by Matt Coleman
Cary stumbled into a wall and tried to move forward. Her head was fuzzy. Everything was still crooked and caricatured. The hallway stretched to a pinhole. Shouts of “Hey!” rang out to her right. Her knees started pumping, pushing her in a slide down the hallway wall. She hit a doorframe and tried to swing around it. A woman sprang out of the door with her hands up like claws. She went for Cary’s eyes, but Cary ducked. She put her shoulder into the woman’s midsection and pushed her into the other side of the doorframe. The woman huffed and went limp. Cary dropped her and tried running upright.
Another two men appeared in front of her, blocking the hallway. Cary looked back to see the first four running toward her. When she turned back, one of the men in her way crumpled into a heap on the floor. The other shot around to find a small black man with glasses holding a huge pipe. The little man connected with the second guy’s face, sending him into a similar pile next to his friend. The little man waved Cary forward. “Come on, girl. Run. Goddammit, run!”
Cary jumped over the two men on the floor and accepted the little man’s hand. She tried to say “Thanks,” but nothing came out. Her mouth felt like she’d been chewing on insulation. The little man pulled Cary along the hallway, waving the pipe threateningly at a few others, keeping them in their rooms. They passed an old, rotted-out elevator and a doorway with a picture of stairs on it. The little man got Cary back to the big stairway to the bottom floor, but the trio around the barrel had started making their way up.
They eyed Cary, and one pulled out some sort of blade. Cary swiveled to the little man. He looked defeated. He was shorter than Cary, with a wiry frame and wiry glasses and the wiry beginnings of a beard. He looked like a bookseller. Or a watch repairman. He pulled a picture of Cary—her DMV photo—from his pocket and handed it to her. “Girl, you got a couple of cops been passing this thing out. Offering up a grand to anybody who lays you down.”
She looked past him at the door to the stairs. The four men had caught up with her, blocking the door. Cary and the little man edged back toward the big staircase. He gripped his pipe. They stood back to back and braced for a fight. From the lobby, shots rang out—three quick barks. Everyone spun around and looked down at Officer Doyle standing with her gun pointed at the ceiling. The men on the staircase scattered up and disappeared down the opposite hallway. Cary spun around to find the four men all running and ducking into rooms. Her savior stood by her for a moment, but as Doyle started up the steps, he dropped his pipe, apologized weakly, and fled down the hall. Cary turned back to Doyle. “You left me!”
Doyle still had her gun drawn, pointed loosely at Cary. “I’m trying to help you, Cary.”
Cary looked from her to the stairwell door. Doyle marked the look and put her gun away, starting into cries for Cary to wait. But Cary took the chance to break for the door before Doyle could reach the landing between floors. She grabbed the little man’s pipe on her way. The doors to the stairwell were double doors, so she shoved the pipe through the handles on the other side. The makeshift barrier might not last, but it would slow her down.
The stairwell was pitch black, and she had lost her clutch in the attack. She had to paw around for a way up. The only chance she had was to find one of those connections to the parking garage and work her way back down to the street from there. At the third floor, she found another set of doors. She kicked them open to let in a bath of light. Two floors up she could make out a door facing away from the building. This had to be it. She scrambled up the next two flights until she could feel around for the door. Once open, she could see the picture of the car and the word Parking on the inside of the door.
The garage was vast and open. The walls went up to about waist level and then opened up for about five feet before the next level started. Cary ran toward a ramp angling down. In the center of the garage, a silo shot upward. On each level was a door with a picture of stairs leading to a closet-like space. A second stairwell ran through the middle of the structure. Before she reached the door, Cary heard the squealing of tires coming up the ramp. She ducked into the stairwell and started down.
She was frozen by heavy footsteps beneath her. As soon as she stopped, so did the footsteps. They both sat in silence, squealing tires still resounding off concrete walls outside. A soft voice called out, “Cary? Is that you?”
Cary trembled. And started easing silently up the stairs. She could hear the engine of a car outside the door, so she continued up as quietly as possible. The voice called out, louder, “Cary? We only want to chat. We can work all this out, okay?”
A footstep. And another. The voice called her name again softly, sweetly. Cary continued taking slow and silent steps upward. Another footstep. Faster. Another. Running. Carry turned and bolted, taking steps two at a time, her dress stretching against her thighs.
The voice called out something into the clicking static of a radio and tires squealed again outside. Cary ran, passing door after door. Her side ached, threatening to split wide open. Her head still buzzed from being thrown. The stairwell ended with one final door. She burst out onto the roof of the structure.
The roof was one sprawling parking lot stretched out to the horizon in every direction—streets and lots and buildings beyond like an infinity pool of pavement. Cary wandered around in the open space with her head in her hands. Behind her, Thompson came crashing out of the door. A car squealed into view from a ramp at the center of the lot. Cary edged toward the building’s edge. Jolly jumped out of the car, leaving it running. He and Thompson both eased toward Cary with their hands out, shaking their heads, smiling, soothing.
Thompson nodded at her. “Let’s talk, Cary. Come on. Get in the car.”
Cary peered over the edge. A lone car sat parked down in a string of spaces on a side street. “You think I’m crazy?”
Jolly shook his head. “No. I think you’re scared. So let’s work this all out, what do you say?”
Cary turned on both of them. “I have it. I have it, okay. I do.”
They froze. Dropped their hands. Stared at her. Thompson said, “Have what?”
Cary swallowed. “What you’re looking for.” She searched her brain for anything anyone might have said. “He sent it to me.”
Jolly laughed. “Bullshit.”
Cary shook her head. “I had another phone. You didn’t know about it. I got it from Johnna’s house.”
Jolly looked at Thompson, who shrugged.
Cary pointed toward the Parker Building. “My purse. I dropped it when one of the assholes you sicced on me attacked me. On the second floor. Toward the back of the building.”
Thompson rolled his head around. “Well fuck.” He looked at Jolly. “Keep her here. Let me go check it out.” He started for the stairwell.
Jolly called out, “Don’t have a heart attack on the stairs, fat ass.”
Thompson flipped him off and disappeared through the door.
Jolly looked at Cary and jerked a thumb toward the car. “Want to wait in the car?”
Cary shook her head.
“Suit yourself.” He started to walk toward his car.
Cary called out, “So Doyle? She’s with you?”
Jolly stopped and called over his shoulder, “Who?”
“Doyle. The cop. Young black woman?”
Jolly turned around. “Yeah. What about her?”
Cary shook her head. “Is she with you or against you in all this?”
Jolly looked confused. “She’s nothing. What the hell are you talking about? She helped us identify you, yeah. But that’s it.”
Cary shook her head. “No. That’s not it. She’s still all in this.”
Jolly hung his head. “Jesus. When?”
Cary peered over the ledge again. She pointed. “Right now. She’s here. I see her car right down there.”
Jolly cursed and started marching toward Cary. She eased out of the way until he got close. As he got even with her, Cary jumped into his legs, crouching and putting her whole weight into his k
nees. She grabbed at his coat and pulled him forward, letting his momentum propel him.
Jolly hit the ledge and teetered over. Cary rolled onto her back and kicked upward with everything she had, connecting with his face and chest. Jolly gasped and continued falling, flipping over the side and vanishing into silence.
A moment later, the silence was replaced with a thudding crash and the resonating whirl of a car alarm.
Cary panted and shivered. Thompson had to have heard the struggle. She whirled around and looked at the running car. Scrambling to her knees, she ran for the car. She jumped in and grabbed at the gear shift. The unmarked police car started rolling as she reached for the gas pedal with bare feet. She looked into her rearview and caught a glimpse of a befuddled Thompson crashing out of the stairwell door as she sped down the ramp.
Chapter 27
Officer Doyle ran after Cary, throwing herself into the barricaded door. After a few tries, she gave up and sprinted down the main staircase. She found a door to the stairwell on the first floor. The door was jammed shut with old boxes on the other side. She had to give the thick metal door several shoulders before it gave enough for her to fit through. Above her, she spotted Cary dashing out a door headed away from the building.
Directly in front of her was a door with a car and the word Parking. Doyle leapt over the boxes and hit the door in a run. The parking garage was dim, but enough light spilled down the ramp from the upper levels for Doyle to make her way across the empty spaces. In the middle was a small stairwell running up the center of the multi-level parking facility. Doyle reached the door and paused. She took out her gun and sucked in several sharp breaths.
The door opened quietly enough. On higher levels, footsteps and voices bounced off the walls. They wouldn’t be able to pick out her clomping over those echoes. Thompson was calling after Cary. She recognized his voice.
Doyle kept to the edges of the stairs and worked her way up behind Thompson. He was a couple of flights below Cary from the sound of things. And Doyle was a couple of flights below him. She didn’t stand a chance of doing anything in these enclosed, dark confines. Even if she worked up the nerve to take a shot, she had no way of keeping it from missing and ricocheting up toward Cary. So she kept a steady pace at a short distance behind them.
When Cary reached the end of the line, she burst out onto the top level and light exploded down the well like a blown dam. Doyle flattened herself against a wall, but it didn’t matter. Thompson was focused on catching up to Cary—Doyle got an eyeful of him huffing his way up to the open door.
Tires squealed above and Doyle heard Thompson trying to talk to Cary. She snuck up to the top level and watched out the open door. Jolly had driven up, and they were both easing toward Cary, who stood at the edge of the roof. Doyle crouched and held her gun close to her cheek, ready. She stepped out, unseen, and worked her way around to the far side of the stairwell. Pressed flat against the far wall, she listened.
Cary was conning them. Separating them. Doyle wasn’t sure if Cary knew what she was doing, but this might give them a fighting chance. Thompson’s footsteps diminished headed back down the stairwell, and Cary kept on, undeterred. She was reeling Jolly in. Moving him away from his car and toward her. If he got distracted enough in the conversation, Doyle might get the drop on him. Maybe convince Cary to get into Doyle’s car with her and burn out of there.
Doyle started easing around the edge of the protruding stairwell structure, gun still at the ready. As she eased around the edge to put Jolly in her sight line, Cary moved. Jolly went over fast—flipped almost. Doyle dropped her gun and stood shocked in the silence. Then, wham. Jolly hit something hard. A car. The alarm rang out everywhere. Cary started scrambling for the car, and Doyle took a step toward her. But Thompson was noisily pounding back up the stairs.
Doyle ducked back down around the structure and held her breath as Cary sped off in Jolly’s car. Thompson stammered and cursed, screamed after her in futile yips. He looked over the edge and mumbled something in unintelligible sobs. Doyle eased up to her haunches and held her gun back out, ready again for anything. But Thompson went bounding back down the stairs without ever seeing her.
She put her gun into the back waistband of her jeans and inched over to the ledge of the roof. Sneaking a look down she could just make out the outline of Jolly’s body smeared across the hood of a parked car. It looked like a cop car. But if Thompson and Jolly had their car in the garage, then…
A figure was running from behind a dumpster and pile of pallets toward the car. Doyle didn’t recognize him, but he was definitely a cop. And he was steadily talking to someone on a phone or a radio.
“Shit,” she whispered to herself. She pulled Cary’s stolen phone out of her back pocket and searched the recent numbers. The most recent she recognized as Marlowe’s.
He answered on the first ring. “Cary?”
She rolled her eyes. “No. But she is alive. No thanks to you.”
“Shelley?”
“Yeah. You got a car?”
He breathed into the phone. “Yeah. I borrowed one. What’s going on?”
“No time for explanations. I need you to pick me up at the Parker Building. Now.”
“Dammit, Shelley. Why’d you have to go there?”
“You better be glad I did. Might have saved that girl’s life.”
He sighed. “Shelley, I’m worried about your life right now.”
“Then come pick me up, asshole. Out front. In, like, thirty seconds.”
He mumbled a curse and fumbled the phone. “On my way.”
Shelley Doyle ended the call, erased any signs of Marlowe’s number, and tossed the phone on the ground. She took off back down the stairwell, using the first door available to switch over to the Parker Building stairs. She made it to the first floor, heaving and almost ready to vomit. Climbing over the boxes, she slipped into the lobby.
Jolly had fallen off the back of the garage, farthest from the front doors of the Parker. It wouldn’t take them too long before they started poking around in this direction. Not to mention, Thompson was still lurking somewhere, and she had successfully pissed off about eight or nine homeless men. She slunk through the lobby, gun drawn. Several homeless men gave her a wide berth. No sign of Thompson. Sirens. In the distance, but behind her, toward the garage. She made it to the loose plywood and took a peek out. No sign of anyone.
Putting her gun away, she slipped out and made a full sprint across the street. She slid into a crouch in a hollowed out nook of a neighboring building. A couple of police cruisers zipped by, but didn’t slow before taking the corner toward the garage. Within a minute or two, a little black Chevy Equinox rolled up, pausing and looking at the front of the building. Shelley ran for it, hoping. She hit the passenger door and jerked it open. Marlowe jumped and yelped.
Shelley hunched down in the seat. “Go, go, go, go.”
Marlowe sped off and took his first opportunity to turn away from the scene. He looked over at Shelley as he drove. “Are you okay?”
Shelley eased up into her seat and fastened her seatbelt. “Yeah. I am now.”
“What the hell happened, Shells?”
Shelley shook her head. “Everything went south. I tried to take your bullshit and make something out of it. I told her to have you send the address to my phone. My other phone. Not the number you have.”
Marlowe laughed. “I figured she had switched to a new phone. I wouldn’t have sent it.”
She nodded. “I know. But it didn’t matter. She switched phones on me. Got the address and came anyway.”
Marlowe shrugged. “She’s crafty.”
“No shit. But they were gonna kill her, ‘lowe.”
He looked at her and hung his head. “That ain’t what they said.”
“Well it’s what they did! They killed the girl’s friend!”
Marlowe bit his lip. “Yeah. I saw the body.”
Shelley slapped at his arm. “Then you know we got to end this,
Marlowe! Nobody else is getting killed because of me. We got to find Do Right and end this shit.”
Marlowe looked at her and shook his head. “Shelley. Do Right’s dead.”
She looked away and back, pointing a finger. “Don’t say that.”
“What you think, Shelley? They gonna kill all these people to cover up some shit he did, but not kill him?”
She shook her head. “What’s this all about then, huh? If they killed him then why not let it be done?”
“Thompson says they think he made a copy. They think he sent it to Cary.”
Shelley frowned. “You and I both know he wouldn’t.”
Marlowe shrugged. “No. He wouldn’t. But it don’t mean he didn’t make a copy.”
Shelley flopped her hands in her lap. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying we offer to find the copy. We hunt it down. We hand it over. And they leave you alone, me alone…”
“Cary alone.”
Marlowe nodded. “Yeah. Everybody.”
Shelley closed her eyes and nodded. “All right. Call him. Tell him we’ll do it.”
Marlowe cocked his head. “I can’t. They burned the phone they used. Told me if I needed them again it would have to be face-to-face.”
“How we supposed to do that?”
“There’s a chat room on some site they gave me. I go on there, post a location and a time, and meet them. They said to give an hour lead time. So we’ll meet them. Somewhere public. And we’ll end this shit.”
Chapter 28
Mark Thompson left his partner with Cary Trubody on the roof of the parking garage. He secretly hoped Dick would put her down while he was gone. The girl had become a pain in his ass. He had enough of those already. Huffing on those stairs on the way up reminded him of a few of them.
