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“What, in a parka? If you run in a parka, he’ll see you...”
“I think he’ll go across I-35 at St. Clair and then follow the I-35 exit backwards until he’s under Crocus Circle, and then climb the bluff,” Virgil said. “You should go right up to the house and hide, I’ll blow past him if he gets on the bridge and I’ll have to go around a block or two, but I can get on the opposite end of the Circle from you. We should have him between us.”
“Do that. Check where he’s going before you make your move...”
“If I can,” Virgil said. “I’m going past the Day by Day...”
“I’m lost back here,” Lucas shouted. “The streets aren’t where they’re supposed to be. I can see Grand but I can’t... Fuck it, I’m taking the sidewalk.”
Lucas bounced over a curb up onto a sidewalk, brushed past a couple of trees, drove a block on the sidewalk to Grand Avenue, bumped over another curb onto Grand Avenue, which would take him most of the way to the Circle. “I’m on Grand. I’m good, if nobody calls the cops on me,” he shouted at the cell phone.
“I’m at Webster, I don’t think he could have gotten here yet,” Virgil shouted back. “I’m gonna hide.”
Webster was a short, quiet street, with on-street parking. Virgilpulled to the side of Webster and launched himself out of the truck and ran across the street. His view of the bridge that Hess would have to cross was blocked by a tree, so he ran a half block to the tree and stood behind it, waiting.
Not for long. Hess ran out of the sidewalk he’d taken and onto the bridge over I-35.
Virgil had his phone in his hand and called, “He’s crossing the bridge. He’s crossing the bridge. He’s five minutes from Maggie’s, no more.”
“I’m almost there. I’ll be in old lady Muller’s front yard by the streetlight. If he comes up the bluff, I should see him.”
“I’m coming,” Virgil said. He backed the truck into St. Clair Avenue and accelerated, not too hard, toward the bridge that Hess was crossing. He followed and watched as Hess turned down what the city called Pleasant Avenue, but which served as a very long exit from the parkway.
Hess was running easily—he works in a gym, what did I expect?Virgil thought—and was only four hundred yards or so from the point where he’d turn up the bluff. If Virgil followed the network of roads around to Crocus Circle, he’d have to drive more than a mile, because of the odd geometry of the area.
Or, he could turn the wrong way, down the exit, behind Hess, to where another street intersected with Pleasant. Because his truck was a cop car, he had a switch that could turn off all the lights; he did that and turned down the wrong way on Pleasant Avenue. There were no cars coming up, and he coasted downhill. He could still see Hess running a hundred yards ahead of him, but Hess never looked back. Virgil made the turn on the intersecting street, hit the lights and accelerated up the bluff.
In a little more than a minute, he was turning into the Circle. “I’m here,” he said on the phone. “He’s probably on the bluff by now, or close. I’ll be right down by the last streetlight. Don’t shoot the bush by the streetlight.”
“You’re good. I saw you go in,” Lucas said.
28
Hess had gone barehanded to the Silver Star’s front desk and asked, “Have you seen The Wiz?”
“Isn’t he with the kids?”
“Not right now. Maybe he’s taking a whiz.”
The deskman shrugged and Hess casually pushed through the front door to the sidewalk, as though going out for a breath of air. As soon as the door closed, he started running. Hess ran three miles every other day. Cooper’s house was about eight-tenths of a mile away, so to get there and back, he’d be running only a mile and a half.
Routine.
He got off West Seventh Street as quickly as he could, following a pre-planned route through the darker, older neighborhoods northof the street. He followed Goodrich Avenue to the end, then swerved left onto a sidewalk that paralleled I-35. Snow was drifting down around him and he pulled up the hood on his hoodie and stepped up the pace.
A simple plan: run, kill, run.
The boxing-class kids were with The Wiz—Hess had said he was off to the bathroom. The run to Cooper’s house would take around eight minutes. Once there, he would go straight in, no hesitation this time. Kick that garage door if it was locked, kick the door to the interior. Confront Cooper, get the flash drives, kill, and leave, running. Down the bluff, back the way he came, across West Seventh, then behind the club, and in the back entrance to the kids’ locker room.
Talk to The Wiz, talk to the kids, get his duffel bag, talk to the guys at the front desk, then out to the car and home.
Maybe not a perfect alibi, if he ever needed one, but a good one.
He came to the end of the sidewalk, crossed the bridge over I-35, big gouts of breath-steam now coming from his mouth, his heart beating hard from exercise, cold, and the stress. He turned down Pleasant Avenue until he was directly below Crocus Circle. He stepped off the street and into the brush below the bluff, caught his breath, watched and listened, then began climbing.
He stopped again, with his head below the crest of the bluff, and listened again. Heard the breeze that was pushing the snow, and nothing more. Ahead of him, to his right, he could see the streetlight at the end of the street.
He climbed the last few feet to the top, right to the edge of the brush, ten feet from the street he’d have to cross, and he stopped again, to catch his breath, and to listen.
