And then I heard something: the snap of a branch. I moved along more quickly, and my foot banged into a heavy object. It rolled and thumped into the fence.
More branches snapped and cracked. Then there were thrashing noises, stumbling footsteps.
I felt along the cliff face with my left hand, moving quickly toward the source of the noise. Now I could make out a stand of brush whose uppermost branches were outlined against the sky. It appeared to completely block the narrow passageway. When I neared it, I smelled the sharp odor of anise.
The thrashing noises were more distant now. I took my hand off the cliff face and parted some branches. The brush was dense, impossible to see through. On the other side of it footsteps slapped on cleared ground. Running again.
I plunged into the brush, batting aside branches, fighting through tall weeds. Vines caught at my legs and ankles; blackberry thorns scratched at my bare hands. I tripped over a rock, caught myself on the limb of a fir tree, my fingers coming away sticky with sap. Then I burst free of the wild vegetation and came out on a cement path.
There was a concrete retaining wall to my right now- perhaps four feet high. Roofs peaked on the other side of it. Several houses away, the cliff jutted out and formed a dead end. The man was scaling the wall down there.
I couldn't see him clearly enough to risk a shot. As I raced along the path he disappeared over the wall. Then there was a loud clanging of metal.
I jammed my gun into my belt, grasped the top of the wall with both hands, and boosted myself up. For a few seconds I teetered on top; then I jumped, landing on the balls of my feet. Pain from the impact shot upward. I staggered, banged into the garbage can he'd upset.
Lights were flaring up in the windows of the houses ahead of me; they illuminated an alley between them. The man was fumbling at the latch of a picket fence that blocked it at the street end. I shouted for him to halt. He got the gate open and disappeared onto the sidewalk.
Gun in hand again, I went after him. A window opened above me and a man yelled something unintelligible. I kept going. When I reached the gate, it was still swinging violently and caught me hard across my lower body; I shoved it open and ran out onto what must have been Prospect Avenue, looking frantically from left to right.
He was going uphill again, to the left, feet pounding. Dogs barked and more people shouted, marking his passage.
On the other side of Prospect was another small wooded area. The sniper sprinted toward it. The porch light of the house next to it shone on him; briefly I made out jeans, a dark windbreaker, and a baseball cap. Then he disappeared into the misty shadows.
I put on speed, throat aching with each breath, pain stabbing at my right side. When I reached the little grove, the odors of eucalypti and conifers clogged my nostrils. I skirted the trees, following the sound of his footsteps.
Beyond the grove lay a bricked parking area full of cars, then one of the little ladder streets that scale Bernal Heights-a wide set of steps, bisected by a waist-high iron railing, that descended to Coleridge Street. The sniper was running down it, his baseball cap flying off and longish gray hair blowing free. If I lost him here, he would be only a block from crowded Mission Street, where buses ran at all hours.
I started down the steps, yelling hoarsely at him, threatening to fire. He looked over his shoulder. Turned and raised his gun.
I squeezed off a shot. It went wild, but the man stumbled, smacked into the iron railing. Dropped his gun. It clattered on the steps, bounced into the bordering vegetation. He righted himself, glanced over there, turned and fled.
I shouted again. He kept going, leaped over the last few steps, and thumped onto the sidewalk. The impact jarred him; he went down on one knee.
I stopped, bracing myself. Brought my gun up in both hands and fired again.
The shot knocked him the rest of the way to the pavement. He landed face down, then tried to crawl forward. I jumped off the steps and grabbed one of his arms. Pinned it behind his back. Sat on him.
All up and down the street dogs barked and people peered from their windows or front porches. Voices babbled. I glanced along the block, panting, and realized we'd made a rough circle, were on the other side of the park that fronted All Souls. I couldn't see the house clearly through the trees, but they were backlit by the red and blue pulsars of the police cars. The mutter and squawk of their radios was plainly audible.
Beneath me, the man struggled. I yanked upward on his arm and he lay still. A woman was staring at us from the yard of the nearest house; she seemed incapable of speech.
I shouted at her, 'Go down to Coso, tell the cops I've got the sniper!'
Without a word, she took off at a run.
The man under me struggled again. I brought my gun up, jammed it into the soft spot at the base of his skull. 'Lie still, damn you!'
He went limp, acquiescent.
My rage was spent now. I felt only a letdown, as if I had run a hard race and then found that the other contestants had never left the starting line. That, and a dull curiosity…
I jammed the gun harder against the man's skull. Took my other hand off his arms and grasped his longish, thinning hair. Yanked his head up so I could see his face.
It was ordinary, as faces go. Fine-boned, with regular features and a bushy, untrimmed mustache. His blue eyes rolled in panic as they met mine; his mouth writhed in an unspoken plea. After staring at him for a moment I let go of his hair, and his forehead smacked onto the pavement. Shudders of pain and terror racked his body.
Then I noticed the people who had gathered around me. They were silent, watching me guardedly; in the eyes of some I saw accusation. It was as if I, not the sniper, were the person to be feared.
I turned my gaze toward the end of the street, where the pulsars of the squad cars stained the night red and blue. Let the people think what they might; I simply didn't care.
All that mattered to me now was whether or not Hank was still alive.
Twenty
Anne-Marie and I sat in the fluorescent glare of the nearly empty waiting room at San Francisco General's trauma center. Her face was pale and tense; her fingers twitched convulsively as they clutched at my hand. Hank was in surgery, had been for quite some time. The bullet had entered the right side of his chest; the doctor had told us there was no way of assessing the internal damage until they did an exploratory.
Greg had driven me here from All Souls, taking my statement on tape in the car. Ostensibly his purpose in coming was to interview the sniper, John Weldon-upon whom I had inflicted only a shoulder wound-but I knew that his major concern was for Hank. Reporters had arrived at the same time we did; Greg had given them a brief statement, but I'd refused to talk with them at all. Now they were gone, and Greg and Hank were both somewhere beyond a pair of swinging doors that gave admittance to the hospital proper. Anne-Marie and I waited alone.
By now I felt mostly numb. My guilt at failing to protect Hank had dulled; nobody-not the folks at All Souls, Greg, Anne-Marie herself-blamed me. Even my dread at what the outcome of his surgery might be was curiously deadened. In spite of the people around us and the occasional arrival of other victims of crime or accident, it was as if we were trapped in an emotional vacuum, deprived of all but the slightest of sensory stimuli.
At around three-fifteen Greg came through the swinging doors. He didn't look much better than Anne-Marie; his impassive cop's facade had cracked, leaving his face ashen, his eyes worried. He sat down next to me and took the hand Anne-Marie wasn't holding, then put his arm around me so he could pat her on the shoulder.
'Any word?'
I shook my head.
'Chest wounds-sometimes they look worse than they are.'
'He's been in there a long time.'
Anne-Marie's fingers tightened again, and I realized what I'd said wasn't helping her any. 'I'm sure he's going to be okay, though,' I added. 'It's just that there was so much blood, and Hank-well, unconscious isn't a state you associate with him.' Oh, God, I was only making it worse!
