Len Levinson - Without Mercy

Jenkins stopped behind a green and white patrol car, and Rackman got out before Jenkins had turned the engine off. Rackman walked up to a gold-braided captain looking at the building.

“We got him yet?” Rackman asked.

The captain looked at him. “Not yet. We’re going through the building from bottom to top. If he’s in there, we’ll get him.”

Jenkins joined them. “What’s going on?”

Rackman turned around. “They haven’t got him yet.”

“Let’s go in the building.”

Rackman happened to glance over Jenkins’ shoulder, and saw a big man in a white shirt and beard come running out the driveway of the new apartment building they’d passed on the way up the block. The man looked at the police cars behind the Y, then turned and ran the other way.

Rackman pointed down the block to the big man in the white shirt. “I think I just saw him!”

The captain squinted. “He’s got a beard and a white shirt!” he said excitedly. “That might be him!”

The captain raised his whistle to his lips and blew hard. Rackman bent over and started running after the man in the white shirt.

“Halt!Police!” Rackman yelled.

The man in the white shirt looked over his shoulder at Rackman and kept on running. Rackman pulled out his revolver and tried to increase his speed. The world filled with the sound of police whistles.

Kowalchuk cursed, turned, and fired a wild shot at Rackman, who dropped to his belly on the sidewalk. Kowalchuk fired again, and people were screaming, fleeing out of the way. Kowalchuk aimed at one of the uniformed cops running down the block, and the pistol went click. Empty. Kowalchuk snarled as he threw the pistol away and went running into the big intersection in front of Lincoln Center. On the other side of the street he saw a sign that said: IRT Subway, with an arrow pointing down. The light was against him, but he had to get into that subway. It was the only chance he had.

Rackman, lying on his stomach, held his revolver in both hands and drew a bead on Kowalchuk. He thought he could bring him down, but there were too many people and cars out there. He might hit somebody by mistake. Bolting to his feet, he took off after Kowalchuk.

Kowalchuk ran into the street, holding his hand out to traffic. Spittle flecked his lips; his eyes were wild and crazy. A yellow cab bearing down on him screeched its brakes but Kowalchuk kept going. He dodged a bus and waited for a Volkswagen Rabbit to pass. He ran in front of another yellow cab, made it past a Chevrolet, and leapt onto the island in the middle of the intersection. Two little old ladies were sitting on the bench in the island looking disapprovingly at him. If he could just make it into that subway station he was sure he could get away. Wiping perspiration from his brow, he glanced back and saw cops running down Sixty-fourth Street after him. A plainclothes cop in a blue blazer was in front.

Kowalchuk gritted his teeth and held up his hand again as he charged into the traffic. Horns blew and brakes screeched, but he looked straight ahead at the subway station and kept going. He was frightened now; he saw the game coming to an end. A fender grazed his leg, but he kept going. Another car actually hit him as it came to a stop, but its momentum was gone and it only knocked Kowalchuk to the side a few feet. He kept going to the far sidewalk and his heart erupted with joy as his foot fell upon it.

He ran down the steps to the subway station and hoped a train would be coming, but when he reached the station no train was waiting for him. He jumped over the turnstiles and everybody turned to look at him.

“Hey where you goin’!” shouted the woman in the change booth.

Kowalchuk ran to the subway platform, and the people waiting there backed away from him. He sniffed nervously and looked both ways. He’d have to get down into the tunnel and try to make it to the Fifty-ninth Street station. If he could, they’d never catch him in the maze of lines going into and out of that hub station.

He jumped off the platform and landed between the tracks. Looking at the electrified third rail, he reminded himself to stay clear of it. His white shirt soaking with sweat, he gnawed at his beard nervously and ran toward the dark tunnel.

On the street level, Rackman was making his way across the intersection. He waved his shield and service revolver in the air, but that wasn’t enough for New York City drivers. They jammed on their brakes at the last moment and cursed him, and he dodged around them, stopping when a car refused to give way. He vaulted past the ladies in the island and stepped into the downtown side of the street. Uniformed police poured into the intersection blowing their whistles, and cars stopped to see what was going on. Rackman made it to the sidewalk and went down the subway stairs four at a time.

He charged into the subway station and jumped over the turnstiles. Commuters were leaning over the platform, looking downtown. He checked them over quickly and didn’t see a white shirt and beard.

He held up his shield. “Anybody see a man in a white shirt and beard come into this station just now?”

An old woman with a shopping bag pointed downtown. “He went that way!”

Rackman jumped off the platform and looked downtown into the tunnel. All he could see was blackness and some widely-spaced lights on steel pillars. A hundred Kowalchuks could be down there right now and you couldn’t see them from here. He trotted over the tracks and into the tunnel, dropping the shield into his pocket but keeping his revolver out. He knew the Fifty-ninth Street station was only seven blocks away and if Kowalchuk ever got that far he’d be awfully hard to find.

He ran down the middle of the tracks, smelling the dank, rotten odor of the tunnel. Looking ahead, peering into every shadow, he tried to spot Kowalchuk’s white shirt. He stumbled over a cross plank, then swerved into the express lane. He could see the distant glow of the Fifty-ninth Street station but no man’s figure was silhouetted against it. Jumping into the next express lane, he heard something skitter at his feet, and looked down in alarm.

A big black rat had been hiding there, and ran squeaking toward the wall. Rackman’s heart pounded, and then he heard it. A subway train was coming from somewhere. He looked around and sure enough the tiny white dots of a subway train’s headlights glowed from uptown. It looked like the downtown express and Rackman knew if he was Kowalchuk he’d try to jump on the motherfucker. It’d probably be the last train through, because soon somebody would notify the Transit Authority to stop all the trains in the vicinity.

Rackman passed between the steel pillars and got on the uptown express track again. He looked back and saw the train speed into the Sixty-sixth Street station, which wasn’t an express stop. Crouching, he peered downtown from that angle, hoping it would show him something new, but it didn’t. He wondered where Kowalchuk was hiding. Surely he couldn’t have made it all the way to Fifty-ninth Street by now.

Kowalchuk was only twenty yards away, hiding in an indentation in the wall beside the downtown local track. Sweat and soot streaked his face and his switchblade was in his fist, the blade pointed straight up. He’d ducked in here when he realized a cop was chasing him, because he thought the cop would be able to see him if he kept moving. It was dark, but not that dark. If only he had a gun. When the cop came closer, Kowalchuk would attack him and try to get his. With a gun, there’d be no stopping him.

Then Kowalchuk heard the train coming. He saw it enter the Sixty-sixth Street station, and a new plan formed in his mind. He’d hop that train and ride it to Fifty-ninth Street. It’d be dangerous—he might slip and fall—but it was his last chance and he knew it.