by Erik Carter
In reverse.
Dale gritted his teeth and pressed the clutch then gave Arancia a big burst of gas. The engine roared. Dale pulled the steering wheel all the way to the left. Then he dumped the clutch.
With a piercing screech and the pungent stench of burnt rubber, Arancia’s entire rear end spun around. Dale corrected with the wheel and held on as the rear tires spun, threatening to throw him off course. He maintained and bolted down the hill.
He was on the Chevette in a split second. It continued flying down the hill in reverse, jerking about violently. Through the windshield, Dale could see both Kimble and Fair.
Dale had to admit—Kimble was doing a damn good job driving that thing in reverse down a hill. San Franciscans, understandably, were excellent at driving on hills.
But Dale had only a moment to admire Kimble’s skill.
Because Kimble had pulled his gun again, and he aimed it out the window.
There was no hesitation. Kimble squeezed the trigger.
“Shit!” Dale said and yanked the wheel to the side.
The shot cracked.
Arancia thrashed about, nearly sliding into the cars parked on the side of the street. Dale yanked her back around, got in behind the Chevette again.
Just as Kimble hadn’t hesitated, Dale had not a moment to spare. He stuck the Model 36 out the window. Its nickel-plating shined in the bright sunlight. Dale wasn’t the best shot in the world—especially left-handed—but the saturation theory rarely failed him. He took aim at one of the Chevette’s front tires.
And fired. Three times. Rapidly.
A deafening roar from the gun, and a loud pop as the tire exploded. The car immediately peeled to the side, violently, and Dale yanked Arancia over to avoid it. He smashed the brake pedal and pulled up on the handbrake.
The Chevette arched to the side until it was perpendicular with the street and then shot like a wobbly rocket toward the sidewalk. The pedestrians who hadn’t heeded Dale’s siren scattered for safety, and the Chevette smashed into a cement trash receptacle. The hood crumpled, and a billow of steam erupted from beneath it.
Dale hopped out of Arancia. Both hands on his gun. And he slowly, cautiously approached.
“Get out of the vehicle!”
Both doors on the Chevette opened. Kimble and Fair stepped out. They looked at him for a moment.
And then they both ran.
Dammit.
Dale holstered the gun and took off after them. But as soon as the chase began, Fair pulled away from Kimble, running down California whereas Kimble headed for a side street.
Fair had evidently been serious about ending the pair’s partnership.
And now Dale had a decision to make. Did he chase after Kimble, the man to which Dale had an ascribed yet unproven theory about controlling Jonathan Fair? Or did he chase after Jonathan Fair himself, the man all of San Francisco was hunting?
Given that Fair was under the world’s microscope, Dale figured—as the rest of law enforcement had—that he also had a death warrant signed by either the Alfonsi family or any number of nutcases looking for instant infamy by bringing down the one and only Jonathan Fair.
Plus, capturing Fair was what Dale was being paid to do.
So his decision was easy to make.
Dale ran after Jonathan Fair.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
El Vacío saw the female cop disappear below, heading into his building.
And he took immediate action.
He grabbed the sniper’s rifle.
Took off the scope. Unscrewed the suppressor. He then unscrewed the barrel and capped it with a small piece of plastic that he removed from the end of the bolt. He slid the tiny action off the stock. Moved a spring-loaded release that held the trigger in position then folded the trigger inside the action. He collapsed the small metal butt. It hinged perpendicular to the stock, which was made of the same tubular metal as the barrel—the only difference being the rifling. He screwed the two tubes together. It was now one length of metal, with the plastic cap on the bottom and the folded butt on the top. El Vacío slid the tiny bolt action, which fit nicely in his palm, onto the grooves in the butt. It clicked into place.
His walking cane had been reanimated.
He grabbed the cane, scope, and suppressor, and crawled through gravel on his stomach away from the edge of the building before standing up. He shrugged off his jacket, stuck his hands in the sleeves, and shook it out, reversing it. The inside was bright blue, and as he put it on, he was now clad in a vibrantly-colored piece of clothing, totally different from the light green article he’d been wearing. It was a means of throwing off identification. El Vacío had some time ago learned that big shocks to the senses like this were an easy way of confusing a person’s memory. Memory was, after all, a very fickle thing.
He retrieved from his pocket a fake mustache of comparable quality to the beard he’d spotted on the male cop. It was a temporary, and the adhesive was not as good as he would typically utilize. But for a speedy escape, it was exactly what he needed. He peeled a thin strip of clear plastic from the back and quickly but deftly applied it to his lip.
He dropped the scope and suppressor into his pocket and briskly walked to the door at the opposite side of the building’s roof.
He stepped into a hallway. Pure chaos. Chinese families along with a few non-Chinese, all pushing, shoving their way out of the apartments. There was the smell of Asian food. Everyone was making their way to the end of the hall. He went with the crowd as it funneled through a single metal door and into a stairwell.
The confined space within the stairwell made things more cramped and even louder. It was echoey. Dusty. Warm with body heat. Shouting and pushing all around. The mass slowly descended the stairs.
When he was one flight above ground level, he spotted an individual who was coming up the stairs. Headed right toward him.
A blonde, Caucasian woman.
The cop.
And she hadn’t spotted him.
El Vacío was a master at concealing his expressions, but inwardly he was smiling ear-to-ear with the thrill of anonymity as he stepped right past the woman.
Her eyes were cold and determined, scanning over the dozens of people. El Vacío could read faces, and there was something in her eyes, something aside from the tension of the moment. A bit of uncertainty. She clearly wasn’t a rookie, so it wasn’t that. More like a lack of conviction in herself. Fear of mistake.
She was attractive, in a slightly brawny kind of way. El Vacío had assessed her curves in the half moment he’d given himself to glance over her. And as he stepped past her, inches separating them, he could smell her sweat. He savored it.
Out the door. Onto the sidewalk.
A bit of relief as he felt a little more space. Just a little. The sidewalk was teeming with people. All frightened, all fleeing. There had been a burst of initial panic after El Vacío had taken his shot, but it had turned into utter madness after the female cop had returned fire, laying down several rounds.
In front of him, about a block away, he could see the corner where both the Chevette and the Pantera had turned—California Street. He headed in that direction.
Ahead was a trashcan. He shrugged off his jacket again and casually dumped it as he walked by, relieving himself also of the scope, suppressor, and ammunition. He now had nothing on his person tying him to the shooting. Aside from a harmless walking cane.
He had stocked up when he first arrived in the city, so he had more scopes, suppressors, and ammo waiting for him at his motel. He’d custom-built his rifle, but scopes and suppressors he acquired as needed and disposed of readily. He ran through them like a normal man ran through walking shoes.
Losing the jacket also gave him another change of look—a light yellow, short-sleeved shirt, his third appearance in a only few minutes. He was going to need anonymity again.
Very soon.
Chapter Thirty
Dale was once more running down a ste
ep hill toward the bay, just as he had the previous day when he chased the imposter Jonathan Fair. And, framed between the canyon walls of city buildings, he once again saw Bay Bridge in the distance, one of its towers standing tall over the water.
Ahead, Fair took a left onto Montgomery Street.
Dale was several feet behind him, and it was a couple moments before he took the corner too. As he did, he saw the pointed monolith that was Transamerica Pyramid towering above the city, a couple blocks away.
Dale scanned Montgomery Street. Fair was nowhere to be seen. But all Dale had to do was follow the excited stares and pointing of the pedestrians. Their attention was focused on the loading dock of the building on the corner—a multistory hotel—where the most wanted man in the country had evidently just fled.
Dale sprinted into the dock. It was dark with muted, brownish light. The air was thick and stuffy. Hot. Dusty. There was the laundry smell of bleach, which came from several rolling, six-foot carts overstuffed with white sheets, hanging over the edges. A ramp was in front of him, and at the back wall of the ramp—which was mounted with several rubber bumpers, the types made of stacked, recycled tires—was Fair, climbing over the ledge.
Dale dashed up to him, closed the distance. As he did, Fair thrust a kick at him, just as he cleared the top. His shoe caught Dale in the shoulder, jolting him backward with a dull pain.
Fair ran into the maze of wheeled laundry carts as Dale scrambled over the wall. Dale got to his feet and looked forward just in time to see Fair pushing one of the large carts right at him. Dale shielded himself and absorbed the heavy impact with his arms. He stumbled, nearly falling back over the wall.
Fair ran for a door a few feet away, open, partially blocked by another laundry cart. It led to a service hallway. He cleared the doorway and disappeared. Dale sprinted after him.
The hallway was brighter than the dock, lit by sickly, depressing fluorescent lighting. The walls were painted white and heavily scuffed. Fair stole a look back at Dale through his square-framed glasses. Dale’s boots pounded the floor, and he felt himself drawing closer to Fair, though he also felt his lungs burning terribly, begging for oxygen. There was a Hispanic maid at the end of the hall, and she plastered herself against the wall, waiting for the two men to pass. She was clearly frightened, but Dale still perceived a twinkle of amazement in her eyes after recognizing Fair.
Another laundry cart in front of them, and as Fair ran past, he yanked it, rolling it to the side, trying to block the path. Dale anticipated him and made a quick juke move, dodging the cart before it smashed into the wall. Fair’s tactic had cost him some time, and now Dale was right on his heels.
There was a door in front of them at the end of the service hallway. It opened up before them, and another maid walked in. Her eyes lit up. Behind her, Dale could see the inside of the hotel. An opulent hallway—ornate wallpaper, plush carpet. It was teeming with people wearing lanyards bearing name-tags.
A conference.
Dale couldn’t let Fair get in there, slip into the masses of people and disappear again. They were only a few feet away from the door. So Dale had to make a move.
He leapt.
For just a moment, Dale was Superman. An eagle. His arms stretched out before him and his legs behind him. He was soaring. He felt pretty damn cool, and he imagined himself looking something like Dirty Harry or Charles Bronson in a revenge film. Slow motion. A gritty, determined, and utterly badass look on his face. But he knew the truth was he probably didn’t look half as awesome as he thought he did.
But it did the trick nonetheless.
Because Dale crashed right into Fair’s back.
The two of them tumbled to the floor in a rolling mass, skidded forward a few feet. When they came to a stop, Dale was on top of Fair. Dale clenched his fist, ready for whatever might happen.
But nothing happened.
Fair simply looked up at him through his famous glasses with a look of defeat. As brave and noble as the Felix Lyons personality was, apparently he was no fighter.
At least not in the physical sense.
Felix had resigned himself to being caught.
And then something occurred to Dale. A happy thought.
He felt a jolt of pride.
Dale had done something pretty amazing. He’d captured the man the whole damn world had been searching for.
Dale had caught Jonathan Fair.
Chapter Thirty-One
El Vacío watched the crowd from across the street as the cop escorted the handcuffed Jonathan Fair out of the hotel’s loading dock. There were excited screams, flashes from cameras.
The pack mentality of fervent human fanaticism. Idiotic. Disappointing. But it was one of the many primal traits of the human psyche that fueled El Vacío’s employment. So let the fools have their simpleminded fun.
El Vacío stood beside a phone booth near the newspaper stand where he’d purchased the magazine toward which he was was feigning interest. The cop guided Fair down the sidewalk, and as he did, he scanned his surroundings, no doubt looking to see where more gawkers might be coming from.
His gaze landed on El Vacío. Their eyes met.
El Vacío turned back to his magazine. Waited a moment. And glanced back up.
The cop was still looking at El Vacío. Staring right at him.
That confirmed it. The cop recognized El Vacío as the sniper from the roof, even with the change of outfits and the mustache.
Again, El Vacío was impressed with this cop. The guy had it where it counted. Back in Chinatown, he’d shown his analytical prowess. And, when he stood up and ran to his car, knowing that there was a sniper on the roof, he’d shown bravery. Now he had shown attention to detail.
The next few seconds were critical for El Vacío. Right now, the cop’s mind would be questioning itself, wondering if he really recognized the man across the street as the sniper he’d seen for only a half moment. His mind would be telling him that while the man might look similar to the sniper, he was wearing a different outfit. And hadn’t the sniper been clean-shaven?
El Vacío needed to disappear during this moment of confusion before the cop convinced himself that his mind wasn’t playing tricks on itself, before his full attention returned to his very important business of bringing in Jonathan Fair.
El Vacío waited for just a moment, until the crowd pulled the cop’s attention away. And then he darted off.
Vanished.
As much as brazen, brute strength was important to El Vacío’s work, so too was stealth, and by the time the cop looked back up, El Vacío was well hidden.
He peered out from his veiled location and watched as the cop scanned about, pulling Jonathan Fair with him as he tried to push through the crowd to get a glimpse at where he’d last seen El Vacío. Determination, clearly, was another one of the cop’s attributes.
But look as he might, the cop was not going to find El Vacío. And as he watched, El Vacío saw the cop resign himself to the fact that the suspicious man he’d seen across the street had disappeared. He then continued down the sidewalk with Fair, the crowd of onlookers following them.
El Vacío would be following them as well.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Paulie took a bite and chewed slowly, forced himself to swallow. He put the sandwich down. Only a small corner of it had been eaten. He hadn’t had an appetite for days. If there was one way to shed extra pounds, it was by losing your prodigal son into a firestorm of ravenous bloodsuckers, all of whom wanted to hunt him down.
The prospect of an all-out bloodbath of a mob war didn’t help matters either.
He was in a back, private room at one of his restaurants. The door was shut, the room closed off. The muffled sound of Irish folk music could be heard from the main restaurant beyond. Fiddle and a classic song. The room was dark, and the only other person with him was Danny, who sat at the other side of the table, ravenously destroying his own sandwich.
Danny swallowed another bite, took a
long swig of his beer, then finished his thought. “Which means Beau Lawton really bailed us out. SFPD busted eight potential Alfonsi hits. They were gonna hit us simultaneously, all across the city.”
Paulie took the napkin from his lap and wiped his face. “Angelo was trying to make a statement. He thinks we’ve been hitting him through Jonathan. So he was gonna hit us back even harder.”
“And he still has El Vacío out hunting for John,” Danny said.
Paulie had been trying not to think of that. He had teams of men scouring the city for the assassin, but aside from one report of a fleeting glimpse during the madness at Chinatown, El Vacío had been completely invisible.
“Angelo is a fool. He wants to put us all at war,” Paulie said. “So let the battles begin. Call in all the boys. We’re moving on this. Today.”
Danny grinned devilishly. “You got it, Pop.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Dale had built an image up in his head of what the crowd outside the San Francisco Hall of Justice would look like on the the occasion when the notorious Jonathan Fair was finally brought in.
But, as Dale led Fair up the steps, the real crowd was even thicker than the one he’d dreamed up.
There must have been at least a hundred people there, a mix of media and fanatics. Television cameras. Cardboard signs. Wigs. Plastic, square-framed glasses. Screams of joy. Even some screams of anguish. Questions from the reporters. Shouted commands from the uniformed cops trying to control the crowd.
Dale guided Fair toward the doors, kept his hand on the man’s left arm, which was behind his back, handcuffed to the other. People shoved in from all directions. Cameras and microphones smashed into Dale. He heard his pseudonym shouted from all directions. Melbourne! Mr. Melbourne! People in the knock-off square glasses and T-shirts bearing the phrase Where, Oh Where Is Jonathan Fair? pulled at Dale’s arms. The reporters shouted questions at him and Fair.