Midnight Is My Time

by Mike Dellosso

  Across Beacon Street they ran, then east toward the Old State House. The men followed, quickly closing the distance between them.

  Chapter 24

  Outside the Old State House, a crowd of protestors had gathered. Shoulder to shoulder, they packed the sidewalk. Some held signs that read No More Sanctuary Cities; some shouted chants about every town needing money.

  With Missy’s hand firmly in his, Andy pushed through the crowd. The pursuers followed but were slowed by the pressing protestors. Andy used the mass to put space between them and the threesome of bouncers.

  “Stay close,” he said to Missy as he shoved past a man spouting obscenities.

  Once they broke free from the crowd, Andy pulled Missy along as he ran down Beacon Street. At the corner of Beacon and Bowdoin, he glanced behind him and saw the bouncers emerge from the mob.

  “Keep moving,” he said.

  “Are they still behind us?”

  “We haven’t lost them yet.”

  Andy knew there was little chance of losing the trio in Boston. They were too close. He needed to be careful not to get cornered, not to allow the bouncers to trap them. He needed to find a secluded place to confront the men.

  Ahead, at the corner of Beacon and Tremont, Andy and Missy went left. There, a parking garage. It may provide the isolation they needed.

  “C’mon,” Andy said. “Parking garage.”

  “Why?”

  “We need a place away from the public.” He knew she’d understand why.

  A concrete ramp led to a subterranean garage. Dimly lit, it provided good cover. Andy knew the threesome had seen him duck into the garage. He pulled Missy along to the first row of cars and crouched behind a large black Chevy SUV.

  “Stay here,” he said to her. “Stay quiet. I don’t want you involved, you hear?”

  She nodded.

  “No matter what, don’t stand. I’ll come back for you.”

  Her eyes wide and darting about, lips parted, she nodded. Andy started to pull away from her, but she grasped his wrist. “You’re my angel. My guardian.”

  .......

  When Andy left her, she held her breath as she listened for his footsteps. She whispered a prayer for him. Andy was no demon; she was sure of that. He wrestled an inner demon, but didn’t we all? He was different, for sure, but not in any way that he thought.

  Andy’s footsteps grew fainter, then silent. He was hiding somewhere, waiting to ambush their pursuers. She hated the thought of a confrontation. Her imagination could be very vivid, and in her mind, she saw all sorts of exaggerated images. She hoped and prayed the ordeal would be short.

  Again, she prayed for Andy’s safety.

  .......

  Andy waited behind a concrete barrier, listening for the men’s footsteps to approach and draw near. The men were there. He could hear them stepping lightly, but they said nothing to each other. He couldn’t tell how tightly they were grouped and wouldn’t know until he sprang on them. Obviously, the closer they were, the better it would be for him—especially if they carried weapons, which he assumed they did.

  As their footfalls padded closer, Andy drew in a deep breath and tensed his muscles. He’d have to make quick decisions once he revealed himself. He had the element of surprise, but that advantage would only last a second or two. In that time, he had to choose which man to attack first and how to transition to the others. There would be no time to think. His moves had to be instinctual, reflexive. He’d have to strike hard and fast and finish the job before they could coordinate their movements.

  They were now within ten feet of his hiding place. He breathed again and imagined the fight in his mind—each move, each countermove.

  When they were within five feet, he sprang from behind the barrier with all the ferocity and speed of a cougar surprising its prey.

  The lead man swung his head around, eyes as round as golf balls. He’d been pointing his handgun away from Andy’s location.

  Andy had the advantage he’d hoped for.

  .......

  Missy heard the initial confrontation, a grunt, then a fleshy thud. Someone, not Andy, hollered, cursed. More grunts and thuds, shoes scuffing on concrete. Metal clattered. Then a breaking sound, like a dry stick snapping when you stand on it. A man hollered and cursed again.

  The skirmish seemed to last a long time, but the sound of it was carried out in bursts of activity, smacking flesh, grunts and moans, curses. Then . . . a gunshot echoed off the concrete floor, walls, ceiling.

  Silence.

  Someone spoke, but she couldn’t make out what was said. Andy groaned. Another burst of activity ended with a solid, wet thump. The floor beneath her shuddered.

  Silence again that stretched on for seconds.

  Then “Missy.” Andy’s voice was weak and thready. “Missy.”

  She crawled from behind the vehicle. “Andy?”

  “I need help.”

  “Keep talking.” She got to her feet, staying crouched, and followed the sound of his voice.

  “I’ve been shot.”

  She found Andy lying on the concrete. His abdomen was wet and sticky. The smell of sweat and blood was strong. Panic crept into her chest and tightened. Andy had been shot. What if he died? What would she do? She ran her hands across his chest. So much blood.

  “I need to get out of here,” he said.

  He was right. He couldn’t stay there. Someone would come along, find him and the others, and call the police.

  “Okay. Can you walk?”

  “I—I think so. You need to help me up.”

  She tugged on him as he pulled on her. After a lot of grunting and groaning, she got Andy to his feet. He put his arm around her shoulder as she led him to a pedestrian area of the garage. There he collapsed and moaned.

  “You need a hospital,” Missy said.

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “No, you won’t.” She touched his abdomen again. “You’re losing a lot of blood.”

  “I just need to rest.”

  “You need a doctor.”

  Missy heard footsteps, dress shoes on concrete. She hushed Andy.

  The footsteps drew nearer, stopped, paused, then scurried off.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “We gotta get out of here.”

  “What was that sound? Was someone there?”

  “A man saw us. He saw the bodies. He got a good look at me. Ran off. He’ll get the police.”

  Her voice trembled again. “What do we do?”

  “We need to find a car.”

  Chapter 25

  The burning was intense, like someone had crawled inside his body and lit a fire. His left side spasmed and cramped. The bullet must have hit a rib. Every breath sent shards of glass through his muscles.

  Missy leaned over him and stroked his hair. Her face was pale and wet with sweat. A few strands of hair stuck to her forehead. When she spoke, her voice quavered. “I need you to get up. Can you do that? You’re too big for me to carry or drag.”

  She was right. If they were to escape, he’d have to get up again. Walk. Stumble. They needed to find a car and exit the garage. Get to Portland.

  He needed a hospital. The gunshot. The open wound. The blood. But he couldn’t go to a hospital. The police would be looking for him. They’d find him, arrest him. And what would happen to Missy?

  He remembered how quickly the burns on his face had healed, unnaturally so, but they were superficial wounds. This was different. The bullet had torn flesh and possibly organs, most likely broken a bone or two.

  “Hurry,” Missy said. There was panic in her voice, urgency.

  He had to move, to will himself to contract his muscles, endure the pain, and stand. Walk. And then . . . drive.

  Sweat soaked his forehead and ran into his eyes. Andy grunted and grasped Missy’s hand so she could help him stand. Pain shot through his flank like a spear. The edges of the wound were raw and nerves were exposed.

  Once standing,
he took a second to clear the fog from his mind and let his vision clear. The pain had nearly knocked him out. And then it was one agonizing step in front of the other. They’d have to search the cars, look for one that was unlocked. Belle had shown him how to start a car without a key. It took some dexterity but wasn’t too difficult.

  When they reached the first car, Andy leaned on the hood and scanned the parking area. A car that had some years on it would be best. Inconspicuous. And Belle had told him that newer cars with all their electronics and computers were more difficult to start.

  There, he spotted a ’90s model Ford Taurus. Gray. “Missy, four cars down. Check the doors.”

  In the distance, the faint wail of sirens cut through the normal city noise.

  “Hurry,” Andy said.

  Missy felt her way along the cars and checked the door of the Taurus. “Locked.”

  “What about the back doors? The other side?”

  She followed the contours of the car with her hands and checked all the doors. “Nope.”

  Andy ran his eyes around the garage. “C’mon, c’mon.”

  “Okay. Straight across from that one, other side of the aisle. I’ll lead you. Try it.”

  It was a black Chevy Malibu. Early ’90s. In pretty good shape. Missy scurried across the aisle and felt for the vehicle.

  “One more to your right. Yes, that one.”

  Missy felt for the door, tried the handle. It opened easily. “Got it.”

  Andy forced himself to move, to walk. Each step sent jolts of pain through his body until he became nauseated and thought he’d vomit.

  The sirens grew louder.

  At the car, he slid in behind the wheel and felt beneath the steering wheel. The wires were right where Belle said they’d be. In a matter of seconds, he had the engine purring and shifted into reverse. In the mirror, he saw the reflection of the police cruiser’s flashing lights on the concrete supports.

  Andy worked the gearshift and stepped on the gas. The engine revved and the car lunged ahead. By the time they’d rounded the first corner in the garage and started up the exit ramp, the cruisers arrived.

  Andy didn’t stop or even slow at the garage’s exit. The car’s nose thudded against the concrete as it came off the ramp and entered the street. They almost collided with another driver who promptly blew the horn and gave an appropriate gesture.

  Andy didn’t know his way around Boston. He hadn’t the slightest idea which way he should turn when they came out of the garage. But he knew they needed to get out of the city.

  Flashing lights in the mirror caught his attention. The police. They’d targeted him and followed him out of the garage. He needed to make quick work of this before the cops coordinated and boxed them in. There would be no escape then.

  Pushing farther down on the gas, Andy blew through a light that had just turned red and made the next left. He needed to stay on secondary streets where he’d be more concealed. The cops would barricade the primary arteries and interstates, but he hoped they’d overlook or not have the manpower to cover every secondary and tertiary street in the city.

  He took the next right onto Bowdoin Street, then left onto Derne, then left onto Hancock. If he could get back to Beacon Street, he could head west. Not the direction he wanted to go, but he had to get off the peninsula. He was sure all those routes would be blocked or at least monitored.

  Andy checked his mirrors. He didn’t see any flashing lights. Maybe he’d lost them already.

  Maybe not. Two cruisers turned onto Beacon. Two blocks behind him.

  Soon the police would get a chopper in the air, and then the net would tighten.

  Chapter 26

  Andy made a sharp right onto Massachusetts Avenue. A block later, it added a lane and crossed the Charles River. He pressed on the gas, the engine whined, and the car accelerated. Weaving in and out of slower traffic, he crossed the bridge. The cruisers were still behind him, but he’d managed to increase his lead. He saw no flashers ahead where the bridge met the north bank of the river. At the intersection, he did not slow for the yellow at Memorial Drive. Instead, he accelerated, and the car’s speed increased to nearly fifty miles an hour.

  The red light would slow the cruisers, allowing him to put even more distance between them and him. He then made a right onto Vassar and buzzed through the campus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He turned left onto Main Street, then right onto Windsor. The cruisers were no longer behind him. He’d managed to lose them for now.

  At the next intersection, he made a left onto Hampshire Street and then a right onto Columbia. They were in the heart of Cambridge. Town houses lined the street, pedestrians milled about. Some talked with neighbors; some wandered aimlessly. The trees that once dotted the sidewalks had all been cut down, their stumps reminders of the way life used to be.

  “Did we lose them?” Missy asked.

  Andy checked his mirrors again. “I don’t see anything, but that doesn’t mean we lost them.”

  “They won’t give up that easily.”

  “Nope. One wrong turn and we could run right into them.”

  She turned her head in his direction. “Then make the right turns.”

  “We need Belle.”

  “In more ways than we know.”

  He drove a couple blocks, then made another right. Carefully checking his mirrors at every turn, they made their way north through Prospect Hill to Spring Hill and eventually to the campus of Tufts University.

  “We need to find a new car or take to foot,” Andy said.

  “Are you in any shape to walk distances?”

  Stabbing pain had shot through his abdomen with every turn of the steering wheel, but the bleeding had stopped, and the pain had dulled over the course of the last couple miles. Could he be healing already?

  Along College Avenue, Missy said, “If you see someone walking, slow down and pull over. I want to ask them something.”

  “There’s a woman up ahead.” A college-aged woman with shoulder-length blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail walked with a small dog. Andy slowed the car beside her, and Missy rolled down her window.

  “Excuse me.”

  The woman stopped and looked their way, surprised by the interruption. She looked both ways then cautiously approached the car but did not enter the road. “Yes?”

  “My friend and I are hoping to do some hiking. Is there anywhere around here for that?”

  The woman paused for a moment. “About a mile or so north of here is the Middlesex Fells Reservation. I’ve never been there, but lots of the students go there on the weekends.”

  “Great. You say about a mile north?”

  “Yeah, just over the Mystic River.”

  The Mystic River. They’d have checkpoints all along it. Every road heading north would be monitored.

  “Okay. Thanks so much,” Missy said.

  She rolled up her window, and Andy pulled away from the woman.

  “The river,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “We need a new car.”

  “Will it make a difference? You’re bleeding.”

  His shirt was soaked with blood from the abdomen down.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “A little better. The pain isn’t as intense.”

  He steered the car into a parking lot near a baseball diamond and found a parking space to the far right. When the car was stopped and the engine off, he lifted his shirt. Crusted blood covered his abdomen. The entry wound was black and scabbed with dry blood.

  “How’s it look?” Missy asked.

  “Not bad. I mean, it looks like a gunshot wound, but all things considered . . . I think it’s healing already.”

  She reached out her hand. He took it and gently placed her fingertips on the wound. She pulled her hand away. “Does it hurt when I touch it?”

  “Not really. It’s tender, but the sharp pain is all but gone.”

  She sat quietly for a few seconds, processing. “You�
��re different,” she finally said.

  “I think that’s the understatement of the day.” He looked around the parking lot. It was only about half full, mostly with newer model cars and SUVs. A few students exited the gym in sweats, toting duffel bags. More entered. Too much activity here, too many eyes. “I need a change of clothes,” he said. They’d have to walk past the checkpoint. Maybe they could slip across the river at a narrow spot and cross the barricade unnoticed. It was their only option.

  A group of four male students approached a cluster of cars not fifty feet from where they were parked. Andy cracked his window so he could hear what they said.

  An Asian guy with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder broke away from the others and walked to a late model Nissan Sentra. “Let me just ditch this here, and we can head on over.” He opened the car door, tossed his bag into the back seat, then joined the other three. As he walked away, the car chirped twice signifying he’d locked the doors.

  Andy grunted.

  “What is it?”

  “Clothes,” he said. The guy was about his size too. “But the car just locked.”

  “Can’t you break the lock?”

  He could, yes. But it would set off the alarm and draw all kinds of unwanted attention. He could pry the door open enough to slip the antenna in and pop the lock, avoiding the alarm, but the very act itself—a man with a bloodied shirt wedging open a car door—would appear suspicious and would no doubt draw the attention of any passerby.

  There had to be another way.

  He checked the back seat of the Malibu, hoping the owner had left a change of clothes. Nothing. “Stay here,” he said. He checked the area and waited for a woman to walk by on the nearby sidewalk. When the area was clear, he slipped out of the car and went around to the trunk. Popped it. Inside was a suitcase. He unzipped it and found a stack of neatly folded pants and polo shirts. He checked the size on the shirts. XXL. Too big for him. But it would have to do. Quickly, he slipped off his T-shirt and pulled one of the polos over his head. Again, he checked the area. A threesome of women exited the gym and walked toward the parking lot. Andy grabbed a pair of pants and got back into the car.