The Saint of Market Street, Part II: No Sanctuary
The Devil Knows Your Name
The man on the other side of my office door knocked again.
Three soft taps.
Not the kind of knocking you expected from somebody who had chased a bleeding man halfway across San Francisco. There was no pounding. No shouting. No threat to break the door down.
Just patience.
Mercy stood behind me with one hand pressed against his side. Blood had soaked through his shirt and slipped between his fingers. His breathing had grown shallow, but his eyes were wide and alert.
“Don’t answer it,” he whispered.
I glanced back at him. “Wasn’t planning on inviting them in for coffee.”
The doorknob turned.
I had locked it, but the small movement still sent a warning through me.
“Mr. Dante Baptiste,” the man called from the hallway. His voice was calm, smooth, and educated. “My name is Caleb Rowe. I apologize for disturbing you at this hour.”
I slid open the bottom drawer of my desk and pulled out the pistol I kept beneath a stack of unpaid invoices.
Mercy’s eyes dropped to it.
“What?” I whispered. “You thought I fought crime with prayer?”
Caleb continued speaking.
“Reverend Voss would like his property returned. Give us the folder and the young man, and this unfortunate misunderstanding ends tonight.”
Mercy moved closer. “He’s lying.”
“No shit.”
Caleb chuckled softly from the other side of the door.
“I assure you, Mr. Baptiste, no one wishes to harm you. You have already suffered enough.”
The gun felt heavier in my hand.
“What the hell does that mean?” I called.
“You spent three months at St. Francis after the fire on Turk Street. You lost a client, nearly lost your license, and learned a valuable lesson about involving yourself in other people’s tragedies.”
My grip tightened.
No newspaper had printed my name after the fire. No public record connected me to the man who died inside that apartment. I had made sure of that.
Mercy watched my face.
Caleb knew he had struck something because his voice softened.
“You walked away once, Dante. Walk away again.”
A thin metal tool slipped into the lock.
I pointed toward the back of the office. “Storage room.”
Mercy hesitated.
“Move.”
He grabbed the folder from my desk and stumbled toward the rear door. I followed, keeping the pistol trained on the entrance.
The lock clicked.
I shut the storage-room door behind us as my office door opened.
“Mr. Baptiste?” Caleb called.
I guided Mercy through shelves of cleaning supplies, old case files, and boxes I had been promising myself I would throw away for five years. At the back of the room stood a warped wooden panel nearly hidden behind a filing cabinet.
Mercy stared at me. “What is that?”
“My landlord’s refusal to bring the building up to code.”
I shoved the cabinet aside and pulled the panel open. Cold air rushed through the gap.
Behind it was a narrow service staircase that ran down the rear of the building.
Mercy stepped through first.
A floorboard creaked inside my office.
I climbed into the passage and pulled the panel closed.
Darkness swallowed us.
Mercy reached for the wall. His foot slipped on the first step, and I caught him around the waist before he fell.
His body pressed against mine.
Even bleeding, scared, and half out of his mind, the man smelled good. Soap, rain, and something darker underneath. His cheek brushed my jaw.
For a second, neither one of us moved.
“You always grab your clients like this?” he whispered.
“You’re not my client.”
“No?”
“No. Clients pay.”
I put his arm over my shoulder and helped him down.
Behind us, something heavy crashed inside the storage room.
“They found the panel,” Mercy said.
“Then you better find your legs.”
We descended as fast as his wound allowed. The staircase groaned beneath our weight. It was barely wide enough for one person, forcing Mercy to lean against me while I kept the gun pointed upward.
Light appeared through the cracks above.
“Down there,” a man shouted.
Mercy tried to hurry. His knee buckled.
We both slammed against the wall.
He sucked in a sharp breath and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Get up,” I said.
“I’m trying.”
Boots hammered against the upper steps.
I pulled Mercy upright.
He looked toward the darkness below us, then back at me. “You can still leave me.”
“What?”
“They want me, not you.”
“You heard Caleb. They already know who I am.”
“They won’t kill you if you hand me over.”
I studied him.
“You believe that?”
Mercy’s mouth tightened.
“Neither do I,” I said. “Move.”
We reached the bottom just as one of the men appeared above us.
I fired once.
The bullet struck the wall beside him, showering the staircase with splinters and dust. He ducked back, cursing.
I kicked open the rear exit and dragged Mercy into the alley.
Rain had started falling. Not hard, but enough to turn the pavement black and slick. A row of dumpsters lined the brick wall. Beyond them, Market Street glowed beneath streetlamps and hotel signs.
Mercy leaned against the building, struggling for air.
“Where’s your car?” he asked.
“Impounded.”
“Of course it is.”
“Tonight ain’t exactly gone according to my plans either.”
The door behind us slammed open.
We ran.
Mercy’s version of running looked more like falling forward and catching himself before he hit the ground. I kept one hand around his arm, pulling him past a closed liquor store and a man asleep beneath a blue tarp.
A black sedan turned the corner.
Its headlights swept across us.
“That them?” I asked.
Mercy glanced back. “Yes.”
The sedan accelerated.
I dragged him across the street as a horn blared. A taxi missed us by inches.
The driver rolled down his window. “You trying to get killed?”
“Get in line,” I shouted.
We cut through a twenty-four-hour corner store.
The clerk looked up from behind the register as we rushed inside.
“No bathroom,” he said.
“We ain’t here to piss.”
Mercy knocked over a display of potato chips. Bags scattered across the floor.
The clerk jumped up. “Hey!”
The sedan stopped outside.
Two men stepped onto the sidewalk.
I pushed Mercy toward the drink coolers at the back. An employee door stood beside them.
“Employees only,” the clerk shouted.
I kicked it open.
We entered a cramped hallway, passed a mop sink, and shoved through another door into the adjoining alley.
Mercy laughed once, breathless. “You do this often?”
“I’m beginning to remember why I stopped.”
We emerged near the BART entrance.
A train rumbled beneath the street.
“Come on.”
We hurried down the stairs. Mercy nearly fell twice. The station agent was busy arguing with a woman who insisted her card had been charged three times. I pushed through the emergency gate, dragging Mercy behind me.
An alarm sounded.
“Sir!” the agent called.
“Bill me.”
We reached the platform as a Richmond train pulled in.
The doors opened.
I shoved Mercy inside and followed.
They closed seconds later.
Through the window, I saw one of Voss’s men reach the platform. He slammed his palm against the glass as the train started moving.
I let out the breath I had been holding.
Then Mercy grabbed my coat.
“There.”
The second man had made it aboard three cars down.
He stood behind the connecting window, staring straight at us.
“Shit.”
The train picked up speed.
There were only six other passengers in our car. A woman wearing hospital scrubs slept near the front. Two teenagers shared earbuds. An old man sat with a shopping cart full of aluminum cans. Nobody looked interested in becoming part of whatever trouble had followed us underground.
The man entered the next car.
I pulled Mercy toward the opposite end.
“Tell me what you stole.”
“Not here.”
“You dragged Reverend Voss’s private army to my office. I think we’ve moved past being shy.”
“It’s evidence.”
“Of what?”
Mercy pressed a hand against the pole as the train rocked. “Money laundering. Fraud. Blackmail. Maybe murder.”
“Maybe?”
“I didn’t stick around to ask.”
We moved into the next car.
The man followed.
I looked through the window. Tall, white, built like a linebacker, with one hand inside his jacket.
“You came to me on purpose,” I said.
Mercy didn’t answer.
“That wasn’t a question.”
“I knew who you were.”
I stopped walking.
Mercy turned. “Dante.”
“You knew where my office was. You knew I had worked around Voss.”
“We don’t have time for this.”
“You made time when you showed up bleeding on my floor.”
The pursuer entered the car behind us.
Mercy lowered his voice. “I needed someone who understood how Voss moved money.”
“So you picked me.”
“You were the only person I could find who had seen his records and lived long enough to leave.”
That sat wrong.
“What records?”
Mercy looked away.
I grabbed his chin and forced him to face me. “What records?”
The train slowed.
The overhead speaker announced the next stop.
Our pursuer moved closer.
“Dante,” Mercy whispered.
I released him and looked around.
The two teenagers were standing near the doors. I pulled a twenty from my wallet and shoved it into one boy’s hand.
He frowned. “What’s this for?”
“When the doors open, run into that man.”
“What?”
“Make it look like an accident.”
The second teenager looked past me at the approaching man.
“Make it forty.”
I handed him another twenty.
The train stopped.
The doors opened.
The boys took off.
One slammed shoulder-first into Voss’s man. The second tangled his legs, sending all three of them into the seats.
I pushed Mercy onto the platform.
The warning chime sounded.
The man threw one teenager aside and lunged for the door.
They closed in his face.
He struck the glass as the train pulled away.
The teenagers waved at us from inside the car.
Mercy stared at me. “You paid children to attack an armed man.”
“They negotiated.”
We headed toward the escalator.
Then Mercy stopped.
Across the tracks, Caleb Rowe stood alone on the opposite platform.
He wore a charcoal suit beneath a black overcoat. Silver touched his temples, and a neat beard framed his mouth. He didn’t look like a thug. He looked like somebody’s attorney. Somebody’s pastor. Somebody you trusted with a house key.
Caleb raised two fingers in a polite greeting.
The train between us pulled away.
When it cleared, he was gone.