J. Jance - A more perfect union

The engine of the Porsche roared to life when I turned the key. Pulling a fast U-turn on Jefferson, I headed back toward Boren. The lights ahead of me turned green as I started down the hill. Fortunately, there weren't any stray pedestrians. And no traffic cops, either. I was doing sixty when I had to slow down for the Y at Stewart.

There was a car ahead of me, and I just made the yellow arrow onto Denny Way. The lights had been with me from the top of the hill. I knew I was making incredibly good time, but all the speed in the world would be meaningless unless Harry Campbell was going where I thought he was going.

On Denny Way my luck with the traffic came to an end. There was a car, an older-model Datsun, poking along in the left-hand lane ahead of me, and a Chevron gasoline tanker tooling along at my side. I flashed my high beams at the Datsun. Instead of moving to the right out of the way, it slowed, swerved toward the left, and straddled the yellow traffic divider in the middle of the roadway without leaving enough room between it and the tanker for me to pass.

Just then the driver's door flew open and a body fell out of the front seat of the Datsun, rolling over and over into the oncoming lane. My steel-belted radials smoked to a stop as I stood on the brakes, and the driver of the tanker blared his horn. Suddenly the body on the street rose to its feet and came scrambling toward me, arms waving frantically. I recognized Linda Decker's face as she grabbed desperately for my door.

"Please help me," she gasped, wrenching my door open. "Help me. He's got a gun."

"Get in, quick," I told her. "He won't get away."

She stopped and stared at me. "It's you!" she exclaimed. "How did you find me?"

"Never mind. Get in the car, goddamnit."

The truck driver had stopped half a block away and now he too came dashing up to the Porsche. "Lady, are you all right? Is something the matter?"

By then Linda was finally moving toward the rider's door. I leaned out the window and called to the truck driver. "Do you have a CB in that rig?"

He nodded. "Sure."

"Notify Seattle P.D. There's a fugitive in that Datsun up there. His name's Harry Campbell. He's armed and dangerous. What's your license number, Linda?"

She was crying, but she managed to choke out an answer. I started to relay it to the driver, but he waved me on. "Got it," he said and started back for his truck while I rammed the gas pedal to the floor and we shot forward. Ahead of us, the taillights from the Datsun bounced back over the median and into traffic. Campbell was still heading west on Denny.

"He said he had my kids, that they were down in the car. That's why I went with him. He wanted me to drive him to Canada, using us as cover. He took me down the stairs," she added. "He was afraid we might meet somebody in the elevator."

"He was right," I said grimly. "You would have."

"I thought he'd done something to the kids, but when I found out they weren't in the car, that he wanted me to drive him to the house, I decided I'd try to get away from him before we got there."

"You did great," I told her. "And the kids are fine. I told Sandy Carson to take them to my place."

"Thank you," Linda murmured.

"Glad to be of service."

The Datsun was a few blocks ahead of us, but I didn't try to close the gap. Instead, I concentrated on maintaining visual contact. That was enough. No heroics. Not with Linda Decker in the car. Patrol cars were on their way. I'd let some Joe Blow patrol officer bring the guy to ground. At least it wouldn't be Detective Paul Kramer. Let him put that in his pipe and smoke it.

"But how did you know what was happening?" Linda Decker asked. "How did you know where he'd go?"

"I got lucky for a change," I told her. "For once in my life, I flat got lucky."

A rookie fresh out of the academy actually made the arrest. That was fine with me. As long as it wasn't Paul Kramer putting the cuffs on Harry Campbell's wrists, I didn't much care who did.

Ralph Ames had been far more right than he knew when he said it was going to be a long night. The sun was already up by the time Linda Decker and I left the department to go back to Belltown Terrace. And it was after five when she and Sandy Carson packed the two sleeping kids down to Sandy's car for the short ride home.

I was sound asleep at six when the phone rang. It was Linda Decker. The hospital had just called her. Jimmy Rising was dead.

He had been so badly burned, and the road back would have been so tough, that I couldn't help thinking he was better off, but I felt sick just the same. If there was anyone Upstairs keeping score, the good guys had lost big in this particular skirmish.

The next time I saw Linda Decker, it was the afternoon of Jimmy Rising's funeral at a cemetery somewhere in the wilds of Bellevue. She came over and stood beside me as they lowered Jimmy's simple casket into the ground.

"They're in there with him, you know," she said softly.

"Pardon me?"

"The thermos and the lunch pail you gave him. If heaven's perfect, Jimmy will have a job to go to every day. He'll need them."

Linda Decker walked away from me then. Her kids wanted her for something, and I was glad she left. I wouldn't have been able to talk for the lump in my throat.

As I started back toward where the cars were parked, Martin Green fell into step beside me. I had seen him in the funeral chapel, but we hadn't spoken.

"She's a gutsy little thing," he said, nodding toward Linda's retreating figure. "Did you know she's coming back to work at the hall?"

"No. I hadn't heard."

"It took some selling. I finally talked her into it. The union needs women like her," Green continued. "The good ones. The ones with some backbone."

"She's long on backbone all right," I said, remembering how Linda Decker had looked in Pe Ell when she'd been staring down at me over the barrel of a gun. "I wouldn't cross her if I were you."

Martin Green chuckled. "Don't worry," he said. "I already figured that out."

So maybe ironworkers Local 165 will turn out to be a more perfect union after all. Good for Martin Green. Good for Linda Decker. I'm sure she'll do a fine job of raising those kids no matter what kind of work she does, but it'll be easier to do it by herself on the kind of money she'll make working construction than it would be on what she'd earn tending bar in some backwater like Pe Ell.

About that time I caught sight of Linda's two kids standing together next to the funeral parlor's limousine, waiting for their mother. Jason was holding his little sister's hand protectively. As I got closer to the children, I could hear they were arguing.

"Is too," Jason insisted.

"Is not," Allison responded. When I walked across the parking lot to get in the Porsche, they followed at a respectful distance.

"See there?" Jason announced archly as soon as I opened the door to the 928. "It is too him. I told you."

When I turned on the ignition, the cellular phone let me know I'd had a call. The readout didn't tell me who had called, but I knew. Ralph Ames was the only person so far who had the number. I called him back and told him to meet me at the Doghouse for lunch.

There wasn't much traffic on the bridge, and Lake Washington was as still and blue as the sky above it. I drove along and thought about Harry Campbell. He had turned out to be a wormy shit. As soon as he saw the writing on the wall, he spilled his guts, thinking that by naming names first and by agreeing to turn state's evidence, he might be able to work himself some kind of deal. That remains to be seen. It's up to the prosecutor's office. Once we turn creeps over to them, it's out of our hands.

According to both Campbell and Martinson, Don Kaplan had been the brains of the outfit, all the while seeming to be working the problem right along with Martin Green. Which just goes to show what a hell of a good judge of character I am. Martin Green wasn't the only one snowed by Don Kaplan. So was J. P. Beaumont.