The Outlaws of Sherwood Street: Giving to the Poor

by Peter Abrahams

  “Especially about us,” Ashanti added.

  “Yeah,” I said. “But we’re sort of on the same side with her. And now she needs our help.”

  They nodded. Silas lived a couple of miles away in a not-very-high high-rise near the beginning of the Gowanus Canal. “Thaddeus says she wants us to take a taxi,” Silas said. “She’ll pay us back.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Ashanti said. “Not with you being loaded at present.”

  Silas looked to be formulating some comeback, but at that moment, a taxi went by. Silas raised his hand. The taxi pulled right over, the quickest response I’d ever seen from a New York cab. We jumped in.

  Silas, in front—“I like to see where I’m going,” he said—gave his address. The driver nodded and hit the button on the meter. From where I sat in the backseat behind the driver, I couldn’t see much of him, just a thick neck and a thick bald head, plus big fleshy ears. He turned a corner, bumped across a cobblestone street down under one of the bridges, then sped up a hill, cutting off another car that gave an angry honk. All New York cabbies drove the same way, like being over-the-top aggressive was one of the requirements.

  “Hey,” said Silas, a few blocks later, “shouldn’t you have turned back there?”

  “Is faster like this,” the driver said. He had a low, growly voice, and also an accent, which was pretty much another characteristic of New York cabbies.

  The driver made a few more darting moves that resulted in lots of honking, then turned left, right, and left again in quick succession, and suddenly we were crossing Flatbush Avenue. Whoa. That couldn’t be a faster way to Silas’s building, in fact was totally wrong. I glanced at Silas. He was gazing out the side window; I imagined his face—how it gets when he’s lost in some completely irrelevant thought.

  “Silas?” I said.

  “What?” He glanced around. “Hey,” he said again, “was that Flatbush?”

  “Yes,” I said, raising my voice. “He’s way off course.”

  The driver shrugged. “Is faster.”

  Ashanti leaned into the opening in the Plexiglas partition. “It isn’t faster. Turn around. We’re in a hurry.”

  “Sure, sure,” said the driver. “Keep on hat.” But he showed not the slightest sign of turning around. Instead he zipped into a narrow alley lined with grimy buildings and said “keep on hat” a few more times. And all at once, maybe a little late, I caught on to that accent: Russian, no doubt about it.

  I banged on the partition. “Stop the car! Stop right this second!”

  The driver didn’t stop. Instead he sped up even more, fishtailing a bit and knocking over a whole row of trash cans. We were going way too fast to consider jumping out, but just as I began considering it all the same, the door locks snapped down. I tried to snap mine back up, couldn’t budge it. The driver reached around and closed the sliding partition window with a hard bang.

  “Silas! Grab the keys!”

  “The keys?” he said, starting to turn in my direction. The driver must have thought Silas was going to do exactly what I’d told him and pronto—which wasn’t Silas at all. With Silas now would come lots of back-and-forthing about the odds of successfully grabbing the keys, or whether it would even stop the car in the first place, or other possibilities I hadn’t imagined. But the driver didn’t know Silas. Or maybe he was simply a mean and violent person—because with no warning and real quick, he jabbed his right elbow at Silas’s face. Jab is maybe the wrong word if you don’t think jabs can be hard. The driver’s jab was very hard. It made him grunt with effort as he delivered the blow, a blow that caught Silas square on the jaw as he was turning toward me. There was a loud thud; Silas’s eyeballs rolled up, exposing the whites of his eyes, and he slumped motionless against the door.

  I clawed at the partition window: locked in place, immovable. Ashanti went crazy. She rocked back on the seat, raised her legs and started kicking at the Plexiglas with amazing strength, rocking the whole cab. But she got nowhere with the Plexiglas, which, I remembered, was bulletproof. Still, it was good to see the driver glance back with real fear on his face, one of those faces where all the lines slanted down.

  The driver whipped around, hunched over the wheel, and stepped on it even more. Up ahead, the alley was coming to a T-type intersection with another alley. At this speed, there was no way we’d ever be able to make the turn. Were we going to crash into those buildings at the end, splintering into one of the garage doors facing this second alley? I held on to Ashanti. She held on to me. The distance narrowed down to practically nothing, and as I tensed for the impact, the garage door directly in our path flew open. The driver hit the brakes, and we went squealing into the garage, up a ramp, and into a big enclosed trailer—although I couldn’t be sure about that because of how shadowy things suddenly got. We banged into the far end wall of the trailer, if that was what it was, but not hard, since we’d slowed down a lot by then, and before I knew what was going on, the driver had switched off the engine and jumped out of the cab. I twisted around, and through the rear window saw him running toward a rectangle of late-evening light—yes, we were in a trailer—and then jumping right outside. The double cargo doors at the back of the trailer closed with a solid thump, and we were in total darkness.

  We went still. I tried my door. Locked. I fiddled with buttons and things I felt on the inside of the door, got nowhere. I could hear Ashanti doing the same thing.

  “Ashanti?”

  “Nope. But the controls are in front. Silas—you hear that?”

  No answer.

  “Silas,” I said, “find the controls.”

  No answer.

  “Silas? Silas?”

  Silence.

  Suddenly Ashanti dug her fingers into my arm, very hard. “I can’t breathe!”

  “Just take it slow,” I said. “There’s air.”

  Her voice rose, way up into a sort of hysteria I’d never heard from her, could hardly believe her capable of. “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!”

  Something had to be done, and at the moment, there didn’t seem to be anyone to do it but me. Would the side windows be unbreakable, too? I wriggled around, got in position, gathered my strength, and—Smash!—I kicked out the window on my side. I scrambled out, feeling my way in the darkness, and opened the driver’s door. The ceiling light flashed on, pushing back the darkness.

  Ashanti, in the backseat, let out a deep breath. Her face was the color of ashes. I snapped open the master lock on the side of the door, and she got out. I took a quick look around—yes, we were in a taxi inside an otherwise empty trailer—and then turned to Silas. He lay on the front seat, eyes closed. I put my face close to his and felt his breath on my skin.

  “Is he breathing?” Ashanti said, opening the door on Silas’s side. “Tell me he’s breathing.”

  “He’s breathing.”

  Ashanti leaned in, started rubbing Silas’s hands. “Silas, come on, wake up. Please.”

  Silas showed no sign of waking up, just lay there breathing softly, a dark bruise forming on his jaw. We left him and went to the cargo doors. It looked like they might be opened with a big lever handle thing, but we couldn’t move it an inch.

  “Locked from the outside,” Ashanti said. Her face was less ashy now, but far from normal.

  “What are we going to do?” I said, a stupid and weak remark I regretted at once.

  Ashanti whipped out her phone. Of course!

  “No service,” she said. “You?”

  I tried my phone. “Nope. What about pounding on the doors?”

  We wondered about that—potential risks and rewards—and while I was wondering, I heard Silas: Doesn’t seem like a clever idea to me. Just sayin’. As for the cell phones, it’s not a no-service issue. They’re jamming us.

  “Silas?” I said. We hurried back to the taxi, looked in through the door
—left open so we’d have light. “You all right?” Ashanti said.

  But Silas was just lying there the way we’d left him, eyes closed, his breathing slow and regular.

  “Silas?” I said. I turned to Ashanti. “Didn’t you just hear him? I couldn’t have imagined it.”

  “Loud and clear,” Ashanti said. “Silas? This no time for your stupid games.”

  He lay there. He breathed. Then it hit me. I touched the charm: it was heating up.

  “Feel,” I said.

  Ashanti touched the charm. “It’s back?”

  “Finally,” I said.

  “Why now?” Ashanti said.

  “I don’t know. Maybe the Canarsee spirits are getting mad at last.”

  We gazed at Silas. When the charm was working, it gave him telepathic power, meaning he was still out cold, but we were getting insights from his unconscious mind.

  “Come on, Silas,” I said.

  “We need you,” Ashanti said.

  That goes without saying.

  “Don’t be a jerk,” Ashanti said. “Wake up.”

  I’m not sleeping, you morons. That guy knocked me out. Are you blind? I’m out cold. How come you’re not getting that? And did you hear his accent? He’s in cahoots with Kolnikov, for sure.

  “Cahoots?” Ashanti said. “When you’re knocked out, your brain is using words like cahoots? Wake up this second!”

  Silas showed no sign of waking up. If we had some water, maybe we could—

  I heard noises from outside. Ashanti and I turned toward the trailer’s double doors just in time to see them getting whipped open. By whom was hard to say, on account of it now being black night outside. But whoever it was threw in a long, dark bundle. It landed with a thud. The doors slammed shut. Some kind of bolt thunked into place.

  Ashanti and I moved toward the bundle, slow and cautious. It was a rolled-up tarp, not quite still. We knelt and started unrolling the tarp. There was a person inside! The head came into view, a head with cheerleader-style hair, the eyes and mouth both duct-taped over. We carefully stripped off the duct tape. It was Dina DeNunzio, but I already knew that from the hair. Her strong, determined face looked scared and diminished. I hated seeing that.

  “You kids?” she said, her voice wavery and weak. “What—what’s going on?”

  Before we could even start in on an answer, a big engine roared to life up in front of us, and then we were on the move—backward, which meant the trailer was on its way into the alley. And after that? Where were they taking us?

  Think, for heaven’s sake! It’s obvious!

  24

  We helped Dina get free from the tarp. She sat up, her face real pale, and looked around, taking in the scene—interior of an eighteen-wheeler-type trailer containing a yellow cab, which provided the only light, and us kids. Dina’s gaze rested on my face.

  “Did you set me up?” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t play dumb.”

  She’s not playing.

  I turned toward the taxi. “Shut up!”

  “Are you telling me to shut up?” Dina said.

  “No, no,” I said, turning back to her in exasperation.

  Dina’s expression changed to one of puzzlement and maybe a bit of fear. “I’m talking about when you called me,” she said, “to arrange the meeting at Joe Louis School.”

  “What about it?” I said, at the same time aware we were now going forward and seemed to be picking up speed.

  “Why did you do it?” Dina said.

  “Why? Because we wanted to talk to you.”

  How about mentioning my father at this juncture in the narrative?

  Now it was Ashanti’s turn. She shouted toward the taxi, “Butt out!”

  Dina stared at the taxi, seeing no one inside, of course, since Silas was lying on the front seat, out of view. She turned to Ashanti, gave her a long look.

  “You can’t hear that, can you?” Ashanti said.

  “Hear you yelling butt out?” Dina replied. “I certainly can.”

  “Not that,” Ashanti said. “I meant . . .” Her voice trailed off, and why not? Where were you supposed to begin?

  Dina’s eyes narrowed. “Are you kids on something?”

  There was a silence. Then I started laughing, a totally weird thing to do at a time like that. Dina seemed to be on the point of getting angry at me, but at that point whoever was driving made a sharp turn, and we lost our balance and went sliding across the floor, caroming off the far side wall. We came to rest, all tangled up in each other and the tarp. For a moment my face was very close to Dina’s.

  “We called you,” I said, “because we know there was nothing accidental about Mr. Wilders’s death. Which is what you suspected, right?”

  “Maybe,” Dina said, struggling to her feet. “I had questions. But what are you saying?”

  We all rose, stood in a sort of circle, bracing ourselves against the motion of the trailer. “We’re saying,” I told her, “that they killed Mr. Wilders and just made it look like an accident.”

  “Who is they?” Dina said.

  “A man named Kolnikov.”

  “Kirill Kolnikov?”

  “We don’t know his first name,” I told her. “And this arsonist guy named Harry Henkel may have been in on it as well.”

  “But the point is they both work for Sheldon Gunn,” Ashanti said.

  “How do you know?” Dina said. “How do you know any of this?”

  Don’t mention the charm.

  “Ashanti?” I said. “Do you think he’s right?”

  “Huh?” said Dina. “What’s going on around here? Who are you talking about?”

  “We’ll show you,” Ashanti said, and we all moved toward the cab. Ashanti pointed to Silas, now snoring on the front seat. “That’s Silas.”

  “Right,” said Dina. “I’ve seen him before. How can he sleep at a time like this?”

  “First of all,” I said, “Professor Wilders was his father. Second, he’s not actually asleep.”

  “He got knocked out by the taxi driver,” Ashanti added.

  “Were you set up, too?” Dina said.

  “Yeah,” I told her, and described how we’d found her car abandoned at the sculpture park. “What happened to you?” I asked.

  “I’m not really sure,” Dina said. “I drove across the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan and ran into a detour just past the off-ramp. I ended up in Dumbo and pulled over to check my GPS. Then I heard something move in the backseat—whoever it was had been lurking there from the get-go. I started to turn, caught a glimpse of a man rising up, and that’s the last thing I remember.”

  “What sort of man?” Ashanti said.

  “Hard to say.”

  “Kind of rat-faced?” I said.

  Dina nodded. “He was.”

  “That would be Henkel,” I told her.

  “Who is he, exactly?”

  Do you really think there’s time for all this explanation?

  Ashanti reached into the car, gave Silas’s foot a little shake. “Stop it right now,” she said. “Wake up!”

  “You think he’s faking?” Dina said.

  I totally am not.

  “There’s your answer,” I said.

  “I’m sorry?” said Dina.

  Ashanti and I exchanged a look. “Should we tell her?” I said.

  “Yes,” Ashanti said

  No way, you cretins!

  “Tell me what?” Dina said.

  I started to reach for the charm so I could show it to her, but just as I did, the truck made another sharp turn and we were all thrown across the floor again, excepting Silas, of course. The truck slowed down. Voices came from outside, but I couldn’t make out the words. I heard a strange metallic sound—somewhere between a groan an
d a squeak—like massive hinges might make, and we bumped forward again; very slowly, I thought, but it was hard to tell with no outside view. We also seemed to be going down, perhaps on a steep hill or slope.

  Brakes squeaked beneath us, and we came to a stop, the floor definitely slanting down. Somewhere up front, a door opened and closed: had the driver gotten out? I listened as hard as I could and was pretty sure I heard some squishy sorts of footsteps, like the ground was wet or muddy. And then silence.

  We lay on the slanting floor of the trailer, all of us listening. Something landed on the roof with a smack. We gazed up at the ceiling. What would cause a smacking noise like that, a kind of thud followed by a hint of loose rattling? I had no idea. Then came another. And another. They seemed heavier than the first, even making the trailer shudder a bit.

  “What’s happening?” Dina said.

  That was my question, too, but somehow it was disheartening to hear it from her lips first.

  You blockheads! What do you think is happening? We’re down at the bottom of a pit and it should be obvious where. They’re going to bury us alive!

  Dirt? That was dirt landing on the roof—thump, thump, thump?

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Ashanti said. “That’s earth coming down on us.”

  “Oh, my God,” said Dina.

  The next moment, we were struggling uphill toward the rear doors. Without a word—thump, thump, thump on the roof, coming faster—we all got some sort of grip on that lever thing and tried to move it. I took a quick peek at the charm: still warm, but other than that, nothing doing. I grunted away at the lever.

  Not gonna happen. It’s locked from the outside. Didn’t you already prove that to yourselves?

  We all let go except for Dina, who kept pushing and pulling at the lever. Buried alive! How long would it take for the four of us to breathe up all the oxygen in the trailer?

  Thump, thump, thump: the thumps were still making the trailer shudder, but not as loud now. Why was that? Because the layer of earth was building up on us, higher and higher?

  Did the cabbie leave the keys in the ignition? When were you planning to check? Anytime soon?