Nick Stephenson - Eight the Hard Way

I’d happily trade back if I could. Because I couldn’t, I worked hard, played harder, and lived life the hardest I could.

After the rage blew through and receded like a summer storm, my cop sense clicked back in and told me that the same hunter-green Audi had been following since before the Bridge. My subconscious had obviously noted it, but the realization only now bubbled up.

I’d intended to head back to the office, but now I didn’t necessarily want to lead whoever it was there. Besides, I wasn’t certain yet it wasn’t a coincidence...but watching in the mirror with half an eye, I noted the way the car drove, the way it kept back so it could see me, not too near and not too far. Also, the way it moved on its wheels...I was sure it was also a performance car, with stiffened suspension and four wheel drive, maybe a high-end Quattro model. Audi made some of the best factory rally cars in the world. I wished I could afford one.

Turning away from my office, I pulled suddenly into a rare open parallel parking space and shut off the car, releasing the four-point seatbelt and popping my video dash-camera from its mount. The Audi made no move to turn off or pull in behind me, but cruised on past. I recorded it as it went by, making sure to get the license plate. The driver was male, I felt sure, but he held up his folded right arm and kept his face back behind it. I caught a flash of medium-length, dark-colored hair and perhaps a light jacket before the sports sedan got too far away.

Coincidence? Not likely, and the anger suppressed only a short time ago bobbed to the surface, this time with a tangible target. Whoever followed me had to be involved somehow, or so my instincts screamed. I thought for a moment about the risk to the little girl, and whether I should back off and keep cool, but it looked like the guy had already made me. I couldn’t investigate quietly the way I had hoped to if the bad guys already had me on radar.

Fine. There was a time for subtlety and there was a time to grab balls and man up, and this was a time for a girl to grab.

Maybe it was an excess of adrenaline talking; I never could say no to its request. I buckled up again—not for legal reasons but for hard-nosed safety ones—and started the car. I left the lights off and eased out several lengths back from the Audi.

Now, you son of a bitch, we’ll see who follows who.

Redialing Mickey, I asked, “Got anything yet?”

“Yeah, I was gonna call you when I had it all.”

“Just tell me now, quick and dirty. I’m tailing a bad guy.”

“Whoa, cool. Okay, your pharmacist called several different cell numbers since Friday night, from her prepaid. Two are also prepaid cells, I think. One was a number I traced to your buddy Cole, but it’s unlisted, maybe his private number.”

“Make sure you keep that one on file.” I eased over a lane to keep the Audi in sight.

“After that she receives a call from one of those prepaids. Doesn’t have to mean anything. Everyone uses them nowadays, even you.”

I sighed audibly.

“Okay, okay. Then she gets a call on her home phone from another prepaid, but what’s weird is, it’s a number that’s almost sequential to one of the other ones she has been talking to. Like it was in the same lot, maybe bought at the same store near the same time.”

My mind chewed on that one for a moment as I drove with half my brain. “Anything else?”

“She called Cole again Sunday morning.”

“Hmm. She never said anything about that.”

“What do you think it means?”

I shifted lanes again as I rounded a corner, ducking behind a delivery truck. “No telling. That it?”

“I still have more numbers to correlate.”

“Keep at it, Mickey. I’ll call you back.” The Audi sped up and dove in between two cabs.

Using all my skill, I trailed the other through the intermittent San Francisco drizzle. Unfortunately, a one-car follow was easy for anyone to spot, no matter how expert the tail. Real surveillance required a team and three or four cars to drive in front and behind, trading off and moving in and out of view of the target. It was only a matter of time before...

There he went. My quarry had made me.

Gritting my teeth, I grunted as water fantailed behind the Audi. Its tires spun in a controlled slide around the next corner. I followed fast, using both lanes and part of the center line. My world shrank to a bubble that encompassed just us drivers charging hard through the streets of San Francisco in the drizzly mist.

Back off, Cal. You don’t have to beat him this time, just stick with him until something breaks. This guy knows something. This guy is part of it, and you’re not letting go of this lead. If you can save the kid, there won’t be any charges, no matter how many enemies you have in the Department.

Fantasies of putting a gun in the driver’s face floated next to the vision of a bound and frightened little girl, erasing all thought of lawful arrest. I would beat it out of the bastard if I had to.

Twisting through the grid of the Mission District, I followed the Audi eastward, keeping it in sight but not pressing close. This guy was good, but not as good as I was; his lines through the corners were a little less clean, a little less confident, as if he didn’t know his machine and the very edges of its limits the way I knew Molly.

Good girl, Molly. Keep the revs up.

The Audi hit a hundred as my quarry rushed the onramp onto I-80. Once on the freeway, he wove from lane to lane, gaining distance. I was ready for the driver to dive off before they crossed the Bay Bridge, but he kept going. I followed onto the eastbound lower level, Molly’s tires humming on metal mesh and bumping over joints.

With a good clear left lane for half a minute and the Audi blocked by traffic, I floored it and pulled to within a hundred yards, then settled in through the Yerba Buena Island tunnel. The tiny spot of land in the middle of the Bay formed an anchor for the two sections of the crossing.

Nothing I could do on the Bridge.

Once past, the Bay Bridge split again from its under-over configuration to a side-by-side concrete causeway just a score of feet above the water. Half a mile ahead I could see ships at anchor in Oakland’s outer harbor.

Bastard. Where is he leading me? An ambush maybe, and I might be risking the girl, but...it just feels right, where other things about this client felt wrong. Who can stand to wait an extra day with no word from kidnappers? Why drop me a card instead of just phoning her office? Why not save the time of me driving to Mill Valley and just explain the situation on the untraceable prepaid phone?

Hidden elements, incidents and accidents and things left unsaid...but I was convinced there really was a child in danger. Mira hadn’t been faking that, even if some of her responses seemed off, and sometimes...sometimes the best thing to do is go for the throat, get a bulldog grip and hang on, just choke the life out of the problem.

It had worked before.

Sometimes.

So here I was, with my foot to the floor like a modern remake of Bullitt .

Exiting the Bay Bridge, the Audi took 580 northbound and accelerated to over a hundred again. I matched him easily, Molly’s tires humming and the wind rushing. I kept it in fourth, the engine revving high, a song of more than two hundred horses. Molly was so light that was all she needed.

When I crossed one hundred thirty I shifted into fifth and started to worry. Even on dry pavement, any error at this speed could be instantly fatal, and the freeway was rough and ill-maintained in spots.

Molly took it all with perfect equanimity until I had to slam on the brakes, ABS pulsing beneath my foot to avoid a damn fool who had pulled into the passing lane without clearing his rear. Instead of laying on the horn, I just swerved and blazed past him on the right at ninety, then kept going.