Chapter 31. Captured

I tried to explain, “No, Casey was dead when we got here.”

"I went for a jog. Casey was fine when I left. When I got back you were here playing doctor with Larry.”

“Why do you blame me? Yuri must’ve been here too.”

“Yeh, you’re right. It’s all happening at once. I’m sorry Crash. I wonder if all this is worth it.

It was that question again, “Was what worth it?”

I could’ve been coming down off the surge of adrenaline… a memory was triggered…. of another time… the way her studio filled in a huge blank spot from Saigon. The woman in an Ao Dai from the temple… the child… the monk… the package at the gate… Choppers… buzzards circling… the thought frightened me and that fear was about hope being denied. I didn’t know what I had been hoping… hope is a risky venture because it’s too easy to fill it in with wishful thinking… making up the reality of the past. I had to have a second opinion, “Ryan knows something. Right? He knows who she was to me. Was what worth what?”

April 30^th, 1975. The blanks filled in… I had been with the woman before… the woman at the gate.

“I will bring her to you. Go to the Embassy. You wait there. I’ll be there.” We embraced. It was a kiss. I swam in the despair of the memory… it was a whiteout… lovers? Yes, maybe.

Anna’s voice broke through the veil of time and brought me back to the boat, “You’re angry at me?”

“No, I took a child to safety… well, yes. Not at you. I left her mother in Saigon.”

“Her mother? What are you talking about? Are you having a flashback?” her voice was distant.

“No… a memory. I had to leave her.”

I saw Larry pick up the bloodied wrench he'd dropped on the deck and take it in the cabin. I didn’t think anything of it. My mind was too fucked-up with the memory Anna’s comment had sparked. I turned my back to the cabin.

“Crash… Crash! Please… please, forgive me.”

I was sweating, “What, forgive what?”

“Forgive me Crash… I thought you… No, Larry!”

It must have hurt when it happened but I had no memory of it… only the swollen bruise on back of my head when the pain brought me back. Larry? That fucker.

Consciousness opening and closing like automatic doors. Arguments in the back of a fog.

“I had to do it. Leave him here.”

“No, Smerdyakov will kill him.”

“Can't you see? It's a lost cause. Better him than me.”

Sounds of a struggle… crashing… banging… not a gun. In and out of it…

Anna’s voice, “Larry, I’ll kill you.”

I came to with the sound her voice, “Wake up Crash… oh damn it, wake up. I’m sorry. I didn't think he'd...”

She was but a blur. The knot on my noggin screamed pain louder than the sound of tires out of sight on gravel. Car doors opened and slammed. Voices... radio… 

I busied myself with commands, “Larry, stay put and get down! Anna, cover where you dumped the bike.”

I didn't get a good look at her before she slipped out over the gunnel and said, “Larry’s not here. C'mon, I’ll cover for you, get out!”

I followed, saying, “What do you mean, he’s not here?”

“I’m sorry. I lost him. He’s gone to Smerdyakov.”

We spread out. I took to the tall grass on one side. She to the bush on the other. We were both in good ambush positions.

I could hear a police radio… police? I crawled closer to the sound… are they real cops? “Five-four-A… missing boat’s in the area. Code eight… wait for backup.”

A uniformed cop stood by his car… a Yolo County Sheriff. I had him lined-up for a shot when a second and third squad car pulled up. The second opened the back door to a snarling German Shepherd dragging a K-9 cop from the other end of a tight leash. The officers, guns at ready, cautiously approached the direction of the Dinky Dao and one stood-by at his vehicle. “Suspect armed and dangerous…”

The rookie… voice excited, nervous… between Cujo’s barks, asked the older officer, “What’s this?”

“Not sure… Minnow Mountie called it in.”

“Minnow, what…?”

“Fish and game. Gun shots”

False report. There were never any gun shots… were there? Oh, yeah, the one I put in Yuri's brain pan.

The K-9 officer saw movement from Anna’s direction in the bush, “Come out with hands up or I’ll fuckin’ Cujo your ass!”

Anna came out of the bush stripped down near naked, scratched up… face looked bruised or could've been muddied, hands raised, "You're looking for Spawnn, not us!"

The Cujo-cop asked,"Spawnn? who's Spawnn?"

The older officer covered Anna's near nakedness with a blanket. I had never seen her look so pathetic? I saw lots of her skin only a few minutes before… before I was out of it… no bruises or scratches then. Larry did that? Confused, I relaxed the trigger finger and hesitated. I hoped these were real cops and not Bratva punks. 

"Over there!"

The officer unleashed the dog without further warning. I wasn’t about to stand. I knew the situation was tense enough that they’d all open-up with a barrage of fire on me if I did. I curled up and let the dog do its job. Ole Cujo was good… had my gun hand at just the right spot of my wrist... Yanked and yanked ‘til the Browning dropped from it. They piled on me in that second with batons swinging.

The rest of the squad was already in the boat. One called out from inside the cabin, “We have a couple ten-seven-eights… Two male victims… deceased. A live one detained. Beat up pretty bad too.”

They clasped on four-point restraints and yanked me to stand. The boys began beating me with batons. A groin kick knocked me face down to the ground. It was only after the boys were done venting, with no part of my body left unbruised and bloody, that I was tucked into the back of a squad car from where I could see Larry brought out of the bush looking beat to shit and escorted to another car that sped off without waiting around for the usual questioning.

The Rookie was excited, "The EMT's here for her."

The older cop told the rookie, “This asshole’s torn up good too. Better call in one for him.”

“For what he done to her? Fuck him. Let him bleed.” Rookie chortled gleefully.

In a very strange way I was pleased the punk felt that way about my Anna and that Ryan, wherever he was, would take the ball from here. I was done.

The officers hauling me were talking cop talk. Rookie snorted, “An APB was out for the perp a while ago.”

The ole-man knew they’d dodged more than one bullet that day, “No one got hurt, that’s the main thing.”

I knew, he knew, what Rookie was going through… false bravado… the nervous chatter… not letting anyone in on the fact that he was ready to die a few minutes before. Even experienced cops go through this at every gun related call… just don’t know who’s going home and who’s zipped up in a body bag for the meat locker.

Rookie turned to eye me up, “You didn’t cry or nothin’, Mr. Kraszhinski. They usually whelp and holler like hell when we soften ‘em up like that. You wanna smoke?”

“Sure, thanks.”

The smirk on his face reeked condescension, “Sorry about that. No fucking smokin’ in a squad car, asshole.”

“That’s okay. I quit a while ago anyway, my friend.”

“I ain’t your friend, got that?”

“Knock it off, kid, this guy could’ve smoked us all from what I hear. Ain’t that right Mr. Kraszhinski?”

“It’s okay guys. I get it. Check with the SBPD, Detective Ryan. I’m his C.I. on this case.”

The older cop looked me over, “Oh so, you’re from Santa Barbara? Nice town… restaurants, eh? Some guy from there… fuckin’-A. They warned us you could be trouble.”

Then he informed the rookie to show he knew what he was talking about more so than to tell me, “C.I., but not a Confidential Informant. Army C.I. Counter Intelligence, in the bush, huh? I was in Nam and saw what you fuckers could do. Well, from what I saw in the morgue… I can see that you still have a talent.”

 Damn. He knew who I was and was trying to turn me against Ryan… Ryan must've warned them for their own protection but not to take me down. They were treating me like a suspect; more than a person of interest and playing the ole’ good cop/bad cop routine. I knew that I would sound like a mad man if I tried to explain. That is, if they were real cops. So, I shut up. I also knew enough to know there’s no arguing with cops or trying to impress them with who and what you know. They get that B.S. from drunks and punks all the time.

I managed to slip out of the cuffs before the ambulance arrived but I still had ankle restraints to get out of. Fuckers caught me, I Panicked, I struggled harder against a half dozen uniforms but was strapped down onto a gurney. My arm was held down as an IV shunt was shoved into place… sounds of radios and cops barking muffled into a the mists of consciousness. I slipped into the Bardo between here and now. I was going away… I struggled to stay awake ‘til I cared no more… gone away, it was Anna’s and Ryan’s fight from here on.