CHINATOWN
You have to save him.
It wasn’t her brain telling her. It wasn’t her mom’s voice. It wasn’t anybody but Polly talking now. She wouldn’t let anybody else die.
Her body exploded in a full-on sweat. The day was locked-car hot. A car shrieked to a halt as she pounded across the street. She didn’t even look at it. Somebody swore in some language she didn’t know.
You have to save him.
The gun felt impossibly heavy in her hand as she moved into the alley. But she carried it anyway. She came into the alley on a deep breath. A-Rod had his hands on the kid’s shoulders. The two men who had led the kid out of the bank stood close to the truck.
“Leave him alone,” Polly said. But her voice came out a rasp of no words. She said it again, still raspy but louder. The men looked at her. Their faces were all different flavors of what the hell? She pointed the pistol at A-Rod. It only shook a little.
“Please let him go,” she said, and knew she’d done it all wrong. You don’t say please with a gun. She blinked. The world jittered. The evening lights all of a sudden too bright.
“The fuck are you doing here?” A-Rod said, like the gun was invisible. He smiled that weird wolfish smile. She hated him. She heard her dad say never touch the trigger ’less you’re going to shoot. She felt her finger curl on the trigger. Her brain cataloged everything. Every sound. Car horns honked. Someplace a helicopter whirred. Motors growled. Music flowed from a dozen cars. Every smell. Rotting vegetables. Car oil. Old pee. All of their faces. A-Rod’s hand lingering behind his back. The kid with his soft brown eyes so full of red-web little veins, so full of pleading. One of the men from the bank was smeared all over with tattoos. The other one was cleaner, with a couple of wet tattoos and scared eyes.
Muscles flittered and jerked all over Polly.
“Grab her,” A-Rod said. “She’s worth a franchise.”
The one with all the tattoos moved on her. Like she didn’t even have the gun. Like she was nothing but a little loser girl with slumped shoulders.
“Come on now,” A-Rod said. “She ain’t going to shoot.”
Polly pulled the trigger. The pistol jumped in her hands. She fired it dry in seconds.