Doc Schermer pulled out, following their suspect’s direction of flight, but it was slow progress as cars whipped out of parking spaces, or stopped to claim a coveted spot. Sydney kept her eye on the suspect, darting between pedestrians on the heavily crowded sidewalk. The street was filled with cafes and bars, and a few shops that were open for business.
“We’re going to lose him,” she said, as Schermer had to stop once again, this time for an SUV that was trying to fit in a space barely big enough for a compact. “I’m getting out.”
Schermer picked up the radio. “We still have visual. Fitz is getting out on foot.”
“Ten-four,” Carillo said, his voice sounding like it was coming from a shaker as he ran. “Call… PD… get… assistance.”
Carillo was about a half block back, while the suspect was about a block beyond her in the other direction. Sydney grabbed the portable radio from her backpack, then took off running toward the suspect, paralleling him on the opposite side of the street. He looked back once, saw Carillo chasing him still, and continued on. Sydney was fairly certain he didn’t realize she was there, but only because he didn’t look her way. Plenty of people on her side of the street did, however, some swearing at her as she raced past them toward the intersection. He was maybe fifty yards ahead of her, when several people exited some nightclub directly in her path, and she nearly bowled a man over.
“Hey!” the man yelled, grabbing her.
“FBI,” she said, holding up her radio as if that were proof. He let go and she ran past. Scanned the crowd across the street. A few pedestrians crossed the intersection farther up, but their suspect wasn’t one of them. Sydney didn’t think he’d made it that far, which meant he must have ducked into one of the businesses. She gathered that Carillo had come to the same conclusion, because he also stopped on the opposite side of the street from her, looking around both directions.
He spoke into his radio, his voice stilted, out of breath. “See which way?”
“No,” she keyed back. “Don’t think he made it to the next intersection.”
Doc Schermer drove up, came to a stop, and held up his hands, ignoring the nitwit in the car behind him, honking.
“Circle the block, see if he made it past here,” Sydney radioed. “Carillo and I will check the businesses.”
Doc waved his hand, signaling for her to pass, since he was conveniently stopping the traffic. She did, then darted across the opposing lane when that car stopped as well. Carillo, waiting for her on the other side, nodded at a blackboard listing the pasta specials for a cafe. “That’s where I last saw him. In front of that restaurant.”
“Then let’s start there.”
They walked in the entrance, and the woman working the front seemed to stare at Sydney’s hooker face a few seconds too long. “Two?” she asked.
Sydney pulled out her credentials, so there was no mistaking their intent. “FBI. We’re looking for someone. Where are your restrooms?”
She pointed toward the kitchen in the back.
“You see a white male wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt come in here?”
“No,” she said, and they walked past her, eyeing the patrons, who seemed to be eyeing Sydney. Maybe she’d been a bit too successful with that makeup. Not that she cared at the moment, and they checked the bathrooms, then into the kitchen. No one saw anything. They left that restaurant and checked the bar next door, with the same results. Two cop cars were cruising past when they stepped out, which meant Schermer had succeeded in getting help at least, and they stepped into a used music store with no customers.
The cashier, a dark-haired twentysomething with a bad haircut and piercings in both eyebrows and his top lip, looked up from his issue of Rolling Stone when they walked in, his bloodshot eyes barely registering a reaction when he saw their badges. “Yeah. You must be looking for that guy who ran through here. What’d he do, like rob a bank? Oh, wait. Like they’re closed.” He started to laugh.
“Which way?” Sydney asked.
“That way,” he said, pointing. “Ran through the back.
Heard the door slam shut.”
Carillo glanced at her as they walked toward the rear of the store. “High?”
“That would mean he had brain cells to begin with.” They checked the few aisles, and the too-small restroom just off the storage room, then stopped at the back door. Sydney put one hand on the push bar, drew her gun with the other, then eyed Carillo. He drew his weapon as well as a
Stinger flashlight, gave her a nod, and she pushed open the door.
They came face-to-face with a brick wall. To the left was a padlocked iron gate that belonged to the adjoining restaurant, blocking any access to the catwalk, which meant he had to go right. They started in that direction, but then stopped when they came to a second catwalk separating the music store from the adjoining business, a cleaners that was closed. The well-lit catwalk led back to the street. “Which way?” Sydney asked.
“You go right, I’ll go left. We’ll meet up on the corner.” They split up. Sydney continued to the right, holstering her weapon when she got back to the sidewalk at the front of the store. She looked both directions, didn’t see their suspect, then started toward the corner, where she’d said she’d meet up with Carillo, shaking the doors of the closed dry cleaner’s. Locked tight. She walked to the next business, an avant-garde theater called the Purple Moon, known for its popular drag queen reviews. A show was just breaking, it seemed, when she had to stop to allow a number of patrons to exit. She glanced in the doorway, saw a burly doorman, and decided it couldn’t hurt to ask if he’d seen anyone.
“Actually, I did see a guy with a gray sweatshirt,” he said. “Kept looking over his shoulder. But we’ve just had a bunch of people leaving, so he might not even still be here.”
She peered inside at the crowd. It was too big a building to search alone. “Thanks. I’ll get my partner, and we’ll come in and check the place, if that’s okay.”
“Feel free. We’re between shows anyway, so I can turn on all the lights.”
“Any chance he could’ve gone out a back way?” she asked, stepping aside for several more people who were exiting.
“Not without sounding the alarm.”
“I’ll be right back.”
She weaved her way through cross-dressers, transvestites, and just plain old heterosexuals out for an entertaining evening. Some milled about, lighting up cigarettes, others walked to the street corner. Carillo called her on the radio. “Think I… a gray hood… the corner, where… those… are… your way.”
She could only copy about half of what he was saying and moved to the corner to get a better view.
Carillo’s voice crackled with static. “Right-”
She looked up. Could just make out the top of Carillo’s head as he raced down the sidewalk. And then she caught a glimpse of a gray hood as a man barreled through the crowd, shouldering pedestrians right and left. Before she could move, he shoved her in the street. Knocked the air from her lungs. She heard the squealing of brakes. Her head hit something solid. And the world turned into a mosaic of black and white specks.