IT’S DIFFICULT TO follow a man when you’re pulling a squeaky suitcase. Apollo tried to carry it instead, but between the mattock and the gravestone, he couldn’t heft it for long. The old man moved southwest down 71st Avenue, and Apollo kept his distance, trailing by a block in the hopes he would not be heard as they entered the tony section of the neighborhood, Forest Hills Gardens.
Seventy-first Avenue became Continental Avenue, and the sidewalks blossomed with trees, and Tudor brick homes lined the road, which had hardly any traffic. Just like that, a walk of three blocks, and Apollo entered one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in New York City. Two blocks ahead, barely visible in the dim light of the cast-iron streetlamps, was the old Viking, striding on. He and Apollo were the only human beings to be seen, and the grand Tudors watched both with solemn caution.
They passed Slocum Crescent and Olive Place, Groton Street and Harrow Street. The sun set, and Apollo followed the man through the deepening night. Ingram Street, Juno Street, Loubet Street, and Manse. The old man never looked back, never turned his head as he crossed the street, and never seemed to tire, though he had to be thirty years older than Apollo.
Finally they crossed Metropolitan Avenue. Goodbye Tudor brick and hello detached colonial one-family; the end of brick facades and the rise of aluminum siding. This lasted all the way to Union Turnpike, and still the old man traveled on as if he was leading a tour through the descending class structure of Queens.
It really felt, to Apollo, as if they’d tripped into another region, another world. Block after block of single-family homes, sidewalks lined with aging cars and rusty SUVs, gas stations and corner stores, and then they reached the Northern Forest, the northeastern edge of Forest Park, more than five hundred acres of wilderness right there in the borough of Queens. If they’d come to a towering city of silver and gold, it would’ve seemed no less strange. The old man crossed the street to walk along the perimeter of the park. Apollo thought maybe the old guy had finally figured out he was being followed and planned to sprint into the woods, lose Apollo inside, but maybe that wouldn’t matter. He’d led Apollo to where he wanted to be.
The old Viking reached a corner and went around it. Apollo broke into a jog, pulling the suitcase behind him, creaky wheels be damned.
Apollo turned the corner expecting the old man to appear right there and confront him, but the old man was far ahead. He stood before a stairway that led up into the grounds of the park. There were two streetlamps at the base of the stairs, so Apollo saw quite clearly as the old man climbed to the top of the stairs. But instead of disappearing into the trees and underbrush, the old man went down on his knees, his head bowed. He set the bags of Starbucks food at the top of the stairs. He stood and watched the tree line. Because of the streetlamps, Apollo could see the man’s profile. His lips were moving, but was he speaking to someone or simply muttering to himself? Hard to say.
Finally the old man turned and walked back down the stairs. The way he held the railing made him appear tired or drunk. Apollo thought the old man might return the way he’d come, so he picked up the suitcase and crossed the street and hid himself in the shadows. He propped the suitcase against the back wall of a brick garage and settled himself on the luggage, a makeshift chair. The old man watched the top of the stairs, the border of trees, the brown bags emblazoned with the Starbucks logo. Eventually he turned and strolled away. Apollo meant to keep following, but he couldn’t do it.
A police car appeared at the corner.
It came down Park Lane South as casual as a puma. Just as the car reached Apollo, the driver threw on those red and blue lights, though he didn’t use the siren. Apollo had been concentrating so directly on the bags of food at the top of the stairs that when the lights popped on, he fell right off the suitcase and sprawled on the sidewalk.
The officer in the passenger seat rolled down his window and leaned out to watch Apollo. He surveyed Apollo for about twenty seconds before he spoke.
“Bad place for a nap, my man.”
Apollo pushed himself up onto his knees. The cop in the driver’s seat watched him carefully.
“That was fast,” Apollo said.
The cop pointed at the houses behind Apollo. “This part of Forest Hills is still called Little Norway. You were never going to blend in.”
“Even at night?”
“Especially at night,” the driver said.
Patrice had been right. Heroes like him didn’t get to make mistakes.
Apollo set his hands on the ground to get himself up on his feet, but the cop at the passenger window said, “Why don’t you stay there on the ground for a minute.”
“It’s cold,” Apollo said.
“It’s winter,” the cop said.
The driver opened his door and came around. Then the cop on the passenger side stepped out. He walked closer to Apollo, put out one hand, and waved for Apollo to stand.
“Where do you live?” the cop asked.
The driver looked behind them, into the park, then back at Apollo. He didn’t seem to notice the bag of food at the top of the stairs. To him, it must’ve seemed like any other piece of garbage. His radio beeped and chattered, but he ignored it. The red and blue lights continued to glow and gave the moment a dizzying quality.
“Manhattan,” Apollo said. He left his hands at his sides but still far enough from his pockets that neither cop might have reason to get shook. This would go worse for Apollo if they got scared. More importantly, he realized, if they called his name in, they’d find out he violated his parole. He hadn’t been to the therapy session and, even worse, hadn’t gone in to see his PO. Any urge he might have to argue hid itself away deep inside. The only point was to avoid being hauled back to jail. And getting shot to death. The two were his top priority just now.
“You came all the way to Forest Hills, from Manhattan. With a suitcase. Just to lie on the sidewalk in Little Norway?”
“That’s one long trip,” the driver said, and he let out a quiet, incredulous laugh.
Then behind them both, at the top of the stairs, something stepped out of the woods. Someone.
Emma Valentine.
His wife stood at the top of the stairs.
But it wasn’t her. Not exactly. A witch. That’s what he saw.
He wouldn’t ever have thought the gaunt figure was the woman he’d married. It was the coat he recognized, the knee-length maroon down puffer coat she’d been wearing in the video from the night she escaped. The coat was torn and dirty, and the same could be said about Emma. She looked as thin and tough as the limb of a tree. But also—really and truly—she glowed.
As she stepped out of the woods, she seemed to walk in a cloud, an actual nimbus of blue energy. She cast off a color almost as bright as the blue police lights flashing on the patrol car; it was as if she wore sparks of electricity.
Emma Valentine stepped out of the woods and picked up the bags of Starbucks food. Then she turned and walked back into the deeper darkness and disappeared.
And that was that.
“Seriously, chief,” the cop closer to Apollo said. “If you need shelter space, we can point you the right way, but you can’t be lurking around people’s houses.”
“Gives people the creeps,” the other cop said.
“No, sir,” Apollo muttered. “I mean, yes, sir. She was glowing. She was…”
It took a clap on the shoulder from one of the cops to bring Apollo back to himself. That was Emma. Was she living in the park? And why had the old man brought food to her?
Now he looked at the officers with clarity. “I don’t need a shelter or anything,” he said. “I just got confused. I’ll go back home. I’ll catch the bus.”
“You got money?” the cop asked, arm still on his shoulder. It would be easy for the man to tighten his grip and force Apollo into the back of the patrol car.
“I can—”
But before he finished floating some lie, the cop walked back to the patrol car. “We got any more of those MetroCards?” he asked his partner.
“Look in the pack,” the driver said, and while his partner leaned into the car, he came around the front, closer to Apollo, hand floating near his hip, his holstered pistol.
“Got it.” He returned to Apollo. “This has twenty dollars on it. This is a gift from the NYPD.”
The MetroCard lay inside a clear plastic sleeve. The cop tore it open and handed the card to Apollo.
“You can catch the Q11 or the Q21 right over on Woodhaven Boulevard,” the cop said.
“Thank you,” Apollo said. He accepted the MetroCard, but then he just stood there. If the cops drove off, he could still rush up the stairs right now and hope, maybe, to find her.
“I tell you what,” the driver said. “We’ll give you a ride to the bus stop right now.”
The other went back to the patrol car and opened a back door. “You don’t have to thank us,” he said. “But you do have to accept.”
He climbed in, and the lights were turned off. As the car approached the bus stop on Woodhaven Boulevard, the officer on the passenger side spoke without turning his head.
“We love driving down Park Lane South. It’s one of our favorite streets. We’ll be driving down it most of the night. We don’t expect to be seeing you there again.”
They reached the bus stop, and one cop let Apollo out. Apollo wheeled the suitcase onto the sidewalk.
The driver rolled down his window. “It’s going to be a while for that bus,” he said. “But you need to be on it. Don’t let us see you out here again. It’ll be a bad night for you if we do.”
Apollo didn’t respond because no response was required. The cops drove off, and he stayed at the stop until their car went well out of view. He wasn’t returning to Washington Heights, but no doubt those cops had been telling the truth. They would be patrolling the perimeter of the grounds all night. He needed to shelter until morning.