The expression of pain in his face became something else entirely: in some part horror, in some part awe, but in the greatest part some sentiment for which she knew no word. Gasping for breath, Gentle registered little or none of this but pushed himself up from the wall to relaunch his attack. The assassin was quick, however. He was at the door and out through it before Gentle could iay hands on him. Gentle took a moment to ask if Judith was all right— which she was—then raced in pursuit.
The snow had come again, its veil dropping between Gentle and Pie. The assassin was fast, despite the hurt done him, but Gentle was determined not to let the bastard slip. He chased He across Park Avenue and west on 80th, his heels sliding on the sleet-slickened ground. Twice his quarry threw him backward glances, and on the second occasion seemed to slow his pace, as if he might stop and attempt a truce, but then thought better of it and put on an extra turn of speed. It carried him over Madison towards Central Park. If he reached its sanctuary, Gentle knew, he’d be gone. Throwing every last ounce of energy into the pursuit, Gentle came within snatching distance. But even as he reached for the man he lost his footing. He fell headlong, his arms flailing, and struck the street hard enough to lose consciousness for a few seconds. When he opened his eyes, the taste of blood sharp in his mouth, he expected to see the assassin disappearing into the shadows of the park, but the bizarre Mr. Pie was standing at the curb, looking back at him. He continued to watch as Gentle got up, his face betraying a mournful empathy with Gentle’s bruising. Before the chase could begin again he spoke, his voice as soft and melting as the sleet.
“Don’t follow me,” he said.
“You leave her . . . the fuck . . . alone,” Gentle gasped, knowing even as he spoke he had no way of enforcing this edict in his present state.
But the man’s reply was affirmation. “I will,” he said. “But please, I beg you . . . forget you ever set eyes on me.”
As he spoke he began to take a backward step, and for an instant Gentle’s dizzied brain almost thought it possible the man would retreat into nothingness: be proved spirit rather than substance.
“Who are you?” he found himself asking.
“Pie ‘oh’ pah,” the man returned, his voice perfectly matched to the soft expellations of those syllables.
“But who?”
“Nobody and nothing,” came the second reply, accompanied by a backward step.
He took another and another, each pace putting further layers of sleet between them. Gentle began to follow, but the fall had left him aching in every joint, and he knew the chase was lost before he’d hobbled three yards. He pushed himself on, however, reaching one side of Fifth Avenue as Pie ‘oh’ pah made the other. The street between them was empty, but the assassin spoke across it as if across a raging river.
“Go back,” he said. “Or if you come, be prepared..,.” Absurd as it was, Gentle answered as if there were white waters between them. “Prepared for what?” he shouted.
The man shook his head, and even across the street, with the sleet between them, Gentle could see how much despair and confusion there was on his face. He wasn’t certain why the expression made his stomach churn, but chum it did. He started to cross the street, plunging a foot into the imaginary flood. The expression on the assassin’s face changed: despair gave way to disbelief, and disbelief to a kind of terror, as though this fording was unthinkable, unbearable. With Gentle halfway across the street the man’s courage broke. The shaking of the head became a violent fit of denial, and he let out a strange sob, throwing back his head as he did so. Then he retreated, as he had before, stepping away from the object of his terror—Gentle—as though expecting to forfeit his visibility. If there was such magic in the world—and tonight Gentle could believe it—the assassin was not an adept. But his feet could do what magic could not. As Gentle reached the river’s other bank Pie ‘oh’ pah turned and fled, throwing himself over the wall into the park without seeming to care what lay on the other side: anything to be out of Gentle’s sight.