“MY CAR!” LAMONT shouted.
The young valet always kept Lamont’s roadster close. For a crisp five-dollar bill, he would sit in the sleek black Mercedes-Benz SSK for the whole evening, keeping it warmed up and ready. When the valet heard Lamont call out, he put the powerful car in gear and pulled up to the entrance. Lamont freed one hand enough to wrench the passenger door open. As gently as he could, he slid Margo onto the soft leather seat. He pushed her long legs into the narrow passenger compartment and slammed the door.
The valet was trembling as he held the driver’s-side door open. Just twenty minutes earlier, Lamont had tossed him the keys with his usual blind over-the-shoulder flip. And, as always, he had tried not to stare too long at Mrs. Cranston. And now there she was, crumpled and soiled, her beautiful makeup smeared on Lamont’s jacket sleeve. The valet had seen plenty of passed-out drinkers being dragged from the 21 Club. This, he could tell immediately, was not that.
“Mr. Cranston,” said the valet. “What can I…?” But Lamont was already sliding behind the wheel. “Move!” he croaked.
The car was pointing east on Fifty-Second Street. Lamont jammed his foot down on the clutch, shifted into first gear, and pressed on the gas pedal. Lamont knew Manhattan as well as any cabbie, but the pain in his head and the haze in his eyes were already making driving a challenge. His destination was 6.2 miles south. He had measured and timed it from midtown twice, just in case. But he had always assumed that he would be riding in an ambulance, not driving himself under the influence of a potent neurotoxin.
He blasted through the Fifth Avenue intersection, dodging well-dressed couples and a beefy beat cop. A yellow Ford cab swerved onto a sidewalk to avoid a T-bone collision with the speeding Mercedes.
Lamont took the turn south onto Second Avenue hard, mounting the curb momentarily and nearly crushing a pair of leashed poodles walking a couple of yards ahead of their master. Margo’s head rolled left and right on the headrest and banged against the side window. But Lamont knew she couldn’t feel it. She couldn’t feel anything. He looked over and forced a few words through his constricted throat.
“Do not die!” he said hoarsely. “Do not die!”
Margo stirred slightly. Her lips moved and her eyelids flickered. Then she slumped back again, silent and still.
“Do not die!” Lamont ordered again. Had she even heard him?
He swerved to avoid a woman with a baby carriage and almost sideswiped a city bus heading in the opposite direction. Still, he kept the pedal down, his hand on the horn, blasting a warning to anyone within earshot. As he accelerated, the roar of the supercharged Mercedes engine made its own statement.
At Houston Street, Lamont careened into a screaming right turn, then headed south on Bowery and hooked onto St. James. As St. James turned into Pearl, a path of light stretched overhead, out to his left. The Brooklyn Bridge. Not far now!
Suddenly the darkness beneath the bridge was blasted into fiery brightness. A lightning bolt struck the pavement just in front of Lamont’s car.
Pulverized roadway spidered his windshield as he swerved through curls of white smoke. One headlight was shattered, the other cracked. Lamont was half blind, and so was his car.
Seconds later, another bolt struck just behind, showering Lamont and Margo with pellets of asphalt. Lamont grimaced and gripped the wheel even tighter. Along with the echo of the blasts, a single name reverberated in his brain.
“Khan! Khan did this!”
Lamont sped down Water Street. To his left, he could make out the shapes of docks and barges crowding the edge of the East River. Ahead, a row of darkened warehouses loomed as thick black profiles against the night sky.
Lamont pulled off Water Street into a narrow alley, where the surface turned into rough gravel. He eased the Mercedes between brick walls and battered loading platforms. At the last warehouse in the row, he stopped abruptly and killed the engine. He didn’t bother to open his door. He just threw himself over it, then clung to the hot hood of the car as he moved around toward Margo’s side. When he opened the passenger door, she toppled into his arms like a sack of bones.
He flung one of her limp arms over his shoulder and dragged her toward the warehouse’s heavy metal door. Her elegant high heels scraped on the pavement. The first, then the second dropped off. Lamont was wheezing, his chest now burning as fiercely as his head. He wiped a fresh stream of foam from his mouth.
Supporting Margo with one arm, Lamont pounded on the warehouse door. There was no special code. Or if there was, he had forgotten it. All he knew was that he needed to get inside. Right now! He pounded again, scraping his knuckles on the rough, rusted metal. He felt his knees buckling and struggled to keep Margo upright. As he raised his fist again, the door opened. A blast of hot light shot out into the night. It was almost too much for his eyes to take. A figure in a white coat stood in the doorway. Lamont gasped. He didn’t have much breath left in him. Just enough for three short sentences.