The Los Angeles River (red COFFEE Chapter 15)

It was getting onto midnight, and I was driving at break neck speed following a white line gleaming in the darkness. I was tailing a motorcycle and it left a white line from the tires running over concrete powder. There were only three problems: One, the white line was getting thinner and weaker, two, I had just stolen a police car, and; three, I was driving well above the speed limit, and I never drove a car before. All I could do was try to imitate the way cabbies drove whenever I rode them.

The white line looked like a ghost trail and dwindled to a few drops, but my quarry was ahead of me, a red Indian motorcycle. He must have seen me in his rear view mirror, because he picked up a broken piece of asphalt and smashed the chained lock holding a gate. He then kicked open the gate and drove down the ramp that led to the Glendale Narrows, the entrance to the Los Angeles River. VRRROOM>>>

I hit the brakes a little too hard and almost flew out the windshield. I’m going to have to tap the brakes a little softer next time. I looked down the ramp and saw him riding down to the river and I guess I had to follow him. Nuts!

The Los Angeles River is hardly a river, and least not certain parts of it because it’s bone dry and a wide stretch of concrete channeling clear across Los Angeles County. What I had ahead of me was the task of pursuing Shep the Scarecrow down a long concrete channel that runs for miles and has no connection to city streets unless you drive up a ramp that appears every few miles. So it was basically just him and me isolated from anyone nearby.

I drove down the ramp very carefully, almost steering off the steep ramp. This was my first time behind the wheel and I wanted to get the killer before I killed myself with bad driving.

As soon as I reached the surface of the river Shep the Grinning Scarecrow was gone by a few miles. He tore out as quickly as he could, so I stomped my foot on the accelerator and raced after him. The car occasionally slipped and slided around the road as there was still a weak trail of water running down the river, so while I was in hot pursuit the car would jerk in weird ways.

While I was racing down the river the radio dispatcher called over the police radio like some broadcast from Hell. “KGPL, Car 4DO68, please copy, over?” a man’s voice calmly requested over crackling distorted transmission. “KGPL, Car 4DO68, you have been called in as abandoned and/or stolen, please copy”. Either Detective Braintree or Lt. Sparta must have already called in the car as missing.

I caught up closer and closer to The Grinning Scarecrow and he leaned over behind to look at me and the slashed smile painted for a mouth on his mask was leering at me. He gave me a taunting look under that mask and I swore I heard him yell, “COME ON GIRL, COME GET ME!” GGGRRRRRWWWWW>>>The motorcycle growled ahead of me. I then made the biggest mistake ever; I thought it would be clever to take the car and spin it around in front of him and corner him against the wall. I got a little ahead of him and then spun the wheel to close him in and my wheels spun, I lost control of the steering wheel and the car slammed into the wall of the river. It was I who was now stuck.

GGGGGRRRRRWWWWWWW>>>>>The Grinning Scarecrow slowed his cycle down and scratched his chin thoughtfully as I revved the engine trying to pry myself out of the wall. I pumped and pumped the pedal but the engine as flooded. The auto groaned and coughed trying to get itself started. “Come on come on come on come on help me”, I whispered. The radio crackled and beeped loudly in my ear. In the rear view mirror I could see The Grinning Scarecrow pulling out a medium sized scythe out of his saddle bag and advancing towards me.

“Hell, this is too good!” he chuckled and clucked to himself. His grotesque grinning mask loomed larger and larger by my window until he jumped on top of my hood and began slamming the scythe into the windshield. BAMBANGBAM! As he beat against the windshield he cursed and screamed. “Open up the door, bitch, and accept your punishment!”

BAMBANGBAM! “I killed the money changers and now I’m going to kill The Queen Whore!” He beat away at the windshield which was cracking under his demolition. I stopped pumping for a few beats and then hit the accelerator. VRROOO>>>>The car reversed from the wall, sending Shep spinning off the hood, dropping his scythe, his head hitting the pavement.

“I’m way out of my league, I’d better just look for a cop nearby and get out of this lousy pit”, I said, looking for a ramp that would get me out of the river. I drove down the concrete river looking from side to side to find an exit out. I don’t know what came over me, you can call it exhaustion, maybe shock, but as I drove down the river I saw dark figures of dead men in tuxedos hanging from trees. Some of them looked like photographs of the victims they showed me at the police station. Contorted faces of strung-up millionaires flashed by me as I drove quickly down the river.

The radio continued to crackle, feed back and squeak at an ear- piercing volume. . “KGPL, Car 4DO68, please copy, over?” The dispatcher’s voice sounded a littler more impatient this time. GGGRRRWWWWWW! A growling motorcycle noise overcame the sound of the radio, and for good reason. The Grinning Scarecrow was now pursuing me! Leaning over his bike with scythe in one hand, he began pounding on my rear fender, banging it and bending it.

He finally overcame me and beat on my windows, cracking them. I drove faster and faster, but it didn’t help. I helplessly watched him shatter the windshield and my vision was distorted from the broken glass. The he did something I didn’t count on: he took his scythe and chopped my right front tire.

The car spun out of control and I hit the brakes, which only made the car spin around even worse. The tire hissed and the car flipped several times until it landed upside down. My head banged against the steering wheel and I almost fainted from the blow. Smoke was pouring out of the hood and I was afraid of being trapped in a flaming automobile so I crawled out from my window.

I heard the motorcycle stop and The Grinning Scarecrow slowly unmounted his bike with the scythe held behind his shoulders. The blow from the steering wheel made me fade in and out of consciousness, so I had to fight to stay alert. “Reckon I never did any butcherin’ but there’s a first time for everything”, he mumbled as he ambled towards me.

He stood several feet ahead of me with his scythe ready to attack as I lay on the ground in my black wings. He came closer until he stood above me. “Too bad you got such a pretty face as I see I’m gonna have to chop it clean off your head. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. No more hangings, just chop y’all up”.

I reached down to my breasts. “That won’t work, lady. Once a whore, always a whore”, he spat, and then lifted his scythe to kill me. “Zero in on one object - just like an eagle, Lois”, I heard someone say. So I pulled out the Colt .45 taped inside my bra and shot straight into the smile on The Grinning Scarecrow’s mask. The last thing I heard was noise from the car radio. THKSQKTITCHSKRL!....

Then everything went black.