Max Vasser had spotted the big Ktarian known as the Snark heading for the side exit of the Bolian Blues Club.
*Finally!*
There was no mistaking who the big Ktarian was -- Max had memorized every crevice and pock, every lump and cranial ridge of the Snark's face from his police record. It was the same rhinoceros-headed man now steadily making his way towards the Boojum's backstage hiding place at the rear of the club. Through a chink in the stage curtain, she spotted young Danno Chimeron slowly wheeling the Boojum towards the club's rear exit, the two of them completely oblivious to the approaching threat.
Was the Snark going to kill the Boojum right here in front of all these witnesses? No, that would be suicide. He'd wait until they were outside the club with no one looking on, then he'd do it. With sudden horror, Max realized he'd have to kill the boy too if he wanted no witnesses! A gruesome vision of two bodies -- one cripple and one innocent young boy -- lying in the gutter in pools of their own blood flashed through Max's mind. The stakes had gone up -- this was no longer just a simple bounty hunt! She had to stop the Snark at any cost!
She snatched the untouched gin glass from the table and tilted her head back, quickly slamming down the entire drink in one huge gulp. The liquid fire burned down her throat rekindling her resolve and incinerating any vestiges of sympathy she might have felt for the Snark. Thus fortified with the gin under her belt, she slid out of her booth and set off in hot pursuit.
Max mercilessly pushed, elbowed, punched, clawed, and chewed her way through the press of people, but simply couldn't make enough headway towards the rear exit and the Snark. Amidst growing anxiety, she had to beat back the momentary temptation to pull out the bulge beneath her jacket and just start shooting, but decided that would cause more problems than it was worth. Instead, she switched tactics and ran for the front exit.
As she bolted through the front door, she careened into some drunken Nausicaans and bowled them over like a human cannonball. She barely heard the snarls and curses they hurled at her receding back as she ran around the outside of the *Bolian Blues Club*.
She squeezed between the buildings and emerged seconds later somewhat scuffed on a quiet street behind the club just in time to see Danno Chimeron and the Boojum get into a limo. The door slid closed and the long, sleek, black vehicle sped off into the night.
A split second later, the rear door of the blues club exploded outward and disgorged the Snark.
Max coiled and sprang out onto the sidewalk, pulling her weapon in the same action, and shouted, "Hold it right there, Snark! I'm takin' you in!"
But the Snark was so focused on his escaping prey that he didn't give any indication he'd heard Max or even notice that there was a woman standing there pointing a gun at his head. Instead, he dove into a taxi idling at the curbside, shouting directions to the driver before he was even inside to "Follow that car!"
With a screech of tires on wet plasticrete, the old-fashioned taxi sped off sending up a sheet of water from the puddles of rain in the road. The spray cascaded over Max's head, soaking her anew. She was left standing flatfooted in the street with her jaw hanging open, dripping wet, sucking exhaust fumes, and steaming under the collar at being completely ignored and humiliated in what should have been her moment of victory.
"Damnit!" she exclaimed once she'd gotten over the absurdity of the situation. She couldn't let the Snark get away that easily. She viciously wiped the wet hair out of her face and jammed her phaser back into her shoulder holster. Then, placing her fingers to her lips, she let rip with a shrill, ear-piercing whistle, and as another of the retro style taxicabs pulled alongside the curb she dove in and shouted to the driver, "Follow that taxi!"
Max had lucked out. With the proper pecuniary inducement, her driver turned out to be willing to bend (and break) any traffic law he had to in order to stay on the Snark's tail. Max sat in the center of the taxi's back seat gripping the armrests with white knuckles. She would have been having the time of her life if it hadn't been for the still very real danger of the Snark murdering both the Boojum and Danno Chimeron.
As the taxi weaved through traffic like a drunken slalom skier through the gates, she looked sideways out the window at the buildings careening by. They were headed north through the city, away from the dingier parts of town and towards the skyscrapers and high-rise hotels at the city core. Overhead, the rain clouds were breaking apart, and a few stars were already visible through the tattered openings. Serenity's big moon, Yukon, was a pale, gibbous orb low on the horizon, and lent the wet cityscape a silvery sheen.
But despite a performance by her driver that would have gotten him at least an honorable mention at the annual Ganymede Pod Race 5000, Max's taxi skidded to a stop at the curb in front of Serenity City's ritzy Plaza Hotel a full three minutes behind the Snark's. Max threw a fistful of credits at the young man and bolted from the cab, but she knew she was already too late.
She didn't even know where in the building the Snark and the Boojum were, or even which floor. How was she supposed to stop a murder that was probably happening even as she stood there frittering away the precious seconds?!?
Max's indecision nailed her boots to the ground. She stood there in front of the grand entrance, panting, in a near panic, helpless to save a child, when the sound of shattering clearplaz reached her ears from high above her head. Her neck snapped back in an automatic reaction and her eyes scanned upwards.
There, in midair and silhouetted against the stars and clouds, was the body of a man. His arms and legs twisted in the wind as though he were a boneless rag doll. In a surreal moment of absolute shock, Max watched the limp, mannequin-like form drift earthward from the twelfth-story window as if in slow motion, surrounded by a thousand pinpoints of light where the moonlight glinted off the broken clearplaz through which he had been thrown.
She almost didn't snap out of it in time, but at the last second her instinct for survival took control of her legs. She gathered all her strength and dove out of the way just as the body came crashing to the pavement amid a deadly hail of razor-sharp polymer shards.
Pedestrians ran. Men shouted. A woman screamed. Max picked herself up, ignoring the pain from the rough scrape across half her face that she got from kissing the sidewalk.
It was a terrible sight. There was blood everywhere, leaking in slow, thick, crimson rivulets from the broken body in the middle of the sidewalk. Max forced herself to look, and breathed a small sigh of relief when she realized the body was adult-sized. *Not the boy.*
But neither was it the Boojum as she had expected. To her surprise, it was the Snark!
She saw his bloody hand twitch. He was still alive!
Quickly, Max ran to the Snark's side and knelt in the pooled blood and broken window shards, and cradled his head in her hands. She tried to keep her eyes away from the smoking phaser burn in the center of the man's chest, from the charred and blistered flesh, but the stench of it assailed her nostrils, making concentration difficult and threatening to bring up what she'd eaten for dinner.
The Snark's eyelids fluttered and opened, and his eyes focused on Max's face. He sputtered and coughed feebly, and a new rivulet of blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth. He opened his lips to say something, and Max bent closer to hear.
"Don't be fooled by him... by the way he looks," whispered the Snark, then convulsed in a spasm of pain.
"Don't talk," said Max softly, surprising herself with the amount of compassion she heard in her own voice. "Medical teams will be here in a few minutes. Just hang on until they get here. Help is on the way."
The Snark shook his big head ever so weakly. "Not me... Him. He needs the help... Help him," he pleaded faintly but earnestly.
With his last remaining strength, he pressed a small object into Max's hand, then his eyes closed for the last time and he exhaled in a long gurgling sigh.
Max lowered the Snark's head gently to the ground, wondering at the man's strange and nonsensical last words. Help who? Who did he mean? The Boojum? But he had just tried to kill the Boojum and the Boojum had blasted him out an upper-story window.
She stood and absentmindedly stuffed the object the Snark had given her into a pocket, then wiped her bloodstained hands on her pants legs. In the distance, she could hear the distinctive wailing of the police and ambulance vehicles' sirens. In a few minutes the official questions would begin, but she had more questions than answers herself.
"Should'a' listened to West," She muttered.