Desperate Measures

27

The corned-beef sandwich and dill pickle that the bartender carried up were delicious. Pittman tried to savor them, but his hunger couldn’t be controlled. He hadn’t eaten anything since the orange juice and Danish this morning. Taking huge bites, he gulped the food down. His empty plate depressed him.

From the bed, Sean looked horrified at Pittman’s appetite. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

When Sean came back, Pittman had finished the sandwich that the bartender had carried up for Sean.

Sean sat on the bed, scowled at Pittman, and shook his head. “I still don’t remember.”

“You gave me a crash course on how to break into houses.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“You said I was a natural.”

“Still doesn’t ring a… Wait a minute. Weren’t you a reporter?”

Pittman nodded.

“I gave you…”

Pittman held up the tool knife.

“Sure, that’s who you are.”

“But I’ve graduated,” Pittman said.

“What do you mean?”

Pittman reached inside his gym bag, took out a newspaper that he’d bought on the way to the restaurant, and tossed it over to Sean. “The story under that colorful headline. ‘Suicidal Obit Writer on Killing Rampage.’ There’s an ‘alleged’ in there someplace, but it doesn’t feel sincere.”

With a frown, Sean read the article. From time to time, he paused, looked at Pittman, deepened the furrows in his brow, and went back to reading the story.

Finally he set down the newspaper. “It makes you sound very busy.”

“Yeah, all that killing. It’s almost more work than one man can handle.”

“Do I need to be afraid of you?”

“Let’s put it this way. Have I done anything to hurt you so far?”

“Then you didn’t do what the paper says?”

Pittman shook his head.

“Why did you come here?”

“Because of all the criminals I’ve met, you’re the only one I trust.”

“What do you want?”

The phone rang.

Sean picked it up. “Hello?” He listened intensely, then straightened in alarm. “The police are coming up? Jesus, they must have found out about the washing machines.”

Pittman didn’t understand what Sean was talking about.

Sean scrambled toward the window, jerked the curtains apart, yanked the window up, and scurried out onto a fire escape.

Pittman heard heavy footsteps on the other side of the door. He lunged to lock it.

Fists pounded on it.

He grabbed his gym bag and darted toward the open window. Banging his shoulder as he squirmed out onto the fire escape, he cursed and stared below toward where he assumed Sean would be scurrying down the metal stairs. Instead, what he saw were two policemen who stared up, shouted, and pointed.

Footsteps clattered above him. Twisting, craning his neck, he saw Sean rapidly climbing stairs toward the roof. Pittman got to his feet and charged up after him.

“Stop!” he heard a policeman yell from the alley below.

Pittman kept racing upward.

“Stop!” the policeman yelled.

Pittman climbed harder.

“STOP!”

They’ll shoot, Pittman thought. But he didn’t obey. He reached the top, leapt over a guardrail, and scanned the rooftop for Sean. There! The roofs of all the buildings on this block were connected, and Sean was sprinting past ventilation pipes and skylights toward a door on a roof near the end of the block, his short legs moving in a blur.

“Wait, Sean!”

Pittman raced after him. Behind him, he heard shoes scraping on the fire escape.

Sean reached the door, tugged at it, and cursed when he discovered it was locked.

He was banging his shoulder against it, cursing again, when Pittman caught up to him. “Damn it, I left my keys in my room. I don’t have my knife.”

“Here.” Breathing heavily, Pittman pulled out the knife Sean had given him several years earlier.

With a smile, then a desperate look beyond Pittman toward two policemen who had just climbed onto the roof, Sean yanked the lock-pick tools from the knife, twisted and poked, freed the lock with astonishing speed, and jerked the door open.

As a policeman yelled, Sean and Pittman darted through the doorway. At once, in the dim light of a stairwell, Sean locked the door behind them.

“The washing machines. They know about the washing machines,” Sean blurted to himself. “Who the hell told them about the washing machines?”

Fists pounded on the door.

Sean raced down the stairs. Pittman followed.

“Who told them about the washing machines?” Sean kept muttering.

Or are they after me? Pittman wondered.