We shoved upward together against the window frame, our faces reflected and warped in the foil taped to the glass. I was in sync with my brother, hoping what he was hoping, hissing the same prayer he was hissing.
LIVING ROOM CLEAR! the monsters screamed. TAKE THE HALL! “Come on, you fuckin’ foolbiscuit,” Lucas snarled.
The window shot upward. We squinted together, blinking at the sunlight and the rusted metal of the fire escape beyond the sill. Lucas was a blur now: one leg through the window frame, now the other. He wasn’t a person, he was a snake, sliding his torso through now, head dropping low, now completely on the other side of the glass.
“Gimme-gimme,” he said, hands beckoning. “Hurry.”
“Wha?”
“Your bag, dude. The camera! Nitro your ass, hand ’em over!”
BATHROOM! CLEAR!
I didn’t hesitate. The satchel was off my shoulder and in his hands. In another whip-snap maneuver, Lucas slipped the thing over him, its strap crossed across his chest. The Handycam went in next. He twisted his body on the rattling fire escape, his back facing me now.
“Careful on the way down,” I said.
He glanced back, his eyes glimmering and gleeful.
“I ain’t going down, bro. I’m going up.”
And then he was off, his left leg swinging toward the handrail of the escape, his foot planting on its rusted surface, his leg tensing, propelling himself skyward…
…and then he was soaring, falling, soaring.
My brother plummeted toward the concrete below, his lanky form—now in a crazy primate, parkour-predatory shape—arcing toward the building across the alleyway. He slammed onto the railing of the neighboring brownstone’s fire escape two floors down, grappled there for a half-second, legs swinging in space, and then pulled himself onto the grated landing. He didn’t look down, didn’t look back. He simply ascended the escape, determined and single-minded. Destination: roof.
Boot clomps, a stampede, behind me.
KITCHEN! CLEAR!
“Shit fire, here we go,” I said, and wedged my body though the window frame. I was nowhere near as fast or as elegant as my kid brother. My head slammed against the wooden underside of the window—pow—and bright flashbulbs filled the world. I shook my head, scrambling outside, my Vans ping-pinging on the metal, my arms snatching at the fire escape ladder.
NYPD WE ARE COMING IN ON THE GODDAMN FLOOR DO IT NOW NOW NOW
I took the rungs two at a time, scrabbling like a mad crab. Letting go now, feet slamming on the landing below. The frame of the escape groaned and trembled, displeased.
NOW
Another ladder, hand over hand, sneakers squeaking on metal.
DO IT NOW
A crack above; the sound waves blasting through the open window like a discordant bass drum, sound of the door splintering.
My feet slammed against the next landing. Gong, down here everybody, heart thundering now, running, I’m running like the old days, the bad days, Anti-Zach is here, breathing and laughing again…
A voice above, crisp now, like a flapping bed sheet: RUNNER! HE’S RUNNING! STOP! NYPD! STOP!
But I didn’t stop. No, no, no, I didn’t stop.
Space, empty space, free falling, ten feet, zero-g, 2001: A Space Odyssey; I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.
My body slammed onto the alley concrete. Another comic-book pow of pain surged through me, this one from my elbow. I heaved myself upright, staggered to the pile of trash where I’d left my bike. I stole a half-heartbeat to glance at my arm, saw the blood flowing through the torn fabric of my button-down—Rachael got me this shirt for Christmas, ah jeez, ah shit—and tuned out the pain. The trash bags were airborne now, victims of my adrenaline rush, and then the Cannondale was up on both wheels again.
Helmetless, hopeless, I mounted the bike and pedaled away from the building’s entrance on East 32 Street, heading east, toward New York Avenue. The passage’s end was closer now, the light at the end of my tunnel, if I could break through this then I’d be home free, could call Lucas, catch up, see what was inside the dark man’s box and oh yeah, giddy up pardner, what a fuckin′ rush, Zach, we′re back on the wild ride, ohhhhh
“…no,” I said.
A police cruiser swept into the alley, its metal rear fishtailing and rocking, emergency lights spattering blue-white-blue on the brown bricks surrounding it. It screamed up the narrow space toward me.
But I didn’t stop.
The Crown Vic’s tires squealed as it braked, headlights flashing, siren yowling.
I saw the reflection of myself in the interceptor’s gleaming black push bumper. I saw the cop inside, a young black guy, barking into his radio. I thought I could hear the flickering bulbs inside the cruiser’s light bar, a samba beat, cha-cha-cha.
The Cannondale’s front tire was cocked in mid-air now, a wheelie. I pedaled faster.
My bike raced up the hood of the car, spider-cracking the cruiser’s windshield, rubber treads squealing, triumphant.
Bouncing over the light bar now, cha-cha-cha, down the rear window, out of the alley, into the free and clear.
But my grace and luck had limits. The bike’s handlebars twisted in my hands. I fell and slid, slid past the sidewalk, past screaming pedestrians, past it all, into the traffic of New York Avenue.
13
The last time I’d been in handcuffs, they’d really been handcuffs: cold metal digging into bone, pitiless things, strictly business. Now, the shackles du jour were flex-cuffs.
I rubbed my wrists. My fingers traced the raw, dented flesh where the tough plastic had been zipped against my skin. Flex-cuffs weren’t nearly as iconic as their predecessors, but they were just as merciless.
Pain. I was a knotted twine ball of it right now. My bandaged left elbow, gashed from when I’d dropped from the fire escape to the alley. Wicked-raw road rash on my right forearm and calf from where I’d lost my Cannondale mojo and slid onto New York Avenue. I was not looking forward to peeling off these clothes when I got home.
I looked up from my wrists, past the scratched metal table before me, to the wide mirror on the cinderblock wall. My nicked, weary face gazed back.
If I got home.
The cars on New York hadn’t made me road kill, of course. Not even close. I’d been cuffed by New York’s finest, received the long forgotten (but well-deserved) kick-slaps to my sneakers, forcing my legs to spread to shoulder-width; the classic slamming of the torso onto the cruiser hood; the brusque street-side interrogation: Am I going to find any needles, anything that’s going to stick me, when I go through your pockets? I better not… ; the pat down.
I turned away from my reflection, disgusted with myself. I’d been sweating it out alone in this interview room for more than an hour. I hadn’t been formally processed yet. No mug, no prints, no charges. An unsmiling cop had wordlessly escorted me here, passed me a bandage for my elbow, and locked the door. Cops.
Why had cops kicked down the door at Grace’s apartment? I’d expected a stuffed-shirt D.A. intern, maybe a NYPD lab liaison—someone like my buddy Eye. But not cops, and certainly not cops in wild-dog mode.