Klempner
I clamber out, Michael in front of me, onto the landing of the fire escape, then realise the clattering of metallic footsteps comes from both above and below.
Michael spins. “Fuck, they’ve split.”
Who’s most dangerous?
I gesture down. “I’ll take Baxter. You go for the woman and the gorilla.” But Michael is already moving, belting up the first flight.
I clatter downward, following the descending figure I see a couple of levels below me. Baxter has a good lead on me, but as he runs he shoots a look up through the galvanised mesh of the steps, his face twisted with what I’m hoping is worry.
At street level, the crowds are milling and shoving, all the happy shoppers going about their happy little businesses. If Baxter makes it into the crowd, I may well lose him… again…
Saving the cursing for inside my head, saving my breath for an extra burst of speed, I pelt downward. Below me, Baxter has almost made it to ground level.
*****
Michael
Klempner might have disparaged Andres as a gorilla, but he moves fast, initially outpacing her. Oddly, Julia seems almost reluctant to follow him, repeatedly hanging back, turning back to see me…
Not too bright, perhaps?
She must see that I’m gaining on them. The pair rattle upwards, but I’m taking the steps two at a time, powering up behind them. Still, she hangs back, watching me from behind the mirrored lenses.
Sprinting upwards, my body is working on automatic, leaving my mind free to roam. She’s average build, young-seeming by the way she moves, fit and healthy. And from what I can see of her, that oh-so-brief glimpse of her exposed face…
She’s elaborately made up. Even on the move as I am, almost cricking my neck to look up, I can make out the sharply-defined contours of her lips, the shading at cheekbones. This woman goes to a lot of trouble over her appearance.
Of course, she’s switching from one disguise to another all the time… What does she really look like? Stripped of wigs and spectacles and skilfully-applied cosmetics, what does her naked face look like?
They flee ever upward, and I pound up behind them, slowly gaining on them, their metallic footsteps growing louder all the while…
… until, abruptly, the sound changes tone to feet-on-concrete. Metal clangs, then…
… Nothing…
Rooftop?
… but I’m only a single storey below them now and my double-step strides eat the height in half a dozen bounds. Only seconds later, I’m on a small landing. It tops the fire escape with a waist-height metal-bar gate. Still swinging, it leads through a railing onto the roof itself.
The rooftop is the expected concrete desert. Weird ducting protrudes up from the bowels of the building. Funnels project upwards, blowing stale air. A steel door offers a possible route to the internal stairwell but, shut tight, and with no handle on the outside, my guess is that it’s barred from the inside. A gutter marks a line a foot or so inside the roof-edge, crisped black at the edges, slimed green down the centre.
Andres and the woman face me, backing towards the railing. He stands slightly ahead of her, one hand out-held between us, as though protecting her. Gesturing backwards with his palm, he mutters something which I can’t make out.
“Come on,” I say. “The game’s up. Whoever you both are, whatever it is you want, she certainly can’t take me on, and I don’t think you can either.”
The pair back away…
… and away…
… and away…
… until they are all but touching the barrier.
I back off a little, holding up my hands, “Hey, be careful. The police are on their way. Whatever comes next, you don’t want to take that way down.”
Andres looks behind him and down, inching away from the barrier. He’s blinking rapidly, eyeing the doorway behind me.
“Not gonna happen,” I say. “That’s locked and you won’t be getting past me to the fire escape.”
Julia turns her head a touch, facing him sidelong, her highly lipsticked mouth pressing flat. Beside me, fans hum as hot air spins past from aluminium conduit, a warm oil-scented breeze that ripples her hair and gives me a passing glimpse of a dark hairline underneath…
And for the first time, I hear Julia speak, in a voice of glass and nails. “You think you’re going to take me?” She smiles a smile that isn’t a smile. “Andres, handle it.”
The man squares his shoulders, placing himself to block the way between me and her. He sniffs, nostrils flaring, knuckles raising.
Behind him, Julia slides off to one side, as though to dodge around me towards the gate. But I follow, blocking her exit. Andres follows my movement, making as though to grab me, but then ducking back as I get too close.
The woman darts the other way, and once more, I match her, evading Andres, but he again follows me in a kind of three-way stalemate. All the while, half an ear cocked over the street noise from below., I’m listening for sirens…
Where are the police?
Where are the fucking police?
*****