Another minute, and a cop car flashed down a cross street in front of him but continued past the alley. Mail slowed just a bit. He was breathing hard now, still carrying the shotgun, the hat perched on his head.
At the end of the alley, he edged cautiously out toward the street. The cop car was a block away, dropping off two foot patrolmen. They were crouched over the car window, intent on what the man inside was saying, or the radio. Mail took a breath, took two quick steps across that put him behind a car, then another behind a maple tree. The cops were still talking. Mail took another breath and walked quickly across the street to a maple on the other side.
And waited-but the cops had missed him.
Watching them, trying to keep the tree between himself and the mouth of the alley, he walked backwards until he was into the alley, then turned and broke into a run. A dog barked at him, and Mail ran faster, and the dog barked a few more times. But there were still dogs barking everywhere. Nobody came after him.
Mail stayed in the alley until it ended, then walked down a block to another alley, and ran down that. The sirens were getting fainter, and he could no longer see lights. But he could see houses against the sky. Dawn was getting close-and the traffic would be picking up.
He would be more visible, now, and there'd be more people around.
He needed wheels.
CHAPTER 30
A surgeon in a scrub suit was wandering aimlessly outside the emergency room exit, a mask hanging down on his chest, paper operating hat askew. He was smoking a cigarette, head down, shoulders humped against the cool air.
"Did you do the White kid?" Lucas asked as he hustled up the drive to the door.
The surgeon shook his head. "They're still working on him." Inside the door, Lester was talking to two Minneapolis cops, while Roux was facing Bob White, the cop's father, and his mother, whose name Lucas couldn't remember. But he remembered that she liked hats, although this morning she was bareheaded, and holding on to a white handkerchief like it was a lifeline. Lucas walked up, nodded, said, "Bob, Mrs. White… how is he?"
"His head is real bad," White said. "But he's a fighter," Lucas didn't know the son, but had the impression that he was somewhat dull; not a bad kid, though. "Yeah, he is. And this is the best trauma place in the country. He's gonna do good."
Mrs. White pushed the handkerchief into her face and started to shake and her husband turned toward her. Lucas looked at Roux and tilted his head toward the door. She gave him an almost imperceptible nod and lifted a hand at a priest who was talking with a St. Paul cop. The priest broke away and Roux stepped toward him and whispered, "I think Mrs. White could use a hand…"
Lester joined them, and Roux lit up as soon as they were outside. The surgeon was starting a new cigarette and stamped his feet and said, "Cold."
Roux and Lester and Lucas walked to the end of the driveway as Roux puffed on the cigarette and Lucas filled them in on Mail's computer shop. When he finished, he said, "We couldn't put his picture out before, because it might touch him off. Now he knows we're close, and that'll do it-he's gonna kill them. We've got to get that picture on the air, everywhere."
"How do you know he'll kill them?" Roux asked.
"I know. He's had them a long time. The pressure must be terrific. With this chase, he'll have cracked like a big fuckin' egg. And he's smart. He'll know we've got the van, and he'll know that we'll get the computer store, that we'll get his prints, that well identify him as John Mail. He'll figure all that out-or he already has." Lucas nodded toward the hospital. "A cop has a shotgun, and Mail took him on with a club. He's freaking out."
Roux nodded. "All right. We can have the photo out in twenty minutes. He'll make all the morning news shows."
"Ask the TV guys to show the pictures at the beginning of the broadcasts, and to tell everybody to get their friends and come and watch, and show them again a couple of minutes later. As many times as they can. Flatter 'em: tell 'em if TV can't find the guy, Andi Manette's gonna die, and the kids, too. That'll keep them pushing the picture out there."
"How long have we got?"
"No time," Lucas said. "No time at all. If we don't find Manette in the next couple of hours, they're gone."
"Unless he's still in the perimeter," Lester said. "They think he might be, the guys up there."
"Yeah. We've gotta keep the perimeter tight. I'm gonna go over there, see if I can figure the odds that he's inside."
"Is there anything else?" Roux asked. "Any goddamn thing?"
Lucas hesitated, then said, "Two things. The first one is, I'd be willing to bet that wherever he's got them, it's within a few miles of that computer shop. That's where the phone calls were coming from, when we were trying to pinpoint the cellular phone. I think we oughta get everybody with a gun-highway patrol, local cops, everybody-and send them down there. We oughta filter every goddamn road. We don't have to stop everybody, but we ought to slow everything down, look in every backseat, see if we can spot somebody trying to elude the blockade."
"We can do that," Roux said.
Lucas looked at Lester, grinned slightly, and said, "Frank, could you call in? Could you get the picture thing going?"
Lester looked from Lucas to Roux and back, and then said, "What? I don't want to hear this?"
Lucas said, "You really don't."
Lester nodded. "All right," he said. "Back in a minute," and he went inside.
"What?" Roux asked when Lester was gone.
"I might call you later in the morning and suggest that you… I don't know, what?" He looked around, and then said, "… that you come over here and visit White. Spontaneously, without telling anybody exactly where you're going. You won't have to be out of touch long. Maybe half an hour."
She narrowed her eyes. "What're you going to do?"
"Are you willing to perjure yourself and say you didn't know?" Lucas asked. "Because you might want to say that."
Roux's vision seemed to turn inward, although she was gazing at Lucas's face. Then she said, "If it's that way…"
"It's that way, if you want to get them back-and keep your job."
"I'd do any fucking thing to get them back," she said. "But I hope you don't call."
"So do I," Lucas said. "If I do call, it'll mean that everything's gone in the toilet."
Mail picked out a house with lights on in the back. From the alley, he could see an older woman working in what must be the kitchen. He crossed a chain-link fence into the yard, wary of dogs, saw nothing. As he passed the garage, he stopped to look in the window. There was a car inside, a Chevy, he thought, not new, but not too old, either. That would work.
He went on to the house, to the back door, leaned the shotgun against the stoop, took out the pistol, looked around for other eyes, other windows, and knocked on the door.
The woman, curious, came to look. She was sixty or so, he thought, her gray hair pulled back in a bun, her thin face just touched with makeup. She was wearing a jacket over a silky shirt. A saleswoman, maybe, or a secretary. She saw the police hat and the uniform jacket and opened the inner door, pushed out the storm door, and said, "Yes?"
Mail grabbed the handle on the storm door, jerked it open, and before she could make another sound, shoved her as hard as he could, his open hand hitting her in the middle of the chest. She went down, and he was inside, and she said, "What?" She tried to crawl away, slowly, and he straddled her and gripped the back of her neck and asked, "Where are your car keys?"
"Don't hurt me," she whimpered. Mail could hear a television working in the other room and turned his head to look at it. Was somebody else out there?