The Lovely Chocolate Mob - By Richard J. Bennett Page 0,58

bit, until everybody does the right thing.”

“I’m proud of you, Walter.”

That last remark seemed to cheer him up a bit. I’m not sure I could say that I was proud of what he did, but I was happy with the conclusion he came up with, and all on his own.

“Just one more thing bugs me though, Walter.”

“What’s that, Rand?”

“That’s an awful lot of money. Are you sure you couldn’t be traced?”

“Heh! Not a chance.”

Just then a white light hit Walter’s RV, so bright we couldn’t tell from which direction it came. Everything was lit up, and Walter brought the RV to a screeching halt. The sound of helicopter rotors appeared and was getting louder, and the white light was getting even brighter.

We looked at each other, saying “the cops!” at the same time. A loud voice crackled over a loudspeaker, “Freeze! FBI! Don’t move; we have you under surveillance!”

Freeze? When anyone says that to Walter, he takes it as ‘Charge!’ or ‘Mush!’ or ‘Giddyup!’, because he floorboarded the gas and off we went. I was petrified, felt my heart and stomach sink, and yelled, “What are you doing? They’ll shoot us!” whereas Walter was yelling also, saying, “I’m not going back to the big house!” We screamed and yelled and the RV gained speed through the city streets, with the bright light following us from above. I hoped and prayed Walter wouldn’t have a wreck, and visualized us sprawled out all over the street like so much roadkill. Fortunately, it was late and there was no traffic; Walter ran stop signs and red lights, and I could see myself in handcuffs, being booked and fingerprinted and photographed, wearing orange jumpsuits and appearing in court and losing all my freedoms for the rest of my life, making license plates in the rehabilitation facilities furnished by taxpayers. This wasn’t something I wanted to experience either. I continued screaming, “Look out! Stop! Watch that pole!”

Walter came to a bridge, stopped the RV under it, and said, “Take the sewer!”

“What?”

“The sewer! Go underground!”

“What sewer?”

Walter had unbuckled himself and stepped out of the vehicle and swung open a compartment on the driver’s side.

I unbuckled and got out and ran around to see what he was doing. When he stepped back, I could see he was pulling something from the side compartment, something that looked like a bazooka.

“The sewer!” he yelled. “Look, see the manhole, go down the drain and disappear! Here, catch!” With his free hand, he had reached back into the compartment and tossed me some sort of a giant key, a manhole cover key. “Get going! Move!”

I stood there under the bridge with the key in my hand, and could see Walter was walking toward the opening, the way we had come in. He was moving into an offensive position.

I ran to where he was. “What are you going to do?” I said.

“I’m not going back! Get out of here!”

The bright light had bounced around on both sides of the bridge, and we could hear the helicopter coming back our direction, but Walter was in complete charge. This was his situation. The light and helicopter had been looking for a large object, the RV, and had searched the far end of the bridge. It was probably hovering about 70 feet high, and seemed to be circling.

The light hit me at that point, and I froze in place, staring at the big white spot. However, it then moved off me, and so I was in semi-darkness once again. The helicopter must have thought a big vehicle carried many passengers and was looking to round them all up.

“What about you?” I said.

“I’ll be all right! Move!”

That was all I needed. I ran to the man-hole cover, and, feeling around, located the hole where the big key was supposed to fit. I put the key in and gave it a heave and the cover came up. Laying the heavy lid to one side, I went down into the hole, hoping that Walter would soon follow. I heard him yell, “Pull the cover back!”

“What?”

“Pull the cover back over the hole! I’m going to make a run for it!”

“You can’t outrun a helicopter!”

“I don’t have to!” and with that Walter lifted the bazooka to his shoulder and took aim. I saw the bright light hit Walter, lighting him up for the FBI.

I dragged the manhole cover back over me and found myself completely in the dark. I was fumbling around on the wet concrete, knowing that I had