Philadelphia Noir - Carlin Romano [11]
He winced, not at the pain he was now experiencing from the wound in his leg, but at the pain he had once caused. Then he pulled a T-shirt from his drawer and wrapped the wound tightly, clenching his jaw while he tried to ignore the pain of the present and the past.
Suddenly, he saw a light penetrate the darkness. He looked down slowly and realized that his iPhone was glowing through his pocket as a text message came through. The light was like an alarm, awakening something that Richard had long since laid to rest. He watched it blink for a few seconds more. Then he pulled the phone from his pocket and saw his memories come to life.
No matter where you go, we’ll always find you, the message said. We’re attached, Richard. We’re family. Now leave the house and come out through the back door. We’ll be waiting.
There was no number. The text was from a private caller. Not that he needed a number to know who they were. After eight years, they’d found him, just like he’d always known they would.
He slipped the phone back into his pocket and kissed his wife’s cold lips. “Goodbye, Corrine.”
Richard took off his wedding ring and placed it gently against her breast. Then he rooted under the bed for the 9mm Ruger he’d always kept, waiting for this day to come.
He snapped in a clip and chambered a round, quickly throwing on a T-shirt and sneakers. He took a deep breath and told himself it didn’t matter if he made it through the night. By daybreak, his past would be buried, one way or another.
Richard held the gun at his side and crawled down the steps to the kitchen. The dead man who’d crashed through the window was still slumped against the counter. Richard made his way over to him the way he’d been taught, flat against the ground and pulling himself forward with his forearms.
Quickly, he searched the body. In his right pocket, there was nothing. In his left, there was a Glock 9mm with a silencer. Richard took it, then crawled to the stove, extinguished the pilot, and turned the knob.
“Richard!”
The voice calling from outside his house was familiar. It was a sadistic verbal smirk that was at once arrogant and deadly.
Richard didn’t answer.
“Come on out, Richard,” the man said. “We can talk.”
Richard knew that talking was the last thing they would do. He had crossed the line with them. And once you crossed the line with people such as these, there was no turning back, there was no statute of limitations, and there was no reprieve. They could never allow him to live. He knew it, and they knew it. So as the kitchen filled with gas, Richard ripped a piece of cloth from his pant leg and wrapped it around his face. Then he knelt down next to the dead man and hoisted him up from his seat on the floor.
As his wounded leg began to throb, sweat dripped down into his eyes. The rain seemed to tap harder against the broken glass. The wind whipped up angrily. He counted to three. Then he was up, running toward the door and bursting through it as he held the dead body like a shield.
Bullets whistled from muzzles equipped with silencers. A barrage poured in through the kitchen window, sparking a blast that ignited the house and lit the night sky.
Richard dropped the body and leaped to his left, running across 33rd Street and into the park. The rain poured down thicker, and as four men emerged from the gutted school bus at the old tire shop across the street, they lost sight of him for just a second. It was long enough for him to disappear.
“Okay, he’s in the park,” said the hefty man with the smirk in his voice. “My guess is he went southwest, but I think he’s hit, so he couldn’t have gotten far. Tyson and Robinson, you two take the right side of Reservoir Drive. Me and Montgomery will search the woods on the left.”
“And if we find him before you do?” Tyson asked.
“Try to take him alive.”
The men fanned out and melted into the shadows of the