Chapter 107 – Summer’s Inferno – Part 17
KLEMPNER
A knife at her throat, Hoodie’s got some old woman, her arms locked behind her. God knows how old
she is. Stringy grey hair’s not seen shampoo in recent times. Gibbering her terror, she spills tears from
yellowed eyes as he drags her backward with him.
I take a step after the pair. “What a hero. Going up in the world, aren’t you. Moving from unprotected
street woman to helpless pensioners. Is that your standard? Defenceless hookers and octogenarians?”
He snarls, still inching backwards, all the while with the crone as his shield. Her heels scrape the
stinking carpet, trailing through the blood which sts from his hand.
I inch after him, then hold, as he wrenches behind her, and she screams. “I’ll break her fucking arm
clean off if you don''t stop right there. Don''t move. Stay there. Stay right there!”
Hoodie nces back and down at the stairs, directly behind him, then at me. Spinning his hostage, he
flings her hard at the wall, her head cracking against the ster as she crumples. Then he plunges
downward, leaping down steps three at a time, pivoting on the rickety newel post from one flight to the
next.
And I plunge after him, yelling back behind me. “Call the police!”
Rattie whines after me. “Who’s gonna pay for my repairs?”
I''m already pelting after the ttering footsteps stampeding down below me, but I’m still shouting
upwards. “Don''t touch that room. Call the fucking police!” He yells back some reply…
But my attempts to talk to the morondlord have cost me precious seconds. I’m flying downward
but Hoodie’s a flight ahead of me. On the ground floor, the front door ms closed in my face, then the
damn thing jams as I try to open it again.
Hissing frustration as I wrench it open, I charge out into sweltering heat, just in time to hear a stream of
cursing and swearing…
I grin to myself…
Taken a look at his tires?
… and then, the tter of retreating footsteps. Running footsteps.
Briefly, I don’t see him, but the sound of his flight is loud against the stifled silence of the street and as I
follow the sound…
There he is…
… and I pelt after him.
He flees…
And I follow…
At the run, I tap into my phone. “Michael?”
“Klempner? Where are you?”
“In hot pursuit. I’m certain now he’s the Surgeon. Tell Stanton…
“He’s here. Gimme a sec…” His voice muffles then, “Will, Klempner’s after him. He’s sure it’s your
killer…”
Then, Stanton’s boom in the background. “Get those photos circted… Every spare officer on the
street!”
Michael again, “They’re on it now. Larry, where…?”
But his voice cuts off, I think his phone snatched away. “Klempner? Stanton here… What…?”
Panting as I speak, “You need to get to the girl’s apartment. I cut the bastard. His blood is on the wall
and carpet. You might have trouble with thendlord. Don’t let him clean up. Get forensics on it.”
My breath is short, my lungsbouring against the over-heated air… “And get an ambnce there.
Some old woman got caught in the crossfire.”
“Crossfire? She’s been shot?”
“Figure of speech. But she’s hurt… Got to go…” I gulp and swallow… “Can’t talk and run at the same
time.”
“Klempner, where are you? I’ll send a car toe find you.”
“Right now, on the road from the apartment towards the City centre. In the general direction of the Blue
Sapphire Club. Get your patrols out. And Commissioner, make sure they know it’s not me they’re
arresting.”
His words snap short. “Will do.”
*****
A quiet street, in the sun-blistered heat of the afternoon. Betweenmuting hours. Before children
Nothing moves.
Except me…
And my quarry…
The thrill of the chase. It''s a cliché. But clichés be clichés because they have something to tell us.
There is something pure about the chase. Something unsullied and perfect. No clever out-thinking and
manoeuvring. Just the simple pursuit of the quarry. And as I pursue my fleeing target, the silence howls
around me.
The air is suffocating. The sun roars down on the streets, and the streets throw it back, stripping the
moisture from my throat yet, perversely, setting perspiration streaking down my forehead and cheeks.
But ahead of me, Hoodie’s feeling it too, sagging as he runs.
And the heat is nothing. My blood’s up, thumping behind my ears, an elerating drumbeat. Eyes
stinging, I swipe away the trickle of sweat then, still running, tug my tie loose, unfasten my top shirt
button. My shirt, slick with moisture, sticks between my shoulders and under my arms. Abruptly, my
jacket is too tight, too confining. I’d like to rip it off, but then my knife and gun holsters would be visible
to every eye and every camera I passed.
Swiping my face with a sleeve, I keep running, staying hard on Hoodie’s trail before he has chance to
lose himself. Here, in the silence of the backstreets, I can track him. But ahead of us lies the City
centre. If he makes it there, even with the police alerted, he could lose himself in the crowds.
He flings a look back over his shoulder. With the lead he has on me, I can’t make out his expression,
but his bodynguage says it all. The sag evaporates and his pace picks up.
Some sound prates: a rising wail. A siren, a police car,ing in from behind. But as I look
forward again, Hoodie has vanished.
Where the fuck…?
Sprinting ahead, a narrow alleyway opens to my left. As I skid in and along, down at my feet lies a
discarded grey hoodie.
*****
The alley runs between two blocks of apartments, left and right, making a crossroads with a shabby
backne, the demesne of garbage cans and feral cats. Skidding to a halt, I swing right…
Then left…
… scanning for my target…
A garbage bin, knocked to the ground, lies open. A squabble of sparrows cluster around half a loaf of
mouldy bread, then scatter as a couple of pigeons bully in, iming the prize…
Of my prize, no sign…
Ahead of me my alley continues, between more blocks of apartments, back-to-back with those I just left
behind.
Hell for leather, I race on, before, only a minuteter, spilling out onto a main highway.
And Hoodie has vanished.
Damn!
Shading my eyes against the re, I scan across and around.
The highway is an arterial road into the city centre. Threenes of traffic both ways, divided by a
barriered central reservation. Beyond the highway, the Old City, gradually being demolished and rebuilt
by Haswell, a wastnd of brick and mud and bulldozers. To the right, out and to the mountains. To the
left, into the beating heart of the City.
And Hoodie, with or without his hood, can’t possibly have gotten across the highway in the spare
minute he had.
?
The trash can…
Who knocked it over?
Fuck!
Making a speedy one-eighty, I loop back, rounding the corner into thene just in time to see Hoodie
disappearing into the distance.
Head pounding, lungsbouring, I set off after him.
*****
My mainfort is, while I might not feel great in the heat, Hoodie must feel worse. If I fail at this, I
suffer a little embarrassment. If he fails, the best he can hope for is the rest of his life in a cage.
It’s aforting thought.
Reducing my pace to a jog, I concentrate on watching and listening, simply following thene, eyeing
the assorted passages and ginnels I pass, but see nothing of my target. Eventually, I emerge back into
the city-centre.
Late afternoon, in a sky stabbed by skyscrapers, office and apartment blocks are mere silhouettes
against a backdrop seared from blue to white. Heat shimmers up from the sidewalk, striking through
the soles of my shoes. The torrid air sts my face, even with the slight breeze caused by my jogging.
Despite this, the City is in full swing: all the dailymotion of stores, bars and restaurants, banks and
businesses. The roads are crowded with cars, couriers and delivery trucks. The sidewalks with
salesmen and shoppers, businessmen and clients, hustlers, bums and beggars.
Haswell loves this ce. I see his expression, almost of reverence, as he gazes out from his high office
window with the panorama he has been instrumental in building. The City is his Love, his raison-d''etre.
Dropping my pace, I trot along, craning left and right and ahead for my quarry. A police car shrieks past
me, back the way I came, shing blue. An ambnce too, mee-mawing the other way. Pausing at a
kiosk, I stab a finger at a bottle of water, glug it down, then buy another, unscrewing the top to drink as I
walk.
Where is he?
His face is so forgettable, so undistinguished, that I have trouble bringing it to mind. Minus the grey
hoodie, what am I following?
He could be staring right at me.
He could be staring right at me.
What would I do? In his position?
Pressing back into a slit of a shadow, mere inches wide from the overhead sun, I sip my water mouthful
by mouthful, watching.
Another police car screams by. Then more appear, parking up, officers decanting out into the crowd,
spreading out in different directions.
Stanton’s raised the rm?
Not so easy for him to run now…
Will they make an announcement?
My answeres quickly.
Ahead of me, the crowd parts, just one of those random things that happens when the masses move
together, but an avenue opens, and my line of sight is clear.
There…
Staring into the window of an electrical goods store…
Even side-on, his expression of horror is clear. A fist pushed to his mouth, Hoodie, minus hood, steps
back, recoiling from whatever he’s seeing…
There’s some sort of dressing on his arm, but it looks improvised and…
… is that blood soaking through?
… and without conscious effort, I’m running again.
He looks left, then right… and he sees me. Eye flinging wide, the gutless shit spins and bolts.
As I pass the store, I have a bare moment to pick up what he was looking at: on a disyed TV, his
face with headlines in bold:
Patrick Harkness…
Wanted to assist the police with their enquiries…
Content rights belong to N?velDrama.Org.
Do not approach this man…
… and I’m gone.
*****