40

The late morning traffic on the BQE outside of LaGuardia Airport was catastrophic. But as the cab glacially got off the BQE onto the LIE, it did the impossible.

It actually got worse.

From the dead-stopped interchange five miles south of the airport, Gannon looked out, amazed at the evacuation-level volume of work vans and big rig trucks and taxis and cars. Then he looked forward at Manhattan, where the machine belts of vehicles were being fed.

The great gray barbed skyline on the western horizon looked like some giant instrument of torture set and ready for fresh victims.

Gannon zipped up the Carhartt coat he had bought from a sporting goods store in Arizona on the way to the airport.

And look who’s headed straight into the jaws of it, he thought.

Gannon closed his eyes. Damn did this suck, he thought. Especially leaving Declan flat all by himself back at the stadium in Arizona. He hadn’t even had time to stay for the simulated game in order to catch the next direct flight.

But what choice did he have?

What was going on, he didn’t know, except that this wasn’t a damn game. This wasn’t some lucky fantasy scheme where he walked off into the sunset with a secret bag of doper money anymore. He could kiss all that good-night and goodbye.

He needed to get out in front of this and damn quick, he thought as he passed a hand nervously through his hair.

Before he found his sorry ass sitting in a prison cell.

They stopped and sat motionless for so long the cabbie actually put the car in Park.

“It’s worse,” Gannon finally said. “How could it have gotten worse?”

“What’s that?” said the driver, pulling one of the hissing earbuds out of his head.

He was a skinny young Asian dude with a Mets flat-brim cap and a white North Face vest. He looked like a college kid.

“Nothing. I just hate this,” Gannon said.

“Hate what?” he said.

“This. This city. It’s a crumbling black sinkhole filled with hate and dirt and pizza rats.”

“What? Come on, man. How does anyone hate the Big Apple? That’s ridiculous. It’s the biggest, greatest, most happening city in the world. Like where are you from, bro?”

“Here,” Gannon said, staring out. “I’m from right here.”

They drove for a bit then stopped again. The kid put his earbud back in, but then after a second, pulled it out again.

“If you hate it so much, why come back?”

“This is a onetime shot, believe me,” Gannon said. “I had to come back. I have something to do.”

“Must be something pretty important, huh?”

“Yep.”

“What?”

Gannon took out his phone and looked at it stupidly for a moment then put it back into his pocket.

“I’m not really at liberty to divulge that information,” he said.

“You’re a real man of mystery, aren’t you?”

“Buddy,” Gannon said, looking out at the shark-toothed skyline. “You don’t even want to know.”