Part IV - The San Diego Caper

Part IV - The San Diego Caper   

     I’m sure there are more terrifying words than Hank saying, “I know a shortcut,” when we are going to no doubt be chased by a motorcycle assassin team and probably a few pickup trucks full of pissed off hombres. But the thought of waiting a few hours on the Mexican side of the border didn’t leave me with any good ideas. The whale of a Cadillac was rocking and rumbling down little dusty streets. Hank was turning the wheel furiously one way and then the other. 

     “I’ll try to lose them,” he said.

      I wedged myself into the front seat by pushing down on the floorboards and up on the roof. I apparently pushed a bit too hard as I felt the floorboard under my right foot give way and I could now see the road streaming past through the small openings of faded stringy carpet and rusted floorboard. I moved my left foot to prop itself agains the bump running down the center of the car.

     “Would you mind grabbing that cinder block out of the back?” Hank asked casually.

     I looked over the front bench seat. There on the floor was a three hole cement cinder block. 

     “Where did that come from?” I asked.

     “Oh I requisitioned it from the front of that cantina we were in. I thought it might come in handy.”

     “Really?” I said as I dove halfway over the seat to reach the block. I pulled it up and over the seat. It was then that I saw a motorcycle speeding toward us down the road.

     “I think we have company,” I said.

     Hank glanced in the mirror, “Uh huh. Looks like it. We’re almost there. Say, would you mind placing that block down here on the floor next to the gas pedal. We may have to make a quick exit and let the car go ahead on its own. I’m sorry we don’t have a better form of cruise control.”

     Hank cut the wheel down an alley and then turned on the street running parallel to the one we were just on.

     “Hey your heading back in the direction we just came!”

     “Yeah, that ought to confuse them. Be ready to open your door in case they jump over here a few blocks early.”

     We were running parallel to a large cement wall.

     “What’s that?” I asked.

     “The border,” said Hank.

     The road and the fence diverged.

     “Hey we’re getting farther away from the wall,” I said. It was obvious and a stupid thing to say, but when you’re stressed I’ve found; you say stupid things.

     I saw the motorcycle pop out from one of the side streets, hesitate and then head for us. “Here they come again,” I said.

     “Yup,” said Hank. “I think I see an opening.”

     The road and the fence were now a quarter of a mile apart and the gap was growing wider. The motorcycle was advancing rapidly and I saw the young man from the bar on the back lowering his revolver.

     “He’s getting ready to shoot,” I said. 

     Hank yanked the car to one side. It careened wildly and the tires squealed. “That should calm him down until he gets closer,” said Hank.

     Sure enough, the shooter had sat back down and the motorcycle was closing.

     “Here we go,” said Hank. He jerked the car off the road onto hard pack. Cacti, flew by, we were leaving a trail of dust. The car bounded up and down.

     “Crappy shocks, need struts,” said Hank. the car was heaving up and down, front to back. “Stay low, Bryce man.” Hank was steering by looking through the space between the steering wheel and the dashboard, when he looked at all. Most of the time he stayed hunched down below the seat, which was a good thing as a burst of bullets came through the top half of the car. The glass shattered into many little chunks and rained down on us.

     “Get ready with the block, I don’t know if we’ll need it or not. Sit up! Brace yourself!”

     I swiveled from where I had been huddled and shot my legs straight out and stretched my arms out to try and keep myself in one place. Before us two maybe three hundred yards away was the cement fence. There was a small gap between two sections. Could the car fit through there? I wondered.

     The more immediate problem was the flatland we had been traveling on was ending and there was a gulf, a dry riverbed that was in front of us. The car careened over the edge. The weight of the engine caused the car to go nose first toward the ground. At that moment the motorcycle went flying by Hank’s window. The driver and rider were hanging on for all they were worth. Hank opened his door but was too late to hit them. He braced himself for the impact of our landing. The engine had revved until he took his foot off the gas. The car burrowed into the side of the riverbed and then emerged in a cloud of dust. It was so dusty I couldn’t see a thing. Hank had his foot holding his door open. I heard a thud.

     “Got ‘em,” said Hank. He floored the car and it lumbered across the dry riverbed. I looked out the back of the car and saw the driver of the cycle sprawled face down. The shooter was crouched trying to line up a shot. 

     “He’s shooting again.”

     “Keep low and put that block on the gas. Jump on my signal.”

     Bullets pierced the roof. I got down on the floor and moved the block next to Hank’s foot.

     “Ready for the switch?” he asked. 

     “Ready,” I said.

     “On my signal, put that bad boy on the gas and hit the door, dump and roll. Then run.”

      “10 4.”

      “3 2 1, now!”

       Hank moved his foot and I crammed the cinderblock into place. I moved for my door. We had slowed considerably as we came up the far side of the riverbed. The Caddie was churning up dust and dirt. It’s big engine struggling with the incline. I could hear the front wrist pins grinding as the oil ran to the back of the engine. The car had slowed to twenty miles an hour. The cement wall rose up before us. There was a slight gap between its massive sections but then I noticed that the gap had a chain link fence and a giant yellow metal post blocking the way. 

     There had been a momentary hesitation in the engine’s revving between the moment Hank took his foot off the gas and I got the block in place. It was as if the old whale took a gulp before roaring upward. It was in that time that I leapt from the car and noticed the gap in the fence, and the pole. 

     I hit the ground and rolled. Finally, I got my footing and held on to the ground. I sensed our buddy, the assassin, still had it in for us. It was at that moment that the Caddie hit the chain link fence with its right bumper as the left began to climb the cement wall. Astonishingly, she kept grinding right up the cement face until the car was nearly vertical. At that moment the rear wheels came off the ground, and spun free. 

      It was a majestic sight, if only for a moment. The car seemed to halt all motion as it reached the zenith of its climb, like a whale when they leap part way out of the water to have a look around (“spyglassing” is what the whale watchers call it.) For that moment, the car, the shooter, Hank, I, and the world came to that split second when time was meaningless because nothing moved. The world and time halted as the Caddie made her last dying gasp in one magnificent pirouette. It had climbed the sturdy cement wall with its left side and had ripped the chain link fence out of the ground with its right. It held the fence in the maw of its grillwork as it spun on its back rear right corner of its bumper. The car spun into the gap, exposing its underbelly of rusty pipe, muffler, and undercarriage. It was beginning to fall when the cement wall on the other side of the gap caught its roof. The car had begun to slide backwards but now the downward force was translated into a sideways movement that began the car’s tumbling side over side down the embankment from which it had just climbed. 

      I had to run crabwalking as fast as I could to avoid the rolling car with the chain link fence wrapped in its grill. The car rolled past me and I could feel the air being whipped as the chain link fence twisted past. With each roll the fence hit the ground making a loud Whump sound. Clutching the ground, because the ravine was so steep I looked over my shoulder to see the shooter at the bottom of the slope. He had been taking aim at me but then he saw the car rolling toward him, his eyes got big - really big - and he ran to avoid the twisting metal, but he wasn’t quite fast enough. A tendril of chain link fence reached out and ensnared his waist, picking him up with ease and tossing him, like a wind swept tornado, into the air and casting him onto the dust dirt beyond.

     All was calm. The car lay on its roof gasping its last. The engine still running. The wheels turning. The engine belched and a cloud of black smoke came out from under the hood, followed by white. It had surrendered to its fate. The shooter lay on the ground, He wasn't moving.

     “I don’t think we should stay here admiring the view,” yelled Hank from some hundred and fifty feet away. “I, as your attorney, would advise you to head with all due speed to the opening I have created for you to the U S of A.”

     With that we crawled and pulled ourselves up to the opening and rolled through, happy to be alive.

     It was then that we saw the man with the shotgun.