All Gone (2 page)

“Get out,” the policeman said.

“Do I?” I said into my hand without turning around.

“You're damn right you'll get out,” the policeman said.

“I don't know what to do,” I told him. I covered my mouth and said “What do I do?”

The policeman unsnapped his holster flap and tried opening the door. In the rearview the man made a turning motion with his hand for me to roll my window up.

“No need, officer,” I said, when he tried opening the rear door. “I'm coming out.”

He stepped back, his hand on his holstered gun. I rolled up my window. He smashed my window with his stick.

The man slunk back into his seat screaming and then said “Get.”

I drove off. Some glass had got in my cheek. The policeman shot once into the air. Then two more.

“Drive to the block with the movie theater on it,” the man said, pointing to a movie theater a few blocks away.

“And the light?”

“No. This block here with the supermarket. Keep driving around it and don't stop for police or lights.”

I drove through the red light and started around the block. We were on the avenue in front of the market completing our third trip around the block when I saw two police cars waiting for me in my lane.

“Make a U,” he said.

I made a U-turn and then a left at the first side street as he told me to do.

“Which block?” I said.

“Find another one around here. But a big one. If possible a block with the city's biggest avenues on opposite ends of it.”

“There aren't any around here like that.”

“Then drive across the park to the south side. I know of a beauty over there, right off Fourth.”

I drove across town and was heading south through the park transverse when I saw that both lanes ahead were blocked with police cars.

“Around,” he said, but through the side mirror I could see that the way back was blocked too.

“What now?” I said, slowing down.

“Get out and run.”

I stopped the cab between the two police car blockades and said “If I run they might shoot me.”

“And if you don't run I'll shoot you. And if you do run and suddenly stop I'll shoot you. And if you fall to the ground after you get out and suddenly stop I'll shoot you. I'll shoot you if you try climbing over the transverse wall or get out and yell to the police and me not to shoot you. Just get out and run either way down the road's dividing line to the police shouting threats that you're going to kill them, or I'll shoot you from behind. Now out,” and he nudged the gun barrel against the back of my neck.

I got out, jumped to the ground and crawled underneath the cab. He began shooting through the floor. Two bullets hit my shoulder and arm, another ricocheted through my ear. The police drove up. They called out to me. They took the gun from the man and asked him why he had shot me. Shaking all over and between loud sobs and tears he said “This bum…this man…he forced me to drive with him as a hostage. I luckily disarmed him of that thing seconds before he was going to drive us straight into your cars and shoot every policeman he could see.”

Even with two bullets and glass in me and blood coming out of my face and clothes, a policeman wrenched my head back by the hair and threw me against the cab and slammed my handcuffed hands on the hood and kicked my feet out behind me and told me to keep my legs spread apart and don't speak unless questioned or they'll knock me to the ground for good.

“But the man's lying. I was his hostage and was forced to drive around and taunt you guys.”

I was punched in the back and head by two policemen till I rolled off the hood to the ground.

The man and I were driven in separate cars to the police station. An hour after I was arraigned and exhibited to the press for photographs, I was taken to the hospital, where my bullet and glass wounds were treated and also a gash in the back of my head that the policeman's ring had opened up.

I was brought to trial. My court-appointed lawyer advised me to stop repeating those ridiculous statements about the man forcing me to do all those things in my cab.

“He's a university professor,” the lawyer said. “Has written several highly regarded textbooks on forensic psychiatry and medicine. And he and his wife have such an impeccable reputation and social standing in the city that he could never be thought to have done the bizarre things you claim. I don't believe you. The judge certainly won't believe you. The prosecuting attorney is too good for the jury to believe you. If you plead guilty to all charges and ask the court's mercy, I can get you off with only a few years. If you don't plead guilty, then the professor and that policeman and gas station attendant will testify against you and you can be sent away for thirty years.”

I pleaded guilty and got six years. In prison I was taught mess hall cooking and worked in the kitchen there the last three years of my term. In the prison library I read as many books on psychology and psychiatry, including two of the professor's works, as any student could read in any university in the world.

Lots of times in prison I thought about getting revenge on that man once I got out. I thought I would wait for him outside his class, and only after I was sure he remembered me and the ride we took together, would I slam a two-by-four over his head, not caring if he got killed. But then I knew I could never do anything that fierce. So I thought I'd just walk up to him on the street and slap his face, and after I wrestled him to the ground, as he was a pretty small guy so probably easy to handle, I'd kick his legs and arms and maybe spit at him, and then just leave him there like that.

But I knew I wouldn't be capable of doing any of those things either. After reading those psychology and psychiatry books, I found I wasn't at all the type to go around kicking and slapping anyone for anything. I also learned from those books that the professor was the type who would always have a gun, or know where to get one, and that he would come after me and use it if I so much as accused him of the crimes I went to prison for and took a swing at his face. And he'd have all the right excuses too. He could say “That man tried to kill me for having told the truth about that day he kept me captive in his cab. For he swore to me in the cab that he'd get even with me if I ever talked. And he's phoned me a number of times since he left prison, with threats against my wife and me. So I got a gun. All right—I got it illegally”—if he couldn't get it legally and as the one he had in the cab must have been gotten—“but I was desperately afraid of him. And when he came for me I had to shoot him to save my life.”

So I gave up on getting revenge. I was a model prisoner, got out in four years and returned to college, but this time to get a simple business degree in restaurant management. Louise, my old girlfriend, was too seriously involved with someone else to see me. Some of my old friends were still in the city. They all had fairly good jobs and a couple of them were married and had children. The few times I did meet some of them for beers, they asked me to tell the story about the professor and me. But I always told them it was best for my future career and personal well-being if I forgot that incident forever and if everybody else forgot about it too.

Most nights now I worked as a waiter. About once a week since I got the job a few months ago, that same man comes in the restaurant and sits at my station and orders drinks and a complete meal. Near the end of his dinner on the first night, he said “Aren't you the fellow who did that strange thing with the taxi and police that was such a popular news story a few years ago?”

I said “I'm the man, all right,” and he said “I thought you looked familiar. You've clipped most of your hair and taken to wearing a mustache and eyeglasses, but I suppose those pictures of you on TV and in the papers left an indelible impression on me. I happen to have more than a morbid gossiper's concern in criminal cases and yours I have to admit was one of the more interesting ones.” Then he excused himself for having brought up the subject, “since it must be embarrassing if not potentially damaging to you for anyone to repeat it in public,” and didn't say another word to me for the rest of the meal except “Thank you” and “Goodbye.”

Since then, after his first drink, he always asks if I'd mind speaking some more about that day he had talked about, and I always say I wouldn't.

“What I'm saying,” he's said in a different way each time, “is I don't want you getting mad at me or anything. Because if you think I'm being nosey, even if it is with a professional interest in mind that could lead to a paper on the subject, please say so and I'll shut up and never ask you about it again.”

He always asks just one question each dinner, though a different one each time. Such as “What prompted your doing it in the first place?” and “Didn't you think you could get killed in the act?” and “Where did you get the courage to face the police like that?” and “What was the significance of riding around the blocks so many times?” and “Why for a while did you settle on just one gas station in case you ran out of gas a second time?” and “Didn't you know that if caught you'd be jeopardizing your employment and social activities for life?” and “Did you really believe you were innocent as you first proclaimed to the press the day you were caught?” and “Didn't it occur to you that your passenger might have been killed by the police for being thought of as your accomplice or by a stray bullet aimed at you?”

I always make up an answer for him. Such as “At the time I intentionally wanted to get myself killed,” and “I really can't say why I did anything that day because it was essentially another me who was responsible for the act,” and “I went around and around those blocks to draw attention to myself, simple as that,” and “I was too concerned with carrying out the crime itself and having a good time playing around with the police to pay any attention to the passenger in back.”

My answer always seems to satisfy him for the time. He then apologizes for having brought up the subject again and changes the conversation by asking after my health or college work or if the dinner special looks good tonight, and throughout the rest of the meal acts somewhat frightened as if he thinks I'm about to pick up a chair and crash it down on him. Then he finishes his dinner and the bottle of wine he always orders with his meal, and leaves without ever giving me a tip.

 

He says goodbye, we kiss at the door, he rings for the elevator, I say “I'll call you when I find out about the tickets,” he says “Anytime, as I'll be in all day working on that book jacket I'm behind on,” waves to me as the elevator door opens and I shut the door.

I find out about the tickets and call him and he doesn't answer. Maybe he hasn't gotten home yet, though he usually does in half an hour. But it's Saturday and the subway's always much slower on weekends, and I call him half an hour later and he doesn't answer.

He could have got home and I missed him because he right away might have gone out to buy some necessary art supply or something, and I call him an hour later and he doesn't answer. I do warm-ups, go out and run my three miles along the river, come back and shower and call him and he doesn't answer. I dial him every half hour after that for the next three hours and then call Operator and she checks and says his phone's in working order.

I call his landlord and say “This is Maria Pierce, Eliot Schulter's good friend for about the last half-year—you know me. Anyway, could you do me a real big favor and knock on his door? I know it's an inconvenience but he's only one flight up and you see, he should be home and doesn't answer and I've been phoning and phoning him and am getting worried. I'll call you back in fifteen minutes. If he's in and for his own reasons didn't want to answer the phone or it actually is out of order, could you have him call me at home?”

I call the landlord back in fifteen minutes and he says “I did what you said and he didn't answer. That would've been enough for me. But you got me worried also, so I went downstairs for his duplicate keys and opened his door just a ways and yelled in for him and then walked in and he wasn't there, though his place looked okay.”

“Excuse me, I just thought of something. Was his night light on?”

“You mean the little small-watt-bulb lamp on his fireplace mantel?”

“That's the one. He always keeps it on at night to keep away burglars who like to jump in from his terrace.”

“What burglars jumping in from where? He was never robbed that I know.”

“The tenant before him said she was. Was it on?”

“That's different. Yes. I thought he'd forgotten about the light, so I shut it off. I was thinking about his electricity cost, but you think I did wrong?”

“No. It only means he never got home. Thanks.”

I call every half hour after that till around six, when he usually comes to my apartment. But he never comes here without our first talking on the phone during the afternoon about all sorts of things: how our work's going, what the mail brought, what we might have for dinner that evening and do later and if there's anything he can pick up on the way here and so on. The concert's at eight and I still have to pick up the tickets from my friend who's giving them to me and can't go herself because her baby's sick and her husband won't go without her. I call her and say “I don't see how we can make the concert. Eliot's not here, hasn't called, doesn't answer his phone and from what his landlord said, I doubt he ever got home after he left me this morning.”

“Does he have any relatives or close friends in the city for you to call?”

“No, he would have gone to his apartment directly—I know him. He had important work to finish, and the only close person other than myself to him is his mother in Seattle.”