Jack & Jill (Alex Cross 3)
SAMPSON AND I raced behind Perez, closing a little ground on him. We shot down a littered, twisting concrete alley that ran between the tall, depressing buildings. We could both still move pretty well.
“Stop! Police detectives!” I yelled loudly at the sorry excuse for a man running ahead of us. Bogeyman? Chimera? Innocent restaurant porter?
Perez, the suspect child murderer and child molester, was definitely trying to escape. We didn’t know for sure if he was Chop-It-Off-Chucky, but he had some reason to run from Sampson and me, from the police.
Had we finally caught a break on the case? Something sure as hell was happening right now.
I had a very bad thought lodged in the front of my brain. If we’re this close to catching him, after two days on the streets why wasn’t he caught before?
I thought I knew the answer, and I didn’t like it much. Because nobody cares what happens in these wretched neighborhoods around the projects. Nobody cares.
“We’re back!” Sampson
suddenly shouted as we sprinted between the cavernous buildings, stirring up street garbage in our wake, rousting pigeons.
“Remains to be seen,” I yelled to him.
Nobody cares!
“Don’t doubt it for a minute, Sugar. Think only positive thoughts.”
“Emmanuel is fast, too. That’s positively the truth.”
Nobody cares!
“We’re faster, stronger, tougher than Manny ever dreamed of being.”
“Better trash talkers,” I huffed. Just one huff, but a huff all the same.
“That, too, Sugar. Goes without saying.”
We followed Perez/Chop-It-Off out onto Seventh Street, which is lined with four- and five-story row houses, bombed-out stores, a few tank bars.
Perez suddenly turned into a beaten-down Federal-style building near the middle of the block. The windows were mostly boarded with sheet metal, looking like silver teeth in a rotting mouth.
“He seems to know what the hell he’s doing,” Sampson yelled. “Knows where he’s going.”
“At least that makes one of us.”
Sampson and I entered the sagging, ramshackle building several strides behind Perez. The strong smell of urine and decay was everywhere. As we climbed the steep, reinforced concrete stairs, I could feel a fire spreading into my chest.
“Had his escape route all figured out!” I huffed. A definite huff. “He’s smart.”
“He’s trying to escape from us. That’s not too smart. Never happened… WE GOT YOU, MANNY!” Sampson yelled up the stairs. His voice echoed like thunder in the narrow quarters. “HEY, MANNY! MANNY, MANNY, MANNY!”
“Stop! Police! Manny Perez, stop!” Sampson shouted at the fleeing suspect. He had his gun out, a nasty 9mm Glock.
We could hear Perez still running above us, his sneakers slapping stairs. He didn’t yell back. Nobody else was on the stairs or in any of the stairwells. Nobody cared that there was a police chase going on inside the building.
“You think Perez really did it?” I yelled to Sampson.
“He did something. He’s running like his ass is on fire. Spreading right up his spinal cord.”
“Yeah. We lit the fuse.”
We burst out a gray metal door onto a broad, uneven expanse of tar roof. Overhead the sky was a cool, hard blue. There were shiny surfaces and maximum glare everywhere. There was nothing but bright blue sky above. I had the urge to take off—fly away from all of this. The urge, but not the means.
Where the hell had he gone? He was nowhere in sight. Where was Emmanuel Perez? Where was the Sojourner Truth School killer?