Authors: John Katzenbach
So he let his eyes scour the scene, looking for that small push against the flow.
When he saw it, he straightened up sharply, dark excitement filling his core.
What he saw was this: a thickset man, dressed in simple, dark clothes. The man was hunched over slightly, emerging from the building, allowing himself to be directed by a fireman who had better things to do, toward the knot of displaced people gathered by the side of the street.
Simon Winter took a step or two parallel to the man.
He saw him disappear into the midst of the crowd, picking his way from the front to the rear. The others were all staring ahead, up toward their homes, searching for
smoke and flames, but seeing none, impatiently waiting some signal or information from the fire personnel who were hurrying in and out of the building.
But this one man seemed to have none of the same concerns.
Instead, he maneuvered slowly through the throng of anxious people, head down, obscuring his face, working steadily toward the back and the darkness of the street behind them.
Simon Winter picked up his pace.
He could not see the man’s eyes, could not see his face, but he knew. For a moment he twisted about, trying to spot Walter Robinson or any other officer who might help him. But he could see none. He realized that he had stepped from the shadows himself, onto the sidewalk, and was caught in a shaft of light thrown by an illuminated store sign. Winter took a step into the street, just as the man looked up for one second and saw him, standing out, staring at him.
Both men froze, in recognition.
Then, suddenly, from behind them, in a sound that defeated sirens, alarms, and the noise of the fire-fighting machinery, Simon Winter heard a voice. It was raised high, but not a scream, more a sentry’s great shout of alarm.
The words were in German and they fractured the night: ‘Der Schattenmann! Der Schattenmann! Er ist hier! Er ist hier!’
Simon Winter ran with a speed he’d not felt in years.
The street around him seemed a tangled maze of parked cars, shrubbery, garbage cans, and city debris. He swept forward with the energy of a man much younger, settling into a dogged, quick pace, thinking that this was not a sprint he was running, but a marathon. He could just make out the solid shape of the Shadow Man as the killer darted from darkness to murky gloom, dodging the shafts of light thrown by street lamps and the occasional store sign.
He had nearly a block-length lead on Winter at the start of the race, but by the time the Shadow Man emerged from the side street onto Ocean Drive, the old detective had cut a third of that away and left it behind him. He could hear the slapping sound that his basketball shoes made against the brick-red sidewalk, and he stretched his stride farther, so that his long legs rapaciously chewed up the distance.
The streets were empty in the predawn darkness.
The young people that were so prevalent everywhere on the Beach had slid away in assignation or frustration, leaving the nightspots quiet, lights dimmed. The usual thump of iron-hand music had evaporated into the night. No fast cars squealed their tires and accelerated in
youthful posturing. No giggling, alcohol-smeared voices called out to each other. No crowds jammed the walkways searching for adventure. It was the dead time of the night, when fatigue even afflicts the young, just before night loses its grip on the city and daylight slowly fingers the horizon, searching for the morning.
Even the police and fire trucks that jammed the street outside the rabbi’s apartment seemed suddenly to be nothing more than ancient memory to Simon Winter. If there were city sounds of sirens and urgency, they were distant, like childhood recollection.
He was alone as he ran, save for the specter ahead of him, dodging across the width of Ocean Drive, leaving behind the meager lights of the restaurants and bars that were only a short time earlier jammed with people.
Winter breathed in hard, and listened to the ocean.
It was off to his left, running parallel to his course as he pursued the Shadow Man. He could hear the waves beating their eternal tattoo against the shore.
He swept past the last of the night spots, slicing now next to high rises like so many huge monumental blocks that obscured the beach and ocean from the street. He could feel a stitch forming in his side, but he ignored it and ran on, letting the pounding of his feet fill him, keeping his eyes on the man ahead, who had settled now into a steady, fierce pace of his own.
I will run him into the ground, Winter told himself.
I will chase him until he turns gasping for air, exhausted.
And then I will have him, because I am stronger than he.
He bit down hard on his lip and then let air burst out from his lungs in a great gasp.
Other small pains tried to force themselves onto his
consciousness - a blister that erupted on his foot, a dull ache in his leg - but he ignored these, then negotiated with them. If you do not cramp up on me, calf muscle, then I will soak you for a long time in warm water, which you will enjoy and which will restore you. So I make this promise to you: give me this race and I will repay you tenfold, but just do not cramp up now. And as he said this to himself, the pain seemed to subside, and he picked up his pace slightly, wanting to laugh at the shape ahead of him.
He saw that the Shadow Man no longer dashed from darkness to shade, that he now ran straight ahead, arms pumping, an arrow seeking to simply outdistance his pursuit. This encouraged Winter, and gave him some new strength. He thought: now, perhaps finally, after all these years, you too know a little bit of the fear that arrives when someone relentless is on your heels. Now, perhaps, you know a little bit of what it was like for so many others. It’s hard, isn’t it, when you want to hide but you have no time, and the pursuit at your heels is striding closer with every yard?
Now, you’ve felt panic for the first time. And I hope this feeling hurts.
He ran on, letting all the world around him slide away, until he saw only the Shadow Man’s back as the killer fled, block after block, straight down the island toward the southernmost tip of Miami Beach.
Simon Winter saw the Shadow Man glance back once and then increase his speed, and he recognized this for what it was, the precursor to evasion; so when he suddenly shifted direction, like an athlete on a field of play, slicing off into a walkway that cut next to the end of a condominium building, Winter was ready, already sprinting hard, so that the change in direction wouldn’t give his quarry even a moment to hide in some dark corner. The
Shadow Man must have felt the distance between them diminish, because he did not hesitate. Instead, he raced down the walkway and smoothly vaulted over a fence, heading toward the wide stretch of beach and the ocean beyond. Winter was prepared. The fence was chain link, about eight feet high, designed to keep people walking on the sand out of the condominium’s property. He tried to take it in stride, grasping hold of the metal links and clambering over the top. He tossed a leg forward, but one of the sharpened wire links on the uppermost rim caught the cloth of his pants and he tumbled forward, momentarily losing his balance.
For a sickening instance he felt himself suspended in the air, and then he pitched out, falling hard to the solid packed sand beneath him.
Pain rose up and grabbed him.
Red hurt filled his eyes and he felt like a fighter who takes a blow to the chin, unsure whether he was still standing or had fallen to the canvas.
He lost his wind, and a momentary head-spinning dizziness wrapped around him. He had a taste of gritty sand in his mouth, and he forced himself to one knee, shaking his head to clear his thoughts.
He peered down the beach unsteadily. In the gloom of light thrown by the apartment building, he could just make out the shape of the Shadow Man running on the hard gravel and coral sand a dozen yards from the edge of the white-rimmed surf. His fall had lost him his advantage, and he pushed himself up, making a quick inventory of his body, searching for broken bones, and found none. Shaken, he stepped ahead unsteadily.
Simon Winter took a deep breath, gritted his teeth and started running again. First one hesitant stride, then another, squeezing speed past pain, recovering the pace
that he hoped would shorten the distance between them. He could feel a trickle of blood at the corner of his lip and a contusion forming on his forehead and he thought he’d cut himself when he fell to the earth, and then, slotting these with the other stiffnesses and pains that were abruptly shouting for attention, he pushed on, ignoring them all.
The crash of waves against the beach was stronger now. He ran, keeping cadence with the rhythm of the ocean.
Night seemed to be loosening around him. He was suddenly aware of where he was: racing through the spot at the very tip of Miami Beach, where they’d come across poor Irving Silver’s clothes, past the small, empty park across from Government Cut with its huge schools of tarpon, heading out the long rock jetty that reached far into the ocean.
As he ran, Winter thought: the Shadow Man has been here before and he is comfortable in this darkness. He thinks he owns it, but he does not know that I have been to this place as well, and so it is as much mine as it is his.
He clambered up onto the rocks and then to the wooden walkway that the fishermen used. You’re here, he thought, somewhere straight ahead.
The old detective peered into the vaporous night. His eyes searched over the dark, hunched shapes of the black boulders that made up the jetty. And he thought: one of those figures breathes and waits.
From where the fishermen’s platform ended, the jetty pushed more than a quarter mile farther into the sea. Winter stopped and reached slowly beneath his jacket, removing his old service revolver.
Then he stepped to the end of the fishing platform, still staring out at the haphazard jumble of jagged rocks. White spray slapped at the slick black shapes.
Did you know, he asked carefully, you were running to the end of the earth?
He nodded to himself. He ran to the darkness. He ran to where he knew there would be no light.
Simon Winter’s hand rested on a wooden barrier constructed at the limit of the platform. I have fished here, he thought. It is time to fish again.
He knew a cautious man would simply wait there until light slid up over the horizon. He lifted his eyes and looked to the east and thought there might be just the smallest graying at the edge of the world. If he waited, he realized, soon enough a police car would come along, and soon enough dawn would mold shapes out of the blackness of night. But even as he thought of patience and delay, and recognizing that he’d pursued the Shadow Man into a corner, he clambered forward, over the wooden barrier, onto the glistening, wet jetty rocks. He continued searching for the man lurking in the remaining darkness, somewhere ahead of him. He thought: do not give him time to think. Do not give him time to catch his breath. Don’t give him the time he needs to gather himself and prepare for you. Let the fear of the chase work hard for you. No one has ever growled at his heels the way you have this night. Take him now, when he is being hurt by this uncertainty. Although he did not say this to himself, it was almost as if Winter was afraid that by waiting for the morning half-light to show over the horizon, his quarry would somehow evaporate and disappear in the brightness of day.
This is our time, he thought. Now.
Moving slowly, trying not to lose his balance and slip on the wet rocks, he slowly worked his way toward the end of the jetty. He was alert, on edge, fighting to keep himself steady and knowing that somewhere, amidst the blackness,
the Shadow Man had turned, hunkered down, and was waiting for him.
He said a small prayer, wishing that perhaps a stray light from the rich man’s development on Fisher’s Island would slap the jetty, just enough so that he could see the Shadow Man, in whatever crevasse he hid. This prayer, however, went unanswered. Muttering an obscenity, Winter pushed foward gingerly, trying to be certain of each step he took. The basketball shoes that had served him so well in the race down the street now threatened to betray him. They gave him little purchase on the satiny surface of the jetty rocks.
He felt his foot sliding, and he thumped down, catching himself before slipping into the sea waters. The edge of a rock creased his knee, sending a sharp pain through his leg. He cursed quietly, beneath his breath, and rose again, slightly unsteadily, pausing to search ahead, narrowing his eyes as he looked down the length of stone shapes.
But in that moment’s hesitation, the Shadow Man surged from the darkness between two rocks, grunting with a great burst of force, driving his knife blade at the old detective.
Winter pivoted at the sound coming at him, lowering his shoulder to absorb the force of the assault. It was as if a piece of the night had risen up against him. He tried to bring his weapon to bear on the shape that thrust at him, but could not find the human shape in the grip of black that charged at him.
He shouted out, some crazed sound of fear, knowing that it was probably a knife slicing the night, hunting for his flesh. He grabbed out with his free hand to ward off the blow. For a second he felt a razor’s breath jab through his palm, and he grabbed at the pain before it could find his chest, wrapping his fingers around the Shadow Man’s wrist.
He realized that the same slippery dark world that had bedeviled him and had made his feet slide on the rocks had compromised the force of the Shadow Man’s attack. Instead of striking out like some deadly feral snake intent on the kill, he had scrambled, slithering, losing some of his strength and forcing the knife slightly astray. Despite Winter’s grip on the Shadow Man’s arm, it bore down, slicing into the loose folds of his windbreaker, fraying his shirt, where, for an instant, it was caught like a fish in a net.
The momentum of the assault tumbled Winter backward. He felt himself falling, twisting like a drunk on the ice, slamming down hard against the rocks. He could feel the thickly muscled forearm still in his grip - he knew he could not let it loose and expect to live - and he dug his fingers into the man’s flesh, holding the knife at bay, still struggling to bring his pistol around. The Shadow Man grabbed at him, and Simon Winter felt his own right wrist encased by a powerful hand.