The Vulture (part one) [FICTOID]

The word came down that The Vulture was on the prowl.

Nobody liked it; not the local police, not the sheriff’s department, not the highway patrol, not the paramedics, not the fire departments, not the emergency rooms, and certainly not the coroner but there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it.

Once they tried to stop him by pulling him over on some bogus pretense and delaying him but as they did a motorcycle officer got clipped by a big rig and in the fifteen minutes it took help to finally arrive the officer bled out and law enforcement belatedly realized that if they had just followed The Vulture they would have been close by to save one of their own so ever since that night they let The Vulture prowl.

That didn’t mean they had to like it.

Every night The Vulture prowled would be bad news for somebody.  Some family would learn a loved one wouldn’t be coming home, or even worse several families would learn a car full of high school students were all snuffed out.

When The Vulture prowled, tragedy hung in the air.

They asked The Vulture, officially and unofficially, how he knew and he always answered, “Man, I don’t know, I just feel.

“I get the feel something’s going down, but what and where I don’t know.

“So I get out on the highway and I move and I just let the flow take me.

“And sooner or later the feel gets real sharp, and so I keep to one area, going back and forth, up and down the same stretch of highway, then -- only then -- do I finally know and I stop and get my camera out.

“And even then I’m not always lucky.  Sometimes there’s a big rig or a bus between me and the accident, sometimes I’m even facing in the wrong direction.

“Overpasses are the worst ‘cuz if they hit on the other side of the abutment then all I might get is a flash of sparks.”

The officers talking to him would grow cold and say, “Luck.  Some luck .  Some poor stiff dies and you call it luck.”

“Well, it is,” The Vulture would say.  “Bad luck.  Mighty bad luck.

“For them.  But I gotta eat, too, y’know.”

Tonight The Vulture left his crummy little efficiency apartment in Van Nuys, got on the 405, and headed south.

Word passed immediately to all jurisdictions along his possible route:  Somebody was in for a bad, bad night.

The Vulture drove his old beat up Honda Civic down to the 10, then cut over and headed east.

A phalanx of squad cars -- from the LAPD, the sheriff’s department, the highway patrol -- followed, their lights off.

They did not want to give the impression they were providing an escort.

The Vulture drove over to the 5 and headed south.

As a courtesy they called the Anaheim police, and the Anaheim police were not happy.  Disneyland and a dozen other tourist attractions sat in or around Anaheim and if The Vulture sensed tragedy, that might sully their reputation as the happiest damn place on earth.

So the Anaheim police held their breath and waited, hoping and praying The Vulture would pass them by.

The Vulture didn’t.

The Vulture got off on Ball and drove over to Harbor then up to Lincoln then back down Manchester to Ball again.

He did this twice then he pulled into a 7-Eleven parking lot and stayed there for several minutes, the police cars waiting dutifully for his next move.

He went on the prowl again, this time instead of going up to Lincoln he took the Santa Ana overpass to cross the 5.

He did this again and again but the third time he slowed down, paused, then drove across and parked at an elementary school just off Manchester.

He dragged his camera out of his car and walked back onto the Santa Ana overpass, facing north, looking at the southbound traffic.

The new Anaheim police chief did not believe in luck or fate or predestination and felt a little ticked off that every other police officer in Southern California apparently did.

“We’ll frustrate the bastard tonight,” he said.  “Set up a roadblock on the southbound 5 at Euclid.  Funnel the traffic onto surface streets.

“Yeah, it’ll be a nightmare, but we’ll starve The Vulture.  If anything happens tonight -- if! -- he’ll be too far away to shoot it.”

And so they did, and soon half a dozen Anaheim units blocked the freeway and diverted traffic to surface streets.

© Buzz Dixon