A Different Drummer

The mood at KSAC was somber with the announcement that Sacramento’s mayor would not be running for re-election due to the resurgence of his cancer. The staff at the radio station walked around like zombies. The courier from the FBI field office sat outside Studio A reading The Sacramento Bee. The front page was plastered with pictures of the mayor’s stunning successes and miserable failures. From time to time, the courier would sigh and shake his head in disbelief at the tragedy.

Big John, the sound engineer, walked towards the courier with a sealed package containing a tape of all the phone calls made to the radio station during Sierra’s broadcast, and handed it over. Sierra watched Big John sign the courier’s chain of custody log, and then the courier left the building.

The last two weeks had been relatively calm since the accident. Kevin Fuji had been moved to a safe house to complete his recovery and protect him from his assailant. Sierra and Louis spent every night together until Libbie returned from Hawaii, tanned and exuberant, with tales of pineapple farm tours and spending endless days in the sparkling turquoise waters of the Pacific Ocean.

Sierra finally met Paige, and it had been one of those life experiences she could have lived without. Paige greeted her with a disapproving eye and a cold handshake, bristling with jealousy at Libbie’s openhearted, warm embrace. Upon Paige’s departure, Sierra overheard her comment to Louis, "I hope you don’t plan on having her stay overnight when Libbie’s in the house."

Sierra frowned at the memory. It wasn’t like she was a floozy, involved with Louis in some sleazy, torrid affair. They had a commitment.

She left a note for J.D., straightened the console and put her belongings in her backpack. She walked to her locker, stashed her supply of magazines, a copy of Dean Koontz’s Midnight, and an untouched Snickers bar, then grabbed her car keys and headed out of the radio station.

The parking garage was stuffy. She unlocked her car and inhaled a blast of moist air as she opened the door. She rolled the windows down, tossing her backpack onto the passenger seat. While the car aired out, she closed her eyes and listened to the clippity-clop of a passing horse-drawn carriage and ragtime jazz floating up from Front Street. A feeling of sadness overwhelmed her. She tried concentrating on just the sounds around her, instead of the feelings inside. Her meditation was interrupted when she heard footsteps in the distance.

Parking spaces on the uppermost floor of the garage were reserved for the radio station and businesses from the other floors of the building. A law office with three associates; a paralegal and one secretary; a CPA and his partner; and the administrative staff from the comedy club were all gone. Employees from a small boutique operated by a crystal-worshipping New Age hippie and her gay assistant were also long gone. The four cars parked close to the sloped opening that led to the lower floors were her co-workers. She turned, looking for a familiar face, and saw no one.

Keys jingled in the distance. Her heart quickened. Since the accident her caller had decreased the frequency of his torment, leaving her with a false sense of security. An increasing and overwhelming urge to get the hell out of the lonely garage prompted her to jump into her car. She started the 240Z. Another car started. She locked her door, strapped her seatbelt snugly and threw the 240Z into reverse.

Pushing the clutch in, she put the car in first gear and left a trail of rubber as she quickly descended to the next lower level of the garage. As she shifted to second gear, she heard but couldn’t see, tires squealing from another car as it descended the garage somewhere behind her.

Sierra had driven the 240Z for thirteen years, knew every nuance of the vehicle and how to get the most of the dual Webber carburetors sitting on top of the surprisingly powerful six-cylinder engine. The Z was in immaculate condition; babied from the moment her mother turned it over to her care on her sixteenth birthday. Rainier wanted acting lessons; she wanted to impress boys with her hot little sports car.

She shifted the car to third gear as she reached the lowest level of the garage, her plastic parking permit between her teeth, ready to open into the unmanned gate that loomed a hundred feet ahead of her at the exit on Front Street. She floored the accelerator, whining third gear, then hit the clutch and brake at the same time, and came to a screeching stop. She pushed the plastic card into the time clock on the gate. Simultaneously she shifted to first gear, pulled the card out and hit the accelerator. The gate just missed the windshield as she turned left on Front Street and headed for the Tower Bridge.

Dusk had settled over Sacramento. Central Valley haze blocked the sunset from its full glory, forcing drivers to turn on their headlights. A car trailed her out of the garage, one of those luxury jobs with eerie blue headlights.

Sierra mumbled to herself, glancing in the rear view mirror, "Rosie, you’re just depressed, no one is following you." But maybe not. As she made her way south, the headlights followed. She knew a late model Japanese import or an overpriced European luxury model was behind her. There weren’t that many cars with those expensive H.I.D. lights.

She revved the 240Z, passed a horse-drawn carriage, cut right and pulled onto the Tower Bridge. She hit the accelerator and was doing sixty in nothing flat. She took the West Capitol Avenue exit off the bridge into West Sacramento.

The car following her was too far back and missed seeing her take the exit. She could see the car slow, and then speed up again when the driver realized she was on a street that paralleled the bridge. She floored the 240Z, tapped the brakes lightly at the stop sign at the end of the exit and cranked a hard left onto West Capitol Avenue.

Sierra decided against driving to the new West Sacramento Police Department. In order to get there, she had to drive through unfamiliar streets that put her in a seedier part of town. Weighing the outcome of a confrontation with the person following her against mingling with drug dealers and prostitutes, she took a chance and headed for motel row. She pulled into the Harbor View Motel, parked between two big rigs and left her engine idling.

A hooker came up to her car and knocked on her windshield, "Hey Baby, you wanna do the girlie thang?"

Oh God, oh God, oh God. Sierra leaned out her window, "No, no. I’m not lookin’ for fun; I’m runnin’ from my man. Did anyone pull in the lot after me?"

"There’s a Lexus cruised by twice." The hooker could see Sierra was upset especially when, seconds later, the Lexus pulled into the parking lot. "You want me to do him?"

Sierra nodded, "You do whatever you want, just keep him busy till I can get the hell out of here." She handed the hooker a twenty-dollar bill and slumped down in the seat.