Page 131 of Two Kinds of Stranger

This was my chance.

I kicked open the passenger door, crawled out as fast as I could onto the asphalt and, keeping low, I made it to the trunk of my car.

Over the sound of gunfire, I heard sirens.

I never thought I’d be glad to see the cops, but tonight was an exception.

‘Drop the gun and step out!’ I cried. ‘The cops are blocking the other side of the bridge. You’re not going to make it to the interstate. You got nowhere to go.’

The firing stopped.

I heard a voice.

‘I was never going for the freeway. I know when it’s over.’

A volley of shots from the stranger saw Lake and Bloch duck behind the Jeep doors, holes appearing in the hood and side panels of the car.

As the firing stopped, I peeked out.

The man stood in the middle of the highway, staring at an empty gun. He spun and vaulted over the concrete barrier onto the balcony beneath one of the support towers.

Bloch and Lake started running toward me. I turned and ran for the stranger.

I jumped the barrier, and my feet slid on the iron-grille walkway as I landed. It was an area not much bigger than a barbershop floor, but bags of cement, stacks of traffic cones and a Porta-Potty took up most of the space. This was an area for the highway and construction workers who were always carrying out repairs to the bridge. A railing wrapped round the semicircular balcony. At the apex of that half circle was an iron streetlight, with three globe bulbs, each of them about three times the size of a soccer ball– the old-fashioned, ornamental type of lights that gave the bridge so much of its charm.

I heard Bloch and Lake coming over the barrier, their feet stomping on the iron walkway.

At first, I couldn’t see the man we’d been chasing.

Then, from behind a stack of orange water barrels, he grabbed hold of the iron streetlight pole and levered himself up to stand on the railing.

‘Stop!’ I cried.

Bloch said, ‘Don’t move.’

He looked back over his shoulder at the three of us. Then looked down.

Through the grille, I could see the East River, maybe a hundred and twenty feet below, dark and swirling. The wind was strong and as sharp as ice up here.

I took out my phone, held it low, angled the camera lens toward the lights and hit video record. It was then that I noticed he held his left arm stiffly. Blood was dripping from a wound there.

‘Cops are almost here. Don’t do it. Step down. Tell them what you’ve done. You can still do some good. You can tell them how you poisoned James and Harriet.’

He said nothing, just stared down into the river below.

The sirens grew louder. Getting closer now.

‘Come down. Don’t do it.’

I held up the phone, capturing the man in full frame.

Even when I looked back at the footage from that night, I couldn’t tell what happened first.

Did he jump first, or did I move first?

Impossible to tell.

The man raised his right leg, held it over the edge for a second, and then hopped into the air and disappeared.