Bruce Wilcox had turned once, just long enough to catch a glimpse of the rental car's taillights disappearing down the street, before he centered all his concentration on keeping up with Ferguson.
He increased his pace, surprised that he couldn't narrow the distance between him and his quarry. Ferguson had a subtle quickness to him; without breaking into a run, he was moving swiftly, working his way around the spots of light that littered the street, blending with the surroundings.
He thought his legs seemed heavy, slow, and he furiously demanded more of them. Ahead, he saw Ferguson turn again, at another street corner, and he pushed himself hard to catch up.
A pair of bedraggled prostitutes were working the corner, using the sodium-vapor streetlight to advertise their presence. They ducked back as he approached, shrinking against a storefront.
'Where'd he go?' Wilcox demanded.
'Who, man?'
'Ain't seen nobody.'
He swore at them, and they both laughed, mocking him as he pushed past. The side street down which Ferguson had headed seemed cavernous, yawing back and forth like a ship in heavy weather. He caught a glimpse of Ferguson forty yards ahead, really just a shape that had more substance than the remaining shadows in the street, and he ran hard after it.
His mind raced alongside him.
He had no grasp of what he was going to say, what he was going to do, driven merely by the need to catch up with the chased man. Images jumped rapidly in and out of his head: It seemed as if the world he was cutting through was mixing crazily with his memory. A derelict lying semi-stuporously in an abandoned doorway sang out as he cruised past, but the voice reminded him of Tanny Brown's. A dog barked hard, throwing itself against a chain, and he remembered the search for Joanie Shriver's body. Dirt-streaked aluminum garbage cans reflected weak streetlamp light, and he thought of the sucking, oozing sensation between his hands as he pulled free the useless evidence from the outhouse refuse pit. This last memory drove him harder in pursuit.
He looked ahead and saw Ferguson reach the end of the block. He seemed to pause, and Wilcox saw the man turn. For one microscopic moment, their eyes met across the night.
Wilcox couldn't contain himself. 'Stop! Police!' he shouted.
Ferguson didn't hesitate. Running now, he fled.
Wilcox yelled a single, 'Hey!' then tucked his chin down and ran hard. All pretense of surveillance or tailing Ferguson was lost now in a single-minded, headstrong chase. He sucked in wind and started pumping his arms, feeling his feet lighten against the rain-slicked pavement, no more plodding, determined pursuit, but now a spring.
His burst of speed pushed him a bit closer, but Ferguson, too, rapidly settled into a hard run. They seemed evenly matched, feet hitting the pavement in unison, the distance between them maintaining a frustrating constancy.
The world around him turned vaporous, indistinct. He could feel the effects of his sprint. His wind was shortened, his heart beating fast. He tore air from the night to fill screaming lungs.
Another city block passed. He saw Ferguson turn again, still driving forward, seemingly unaffected by the run. Wilcox pushed on, sliding as he tried to cut the corner closely, his feet scrabbling on the pavement. For a sickening instant, he felt a dizziness, a stab of vertigo, and then he lost his balance. The cement came up fast, like a wave at the beach, striking him solidly. Breath exploded from him. A shock of red pain swept across his eyes. He heard some article of clothing tearing and felt a gritty taste in his mouth. He slid, partly stunned, finally coming to rest against a streetlight. Instinct fought against shock and hurt, and he forced himself back to his feet, rising, struggling to regain his rhythm. He had a sudden memory of a high-school wrestling championship when he'd been thrown through the air, and as he tumbled toward the mat, his mind had razored off a decision as to what move to employ so that when his opponent's arms sought to encircle him, he was already rolling free. He blinked hard and found himself running again, racing forward, trying to grasp where he was and what he was doing, but finding the blow from the street had scrambled his senses, and he was being driven merely by wild fury and impatient desire.
As he ran, he saw Ferguson abruptly slice across the street, heading toward a dark, empty lot. Headlights from an approaching car trapped him for an instant. There was a loud screeching sound, followed instantly by the blare of a horn.
For an instant, he thought it was Detective Shaeffer, and he cheered, 'That's it! Cut the bastard off!'
Then he saw that it wasn't. A sudden shot of anger pierced him: Where the hell is she? He pushed on, dodging the same car, leaving the driver shouting imprecations at the two wraithlike shapes that had disappeared as swiftly as they had materialized.
He scrambled over rubble and debris, which grabbed at his ankles like tendrils in a swamp. He caught a glimpse of Ferguson up ahead, maneuvering with identical difficulty through the abandoned junk of the inner city. For an instant, Ferguson rose up on top of a pile of boxes and an old refrigerator, outlined by a distant streetlamp. Their eyes met for a second time and Wilcox impulsively yelled, 'Stop. Police!' again. He thought he saw a flash of recognition and disbelief in Ferguson's eyes. Then the quarry vanished, leaping down out of the meager light. Wilcox muttered obscenities and struggled on.
He leapt up over a pile of bricks, but his foot caught the top, and he could feel the mass crumbling beneath his sudden weight. He felt himself pitched forward, and he threw out his hands to try to break his fall. He succeeded in preventing a broken-neck tumble -but his right hand slammed down on a jagged piece of rusty metal. One edge sliced through his palm, three fingers were jammed back fiercely, and his wrist almost buckled from the blow. He screamed in agony, struggling again to balance himself, grabbing his mangled hand with his left. He could feel the skin parted and swelling with sticky damp blood. His fingers and wrist were instantaneously on fire; broken, he thought, cursing himself, goddammit, goddammit, goddammit. He squeezed the hand into a tight balled fist, clutched it close to his chest, and battled on, picking another pile of debris to climb, to try and spot the pursued man.
He bent over at his waist to catch his breath, denying the pain in his hand and wrist. Standing carefully to keep his balance on this new pile of trash, he saw Ferguson vaulting a jagged and twisted chain link fence at the back of the vacant lot. He watched as Ferguson sprinted across an alleyway, hesitated for an instant, then ducked up some stairs and into a deserted building.
All right, he said to himself. You're tired, too, you bastard. Catch your breath in there. But you're not going to get away.
Ignoring the throbbing in his torn and broken hand, he pushed himself across the last few yards of the lot and scrambled over the chain link fence. He jogged to the abandoned building's door and stared at it, breathing hard with exertion.
All right, he said again. He gingerly reached into his jacket pocket and found a handkerchief, which he used to bind up his wound as best as possible. It was difficult to see in the darkness, but he suspected he would need stitches to close the cut. He shook his head. Probably a tetanus shot as well. With the handkerchief swiftly soaking up the blood that continued to pulse through his palm, he tried to flex his fingers and wrist, only to receive a sharp needle of pain racing up his arm. He touched the skin carefully, trying to feel for broken bones. It was already swelling rapidly, and for a moment he wondered if the Escambia County employee's insurance policy would take care of the whole thing. Line of duty, he thought. Got to be. He gritted his teeth against the shooting sensation that raced up his arm and hoped that some doctor would simply put a cast on the damn thing and that he wouldn't need an operation.