The Twelfth Card

pleasantry and a closing cell phone—would put her at ease, he reckoned.
    This ploy seemed to work. He looked quickly around the long row of shelves and saw the girl, staring at the microfiche screen. Her hands, at her sides, seemed to clench and unclench nervously at what she was reading.
    He started forward.
    Then stopped. The girl was pushing away from the table. He heard her chair slide on the linoleum. She was walking somewhere. Leaving? No. He heard the sound of the drinking fountain and her gulping some water. Then he heard her pulling books off the shelf and stacking them up on the microfiche table. Another pause and she returned to the stacks once again, gathering more books. The thud as she set them down. Finally he heard thescreech of her chair as she sat once more. Then silence.
    Thompson looked again. She was back in her chair, reading one of the dozen books piled in front of her.
    With the bag containing the condoms, razor knife and duct tape in his left hand, the club in his right, he started toward her again.
    Coming up behind her now, twenty feet, fifteen, holding his breath.
    Ten feet. Even if she bolted now, he could lunge forward and get her—break a knee or stun her with a blow to the head.
    Eight feet, five . . .
    He paused and silently set the rape pack on a shelf. He took the club in both hands. He stepped closer, lifting the varnished oak rod.
    Still absorbed in the words, she read intently, oblivious to the fact that her attacker was an arm’s length behind her. Thompson swung the club downward with all his strength toward the top of the girl’s stocking cap.
    Crack . . .
    A painful vibration stung his hands as the baton struck her head with a hollow snap.
    But something was wrong. The sound, the feel were off. What was going on?
    Thompson Boyd leapt back as the body fell to the floor.
    And tumbled into pieces.
    The torso of the mannequin fell one way. The head another. Thompson stared for a moment. He glanced to his side and saw a ball gown draped over the bottom half of the same mannequin—part of a display on women’s clothing in Reconstruction America.
    No . . .
    Somehow, she’d tipped to the fact that he was a threat. She’d then collected some books from the shelves as a cover for standing up and taking apart a mannequin. She’d dressed the upper part of it in her own sweatshirt and stocking cap then propped it on the chair.
    But where was she?
    The slap of racing feet answered the question. Thompson Boyd heard her sprinting for the fire door. The man slipped the billy club into his coat, pulled out his gun and started after her.

Chapter Two
    Geneva Settle was running.
    Running to escape. Like her ancestor Charles Singleton.
    Gasping. Like Charles.
    But she was sure she had none of the dignity her ancestor displayed in his flight from the police 140 years ago. Geneva sobbed and screamed for help and stumbled hard into a wall in the frenzy of panic, scraping the back of her hand.
    There she go, there she go, the skinny little boy-girl . . . Get her!
    The thought of the elevator terrified her, being trapped. So she chose the fire stairs. Slamming into the door at full speed, she stunned herself, a burst of yellow light in her vision, but the girl kept right on going. She leapt from the landing down to the fourth floor, tugging on the knob. But these were security doors and didn’t open from the stairwell. She’d have to use the door on the ground floor.
    She continued down the stairs, gasping for breath. Why? What was he after? she wondered.
    Skinny little Oreo bitch got no time fo’ girls like us . . .
    The gun . . . That’s what’d made her suspicious. Geneva Settle was no gangsta girl, but you couldn’t be a student at Langston Hughes High School in the heart of Harlem without having seen at least a few guns in your life. When she’d heard a distinctive click—very different from the cell phone closing—she wondered if the laughing man was justfronting, here for trouble. So she’d stood casually, gotten a drink of water, ready to bolt. But she’d peeked through the stacks and spotted the ski mask. She realized there was no way to get past him to the door unless she kept him focused on the microfiche table. She’d stacked up some books noisily then stripped a nearby mannequin, dressed it in her hat and sweatshirt and rested it on the chair in front of the microfiche machine. Then she’d waited until he approached and, when he had, she’d