fuckin? writing.”
As I headed for the door a new figure loomed in my path. It was the cop with the waffle-iron features.
“We didn?t have a chance to get acquainted last night,” he said. “I?m Kite Lange.”
“Jake Kilmer.”
“I?m a good wire man,” he said. “You need anything wired, you call me, okay? I can bug a fly in
motion right in front of your face, you wouldn?t see me do it.”
“Terrific.”
“I?m not bragging,” he said, and his battered features broke into a smile. “It?s a God-given talent.”
“And I?m sure you don?t abuse it,” I said.
“Not unless somebody asks me to,” said Kite, then he added, “I hear you were in Nam.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“When was that?”
“„67, „68. I got held up coming home by Tet.”
“What outfit?”
“Military intelligence. How about you?”
“Medevac chopper pilot,” he said.
“How many missions did you fly?” I asked.
“You?d throw up ill told you.”
I hesitated for a moment before asking him the next question, but I figured, what the hell. I was
getting to be one of the boys.
“Mind if I ask you a personal question?” I said.
“Shoot.”
“How did you luck up and get in this squad?”
Lange?s smashed face bunched up and he howled.
“Hey, that?s getting right to the point,” he said. “Well, I was flying helicopter traffic control for the
Denver PD. Three guys heisted a bank and I was tailing them at about five hundred feet. A blue and
white was closing in on them but he lost his car and went off the road. So I dropped right down on top
of the getaway car. You know, a couple of feet. I was hanging right in there, radioing back his
position, trying to force him off the road, when we came to a railroad bridge. At the last minute I had
to pull up to get over it.”
“Yeah.”
“I didn?t see the freight train that was crossing the bridge at the time. Flew right into an open boxcar.
It happened to be the mayor?s favourite chopper. Had his name on the side and everything. You
