J. Jance - A more perfect union

There was another pause, a much longer one, but while Martin Green listened, his face broke into a wide grin. "I'll be damned," he said. "Good for you. I knew you could pull it off. Give me your number and I'll get back to you once the crowd thins out. I think I can make it up there tomorrow."

He jotted a number down on a piece of paper then hung up the phone and sat there looking smug. "We got him," he announced.

"Got who?"

"Martinson. Frank Daniels, my private eye, found him hiding out over in Victoria. He's willing to talk terms."

"Terms? What kind of terms?"

"Money terms, Detective Beaumont. If we had wanted him in jail, I could have turned you guys loose on him, but that's not the point. I want the names of everyone else who's involved. I want them in jail. And even if Martinson goes to prison too, he'll have a little nest egg waiting for him when he gets out. International will see to it."

"Wait just a goddamned minute here!" I interjected, not wanting to believe my ears. "You mean to tell me you're going to pay Martinson off in return for squealing on his buddies? You're going to let the ringleader off scot-free?"

"He's not the ringleader," Green assured me. "That's why we went after him in particular. He's the weak link in the chain. They needed him, and he needed money. One of his kids was sick, died eventually, to the tune of some fifty grand after the insurance had paid everything it would pay. That's how they suckered him in, I'm sure. He was up to his eyeballs in debt, his marriage was in trouble. They made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

"Unfortunately, he's a whole lot better at being an accountant than he is at being a crook. He couldn't stand not keeping meticulous records, even if it meant having two separate ledgers."

Green reached for the phone again. "Kim? Call Chrysler Air Service and see how soon I can get a charter plane to go from here to Victoria. And by the way, where's Don? I thought you said he was still here." Green paused. "What do you mean, he left? Just like that?"

Green slammed the phone into its cradle, shoved his chair against the wall getting out of it, and raced to the window where he stood looking down at Broad. "I'll be damned," he said.

I hurried to his side. "What is it? What's going on?"

"Don was on his way in here when Kim told him about Martinson, that Frank had caught up with him. Kim said he mumbled something about getting a briefcase from his car and left. Look, that's him now, getting in that white T-Bird over there. He didn't forget something; he's leaving."

I looked down across Broad through sheets of pouring rain where a dead gas station had been converted into a temporary parking lot. Don Kaplan was indeed climbing into a white T-Bird.

"You must be right about him," Green said grimly. "If he wasn't involved, he wouldn't take off like this."

"Let's go get him," I said, turning away from the window.

But I was too late. Nobody needed any urging from me. Kramer and Manny were already headed out the door, and I was left bringing up the rear.

The good news was it was five o'clock. That was the bad news as well-rush hour, Friday. Seattle's rain-soaked pavements were slick as glass with the oily buildup that comes from more than a month without rain. The roar of traffic was punctuated by the sound of squealing tires as frustrated drivers tried to gain traction on steep, rain-glazed, hillside streets.

From Martin Green's window I had seen Don Kaplan's late-model white T-Bird turn right up First Avenue-a big mistake on his part. Instead of a free-moving thoroughfare, First Avenue between Broad and Denny had slowed to a commuter's-nightmare parking lot. Kaplan pulled into traffic, that was about all. He traveled only a few car lengths before he too was stopped cold. Nothing was moving.

Manny, Kramer, and I raced out of the union office, crashed down the stairs, and stopped on the sidewalk long enough to look up the street.

"That's him," I said, pointing. "The white T-Bird in the left-hand lane." Unfortunately, the light on Denny changed. Kaplan's car inched forward.

"Come on," Kramer yelled, heading in the opposite direction. "Let's go get the car."

Manny took off after him, but I didn't. This was my neighborhood, my block. There are times when a car can be far more of a hindrance than a help. Wincing at the sharp pain in my heel, I headed up First on foot. In the snarl of traffic I figured I had a better chance of catching him that way than Manny and Kramer did in a vehicle.

And it almost worked. Kaplan's turbo coupe was stuck in a long line of idling vehicles waiting for the light to change on Denny a block and a half away. I was only three car lengths away and closing fast when Kaplan leaned over and caught sight of me in his rearview mirror. I doubt he recognized me. He was probably looking for any sign of pursuit. A man in a sports jacket jogging up First Avenue in the rain was a dead giveaway.

Laying on the horn, Kaplan muscled the T-Bird across the right-hand lane of vehicles and darted up the short half-block of Warren that reaches across Denny. At the corner of First and Warren I paused for a moment, undecided. Should I continue on foot or wait long enough to signal Kramer and Manny? The problem was, once Kaplan turned right on Denny, he'd have a clear shot at doubling back down Second, Third, or Fifth and eluding us completely.

Hearing the piercing screech of a siren, I turned and looked back. Kramer and Manny were just then turning off Clay onto First. They were on their way, but even with the help of sirens and lights, covering those two and a half blocks would take time-time we didn't have. They would be too late. Kaplan would be long gone.

I couldn't wait. With a burst of speed that surprised me, I sprinted up Warren after him. He was there, less than a tantalizing half-block away, his right-hand turn signal blinking steadily as he waited for a break in traffic.

I snorted and would have laughed aloud but I was running too hard. Driving habits are like that-so ingrained, so automatic, that even driving a getaway car a crook still uses his directional signals.

I was only thirty or forty feet away when he spotted me again and floorboarded it. He plunged into traffic on Denny while the rear of the T-Bird skidded crazily from side to side.

What happened next happened with blinding speed. A driver from the other direction, alarmed by Kaplan's skidding, stepped on his brakes and slid into somebody else. In the fender-crunching melee that followed, two more cars were caught and accordion-pleated. The fourth, an ancient Chrysler Imperial driven by a Mohawked teenager, successfully avoided hitting the other three only to slide sideways into the right-hand lane. The Imperial nailed Kaplan's left fender in a glancing blow that sent the T-Bird spinning up onto the sidewalk.

When the skidding stopped, the street was littered with wreckage and debris. There was a moment of stark silence and then, somewhere, a horn blared.

The Imperial, barely dented, had ended up closest to me, coming to rest with its nose against a fire hydrant which promptly spewed a geyser of water straight up into the air. The driver, unable to open the door, scrambled frantically through the broken window, cutting his hands in the process.

"I couldn't help it," he cried hysterically, running up to me. "My dad's going to kill me, but it wasn't my fault."

His mouth was bleeding, and there was a long jagged cut on one side of his head. I caught him by the shoulders and eased him down on the curb.

"Sit here," I ordered. "Don't move around until after the medics get a look at you."

He sat there, but he wouldn't let go of my hands. "It wasn't my fault," he insisted. "You saw it, didn't you? Will you tell my folks that I couldn't help it?"