Blood Men: A Thriller

“Please, I have a family,” she says.

“Move over there,” I say, and I point the shotgun toward the door I just came out of. She reaches it and I move around to the driver’s side of the car and climb in. I put the gun standing up from the footwell onto the passenger seat and the cop stays still. I reverse quickly back toward the road. A third patrol car shows up and covers the exit. I push hard on the accelerator and the back of my car hits the side of the patrol car right in the middle of the front wheel. The crash jolts me back and forward and the Blu-Tack falls out of my ears. The patrol car is pushed away from the side of the road. My car stalls and I restart it and jam my foot on the accelerator again and swerve out onto the road. The back of the car produces a rattling sound that gets louder the further I drive. The patrol car comes after me but manages all of five meters before taking a sharp right-hand turn, the axle probably broken. I slow down at the intersection, and when I push my foot back down the engine revs but doesn’t grip and the car rolls without any acceleration. I try changing gears but it doesn’t make a difference.

One of the other patrol cars comes away from the curb. I pull over and jump out, slinging bags over my shoulders, the money much heavier than the files. The patrol car is about a hundred and fifty meters away when I point the shotgun at the tattoo-covered bouncer at the strip club door and make my way inside.

The club is dark and there’s cigarette smoke hanging in the air; it’s like a fog rolled in, bringing with it the dregs of modern man. Girls in nothing but underwear, with breasts of all different sizes, are walking between the tables, some carrying drinks, others leading a patron by the hand toward a three-minute lap dance. The music is loud and aimed at the generation most of these girls seem to be in—one that’s about ten years younger than mine. There are maybe fifteen or twenty patrons in the club, mostly men sitting by themselves, a group of six in front of the stage. I keep the shotgun by my side, pointing down, and nobody seems to notice it. Most of the lighting is aimed at the stage, where a girl in a nurse outfit who looks nothing like the nurse who showed me the happy face chart earlier today is spinning around a pole. The look on her face reminds me of the waitress on the day Jodie died, the look of the damned—it was a lifetime ago now.

I take a corridor that leads past the toilets to a fire-exit door. The police haven’t hit the club yet. The toilets smell of disinfectant and the floor outside is wet. I hit the fire-exit door hard but the damn thing opens only about thirty centimeters, then bounces back, a chain flexing against the handles with a padlock securing it in place. I point the shotgun at the lock and people in the club scream when they hear it go off. The music keeps going and people are no longer watching the stage. The chain falls away and I take it with me outside. I jam the doors closed behind me and wrap the chain around the handles.

The alleyway is similar to the last one I was in, except this one runs at a different angle, along the back of clubs and shops instead of up between them. I turn right, passing more back entrances; from some come loud music, from others nothing. I stick with the direction and run for about sixty seconds, taking most of the weight on my left leg, hobbling more than running. I can hear sirens patrolling the streets. I climb a fence and drop into an open parking lot with bad lighting and about two cars. On the opposite side I take thirty seconds to catch my breath and begin to transfer the files out of the gym bag and stuff them in with the money. I tuck my arms through it and strap it onto my back and leave the empty bag behind and carry on moving.

The parking lot comes out a driveway on Manchester Street. There are cars that don’t have sirens on them driving past, hookers standing on corners, run-of-the-mill people staggering down the street, some wearing Santa hats. I run across Manchester and head further from the central city, down Gloucester Street toward a one-way system where there is less lighting. A patrol car comes into the street and I duck in behind a row of bushes lining a tile shop and the car drives past. I move again, getting further away, the hookers becoming less frequent and harder-looking, like they’ll do far more for far less. I cross Madras Street and keep heading east. The sirens aren’t as loud now. I get another block before turning north, back toward home, slowing down as more blood runs out of my leg. I need somewhere I can read the files. Somewhere I can bandage myself back up.

I’m a good six or seven blocks away when the cell phone I took from Kingsly rings. I flip it open.

“Hello?”

“What the hell, Edward? You’re making this a whole lot worse than it needs to be,” Schroder says.

“I’m finding my daughter.”