Central Park

by Guillaume Musso

  “So who is this woman?” Gabriel asked, stepping over a sewer pipe.

  “She was a famous model back in the nineties.”

  The pianist’s eyes lit up. “Really? Like a fashion model?”

  “Doesn’t take much to get you excited, does it?” Alice said reprovingly.

  “No, it’s not that,” he said irritably. “I’m just surprised by her career change.”

  “Anyway, her paintings and sculptures are beginning to get shown in galleries.”

  “So your friend Seymour is a contemporary-art enthusiast?”

  “Yeah. He’s a collector, in fact. His father passed the passion on to him, and he got a large inheritance that has allowed him to pursue it.”

  “How about you?”

  She shrugged. “Art? It means nothing to me. But to each his own—I’m a collector too, in a way.”

  “Oh yeah?” He frowned. “And what do you collect?”

  “Criminals. Murderers. Killers.”

  Having reached the former factory, they stood in silence for a moment before noticing that the iron door that barred access to the first floor was not locked. They went inside, entered the cage of an elevator that looked like it had once been used to transport cargo, and pressed the button for the top floor. The cage opened onto a concrete platform that led to a metal fire door. They had to ring the bell several times before Nikki opened it.

  A long leather apron, thick gloves, earmuffs, a face protector, black sunglasses. The ex-model’s attractive figure was completely hidden behind this metalworker’s outfit.

  “Hello, I’m Alice Schafer. I think my friend Seymour—”

  “Come in, quickly!” Nikki interjected, taking off her mask and glasses. “I’ll warn you now: I couldn’t care less what kind of shit you’re in, I just don’t want to be mixed up in it. I’ll get you out of those handcuffs, but after that you have to go. Understood?”

  They nodded and closed the door behind them.

  The place looked more like a blacksmith’s workshop than an artist’s studio. Illuminated only by daylight, it was a vast room, the walls covered with the widest range of tools imaginable: hammers in all sizes, soldering irons, blowtorches. Outlined against the fiery embers glowing red in the hearth of the forge were an anvil and a poker.

  Following Nikki, they walked across the untreated floorboards and wound their way between the various metal shapes that filled the space—purple and ocher silk-screened monotypes shining on steel, rusted iron sculptures with sharp edges that threatened to split open the ceiling.

  “Sit there,” the artist ordered, pointing at two battered chairs.

  Eager to be free, Alice and Gabriel sat on either side of a workbench. While Nikki screwed a saw disk to an angle grinder, she told them to trap the handcuff chain in the jaws of a vise. Then she switched on her machine, which vibrated with an infernal noise, and approached the two fugitives.

  The disk went through the chain in less than three seconds, and a few blows from a pointed chisel broke the handcuff ratchets.

  At last! Alice sighed, massaging her raw, bloody wrist.

  She started to mumble a few words of thanks, but Nikovski interrupted her coldly, pointing to the door. “Just get out. Now.”

  Relieved to be free again, Alice and Gabriel obeyed.

  They were both smiling when they emerged onto the docks. This deliverance had not answered any of their questions, but it was still an important step forward—they were autonomous again. Now to find out the truth.

  Feeling as if a huge weight had been lifted from their shoulders, they walked along the docks. The wind had grown less cold. The sky, still perfectly blue, contrasted with the harshness of the postindustrial landscape: abandoned work sites, endless lines of hangars and warehouses. But the view was intoxicating; from where they stood, they could see all of New York Harbor, from the Statue of Liberty to New Jersey.

  “Come on, I’ll buy you a cappuccino!” Gabriel said cheerfully, gesturing to a tiny café located in an old graffiti-covered train carriage.

  Alice was quick to rain on his parade. “And how are you planning to pay for it? Or are we going to steal that too?”

  He grimaced at this intrusion of reality into his happiness. Then he touched his injured arm. The pain he had felt on waking was now more intense.

  Gabriel took off his jacket. His shirtsleeve was bloodstained. He rolled it up and saw the bandage wrapped around his forearm—a wide cloth compress soaked with coagulated blood. When he lifted it, he discovered a nasty wound that immediately started to bleed again. The entire length of his forearm had been hacked with something like a box cutter. Thankfully the cuts were not too deep. In fact, now he looked at them, they sort of resembled a…

  “They’re numbers!” Alice exclaimed, helping him wipe away the blood.

  Engraved in his skin, 141197 appeared in little red notches.

  Gabriel’s expression had changed. Within a few seconds, the relief he’d felt at being free again had given way to anxiety. “Another code? Damn it, I’m beginning to get tired of this bullshit!”

  “Well, this one’s not a phone number, anyway,” said Alice.

  “Maybe it’s a date?” he suggested bitterly, putting his jacket back on.

  “The fourteenth of November, 1997…it’s possible.”

  Exasperated, Gabriel looked into the Frenchwoman’s eyes. “Listen, we can’t just keep wandering around like this, with no cash and no ID.”

  “What do you suggest? Go to the police? You’ve just stolen a car!”

  “Only because you made me!”

  “Oh, how brave of you! You’re such a gentleman! It’s always the same with you—everything is someone else’s fault. I can see the kind of person you are.”

  Deciding that arguing would only make things worse, he let it drop. “I know a pawnshop in Chinatown,” Gabriel offered. “The guy’s legit. A lot of musicians who are short of cash pawn their instruments there.”

  She sensed a trap. “And what do you think we should pawn? Your piano?”

  He gave a tense smile and looked pointedly at Alice’s wrist. “The only thing we have is your watch.”

  She took a step back. “No chance. Never.”

  “Come on, it’s a Patek Philippe, isn’t it? We could get at least—”

  “I said no!” she yelled. “It was my husband’s watch.”

  “But what else do we have? Apart from this cell phone.”

  Seeing him take the phone from his pocket, she came close to strangling him. “Why the hell did you keep that thing? I told you to toss it.”

  “I don’t think so. After all we went through to steal it? Anyway, it’s all we have at the moment. It could still be useful.”

  “But they can track us in three minutes flat with that! Don’t you ever read thrillers? Don’t you ever watch movies?”

  “Chill out, will you? This isn’t a movie.”

  She opened her mouth to insult him, but she was stopped by the distant sound of sirens carried on the wind. She turned in that direction and froze—there was a red light flashing on the horizon. Siren screaming, the cop car was heading straight toward them.

  “Come on!” she shouted, grabbing Gabriel’s arm.

  They ran to the Mini. Alice got into the driver’s side and started the engine. Van Brunt Street was a dead end, and the cops had made it impossible for them to escape the way they came.

  Impossible to escape at all…

  The only way out was through a wire gate that led onto the docks. Unfortunately, it was padlocked.

  No choice.

  “Fasten your seat belt,” she ordered as the tires squealed under them.

  Hands gripping the steering wheel, Alice accelerated over thirty yards and plowed the Mini into the gate. The chain yielded with a metallic crunch, and the car sped out onto the tracks of the old streetcar line that wound around the abandoned factory.

  Sheepishly, Gabriel rolled down his window and tossed out the phone.

&
nbsp; “It’s a bit late for that!” Alice raged, shooting him a black look.

  Sitting only a few inches up from the ground, the young woman felt as if she were driving a go-kart. With its narrow wheelbase and tiny wheels, the Cooper jolted over the uneven ground.

  She glanced in the rearview mirror. Unsurprisingly, the cop car was chasing them along the seafront. Alice drove along the docks for about a hundred yards before spotting a street to the right. She took it. The smooth asphalt and the long straightaway enabled her to step on the accelerator and speed northward. At this time of day, traffic was picking up in this part of Brooklyn. Alice ran two red lights, almost causing an accident, but she still didn’t manage to shake the cop’s Interceptor.

  The Mini was not the most comfortable car in the world, but it could certainly move. After negotiating a bend at top speed, tires shrieking, it turned back onto the neighborhood’s main road.

  Alice saw the Taurus’s menacing radiator grille grow larger in the mirror.

  “They’re right behind us!” Gabriel warned her, turning to look.

  Alice prepared to take an underpass that led to the highway. She was tempted to try melting into the traffic, but on a highway, the Mini Morris would not have the power to escape the Interceptor’s V-8.

  Trusting her instinct, Alice braked and veered suddenly onto the pedestrian ramp designed to allow maintenance workers to access the top of the underpass.

  “You’re going to get us killed!” Gabriel screamed, gripping tight to his seat belt with all his strength.

  One hand on the steering wheel, the other on the gearshift, Alice drove over gravel for about twenty yards, and then, just as the car was beginning to sink, she managed to swerve onto the concrete ramp that led toward Cobble Hill.

  Whew, that was close!

  A sudden turn to the left, then right, changing gear.

  The car came out on a shopping street edged with brightly colored stores: a butcher, an Italian grocer, a French patisserie, even a barbershop full of customers.

  Too many people…

  Their pursuer was still right behind them, but Alice took advantage of the Cooper’s small size to slalom between the cars ahead of them before abruptly turning off the crowded street and going back into the residential area.

  The landscape had changed now. The industrial backdrop of Red Hook had given way to a sleepy suburb: a little church, a little school, little front yards placed neatly in front of a row of identical redbrick town houses.

  Despite the narrowness of the streets, Alice had not reduced her speed; she was still driving with her foot to the floor, her face almost touching the windshield, on the lookout for an escape. Behind the glass, the landscape rushed past. The Mini’s gearbox was on its last legs. At this speed, each time Alice shifted gears, it made a loud creaking noise, as if it were about to break in half.

  Suddenly she slammed on the brakes. They had just passed a little back alley. She reversed the car and then turned into the narrow road at top speed.

  “Not here—it’s a one-way street!”

  To make things worse, a delivery van was blocking the other end.

  “Slow down! We’re going to crash into the UPS truck!”

  Ignoring his pleas, Alice stepped even harder on the gas and propelled the Mini onto the sidewalk. The shock absorbers, already struggling, now gave up the ghost. Alice leaned on the car’s horn and forced her way through, glancing at the rearview mirror as she went. Unable to follow through the narrow gap, the police car found itself nose to nose with the van.

  At least we’ve won ourselves a few seconds…

  Still on the sidewalk, the little car sped right and then went back onto the road.

  They headed toward a landscaped garden surrounded by an iron fence—Cobble Hill Park.

  “Do you know where we are?” Alice asked, slowing down as she went around the park.

  Gabriel studied the road signs. “Go right—it’ll take us to Atlantic Avenue.”

  She followed his directions and they found themselves on a four-lane road: the arterial street that crossed New York from east to west, from the neighborhood around JFK to the banks of the East River. Alice recognized it immediately. She’d been in taxis here on her way to and from the airport.

  “We’re close to the Manhattan Bridge, aren’t we?”

  “Just behind us.”

  She made a U-turn and took the ramp to the highway. Soon, she saw signs for the exit that led to Manhattan. The grayish-blue pylons of the suspension bridge came into view in the distance, two steel towers connected by a tangle of cables and ropes.

  “Oh, shit! Check your mirror!”

  The cop car was just behind them again.

  Too late to change direction.

  There were now only two possibilities: head for Long Island or return to Manhattan. They took exit 29A, which led to the bridge. Seven lanes of traffic, four subway lines, and a cycling path—the Manhattan Bridge was an ogre that swallowed up travelers and vehicles in Brooklyn and spat them out on the opposite side of the East River.

  Suddenly the pavement narrowed. Before reaching the entrance of the bridge, they had to take a long, curving concrete overpass.

  The overpass was congested, with cars moving bumper to bumper. The cops were about a hundred yards behind her. Here, their sirens made no difference, because the way was too narrow for the other cars to move aside and let them pass. At the same time, though, the fugitives could not escape.

  “We’re screwed,” Gabriel said.

  “No, we’re not. We can cross the bridge.”

  “Think about it. They have our description and now they know what car we’re driving. Even if we do get across, there’ll be other patrol cars waiting for us at the end of the bridge.”

  “Well, let’s not forget it’s your fault they found us! I told you to get rid of that damn phone.”

  “Yeah, I know. My bad.”

  She closed her eyes for a second. She didn’t think the cops knew who they were yet, and it didn’t really matter much if they did. And Keyne had a point: the real problem was their car.

  “You’re right.”

  Seeing that the traffic was easing up farther ahead, she unbuckled her seat belt and opened the door. “You take the wheel,” she told him.

  “What? But…what do you mean, I’m right?”

  “This car is too easy to spot. I’m going to try something.”

  Gabriel heaved himself over into the driver’s seat. On the overpass that led to the bridge, cars were still moving forward at a crawl. He squinted, trying to keep Alice in sight. This girl was full of surprises. She was weaving between cars now, elusive. Suddenly he panicked—she was taking her gun out of her jacket and pointing it at a beige Honda Accord.

  Not the kind of car that anyone would notice, he realized.

  The Honda’s driver, seeing a gun aimed at her face, did not ask questions; she simply got out of her car, climbed over the barrier, and fled down the long grass embankment.

  Gabriel could not hold back a whistle of admiration. He turned around. The cop car was right at the foot of the overpass. From that distance, there was no chance they could have seen anything.

  He abandoned the Mini and got into the Honda next to Alice just as traffic began moving again.

  Gabriel winked at her and, in order to defuse the tension, pretended to complain: “You could have picked something nicer than this! At least that little Mini had style, not like this old clunker.”

  Alice’s features were hardened by the stress of the day. “Instead of trying to be funny, why don’t you take a look in the glove compartment.”

  He did and discovered the one thing he had been most in need of since waking up that morning: a pack of cigarettes.

  A lighter was in there too. “Hallelujah!” he said as he lit one.

  He took two long drags and handed it to Alice. Without letting go of the steering wheel, she too took a drag. The bitter taste of the tobacco went straight to her head. S
he desperately needed to eat something or she was going to faint.

  She opened the window to get some fresh air. To her right, the Midtown skyscrapers glittered in the sunlight, while to her left, the low-rise buildings of the Lower East Side made her think of the settings of the old thrillers her husband, Paul, used to read.

  Paul…

  She pushed away her memories and checked her watch. It was more than an hour since they had woken up, oblivious to the previous night’s events, in the park. And so far, their investigation had gotten precisely nowhere. Not only was the original mystery still unsolved, but other questions had arisen that made their situation even murkier—and more dangerous.

  Their investigation had to move up a gear, and on that point Gabriel was right: they could not accomplish very much without money.

  “Give me the address of your pawnshop,” she said as they arrived in Manhattan.

  6

  Chinatown

  THE CAR PASSED the Bowery and turned onto Mott Street. Alice found a parking spot in front of a Chinese herbalist’s shop. The space was not very big, but she maneuvered the car perfectly to squeeze between a delivery van and a food truck selling dim sum.

  “If I remember correctly, the pawnshop is a little farther down that way,” said Gabriel, closing the door of the Honda.

  Alice locked the car, then followed him.

  They walked quickly along the narrow street swarming with people and buzzing with movement. Mott Street, a corridor of dark brick buildings latticed with iron staircases, crossed Chinatown from north to south. A wide variety of stores, their windows decorated with Chinese characters, lined the street: tattoo parlors, acupuncturists, jewelers, boutiques selling knockoffs of luxury products, and groceries and delis displaying turtle shells and glazed ducks hanging from hooks.

  They soon arrived at a gray façade ornamented with a gigantic neon dragon. The sign flashed the words PAWNSHOP—BUY—SELL—LOAN in the morning light.