“What’s the plan?” asked Sutter.
“Let’s ask a few neighbors, to see if he’s around.” Tasker surveyed the street. “You take this one and I’ll go next door.” He pointed at the two small houses sitting in front of them.
“You crazy? These rednecks’ll think I’m here to do their lawn or that I’m a home invader. You ask, I’ll wait.”
“You’re a racist. Give these people a chance. I’ve found that no one wants a criminal living next to them. They’ll talk to us.”
“Okay, Saint Bill, you follow me while I ask, we’ll see who’s crazy.”
The house next door had a wraparound porch and a small putting green for a front yard. Sutter walked to the door while Tasker stood near the carport, where a three-year-old Buick LeSabre sat. In truth, Sutter really hadn’t had much experience with neighborhoods like this. In the City, areas were bad or ritzy. Nothing in-between. The funny thing was that the bad areas only had a few bad people. Most everyone else treated him, and even the cops in general, pretty good. It was the rich people who were a pain in the ass, always demanding things and treating the cops like servants. This was like a foreign land to him in the south county, with all the trees and plants and pickup trucks.
An elderly lady, so small she may have been a midget, came to the screen door but didn’t open it. Before Sutter could identify himself or ask anything, she said, “No, I have someone cut my grass already.”
Sutter threw a look over to Tasker. He turned back to her. “No, ma’am”-he pulled out his badge-“I just wanted to ask you a few questions.”
The woman gasped and stepped back. “I’m calling the police.”
“I am the police.”
“There is nothing here worth taking.” She put her hand on her chest like she was feeling faint.
Sutter shook his head. “Lady, I’m not a criminal. Here, look.” He motioned Tasker to the door. “I brought my own white man.”
As soon as the old lady saw Tasker, she calmed down and stepped back to the door. She eyed them carefully.
Tasker said, “I’m Bill Tasker with the State Police. We were wondering if we could ask you a few questions.”
The lady sighed and said, “Oh, why yes, of course. What do you want to know?”
Sutter said, “Well, first off, how come I show you a badge and you think I’m a robber, but he just says he’s with the police and you believe him?”
“Because you’re black.”
Sutter was shocked, then a little amused. In this world of political correctness gone bad, this lady just told him the truth. That was better for his soul than all the lying store clerks and lawyers and politicians who said one thing and did another.
The old lady added, “I’m sorry, son. I just don’t see many colored police officers down here. I was wrong.”
Sutter could’ve kissed the old lady. She was honest and admitted she was wrong. Maybe these old, ignorant rednecks weren’t so bad after all.
After a few minutes they learned all they needed about Mr. Anthony Mule. He pronounced it Mule-lay, with an accent on the e. He lived alone. Didn’t talk to the neighbors much. Was up all night and quiet all day. She didn’t think he left the house too much but he had a fair number of visitors. He had an old van and sometimes carried surfboards around in the van.
Armed with that information, Sutter and Tasker decided a quiet recon was the way to go. They split up and eased around the outside of Mule’s home, peeking in windows where possible and looking for signs of life.
Sutter noticed one window-mounted air conditioner running in the rear bedroom. Tasker found a beat-up Ford van with two surfboards crammed inside behind the house. They concluded it was a good bet the fugitive was asleep in the back bedroom.
Sutter said, “What’s your policy say? Call in SWAT, alert the locals, write up a plan, call the media and wait for the guy to come out?”
“Funny. I’d usually knock, but this guy won’t come to the door.”
“Let’s try the kitchen door. If he ain’t home, we lock it back up and come back another time.”
Tasker nodded his head in agreement.
The rickety old door popped out at the bottom and was missing a couple of jalousies in the middle. The handle was unlocked, but a bolt held it near the top of the door. Without hesitation, Sutter popped out a spring-loaded knife and slid it up the crack of the door jamb. In less than three seconds, the door was open and they were inside the hot, musty old house. The smell of cheap homegrown pot hung in every inch of the house. All the interior doors were open but one. The one with an air conditioner.
Sutter thought that once inside the house, it didn’t look all that different from a house in Liberty City. A cheesy felt painting of a matador hung on the living room wall, an old TV with rabbit-ear antennas sat in front of an old sofa. People were people.
They crept down the hall to the closed door. At the door, Tasker tried the handle quietly. When he was about to go in, they heard a toilet flush and looked at each other. It didn’t sound like it came from inside the room. Behind them a wide man with dark hair, wearing only a pair of gym shorts, opened a bathroom door and stepped into the hallway. His eyes were half closed and hair stuck out in wild designs, even the thick hair on his back. He looked up, opened his bloodshot eyes and without warning darted down the hallway toward the rear door. On his way, he hopped up and yanked on a string hanging from the ceiling. A set of attic stairs swung to the floor, blocking the entire hallway.
Too late, Tasker yelled, “Police! Don’t move!” The two cops rushed down the hallway, Sutter throwing his weight into the stairs to get them up and Tasker scrambling below them. By the time they reached the kitchen, Mule was out the back and streaking across the sandy yard to a detached garage.
Tasker repeated, “Police! Don’t move!”
Sutter added, “You’re dead meat, redneck.”
Instinctively they both paused at the garage, not wanting to rush into a waiting gun. As they stood on either side of the door with pistols drawn, Sutter reached over and shoved it hard so it would swing open, giving them a clear view of the interior. When the door reached the end of its arc, Sutter heard a click, and then his world became a confused tapestry of sound and dirt.
The single window blew out with an orange haze of fire behind it and the door swung closed so hard it splintered. Tasker flew back into the yard and Sutter was knocked off his feet. It took five seconds of clearing smoke and settling debris for him to realize they had set off an explosive booby trap.
Tasker was up quick. “You okay? You okay?”
Sutter nodded, pushing himself up slowly. Tasker was off around the back. When Sutter slowly made it to the side of the garage, his ears ringing, he could see his partner chasing the still-shirtless Mule across the wide-open field. Trees lined the end of the field where the next road cut in. Tasker was going to have to pick it up if he expected to catch that guy.
Bill Tasker gasped for breath as he closed the gap on the fleeing fugitive. He always seemed to get winded in a foot chase, no matter how much he trained, but this time he attributed a lot of it to the fact that the explosion had scared the living shit out of him. Making matters worse was the uneven ground on the weed-ridden field. He yelled at Mule a couple of times and even thought about firing a shot into the ground to scare him, but then decided to rely on his own aerobic ability to wear the fugitive down.
Tasker was careful as he closed the gap, because he saw that Mule now had an army green bag with a shoulder strap slung over his hairy shoulder. Had this moron picked up a gun? The question was answered when Mule, without breaking stride, pulled something from the bag, fiddled with it and threw it straight up in the air. Tasker slowed and watched the small cylinder hit the ground. A loud, gut-jarring explosion blew up weeds and sand where the object had hit.