Ascension Day (52 page)

Everything was in full swing by the time he got to the top of the stairs. He held back out of sight, a foot from the corner where the corridor turned towards the girl’s door thirty feet along. Faint scuffling, raised voices, footsteps now… a door closing, but he didn’t think it was the girl’s; he could hear Gerry Strelloff’s voice, taunting:

‘...Mr – get a restraining order so I can fuck the girlfriend – Mc Elroy. You’ll
what
?’

Silence, so heavy that in that second Nel-M held his breath, fearing that if he even swallowed, they might hear him.

‘You’re not worth it!’

More scuffling, and then a door slamming hard. This time it probably was the girl’s.

Second’s pause, then a thud, followed by Gerry’s voice again. Some dirty secret McElroy apparently didn’t know about – perhaps her and Gerry were into bondage – then, with a half-grunt, half-frustrated-sigh, another kick against the door from Gerry.

Nel-M tensed, putting his right hand into his gun pocket. This was his cue. And, as he heard Gerry’s first steps away from the door, he emerged from around the corner, a smile rising in greeting.

‘Hey, man… that’s not the way you do it.’ Voice low, hushed, as if he was sharing a confidence with Gerry that he didn’t want anyone else to hear.

‘
What
?... Who the
hell
?–’

‘Don’t you recognize the voice, Gerry…
your friend
? And, like I say, that’s not the way you do it…’ His voice little more than a whisper now as he walked past a bemused Gerry Strelloff, until he was between him and the door. Then he turned, taking the gun out in the same motion. ‘This is the way you –’

He fired only inches from Gerry’s face, dropped the gun instantly, and ran for the corner and the stairs, leaping them three and four steps at a time.

28

As Jac opened the door, he heard the last couple of frantic steps on the stairs and the entrance door slamming. He ran a couple of steps past Gerry’s body, then halted: Gerry might still be alive, surely he should be tending to him first, seeing what could be done? And with the moment’s indecision, he knew that the assailant was by then long gone. He moved a step closer to Gerry’s body, inspecting. A lot of blood, but any sign of breathing? He knelt down, feeling for a pulse among the blood; and if the full horror hadn’t hit him then, he’d have known by Alaysha’s gasps and screams.

‘Oh God…
oh God… No
!’ She brought one hand up to her mouth, as if to stop hyper-ventilating. 

No pulse that Jac could feel, though he was no expert, but then he noticed the portions of skull amongst the blood, one section almost three inches round, seeing then too the glistening brain matter – and he straightened up quickly, taking a deep breath as he felt his stomach turn, the bile starting to rise.

He looked up sharply, like a cat caught in headlamps, as Mrs Orwin’s door opened across the hallway. Her eyes darted rapidly, going over the scene a couple of times – the body on the floor, Jac, the blood all around – as if the first time she didn’t believe what she saw. Then she started shouting.

‘You’ve shot him! You’ve
shot
him!’

‘No…
No
!’ Jac implored, reaching a bloodied hand towards her. ‘It was another man who came by on the corridor… Shot him and ran off.’

‘You’ve… I…
I
…’ Mrs Orwin started shaking heavily, and as Jac moved a step towards her, still with the same hand held out imploringly, she hastily closed her door.

Jac shook his head in disbelief, but as he looked back at Alaysha, her eyes were transfixed on the gun. ‘What is it?’

‘I… I think I recognize that gun. I think it… it’s mine.’

‘What do you mean, you think it’s
yours
? I didn’t even know you had a gun.’

‘I didn’t… but I…’ Alaysha swallowed, trying to get her frantic breathing under control. ‘I picked it up from my mom’s the other day… be... because of Gerry coming round.’ As she was met with Jac’s questioning, penetrating stare, she shook her head. ‘I was frightened, Jac,
okay
… he had me and Molly terrified!
Terrified
.’

‘And what else is there you haven’t told me, Alaysha? All that crap from Gerry about dirty secrets that –’ Jac stopped, it all hitting him in that second: the killer breaking into her apartment to get the gun, her fingerprints still on it, Mrs Orwin as an eye-witness. The perfection of the set-up.

‘I was trying to tell you, Jac.’

But Jac wasn’t paying attention, his mind still reeling.
Mrs Orwin probably already on the phone to the police..
. ‘We’ve got to get rid of this gun, Alaysha.’

‘
What
?’

‘Your fingerprints are no doubt on it… and it’s traceable right back to you through your mom. Have you got a…? Never mind.’ He could see that Alaysha was practically in a trance, frozen, biting at the back of one knuckle, so he ran past her into the apartment, grabbed a napkin from the table and, seeing the bag he’d brought the wine in still folded on a side-table, picked that up as well and ran back out. He lifted the gun with the napkin, wrapping it around once, and tossed it in the bag, shaking Alaysha gently by one shoulder as he stood. ‘It’s a set up, Alaysha… a
set-up
. Don’t you see?’

‘But, why…I… ’ And in that moment, finally, she did see. Perhaps this was the other way they dealt with these things, rather than her disappearing and turning up in the river months later. A frame-up that got her locked up with the key thrown away. She nodded hastily, ‘Yeah,
yeah
…
okay
,’ patting his chest in acceptance as she said it, but also a parting,
take care
, gesture. 

He grimaced back tightly, and was about to lean in for a parting kiss on one cheek, but he could imagine the alert being put out as Mrs Orwin spoke, there might even be a squad car just a block away. And whether just dutifully filling that gap in his imagination, he swore he could hear distant sirens in that moment. In the end he just gripped Alaysha’s shoulder once more in reassurance, and ran off, leaping the steps three and four at a time, as Gerry’s killer had done only a minute before.

The sirens seemed louder, closer, almost filling the air, as Jac’s feet hit the pavement outside.

He didn’t know whether they were for him, they could have been heading to something else nearby, but he instinctively headed away from them. He took the second turning off eighty yards along – felt the first would be too obvious – running flat-out all the way.

The sirens still closing in, seeming to echo all around him now.

He paused ten yards into the turn-off, taking stock, his breath already falling short. They were coming from two directions now, that’s why the echo. Hardly mattered which way he ran. If he kept straight on, he’d be heading towards the French Quarter where there was usually stronger police presence, especially at night.

But he had to keep moving, the urgency of the sirens pressing in on him, screaming,
get away, run. And keep running
. He decided to take the next turn-off on the left. The closest siren seemed to be coming from the right. 

As Jac made the turn, the night-time activity of the street was busier, some groups of people milling between the bars and restaurants there, a dozen or so sitting at the pavement tables by one bar. As Jac noticed a few eyes on him starkly, questioningly, he thought it was purely because he was running and was now out of breath, frantic; but as a woman he passed sucked in breath sharply, taking half a step back, he took in his appearance for the first time as he looked down.

His bloodied hand, from feeling for Gerry’s pulse, had brushed against his shirt at some point, and some of it was also smeared on the bag in his hand. While nobody might guess it was a gun in the bag, it could as easily be a body part he’d just removed. 

The siren closest by stopped. Jac could feel his heart still pounding hard, but at least the constriction eased a bit.

He had to get rid of the bloodied bag with the gun. Perhaps a restaurant row somewhere with bins out back in an alley? Like the street he was on now.

He scanned frantically back and forth as he cleared the corner, saw what looked like a service alley ten yards to the right, and darted towards it. He paused, his eyes taking a moment to adjust to its darkness and shadows. A couple of small bins halfway down, then a delivery truck parked in tight behind. There might be some larger bins beyond it, but Jac couldn’t tell from where he was. He ran towards the bins and the truck.

But what Jac hadn’t noticed as he was surveying the alley was the patrol car gliding silently along behind him. They’d seen him run towards the alley, but perhaps wouldn’t have paid him too much attention if he hadn’t started running again.

They stopped by its entrance, and the officer in the passenger seat shone his torchlight down, calling out as its beam hit Jac’s back.

‘Hey…
hey
, there!’

Jac turned sharply, his shock slow to register because it took him a second, squinting against the glare, to make out the police car and patrolman shouting from its window. But he could tell from the look on the patrolman’s face that the image he cut – blood on his shirt, the bloodied bag in his hand – hit home quicker. He turned and ran.

‘Hold it!
Stop
!’

Jac glanced back as the shout came. But the patrolman hadn’t got out of the car and didn’t have his gun aimed through the window. And, by then, Jac prayed that he was too far away for a decent shot.

The patrol car swung back, turning, its headlamps bathing the alley for a moment; then, as if deciding that it might be too tight a squeeze past the delivery truck, it pulled off again with a screech of tyres, siren winding up.

Jac knew that they were going to try and race him around the block, head him off, and he put on an extra spurt, his chest aching now with the effort, legs weakening.

Again, the siren seemed to echo and spin around him, so he couldn’t tell whether they were still behind him in the parallel street, running alongside, or just ahead.

He burst out of the alley at full pelt, eyes darting for the next alley on the opposite side: Thirty yards along. He cut across at an angle after eight strides, just in front of a green Dodge Neon which was forced to brake sharply, and got to the mouth of the alley as the police car made the turn, its siren spilling onto the street – Jac unsure whether they’d seen him take the alley or not.

The siren closer,
closer
, filling all of Jac’s senses above his pounding heart and ragged breath.

The police car slowing, the patrolmen inside craning their necks – and then Jac had his answer as it screeched and swung in after him, its headlamps washing the walls and fencing of the narrow alley.

But he was only ten yards from its end by then, and it had to slow halfway down to negotiate past some bins and a badly parked motorbike.

Jac heard a faint bang behind him, sounded like one of the bins falling, but he’d turned off by then, frantically scanning for the next alley –  twelve yards away on the opposite side – though as he took his first strides towards it, he had second thoughts:
too obvious
, just where they’d expect him to go.

He changed tack to the alley twenty-five yards along on the same side, effectively doubling back on himself, hoping and praying that he made it to the turn before they hit the street and saw him.

They flew out with their spinning siren scream just as he made the turn, Jac again unsure whether they’d seen him… a silent prayer into the night air as he listened to the direction of their siren above his pounding step.