Fireproof

CHAPTER 42

Everything Cornell Stamoran had left in the world was in that red backpack. Why the hell did he toss it at that guy?

Instinct had taken over—fight or flight—and of all the things he had done or been in his life Cornell was not a fighter. But he was good at running away.

Since the fire, all he had thought about was running. He maneuvered his way through the underbelly of the city, back and forth, memorizing pipes and valves while wading through crappy water. He didn’t mind the smell. You couldn’t live on the streets if you couldn’t stand the smell. Even his body odor no longer repulsed him.

What bothered Cornell were the noises. The echoes freaked him out. So did the clanks, the drips and hisses, the whines and hums. He couldn’t tell what the hell was happening around him, if he heard footsteps chasing him or if it was just his imagination. Except he was fairly certain that someone was following him.

At first he worried it was the man he’d seen pouring gasoline in the alley. He couldn’t forget the look on that guy’s face when he saw Cornell slipping and rolling in the trail of fuel. That twisted grin when he lit the match. If Cornell hadn’t scrambled and found the manhole when he did, he would have been toast.

But that wasn’t the man following him.

Then Cornell thought it might be a coincidence. He saw the same man in different places, and only at a distance, but the guy was always watching him. Cornell had no clue why the man would bother to follow him.

That’s when he started to vary his exits and entrances to the underground. From below he could look up through the grates or holes and almost always determine when it was safe to come up. Ironically it was best at the busiest times and at some of the most crowded intersections, where people hurried by and couldn’t be bothered with someone crawling out of a manhole.

Of course, it helped that Cornell had found an abandoned city maintenance vest and hard hat—both fluorescent orange. Instead of attracting attention they seemed to make him invisible. The vest and hard hat quickly became his most valuable possessions. They not only gained him unfettered access to the city’s underworld but also bought him a surprising amount of leverage and respect on the streets. When he finally remembered he had more than thirty dollars in his buttoned cargo pocket he treated himself to a bowl of soup and a sandwich at the same diner where he’d eaten the night of the fire.

The same waitress took his order. She was the one who had looked at him suspiciously the other night and then grudgingly given him change back as he requested, in one-dollar bills. Only this time she smiled when she set his plate in front of him. Refilled his coffee. Even asked, “How’s it going?”

And he knew he smelled worse today than he had that first time he’d been in. Although he had tried to clean his jacket and the vomit and gasoline fumes had finally aired out a bit, he knew he couldn’t travel through the sewer and not have the stink cling to him.

But put on a fluorescent orange vest and hard hat and it all became acceptable.

He ate at the diner’s counter again and watched out the window. He still couldn’t believe he had tossed his backpack. He had gone back to the alley to see if he could retrieve anything from his Maytag box. He thought all the cops had left. At least the alley. Once the body was gone he had seen the remaining investigators pack up and then either leave or focus on the rubble inside.

He should have waited longer. Even after he tossed his backpack and took out the tall guy, that broad had kept coming after him. He couldn’t shake her, couldn’t outrun her. But he knew how to drop out of sight. That threw her off but it didn’t lose the bastard who kept finding him.

If he wasn’t the man who started the fire, who the hell was this guy?

He didn’t think he looked like a cop or a fed. He wore blue jeans, a nice pair of work boots, a ball cap, and brown suede jacket. Hell, he looked pretty ordinary, nothing menacing about him except that he was always there. Cornell would see him leaning against a lamppost or sitting on a bench. Once at a Metro bus stop. Buses came and went but the guy stayed. Sometimes he saw the man downtown, but then hours later he’d see him walking back by the same warehouses where the fires had been. There was no reason that he could think of for this guy to be in these two very different places in the city unless he was following Cornell.

A couple of times when Cornell traveled underground he could swear he’d seen the shadow of someone behind him. Lighting was crap down there. Long stretches were pitch black. He tried to avoid those. Even the best stretches were limited to a bare lightbulb tucked into the maze of pipes.

The first time he noticed the man was right before he tossed his backpack. Though he didn’t look like a cop, Cornell had thought maybe he was part of the investigating team, but only because the guy was inside the barrier of yellow tape. He had been leaning against one of the vehicles, watching and smoking a cigarette.

Maybe he knew the dead woman. A shiver slid down Cornell’s back and a sudden bout of nausea made him put down his spoon. He sipped his water, waited for it to pass. He didn’t like thinking about the dead woman. Didn’t like remembering that battered face, pounded and ripped like ground beef.

Cornell grabbed the little package of saltine crackers. His fingers shook and he struggled to tear the plastic, suddenly desperate to get at them. He crunched a piece out and quickly put it in his mouth, holding it on his tongue and sucking off the salt, waiting for the nausea to pass. It didn’t seem to be working.

He stuck another piece in his mouth. Weren’t saltines supposed to help? Probably not if you had wrestled a dead body with your bare hands. He still couldn’t believe he’d touched it.

When Cornell looked back up, the man in the brown suede jacket was standing just outside the diner window. And he was staring directly at Cornell.