Fegan needed the passport. He wasn’t going to flee the country yet, but he had to get out of New York. No question, Pyè would have run straight to the Doyles, and they’d have sent their boys to Fegan’s building. But would they be here yet? He had to assume as much.
He clung to the steel slats, his shoulder pressed to the closed shop-front, as he peeked around the corner to Ludlow Street where the building’s reinforced door waited for his key. Nothing stirred. The Chinese catering supply businesses stood silent beneath their awnings, graffiti-scarred shutters closed tight. Fegan examined the cars parked nose to tail along the street, looking for silhouetted heads and shoulders, a reflection in a wing mirror, anything. The dark hollows of the doorways revealed nothing. But they could be there, waiting, whether he saw them or not.
Wait, there. What looked like an old BMW, its passenger window cracked open. A wisp of cigarette smoke puffed out. Or was it a trick of his fatigued imagination?
There, a movement, and more smoke.
Fegan cursed. The building had a back entrance, but it was heavily fortified and only opened from the inside. If the Doyles’ boys were smart, they’d have it guarded. But unless they were very smart, it would be only one or two men. If Fegan could take them, he might be able to use the fire escape to reach his apartment.
He retreated along Hester Street, past the store and the coffee shop, until he found the alley that cut back to the rear of his building. Corrugated iron gates sealed it shut. The super, Mr. Lo, kept his decrepit old Ford Taurus parked behind them. Fegan had never seen it move.
The gates were decorated with a crudely painted Stars and Stripes, with NO PARKING sprayed across the white and red. A metal frame surrounded them with a bar running across the top. Fegan jumped, but he couldn’t reach the bar.
A garbage bin stood outside the coffee shop. A chain tied the lid to the shop’s shutter frame, so he lifted it off and lowered it to the sidewalk as slow and easy as he could. He tipped the bin over, careful of any rubbish that might clatter as he emptied it onto the ground, then carried it back to the gates. Fegan climbed on top and reached up for the bar. He hauled himself up, threw a leg over the top, and let his weight carry him over. The smell of motor oil reached him as he dropped to the ground.
The car’s windscreen reflected the dim orange light that crept in from the street. Fegan squeezed past, wondering how Mr. Lo ever opened the doors to get inside. He worked his way toward the back corner and rounded it as darkness swallowed him. His feet picked through litter as he skirted the dumpsters. He moved slow, seeking human forms in the black, breathing shallow to stay—
Oh no God the fire she’s burning she’s crying the child is burning— Fegan gasped and fell against the damp wall. The pain burst behind his eyes and swept to the back of his skull before streaming down his spine. His legs quivered with the effort of keeping him upright. He sucked air in, forced himself to breathe, let his heart find its rhythm again.
Footsteps from deeper in the alley, slow, careful, afraid. Fegan flattened himself against the wall and stared hard into the darkness. Someone waited for him. Had they seen him? They’d heard him, all right, and now they approached. Somewhere beyond his vision, they drew closer. Fegan squinted, trying to—
No Jesus no don’t let her burn it’s eating her the fire it’s eating her up don’t let it get—
Fegan screamed. He crumpled among the drifts of old newspapers and burger wrappers that lay piled against an upended dumpster. Rats scrambled from beneath him. He pressed his palms to his temples, tried to stop the image escaping from his mind into the real world. The fire abated, leaving only the sound of his lungs tearing at the chilled air. He took one last gulp and held it.
Whispers, now. Two voices in a low staccato. Maybe ten feet away. Fegan curled up tight to the side of the dumpster. He could see nothing more than a few inches away. They would be just as blind. If he could—The fire the fire oh God the fire no no— “No!” Fegan hissed through gritted teeth. He pushed the vision away, swallowed bile, breathed deep, listened.
The alley was silent now, but he could sense them just feet away. Fegan shrunk into the corner between the dumpster and the wall. He watched the dark in front of him, waiting for some disruption in the black.
A can rolled in front of him, rattling along the pavement. A hushed voice cursed. Another shushed it. Fegan got his feet under him, crouched against the dumpster. He pushed one foot back against the wall.
Only darkness before his eyes, no matter how hard he stared into the black. He heard the snick-snick of a round being chambered. Stale sweat wove its way through the alley’s scents and odors. Fegan held his breath until it burned for release.
A pinpoint of green light blinked at him from the murk.
It took less than a second to understand what it was: a mobile phone on someone’s belt. Another second decided Fegan’s next action.
He pushed with the foot against the wall, shoulder first, launching himself at the green light. He roared. He slammed into someone’s hip, heard them cry out, felt them buckle. His momentum carried him and his target into another body, and another voice echoed in the alley until all three slammed into the far wall.
A gun boomed, and Fegan’s ear numbed for a moment before a high whine followed him to the ground. Feet tangled in his arms, and he reached up and grabbed fabric and skin. A man’s weight fell on top of him, and Fegan’s hands spidered along a soft torso until they found a tender throat. He slammed the edge of his hand into it and the body on top of his writhed.
A muzzle flashed in the alley, its hard report breaking through the whine in Fegan’s ears, and something punched the ground by his head. He hauled the body across his own. The muzzle flashed twice more, and the body convulsed. Fegan ran his hand down the arm until he found the gun clasped in its fingers. He raised it toward where the muzzle flash had been and squeezed the trigger three times. In a fiery strobe, he saw a man raise his arms then fall backward.
Fegan scrambled from beneath the body, crawled to the far wall, turned and stared back. Nothing moved in the black, but he heard a stuttering gurgle. He aimed the pistol at the sound, ready to fire again. Had the Doyles’ men on Hester Street heard the shots? The enclosed alley might have damped the sound, sent it skyward between the rising stories, but he couldn’t risk it. There was no point trying to mount the fire escape now; stealth was no more use to him. He got to his feet and edged along the wall toward the back door.
Fegan felt in the darkness for the metal among the brick. His hand found it, cold and damp. The broken bulb was just visible above it. Noise was the least of his worries, so he hammered the door with his fist. Mr. Lo’s shitty little room was just on the other side.
Fegan listened. Nothing. He hammered the door again.
“Fuck off!” a muffled voice came from the other side. “I call the cops already.”
“Mr. Lo?” Fegan called.
A pause, then, “Who that?”
“It’s Gerry … Paddy. Paddy Feeney.”
“Who?”
“Paddy Freeney from the eighth floor,” Fegan said. “Let me in.”
“What you do out back? Where your key?”
“I’m in trouble,” Fegan said. “Let me in, give me five minutes to get my stuff, and I’ll be gone.”
“Trouble? I hear gun. No way I let you in. I gonna call the cops. They lock you up.”
“You said you called them already.”
“I lie,” Mr. Lo said. “Now go ’way.”
“Please.” Fegan pressed his ear against the metal door. “I’m in trouble. I need your help. I gave you six months’ rent in advance, didn’t I?”
“Yeah,” Mr. Lo said. “So?”
“I’ll go tonight,” Fegan said. “You can keep the rent.”
“Yeah, I keep it,” Mr. Lo shouted. “Lease say you give three month notice.”
“Jesus,” Fegan whispered. Men were coming to kill him, and he was standing in an alley, quibbling over the terms of his lease. “Fuck the lease,” he said. “Keep the rest and I’ll give you two hundred in your hand.”
“Fuck you,” Mr. Lo said. “I no get shot for two hundred.”
“What, then?”
“Five hundred,” Mr. Lo said, his voice like a petulant child’s.
Fegan thought about the bundle of notes in a plastic bag, taped beneath the dressing table in his room. Mr. Lo was gouging him, but he had no choice. “All right, five hundred,” Fegan said. “But you open this fucking door right now.”
Locks snapped, bars rolled back. Mr. Lo’s eye appeared in the crack of the door.
“Come in,” he said.