The Silent Places (24 page)

The boy said, “Did you like school? When you were young, I mean.”

When you were young
. Of course the boy would consider him old. Reese said, “Not so much. I wasn’t much of a student. I guess I was kind of anxious to move on, too.”

The boy gave a teenager’s shrug, awkward and noncommittal. He said he had to get back to work and left Reese alone.

Reese said, “Let me see that one.”

The man behind the counter said, “The Simmons?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve got a good eye, friend. This one’s on sale, three twenty-nine ninety-nine. Me, I think it’s as good as the Leupold for a lot less money.”

Reese was in Diamond Jim’s Gun Emporium. It was in North St. Louis County. The owner was in his fifties and his name was not Jim, but Greg Ashlock. He had kept the name of the business intact when he bought it six years ago.

Reese examined the scope for a while. He nodded and said, “Okay.”

The owner wrapped up the scope and rang up the bill. Reese paid in cash and walked out the door.

It was late evening. Cold and darkness falling. Reese’s car was parked diagonally in front of the small gun store. He got into the Mercury and backed out.

Looking in his rearview mirror, he saw a police car.

It was unmarked, no lights on top. A white Chevy Impala. But Reese knew it was a police car almost instantly. Now he saw two plainclothesmen in the front seat. Detectives.

The Impala pulled into another diagonal space. Parked there.

Softly, Reese pressed the accelerator. The Mercury started moving ahead. A couple of seconds later, he looked in the rearview mirror again. The detectives were going into the gun store.

Shit
.

Reese kept going. The worst thing to do now would be to hammer it. All he had done was buy a scope. He had not bought a rifle. He had no rational reason to race away, no reason to panic. He was a normal man, a citizen. A hunter.

The county PD detectives had visited five other gun shops in North County before they got to his one. They were tired and hungry and they wanted to go home. Escobar had assigned them the detail, so they figured there had to be a reason.

They showed their IDs and asked the proprietor a series of what had become boring questions. Had he sold any high-powered rifles today or yesterday? And if so, to whom? Could they see his list?

The owner said no, it had been slow since deer-hunting season had ended a few weeks ago. In fact, the only thing he had sold since lunch was a rifle scope, and that guy had just left. In fact, just now. He saw him through the window, the fellow driving the black Mercury. … “You probably saw him yourself when you pulled in,” the owner said.

One of the detectives asked, “What did this man look like?”

“About fifty. Well built, though. Looks like he takes care of himself.”

The detectives exchanged glances.

One of them said, “Could be our man.”

And the other said, “We got nothing else to do.”

They caught up to the black Mercury about a mile away. It was stuck in traffic, sitting behind a line of other cars waiting for a light to turn green. The detectives were two car lengths back. The light turned green, traffic moved forward, and the detectives slipped the white Impala behind the Mercury and hit the switch that activated the red and blue lights that were built into the grille of the car.

The Mercury rolled along for a few yards, then shifted over a lane and then over to the shoulder. It stopped. The Impala rolled up behind it and the detectives stepped out. They walked toward the Mercury, and when they were almost to the trunk, the Mercury sped away.

“Shit,” one of the detectives said.

They both ran back to the Impala.

Reese didn’t floor the accelerator. He just pushed it hard enough to put some distance between him and the detectives’ car and get out in traffic. He got the Mercury to a yellow light, and floored it, and made it through before it turned red. Moments later, he flicked his eyes to the windshield and smiled when he saw the white Impala stuck behind a couple of vehicles, the lights in the grille flashing as if they were angry.

Reese drove faster, cutting in and out of traffic, doing what he could to escape the sight of the two plainclothes officers. They had seen his car and likely recorded his license tag. So he would have to ditch the car soon. The thing to do was to get to a shopping mall or movie theater, someplace with a lot of other cars and a lot of people, hide it among other vehicles, and simply walk away. Grab another car or hail a taxi or catch a bus. Above all don’t get caught in a long-ass O. J. Simpson chase with twenty police cars and a helicopter with a camera putting the whole thing on television.

It was good advice he was giving himself and he would have taken it, but a squad car drove past him, going in the opposite direction. And Reese looked in his side mirror and saw the damn thing turn around, flick on its flashers and sirens, and come straight after him.

Reese pressed the accelerator down hard. The engine made a sort of
whumpf
sound as the transmission went to a lower gear and the car leaped forward. The Mercury crossed three lanes of traffic, cutting off other cars, causing them to skid and slide, and Reese accelerated up the entrance ramp to Interstate 170, going south.

The squad car joined him on the interstate, soon tailed by another. Two chasing him now, the detectives’ Impala not far behind. Reese sped up—80, 90, 100, 105. … He kept control of the car and kept his eyes on the road, disciplining himself not to panic and concern himself with what was in the rearview mirror.

He saw another squad car off to his right, coming up an entrance ramp, its lights flashing, and he realized it was on a course to sideswipe him when the ramp joined the highway. Coming, coming … Reese kept an eye on it, and then it got close enough that Reese could see the forms of two men in the front seat, the one in the passenger seat holding a shotgun. Reese lifted his foot off the accelerator, then touched the brake. The police car swerved in front of him rather than making contact with his side. Reese pressed the accelerator down and went around the passenger side of the police car. The driver of the police car realized Reese’s intention at the last moment and swung the squad car back to the right as Reese attempted to pass it. The sides of the cars made contact, metal against metal, sparks flying in the night, and then the Mercury was past, the police car fishtailing behind.

Hastings and Klosterman were in Hastings’s office eating their dinner. On top of the desk were take-out paper bags stained with french fry grease. They were going over a report when a cell phone rang.

“Hastings.”

“George, it’s Escobar. I think we may have your man in a pursuit.”

“Where?”

“He’s going south on One seventy in a late-model black Mercury Marauder.”

“Now?”

“Yeah, now. They spotted him coming out of a gun shop in North County.”

“How do you know it’s him?”

“We don’t know for sure. George, he ran. You interested or not?”

“I’m interested. We’ll head out that way now, west on I-Sixty-four. Call me in five minutes, give me an update.”

“Sure.”

They took the felony car assigned to Klosterman—a blue Impala. Hastings paying attention to the police radio, Klosterman pushing the car through interstate traffic, cars pulling to the right as they saw the flashing red and blue lights. Klosterman kept his attention on the road; Hastings listened to the excited, frightened voices of the police officers involved in a high-speed pursuit. Hastings resisted the urge to join the buzz on the radio. It would just cause confusion.

Klosterman said, “I thought this guy was smart.”

“What do you mean?” Hastings said.

“Getting caught in an auto pursuit like this. Nobody ever gets away.”

“He ain’t nobody.”

More radio buzz. They were posting squad cars at interstate off-ramps, setting up blockades. If the runner tried to leave the interstate, he would be boxed in. State police cars were joining the pursuit and assisting in the roadblocks, wanting a piece of the action, the rush.

Klosterman slipped the Chevy past an eighteen-wheel semi, the police lights reflecting off the white slab side of the trailer.

Klosterman said, “One seventy dead-ends on I-Sixty-four. I say he’ll go west on Sixty-four, away from the city.”

“No,” Hastings said. “The ground’s too open. He’ll go east, into the city. Look for a place to hide.”

More radio buzz. Suspect exiting 170 at Clayton Road. Roadblock ready.

“They’ve got him,” Klosterman said.

Reese brought the Mercury down to seventy after he peeled off the interstate. He saw the police cars at the bottom of the hill after he had already committed himself. He lifted his foot off the accelerator. Sixty-five, sixty. The police cars came into distinct form. Men behind the cars, some of them leveling shotguns across the roofs. Reese saw an opening at the right side of the blockade, let the car drift a bit, then punched it.

A fusillade. Shots booming, cracking out, the first of them going nowhere, but then some connecting. The windshield was hit, making a spiderweb pattern on the glass. Reese lowered his head, keeping it high enough so he could see over the dash. He kept control of the car as cops figured out what he was up to and started running away from the farthest car.

The Mercury smacked the rear end of the last police car and pushed through. Reese spun it around, hammered the accelerator down, and headed east under the interstate overpass, gunfire thacking the back window, hitting the back of the car. None of the shots hit him, but then he heard and felt a sound in the rear and the car began to fishtail.

They had punctured a tire. Reese turned the steering wheel to his right, trying to correct it, but it went too far, and then the car was sliding into the guardrail, all control lost as the car twisted around, doing a near 180 before screeching to a halt altogether.

Steam coming out of the hood. A busted radiator. Or a thrown rod.

Police cars approaching him now, lights flashing, sirens blaring.

Reese got out of the Mercury and ran to the guardrail. On the other side was a steep slope, a dark wooded area. Reese climbed over the guardrail and jumped.

He didn’t land right, losing his footing and feeling a horrible twist in his ankle as he stumbled and fell and rolled down the hill. He grunted out in pain involuntarily and then cried out as he felt his head hit a hard object. The sirens were closer now, hurting his ears, and then he heard tires screech to a halt.

He was on his back in the dark. His eyes adjusted to the darkness surrounding him. Looking up the slope, he could see shapes gathering at the top, the cops apprehensive about coming down the steep slope after him. Reese looked to his right and saw a wooden fence. He got to his feet, wincing when he put weight on his left ankle. But he moved to the fence, jumped up and grabbed the top, and pulled himself over.

Hastings stood near the smashed-up Mercury, seemingly pinned against the guardrail, about a dozen police cruisers around him. Efrain Escobar showed up about five minutes after Hastings and Klosterman.

Escobar pointed down the slope and said, “He jumped down there, what, maybe five minutes ago?”

Hastings said, “And you can’t find him?”

“You want to go down that slope?” Escobar asked. “In the dark? Man, that’s something you
rappel
down.”

“Christ.”

“There’s a residential neighborhood at the bottom. I worry he’s in one of those houses. We’ve got patrol officers going through there. We’ll find him.”

“That’s if he’s still in the neighborhood,” Hastings said. “Shit. Hanley Road is right over there.”

“What, you think he hitched a ride?”

“No, I think he stole a car. Either way, I think he’s gone.
Fuck
.”

“Sorry, George. We did the best we could.”

Hastings regarded his friend. A cop he liked and respected. “I know,” Hastings said. “I’m sorry. Anyone injured?”

“No, I don’t think so. He totaled a state patrol car.”

“Well, preserve his car, will you? I want to see if his prints are on it.”

“George, it’s being done.”

Hastings made another apologetic gesture. “Sorry,” he said. “I got people thinking I’m chasing a ghost.”

“He’s real enough,” Escobar said.

Hastings moved away from the slope. Walked toward Klosterman and then saw a black SUV on the other side of the road. A familiar face behind the wheel. Another man next to him.

The man who had stopped him at the Preston house.

Hastings called out to him.

“Hey.
Hey
!
”

Clu Rogers looked at him briefly. Then he put the SUV in gear and drove away.

Klosterman said, “Who was that?”

“Preston’s goons,” Hastings said.

“The mercenaries? What the hell were they doing here?”

Hastings said, “I’d like to know.”

Two miles away from the wreck, Reese looked at himself in the rearview mirror of the car he had stolen. The left half of his face was streaked with blood. He felt for the wound and found a gash in his head above the hairline. The blood had dried now and matted his hair. He believed the bleeding had stopped. He could not tell in this light if he would need stitches.

He had stolen a Mazda station wagon with a manual transmission. He did not like having to shift, did not like having to expend the energy. He knew he was weak, feeling dizzy and even a little faint. Also, he had to use his left foot to depress the clutch. The pressure made him wince every time he had to shift. He had twisted his ankle. Even in the dark, he could see that it had swollen to the size of a grapefruit. He wished he had stolen a vehicle with an automatic transmission. He wished he had gone to a different store to buy a scope. He wished he could see the road clearly.

With painful effort, he managed to drive back to the bed-and-breakfast.

He was relieved that Mrs. Mangan was not at the front desk. One of her employees, a younger lady, was there, and she barely acknowledged Reese as he hurried by her, turning his head so that she would not see the wounds.