Crack-Up (32 page)

“You’ll find a fully loaded Sig Sauer 225 in my shoulder holster,” she said, “and an extra magazine clipped to my belt.
 
Do you know what day it is today, Mister Ward?”

I removed the offending items, keeping Fellows in full view, and checked Strecker for other weapons.
 
“Why do you ask?”

“Do you at least know what year it is?”

“Of course I do.
 
You don’t show much respect to a man who’s doing your job for you.”
 
I took her keys to the Impala, stuffing them in my rear pants pocket.

Strecker said, “It’s not your job to do, Mister Ward.
 
Your job is to submit yourself to the law, to the District and its criminal justice system.
 
Why don’t you take this opportunity to turn yourself in?”

“When you don’t need my help anymore, I will.”
 
I seized Strecker’s cell phone too and stashed it in my back pocket.

“You’ll only get yourself into deeper and deeper trouble out here,” she said, “and without your medication, it’s only a matter of time before you lose your—”

“Shut up,” I said.
 
I placed the handguns I’d taken on the floor and kicked them both beneath a white Lexus convertible.

Fellows said, “Your story’s checking out, Mister Ward.”

“You bet it is.”

“We have the pill results, of course, and we’ve already interviewed the two other paranoids who you believe were driven insane in the same manner as you, and coerced into targeting John Helms for a dirt nap.
 
And now—”

“How did you interview them so fast?”

“Jeremy Crane phoned me the other day,” he said, “saying he’d remembered something he’d forgotten to tell me before, only we’d never spoken before.
 
Someone with blond hair, just like yours, had been impersonating me.
 
That’s a felony, by the way.”

“So you believe me?” I said.

Strecker said, “We’ll be checking into every aspect of your conspiracy theory, but it seems to have real merit.
 
Tell us, who do you think did this to you?”

“No idea,” I said.
 
“You?”
 
They shook their heads in unison.
 
I back-stepped to the Impala, facing them now from an equidistant spot about three yards away.
 
“So what do you think of Bernard?”

“He picked the wrong trousers this morning,” Fellows said.
 
“A light taupe doesn’t hide urine stains real well.”

I glared at him.
 
“You worked him over?
 
Threatened him?”

“We had to,” he said.
 
“That was some story he gave.”

I sighed.
 
“So do you believe him now?”

He shrugged.
 
“We’ll be checking into it.”

The wind gusted.
 
The storm spit diagonal rain all along the edges of the garage floor.

“There’s more,” I said.
 
“More people like Bernard.
 
More strange, bizarre events too.
 
I tried to give you the information earlier today, through my defense attorney, Les Cravey, but my phone call was interrupted.
 
I guess you know why.”

“That elephant’s gonna cost you,” Strecker said and let out a long, one-note whistle.

“What else do you know?” Fellows said to me.

I turned to Mona Strecker.
 
“Detective, get that pad and pen out of your suit pocket and write this down . . .”

I provided her with Elizabeth Hardtack’s name, address and phone number.
 
Then I discussed my corporate jet ride, focusing on the last leg, from
Austin
,
Texas
to DC.
 
I was in the middle of describing exactly what the flight attendant looked like naked when the detective halted her note-taking.

“You’ve been off your meds too long already, sir.
 
I’m not writing this down.”

“Do it,” I said.

Then, briefly—and breathlessly, I suppose—I explained the significance of the flight attendant’s nude form.
 
I described her reluctant confessions to me too, and my suspicions concerning the other passengers.

The detective shook her head writing it all down.
 
As soon as I’d finished, she put her pad away, saying to her partner, “He’s already psycho, Gary!
 
He’s got to be!”

With the keys I’d taken, I popped open the trunk of the Impala.
 
“Inside.
 
Both of you.”
 
Neither moved immediately, so I rushed Strecker, pointing the gun inches from her left temple.
 
“Do you hear that, Mona?
 
The voices?
 
Telling me to splatter your brains all over this cement?
 
Unless you cooperate?”

“Do like he wants,” Fellows urged.

Strecker climbed inside.
 
I motioned for her partner to approach the car.
 
Leaning over the trunk, he said, “Two can’t fit inside there.”

The elevator doors opened, and a giggling quartet of high school girls emerged, all holding large shopping bags.
 
Detective Fellows barely glanced at them.
 
He couldn’t bring civilians into harm’s way, I knew.
 
It went against code.

I hid my handgun from sight and used my body to block any view of the trunk’s interior.
 
The girls paid us little heed before turning into another row of parked automobiles and receding from view, if not earshot.

I motioned for the detective to join his partner inside the trunk.
 
It did prove a tight fit.
 
A thin film of sweat glistened each of their foreheads.
 
Whether it was a sign of fear or the strain of squeezing into such tight quarters, I couldn’t tell.

“What will you do with us?” Strecker said to me.

“I’ll call in your location in twenty minutes.
 
You’ll be out in less than half an hour.
 
I want you to visit Elizabeth Hardtack before the night is over, and start tracking down those airplane passengers.
 
We’ll talk again soon.”

I slammed the trunk shut.
 
Instantly, I heard Detective Strecker’s muffled cry.
 
“Mister Ward!
 
Wait!”

“What is it?”

“You’re not on any medication, are you, sir?”

“No,” I said.

“That’s very worrisome.
 
Wouldn’t you agree?
 
Next time we meet, you really could be hearing voices, isn’t that correct?”

“The first time I hear voices, that’s it, game over,” I said as I dropped to a squat, hiding the car keys atop the vehicle’s left rear tire.
 
“I’ll turn myself in, I promise.”

“I’m begging you, Mister Ward, turn yourself in now!
 
Before it’s too late, before you do something—”

“You’re wasting oxygen, Detective!”

I slipped my gun beneath my soaking wet rugby shirt, hustled down the stairs, and jogged into the rain-soaked street.

The relentless rain and the rush hour and three crumpled metal hulks from a recent car accident brought traffic on I-95 to a stop.
 
I took the outlaw joy of slithering my motorcycle between stalled automobiles.
 
I made
Silver Spring
in less than an hour, parking by the train station, and hailed a cab.
 
I gave the cabbie the name of an intersection a mile away.
 
It stood at the end of Hideo Mori’s block.

The trip would allow me to scan Hideo’s house from the outside before committing myself to return there.
 
Now that Hideo had begun doubting me, I had found I could no longer completely trust him.
 
Just like that female detective, Hideo hadn’t believed a word about the naked flight attendant.

“Turn here,” I said.
 
The cab pulled onto Hideo’s street.

Through a foggy side window, I saw Hideo’s van parked in the driveway.
 
There was a light on up in Hideo’s garage apartment.

No sign of a police stake-out
, I thought.
 
But that’s the idea, isn’t it?
 
How would I really know
?

For a moment, I felt paranoid and foolish.
 
Hideo himself would be in trouble with the law if he’d called the police.

But Hideo would do it
, I decided,
if he thought it was the right thing to do.
 
He’s peculiar that way
.

Beyond Hideo’s place, the cab neared the intersection I’d provided as my destination, and the cabbie asked where to pull over.
 
I told him, “Drive on.
 
I, uh, I just realized, I forgot to lock up at the office.
 
Take me back to the train station.”

I slithered my motorcycle through the soggy streets of
Washington
, driving aimlessly, my face stung by the rain, my thoughts all broken into little shards, pieces I couldn’t quite assemble, until I passed the
Georgetown
Law
Center
and recalled the men’s homeless shelter located on the other side.
 
I couldn’t afford a motel.
 
Not even in southeast DC.
 
I’d gone through all but four dollars and fifty-five cents of Hideo’s borrowed money.
 
I made a quick U-turn and bee-lined it for the shelter.

Where else can I dry off
? I thought.
 
Or lay my head down upon a pillow?
 
I can’t go back to Hideo’s now.
 
It’s out of the question.
 
Can’t trust him anymore.
 
Can’t risk it
.

In the barracks-like basement, a dozen homeless men lounged on cots or dozed.
 
One emerged from a shower in a clean linen robe.
 
Another three played cards at a wooden table.
 
It was hard to ignore a putrid odor I associated with moldy dog cereal.

A volunteer walked the aisles distributing thin cotton blankets.
 
Another was busy collecting sharp objects from a new arrival—fingernail clippers, keys, a paring knife—and dropping the items inside a large, manila envelope for safe-keeping.

I scanned the basement for Graybeard, the homeless man who had so recently helped me—against his will—to complete my escape from the psychiatric ward.
 
The man no longer possessed my wedding ring—that was almost certain—but he could point out the pawnshop where he’d hocked the ring, assuming his brain wasn’t too terribly fried.

I didn’t spot him, but one of the volunteers spotted me and approached.
 
She was thirty or so, vegan thin, and dressed in drab eco-colors.
 
Her hair was a mousy brown and her black tortoise shell eyeglasses were narrow and rectangular.

“Welcome, sir,” she said.
 
“My name is Jane.
 
I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.”
 
I stared back silently.
 
Her eyes made me uneasy.
 
“No matter,” she said.
 
“Would you like a good, hot shower?
 
Or something to eat?”

“No thanks,” I said.