11

Times Square Chase

Agent Harris and Lieutenant Phelps ran down the narrow alley, sight of the Japanese team all but lost to them. In fact, all they could see ahead of them as their alley intersected with a small street was an overturned garbage bin, followed by a man who sounded like he was cussing in Japanese next to a recently knocked-over crate of ice-packed fish. Then another garbage bin farther down the alley on the other side of the small street was dislodged.

“Nice of them to leave us a trail trying to slow us down,” Agent Harris said as they ran.

She leaped atop the first bin and down to the other side, barely breaking stride, while Lieutenant Phelps shoved hard with both hands to push the thing out of his way. Then Agent Harris spun her way around the fallen crate and jumped over the second bin, with Lieutenant Phelps hot on her heels as he crashed his way more forcefully through.

“Too bad the slowing-down part of that’s not working out too well for them,” she said, once past the obstacle course. Ahead of them she could see only a pair of running legs and what looked like the back of the head of one of the men who had shot at them. They were bolting straight for a much bigger street than the last one. “We’ve got to get them before they lose themselves in the crowd.”

A loading ramp appeared ahead, with steps leading up for pedestrians on the near side, the other side ending abruptly where a truck would back up. She took the steps two at a time, and at the other end of the ramp, leaped through the air, aiming true for one of the trailing members of the Japanese team. Lieutenant Phelps, meanwhile, continued straight on down the alley.

Agent Harris flew as her target glanced back over his shoulder. A quick glimpse of the descending angel of death was all he needed to spin himself quickly aside and jog backward to let Agent Harris land on the sidewalk instead of on top of his back. She did a tuck and roll back up to her feet, launching herself straight at the man.

Her opponent went from jogging backward to facing her, then winding up into a roundhouse kick that caught her in the side, though even then she nearly caught his foot in the process. He resumed running away, having delayed Agent Harris just enough to gain a couple of precious seconds. By that time the lieutenant had caught up to her, and the pair found themselves racing side by side after the Japanese team.

“Okay, so he knows a little martial arts,” she remarked as they ran. “I’ll still stuff his karate chop straight down his gullet with a couple of spin kicks once I catch up to him.”

“Looks like they ran out of room to run,” Lieutenant Phelps stated. “Look.”

Ahead of them the alley came to an end at one of the more major streets, complete with a mixture of both horse-drawn and gas-driven vehicles, including turn-of-the-century taxis that resembled four-door yellow Model Ts and a double-decker bus, as well as plenty of foot traffic down the sides of the wide avenues. They could see the five members of the Japanese team coming to an abrupt slowdown as they pushed their way through the crowd.

When out of the corner of her eye Agent Harris saw the lieutenant reaching for something in his pants pocket, she stopped him with a hand to his arm and a word. “No. Not here in the middle of all of these people, and especially not with that gun you’re not supposed to have. We have to get them without attracting any attention, especially from the local cops.”

“Can I at least break their legs or something?”

“That you can do.” She shrugged.

They, too, dropped down to a rapid walk once they hit the crowd, shoving their way through the throng of humanity. Their act was greeted by many displeased looks and one remark from a well-dressed white man with his lady friend. “Know your betters, young negress! Lay hands on me or my wife again and I shall have you arrested and tossed into the dark hole in which you belong.”

Agent Harris looked ready to take out her frustrations from the chase on the couple before her, but this time it was Lieutenant Phelps’s turn to lend a restraining hand to hold her back while muttering his apologies, giving the first story that came to mind. “I’m sorry, but . . . my maid and I here were in a hurry and she got a bit overenthusiastic. Come on . . . Jemima, we don’t want to be late for that . . . prayer meeting you have with Tom and Huck.”

He pulled her away before the couple could do much more than glower at them. Once out of sight of the couple, Agent Harris shook off the lieutenant’s grip with a sour look. “Okay, so I forgot that a black person shoving her way through whites in 1919 is not a good thing to do, but do you know how many levels of wrong that line of yours had?”

“Sorry, but I’m not good at lying or making up stories. Now let’s hurry up before we lose the targets.”

After a last glare, Agent Harris was back on the job and quickly spotted one familiar head making its way around the other side of a passing taxi. “There,” she indicated with a nod. “Before we lose them.”

Their pace quickened, though Agent Harris was careful now to be far more polite in making her way through the crowd. She led the way across the street and down the walkway, around a final clump of people loitering in conversation, before emerging into a break in the surging sea of humanity. Several yards ahead of them, at the other end of the clearing, the Japanese team members were likewise race walking through the crowd.

“Quicker,” she whispered to Lieutenant Phelps. “Just no running.”

“Agreed. I imagine seeing a black person running down the street is not going to be taken any better by the cops in this year than back in ours.”

She shot him another harsh glare.

“Hey, I’m just sayin’. I mean, if we’re to blend in, then . . . that is, all I meant was . . . I’ll shut up now.”

“You’re actually right about what you mean,” she told him, “but absolutely wrong in the way you tried to say it. Stick with just being the muscle from now on. Now hurry up.”

Their chase became a walking war, their longer strides versus the shorter but quicker ones of the Japanese team, as each tried their best to keep from getting noticed by the general public. After a brisk walk down a street and around a corner, the five from the Japanese team were forced to wait while a double-decker bus passed by, the pair behind them nearly catching up before the five resumed once again. The Japanese men ducked into a crowd entering a theater for a play and nearly lost their two pursuers, but Agent Harris’s sharp eyes spotted them on the other side of the street.

Of course, five Japanese gentlemen moving through the herd as if they were intent on a criminal mission was almost as suspicious in the eye of the people of 1919 as a large white man and a slender young black woman dressed more as though they were going out together than as man and servant. Keeping track of the Japanese men’s movements was turning out not to be too difficult a task for Agent Harris, though catching up to them was problematic.

“Those guys certainly walk fast,” she remarked as the street turned onto a much larger avenue.

“We’ve got another problem,” Lieutenant Phelps remarked. “How do we take them down once we catch up with them?”

“I think between the two of us we can take them.”

“Without looking like we’re criminals assaulting some Japanese tourists?” the lieutenant finished.

She considered that for a moment before giving a quick shake of her head. “Let’s just catch them first and worry about the rest later.”

The street they turned onto had more car and bus traffic than the other, and also a more X-shaped intersection topped at one end by a familiar-looking narrow building that had become iconic even in the year 1919.

“Times Square,” she said, realizing where they were. “We need to catch them now.”

“Too late. Look.”

Ahead of them the five had come to a stop in the middle of the walkway. Then one of them turned to face the crowd in the direction of their pursuers. He smiled briefly, while behind him his team dispersed‍—in four different directions. He gave a short bow at the waist, turned away, and made his way quickly through the crowd in a fifth direction.

Agent Harris stopped cold, an angry sigh escaping her lips as she watched their quarry drift apart like a dandelion to the winds.

“Which one do we follow?” Lieutenant Phelps asked.

“We don’t,” she replied. “We’d lose both them and each other in this crowd. Best we can do is report back to Lou and take it from there.”

She spared a moment to let her gaze follow the one who had smiled, until all view was cut off by an intervening taxi, and turned away feeling displeased with herself. Their walk back to the alley from which they had started would not be quite as fast, as Agent Harris silently berated herself.