“You shoot, Damn Baca. Go ahead, kill de actor, I not care!”
It was too risky. Carl backed down the Sunset Strip dragging Bob backward as cars slowed and watched. One of them hissed at us, “What’s the name of this movie? Looks good.” He gave us a thumbs up and drove down the street.
I stalked Carl with the film crew following me. Carl reached the front door of Siberia and opened it. So, that’s where he’d been since the explosion. Somehow, he’d made it all the way here. He closed the door and locked it, then I heard a heavy weight slide against the door.
I said, “Call Nine One One, tell them what’s happening,” and I put my Glock in the shoulder holster to wait for the negotiating team to arrive. The only problem was, Carl wasn’t going to give us that much time.
Everyone heard Bob’s scream. It was long and high-pitched, full of pain. People behind me moaned, “Oh God, oh God...”
I ran past them to Shamu and started her up, then spun tires as I backed into the Sunset Strip amid squealing rubber and honking horns. The set people saw what I was doing and they ran into traffic, stopping cars. I pulled my Glock and put it on the seat by me as I circled the big Ford across the lanes in an arc and came around with the grill and dorsal fin headed straight for Siberia’s front door.
I held onto the wheel as Shamu burst through the door and careened across the floor. I caught a glimpse of Carl standing in the middle of the dance floor holding Bob. Shamu was still motoring and I rammed the bar, knocking it into splinters, then felt the big iron-pipe bumper smack hard into the rack of aqua-lung thingees below the barrel of secret ingredients and everything exploded into gray snow and hissing smoke.
I felt beside me, but couldn’t find the Glock. I searched the floorboard and under the seat, groping frantically. I grabbed change, an air freshener, a half-full box of magnums and a fly swatter, but couldn’t find the pistol. I heard Bob grunt in pain, so I hopped out of the door and straight into a nightmare. There was a gray snowstorm inside Siberia.
It took me a second to realize the aqua-lung thingees had ruptured and exploded, blasting the Tunguska’s secret ingredients into the air like movie snow. The tanks hissed, shooting vapor into the air like a dozen fire extinguishers. The flakes of Tunguska were whirling and swirling like a heavy blizzard. I had an inch of it on my hair and clothes and the flakes were so thick I couldn’t help breathing it in. My entire body inside and out was tingling and hot-cold. My eyes watered and burned. I felt like I’d inhaled half the comet.
I heard coughing and walked toward the noise, but didn’t make them out until I felt the edge of the dance floor with my toe. Bob was on his knees and Carl towered over him like a colossus. I stepped onto the dance floor, ready to take Rakes on if it would give Bob time to escape.
Rakes made a funny noise, like a snort and a gurgle at the same time. I stepped closer and saw he was holding his own throat with his good hand and his face changed colors as I watched.
Bob crawled toward me and I helped him to his feet. We both looked at Carl. The Russian shook his head back and forth and foam leaked out of the corners of his mouth like he’d eaten a handful of alka-seltzers.
He looked at us. His one good eye was as red as a cut tomato and the lids were swelling. He gasped, “Breathe...Help.”
I didn’t know about Bob, but I wasn’t going to help him. We watched Carl drop to his knees and roll on his side, his lungs wheezing. His breath whistled in different octaves as he thrashed around trying to take in air, and the notes were as loud as a kid’s plastic flute. In another minute, he rolled on his back, let out one small sigh and was still. The flakes covered him in a gray shroud until he looked like a fresh-made paper mache mummy.
Bob still had shaving cream on his face, but it was thick with flakes. I pointed at it and he wiped it off with his shirttail, then we walked outside to the cheers of the set people and forty or fifty Japanese tourists, each with three or four cameras around their necks and another one in their hands as they snapped away.
The police arrived ten minutes later and we again answered questions, but Bob was a professional and he cut the statements short and told them he had an obligation to fulfill and they could take all the statements they wanted after filming had wrapped. They said okay and let us walk away. A-list actors, I tell you.
They cleaned Bob up like new, but I was too tired and told them I’d get through this and clean up at my office. We moved a block down Sunset and set up again. The shoot went perfect and Bob did twenty-two takes, each one a little different and each one I thought was perfect. At the wrap I had the cutie-from-Salinas’ phone number and got a ride home from Bob. I called on Bob’s car phone as he drove and told the body shop repairman where to find my truck. He laughed when he hung up.
I shook Bob’s hand when he dropped me off and he said he’d stay in touch. The hospital had released Hondo, and he was at the office. He, Arch, and Waylon were waiting inside when I opened the door. They all pointed at the thick crust of gray stuff on my head and clothes.
Arch said, “Haw! Worst case of dandruff I ever saw.”
“You need to work on your routine, Arch, it’s not funny.” Well, that brought another round of hoots from both Archie and Waylon.
Hondo leaned back in his chair and said, “We saw it on the news. They filmed it all and even played the ‘Jaws’ theme when you drove Shamu in a circle and crashed through the door.”
Waylon said, “Yeah, you guys must be pretty important because they broke into the middle of a Bonanza rerun to tell us about it.”
Archie slapped his thigh and snickered. “They don’t do that for just anybody.”
I went to my desk and plopped into the chair, sending a cloud of gray dust and flakes into the air. In a couple of seconds, all three of them were sneezing and rubbing their eyes.
I put my hands behind my head, “It’s good to be back,” I said.
~~***~~
Thanks for reading Baca, the first story in the Ronny Baca Mystery series. I hope you enjoyed it.
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