Free Murder Your Darlings by J.J. Murphy

Algonquin lobby. He followed us here.”
    In an instant, a taxicab pulled up.
    “Get in,” the man said. “We’re going for a ride.”
    “Leave her—” Faulkner began.
    “Shut up. Your mommy’s coming with us. Now, get in.”
    Dorothy hopped forward. “Ladies first,” she chirped, and jumped into the open door. She slid along the seat to make room.
    Faulkner reluctantly clambered in, looking at her as if she were crazy. As the man with the gun sat down, she reached across Faulkner and across the man and quickly pulled shut his door.
    “What the—” the man snarled.
    She pulled herself back, then turned and yanked open the door on her side and quickly got out. As she did, she grabbed Faulkner’s arm.
    “Billy, come on!”
    Faulkner was stunned, confused, but went with her because of the force of her momentum.
    She heard, as she’d predicted, a roar of rage and frustration from the man inside the car. She had shut his door on his long, expensive wool coat. She had stopped him—for the moment—and he wasn’t happy about it.
    She pulled Faulkner in between the cars, trucks, buses and trolley cars moving through Times Square. Fortunately, the heavy traffic moved slowly—but horns honked at them. And at one point she narrowly got them out of the way of an oncoming trolley.
    “Perhaps we were safer in the taxi,” Faulkner said, only half joking.
    The reached the sidewalk on the other side of Times Square and took a moment to catch their breath, as though they had forded a raging river.
    “Look,” Faulkner said. “He’s coming after us.”
    She could see the man weaving through the midst of the traffic. He was moving quickly, heading right toward them.
    She thought a moment.
    “He can’t come after both of us if we split up. Come on.”
    A few paces away, a green metal structure could be seen above the passersby. Its white glass dome glowed with light from within.
    “What is it?” Faulkner asked, running after her.
    “The subway. Do you have a nickel for each of us?”
    A blast of hot air, a low rumble and a high-pitched metallic screech hit them as they descended the stairway. They dropped their coins in the turnstiles and hurried toward the platform. An uptown train had just pulled in.
    “Get on it,” she said, shoving him into the train’s open door. “Meet me at Tony Soma’s. Ask any cabdriver where it is.”
    “But you can come with me,” he protested.
    “He’s after you, not me. I’ll lure him away so you’ll be safe. Don’t argue.”
    Faulkner opened his mouth to do just that. But the conductor blew his whistle and the doors slammed shut.
    The subway train lurched forward slowly; then all of a sudden it sped away with a whoosh and left behind a surprising hollow silence.
    She looked around the dim, nearly empty platform. No other trains were in sight. Besides her, only a handful of people stood waiting.
    The man with the scar would arrive any moment. Should she ask someone for help? That would certainly be the sensible thing to do. But getting someone else involved might put that person in danger, too.
    Then she spotted a uniformed policeman at the far end of the platform. He stood with his wide back to her, twirling his baton, rocking on his heels. For once— for once! —luck was on her side. She hurried to him.
    As she approached, she slowed her pace, noticing the policeman’s white hair.
    He turned to face her and smiled.
    Her hopeful spirits sank. The portly old man was seventy-five if he was a day. He had the rheumy-eyed, slightly vacant expression that she associated with old age and senility.
    Behind the elderly policeman was the pitlike darkness of the subway tracks. The man with the scar could shove this old cop down there with one little push.
    She looked over her shoulder. There he was, fifty feet away. The man was running down the steps, his long coat flapping behind him. He reached the platform and looked around.
    She turned away, but she could feel that he had spotted