Out of Control

by Sarah Alderson

  The boy takes a left at the next block and pulls over into a loading bay outside a shuttered restaurant. He keeps the engine running and for a few seconds we just sit there, both of us in silence. My heart is still pounding. My head whirring as it tries to process what I just witnessed.

  ‘What the hell just happened?’ the boy asks finally. His voice is a hoarse whisper. His hands grip the wheel tightly, as though he’s still driving.

  I shake my head, unable to formulate coherent thoughts, much less words. My head feels as though it’s wrapped in clouds – all my thoughts are foggy and half formed, images of that dead cop’s face overlaying them like a scratched red filter.

  ‘Did you see?’ he asks, turning towards me. ‘Did you see him?’

  I nod and we stare at each other in the gloom of the car. He looks just as horrified as I do.

  ‘What do we do?’ I finally ask.

  ‘I’m getting outta here,’ the boy says, snapping suddenly into action. He starts rooting in the pocket of his jeans for something and then he pulls out the key he put there. I watch as he unlocks the handcuffs that are still dangling from his left wrist. He tosses them into the back of the car and I contemplate for the first time the fact that I’m sitting in a stolen unmarked police car with a murderer who I just helped escape from custody. I guess that makes him a fugitive. But then, what does it make me? Oh God. I can’t even think it through. Does it even matter, I wonder, after what’s just happened? Does anything matter? My gut writhes as I remember the three dead cops in the corridor and the detective who was shot and killed right in front of me. Will anything ever matter again after seeing that?

  The tang of blood and smoke still fills my nostrils, the memories of all those bodies making me want to retch. The boy is still staring at me, wide-eyed, though his hand is already on the door. My eyes track at the same time as his to the gun he took from the cop, which sits in the seat well between us.

  I swallow, keeping my gaze on the gun. ‘We should call nine-one-one,’ I say evenly. ‘We were witnesses. They’re probably looking for us.’

  ‘I think they’re probably too busy counting dead bodies to be out there looking for us,’ he says, with an edge to his voice. ‘Besides they’re not going to be looking for you anyway.’

  My head jerks up at that.

  ‘Listen,’ he says, more softly now. ‘If you want my advice, stay away from the police.’

  I take a deep breath in, though it’s like I’m breathing in water and not air. Every time I blink, the shooter appears on the back of my eyelids; the image of him scored there indelibly – his gun pointed at us, his face blank as a corpse, all except for his eyes, which were glittering and hard as ice. It wasn’t his eyes though that sent a chill through me. It was the uniform he was wearing; dark blue trousers, a lighter blue shirt, polished shoes, and the metal glint on the lapel which revealed who he was. A cop.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  My eyes fly open. I realise that I’m shuddering violently, my shoulders heaving up and down as I try to suck air into my shrunken lungs. I’m vaguely aware of the boy’s hand resting on my shoulder, his voice sounding like he’s talking to me from the top of a mountain while I’m sitting on the bottom of the ocean.

  ‘Just try to breathe,’ he says. ‘It’s OK. It’s over.’

  His hand draws tentative circles on my back as I try to do as he says and just breathe, in and out, before the darkness that is threatening to close in on me does. I focus on his voice, just his voice, soothing and low until I feel the darkness easing.

  ‘Hey, look at me,’ the boy says. ‘Look at me.’

  I raise my eyes slowly, pushing back my hair, which has come loose from its hastily tied ponytail.

  ‘Do you have somewhere you can go? Someone you can call?’ I blink at him. ‘My dad,’ I say, trying to pull myself together.

  ‘You have a phone on you?’ he asks.

  I shake my head. All I have on me is what I’m wearing. I don’t even have change for a payphone.

  The boy reaches across the handbrake and opens the compartment beneath the dash. There’s a stick of gum in there, some paperwork, a torch. He shuts it again and flicks open the ashtray, which is full of loose change. He scoops up a handful and pours it into my palm. ‘There’s a phone over there,’ he says, pointing to a payphone on the opposite side of the street. ‘Why don’t you go call your dad?’

  I hesitate. I don’t want to leave the safety of the car. Stepping foot on the sidewalk seems too risky, too exposed. Frankly, crossing the street seems like insanity.

  ‘I’ll wait for you if you like,’ the boy says, as if he senses my nervousness. I glance at him out the corner of my eye. He’s tense, his jaw is pulsing like it did back in the police station when the cop was taking his details, he keeps looking in the side mirror, checking the street. Before I can tell him not to worry, that I’ll be fine, he gets out the car and I’m forced to follow. He’s eyeing the street in both directions, running an anxious hand over his closely shorn hair before tugging up his hood.

  Despite the early hour it’s humid, the air muggy, and I pull my NYPD sweater away from my body. I feel almost feverish; shivering and sweating simultaneously. My legs are bare, my pyjama shorts are so short that they just skim the top of my thighs, but I have goosebumps prickling my legs. I jog across the road and stand in front of the phone for several seconds before I pick up the cracked receiver. It takes me another thirty seconds before I can remember the number to my dad’s cell phone and then my finger shakes so much as I try to dial that it takes me three attempts to place the call.

  As it starts ringing in my ear, I turn around and check the street. It’s deserted. The boy has vanished. My stomach tumbles away as though I’ve been pushed off a ledge. The sense of panic that was sitting inside me, crouched down like a frightened animal, rears up once again, scratching at my throat. I whip around, a gurgled cry rising up my throat. The street is empty. He’s gone. He lied. He said he would wait. The car is still there but there’s no sign of him. I take a step, the phone falling slack in my hand, but then there’s a click on the line and a ‘Hello?’ and I press it quickly back to my ear.

  ‘Dad . . .’ I sob, feeling such a blast of relief at hearing his voice that I have to lean against the phone box to stay upright.

  ‘Liva?’ my dad says, his voice filled with desperation. He must know. He must have heard. ‘Where are you? What’s going on?’ he demands. ‘The police rang me. Someone said you were at a police station, that something had happened to the Goldmans. What’s going on?’

  ‘The police station – it . . .’ I break off, unable to describe the massacre I just witnessed, and press my forehead against the grimy metal of the phone box. ‘Everybody’s dead,’ is all I can manage.

  ‘What? What are you talking about?’ my dad asks. I can picture him on the other end of the line, in some hotel in Nigeria, his hands gripping the phone tighter to his ear as he sinks down into a seat. His tone has changed, become more businesslike. It’s the voice he uses for work calls. ‘Tell me where you are.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say, glancing in a daze at the nondescript street. ‘We were in the police station and then there was all this gunfire and . . .’ I shake my head, trying to dislodge the images stuck there.

  ‘What do you mean, gunjire?’ my father demands. ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘We got away,’ I whisper into the receiver.

  ‘Who got away? Olivia, you’re not making any sense.’

  ‘Me and . . . this boy,’ I say, scanning the deserted street.

  ‘OK,’ my dad says, the authority in his voice making my attention snap back to him. ‘Listen—’

  ‘And the Goldmans, they’re dead,’ I interrupt, suddenly remembering the reason I was at the police station in the first place.

  ‘I know. Liva, I know,’ my dad says softly. ‘The police called to tell me and I got cut off halfway through the conversation. Liva, I’m trying to get back. I’m going to be
on the next flight out of Lagos, but I need you to hold it together. Are you listening?’

  ‘Mmm,’ I mumble, staring at the phone cord biting across my palm. My vision keeps swimming.

  ‘Liva.’ My dad’s voice cuts through my trance. ‘Can you tell me what happened? Did you see the shooter? Did you see what he looked like?’

  I take a deep breath. ‘It was a policeman,’ I say.

  My dad doesn’t speak for a few seconds and I wonder if he’s heard me, but then he says, ‘I’m sending someone to pick you up right now. Give me your address.’

  ‘Um . . .’ I lean backwards, stretching the phone cord to its limit. There’s a street sign at the end of the road and I squint through the strengthening morning glare to read it and then give him the address.

  ‘OK. Listen to me,’ he says. ‘Don’t move. Just hang tight. I’m going to call someone from my team to come and get you.’ He pauses. ‘It’s going to be OK, sweetheart,’ he says more gently, but I hear the anxiety running like a fault line through his words, and the voice in my head asks whom exactly he’s trying to convince. My blood starts to run a little cold and I shiver some more.

  ‘Liva,’ my dad says, with slightly more conviction, ‘I promise. It’s going to be OK. I’m about to leave for the airport but there’s not a flight for a few hours, it’s going to take me a while to get back. I’ll be with you by the morning.’

  I suck in a breath. The morning? As in another twenty-four hours?

  ‘I’m going to hang up now and make a call,’ my dad continues. ‘Someone from my team will be with you in ten minutes. This will all be over soon, I promise.’

  And then he rings off and the coins drop with a cascade of clinks into the box and I rest my head on my forearm and feel myself sway. What was he talking about? I think to myself. It’s over already, isn’t it?

  7

  Someone taps me on the shoulder and I jump, slamming my forehead into the side of the phone box. Scalding liquid splatters my bare legs.

  ‘Ow,’ I yell.

  The boy dances a few steps backwards, the two cups of coffee he’s holding spilling over his hands and splashing the sidewalk.

  ‘Here, I got you a coffee,’ he grimaces, shaking off the burning drips and offering me one.

  I take it, blinking at him in shock. He’s still here. He didn’t leave. He just went to get coffee. Relief swamps me as I reach for the cup. I stare at him as though he’s a mirage.

  ‘Drink up,’ he says, nodding his head at the coffee in my hand.

  ‘I don’t drink coffee,’ I say.

  ‘You need some sugar.’

  I frown at him, not sure whether to tell him that I don’t eat sugar either.

  ‘You’re in shock,’ he says as though I’m being stubborn. ‘You look like you’re about to faint. You should drink it.’

  Grudgingly, I admit he’s right. I feel like I’m surfing the world’s largest break of adrenaline and my legs are about to give out from under me. I take a sip. It’s so sweet I almost gag. He must have poured seven or eight packs of sugar into it then topped it with some Sweet’N Low.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, instantly feeling the hit as the sugar floods my bloodstream. My fuzzy head clears and for the first time I take a good look at him. I notice he’s taken off his hooded sweater and slung it over his shoulder. Automatically my eyes scan the length of him, checking him out, as though I’m in a ballet studio and he’s my partner. He’s about five eleven, muscled but lean, with good shoulders and narrow hips. He’s got the body of an athlete or a gymnast for sure, though I can’t see him in a leotard somehow. If I had to guess I’d say he works out, plays something involving his arms, maybe basketball . . . My gaze lifts to his face. He’s drinking his coffee as he scans the street. Stubble is darkening his jaw and I realise with something of a jolt that the word boy is an understatement.

  I study the rest of him surreptitiously as I take another few sips of the oversweet coffee. His jeans are loose fitting and his sneakers are scuffed, the laces fraying. He has smooth coffee-coloured skin, which contrasts against the brilliant white of his T-shirt. I’m guessing he’s part Mexican or Costa Rican perhaps, definitely something Latin American. His eyes are the most stand-out thing about him. They’re an unusual greeny-grey colour, tinged with brown and framed by long dark lashes. A scar runs through his right eyebrow dividing it almost in two, if anything accentuating his eyes even more. If it wasn’t for the close-cropped hair and the permanently wary, slightly hardened look in his eye, I could easily imagine him gracing a billboard advertising some hipster fashion brand. Instead, I think to myself, he’s posing for mug shots. It’s then that I notice the bandana hanging out the back pocket of his jeans. I quickly look away and start studying the cracks in the sidewalk. I know what that little scrap of material signifies. He’s a gang member. I shake my head to myself. Why am I even surprised, given where I met him?

  ‘What did he say?’ the boy asks. I glance up, feeling like I should avoid looking at him directly, but it’s kind of impossible to because he’s staring right at me. He’s cradling his coffee in both hands, balancing on the balls of his feet. He doesn’t look like he needs any caffeine, he looks like he’s still flying on the adrenaline from earlier. His foot hasn’t stopped tapping the entire time we’ve been standing here.

  ‘He’s sending someone to pick me up,’ I tell him.

  The boy nods, seemingly relieved. ‘Who?’

  ‘Someone from his team.’

  His head shoots up at that one. ‘His team?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, suddenly putting something together. ‘You might want to leave before they get here.’

  ‘Why?’ he asks, his foot falling still.

  ‘My dad’s the head of the GRATS task force. That’s who he’s sending to get me.’

  ‘GRATS?’ the boy asks, frowning at me in confusion.

  ‘Gang-related active trafficker suppression.’

  He frowns some more as he puzzles out the acronym and then I watch his eyes go wide as he figures out the meaning. ‘Police?’ he asks.

  I nod, offering him a half-apologetic shrug, but he doesn’t notice. He’s thrown his still half-full coffee cup into the trash can by the phone and is already jogging towards the car. He doesn’t look back or say goodbye, he’s in too much of a hurry. I watch him jump behind the wheel, my arms slumping to my sides. He guns the engine and screeches out of the parking spot, this time not bothering to check his mirrors.

  I don’t know why but it’s like I’ve been punched in the stomach. I made it out of that police station because of him, and I’m not ready for him to leave just yet. I feel like I need to talk it all through, figure out what just happened and why. I need to understand it – and he’s the only one who might be able to help me do that because he was right there with me. But then I hear police sirens, coming closer, and realise that I’m too tired to run any more. Whereas this boy clearly has to. Well, he doesn’t have to, but it’s obvious he’s not planning on turning himself in.

  I spin on my heel, ditching my coffee cup in the same bin, and then start heading towards the corner of the street where I told my father I’d be waiting. The sugar hit is wearing off and my body feels sluggish, my muscles all aching and bruised, like I’ve just finished an all-day dance rehearsal and haven’t warmed down.

  The noise of a car engine makes me jerk suddenly around. It’s the boy. He’s crawling the kerb beside me.

  ‘You never told me your name,’ he says through the open window.

  I study him for a few seconds – this stranger whose life I saved and who saved mine in return – and decide that it can’t hurt to tell him.

  ‘Olivia,’ I say.

  His serious expression doesn’t alter. He just nods as though satisfied and, holding my gaze, says, ‘Thanks, Olivia. For back there. I owe you.’

  I nod in return, without smiling. There’s nothing to smile about after all. And he drives away.

  8

  I stand on the co
rner, trying to shrink into the shadows cast by the building opposite. I wrap my arms around my chest to cover the NYPD logo stamped there like a giant bullseye. This does not look like the kind of area where advertising an affiliation to the cops would go down very well.

  How long has it been since I hung up the phone? How much longer before they get here? My dad said ten minutes. Surely it’s been ten minutes already. It feels like ten hours. The police sirens I heard faded away. My muscles are so tensed I can’t ever imagine them relaxing again and my breathing is coming in short fat bursts that sound more like the gasps of someone whose respirator just got switched off.

  My head flies back and forth, searching in every direction, my eyes peeled for anyone in a cop’s uniform. I think I spy a familiar blue jacket in the distance and my heart leaps into my throat, pulsing violently. But then the person comes nearer and I see it’s a woman wearing a pale blue shirt, and my heart plummets back into my chest as I tell myself to relax. It’s fine. I’m safe now.

  I glance around at the graffiti painting the walls and metal shutters of the stores behind me. Torn posters advertising gigs and yard sales are glued to every available patch of wall. This part of Brooklyn (if we’re even still in Brooklyn) is a lot more run-down than where the Goldmans live – lived I remind myself, squeezing my elbows hard and welcoming the shard of pain that shoots up my arms. The Goldmans’ house was a large brownstone on a leafy avenue in Brooklyn Heights. Another world away. Another lifetime away. All of a sudden the knowledge of how alone I am strikes me anew and panic fills my body, leaking into every cell and cavity like noxious gas.

  I barely know New York, have only ever been here once before, five years ago. My father brought me with him on a business trip. He took me to the ballet and we talked over dinner about which dance schools I might try out for when I was older. The ballet was Swan Lake. It was Christmas. Snow dusted the ground like icing sugar. The hotel room had thick velvet drapes that I wrapped myself in, pretending that I was the black swan unfurling her wings. I try to focus on those memories, I even force myself to run through the steps for the danse des petits cygnes in my head, counting off the sixteen pas de chat, all to avoid thinking about what just happened.