francisco. It wound through the working-class part of town, then up a steep street that I knew to be South Hill. The streets grew dark, and I shut off my lights.

The Bonneville turned down a dark, isolated street. Middle-class row houses badly in need of repair. At the end of the street, it pulled into the driveway of a white clapboard house perched on a hill overlooking the valley. The location was pretty enough, but the house was a shambles.

Coombs and his partner got out of their car, talking. They went into the house. I turned into a dark driveway three houses down. I’d never had such a chilling feeling of being alone. It was just that I couldn’t let Coombs go, couldn’t let him run on us.

I pulled the Glock out of my glove compartment and checked the clip. Full load
. Jesus Christ, Lindsay. No vest, no backup, no cell phone that works.

I crept along the shadowy sidewalk toward the white house, the automatic at my side. I was good with the gun, but
this
good?

Several beat-up cars and pickups were parked in a random pattern at the top of the driveway. The downstairs lights were on. I could hear voices. Well,
I’d come this far.

I made my way up the narrow driveway toward the garage. It was a two-car stand-alone, separated from the main house by a blacktop walkway. The voices grew louder. I tried to listen, but they were too far away. I took a breath and moved closer. Hugging the house, I looked inside a window. If Coombs looked as if he was going to stay for a while, then I could get backup here.

Six outlaw types, beer bottles, smokes, huddled around a table. Coombs was one of them. On the arm of one man I spotted a tattoo that made it all so clear.

The head of a lion, the head of a goat, the tail of a reptile.

This was a meeting of Chimera.

I inched closer, trying to hear. Suddenly came the rumble of another car climbing South Hill. I froze. I clung to the house, hugging the space between the main house and the garage. I heard the car door slam, then voices and footsteps coming my way.

I
SAW
TWO
MEN
coming, one with a blond beard and long ponytail, the other in a sleeveless denim vest with massive tattooed arms. I had absolutely nowhere to go.

They fixed on me. “Who the hell are you?”

Two possibilities: back away with my gun aimed at them, or make a stand and take Coombs in right now. The latter seemed the better idea to me.

“
Police,”
I shouted, freezing the two new arrivals. My automatic was extended with both hands. “San Francisco Homicide. Get your hands up.”

The two men had measured, unpanicked reactions. They glanced at each other calculatingly then back at me. I was sure they were armed, and so were the others inside. A terrifying thought flashed through me:
I could die here.

Noise erupted from all over. Two other men arrived from the street. I spun around, jerking my gun at them.

Suddenly the lights inside the house went out. The driveway got dark, too. Where was Coombs? What was he doing now?

I jerked into a shooting crouch. This wasn’t about Coombs anymore.

I heard a noise behind me. Someone coming fast. I spun in that direction – and then I was blindsided by somebody else. I was grabbed, taken down. I hit the ground hard under a couple of hundred pounds.

Then I was looking at a face I didn’t want to see. A face I hated.

“Look what the tide rolled in.” Frank Coombs grinned. He wagged a.38 at my eyes. “Marty Boxer’s little girl.”

C
OOMBS
CROUCHED
down close and leered at me with that haughty smirking grin I’d come to hate already. Chimera was right here. “Seems you’re the one who’s leaning to the left a little now,” he said.

I had just enough clear-headedness to realize what incredible trouble I was in. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong had.

“This is a murder investigation,” I said to the men around me. “Frank Coombs is wanted in connection with four killings, including two cops. You don’t want a piece of that.”

Coombs continued to grin. “You’re wasting your breath if you think that bullshit carries any weight here. I heard you talked to Weiscz. Neat guy, huh? Friend of mine.”

I forced myself into a sitting position. How the hell did he know I’d been to Pelican Bay? “People know I’m here.”

Suddenly Coombs’s fist flashed out. He caught me flush on the jaw. I felt a warm ooze fill my mouth, my own blood. My mind flickered for some way to escape.

Coombs continued to smile down at me. “I’m gonna do what you bastards did to me. Take something precious from you. Take something you can never have back. You don’t understand anything yet.”

“I understand enough. You killed four innocent people.”

Coombs laughed again. His coarse hand stroked my cheek. The venom in his stare, the coldness of his touch nearly made me retch.

I heard the gunshot, loud and close by, only it was Coombs who howled and grabbed his shoulder.

The others scattered. There was chaos in the darkness, and I was as confused as anyone. Another bullet whined through the air.

A skinny thug with tattoos yelped and grabbed his thigh. Two more shots thudded into the garage wall.

“What the fuck is going on?” Coombs yelled. “Who’s shooting?”

More shots rang out. They were coming from the shadows at the end of the driveway. I got up and ran in a crouch away from the house. No one stopped me.

“Here,” I heard someone shout up ahead. I churned my legs toward the sound. The shooter was crouched behind the mustard-colored Bonneville.

“Let’s go,” he hollered.

Then all at once I saw; but I couldn’t believe my eyes.

I reached out and fell into the arms of my father.

W
E
SPED
AWAY
from the house, getting most of the way to San Francisco before we could even speak. Finally my father pulled his car into the busy parking lot of a 7-Eleven. I faced him, still breathing, my heart pounding.

“Are you okay?” he asked in the softest voice I could imagine.

I nodded, not quite sure, taking an inventory of where it hurt.
My jaw… the back of my head… my pride.

Slowly the questions that needed to be answered crept through the daze.

“What were you doing there?” I asked.

“I’ve been worried about you. Especially after somebody came after your friend Claire.”

The next thought hit me hard. “You’ve been following?”

He dabbed the corner of my mouth with his thumb to wipe away a trickle of blood. “I was a cop for twenty years. I followed you after you left work tonight. Okay?”

My head rung in disbelief, but somehow it didn’t matter. Then, as I stared at my father, something else flashed in my mind. Something that wasn’t adding up. I remembered Coombs leering over me. “He knew who I was.”