Desperate Measures

16

How long do I have before the police come after me? Pittman thought.

An inward voice urged him to run, to keep running, never to stop. But another inward voice, which reminded Pittman of Jeremy, warned him that running would attract attention. Slow down. Act like nothing’s wrong.

Behind him, in the distance, Pittman heard sirens. The police would find the bodies. They’d talk to the woman who had screamed when she heard the shots and saw Pittman scramble out of the construction area. They’d start searching for a man with a gym bag who’d run along Twenty-sixth Street toward Park Avenue.

Get rid of the gym bag, the inward voice said, and again Pittman thought it sounded remarkably like Jeremy.

Get rid of it? But the bag has my clothes, the gun.

Hey, what good will the clothes and the gun do you if you’re in jail?

Walking, trying not to show his tension and his impulse to hurry, Pittman crossed Park Avenue. On the other side, along Twenty-sixth Street, cars and pedestrians thinned. He came to another construction area. Hearing more sirens, he glanced around him, saw no one looking in his direction, and dropped the gym bag into a Dumpster.

He turned south on Lexington Avenue. Sweating, still forcing himself to walk slowly, he skirted Gramercy Park, which was locked for the night. Continuing south, then heading west, hoping he didn’t attract attention, he eventually came to Union Square Park and was struck by how much his life had changed in the six hours since he’d gotten off a subway here and had walked to his apartment.

But he couldn’t go to his apartment now, that was sure, and he didn’t know where else he could go. The police would be watching friends he might ask for help. Hotels would be warned to watch for anyone using his credit card. What the hell am I going to do?