I pushed through the first revolving doors I came to and sprinted through the arcade. I heard steps behind me, shouts of outrage as my pursuer collided with someone, but I didn’t waste time looking back.

The envelope was digging into my rear as I ran, but the pain reassured me that I still had my precious cargo. I should have left it at Cheviot. Regrets, save them for later, I panted to myself, and sprinted around a trio of slow-moving women to the building’s rear revolving door.

Wells Street seemed to be full of messenger bikes. Real messengers? Pursuers? Impossible to tell the difference. A bike jumped the curb and headed straight at me, another was approaching from the side. I could see the glint of a pistol in the first man’s hand. As he lifted it, I pulled off my Cubs cap and rolled on the ground. When he reached me, pointing the pistol at me, I stuffed the cap into the spokes of his bike. The bike wobbled, toppled. The pistol went off. The crowd screamed and scattered, and I sprinted up the stairs to the El.

A train was rumbling into the station. I shoved past a line of commuters sliding their cards through turnstile slots. They yelled at me angrily, and the stationmaster hollered in his microphone, but I jumped over the turnstile and ran up the final flight of stairs. I managed to squeeze through the train’s doors just as they were closing.

The car was packed. I collapsed, standing against the doors, sobbing for air, while the mass of commuters pressed into me. My gun was cutting into my side, the envelope into my back. My legs were trembling from my run and from my fear. I thought of Karen back on Monroe Street. I hoped that when they saw I’d gone, they’d left her alone. Please, please don’t let her be one more person injured in my wake.

For several stops, I rode without being conscious of where I was, moving away from the doors as we pulled into a station, leaning back against them when they closed again. We were heading north on the Brown Line, I finally realized. And, wherever it dropped me, there might be watchers waiting for me. How big an operation could Dornick afford to mount against me? How many El stops could he stake out? Was I making him more powerful than he possibly could be?

I couldn’t ride the train forever. I got off at the next stop, Armitage Avenue. It’s in the heart of Yuppieville, and there was a good crowd to cover me leaving the station.