The Undertaker

We reached the concrete barrier as the shrill sound of still more police sirens came screaming in behind us. I remembered seeing grainy news footage in school about the 1968 Democratic Convention. Hairy-knuckled Chicago cops in baby-blue riot helmets, short-sleeved shirts, nightsticks, German Shepherds snarling, cameras and hand-held floodlights bouncing, as the cops chased longhaired hippies through Grant Park on a hot summer night. I was sure the Chicago Police Department had changed a lot in forty years, but there was no way I was going to stop and plead the subtleties of my case to an angry cop with a riot gun. The last of those 1968 Neanderthals may have retired years ago, but if the LA cops are any example, the new generation was even worse. We ran across the remaining grass, climbed on top of the first concrete barrier, and looked down on the mid-morning traffic racing past us, thick and fast.

“Who was the idiot who thought this one up?” Sandy asked as three lanes of cars whizzed by us at sixty-five miles per hour, weaving, changing lanes, and honking.

“You are. You wanted to come along, remember?” There was no turning back now. “Pretend it's touch football,” I screamed over the loud roar of the traffic. “We're going to run between them and you don't want to get touched.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Koo-bee Bryant hits a trey…

As we stood on the divider, about to begin our mad dash out into traffic, I looked back over my shoulder. Tinkerton's blue LTD came careening sideways down the slope at us, digging itself axel deep into the mud until it slid to a halt behind the Lincoln. Tinkerton sat behind the wheel and one of his goons rode shotgun. In their case, the goon probably did have a shotgun, but I tried not to think about that. When Tinkerton spotted us standing on the expressway barrier, he pounded his fist on the steering wheel in angry frustration.

“You know, you have a real talent for pissing people off,” Sandy quipped.

“Years of practice, honed to a fine edge,” I fired back as I took a firm grip on her hand. “Stay with me, one lane at a time.” I turned and searched the onrushing flow of northbound traffic for a break, but I didn't see much of one.

“Now!” I yelled as I jumped off the barrier and ran between a black BMW and a big moving van, and stopped on the first white line. An Atlas Van Lines eighteen-wheeler roared behind us and tight line of cars swept past in front of us, horns blaring, buffeting us with their back drafts. Four cars later, I saw another break coming and squeezed her hand again. “Now!” We sprinted in front of a red Dodge mini-van with a wide-eyed soccer mom behind the wheel, through a gap in the third lane, and jumped up on the relative safety of the next concrete divider that separated the local lanes from the express lanes.

“What a hoot!” Sandy screamed as she clutched her leather shoulder bag to her chest with one hand and me with the other. “God, they ought to put this on “The X-Games”, Talbott,” she said as we wobbled precariously on the divider.

“You wouldn't listen, would you?”

“What fun would that be?” She grinned from ear to ear.

Up ahead, a four-car El train pulled out of the station on the southbound tracks, taking most of the waiting passengers with it. Behind us, Tinkerton and the goon had gotten out of the LTD and were standing on the other side of the first divider, three lanes away, pointing at us, screaming. Two Chicago cops ran up next to him, pistols out, with expressions of total confusion. No doubt, they had never been in a high-speed chase quite like this one. Without a whole lot of thought, I smiled at Tinkerton and flipped him the bird, holding my finger high over my head. That completely unhinged him. His face turned red and he looked ready to have a stroke right then and there. He ripped a large automatic pistol from his shoulder holster and took aim at me. He would have shot me too, if one of the Chicago cops hadn't pulled his arm down.

“That's real smart,” Sandy shouted. “Why don't you get him good and pissed?”

“He didn't shoot did he?”

“Not because he didn't want to.”

I could almost read the cop's lips as he yelled at Tinkerton and pointed at the cars whizzing by on the freeway. I doubt it was compassion or concern for us that motivated the cop. More likely, it was the mountains of paperwork and the lawsuits he'd find himself buried in if Tinkerton missed and hit the wrong people. Frustrated and even angrier, Tinkerton surprised me by climbing over the divider and following us out into the fast-moving local lanes. He still had the gun in his hand, but at least it wasn't pointed at us. His goon followed, most unhappy about it, and the two Chicago cops took up the rear.

“I don't know about you.” Sandy's hand tightened on mine. “But I don't want to share this divider with anybody that big and angry, especially not one with a gun. Let's go.”