Michael Palmer - The Society

With Biggs’s voice echoing behind him, Will sprinted off down whatever street they were on, which he believed ran parallel to Spruce.

“Forty seconds!”

Frantically, he searched for an alley crossing over to Spruce. Instead, the street began sloping upward and curving to the left-away from where the Jeep was parked.

“Thirty seconds!”

Biggs’s voice still seemed to be coming from just a few feet behind him. Will’s legs felt as if they were moving through molasses. He looked in better shape than he was, and countless nights on call hadn’t helped matters. The muscles he needed for standing at the operating table or prowling the wards of the hospital were strong, but aerobically he wasn’t much of a specimen. Already he was breathing heavily, and a sharp stitch had formed in his side. Gold had perhaps five or six years on him, but he was also fit. With the X-rays tucked against his body, Will’s stride was choppy and unbalanced. In addition to the dagger in his side, every step sent a railroad spike hammering into his battered jaw.

A right turn. Where in the hell is a right turn?

Initially, he had been grateful they left him his car keys and certain he could make it to the Jeep before Gold caught him. Now he debated whether it was worth abandoning the notion of the Jeep and instead trying to find a place to hide-a Dumpster, perhaps, or a doorway into a building. His minute was over, he felt certain of that, but the bend in the road made it impossible to see if Gold was closing on him.

Ahead on the right he spotted a street sign fixed to the side of a building like the one for Dennis Way. Alley 122 . A right here, then maybe two more rights and he might find Spruce. It seemed like a better bet than trying to hide someplace. Maybe just the turn would be enough to lose Gold. Still sprinting full bore, trying to ignore his mounting discomforts, he charged into the alley, which was cleaner and less cluttered than Dennis. Ten yards in, he caught his toe in a pothole and fell, sprawling face first onto the slick pavement. He cried out as skin tore off his knees and palms. Air exploded from his lungs. The envelope of films skidded out of his grasp. He glanced back as he retrieved it and scrambled to his feet. Nothing yet.

Ignoring pain in half a dozen different places, he sprinted ahead. He was nearing the end of the alley when he heard a gunshot from behind him. A piece of brick to his left shattered off. Silhouetted against the dim light at the far end of the alley, still a good distance away, Gold appeared to be on one knee, steadying himself for another shot. Will lurched to his left as the second shot ricocheted off a wall not far from his head. Damn! Biggs would never have given Gold back his gun. He must have had a second one hidden somewhere. No surprise. The man was a pro.

The end of the alley was just a few yards away. A car splashed past on what seemed a much wider street than Spruce. Right, then maybe another right, Will guessed, realizing at the same time that he might have gotten completely turned around. Even if he could put a little more distance between him and Gold, would he have a chance to reach the Jeep, jump in, and get it out of a tight parking space? Doubtful. Even if his sense of where he had parked was right on the money, it was extremely doubtful he could make it out in time. Still, however remote, there was a chance.

He pushed himself even harder, blocking out the aches and the hopelessness of his position. Charging around the corner, he narrowly avoided colliding with a man walking toward him. It was Lionel, still on his evening constitutional. Gasping for air, Will grabbed him by the arm and roughly pulled him into the shadow of a brick tenement.

“Lionel, Lionel, listen,” he heard his desperate voice plead, “I’m in big trouble. Here, take this and hold it for me. Wait in here until it seems safe, then go home. I’ll find you.”

“Who-”

Panicked beyond waiting for any reply or working through the potential consequences of what he was doing, Will thrust the envelope into the old man’s hands and pushed him into the rear of the unlit, recessed entryway to the building. Then, praying Gold wouldn’t realize that his initial move had been to the right, he hunched over as if he were a running back with a football and sprinted across the rain-swept street to the left. Another shot snapped off from the alley, then another. Both sounded much closer than had the previous ones. He was across the street now, pounding past a beauty parlor, then a tax office, trying to keep his speed up as pain in his hands, jaw, and knees and the horrific stitch in his side slowed him down. A block passed, then most of another.

“Grant! Give it up!” Gold called from behind. “Those were warning shots. I can kill you right now, but I won’t. Just give me the films!”

The killer was gaining rapidly now. Will knew that, barring the sudden appearance of a patrol car or police station, it was almost over for him. Ahead and to his right was the entrance to an old, unlit cemetery. From what he could tell, none of the headstones seemed large enough to offer a place to hide. Still, the route would take him even farther from Lionel, and if he made it through, maybe there was more activity on the other side.

With no plan other than to keep moving, he cut sharply to his right, between two shoulder-high granite steles and into the graveyard. He hadn’t gone more than twenty or thirty feet when he tripped over a low stone nearly obscured in the long grass and pitched forward, slamming shoulder first into a marker that looked to be centuries old. At that moment, part of him wanted to quit, to just roll over and wait. Instead, he scrambled to his feet and stumbled ahead. The far side of the small cemetery seemed to border a fairly busy street. Two cars sped past, then a third. If he could just make it there, he sensed he had a chance.

What little remained of his hope lasted only a few more seconds. Before he reached the low hedges marking the far border of the graveyard, he was tackled from behind with stunning force. His face narrowly missed a stone as he pitched forward into cold, wet mud with Gold’s full weight upon him. Another instant and he was on his back, his attacker straddling him, looking furiously about, his dirt-stained face a mask of rage. Squeezing Will’s cheeks inward until his mouth involuntarily opened, Gold thrust his pistol to the back of his throat.

“Okay, you son of a bitch,” he rasped, “where are the frigging films?”

There was no way Will could tell what was first to work its way into his fragmented consciousness-the free-floating, disconnected images of the hours, perhaps days, just passed, the distinctive odors of animals and disinfectant, or the intense pain. The room was quite long and fairly narrow, with a high ceiling illuminated by two rows of fluorescent tubes and the light from three windows along the wall to his left.

He was naked, lying faceup on a hard, thin mattress. Whether out of pity or anger, someone had thrown a moldy brown army blanket over him. He flashed on the similar sensations of waking up on a respirator in the ICU following his fentanyl overdose. He was absolutely helpless then and terrified of the tube down his throat. This time he was simply miserable.

There was swelling about his eyes that made it difficult to see clearly. His face felt as if it were caked in cement. He could open his mouth, but only at an agonizing price. His nostrils admitted only thin streams of air.

Shakily, he reached up a puffed, abraded hand and confirmed that the cement was, in fact, thick layers of dried blood covering his nose, lips, chin, and chest. Bits of memory continued to drift together, then flutter apart like windblown leaves. He knew that at some point he had been drugged, then hurt, then drugged again. A wiry little man with bad skin and yellowing teeth had cut him or burned him in some way, asking over and over about the X-rays.