Klempner
I’m still pelting down the final flight of steps when Baxter’s bootsteps fall silent and abruptly, he vanishes from view…
What the hell…?
… but as I reach the small landing, the open window tells me all I need to know. Flung up to full extent, it’s easily large enough to go through and I throw myself through head-first, tucking up and rolling as I land on thick carpet…
… then scrambling back onto my feet again, I swing this way and that with my Glock, seeking my quarry…
… Two small children, a boy and a girl, stand watching me, mouths wide, eyes wider. Neither looks scared. Instead, both are grinning with excitement. A kaleidoscopic TV screen blarts the bangs and clangs and crashes that tell me that Arnie is Ramboing through the jungle.
As I focus on them, the boy grins even wider, raising an arm to point through a half-open door and out of the room. The girl squeals and rushes for another door. “Mommy! Mommy… a man came through the window. And then another man and…”
But I don’t hear the rest…
The door bangs behind me. Ahead of me, stampeding footsteps echo down a long corridor of cheap paint and cheaper carpet…
A woman in blue-check overalls presses back against the wall at my approach…
“Out of my way!”
… giving a little shriek as I barge past, bounce off a trolley laden with cloths and spray bottles, then catch the toe of my boot in the cord of a vacuum cleaner.
I trip, beginning to fall, but I’m running at full pelt and sheer momentum keeps me upright to stagger out of the fall…
But it cost me precious seconds, and I reach the main landing just in time to see elevator doors close and the indicator flash orange. Then again for the next floor down.
Fuck!
… Sprinting the short distance to the stairwell, I hurtle downward…
Outrun the elevator?
I don’t know, but I’ll give long odds that Baxter is asking himself the same question.
*****
Michael
Andres is a sizable figure, hulking and well-muscled, with the easy movement that suggests he knows how to use the muscle.
I make another move to reach the woman, but he blocks me, fists raised, knuckling white.
“Come on,” I say. “You can’t get away. I don’t have to catch you. Just to stop you going anywhere until the cops turn up.”
His eyes dart to the woman, “Julia?”
“Get him, you idiot!” she hisses. “D’you want to still be here when the police arrive?”
He nods, sniffs and straightens up. “I’ll handle this one. You get away.” Then he squares up to me again. “You heard the lady.”
In the background, behind the sunglasses, Julia smiles. Arms folded, she stands, watching, one foot tapping…
Then… as Andres makes a move… jabbing forward with a fist… she darts off to one side…
Ignoring him, I lunge after her, arms outstretched for a grab, but she’s quick on her feet and I only have a handful of empty air for my trouble. Andres comes up from behind, seizing me at the shoulder, swinging a foot around my ankles, trying to bring me down…
… As I topple, I get a hold, pulling him with me. He staggers, windmilling… “Whoaaahhh…” … but as he reaches for his balance, his heel slides in the gutter, scraping green over the lead liner as he comes down and we fall together, crashing onto the concrete.
Our bodies entangled, I have no way to break my fall, and as we land, my ribs cave, huffing the air out of me…
… but there’s no opportunity for the luxury of snatching back my breath…
He’s on me, hands outstretched for my neck. Julia darts in, fumbling at his belt…
A gun?
Fuck…
But it’s a knife, the blade silver-grey in the dull daylight, long and slender, looking all out of proportion to the slim hand holding it.
With Andres reaching for my throat, as I try to hold him off, Julia slashes at my arm, slicing open a long wound down my forearm.
Oddly, I feel no pain, and the blood which flows, cherry-bright, seeping into the white cotton of my tee-shirt, has a surreal quality about it… And my response is reflexive, my arm thrashing out sideways, catching her at the knee and knocking her to the ground…
At the back of my mind, some fatherly admonitions about never hitting a woman, bob up for attention, then sink without trace as, from hands and knees, snarling, she slashes at me again…
*****
Klempner
I burst through double swing doors to see a scarlet-faced concierge already stabbing at buttons on an intercom. “Security!”
She squeals as she sees me, but I ignore her, hammering through the lobby to the circulating doors leading out onto the street.
Crowd mill and roar, but Baxter is nowhere in sight, lost in the hubbub…
Fuck!
… but only feet away from the doors, a man sprawls, cursing. A briefcase lies in a puddle to one side, a paper bag, spilling sandwiches, to the other, and an old woman in a pink hat stoops to pass him a mobile.
Beyond him, people mutter and point, and I charge through, following the pointing fingers.
And Baxter’s there, creating havoc on the sidewalk as he shoves by pedestrians, then jostles past a woman with a small screaming child in a stroller.
Flinging a look over his shoulder, sighting me, he corners like a bluebottle to dart behind a line of parked cars. In the road now, in the line of the traffic but still running, he ducks down out of sight.
But I follow, running to grab at a lamppost to give myself some momentum as I vault upwards and land with both feet squarely on the hood of the nearest parked car. From the inside, a man bangs on the windshield, screaming something at me I don’t bother to listen to. Straining up and around, breathing heavily now, I crane to see over the crowd, I look for Baxter…
There…
He’s doubled back, heading back the way we came…
Looking for her?
Leaping down into the road, I reverse my path too, back through the milling crowds. All around me is the cacophony of talking people, yelling kids, the racket of traffic. Shouldering my way through the mass, I follow Baxter’s direction, slipping between bonnet and bumper to reach the road to get my line of sight on him.
No go. There’s no sign of him.
Shit!
Dashing back to the sidewalk, looking left, then right, cursing, I spin, searching this way and that for a fleeing figure in the City weekend crowd…
Nothing.
He’s done it again…
Fuck!
Hands held up to the sky, one fisted, the other clutching my Glock, I howl my frustration. Shoving the pistol back in its holster, hands clasped above my head, I stalk out a circle on the curb side…
From above me, a sound, growing louder, rising above the roar of traffic, the racket of people…
Around me, a circle clears, people backing away, fearful looks, eyes askance. In the background, the scream of sirens draws closer…
And above that sound…
… another scream… drawn out… shrieking louder… closer…
Heads turn, faces raise and the shouldering crowd abruptly disperses even further around me to clear a circle as something smashes down, like wet paper, onto the sidewalk, then lies still, a crumpled bloody mass.
High above, I see another figure, leaning over the parapet, looking down. Even at this distance, I can make out the glint of sunlight on blond hair.
What was once a human being has splashed. It’s not a pretty sight. I’ve a strong stomach for such things, but the sight of a human body that only holds together because it’s clothed is enough even for me.
From the crowd comes mutterings and cries, women pulling children close, men tugging girls into their arms, turning their faces away.
It takes time to fall twelve stories. On impact, death would be instant, but you’d know it was coming.
And finally… the wail of sirens, the flashing of blue lights and the police arrive.
*****