The Silent Places

by James Patrick Hunt

  Reese turned only once to see the man chasing him. A quick glance and he saw someone in a jacket and tie, in his late thirties or early forties, running after him. Reese kept going. If it was a mercenary, a friend of one of the crew he had met up north, the mercenary would just shoot him. Though it would be hard to hit a running target at night. The man on the stairs had said he was a police officer. Probably he was telling the truth. Mercenary or cop, it wasn’t good either way.

  Reese saw the alley coming to an end, light from Kingshighway illuminating it. That wasn’t good. He didn’t need traffic or illumination. Reese reached the end and hesitated for only a moment before he rushed out into traffic. A car honked and another one screeched, and then he stopped as another one whipped in front of him. He ran behind it and then he was crossing another three lanes, this time the southbound traffic. He ran around the back of a bus and then almost got nailed by a Cadillac, its driver slamming on the brakes, putting the car in a four-wheel slide, but then Reese was in the third lane and out of the street and into the cover of Forest Park.

  Hastings was not as bold as Reese. He reached Kingshighway in time to see his quarry run around the bus and somehow dodge the front of a maroon Cadillac. Hastings let a couple of cars go by and then a couple more and then when he thought it would be something less than suicidal, he ran into the traffic. A truck blew its horn at him, making his heart jump, and he reached the center median and waited again as a stream of vehicles went by. He ran behind them and then was beyond the street.

  He was on the edge of Forest Park.

  Christ, Forest Park. A rectangle about a mile wide and two miles long. It contained a skating rink and a zoo and other tourist attractions, but it had a hell of a lot of hills and trees, too. Great place for a man to hide until the police helicopter came with its spotlight and thermal sensors. It would take about twenty minutes, minimum, to summon one. Besides, he had dropped his two-way radio in the apartment building.

  Hastings moved into the park, walking quickly, taking note of trees and brush—places where an armed man might hide. He moved farther into the park, the light and the sound of traffic receding behind him. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, and they did. He walked farther in, and if not for the distant sound of traffic and Barnes Hospital looming a couple of blocks away, he could have been in the country.

  If he were running from a cop, what would he do?

  He would not move north, because doing so would bring him back to Lindell Boulevard. More traffic, perhaps a police cruiser looking for him, shining a spotlight into the park. Indeed, he would probably want to get farther south, but southwest, so as to avoid being seen from Kingshighway.

  Hastings moved southwest, running some, trotting, but stopping from time to time to look and maybe hear.

  There. Movement maybe a couple of hundred yards away.

  Hastings moved forward.

  Reese ran through hills and past trees, but then the ground opened up and he feared he was coming upon a flat, open field. The grounds were better kept, the grass lower. A flag …

  Christ. A golf course.

  Stupid. Now there would be no cover. He should have proceeded due west, kept a course where there were trees. Places that would keep him hidden from police helicopters and determined policemen.

  He wondered if the guy had been dumb enough to follow him into the park. Most city cops would avoid parks except to arrest homosexuals. Chasing an armed man, the typical police officer would call for assistance and then the park would be swarming with police cars and searchlights, maybe a couple of K-9 units, too, sending a German shepherd his way. Reese saw another hole ahead, a flag sticking out of it. To the left of the putting green, there was a sand bunker. If he could get there, he could cover himself in the sand and maybe that would keep him from being found by a thermal sensor. He could spend the night there if need be.

  He ran full out to the sand bunker and jumped into it.

  He lay on his stomach. Then he crawled back to the lip and peered over the edge.

  In the distance, he saw a man.

  Reese opened his attaché case and removed his starlight scope. The scope put distant objects on a light green screen and could magnify the light of a match a million times. Reese put the scope to his left eye and did a left-to-right pan.

  There, about two hundred yards away. The cop.

  Stupid, Reese thought.

  Reese began to assemble the rifle.

  Hastings’s cell phone rang. He removed it from his coat pocket. “Yeah, Murph,” he said quietly.

  “George, where the hell are you?”

  “I’m in the park. About half a mile in, west of Kingshighway. I’m on the golf course.”

  “What the fuck, George.” Murph was relieved, but pissed off, too. Hastings leaving without telling them where he was.

  “Sorry,” Hastings said. “I dropped my two-way in the stairwell. I think our man’s in the park. Send units in and call a chopper.”

  “Yes, sir. George, don’t—”

  “I won’t,” Hastings said, then clicked off the phone and dropped it in his pocket.

  He looked suddenly to his right, his heart jumping. Sound, motion—bipedal, an animal? He relaxed. It was a couple of people on bicycles. Riding through Forest Park at night. Dumbasses.

  About twenty seconds later, the first shot came.

  Reese assembled the rifle and loaded it. He rammed the bolt home and put a shell in the chamber. Then he steadied the rifle on the lip of the bunker and got the cop in his sights.

  The starlight scope gave him the cop’s head and shoulders on a light green screen. Now he could discern the man’s jacket, his tie over a white or pale blue shirt. He could put one between the eyes or one in the chest. A quick kill. He didn’t want to paralyze the man, prolong anyone’s suffering.

  He put his finger on the trigger, began to squeeze. …

  Then he hesitated.

  Where was he? A park in an American city. The man in the distance an American policeman. He didn’t know the man and the man didn’t know him. What difference should it make? See? Right there, in the man’s right hand, a gun. A revolver. That proved he was a cop. No mercenary would carry a snubnose. A cop, then. Wouldn’t the cop kill him if he could?

  Reese leaned forward again.

  Murmurs, perhaps even a shout, movement behind him. Reese jerked and the rifle spat out a shot. Reese turned and saw two young men on bicycles riding on a path approximately thirty yards behind him. He rammed another cartridge in the chamber and turned the rifle on them.

  But saw they were not police officers. Just kids on bikes, going for a night ride. They couldn’t see him from the bike path. He heard one of them say, “What the fuck was that?” And even then they remained unaware of him. He was hidden in the bunker. They increased their speed and rode away.

  Reese turned back and looked out on the green.

  The policeman was down.

  TWENTY-SIX

  As Klosterman and Rhodes had left the hotel to escort the senator home, Murph was the lead detective on the scene. After he got off the phone with Hastings, he grabbed a patrol officer standing by a police car and said, “Is this your unit?”

  “Yeah, Murph. What’s up?”

  “Let’s go.”

  The patrol officer got behind the wheel of the Chevy Impala, Murph in the passenger seat. Pursuant to Murph’s instructions, the patrol officer made a U-turn on Lindell Boulevard and hit the sirens and lights. They slowed at the intersection of Lindell and Kinghighway to avoid a collision, cleared a path, and then roared through.

  Went another quarter mile and took a hard, screeching left onto Grand Drive, taking them into the park. They were soon at a fork in the road and Murph yelled, “Left. Go left.”

  Another screech of tires on road and Murph picked up the com and radioed for assistance.

  He could not measure the time between the sound of the shot and the instant it hit him. They say you never hear the one th
at hits you. But he had heard it. He heard it hit him. When he would look back on it, he would think he had heard it hit his body before he felt it.

  A sort of thhhp sound. And then he twisted back and fell. As if he had been shoved suddenly and violently. Hit with a hard object and knocked to the ground.

  Now Hastings became aware of what he was seeing.

  The sky. Night. Stars.

  He was on his back.

  He was still holding his gun.

  Then he felt the pain. He started to move his left arm and felt the pain in his left shoulder increase. He winced. With his right hand, he reached across his body and touched his left shoulder. It was soft and wet.

  Well shit. This is what it’s like to be shot.

  He put his right hand back on the right side of his body and set the gun on the grass. Then he used his right hand to grab his left wrist and pull it to the right side of his body. Then he got to his knees and picked the .38 back up. He stood and ran.

  The second shot peeled out as he reached the knoll and fell behind it.

  The knoll was about three feet high at its peak and it was between him and the shooter. There was a pause and then he heard another shot, this one thunking into the knoll and staying there. The shooter telling him he knew where he was hiding.

  Hastings started to shiver. He felt nauseous. He looked to his left and then his right and had trouble seeing things in the distance. His vision was blurred. Christ, no, he thought. Signs that he was going into shock.

  It’s just a shot in the shoulder. He’d known cops who’d accidentally shot themselves in the foot. Looked down and said, “Oh no.” And then driven themselves to the emergency room. No big deal. Just a flesh wound, as they say on television. Slap a Band-Aid on it and get back to work.

  But what they don’t say is that a flesh wound can bleed the life out of you in just a few minutes. If the hole’s big enough. If you leak enough blood, because you’ve only got so much of the stuff. And if an artery’s been hit, you just as well kiss it all good-bye.

  Hastings was aware of the wetness of the wound. But he had not seen a geyser of blood. So he had that going for him.

  He had the cover of the knoll. For now, he had it. And maybe he could lean over it and shoot back at the guy.

  Yeah … with a .38 Smith & Wesson Chief’s Special with a two-inch barrel. Good for shooting at someone about twenty yards away, but not much good beyond that. The man coming after him had a rifle. A fucking rifle. Hunting Hastings now in the deadly, silent places.

  If he left the knoll, the man would shoot him. If he was still out there. If he had not run away. Or the shooter could make a wide semicircle and creep back and shoot him from the side. He would not be dumb enough to come close enough to the knoll so that Hastings could get a close shot at him.

  Hastings retrieved his cell phone, fumbled with the buttons.

  Before he could finish dialing, he heard a voice, steady and authoritative. Its confidence chilled him as nothing ever had before.

  The voice coming across the field, saying, “You shouldn’t have come after me.”

  Reese stood behind a tree, on the other side of the fairway. The knoll was in view; the cop was not. If the cop came out from behind the knoll to shoot him, he would not know where Reese was and that would be the end of him. Reese steadied his body against the tree, the butt of the rifle in his right shoulder, his finger on the trigger.

  He waited for the cop to say something back to him. Maybe beg for his life, say something about a wife and kids.

  But he heard nothing.

  Reese put his eye to the starlight scope and saw the knoll in the light green screen. Waited to see if the man behind it would stand and try to make a run for it. …

  A flash of color coming into the screen—

  Reese took his eye off the scope, looked across the park. Now he could hear the siren.

  A police car, its blue and red lights flashing, coming around a bend in the road. A pause as the car got closer; then he saw two gunfire flashes as the cop fired two shots.

  Reese stepped back behind the tree, taking cover.

  Then he realized the shots were not directed at him. The cop was doing it to signal the police car. Shooting at the sky, as if to send up a flare.

  It was working, the police car skidding and then coming onto the golf course, its spotlight sweeping across the field.

  Reese stepped away from the tree and then ran south.

  The police car reached the knoll and scrunched to a stop, leaving ruts in the close-cut grass. Murph got out holding the shotgun.

  “Stay down,” Hastings said. “He’s got a rifle.”

  The patrol officer continued to shine the spotlight across the dark, revealing nothing but trees and ground.

  Murph bent over and ran to Hastings, dropped to the ground next to him.

  “You hit?” Murph asked.

  “Yeah,” Hastings said. “Shoulder. Get something pressed down on it, will you? Did you call for backup? I don’t want this fucker getting away.”

  Murph’s focus was on the wet patch on the lieutenant’s shoulder. Murph had been shot before. Worse than this, he thought, but it’s never good being shot. And somehow it was worse when you saw another’s wound.

  “Murph,” Hastings said. “Did you call for backup?”

  “Yes, I did. Christ, George.” Murph turned and shouted, “Get a fucking ambulance here, you idiot. He’s been shot.”

  The patrol officer hesitated, still manning the spotlight.

  And Murph said, “Never mind that shit. Get that ambulance now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Murph—” Hastings said, his voice gravelly and low.

  “Shut up, George. If we don’t get the guy today, we’ll get him tomorrow. He’s not worth your life.”

  Hastings fell back. He looked up at the sky again. Looking at dark blue night, stars …

  “Murph?” the patrolman said. “The ambulance is coming. Is he…”

  “He passed out,” Murph said.

  Now there were more sirens.

  Reese could hear them throughout the park. And he could see them in the distance. Police cars finding their way in, slipping in like snakes. Reese ran down a hill and crossed a road. As he did, he looked to his left and saw a police car come out of tunnel. It was at least a hundred yards away, maybe even two hundred, and maybe the officers inside wouldn’t see him as he moved up the hill on the other side, still carrying the rifle. But then the car approached, its siren piercing, and he could hear its motor, too, and he threw himself flat on the ground. The noise of the oncoming police car increased, then reached a pitch as it passed him and kept going.

  Reese stood up and kept going, leaving the rifle on the ground.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  They kept him in the hospital overnight. He vaguely remembered waking at six or seven in the morning, the room still dark but a hint of gray at the window, and a nurse came in and gave him a shot of something. He wanted to ask her to tell his daughter he was fine and that he would be home later, but then he fell back asleep. When he next opened his eyes, it was almost noon.

  Eileen was standing there, tear stains down her cheeks, her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail.

  “Yes,” she said, “it’s your ex-wife.”

  Hastings said, “Ohhh. Does this mean I’ve died and gone to hell?”

  Eileen laughed, emotion mixing with it.

  “You idiot,” she said.

  “Sorry. Bad joke.”

  “No, not that. I meant going after that psycho by yourself. You want to leave my daughter without a father?”

  “No. Eileen, don’t say things like that. Please.”

  She was chastened by his words, which was not common for her. “Okay,” she said. “I won’t.”

  There was silence between them for a while. Then Hastings said, “How is Amy?”

  “She’s okay, I think. She’s downstairs. The doctor told her you had minor surgery. Just to cle
an out the wound. Something called an I and D?”

  “Irrigation and drainage. Yeah, that’s what they told me, too, before they put me down. I guess they were telling the truth, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Eileen shook her head. “Jesus, George, you scared me.”

  “Sorry. Who notified you?”

  “Joe. God, I haven’t spoken to him in years. He’s never liked me, has he?”

  Hastings did not answer her.

  Eileen said, “Anyway, when he called me, I knew something bad had happened. He said up front that you were fine but that you had been shot. Or ‘grazed,’ he said. Whatever that means.”

  “It means there’s no bullet in me.”

  “I guess he wanted to contact Amy through me. That’s something, isn’t it?”

  “You are her mother.”

  “Ted’s here, too. Downstairs with Amy. He wants to know if there’s anything he can do.”

  Hastings thought about a transgression years past. Well … the man was here. Christ, modern family arrangements.

  “Tell him thanks,” Hastings said. “Really. They told me last night that if the surgery went well, they would release me today. Is that what they told you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Listen, Eileen.”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t want Amy coming in here, seeing me like this. It may be a little much for her.”

  “She wants to.”

  “I know. But if I can get out of here in a couple of hours, see you down in the lobby, I think that would be better. For her, I mean.”

  Eileen looked at her ex-husband and he looked at back at her. For a moment, he persuaded himself that he had fooled her and perhaps himself, too.

  “Yeah,” Eileen said. “For her.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Eileen agreed to let Hastings drive Amy back to school. Before that, Hastings took her to lunch at Blueberry Hill, where they both ordered cheeseburgers. Hastings didn’t have much of an appetite. But he didn’t want to worry the girl. He hoped he looked normal, though he winced in pain when he moved his arm to get into the booth. He was thankful the girl did not notice this.