44 - Lesson about the frontier
Mike closed the apartment door quietly behind. The long
angle of sunset light blinded him for a moment at the railing as he circled
down the stairs to the driveway and then to the street. People sat on their
lawns, pathetic little middle class kings and queens, surveying their quarter
acre empires with suspicion. They eyed him as he passed, more suspicious for
his wishing them a good day.
At the corner of
Fountain and McCadden, a police car sat at the curb, the faces of its occupants
hidden by tinted glass. But Mike could feel their gazes following him along the
street and half expected the doors to burst open as he passed.
Nothing occurred--
though turning the corner he saw two more sets of cherry tops parked on either
side, like gate markers to some invisible kingdom, waiting and watching for
invaders. But the cops in neither car looked up.
Odd.
A moment later, a
white four-door Ford pulled up, Demetre's scarred face behind the wheel. The
cop pushed the passenger door open. "Get in."
"Here? Out in
the open like this?"
"Michael!"
Demetre growled, voice strained and weary. "Get in the Goddamn car. I
don't have time for your song and dance."
Mike slid into the
car, the seat-fabric warm from a day in sunlight. He slammed the door. Demetre
made a U-turn, lifting his hand to the uniformed cars as he went by. Mike noted
these pulling back into traffic behind them, then turning off as Demetre kept
straight.
"Did you get the
information?" Mike asked.
"It's in the
briefcase," Demetre said, indicating the open leather case on the floor.
Mike reached down.
"Wait till we
get out of town," the cop said.
Mike nodded and sat
back.
The cop kept the
speed exactly at 25 the whole way to Highland. He turned right towards the
Boulevard. The sidewalks grew thick with people. The vanishing sun brought out
the whacos: jesus freaks and bikers trading insults across traffic like
hillbillies feuding. Waves of tourists fluttered from one side the boulevard to
the other, creating a jam of buses and cars in front of Grauman's Chinese
theater. Demetre cursed and leaned on the horn till he weaved through the worst
of it. Another block farther on, the white car rose up into the winding hills
of Laurel Canyon.
Beyond the curses,
Demetre said nothing, steering the vehicle like a robot, His gaze leaped from
mirror to mirror, studying behind them as much as the road. It took a few miles
for him to relax, and another few for him to turn down a steep embankment-- the
dirt road one of many of the odd-angled driveways marring these hills. The sand
and stone rose on either side like closing fingers, dark shadows covering their
trail of twilight crept over the valley. If anyone had followed them from
Hollywood, they'd done so without headlights.
Demetre pulled the
car up in front of what had once been a fine estate. The sagging black wood
indicated a long cold fire. Mud slides and time had turned the rest of rubble,
burying most of the ranch-style house. A pealing "for Sale" sign had
been poked into the soft soil of the right embankment.
Demetre killed the headlights
and engine and snapped on the inside dome. His black face sweated, and his eyes
drooped enough to say he'd not slept in some time. But Mike read doubt in those
eyes.
"So you want to
know all about Buckingham, eh?" the cop said.
"That's
right."
"All right,
Michael. I'll teach you a lesson about life on the frontier. One you won't
forget either. Hand me the brief case."
Mike complied.
Demetre removed a thick bundle of varying colored file folders. Loose newsprint
dangled from several like tails.
"You know when
all this started, I thought you were Buckingham," Demetre said.
"Me?"
"He has your
touch."
"Look,
Demetre," Mike said. "I've done a hell of a lot of things since my
trial in Arizona. But I'm not mass murderer."
"Then you know
something," Demetre said, brows rising.
"Mostly rumor--
and what Gil told me in Phoenix."
"Ah, Gil,"
the cop said with a sigh. "Another misguided fool."
"What made you
think I was Buckingham?" Mike asked, annoyed at the suggestion. "I
thought you knew me better than that."
"The killing
confused me. I'll admit that. But everything else was the same. The way you
move and think, like an echo of you. Or maybe a mockery. I'm still not sure of
it."
"But now you
don't believe it?" Mike asked, wondering just how far he could run before
the cop shot him or wrestled him to the ground. A long time ago, he had tried
to out run the cop and hadn't gotten far. But both had been younger then.
"You wouldn't be
here-- like this-- if I did," the cop said. "But it's more complicated
than that. You're looking for something that might just spell your doom."
"My doom?"
Again, Demetre sighed
and flipped open the folders. One after another he showed them to Mike,
photographs and fact sheets of people along what the cops had come to call The
Buckingham trail.
"Some of these
people you know," Demetre said. "Some of them are just the up and
coming. But all of them knew of you."
"What?"
"Is that so
surprising? You're not a typical figure in the underworld, Michael. You're
above it in the eyes of many, cleaner than the common drug dealer, more ethical
than the Weather Underground."
"That's
bullshit!"
"You and I know
better. But we live in a time when others crave heroes. First it was that
bastard, Kennedy. Then the Beatles. Now its suck now to people as despicable as
Charlie Manson."
"And I'm
despicable, too?"
"In some
ways," Demetre admitted. "In other ways you're as noble as these
deluded fools think you are."
"That's high
praise coming from you," Mike said with a laugh.
Demetre, however,
looked over, and in the dim light his face was drawn, the scar standing out on
his face like a protruding bone.
"It wasn't meant
to be praise, Michael," he said softly. "Because heroes like you,
Kennedy, King and others attract peculiar admirers, the kind which wants to kill
you."
Mike laughed.
"You know, Demetre, you've always been the rather serious sort, but now
you're outright morose. I'm no Martin Luther King."
"To a lot of
people, you're an individual avenger, fighting against the unfair system and
winning."
"Winning?"
Mike barked. "That's what they call this? It feels more like being hounded
to me, and I'm sick of it. The only thing I want now is to be left alone."
"I know,"
Demetre said. "It's the reason I'm here. I've known that much since I saw
you in the courtroom long ago. I know what makes you tick, and I would have
helped you sooner, but you had to get all the hate out of you first."
"And now it's
all out of me?" Mike asked, his voice crisp and angry. He didn't want to
have to think about the court room or what had been resolved there, or the
child now calling another man daddy.
"The hate, yes.
The anger will never leave you. Nor should it. A court room or a badge doesn't
mean the things or people behind them are always right. Often they are not. In
your case they were terribly wrong. But this whole thing with Buckingham is far
worse. It is something that'll either kill you and turn you truly evil."
"Like I have a
choice."
"You do. Despite
your reputation, you're not as hunted as you believe..."
"Tell that to
the fifteen hundred cop cars that have my photograph flapping in their
faces!" Mike exploded.
"An old
photograph, Michael. One that doesn't even look like you anymore. Besides, you
can't expect to play Black Bart and not have wanted posters. But you aggravate
matters every time you pull a new stunt. The foolishness with the pot farm in
Nebraska, for instance. It not only added to your reputation and admiring fans,
but also reminded the authorities of your presence in their world. All you
really have to do is lay low for a while, get a serious job. And have this
galloping reputation of your fade into the dust with all the other cowboy
legends."
"Right!"
Mike said. "So that in ten years some smart-assed FBI man looking to make
a name for himself will come knocking at my door. Or some petty private eye. Or
some part time quack."
"All of them
would forget you if you hid well enough."
"Hide from the
best dicks in the country?"
"You're good
enough."
"Tell that to
the Tinkertons!" Mike said. "They're in town, I hear."
Demetre's expression
grew grim again. "I know. But that was not your doing. I talked with their
captain. Someone told them where you were. Or rather where your girlfriend
is."
"What? They know
where Marie is?" Mike howled, clawing at the car handle to get out.
"Calm yourself.
I'll drive you back to town when we're done. They haven't gotten to her yet.
Last I heard they missed catching her on the Boulevard after she slipped
through some gay bar."
Mike sagged. "Oh
that," he said with a sigh. Old news. Lance had rescued her. "I
thought you meant something new."
Demetre shook his
head. "You're really caught on her that bad, eh?"
"I'm
addicted," Mike mumbled.
"Which makes you
all the more a fool! What else did you expect with kidnapping her?"
"I didn't kidnap
her, she insisted on coming."
"At fourteen it
amounts to the same thing. And the Tinkertons, by God. They're worse than
Hoover's bunch and twice as dogged. They are something to worry about. They may
never let go of your scent."
"It won't matter
much if I get a hold of Buckingham," Mike said.
"For God's sake,
aren't you listening to me? This character Buckingham is killing people,
hunting down self-styled drug lords in every town east of the Mississippi.
Empires have fallen, Michael. Havoc exist in his trail."
"I know,"
Mike moaned. "But I don't have a choice."
Demetre grabbed
Mike's collar and yanked him up nose to nose, the smell of mint curling up between
them like gas. "Listen to me, damn it. Buckingham doesn't just want to be
kingpin of the west coast. He wants his competition crushed. But above all,
Michael, more than any of that, he wants you dead."
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