The Thrill of the Chase (Mystery & Adventure)

by Jack Parker

  "Red, people are watching!" Thawyer hissed, still outside my line of sight. I caught a glimpse of him as he brushed past his fellow and hurried towards the mouth of the alley. "Hey – get the fuck away! Get out of here!"

  Red smeared my blood from his face and barred his teeth at me, his misshapen nose dangerously close to mine. He had the gun at my temple now, jammed painfully into the bloody mess streaming from my scalp.

  "Lissen, shithead, you better tell me what I goddamn want – and fast, or I'll –"

  "Cops are here!" Thawyer shouted, his voice hitting a definite note of panic.

  Thank God, I thought.

  Harris released me and whipped around. "Shit! Let's split, Fin!"

  In the split second that my assailant looked away, I reached into my coat and pulled the gun from my chest holster. Now, as he turned back to me, I pointed it straight at his face, concentrating to keep my hand from trembling.

  Harris' eyes found the nose of the 9mm, and he forced a grin. "You can't even see straight." But he had raised his hands in a non–threatening manner; his eyes were trained unerringly on the gaping mouth of the pistol. His own gun now dangled harmlessly on his trigger finger.

  "Red!" Fin Thawyer yelled from the alley entrance.

  Harris' bloodshot eyes rolled over to look back at the alley entrance, but he didn't move anything else. "Fin, look."

  "Don't move or he gets it," I spat at Thawyer as he turned and saw the situation his companion was in. I pushed myself into a more upright position atop my garbage bag throne, the gun trained unerringly between Harris' widely set eyes. "One more step and I'll put both his goddamn eyes out, I swear –"

  "You can't see right, man –" Red said again, frantically looking back and forth from me to the mouth of the alley where his companion waited anxiously in a cat–stance.

  I arched an eyebrow at my captive. "Wanna find out?" In truth, I could see a lot better now, although my head was still pounding, spinning. However, the short distance between us made that weakness negligible.

  "Hold it right there! SPD!"

  Both Harris and I turned in time to see two officers slam into Fin from behind and manhandle the murderer into the far alley wall. The big man put up a ferocious struggle, but the two officers' combined strength was too much for him to cope with alone.

  Harris chose that moment to act.

  He bolted for the back of the alley in the second I had turned away. There wasn't a dumpster close enough to the wall to provide him access overtop, but there were several smaller trash cans and the lip of a windowsill that would serve just fine –

  Assuming he could get there.

  I forced myself upright, fighting off trash physically – waves of vertigo mentally – and raised my pistol to shoulder–height. The weapon leapt lightly in my gloved palm as I pulled the trigger; fire gouted from the nose.

  Simultaneous with the sharp report, Red stumbled and fell, his gun flying away into a snow bank. He screamed in pain and writhed in the snow, clutching his right hamstring with both hands. Scarlet ribbons flecked the snow around him.

  I spat a mixture of phlegm and blood onto the ground and stuffed the 9mm back into the chest holster. Nausea spitted my guts suddenly, and I was obliged to plant a hand against the wall to steady myself.

  Across the way, the two officers had forced Thawyer's hands into cuffs and were currently restraining him by bodily forcing him against the wall. Beyond the alleyway, more cops were shooing away curious onlookers and creating a perimeter.

  A thick hand fell onto my shoulder and spun me around. "That was one hell of a shot, Stikup," Kevin Slyder said, almost impressed. In the background, one of the officers reminded the enraged Thawyer of his right to remain silent, although he obviously didn't care to keep his mouth shut.

  Swallowing a mouthful of bile, I ran my fingers tenderly over the massive bloody lump that underlay part of my scalp and right temple. I couldn't see it then, but my right eye was bruising over as well, bloodied by the runoff from my scalp.

  "Only a few feet between us, Chief," I said weakly.

  He shrugged. "One bullet, perfectly placed. As good a shot as any. Good hustle too, by the way."

  "Thanks," I grunted. There was something I wanted more than praise at that moment, however. "You wouldn't happen to have a Kleenex or something, would ya?"

  Slyder dug a crumpled packet of tissues out of his pocket and handed it to me. "You need to get that cleaned up, but let's make sure these two are the ones we're looking for first."

  I already knew beyond a doubt that they were our culprits, but there was no sense in arguing with Slyder. Dempsey had expressly forbid it anyway. So I nodded agreeably and followed somewhat unsteadily in the Chief's wake as he headed down the alley.

  By now, several officers had gotten cuffs onto Red Harris as well, and he now lay prostrate on the alley floor. His hands and the snow around him were stained with his own blood, and he was still squirming in pain, eyes and jaw clenched shut.

  As our shadows fell over him, however, his rat–like eyes snapped open and he rolled over to better face us. The manacles binding his hands at the small of his back made such action awkward, but the look he shot at me was pure venom.

  Slyder stuffed hands into his pockets, sizing up Harris' appearance. He was working his jaw around a mouthful of gum. "God, he's tall. Definitely him. Even still got that eyebrow ring."

  I sponged blood from my lip with a tissue. "Definitely him," I agreed, trying not to sound so sarcastic. "Can we get something to stop the blood?"

  The Chief turned away, pulling a radio off of his belt. He was most likely phoning an ambulance. As he began speaking into it, I dropped into a crouch beside Harris.

  "Hey, man," I said – softly, like a shrink. "I'm really sorry about doing you in here, but what else am I supposed to do, huh?" He opened his gash of a mouth, probably to curse at me, but I cut him off. "You can start digging your way out of this hole by telling me who you're affiliated with. Your boss's name, any other compatriots' identities, anything else of that nature – I'd be more than glad to take it off your hands."

  Harris laid his head back in the snow and closed his eyes; his red hair was arrayed around his head like a bloody halo. "I don't know nuthin'."

  I raised an eyebrow at him. "You speak English much? See, we call that a double negative. The proper response would have been 'I don't know anything.' Makes you sound smarter if you talk with proper gramm–"

  Slyder's hand fell onto my shoulder. "An ambulance is on its way. We need to clear the area before we can have CSI break it down."

  I looked up over my shoulder at him. "Believe it or not, I gots a few questions to ask."

  His expression darkened severely. "There will be an interrogation later, Stikup," he said warningly, as though to refresh my memory on what had happened the last time I'd started asking questions.

  I didn't need a warning. Dempsey had already given me one. "I know, Chief, but there are a few things I need to know now. You should know me by now – I'm a very impatient man when I have to wait."

  "Alright, but do me a favor and don't threaten this one, okay?" He gave me a look to accompany his tone – a look that told me he wasn't happy. But he would get over it, so long as I kept up my end of the bargain.

  I nodded.

  Raising his hands in laissez–fare abandonment, he turned away in a huff. "Make it fast," he snapped, and took up a position behind me, against the wall of the abandoned complex. Officer Vadder had joined him and was standing in the snow nearby, thumbs tucked into his belt.

  Ignoring them both, I pulled my notebook from my coat pocket. It was crumpled and a little damp from my tumble in the snow and trash, but I opened to a blank page just the same, hoping that my pen would still write on the wet pages.

  "Okay, Goliath," I said cheerily, resuming the dialogue. "Tell me everything."

  Harris looked determinedly up at the gloomy sky. "Might have to threaten me first."

  "So you do k
eep up with current events," I said genially, then allowed my voice to drop to a more dangerous tone. "Don't fuck with me. Tell me how you got involved in this."

  Harris closed his eyes against the pain in his leg. "I don't know, man." His voice came out in a wheeze, but he sounded resigned to cooperation, for which I was thankful. "I'm a free–lance artist, done hundreds of jobs. I get called all the time. This time, it's by some anonymous dick who wants us to rob this one home. Simple as that. I've gotten away with worse scams."

  "It isn't that simple, Harris," I said, recalling the line from Dick Tracy. I wondered if Slyder was rolling his eyes behind me, but didn't risk a look. "In my job, it's never that simple."

  But if their only instructions were to hit Miles, how does Daniels fit into the picture? Or Mendoza?

  Distracted by my own muse, I stumbled over the next question. "What were this… dick's motives, do you think?"

  He looked at me like I was crazy. "How the hell am I s'posed to know?"

  "I don't know; maybe I was hoping you worked part–time for the psychic hotline." I spat on the ground and wiped a thin trail of blood and spit on my sleeve. "What other methods of contact did you have with your employer besides telephone?"

  "None. And he always called us, so I don't have any number you can call or trace."

  Damn.

  He wasn't under oath, so I couldn't discount the possibility that he was lying. However, it didn't seem like something worth lying about. But what do I know? I've always been too trusting.

  I chewed the inside of my lip, which immediately proved to be a bad decision, because I started bleeding again. "How much did he offer you for the job?" I asked, swiping at the flow with my sleeve again.

  "How's that gonna help you solve this one, Tracy?"

  Why all these Tracy references all of a sudden? Frustrated with my injury, I snapped, "Just answer the goddamn question."

  He just looked at me for a moment, wondering if he should push me, perhaps. Then, he answered begrudgingly, "About ten grand for me 'cause I'm a professional. The other guys only got eight, and they weren't happy with it."

  I did the math in my head, then shook my head. "That's twenty-six grand. So let me get this straight. This mysterious employer puts out… an entire semester of college tuition for this job. He never tells you why you're doing what you're doing, never contacts you in person, never lets you know his identity. Kind of a mysterious for some 'simple' agenda, don't you think?"

  Harris winked at me in a type of obnoxious pride, a ghost of a smile curving his pale lips. "Ours is not to question why. We let the money do the talking. I tell you man, it's just a job."

  "So raping and killing women is just your sick little hobby, then?" I spat, unable to contain my disgust.

  Harris' smug look faded almost instantly, replaced by an entirely unconvincing mask of innocence. "You don't know it was me. I swear to God, I had nothing to do with her. It was Fin and that Sheldon kid who fucked her. I had nuthin' to do with that –"

  "We found your scum all over her, Harris – and Thawyer's," I said, standing abruptly. "Sheldon had nothing to do with it, and you goddamn know it."

  Harris shook his head adamantly, craning his neck to maintain eye contact. "How could you test anything, huh? I wasn't there for any fucking tests."

  I rolled my eyes, another painful action that I immediately regretted. "You've been apprehended before, Harris. We have everything about you on record, dude. Blood type, immunizations, arrest records, previous homes, contacts, favorite cheesecake –"

  "Guess who doesn't give a shit," Harris muttered, turning his head away from me.

  "Guess you don't give a shit about your nephew either, eh?" I demanded vehemently, and his head snapped back around, fire filling his dark eyes. "Yeah, that's right. Guess it wasn't a wise idea to just abandon him, huh? Decided you didn't want to care for your dead brother's son anymore? Got better things to do?"

  He sat up suddenly, an action made difficult by the manacles keeping his hands together at the small of his back. "Shut up!" he howled. It seemed I'd touched a nerve. "Shut the fuck up! I don't need you to fucking tell me how to treat my own kin!"

  "Chief, I'm done with this bastard," I said loudly over Harris' continued rant, turning to face the big cop. He was still standing with Vadder, watching the exchange. "Where's the other one – Thawyer?"

  Slyder jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the street. "We had to put him in a car. He was mouthing off – creating a scene. Press'll have some choice things to say about SPD's handling of criminal situations – especially out of our township."

  "Better hope the mayor doesn't get wind of it." Or a certain DA of ours. I stuffed my notebook into my pocket and wiped at my mouth with my sleeve again. "Let me talk to Thawyer."

  "I don't know how cooperative he'll be," Slyder cautioned as he led the way down the alley. "He's more pissed than Harris."

  As we stepped out into the street, an ambulance came to a halt across the way, and paramedics hurried down the alley to the spot where we'd left Harris behind.

  "I'm willing to risk his ire," I said, then jerked a thumb over my shoulder, back towards where the alley dead–ended. "Harris' gun is buried in the snow somewhere back there, by the way."

  "CSI will pick it up," Slyder assured me as we shouldered our way through police officers and news reporters alike. "We've got to get this show on the road…"

  Civilians were lined up everywhere, watching with interest, hoping to catch a glimpse of what was going on. The sidewalks were packed with them, and horns blared as officers at either end of the block redirected traffic down side streets.

  Slyder opened the passenger–side door of the squad car for me, and I climbed in. The officer in the driver's seat gave me a comradely nod, and I returned the gesture before turning to face the backseat occupant.

  The moment I sat down, Thawyer went off on a tirade of profanity, banging noisily on the mesh that separated him from us.

  I grinned at the officer. "Throws quite a tantrum, doesn't he?" To Thawyer, I said. "Relax, man. Just answer my questions and things'll go easier for you."

  Thawyer spat at me, but most of the spittle hit the metal mesh. "Give me your worst."

  I swiped the rest from my face with sleeve of my coat. "'Worst?' I'm not going to torture you. I'm just asking you a couple questions. Think of it as a pop quiz. I'll start with the easy questions, okay? How many jobs were you paid to pull off?"

  Thawyer scoffed. "Why should I fucking tell you anything?"

  "I just told you. If you help out, your sentence will be lighter. That's a good thing, Finny." I fixed him with a shrewd gaze. "Look, I just want to know what you know. Your compadrés ratted you out, so you might as well pay 'em back, eh? Eye for an eye, right? That's Scripture, man."

  The bearded man was still for a moment, fuming in silence.

  "Ahh, fuck them both," he said finally. It seemed that my bluff was the only thing that was going to work the answers out of him. That might have been the reason he sank back in the seat, suddenly content to glare daggers at me.

  "Alright, you want the truth?" he demanded. "Fine. We were only called for one job, but we didn't like the pay, so we decided to… get more for our efforts. I mean, we do this kinda stuff all the time, so why not do a little side job, y'know?"

  "Not really," I replied mildly. "How'd you know 264 had a safe? The owner of the house told me you and Harris demanded to specifically be brought to the safe. Most houses don't have safes, wouldn't you agree?"

  "Boss told us to get what was in the fucking safe," Thawyer insisted, glaring – perhaps wondering where my questioning would lead. "That's all, alright? Not much was there anyway – not sure why it was even important, but that's what we were told to do."

  "Ah," I said. "Same reason you hit the lady's house? 'Boss' told you to?"

  "No." Thawyer shook his head, still glaring. "That's the side job I was telling you 'bout. See, we were arguing about the pay whi
le we were driving back to the place one night. I says, 'Fuck this. What's to stop us from just going into any random home and taking what boss isn't giving?' Red agreed with me – I've worked with him before, so he trusts me, I guess – but the rookie says, 'I don't like it'. So, I pulled over and Red and I went into the closest house – just to spite the goddamn pussy, I guess. Shouldn'ta gotten involved with him – son of a bitch has a noble streak. Kept telling us to stick to the assigned work. And then when we stumbled on the lady, he practically flipped out. I was fucking glad to leave him."

  "Is that how it works with you?" I scratched at the drying blood on my cheek. "Someone decides he actually has a conscience and you just abandon 'em?"