There were still twenty feet between my feet and the asphalt, a fatal distance, but the truck was at least eight feet high. A twelve-foot drop was dangerous but survivable. Dropping onto a moving truck would be tough. The high wind made the odds worse. My stomach clenched, fear and adrenaline, and I wondered if I’d be able to force myself to act.
Just do it.
I launched myself off the fire escape, calculating as I fell. Ankles pressed tight together, knees slightly bent, I figured I had a forty percent chance of surviving when I hit the truck’s roof.
My feet struck hard enough to dent the aluminum, and I immediately bent my legs and dropped onto my back, both hands slapping down to disperse the energy of my fall as if I were on a judo mat.
The truck hadn’t been moving fast, and I’d jumped in the direction of travel, so for a millisecond it seemed like I might actually stay on top.
Then the driver hit the brakes.
I tucked in best I could, rolling off the roof, bouncing off the hood, and spinning onto the alley as if an angry god had spat me out.
Someone said, “Holy shit.” One of the cops from the truck.
I came to a stop on my side, perhaps ten feet in front of it. My one arm was worthless, and I instantly counted three more scrapes to add to my other injuries, but I was miraculously alive.
Should have given myself better odds.
I got a leg under me, did a trick with my ears to bring my balance back quicker, and then took four unsteady steps east before launching into a full sprint.
The alley let out onto Clybourn. I noted four police cars, two unmarked sedans that I ID’d as feds, and seven cops milling about on the sidewalk. The cops in the alley would be contacting others. But none had looked in my direction yet, and I chugged onto the sidewalk, sidestepping two gawkers and turning north onto Sheffield. My bare feet slapped the pavement, but I could barely feel them now due to cold and the pain of all my other injuries. I cut through another alley. When I reached the next street, I doubled back. The cops were certainly on my trail by now, but it would be a tough trail to follow.
Two blocks later, I slowed down to a walk. My heart rate was hovering around a hundred eighty beats per minute, and I got my breathing under control while triaging my body.
The shoulder was the worst injury, and now that I had time for examination, I determined it was dislocated, hanging two inches lower than it was supposed to. It felt hot to the touch, and the fingers of that arm were numb from the bone pressing against the axillary nerve.
I knew basic anatomy, knew combat medicine, knew where the ball of the humerus was supposed to connect to the socket of the scapula. Trying not to think too hard about what was coming, I grabbed my biceps, jerked upward as hard as I could, and felt it slip into place. A wave of agony took me, among the worst I’d ever felt.
I fought to focus past the pain and tune into my surroundings. The street was moderately busy, five cars heading north, seven going south. Two women waiting for the bus. A homeless guy sitting on the sidewalk, his back to a burger restaurant. I smelled exhaust, old vegetable oil, and pigeon shit. My tee was covered with bird poop, rust, and grime. After a few seconds, I managed to control my whimper. But nothing could stop the tears streaming down my face.
I continued to walk, slowing my heartbeat, managing my breathing. I tried not to think too hard about Kaufmann, about Jacob, about everything that had just gone down. I couldn’t afford emotion. Not yet. Survival came first.
I inventoried the rest of my body. The gash in my scalp where the bullet had grazed me was already scabbing over, although my hair was sticky with blood. My feet were cut up, but superficially and not requiring immediate attention. Some tenderness in my right ankle, probably from when I landed on the truck. Both elbows scraped, and a sore spot on my hip. That made me reach for the spot and dig out the encrypted cell.
It turned on, no problem. I wasn’t surprised. This thing was made to stop a bullet if it had to. I wondered if I actually needed it anymore. If Jacob had been compromised, the next call I received could be suspect, even if it came from him. But I’d been told, in no uncertain terms, that I was to never ditch the phone, not even in dire circumstances. I tucked it away again.
Again I steered my thoughts to more immediate matters. My beat-up state was certain to gain notice from passersby, and my description, including clothing, would be on the airwaves by now. I needed to change my appearance. I took a casual look around, didn’t spot anyone paying attention, and ducked inside a discount store.
Like most dollar shops, this one sold discontinued junk that the owner bought by the pallet. Generic sundries, cheap foreign tools, no-name makeup and hair care supplies, sad-looking silk plants, and an astonishing variety of clocks featuring images of Jesus.
I walked past an aisle filled with obsolete magazines and worked at the seam on my tee, tugging it open and removing the rolled fifty-dollar bill. My sweatpants, underwear, bra, as well as every piece of clothing and every shoe I owned, each had a hidden fifty. That made my wardrobe worth several thousand dollars more than I paid for it. The hours of sewing proved worthwhile at that moment, and the two hundred dollars I had on me should be enough until I could reach one of my lockers.
I made quick work of the store, grabbing some cheap gym shoes, khakis, a dark green blouse, a box of baby wipes, a bottle of aspirin, a box of decongestant, and a straw sunhat. A three-dollar pair of sunglasses rounded out the ensemble. Since I couldn’t purchase the decongestant without giving the clerk identification, I resorted to waiting until he wasn’t looking and picking the lock of a glass case with the two metal wires hidden in the waistband of my pants. After paying for the rest of the items, I walked into the burger joint next door and spent four minutes in the washroom, cleaning away the dirt and blood with the wipes and dressing in my discount clothing. I threw away my tee and sweatpants, and used the drawstring to tie the two pieces of metal around my neck.
As my body recovered from fight-or-flight mode and the adrenaline ebbed, the pain started becoming a problem, interrupting my focus. I took three aspirin and three decongestants. The latter contained a stimulant, pseudoephedrine, which is used in the production of methamphetamine. It would keep me alert even though I felt like crashing. I tucked four more of each pill into my sports bra, then ditched the bottles.
I was nauseous—a side effect of adrenaline and pain. I waited in line and bought two double cheeseburgers and two bottles of water, not hungry but uncertain when I’d have a chance to eat again. I forced everything down while walking north and figuring out my priorities.
My disguise was fine for the moment, but it wouldn’t hold up to close scrutiny. In order of importance, I needed a weapon, a safe house, a new disguise, and intel. Then I could start dealing with my problems, which were evading the police and FBI, figuring out who set me up and was trying to kill me, and rescuing Kaufmann. That meant confronting Cory.
Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t forget I would have to deal with Cory.
I doubted Cory had anything to do with the hit out on me. First off, he didn’t play well with anyone other than malleable young girls he’d trained to do whatever he asked. But even if Cory and I didn’t have a history, I’d come to the same conclusion. If he’d been working with the people who wanted to kill me, he would have tried to keep me in my apartment. But he got off the phone too fast and didn’t even seem to know I was being shot at. I’d believed Cory couldn’t find me, but I’d forgotten how smart and observant he was. And although it had been almost twenty years since his trial, he obviously remembered seeing Kaufmann there the day I’d testified.
There wasn’t a chance I would let Kaufmann’s act of support and kindness lead to a horrible death at Cory’s hands.
But first things first. A weapon and a safe house.
The gun would be relatively straightforward. The safe house would be tougher. Both the cops and the assassins had found my apartment when only Jacob was supposed to know where I lived. My
name wasn’t on the lease, my bills were paid through various dummy corporations, and if anyone traced the phone they’d get a fake address in Mundelein. That I’d been found meant a serious breach in security, and I had no idea how far it went.
The Carmen Sawyer ID was blown, and so were the bank account and credit cards associated with it. If the counter-intel went deep enough, my backup persona might also be compromised. Most hotels required a driver’s license and credit card for incidentals, and both the good guys and the bad guys had systems in place to track check-ins.
I crossed the street and waited for the bus, the burgers’ dead weight in my stomach, the aspirin doing shit. My focus cracked and splintered, leaving me aching, tired, and not thinking about my objectives as I should have been. Instead images of Kaufmann assaulted me, bleeding and scared with arguably only two hours and thirty-three minutes left to live.
“Pain means you’re alive,” The Instructor said. “It’s your body informing you of damage. Attend to the damage when you’re able to. Then, forget the pain. It isn’t helpful to you anymore. You’re going to learn some techniques to work through pain, but I’d be lying if I said you’ll become immune. We can teach you to cope with a lot of things. But we can’t teach you to stop hurting. Hurt stops on its own, when you’re either healed, or dead.”
The bus dropped me off a block from the Stretchers on Laramie. It was the nearest in a chain of women-only fitness clubs. I rented lockers at ten of their locations, four in the city, three in the suburbs, and three in other states. The padlocks I used were all a distinctive red color, making them easy to spot. I didn’t have the key, but sewn into every pair of pants, skirt, and dress I owned was a lock pick and a tension wrench. I didn’t invent this system, and rarely had to use it, but now that I was on the run, all of this prep work made me understand how smart it was.
I cased the place first, watching for three full minutes from across the street before approaching. Then I walked past, getting a good look inside the storefront window. The actual gym was deeper in the building, so I couldn’t check it out. But the lobby was clear except for an employee I recognized as the one who signed me up. I doubled back, checking for tails. Finding none, I went in.
The interior was cool, the air conditioning humming. I heard faint rock music coming from the workout area. The Stones, “Paint it Black.” I smelled lavender air freshener and cinnamon gum from the woman behind the desk.
“I’m sorry,” I said, twisting my mouth into a smile I wasn’t close to feeling. “I just realized I left my pass at home.”
I’d cut up and thrown away the laminated member pass four minutes after receiving it.
“Your name and the last four digits of your social,” the woman said without looking up from her magazine. No doubt half the membership regularly left their passes at home.
“Darla Thompson. Seven seven eight eight.”
Darla Thompson wasn’t my real name either. It was an unestablished ID used only for Stretchers. Darla didn’t have any credit cards, no real address, and since I had gotten the driver’s license out of state from a private dealer, it lacked the realism of my Carmen Sawyer and Betty Richards identities. I paid for the membership and the rental lockers by money order every six months.
The woman punched my data into her computer, then checked my face against the archived photo that appeared on her monitor. I didn’t bother taking off my hat or sunglasses, and she didn’t bother to ask. It made me wonder how much money this place lost from sisters or similar-looking friends sharing memberships.
“Welcome back, Darla,” she smiled, her mouth crooked. “It’s been a while.”
I recognized her because I was trained to memorize faces. But for her to have remembered me out of thousands of members when I hadn’t been there for months, that was impressive.
Then I realized my onscreen data probably listed the last time I’d been there, and I wasn’t impressed anymore.
She pushed a button under the desk, buzzing me through the frosted glass doors. When I opened them, the music tripled in volume, pumping through speakers embedded in the ceiling. I walked past a Pilates class in progress, the free weight room, and the circuit training section, and stopped in front of the locker room.
It had no door—no men allowed, so one wasn’t needed. For the sake of modesty, the entrance turned at a right angle after you walked in so no one could see inside. I inhaled, smelling citrus shampoo, sweat, and hairspray. Heard one of the showers running, but no other sounds.
I went in with heightened awareness. It was a long shot anyone knew about my locker here. Supposedly Jacob didn’t even know. But it’s impossible to be surprised if you’re expecting something to happen.
When I walked around the privacy wall, I stopped again, letting my senses report. Warmer. Steamier. Bleach and disinfectant mingling with the previous odors. Other than the woman in the shower, it didn’t feel like anyone else was around. A quick look confirmed my guess. No people. No open lockers. No unattended bags or clothes.
I circled twice to make sure, then discreetly peeked into the bathroom. Someone was in the shower stall, her feet visible beneath the plastic curtain. The shampoo scent was stronger and there were suds swirling down the drain between her toes.
I quietly found my locker and was taking the picks off my neck when the obvious hit me.
Where were the showering woman’s clothes?
Some women arrive in their workout gear so they don’t have to change. But those ladies don’t shower here, because it would mean putting on their sweaty clothes when they finished. Those who changed here usually stripped out of their gear, showered, then dressed. But they didn’t lock up their soiled clothes before showering. No one was going to steal a stinky tee and pair of yoga pants, and they were usually left in a heap on the bench or on the sink.
Maybe this woman was an exception, unlocking her locker, locking up her gear, showering, then unlocking her locker again.
But why bother locking up your gear in an empty locker room?
Movement to my right.
I dived left just as three shots punched into the wall behind me, catching a faint glimpse of a wet woman in a black swimsuit holding a suppressed semiauto.
Silencers are a myth. Gunpowder explodes, and explosions are loud; too loud for a metal tube to contain them. What lay-people call silencers are actually suppressors, which are able to reduce the sound considerably, but it’s still louder than a person clapping their hands together. The rock music, however, coupled with the shower noise, effectively covered the shots.
Since I’d acted on instinct and not forethought, I’d rolled onto my bad shoulder. Agony stormed through my body, snatching away my breath. My vision blurred. Bright firefly motes darted and swirled in front of my eyes. I pushed myself onto all fours. Not able to hold weight, my arm gave way, leaving me to scurry on three limbs. Sight compromised, I used the shower sound as a compass, imagining the layout of the room in my head.
The hit woman was between me and the exit. An aisle of lockers was to my left. I guessed I was three yards away from them, and I crossed the distance in less than three seconds, scooting onto my butt with my back pressed against the cool metal, a handle jamming into my shoulder and bringing out fresh stars. I shook my head, willing my sight to return, and noticed peripheral movement on my right.
I pushed myself to my feet, half-staggering/half-sprinting into the shower, hearing two suppressed shots clang into lockers behind me. The temperature went up a few degrees, water vapor coating my face. My throat was closing up from fear, but I forced air through it, filling my lungs with steam. My heart rate was off the charts. I had nowhere else to go, and in a moment the assassin would corner and kill me.
Bathrooms don’t offer much in the way of weapons. If this had been a private residence, I could have grabbed the porcelain toilet tank cover to use as a bludgeon, or smashed a mirror and attacked with a shard. But public toilets had no tank covers, and the mirrors were safety glass. The
doors to the stalls hung on heavy-duty hinges, impossible for me to remove. Going hand-to-hand against someone with a gun was a last resort, and even then I only had a five percent chance of success. With my injured arm and my spotty vision, I cut those odds to two percent.
That left one alternative. And a weak one at that.
I sensed movement behind me but didn’t bother to check. The tile floor was wet with soapy footprints, and I dived forward onto my belly, momentum taking me past the towel bin and into the shower stall. I snatched a fallen towel as I slid by, going under the shower curtain, the spurting nozzle drenching my head and back and compromising my hearing even further.
I flipped over, onto my butt, onto my knees, the towel getting soaked. Then I was back on my feet, swirling the towel in my good hand, bursting through the curtain and raising the dripping cloth like a whip.
I struck where I assumed the hit woman would be, at face level as she was coming around the corner. It was my best and only chance.
The towel snapped, cracking like a gunshot…on empty air. She had anticipated my attack and was already backing out of range, her gun up, the head shot inevitable.
But she hesitated.
Just what I needed. I whipped the towel around again, tossing it at her face and going in low. I jammed her in the chest with my good shoulder and drove with my legs.
Her shot went off over my head, the sound cracking loud in my ears despite the suppressor.
I kept moving, forcing her backward two steps—three, four—half on her feet, half falling. Blood rushed to my ears. I pushed harder, fighting not to slip on the tile floor.
Her backward movement shuddered to an abrupt stop. Her body went limp, sagging in my grasp. We hit the floor.
I wound up on top of her, my face pressed to her chest, my arm around her back. I shifted my arm, snaking her neck under my armpit, ready to lean back and snap her neck, but her head was surprisingly limp. I disengaged, staring at the wet towel still on her face, a towel that was quickly turning pink. Glancing up, I realized why—I’d bashed her head into the corner of the sink.
Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels) Page 3
