Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

CONALL WARNER

They were taking a second car which I did not have the license plate of. Bimbo was using the assistant manager as a human shield. Yaegar was already in the car, pushing a morsel of sandwich in his mouth. One hand was gloved, hiding his mangled fingers from the coyote attack long ago. He wore thick-rimmed shades, but I could see the scar stretch across his left cheek. He hid his indiscretions well.

I aimed at the car with my heavy revolver from the open window but was unsure about my accuracy at this distance.

And I didn't want to draw any attention away from the murder of an innocent back in the offices. My 36 years of searching, and the wanted figure was eating a sandwich. Now he was writing something on a wimple.

Bimbo threw the woman in the back of the trunk, not seeing me up on the second level.

My raincoat rustled in the wind, but still they did not hear me. It was not a desire in my best interests for them to notice me. But after 36 years of being invisible to everyone around me as an old geezer, it would take a single glance in my direction by either of the two despised, to set me on that righteous path again.

I climbed out of the window and stepped onto the thin ledge, bordering the outside. No clemency was to be shown to the pair, Yaegar and Bimbo - the German and the rookie cop.

I grabbed for the single piece of long pipe I had ascended the building with and attempted to descend with it now. I held my feet against the brick wall and loosened my grip on the pipe, skidding against the surface with my boots.

A wind passed below my clothes, the raincoat whipping in the air as I reached the ground. I could hear screaming inside which was unfamiliar coming from men, tough as they were. I was the pervasive terror which now spread from mind to mind. Terror which had not yet touched Yaegar and Bimbo's minds for their escape was quick, too quick for the idea to prosper.

And as much as my effort to pursue was, age was biting my chain and breath could not be exhaled from the lungs. My vision was blurring, those forgotten cigarettes denying me of that taste of air.

The darkness that hid from the sun behind cars and myself, turned into moonshadows. The sun was being pale and blue, and deceitful above all. Because I could tell it was still hot, hotter than before in fact when I was out in them fields.

A moon could not shine on me, not like the rays of buzzing light. It was not night and I am not circumspect about those aliens with shotguns. I'll let them shoot me. I'll let it be over with. I picked up the wimple from the ground that Yaegar had tossed out of the car before taking off.

I coughed into it with some grit and gravel, finding blood over the written words.

I ceased my coughing but could feel a susurration building in my breast like a punctured tire, to see the black markings in the red splatter.

I thought, what did it say? Something in German was my guess.

I smeared most of the blood away from the scribbled letters, and as if I was prescient, it read:

RETRACE YOUR STEPS ALT FREUND

    'Alt freund' looked like 'old friend', but it could have been anything to insult me behind the curtains of language. I realized instantly what he wanted me to find.

The projectile Bimbo had thrown high and far into the fields.

So far, I've been doing everything that they had planned for me. Shooting that look-alike innocent in the offices, drawing me away from the assistant manager, a potential hostage, and swapping cars because they knew I was going to memorize the plates. Maybe they also intended for me to accrue a fair bit of money from working at their business, so I could buy a gun. And if so, maybe that gun dealer had been bribed to sell me the heavy revolver, knowing that it was more of a decorative weapon rather than one I could shoot quickly with.

I might have been exaggerating the extent of their scheme, but if I wasn't then I was undermining their intelligence and commitment to my physical toll caused from a wandering toil. Like a serrated blade, an edge thought to be dull from afar but is jagged to prick the skin of many microscopic slits.

I needed to gain the upper hand or else I would lose this battle of wits.

The tall garage shutters of the building began to rise up off the ground. Police sirens could be heard in the distance and red and blue lights, on the horizon they played. I stuffed the wimple in a pocket in my raincoat that danced at my knees and dangled down the sides.

I asked, "Hey guys, what's happening?" Men ran past me to their cars in the parking lot, muttering to themselves or outright answering my question as honestly as they could without throwing up.

"Don't go in there dude" "It's fucking horrible" "Someone's gotta gun!" "Sick ingrates" "Don't worry the cops are here!"

The cops pulled up and jumped out with Glock 19s at the ready. They tried to stop the workers from leaving, but cars were already piling out and heading home without pay. Two police cars had arrived on the scene, two officers in each, as was mandatory. Only me and a handful of witnesses who had called the cops were left.

An ambulance was phoned in by the police to retrieve Bimbo's lookalike's body. I wouldn't be able to convince them that he was still alive, it would make me look suspicious.

"Man," Dorothy Coffey said, shaking her head, "someone stole my fucking car!" I watched her as she was whisked away for a one-on-one talk with a cop.

When Yaegar and Bimbo made their escape, they had swapped cars, I thought. They had taken Dorothy's Mazda CX-3, I was sure of it now. And left behind their Toyota Avanza. If Dorothy gave the police her license plate, they would track Yaegar and Bimbo down using their MDT hardware that can access the police national computer and is connected in a personal area network with their phones. Then, it's as simple as locating the patrol vehicle closest to the target's location, sending them the details of the specific make and model of Dorothy's car and catching the suspects.

But I want them dead, not caught. I'm the only one who has a forcible motive to finish them. The pure always act from love, as forgotten as that love may be. I will still carry on, carry on...