*** No One Left To Burn ***
Chapter 1
12
I gave the cabbie the address of the Presidio, which is the apartment
complex I call home, and he acknowledged with a sleepy yawn and a nod.
Traffic was slow moving, but I didn’t care.
The intermittent rain had become a steady, silent, misty drizzle.
I was almost put to sleep by the narcotic effect of the swish, swash,
swish sounds made by the windshield wiper blades as they scraped away a clear
spot on either side of the driver’s line of vision.
Science can get us safely to the moon and back but can’t develop a
wiper blade that will last more than three months.
When we turned off
We continued on another eight blocks, before we came to the block in
which I live. Then, I almost
crapped. I slumped down in the seat
and yelled to the driver, “don’t stop! For
Chrissake don’t stop!”
“What? But you said...”
“Never mind what I said,” I responded.
“Don’t stop! Don’t even
slow this sumbitch down!” I
slumped a little more until I was almost lying on the rear floor of the cab.
As we passed I raised my head just enough to look at the big Cadillac
parked at the curb. I could see two
occupants inside who were staring intently at my apartment building a half a
block down the street. The same car they’d used earlier. How stupid.
I told the driver to keep cruising. I
wasn’t in the proper physical and mental shape to mess with these two guys
right now. And yet, at the same
time, it made me mad as hell to be denied access to my own home.
That had to be some kind of violation of my civil rights, I thought.
Not to mention the fact these goons had demonstrated a propensity to do
me severe bodily harm in a most permanent fashion.
The more I thought about it, the more pissed I got.
The more pissed I got, the more my physical and mental condition
improved.
We went straight ahead two blocks, and I directed the cabbie to make a
right turn. After one block I had
him turn right again. We came back
the two blocks and I told the driver to turn right again.
The cabbie started mumbling something that sounded like “what the shit
are we doing?”
“Take it easy, pal,” I told him.
“You stick with me on this and you’re in for one hell of a tip.”
I had him stop about one hundred feet from the corner of
I stayed close to the house on the corner where there was considerable
cover offered by bushes and trees. When
I reached the intersection I turned right toward the Cadillac and at the same
time slipped my .38 Colt from its holster. I
moved as fast as I could without tripping in the darkness.
I was almost even with the Cadillac from behind, but still twenty or so
feet to the right hidden by cover provided by several oleander bushes.
Then, just as if we’d rehearsed it, the cab came around the corner,
slowly at first with lights off. Once
on Robert E. Lee the lights came on and the accelerator went down.
The cab reached enough speed, so when it braked to a stop in front of the
apartment building, it did so with a loud screeching sound.
The two brutes in the Cadillac had been looking straight to the front so
intently that they never saw the cab until it slammed to a stop in front of
them. Their attention was now locked
onto the cab as I’d hoped it would be. Who
was going to get out?
I could see movement in the car as I started trotting toward it, half
stooped over. The window was
down on the passenger side, and as I reached the car I squatted down and thrust
my hand through the open window.
The first inkling the stooges had that I was even there was when I jammed
the muzzle of the Colt into the guy’s right ear.
“Don’t move,” I whispered.
The driver started to say something, but I cut him off.
“Shut the fuck up! Don’t
do anything, don’t say anything, and don’t move a goddamned muscle.”
There was dead silence in the car. I
couldn’t even hear if they were breathing.
I was just about to open the car door, when the one with the gun growing
out of his ear cut a fart.
I’d heard that would sometimes happen if a person were scared enough.
I pushed a little harder on the gun and said, “I told you not to do
anything, and that includes shitting your pants.
Now you’re going to have to sit in it while we have a little chat.”
The driver was starting to fidget as I opened the car door.
He was startled by the sudden glare inside the car when the overhead dome
light and the door side lights flashed on. I
was similarly startled at the sight of the .45 automatic he was in the process
of raising toward me.
There was a rapid three-way exchange of expletive dialogue:
Driver: “You
motherfucker.”
Me: “You
cocksucker.”
Guy with gun in his ear: “What the fuck?”
I jerked the car door full open and grabbed the guy in front of me by a
fistful of his greasy ponytail. I
pulled hard and at the same time ducked as low as possible, lying prone on the
ground with my face in the grass.
I looked up when my grasp lost its hold, and my fingers slid free from
his hair. His seatbelt held him
firmly in place.
“Shit!”
I rolled toward the rear of the car just as two shots rang out from the
inside. The guy with the sore scalp
held the forty-five now, and he had just put two slugs in the grass where I’d
been lying. As he swung the gun
around toward me again, I heard the Cadillac engine start up, and there was more
pungent dialogue:
“Son of a bitch!”
“I’ll blow your fucking balls off!”
“You rotten prick!”
“Fuck you!”
He almost had the gun leveled at me when I brought my own up firing.
I jerked the trigger rather than squeezing it, causing loss of some of my
accuracy. I knew better.
I got off five quick shots. The
first hit the ground in front of the car door.
The second blew out the door speaker.
The third, fourth and fifth hit my target in the chest, neck and between
his wide-eyed peepers.
I crawled to the right so that I could see into the car through the open
door, but the car was already moving forward.
By the time I got my legs under me, all I could see was smoke from the
spinning tires as the Cadillac rapidly accelerated down Robert E. Lee. The right
door was propped open by the limp, ponderous body hanging out. Arm flopping,
head bobbing and ponytail dragging.
The cab driver was out of his cab and on the dead run to where I was
standing before the Cadillac reached the corner.
He stopped short, somewhat winded, and was looking around with animated
movements, like he expected someone to jump out of the bushes at us.
“She - it,” he said, making it a two syllable word.
“Did you see that guy hanging out of that car door?
What the hell happened to him?”
“I shot him in the fucking head.”
13
I didn’t want to stick around too long because very shortly the place
would be crawling with cops. All
those gunshots would have resulted in at least a half a dozen calls to 911
placed by concerned citizens. And at least one of those would succeed in
bringing forth the police.
The Presidio is formed in a square, open in the middle where an Olympic
size pool is located. Some units are
singles, some are doubles, and some are multi-storied.
The entire complex takes up a complete city block.
My unit is one of the singles and is located right in front.
That was handy because what I wanted to do right then was get into my
apartment, which was about a hundred feet up the street, grab a few things and
get the hell out.
I told the cab driver to wait for a minute while I ran into my apartment,
meter running of course. “Hey, no
problem,” he said. “But would
you mind if I come in and use your John? I
gotta piss like a racehorse.”
“Sure, come on in,” I
said. “You did a good job
back there. You earned yourself a
good tip.” And I meant what I
said. He had done exactly what I’d
wanted him to do.
We started toward my apartment when something by the parking area caught
my eye. I walked over to the curb
and picked up the .45 that had been dropped there.
As I bent over to retrieve the gun, I spotted a wallet that must have
fallen from the guy hanging from the open car door.
I put the wallet in my jacket pocket and carried the gun by the trigger
guard.
Once inside my abode, I stashed the gun and then went to the task of
putting a few items of clothing together in a garment bag.
It seemed to me that for a while at least, my apartment might not be the
healthiest place for me to stay. Perhaps
spending a few nights across town in a hotel would be the prudent thing to do.
I traded my shoulder holster for a small belt style, and I was zipping a
small carry on bag shut when I heard the toilet flush.
That was a really long piss, I thought.
Maybe the cabbie had been more frightened than I had first observed.
I remembered the guy in the Cadillac cutting the fart and thought that
just goes to show you can’t always tell how scared someone is.
And if they don’t shit their pants, you might never know.
While waiting for the cabbie to come out of the John, I tried Jan’s
number again. She answered on the third ring.
“Hello.”
There it was again, that voice. Jesus,
what a voice.
“Jan, this is Rick.”
“Rick?”
“Yeah. Rick Stevens.”
“Oh! Rick, you called.”
I thought that it was pretty obvious.
“Something’s come up Jan, and I’m sorry but I don’t think I’ll
be able to take you to dinner tonight. That
special place will have to wait.”
“Why?” She asked.
“Well, uh,” I replied, never at a loss for words.
“I’m sorry, too, Rick. I
was really looking forward to it. Not
so much going to dinner, but I was looking forward to seeing you again.”
That was nice, I said to myself, and there’s that voice again.
I just can’t describe that voice and do it justice.
It was, well, it - see I just can’t do it.
“Maybe we can work out something anyway, Jan.
What would you think about my just dropping by your place after while?
Maybe for a drink or something?” I let the something trail off as I
waited for her reply.
“Well sure, Rick,” she said. “I’m
really kind of tired anyway. You
wouldn’t believe the kind of day I’ve had today.
I really don’t feel like getting all dressed up to go out.
If you’ll come over here, I’ll present you with something you’d
really like to eat.”
I wasn’t exactly sure what she meant by that, but you can rest assured
that I didn’t have visions of sugarplums dancing through my head.
On Comet, on Cupid, on Donner and Blitzen.
“I just finished a course in Gourmet Cooking for the Working Girl,”
she said. “Tonight will give me a
chance to try out what I’ve learned on someone besides myself.
I’ll fix you a real home cooked delicacy.”
Now, I thought, I did know exactly what she meant.
The visions I’d had in my mind begrudgingly gave way to the
mouth-watering sights of culinary artistry. “Sounds great, Jan,” I said.
“But, if all of these exciting things are going to happen, you better
give me your address.” She gave it
to me.
I wrote the address down on the piece of paper that had her phone number
on it. I knew it would take quite
awhile to get to a hotel, check in, clean up and get back to Jan’s house, so I
said. “I’ll see you in about an
hour and a half then. That won’t
be too late will it?”
Well I certainly didn’t expect her to say, “yes it is.”
“Yes it is,” she answered.
“Huh?”
“Well it’s not too late exactly, it’s just too long.”
Now that’s a much better response, I thought.
“I’ll see you as soon as I can get there,” I said, “ but it will
still be at least an hour.”
She said “okay” kind of pouty.
I said goodbye, somewhat jovially, and hung up.
I wanted to use the toilet before we left my apartment.
I began squirming during the last half of my phone conversation with Jan.
Now that the cab driver was out, I felt like I could probably whiz for at
least five minutes. That’s how I
felt, but I couldn’t. I could only stay in the bathroom about thirty seconds,
because I had to hold my breath all the while I was standing there.
As it turned out, the four and a half minutes I saved was what got me out
of there before the police arrived. If
they saw me getting into the cab, I’d spend the rest of the night explaining
to them what had happened. At least
I wouldn’t be explaining it to Sergeant Guidry. Or would I?
We barely got to the corner when two police cruisers passed us going the
opposite direction toward the Presidio.
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