John Gilstrap - Nathan’s Run

Pointer reoriented himself in an instant, and formulated a plan. He couldn’t believe that it all had become this complicated. “Steadman!”

The new addition to the evening’s cast was an unwelcome intrusion, but Pointer could handle it. Just another bullet, that’s all. He needed to draw the new cop into the cell somehow. Easily enough done. Pointer groaned loudly. It took no effort to sound convincing.

Little shit could have had a career ahead of him in the big leagues, he observed, trying to blink away the lingering fuzziness in his vision.

Schmidtt ran the distance to the open cell in seconds, his footsteps stopping just out of sight beside the opening. After what Pointer thought a ridiculously long hesitation, Schmidtt swung into the doorway, crouched into a two-handed shooting position.

His expression said it all. Who the hell are you?

Pointer sat propped up against the far wall, his head lolling against his chest. He moaned again for effect, even as he noted the bulge of the cop’s chest protector through his uniform shirt. Head shot it is, Pointer thought.

Schmidtt nervously scanned the room for the perpetrator who had done this to his fellow police officers. If he had even the slightest suspicion of the stranger on the floor, his eyes showed none of it. In fact, he looked entirely relieved to find that whatever danger there had been had passed him by. The tension drained visibly from his shoulders as he straightened and approached his fellow police officer.

The moment Schmidtt holstered his weapon, Pointer brought his to bear. “Looking for me?” he said as he squeezed off a single round.

The bullet entered Schmidtt’s head squarely at the crease of his lips, and sent him sprawling backwards into the hallway.

“Brilliant police work,” Pointer chided, holding his aim for just a few seconds to make sure there was no movement before holster ing his own weapon.

Such a simple fucking job, and from what anyone would be able to tell, he was no better at it than the slob Bailey had hired to make the hit. Goddamn kid was slippery. And fast. Pointer was surprised by the effort it took to rise to his feet. He never did get a good look at what the kid used for a bat, but he admired the skill and guts it took to use it so well.

Mr. Slater was not going to be happy. Dead cops always brought more scrutiny than they were worth, and now there were two more of them. Questions were going to be asked. Pressure was going to be brought to bear, and Pointer knew enough about his boss’s business to know that people sometimes had to be sacrificed to keep the heat off. The more loyal and hard-working the sacrificial lamb, the more the right people were satisfied. That meant Pointer, unless he could turn this all around somehow.

Everyone deserves a second chance, but no one deserves a third.

As he stared at the uniformed body in the corridor, the outline of a plan began to form in his mind. Most people thought that Nathan was a cop killer already. Looking at the physical evidence in the jail, they might just draw the same conclusion again, especially if Pointer stacked the deck some.

Stepping over Schmidtt’s legs to gain access to his holster, Pointer noted with satisfaction the near-total absence of blood. It was a perfect shot. He removed the cop’s pistol and stuck it into the waistband of his own trousers.

“You’ve been a bad boy, Nathan,” he mocked as he strolled back toward the watch desk. “Didn’t your mama ever tell you that you shouldn’t shoot nice policemen?” His joke pleased him.

Back at the watch desk, he leaned awkwardly over Watts’s body to reach the tape decks they used to record the security cameras. Three eject buttons produced three videotapes, which he tucked under his arm. When he looked at the clock, he was startled to see that it was nearly five o’clock. Hurrying his pace, he left through the front door.

Fully an hour passed before Nathan heard the first siren; but r when they came, they came by the dozens. Though he didn’t dare peek out to take a look, his mind pictured scores of police cars zooming down the street, their tires screeching noisily as they slipped around sharp turns. Occasionally, from his hiding place in the stairwell of an apartment building, he could see red and blue lights painting the walls above him with their rotating beacons.

He realized, looking back, that he’d made a huge mistake in his latest escape strategy, and he cursed himself for it now. As he left the police station, it never occurred to him that he would have this much time to get away. Had he realized that, he would have run much further before stopping to hide. As it was, he figured he’d put maybe a mile at most between himself and the jail. From what the television news had taught him about police practices over the past couple of days, he knew that his position placed him squarely inside the initial search perimeter.

Unlike the JDC, which was located out of sight and out of mind in the country, this burg’s jail was an annex to the courthouse, such as it was, the most prominent structure in a downtown area dominated by storefronts and alleyways. He’d passed the silhouette of a tall pencil-like monument in what had to be the town square, but the trees and shrubs that surrounded it were only three rows thick, offering no cover for him. As he dashed through the town, every window was dark, and not a single person or vehicle moved, making him feel all the more conspicuous and exposed as the only person stirring the thick silence of the humid night.

His fear of being noticed drove him to seek cover in the graffiti-stained stairwell. Below the sidewalk, and hidden behind five galvanized trash cans, he was invisible from the street, but the sun would rise soon, leaving him unprotected and out in the open.

Nathan didn’t know what to do. The sun was already painting brilliant orange brushstrokes on the horizon, so his options for running on foot or even boosting a car were no longer viable. And he certainly couldn’t stay where he was. Damn those cops, he thought. If only they’d minded their own business, he’d be at the border by now, worrying about evading Mounties.

The old feeling of hopelessness began to wash over him again, but he pushed it aside. No doubt about it, his plan was all shot to hell; but he had more immediate concerns to address.

Funny how the obvious is often the last thing you see. As his mind sought for a new plan, the solution first appeared in the form of a question: Where do these steps go, anyway?

In the darkness of the night, the stairwell had been only a black hole against the white concrete; but as the darkness turned to shades of gray, he became aware of a door to his left, obviously leading to a basement.

The instant he saw the door, he realized he’d discovered his only option, yet he hesitated before moving. Basements were places where rats and roaches lived; where it was always dark and always damp, hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Even in the nice homes of his childhood, basements had scared the bejeebers out of him. The specter of what horrible creatures might dwell in a place like this—both real and imagined ‘madehim’ shiver.

Might as well be in jail as be in this basement, he thought critically.

But that was ridiculous, wasn’t it? There was a big difference—a huge difference—between a basement and a jail. He could leave a basement any time he wanted to.

As yet another siren approached in the near-light of dawn, Nathan gathered his courage and entered the black basement through the door to his left, which, happily enough, was unlocked.

The phone rang six times before Warren even heard it through his sleep. It was like crawling out of a deep hole in his mind; the noise was at first processed as a part of a dream, making him wonder why the beautiful stranger fondling him would make such a piercing noise. By the third ring, he knew it was part of the real world; but it took two more for him to realize that the current real world was rooted in the darkness of the Spear and Musket Motor Lodge.