James Grippando - Born to Run

Madera drew a breath. “You know what they say: If you want something done right…”

“You got this one?”

“Send a couple men to help me look for her. But when we find her, then yeah,” he said, “I got it.”

“Where the hell did she go?” said Theo.

A crowd of onlookers, some of them press, had gathered around the camera and lighting crew. The Action News reporter appeared on the verge of losing her patience.

“Mr. Knight, we are still on the air.”

Theo looked out beyond the crowd, up and down the dimly lit parkway. A couple of stray dogs ran loose, and a homeless guy was pushing a shopping cart toward the overpass. Theo was in a neighborhood of two-bedroom ranch-style houses, each with five or six beat-up cars parked in the front yard-a family of four, as far as the U.S. Census Bureau was concerned; more like twelve or fifteen, if everyone had been accounted for. At four o’clock on a Sunday morning, many of them were either coming from or heading to a second or third job, which explained the crowd’s steadily growing numbers.

Sofia was nowhere to be seen.

“She was standing right here a minute ago,” Theo said into the microphone.

“I’m sure she was,” said the reporter.

A squad car passed on the street.

“The cops must have spooked her,” said Theo.

“This is live television, so perhaps you could tell us what she would say, if she were still here.”

Theo ignored her. He was getting concerned.

“Mr. Knight, can you please-”

“Sofia!” he shouted, as he sprinted away. A woman was standing at the street corner a block away. She turned, saw him, and ran.

Definitely her.

Theo gave chase for about fifty yards, then thought better of it. He’d already seen one MDPD car cruise the area, and a former death row inmate chasing an elderly white woman down the street definitely wasn’t cool. He walked briskly and kept an eye on her, confident that she would soon tire.

His cell rang. It was Andie.

“Finally, you return my call,” he said.

“I’ve been a little busy. How was I to know you have the gunman’s ex-wife with you?”

“You mean ‘had,’” said Theo.

“Don’t tell me she’s gone.”

He rose up on his toes and looked ahead. He spotted Sofia cutting across the parking lot in front of a convenience store. Her gait was short, as if the run had already given her a side stitch.

“Not gone,” he said into his phone. “I got a bead on her right now.”

“Where? I’ll send a squad car to pick her up.”

“Don’t. She doesn’t want to talk to the cops. I think that’s why she snuck away from me in the first place.”

“I need to get her under police protection. That’s what Demetri wants.”

“I’ll call you when I catch up with her, all right? We’ll go from there.”

“I don’t have time to waste.”

“Let me handle this,” said Theo. “Five minutes ago she was willing to go on television and ask Demetri to let the hostages go free. I’m not exactly sure why she doesn’t want to go to the cops, but she doesn’t. If you send a bunch of squad cars into the area, you can kiss her help good-bye.”

“You don’t understand,” she said. “There are mob connections here. She wasn’t running from the police. She’s running for her life.”

“I understand plenty,” said Theo. “I’ll call you in two minutes. Tops.”

He closed his flip phone and started after Sofia, gaining ground quickly. Sofia was tiring. As Theo cut across the street, she checked over her shoulder, and their eyes met from a distance. He expected her to run, but she’d already blown through her second wind. She sat on the curb outside the entrance to the convenience store, and Theo caught up with her there.

“My friend Jack needs you,” he said. “Why did you take off?”

She was still trying to catch her breath, and her response came out in bursts. “I-saw them.”

“You mean the cop car?”

She shook her head, pausing to take another breath. “The black car.”

“What black car?”

Her eyes widened with fear, as if she’d just seen death itself. “That one,” she said as she jumped to her feet. “They want to kill me!”

Theo looked toward the street. A black sedan rolled past the entrance to the parking lot and then hit the brakes. The driver threw it into reverse, and the car backed up so fast that the tires squealed. Obviously, Sofia wasn’t blowing smoke.

“It’s them!”

Theo picked her up in his arms-he was at least double her weight-and ran inside the store. They ran past the cookies and knocked over a tray of snack cakes. The sight of Theo moving that fast was enough to push the skinny white kid mopping the aisle to the brink of cardiac arrest.

“Don’t hurt me!” he said as he dove behind the malt-liquor floor display.

Theo stopped, glanced back through the storefront window, and saw two men jumping out of the black car. Hiding was futile. He turned, Sofia still in his arms, and ran past the beer coolers into the stockroom.

“Hey, you can’t go in there!” the cashier shouted.

Theo headed straight for the store’s emergency exit in the back. The alarm sounded when he pushed the door open, and Sofia shrieked at the shrill noise. Theo carried her into the alley, not sure which way to go. It was a narrow block of barred doors and windows, the back entrances to restaurants, bars, and Laundromats that had closed hours earlier. The glow of high-voltage crime lights gave the night a yellowish tint. The alley was actually bright enough for Theo to read the graffiti on the walls-not a good thing, when you were trying to disappear. He sprinted to the left, past a mound of green garbage bags, past a pickup truck that had probably been there since the Clinton presidency. Thin as Sofia was, she was feeling heavy in his arms, and outrunning these goons was not a winning strategy.

Hide. Gotta hide.

He nearly blew past a narrow walkway between buildings, but he spotted it out of the corner of his eye and made a quick right turn into total darkness. The lone streetlamp in the side alley was burned out, and the passageway was so narrow that Theo had to be careful not to bump Sofia’s head and feet against the walls of painted cinder block on either side. He went deeper and deeper into the darkness until he could walk no farther. A blind alley. He turned around, but backtracking was not an option. He could hear the echoes of footsteps-the men in pursuit-in the main alley.

“What now?” Sofia whispered.

Theo was breathing heavy and weighing his options. The business establishment at the very end of the alley was a mom-and-pop grocery story, and a nine-foot tower of crushed corrugated boxes was stacked up behind it. A fine hiding place-for pussies. The ten-foot mound of green garbage bags, filled with stinky rotten produce, was a much better choice.

“There,” Theo whispered.

He made a beeline for the bags, Sofia in his arms, and they buried themselves beneath Mount Trashmore.

“What are-” Sofia started to say, but Theo shushed her.

Theo peered out from beneath the bags of trash and saw two silhouettes standing at the end of the narrow alley, their black bodies backlit by the yellowish streetlights of the main alley. Sofia reached over and held Theo’s hand-Theo could feel hers shaking-and they waited.

Then slowly, the silhouettes came walking toward them, the click of leather heels echoing in the darkness.

Theo watched as they approached. It had taken all this time for his eyes to adjust to the total darkness, and the men’s tentative steps told him that he would have the advantage of night vision for a few minutes more. He looked around quickly and found a box of rejected apples. The first two he handled were so rotten that they turned to mush in his hands. He found one that was still firm, and he grasped it like a baseball.