The 8th Confession - James Patterson [50]
“Dispatch! Any casualties?”
“Walking wounded only, Sergeant. What’s your location?”
I told Kam we were on Twin Peaks Boulevard, the top of a small mountain in the center of the city. I’d busted teenagers making out under our main radio tower on that spot, but now I was hanging on to the dashboard as Conklin screamed, “Bastard!” and sped up the insanely treacherous road lined with two-foot-high guardrails, dented where cocky drivers had gone ballistic.
We were closing in on Wallis as he began his high-speed descent toward Clayton, a snaky and steep slide that sent my guts into my throat. I clenched the microphone so hard I put fingernail marks in the plastic.
I called in our location again: we were heading into the Upper Haight, a residential area of Tudor and Victorian houses occupied by young families who lived on the genteel tree-lined streets.
A child, a woman, and a dog appeared in our windshield. I screamed, “Noooo!” Conklin leaned on the horn and the brakes, took us up on the sidewalk, our wheels flying over the curb, our siren wailing like a wounded banshee as we slammed back onto the street.
Conklin grunted. “Everything’s under control.”
Who was he kidding?
I looked behind us and saw no bodies in the street, but still my heart was airborne. Were we going to survive this joyride? Would we kill people today?
“Where is this asshole taking us?” I asked the air.
“To hell. He’s taking us to hell,” Conklin said.
Did he know?
I think he did. Somehow Conklin instinctively knew where Henry Wallis was heading.
It took me another minute to get it.
Chapter 65
I GRIPPED THE DASHBOARD, stared out as the streets blew by and we played dodge ’em with innocent bystanders, wondering if Henry Wallis was our man. Had he killed three people last week?
Had he killed a total of seven?
How many more would he kill before we stopped him?
“Hang on, Linds,” Conklin said, wrenching the steering wheel hard. We squealed onto Haight Street, where the likelihood of mowing down punks, retired flower children, old people getting in or out of their cars, was close to 100 percent.
“Haight dead-ends at Stanyan!” I shouted.
We followed the fool in the Camaro, speeding a hundred feet in front of us, sparks coming off his right rear bumper, which now dragged in the street.
Wallis still outran us because he simply didn’t care what he hit — and he refused to be boxed in. He made the right turn down Stanyan, drove nearly a block before pulling an illegal left across two lanes of traffic to go into Golden Gate Park.
The imposing Conservatory of Flowers, a giant greenhouse originally from another century, rose up on our right. I envisioned a colossal spinout in my mind, a James Bond–worthy scene of that greenhouse exploding into a trillion shards.
But Wallis skidded and avoided a crash.
I yelled, “Rich, look out!”
We followed the Camaro into a cacophony of horns and squealing tires, the bumper-car chase carrying us forward because we had no choice.
In the heart-stopping minutes we’d been on the Camaro’s tail, I hadn’t seen another cop car, marked or otherwise. I could hear sirens in the distance, but we were alone, powering our Crown Vic at warp speed, Wallis’s junker a half block ahead of us as he took the park drive toward Ocean Beach.
We drafted behind him as the terrain sloped sharply downward. Runners with dogs jumped out of the way. My God, I wanted to cover my eyes, but I couldn’t.
The boat pond was on our right, filled with seniors and kids driving remote-control ships, and then our two cars screamed past soccer fields with high-school teams standing openmouthed as we passed.
We were climbing again, the road heading straight up to Sutro Heights, almost to land’s end, when Wallis veered out of the park and onto Point Lobos Avenue, four fast-moving lanes.
As I yelled our location into the mic, Wallis took a hard left over the median strip and pointed his car like a rocket up toward the Cliff House, a landmark restaurant perched on the western edge of the continent over a rocky