by S. J. Rozan
“Smile, laugh,” I said. “Try to look like everyone else who’s on a cell phone and has no idea what’s going on around them. If Kevin seems to make you, if he shows the slightest interest, dash into a store like the stuff it’s selling is what you’ve wanted all your life.”
Joey pulled over. Woof bounced out of the car to use the hydrant and had to be herded back in after Linus got out for Trella. Our last photo had come from Bond Street and Lafayette; Trella, face aglow, practically skipped in that direction.
I heard Ming muttering as Linus climbed back in, something about at least having room to breathe now, but he stuck to the pecking order Lu had given him and didn’t argue with my decision. That was good. If he’d decided to go rogue I don’t know how I’d have stopped him without creating a major ruckus that would draw every eye in our direction. But I’d have done it. No way in hell I was going to let things get screwed up now.
My new phone rang almost as soon as Trella was out of sight. “Got him. Lafayette and Bleecker. I’m about a block behind. He’s stopped at the light at Bleecker. I’m window-shopping pots and pans. Okay, the light’s changed. He stepped off the curb. I can make the same light. He’s at the far corner, I’m where he was. Now I’m in the street. Do I really have to keep talking?”
“You can pretend I’m talking sometimes.”
“Good. Hey, someone just took a cell phone picture of him.” Ping. “We just got it.”
“Great. Okay, he’s almost to Houston Street. Houston coming up, Houston real close. Light’s red, he stopped, I’ll stop back here. Wait, no, he’s not crossing. He turned west. I’m going to pretend I’m texting. Okay, I’m back. He’s waiting to cross again, I guess he wants to go down Crosby. Oh, hey, another photo!”
Ping. “Just came.”
“Cool. Okay, he’s heading down Crosby. I’m at Houston. This talking thing is tiring, you know? Okay, I’m crossing. I’m still a block behind, lots of people between us—Oh, shit!”
“What?”
“A car just pulled over! An SUV! Two guys are getting out, Asian guys! One normal, one huge. They’re heading toward him! He saw them.” Her breath started to come harder. “He ran into a store. Summit Sports, on Crosby. They’re going in after him. I am, too.”
“Trella, don’t!”
“Already did. Lots of commotion. Emergency exit. Stairs up.”
“Joey!” I shouted. “Pull over.” He did.
I jumped out. Linus followed. I said to Joey, “Sit tight.” Ming yelled, “What the hell?” Linus told Woof to stay. I told Ming to go fuck himself. Woof listened. Ming didn’t. We all three raced down Lafayette and through on Jersey.
“You bastard!” I spat to Ming, and then, “Trella?” into the phone. “Trella? What’s happening?”
“On the roof,” was all she said.
“What?” shouted Ming. He looked genuinely perplexed. Running seemed to be even less his sport than mine. I was savagely glad to see him fall behind.
“Lu’s there!” I yelled over my shouder. “You called him!”
Ming shook his head.
“Bullshit!”
“Dude! Come on!” Linus was in front as we exploded from the alley. “Didn’t have to call! Probably doesn’t even know! His phone! His GPS!”
Son of a bitch, I thought, dodging traffic on Crosby. Lu’s SUV angled across a loading dock. Linus was likely right. Ming tracks the girls. And Lu tracks Ming.
I put on a burst, pushed past Linus, surged into Summit Sports. “Police!” I flashed a gold badge that looks great from a distance in a hurry. Our quarry’s tracks were clear from the goggle-eyed customers, the shouting clerks, the knocked-over sneaker display. I charged to the rear, through the exit door and up the stairs. Four flights, and then, chest heaving, I yanked the roof door open.
“Whoa! Prince Asshole!”
I stood, frozen.
Lu, Strawman, and Trella all whipped around to stare at me, then turned back to what they’d been fixed on: Kevin Cavanaugh, arms wide like a condor’s wings, balanced on the limestone parapet.
“Kevin,” I said, breathing hard. Slowly, I stepped forward. “Come down. It’s over.”
“Over?” Kevin, grinning, cupped a hand to his ear. “Oh no, no way, your cocksucking highness. You hear any fat lady singing?”
Linus pounded through the door. Trella put out a hand to stop him. Lu saw the look that passed between them and snickered. Trella glared at him as Linus came to stand beside her. He moved no farther. We stood in a semicircle, the five of us, equidistant from Kevin as though at the edge of an invisible force field. Strawman held a gun trained on Kevin but Kevin didn’t seem bothered.
A few feet to Kevin’s right, a flagpole angled over the street from the face of building. I tensed as Kevin leaned to peer around the snapping flag—do I leap for him? can I make it?—but then he straightened, still grinning. “Jesus, it’s been a long time, Prince Asshole.” Marveling, he looked around. “How did you do it? How did you find me?”
“Come down, I’ll tell you.”
“I do not fucking think so. Oh, I do not. In fact, I think you all need to take a step back. Back! Good, that’s better.” He gave me a wide smile. “So, Prince, how’re you doing? Gotta tell you, pal, you look like shit.” He didn’t look so great himself. Despite the smile, his pupils were pinpoints and his skin was mottled, blotchy.
Ming finally made his lumbering way through the door. Lu glanced back at him. Maybe because his entourage was now complete, he took a step toward Kevin. “Listen, you lunatic motherfucker—”
“Lu!” I shouted. “Stop right there or I’ll throw you off this roof myself. What the hell were you thinking, coming after him?”
“You were getting close,” Lu said mildly. “I was tailing you and I spotted him. You think I really believed you’d hand him over to me, if you were the one who found him?”
“This is about my partner!”
“And you believe he’s going to give you your partner back? About who, let me remind you, I don’t give a shit? The only reason Ming hasn’t chucked him into the street already is I need to make sure this really is as idiotic as it looks, and Fatboy Cho or someone isn’t behind it.”
“Lu, I swear to God—”
“Hey, are you guys fighting over me?” Kevin said. “Aw, that’s so touching. I feel the love.”
I turned slowly from Lu, bringing myself down, trying to remember where I needed to be. “Not love, Kevin,” I said. “But tell me where Lydia is, and I’ll make sure the cops know you cooperated.”
“Ain’t that sweet. And that’ll make them love me, I know it will.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Oh, mighty Prince Asshole! Do what you can. Gee, thanks. Come on, admit it, bro, the truth is, you can do bullshit, you can do fuck-all about anything, that’s what you can do. Isn’t that what we’ve been proving all day? And speaking of bullshit, who are the Three Chinese Stooges here?”
“You want them gone? Lu, take your boys and get lost.”
“No!” Kevin barked. Smiling again, “Did I say I wanted them gone? Aren’t you listening to me? I really think you should listen to me. All I asked was who they are.”
He was liking the audience. I pointed, said, “This is Lei-lei’s pimp.”
Lu frowned, and Kevin laughed. “Oh! Fo’ shizzle? And these must be the Pimp’s Gorillas! Howdy, fellas! Hey, bro, Mr. Pimp, you run some truly hot girls, I gotta tell you that. And look, thanks to the Mighty Prince here, three of them who’re supposed to be dead aren’t! Can’t tell you how much that burns my ass. But it must make you want to show him the love.”
“Not even a little,” Lu said. “You, even less.”
“Lu,” I warned, “shut up and back off.”
“Hey!” Kevin’s face went crimson and his good cheer vanished. “Hey, motherfucker, you shut up! You back off! I was talking to him!” He swallowed, shook his head as if to clear it. “Everyone just shut up for a minute. No one talk.” He stoo
d motionless, balanced, with his eyes shut; then he snapped them open. “O-kay,” he said. “Now. You, pimp. And the gorillas. And whoever this bitch with the nose ring is. And little Chop Suey over there. All of you, just shut up. I don’t want to hear a single goddamn motherfucking word out of anybody anymore except Prince Asshole! Nobody, no-fucking-body. We all got that?” He waited. No one spoke. The wind died a little, letting the flag rest. “And you, Gorilla, put the gun away. It makes me nervous. I could fall or something.” He flashed a fast and shaky grin.
Strawman looked to Lu. After a moment Lu nodded. Strawman tucked his gun in his belt.
From below, sirens wailed. Kevin glanced down again. “Asshole,” he said with an accusatory frown, “this seriously better not be the cops.”
“It probably is,” I said. “You’re standing on a parapet flapping your arms around. You think no one’s going to see that?”
“Oh. Oh, you think? You mean you didn’t call them?”
“Of course I didn’t.”
“Of course. Of course. I forgot how law abiding you are, how you follow the rules. Except when you’re cheating. Well, whyever they’re here—that a word, ‘whyever’? Don’t answer that, I don’t give a shit—I don’t want them up here.” He dug a phone from his pocket, poked a few buttons. “Hi, 911? Well, the nature of my emergency is, I’m standing on a parapet on Crosby Street, and a whole bunch of cops and fire trucks are pulling up down there, and I really, really, don’t want anyone up on this roof, know what I mean? You don’t need to rescue me, I’m doing just fine, thank you, sweetie. I’m just standing here talking to some friends. But if anyone comes up here, I’ll jump. For real. Helluva rescue, right? So-o-o-o embarrassing for New York’s Finest, and New York’s Bravest, and New York’s whoever the hell the rest of you are. So just tell them all to stay down there, and everything’ll be fine. Yes, I’m sure, thank you. I’ll call if I need you.” He clicked off and, turning, waved to the street below. Then he turned back to me. “Now,” he said, “okay, now, motherfucking Prince Asshole, let’s talk.”
“About what, Kevin?”
“Maybe about what a lying, cheating, backstabbing cocksucker you are. No, that would take too long. How about, about your girlfriend?”
“Okay, let’s talk about her. Where is she?”
“God, what a one-track mind. Where, where, where. She’s hot, your girlfriend, right? Even if she can’t cook. I bet she’s great in the sack.”
“What do you want, Kevin?”
“ ‘What do you want, Kevin?’ Well, what do I want? Hmm, let’s see.” He rubbed his chin and frowned, lifted his finger theatrically. “I want a condo! Well, or maybe a brownstone. I want a Ferrari, and a fast-track job with a six-figure salary and a mega-Christmas bonus and kick-ass perks. I want to go to Aspen and Ibiza and drink Grey Goose martinis and smoke Cuban cigars and eat ginormous Kobe sirloins. I want a hot wife and a hot secretary and I want little Cavanaughs all running around that I can teach to shoot hoops at my house in the Hamptons!” The smile dissolved and his face turned hard. He lowered the finger slowly until it pointed at me. “What I want is what I had! What I had, and would have had, except you stole it all! Except you buried me! I had a life, and you made me a zombie! A life! That, you goddamn son of a bitch, that is what I fucking want!” He stopped, panting as though he’d run a race. In a softer voice: “And now I’m going to have it.” His face lit up. “This game? I’m tired of it. It was fun for a while, but then you started cheating, and all these losers started crowding up the court, I mean, who asked them? Well, I guess you did. So I changed the rules again. That okay with you?”
“None of this is okay with me.”
“Yeah, well, who cares? We’re done. That whole party thing, me and your girlfriend? Never mind. I’m over sticking it to Chinese girls anyway. No offense, your pimphood. But now I’m going to go pick up my first prize from where I left it and get on with my life.” He started inching along the parapet to his left. “The hell with you, asshole. This whole thing has gotten out of hand.”
“No argument from me.”
“Oh, good. Because you know how I hate it when you argue with me. Stay there!”
I’d stepped forward, not close, just trying to keep our same distance as he shuffled toward the next building. Now I stopped.
“Good. Don’t move again. If you make me nervous, I could fall. Too bad for me, not that you give a shit, but too bad for your girlfriend, too, right?” He shook his head again. “See, when I got out, when I first got back into the world, I wasn’t going to do it this way. My plan, I was going to settle things with you, just straight-up bust your motherfucking ass and get on with my life. Months ago, when I first got out, I came by your place. Did you know that? Did you?”
“No.”
“No. Because you’re not, you’re just not all that fucking smart, really, are you?” Another few steps along the wall. “I came by, and you could’ve bought it that night, bro, that’s what I had in mind. But I saw you with her. Your girlfriend. Your slanty-eyed mama. You two walked right by me and it was like you knew I was there. It was like, ‘Fuck you, Kevin, look what I got, only mine ain’t dead so I’m cool.’ I almost popped a cap in your ass right then, but it wasn’t enough. Not enough, not enough. So I went back and thought and planned, and it took months, and it was excellent! Excellent! Because inside, you know, inside you don’t get to think and plan. You get to do what they say. And here I was, thinking and planning and I worked it all out, this whole goddamn thing, and it was excellent and it’s been lots of fun. Hasn’t it? Oh, don’t lie, you loved it. But you fucked the whole game up. You cheated and now look where we are. And it’s not fun anymore. So it’s over.” He smiled. “You like that, don’t you?”
“You know I do. Just you and me, face to face, that’s all I ever wanted. Tell me where Lydia is, and we’ll be even, and then you and I can have it out.”
“Oh, no no no. Not happening. Didn’t I explain that, how I changed the rules? New rule number one: You’re not getting your girlfriend back.” I went cold. “Whoa!” Kevin barked. “Check him out, how white he turned!” he shouted to everyone else. “Oh, I’m lovin’ it. No, you don’t get her back. See, I have an assistant, too. I told you that? Yeah, I thought I had. And my assistant’s waiting for me to call.” He held up the phone. “If I don’t call soon, half an hour maybe, there’s a phone number. My assistant calls the number, that activates this gas canister I have there. Where she is, your girlfriend. I know, I said she had a couple of hours of air left, but this is, like, my insurance. If me and her were partying and you were watching, then I was gonna call, tell my assistant, no, don’t do it. And then, you know, I was gonna help your girlfriend use up some of that air. After that I was gonna split, give you a chance to find her. I was gonna be fair, asshole. I was.
“But I thought some shit like this might happen. You cheating. So I set it up, my assistant and the number, some nice poison gas. Dependable. Kinda like you. A lot like you. Dependable, and fucking toxic. So see, what I could do, I could call my assistant right now, and say, it’s okay, don’t make that call. If I did that, then you guys”—sweeping an expansive arm—“you could run around looking for her, your girlfriend, looking in every building in New York. Even the cops could help, I don’t care anymore. You might even find her in time. You want me to do that? Call, so you have a chance?”
No sound but the flag snapping. Kevin waited, giving me an encouraging look as though my answer mattered to him.
“Yes.”
“I know.” He nodded sympathetically, a friend discussing a friend’s bad situation, and took some more tottering steps along the parapet. “What you’re thinking, you did all this shit, all day, you went to Red Hook and uptown and Harlem and all whatever shit I made you do, and now you’re thinking this isn’t fair. You’re thinking, if ol’ Kev doesn’t give it up, then your girlfriend’s toast and that’s just not fair because you tried so hard. Tell me, am I right? Is that what you’re thin
king?”
I weighed my words, spoke as carefully as I ever had. Kevin’s shaky mental state was echoed by his unsteadiness as he balanced. I needed to draw him back in. “What I’m thinking, Kevin, is, you were talking about a forfeit? That’s what this would be. You and I aren’t done yet. You walk off the court, I win. This game, you against me, is that what you want to do? Throw the game?”
More sirens, and shouting from below. From the corner of my eye I could see Trella edge toward the parapet, peer over. Jesus, Trella, everyone, don’t move! Kevin glanced at her, then back to me, doubt flickering across his face.
“You think?” he asked earnestly. He frowned, considering this new idea. “You think it’ll be like that? Me throwing the game?”
“And I’ll win again. An easy win, if you throw it.”
“But how can you win, if you don’t get the prize?”
“How can you win, if you quit in the middle?” He didn’t answer. I pressed. “What’s wrong, Kevin? You keep saying I got old. And look at you, you’re an iron man now. Training all those years, what for? Don’t you want a piece of me? Or you still don’t think you could take me? Like before, you never could?”
“Fuck you! I took you then and I could take you now, Grandpa! I took badder guys than you in badder places than you’ve ever been.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Blazing rage clenched his fists; then he relaxed, grinned like a skeleton. “And I don’t believe you. You think I can’t see through this shit? You think you can get me so pissed off I’ll come down there to beat on you so all these motherfuckers can jump me?”
“They’ll stay back,” I said. I looked around the arc: Trella over by the parapet, Linus beside her; Ming, Strawman, and Lu in a row. Everyone nodded. “Just you and me, Kevin,” I said. “If you think you can.”
He didn’t answer. He shifted his gaze, shifted it some more: Trella, Strawman, me, Lu. Over his shoulder to the street. Ming, Linus, me again. I tried to project a cool I didn’t feel, the scornful calm of a champion facing a scared rival. Silence stretched, broken only by the sharp, random cracks of the snapping flag. Wind played around us, changing direction, shoving and pulling. The flag and the wind and Kevin’s jerky eyes: that’s all there was in the world, for me.
