The afternoon pickup traffic jam had already cleared by the time I paid off the cabbie and ran up the block. I checked in with Mrs. Carter anyway.
“No, you missed them, Mr. Stafford,” she said as though there was no greater sin she could imagine. “They waited. Mrs. Stafford seemed to think you were picking them up in a limousine.” There was no such person as Mrs. Stafford. Hadn’t been in forty years. Even when we were married, Angie had insisted on being introduced by her modeling name, Evangeline, usually followed by “But you can call me Angie. I’m retired now.”
“How long?”
“Five minutes.” She gave me a touch of the evil eye.
“In a cab?”
“No, they were walking down toward Amsterdam.”
If I ran I’d catch up in a few blocks.
“Have a great summer, Mrs. Carter.” I loved being polite to her. It always left her speechless.
• • •
THREE BLOCKS SOUTH, I finally saw them a half-block in front of me. I slowed my pace to a brisk walk and watched the Kid and his posse sidewind their way down Amsterdam. Heather was the center, to which the Kid returned and bounced away as he skipped, ran, and darted his erratic way along. Any pigeon he came upon had to be examined until it flew off—perhaps less frightened than unnerved by the Kid’s eyeball-to-eyeball approach. Ivan matched the Kid move for move—a feat much more difficult than it sounds. If the Kid was the receiver, running downfield before breaking to one side or the other frantically, Ivan was the cornerback, matching his movements, anticipating his moves. Angie was the halftime show, perched on heels that should have been covered by the Geneva Convention; alternately strutting and lurching, she made frequent attempts to keep up with the Kid, but had neither the stamina nor the footwear for it. Too often, that left her walking at Heather’s side, a situation that, judging by body language, was extremely uncomfortable for both of them.
Tom hung back. The safety. He was the only one not watching the Kid. He watched everything else. His movements were all about economy. He didn’t walk so much as he glided.
Then the Kid fell.
Heather was used to seeing him fall—he fell often. She turned toward him, but without breaking stride. She could see that this wasn’t a serious fall. Angie didn’t notice at first, her attention having been briefly stolen by a disturbance in the traffic. Ivan and Tom were still becoming acclimated to the Kid. They were bodyguards and their charge was in trouble. Ivan dashed to him, a move that saved the Kid’s life. Tom, for a few short seconds, dropped the ball and took his eyes off the field and focused instead on the Kid.
The white van veered across two lanes of traffic, slowing as it came. The side door slid open. Angie saw it first. I saw her face register surprise and fear.
Phwat. Phwat. Phwat. It could have been the sound of someone slapping a folded newspaper into the palm of their hand. It wasn’t.
The bullets caught Ivan just as he reached the Kid. His body took all three of them, stitching down his right side and throwing him down over the Kid. Angie screamed, flailing her arms and stumbling forward, offering herself as a target in front of the downed Ivan and the boy. Heather was pawing at Ivan, trying to get him off the Kid. Then there was the sound of three more slaps of the newspaper. Angie staggered, her scream cut off mid-note.
Tom had already swung around, a black automatic handgun having appeared in his right hand. He returned fire, emptying the magazine in a blaze of sharp cracking blasts. I couldn’t move. I wanted to run to the Kid or to Angie, but anywhere I moved would put me in the crossfire, so I stood there, feeling less than useless, hugging the bag of bonds that was the root cause of this disaster.
Someone inside the van attempted to swing the side door closed and a line of nine-millimeter-sized holes appeared immediately as Tom continued to fire. The door slid back and I could see two men in the rear, one down, the other scrambling to retrieve a gun from the floor of the van. All I could see was a long silencer on a short rifle. The guy didn’t make it. Tom swapped magazines, pulling a fresh one from a back pocket as he calmly walked toward the van. Then he began firing again, slowly, more measured, taking the time to aim. Two men down.
The passenger door flew open and a hooded figure jumped out brandishing a handgun. He never got off a shot. Three down.
The driver must have had enough. The van had never completely stopped moving, and now it careened away from the curb, back across three lanes of traffic. Brakes squealed and horns sounded. The van raced across the avenue, diagonally aimed for the next side street. Tom followed, walking out into the street and emptying the second magazine into the retreating vehicle. It slowed, veered to the left, and plowed into a parked Nissan Maxima, setting off the alarm. A short, dark-haired man in a gray suit leapt from the driver’s seat and ran down toward Broadway. Tom had no clear shot. He turned and walked back calmly.
For the next few seconds there was silence—stillness. It was as though I had lost not only all sense of hearing but all sense of being connected to the tableau in front of me. In defiance of science, logic, and proportion, my world had slid into stasis. Nothing moved; no sounds or smells could be sensed. Then a woman began screaming, and the universe started up again.
Sometimes seconds take forever. I ran toward the Kid. He was already up, on his feet, more troubled by having been touched by another person than by any of the shooting. Heather was with him, but not doing much more than blocking the Kid’s view of the scene. Judging by her dazed expression, she was far outside of her comfort zone. I looked around wildly for Angie. I saw a red-soled high-heel shoe on the sidewalk. No sign of her. Tom passed me and crouched down by Ivan, helping him up to a sitting position. Where in hell was Angie? Then I saw her, lying between two parked cars, half in the street. There could be no doubt, she was dead.
She was facedown, lying on one arm, the other extended toward the street. There were two exit wounds in her back, each the size of her fist. Considering the size and violence of the wounds, there was surprisingly little blood. Her heart must have stopped immediately. Her head was tilted at an odd angle, as though she had died looking down at herself, but she had been dead before she hit the ground. Her platinum hair fluttered in the breeze of passing cars.
I walked to the next break between parked cars, bent over, and was sick. I vomited until I dry-retched. And then I kept retching, as though there were some stickle-backed creature caught in my throat gagging me. I couldn’t breathe, and for a moment I felt as though I might pass out.
Then Tom took my arm. “I am not here. I take boy.”
“What? You can’t leave,” I said. Where was the Kid? “The police will be here any minute.” The woman was still screaming, but other voices, shouting, angry, afraid, and accusatory, were adding a chorus to her single-note aria.
“Ja. I go.”
The Kid was back down sitting on the sidewalk, rocking back and forth and grunting furiously. There was a small smear of Ivan’s blood on his black pants.
“Oh, shit. Heather!” I yelled. “Get him home and changed. Now.” I looked around. Heather was standing in the middle of the sidewalk with a faraway glaze. She looked like the poster child for PTSD. “Heather!” Shit.
I made sure the Kid was not choking himself with his tongue, a recent addition to his arsenal of self-assault. His eyes were open slightly and I saw his fingers flying in their peculiar rhythmic manner. He was stimming, trying to gain control.
“Good man,” I whispered. “You’re doing fine.”
I looked back. There was no way he could have seen his mother’s body, though what he would have made of it was a question I wasn’t ready to face.
“Come on, Kid. I love you. I need you to pull it together here. Please, son. Let’s get you home.”
Tom bent down and spoke to Ivan. Ivan handed Tom his gun and gave him that brave, stoic stare that the wounded guy in the movie always gives when the hero has to leave him behind in order to save the rest of the team. He wasn’t dying, but he wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry unless it was in an ambulance.
The other pedestrians were still hanging back. No one was running away, but no one was approaching to offer help. I suddenly saw them as Tom did. Witnesses.
I grabbed his arm. “Go. I’ll do what I can. But go. Now.”
Tom stood up and pointed to Heather. “Bring boy. We go.”
Heather looked to me. For direction? Consolation? Reassurance? I didn’t have any.
“Do what he says.” I turned back to my son. “Go with Heather, Kid. She’ll get you cleaned up.”
I could see the flashing lights far down Amsterdam. The cops would be there in seconds. What the hell was I going to tell them? The whoop-whoop of the sirens punctuated my question. They were coming from all directions.
The truth. Or something like it.
I looked at the body lying half in the street. Angie looked tiny. She had never looked small to me before. Slight sometimes or thin—my thumb and first finger could encircle her wrist with room to spare. But in death, she was shrunken.
I held my hand out to the Kid, palm down. After a moment, he stopped rocking and sniffed it. Then he stood up and held out his own to me. I bent over and sniffed it. Our private ritual.
“You go with Heather, bud. I’ll be home in a little while.” The sirens were getting closer.
“Now is good.” Tom looked like he was finally starting to fray at the edges a bit.
I kept my body turned to block the Kid’s view of Angie. He looked down at Ivan, who was leaking blood all over the sidewalk but otherwise seemed clear-eyed and aware.
“Bath,” he growled. “Bath.”
“Yes, I hear you,” I said. “You’re angry, right? That man touched you.”
“Bath.”
“Yes, Heather will get you a bath. But don’t be angry. That man saved your life, Kid. He’s a good man.”
He thought about that for a moment. It didn’t compute, so he shook it off. “Bye,” the Kid said. He turned and looked for Heather.
She started walking. The Kid followed.
I had a decision to make and no time to agonize over the details. “Tom,” I called. He stopped. If I stayed for the cops, they’d take the tote bag from me and I’d be screwed. If I ran with Tom, they’d find me and I’d be screwed. “Take this,” I said, handing over the bag. I had to trust him—I had no choice. “Don’t let it out of your sight.”
He nodded, took the bag, and ran to catch up with Heather and the Kid.
I went to see if there was anything I could do for Ivan. Angie was past needing help.