(Be honest, Solomon definitely cares… but Big Wise don’t give a shit.)
– but their feelings mattered if they liked Chong better than him. Their allegiances were unknown, so having them around in a fight wasn’t a good idea.
Chong slowly got to his feet, groaning. When he got up, he felt at his side and that was when Solomon realized what had happened to the clay he’d stabbed Chong with. It still jutted out an inch from his side, blood drooling around it.
Ignoring Solomon, Chong took hold of the shard with a pair of trembling fingers.
“I wouldn’t do that,” said Solomon.
“Who asked you?” snarled Chong.
Solomon shrugged. “Just there’s no telling how much is in there, and it’s clay so it could break into pieces inside you. Plus I seen plenty of guys pull knives from them and then bleed out.” He leaned close to Chong. Big Wise leaned close to him. “I don’t give two shits whether you die or not, but you start bleedin’ too bad and you’re likely to slow me down.”
He turned on his heel and walked to the front of the property.
He heard a scuffing behind him, and knew that Chong had fallen into line. He grinned at that.
15
The good feeling started to fade quickly. And for some reason, when Elena said, “Isn’t this nice? I feel almost like I’m out for a stroll,” Solomon felt even worse. Every minute that passed made him realize more and more how badly screwed he was.
He had to figure out a way to get out of here. Not just out of whatever game Do-Good was playing, but out of this area. He kept seeing Five-Deuce tags, and every one he saw drove his despair a bit deeper. Big Wise, for once, had no answers. Both Solomon and his gang alter-ego were in agreement on this one thing, if nothing else: staying here was suicide.
Chong snorted at Elena. “Yeah, it’s great. Just on our way to a tea party with the queen.”
Elena swung around, shaking a finger at him. “Why do you always –” Her mouth slammed shut as she noticed the blood on Chong’s side. “You’re hurt!”
She moved toward him as though to help. Chong waved her away, but didn’t look at her. He was glaring at Solomon. “Don’t touch me!” he belted. Then, softer but with no less anger: “I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” said Elena. She sounded like Solomon’s mom had sounded when she thought he was doing something extra dumb. But her next words surprised him. He would have expected her to coo something like, “You poor man, you must be in such pain! Let me help you!” That was the type of vibe she gave off sometimes – someone whose life was taking care of people.
But she didn’t say that. Instead, she got a strangely hard look on her face. “What happens if you fall behind? Then we all have to fall behind. And then we die.” She gestured at his side. “Let me look at it.”
“I thought you said you didn’t work at a hospital,” said Chong.
“I don’t. But I know how –”
“No!” shouted Noelle, loudly enough that everyone jumped a bit. “There’s no time to take care of that,” she said. “He’ll just have to push through it.”
“Noelle,” said Clint softly. “We have time.” He looked at Solomon. “Right?” Solomon nodded grudgingly, and Clint turned back to Noelle. He spoke in low tones, trying to convince her away from whatever hysteria was on the verge of grabbing her. “See? We’re close. Better we take a minute and –”
“No!” shouted Noelle. “Don’t you see? Mr. Do-Good isn’t going to make any of this easy on us, and he won’t have given us extra time.” She paused. “So there’s something that will happen if we don’t hurry. I know it.”
“Like what?” asked Clint, still using his “come on now let’s be reasonable” voice.
“I don’t know,” said Noelle. She looked away. Shoved hands in pockets. “But something.” She looked back at him, then at Elena, then Chong, and last at Solomon. “You know it’s true. You can feel it.”
Her eyes spooked Solomon. He felt himself nodding, but had no sensation of doing it himself. “I think she’s –”
“She’s right,” Chong said. He started walking, but only made it a few steps before pausing and wincing, his hand at his side.
For a moment, the group wavered. Solomon could see them looking at each other, asking what to do. Elena and Clint, at least. Noelle was so scared she was practically dancing in place. Chong looked like he was wavering, too, maybe on the verge of asking for help.
But Noelle’s eyes… so intense, so very scared. That fear was something both Solomon and Big Wise understood. She sensed something. She wasn’t street royalty, maybe not street at all, but Solomon got the impression that she’d had it tough. That she’d faced pain and come through it. That honed a person’s senses, and made them someone you listened to.
But the others were going to stay behind. He could tell. So he took matters into his own hands. He started walking, tossing a derisive, “You fall behind, I ain’t waiting for you,” at Chong.
“Then you’ll die when you get too far.”
Solomon stopped then. Turned and grinned his most dangerous grin at Chong. “Not if I take you outta the game.” He paused a moment before adding, “Eyes on the prize, isn’t that what you said?”
He kept walking. Noelle fell in step with him instantly. Clint and Elena followed a moment later, the Latina tossing a look at Chong that was half regret and half encouragement.
It was a small victory for Solomon: he had moved people. That had been his job for years, as a motivational speaker, and before that, in a rougher, more violent way as an up-and-coming 52. But that victory faded the next time he saw one of his old crew’s tags, and thought of Two-Teeth. The dude wasn’t just going to forget that two hundred and fifty grand had disappeared. He’d be diving into his own crew, using fist and blade and threat and pain to convince them to tell the truth.
And when they didn’t tell him shit, he’d turn to the streets at large. Word would go out, and if Solomon was still in the area he’d be found and brought to stand a quick trial before a man who would serve as judge and executioner.
He saw the bloody man in his mind. The letters and single number on the wall: Tr8r.
He walked faster, not sure whether he was more worried about what Noelle had said – that their “extra time” would turn out to be part of Do-Good’s plan, and something they would need to have – or worried about being found out here on the street.
A few more blocks, and something started to nibble at Solomon’s consciousness. Something bad was happening around him, but he couldn’t place it. He felt like he’d seen something – but only with part of his brain, a section cut off from the rest of his conscious thought.
What is it?
He looked around. Something was there. But what?
When did it start?
That was easier: it had started out on this street. When they turned the corner and began walking this direction. They weren’t far from Heart Street, so maybe it was just that they were getting closer to whatever Do-Good wanted from them when they got to number 1089.
No. It’s something else. Something –
And in that moment, he realized what it was. Realized that he’d seen it instantly, but enough time had passed that it had changed. Grown older, more rundown.
“Still the same car,” he whispered.
“What?” said Noelle.
“What the hell kind of nonsense –” began Chong.
“It’s the same damn car!” Solomon repeated. He backed away a step.
No way. Not possible. Can’t be.
But it was. The same puke-green car. Years later, and it looked like it hadn’t been washed in all that time, but it was the same car.
He’s got to have sold it. It showed up here after the new owner drove it away. There’s no way –
“The hell? Big Wise?”
Solomon turned slowly, stiffening as he saw the man emerge from an alley where he must have been taking a piss, still fumbling at his zipper as he lunged
forward and then screamed, “Where’s my money, you asshole?
Solomon turned to run, all thoughts of the game fled from his mind. But the man from the alley reached into his coat and pulled out his gun and growled, “Move and I’ll shoot you in the back, Wise. Swear to God I will.”
Big Wise didn’t move. He only glanced at his watch.
Glad we have the extra time. Just out for a stroll? No chance. Not in this neighborhood.
He raised his hands. “Hey, Pat,” he said, as Detective Patrick “Pat” Pattinson strode up to him.
16
Pattinson buried the gun in Solomon’s gut. The hard end of the muzzle concentrated all the power of the guy’s punch into a square inch, and Solomon suddenly felt like he’d had his guts yanked out. He bent double as his breath exploded from him, trying to scream in pain and managing only a whispy, hrk, hrk, hrk sound.
Pattinson leaned in close. “Who said you could call me Pat, Wise? We ain’t friends. We’re just a pair of guys on the street, and one of them owes the other a helluva lot of dough.”
He backhanded Solomon, knocking him down. Solomon looked around, trying to find some way out of this. His gaze settled on the backpack Elena still wore. “We’ve got money!” he screamed just as Pattinson kicked him in the side. Another explosion in his stomach.
“Really? Really?” Another kick. “About ten years too late, man.” Pattinson went to kick Solomon again, but stopped as he seemed to become aware of the others for the first time. His eyes widened as he saw the strange group, and the collars they all wore. “The hell is this, some kind of fetish team? Or are these new recruits? You trolling for some other crew? The Six Pacs?”
His eyes moved from Clint to Noelle. “Nah. Wrong color,” he said. He pulled a badge from his belt and waved at them. “Get outta here. Me and Big Wise are going to have a chat, then I’ll probably bust him. So unless you want to spend the night in a holding cell….”
Solomon felt cold inside. No way was Pattinson going to “bust” him. No way was he going to see the inside of a cell. If Solomon was lucky, Pattinson would wait until the others left, then shoot him for “resisting arrest” as soon as they were gone.
If he was unlucky, Pattinson would turn him over to Two-Teeth.
But Pattinson didn’t know what Solomon did: that the others couldn’t leave. That they were in this mess together. That gave him hope, but also made it that much harder for him to figure any way out of this – certainly not in the time they had left before Do-Good popped all their heads off.
“I made you a lot of money, Pattinson. You owe me.”
He knew the second he said it that he’d made a mistake. Even before Pattinson kicked him again, before he felt the rib crack inside his chest.
“You stole from me, Wise.”
“Bullshit. You were shaking us down, and that meant you were involved in something and needed to get paid to shut up. And you’re still here, so you did get paid eventually, and the only one who lost money was probably Two-Teeth himself.”
Pattinson looked sharply at the others, then back at Solomon. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Wise.”
But Solomon knew different. He saw in Pattinson’s eyes that he was right. “You do. And you gotta know that if you turn me over, I’m gonna let Two-Teeth know you was tryin’ to shake me down for more cash, on his turf.”
“Like he’d believe you.”
Solomon climbed to his feet. He smiled tightly. “He would,” he said. He put a hand on Pattinson’s shoulder, knowing the cop would be doubting his standing with Two-Teeth.
“You’re a dirty cop,” said Solomon. He would have said more, but there was a sharp gasp and he turned to see Elena clap her hands to her cheeks. “What?” he demanded.
“I just realized,” managed Elena. “Do-Good’s rules.”
Clint’s eyes widened. He backed a few steps away. Chong, too. Noelle had her hands deep in her pockets, hunched over like she was worried about getting hit with something. “We aren’t allowed to talk to the police,” said the girl. “Do-Good said –”
Solomon didn’t hear her finish.
17
There was a crashing sound, then silence, then a ringing. That was okay. Peaceful, almost. Solomon could have just flowed into that ringing noise, like a river of sound he could float through forever.
The ringing ebbed, replaced by a deep bass drum that pounded through him and shook him worse than when he rolled with SFD and the dude cranked up his tunes so loud the woofers in the back seat felt like they were hammering into Solomon’s spine.
Bam-bam, bam-bam, bam-bam.
The bass drum beat away the ringing. Took its place and smothered it in a sound that brought pain with every touch. A moment later he realized the pain was coming in time with his heartbeat –
(bam-bam, bam-bam)
– and a moment after that realized that he wasn’t dead. Nothing dead could hurt this bad. A tiny part of his brain marveled. Shouldn’t he be dead? Something had exploded, he knew that. So his head was gone, it had to be. Gone like a mannequin’s head, the remainder melting and dripping sizzling bits across what was left of his chest.
(bam-bam, bam-bam)
The pain/sound drew his attention, and it was only then that Solomon realized he hadn’t been seeing anything for a few seconds. Nothing but black and then red and now more red, red pumping out of the ragged stump that ended six inches below his elbow.
He started to scream as he understood what had happened: the device on his wrist had exploded. Not just a timer, not just a way for Do-Good to communicate. A bomb, just like the collar.
His head lolled to the right, coming face to… what? Not face to face, because there was nothing left of Pattinson’s face to look at. The blast that had torn Solomon’s hand and wrist away had also blown all the meat from the front of Pattinson’s skull. Nothing was left there but a few hanging bits of flesh, a few ragged strips of skin. The nose bones jutted out, strangely angular against the softness of the pulped matter that had melted to the skull.
The jaw was missing.
No, not missing. Right there. Right there next to me right there on the ground and what are those things those things everywhere are those his teeth dear God dear Jesus are those his teeth?
Solomon started screaming.
“Leave him!” shouted Chong, looking at his watch – not exploded, but whole. Because he hadn’t talked to the cops. He hadn’t broken Do-Good’s rules. “We only got four minutes.”
Then he seemed to realize that he was looking at a bomb on his own wrist. He shrieked and began yanking at it, trying to tear it away from himself. There was no give, and he turned and ran, but only got fifty feet before his collar blinked red and started to beep. He stopped. Not sure what to do. Rigid, terrified. Unmoving.
Noelle was shouting, whimpering as she looked down at Solomon. “We can’t help him,” she said. “We have to –”
“No!” barked Elena, also looking at Solomon. She was reaching for him – it seemed like she was reaching for something a thousand miles away – grabbing for his stump. She caught it. Pressed it tightly, trying to stop the bleeding. Solomon screamed as again fresh waves of agony burst against him. “We can’t leave him. He’s the only one who knows where we’re going.”
Clint went to Pattinson. Flinched, but still reached down and pulled the cop’s –
(Ex-cop’s.)
– belt away from his pants. He wrapped it quickly around Solomon’s arm, using it as a tourniquet. “Besides, Do-Good said we have to stay together,” said Clint as he pulled on the leather strap. “That includes him.” He glanced at Pattinson. “You shouldn’t have talked to him.”
“Scolding later,” said Elena.
Clint yanked on the belt one more time. Then wrapped it around and around. Solomon screamed the whole time.
Clint turned to Chong. “Some help?” he asked, even as he thrust one arm under Solomon’s back and started to lever him up.
“I ain’t helping him,” said Chong.
“Well we’re not leaving him behind to die,” said Clint, his eyes flashing. “So you can either help or run ahead. But I don’t think you’ll like that very much.”
Noelle mimed a head exploding, which made Solomon cough out a spat of hysterical laughter. He didn’t know why. He was still screaming, still hurting, still maybe dying, even though he saw that the blood from his arm had slowed from a gush to a stream.
Chong cursed under his breath. He helped Clint pull Solomon to his feet, wringing another set of screams from him.
Solomon felt like Clint and Chong were punching him with razor-studded hands as they lifted him off the ground, jostling him to get him into position.
Then they ran.
Not running. No. Slogging. Tripping. Killing me. Killing me.
He became aware that someone was shouting at him. Asking him a question. Pointing.
Solomon looked up. He could barely make out what he was seeing. Two green blurs.
What’s happening?
The green blurs swam in and out of focus, and it took him an eternity of seconds to realize that they were the crossed arms of a street sign; that someone was shouting, “Which way?” into his ear.
Where are we going?
Heart. Beating heart. Blood out of me. Blood on the ground.
He gestured with his chin, not even sure if he was telling them to go the right way. They had to be somewhere. Had to find a heart. Heart Street. Street royalty.
His thoughts started to dissolve. Solomon was leading the group, the bleeding leading the blind into a night that grew darker around him with every passing step.
I’m dying.
Maybe. Probably.
He stumbled forward. He had no choice – he was being dragged along by Chong and Clint and, ahead of them both, he thought he saw a flickering image. It winked out a moment after he saw it, and a retreating part of his mind whispered that it hadn’t been real. Just a hallucination.
But Solomon knew different. He knew what he’d seen: his daddy. Zeke “Face” Washington, gesturing for him to come closer, come faster… and wearing a smiley face mask all the while.
Scavenger Hunt Page 11
