I stilled, realizing the building’s steel back door had opened and closed again. It was too dark to see what was going on below me, and with Esther now sitting in the White Horse Tavern, all I could do was cling to the handrail and wait.
A moment later, I heard the grinding squeak of that big, metal Dumpster lid, the one next to the blue recycling bins. With an exhale, I relaxed. Someone’s just emptying their trash again, I decided.
I let another few minutes tick by. Except for the winter wind, the courtyard fell silent. I waited for the sound of a steel door opening and closing again, but it never came, so I decided the person emptying the garbage must have departed by way of the alley, just like Esther, and I continued my descent.
A sharp gust of wind blew off my hood, but I didn’t pause to flip it up again. As soon as I reached the second-floor landing, I scrambled onto the ladder. Almost there. Rung by rung, I moved south. Just a few feet from those blue plastic recycling bins, I thought I was home free.
“Got ya, bitch!”
Two bruising hands closed on my upper arms.
“Ahhhhhh!” I shouted. “Let me go!”
The jerk who grabbed me didn’t. He ripped me from the ladder, literally tossing me into the air. I felt myself falling, yelling all the way, until I hit a low pile of plastic garbage bags at the bottom of the metal Dumpster. The lid had been left open, and the bin swallowed me up like a fetid, black monster. I’d barely hit the garbage bags before I heard a clang above my head.
That jerk closed the lid on me!
I scrambled up so fast I banged my head against the freezing metal.
“Crap!”
Crouching down again, I glanced around the smelly box, but the darkness was absolute. I reached for my flashlight and couldn’t find it. The thing was gone, most likely lost among the garbage bags under my feet, so my hands became my eyes. I reached up to feel the lid above me. The metal was colder than the shelves of a deep freezer, but the temperature did little to diminish the stench of rotting food and God knew what else. Nearly retching, I placed the palms of my hands against the heavy lid and pushed with all my strength. The lid rose about an inch—and clicked against the latch.
Locked! I’m locked in!
“Help!” I shouted, banging against the Dumpster’s side with a clang, clang, clang! “Let me out of here!”
“Shut up, bitch!”
I didn’t recognize the jerk’s voice. And I wasn’t about to listen to it!
“Let me out!” I shouted even louder, banging again and again. “Help! Someone help me!”
Then I remembered Esther and my mobile phone!
I’d shoved the cell into my pocket on the climb down. Now I reached into my clothes for it. In the pitch-darkness, the little screen glowed like a lighthouse beacon on a storm-tossed sea. I sighed with relief until I saw my iceberg—a single tiny bar in the screen’s upper left corner!
“Esther? Hello? Esther!”
Nothing. No partner. No connection. No cellular signal.
I went back to pounding (and gagging).
A minute later, I heard male voices shouting at each other. I stopped to listen.
“Let her out. Now!”
Matt? Is that Matt’s voice?!
“Mind your own business and get the hell out of here!” The jerk’s gruff bark.
More yelling.
Then Matt and the jerk started to threaten each other. Something was slammed against the Dumpster with enough force to rock the heavy container. I yelped and fell backward, my spine hitting the wall with a hollow thud. More pounds came from outside, and over the echoing din I heard angry voices, too.
“Matt!” I shouted. “HELP!”
A meaty thwack! More scuffling. Finally, all motion ceased. I listened hard, peering into the dark. There were more male voices—none that I recognized—and I couldn’t make out the words.
“Bastards!”
That word I’d heard. It was Matt’s, his curse followed by a scuffle.
Finally, the lid was thrown open. Beams from a half-dozen flashlights blinded me.
“NYPD!” bellowed a male voice. “Show me your hands now!”
Blinking against the glare, I raised my arms above my head. Someone reached out and snatched the cell phone from my fingers.
“Grab her,” another man commanded. “Get her out of there!”
Still blinded, I felt rough hands seize my arms. Two uniformed officers half lifted, half dragged me out of the bin and set me on the ground.
Relieved, I exhaled. “Thanks, I really appreciate—Hey!”
A large African-American officer was pulling my arms behind my back.
“What are you doing?!” I yelled.
“You’re under arrest!” he yelled right back.
“For what?!”
“Trespassing, for starters!”
The cold click of cuffs snapped around my wrists.
“What do you mean, for starters?!” I demanded—no longer yelling because my voice was getting hoarse.
The cop turned me by the shoulders and pointed at a paramedic a few yards away, taking care of a six-two, two-hundred-eighty-pound (at least) guy wearing a torn doorman’s uniform. The man was sitting on the ground, his head tilted back, blood seeping out from under a pressure pad the medic was holding against the man’s nostrils.
“A doorman?” I said. “Is that the doorman for this building?”
“He’s the one who reported a burglar on the fire escape,” the cop informed me.
“So he’s the jerk who locked me in that Dumpster! You should arrest him!”
“Let’s go,” the cop said, tugging me—none too gently—along the alley. “Your partner in crime’s being charged with assault.”
“My partner in what—?!”
“And before the night’s over, I’m guessing breaking and entering’s going to be on both of your sheets. For now, let’s just get you to the precinct.”
Two more uniformed officers flanked me. On my way to the curb, someone read me my Miranda rights, which I already knew—including and especially my right to remain silent.
A crowd had gathered on the sidewalk, and no fewer than three police cruisers and an FDNY ambulance were parked on the street. Among the bystanders, I spotted Esther, her eyes bugging.
“You okay?!” she mouthed.
Fearful the cops would see my original partner for the evening, I used shifting eyes and jerking head to signal her to take off. One of the cops opened the back door of the police car and pressed down on my head so I wouldn’t bump it.
Climbing inside, I finally confirmed what I already suspected. Right next to me on the cold vinyl car seat was a bruised, cuffed, but unbowed Matteo Allegro.
New York’s finest had been wrong. They hadn’t arrested my partner. They’d arrested my ex-partner (not counting our business arrangement, but I’d never considered that a crime).
“Are you all right?” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he said, short and sharp. “You?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good.”
“Well... thanks, Matt,” I finally added after a long, chilly silence. “I mean for trying to help.”
On the short drive to the precinct house, I considered babbling an explanation, but after all we’d been through together, I knew Matt didn’t really need one.
“I just knew you were up to something,” he muttered.
Eleven
Sergeant Emmanuel Franco swaggered into the holding room, an unopened can of Red Bull in one fist, a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos in the other. When he spied me and Matt, his smug grin vanished and he kicked the cement-block wall with his size-twelve motorcycle boot.