by S. J. Rozan
“You know?” Kevin started to edge along the wall again, nearing the next building. “You know what?” The wide grin came back, the glint in his eyes. “Fuck it. Fuck it, and fuck you, and fuck your posse here. And fuck your girlfriend. I’m gone, bro. I’m outta here.”
In two more steps he reached the corner where the parapet hit the wall between this building and the next. That building was lower than this one. Just before he jumped down onto its roof, he cocked back his arm and, aiming out over the street, he let the cell phone fly.
24
I SAW KEVIN tense and I lunged forward just before he jumped. I had a half-second lead, a good push-off, and I stretched like Mr. Fantastic.
It wasn’t enough. My hands reached for Kevin and closed on empty air.
As I slammed into the wall something crossed behind me, flying higher than I had, a blur of plaid and heavy boots. Then a cry: “Trella!” The voice was Linus’s. The sky was blank. I scrambled up.
Linus raced to the parapet. “Trella! Oh, shit, Trell! Dudess! No!”
Torn in half, I glanced wildly from Linus behind me to the roof below. I saw no sign of Kevin. Strawman raced by, swung himself over the wall to the roof where Kevin had gone. “Don’t kill him!” I yelled. Strawman hit the silver surface and didn’t look up. I hesitated a second, then turned, ran to where Linus stood peering down over the street. Nothing but the flag and the wind, and Linus, wide-eyed, white.
Then, barely audible in the wind: “Linus, if you’re really worried, maybe you could help me out here?”
Linus leaned out so far his feet left the roof deck. I stretched beside him. I was taller; I could see what he couldn’t.
“Jesus Christ,” I said.
“Whatever,” Trella called, dangling over the street, arms wrapped around the base of the flagpole. “Can you pull me up, please?”
I yanked Linus away, leaned down. Five stories below, cops and rescue personnel swarmed the sidewalk like helpless ants. They had a net ready, because they had to, but this was just too far a fall for that. Any minute now they’d defy Kevin’s ban and race up here. But Trella’s grip might not hold that long.
A few feet down, a little above the flagpole, a cornice made a ledge just wide enough to stand on. I swung my legs over, slid onto it. One arm over the parapet, I inched along to the flagpole. If I let go and crouched I’d be able to reach Trella, take hold of her hand, but not to haul her up. I had no purchase; I’d fall with her.
“Here!” Ming’s booming voice. I turned to see him, one leg over the parapet, leaning, offering me his right hand. His left was gripping Lu’s above the elbow, as Lu, braced against the parapet, was gripping him. After a second I took hold. Ming’s grip was crushing but the pain reassured me. If I could hold Trella like that, no one would fall.
“Trella?” Welded to Ming, I crouched. “Come on, it’s okay.” I could see the firefighters below maneuvering the net. Trella uncoiled one arm from the flagpole, whooped, “Whoa, cowboy!” and grabbed my hand. I wasn’t sure I could pull her up but when I started to, she said, “No, don’t. Just give me a handhold.”
I did what she said, just gripped her. With the deliberate absorption of a rock climber, she walked her feet up the wall, left arm still wrapped around the flagpole. Using me for leverage, she spidered along, and I moved over, until her feet had come up the wall to where the flagpole connected. She slid her right leg over the flagpole and straddled it, back to the building, facing out into the wind. “Phew,” she said, grinning.
Then, using my grip for balance, she rose to her feet in a single move. Now she stood on the cornice ledge. Twisting, she reached her left arm up and grabbed the parapet. Her right hand let go of my hand, and she pivoted around to face the building. She took a measuring breath and leapt upward, grabbed the parapet wall, and swung over.
“Awesome! Dudess! Oh, awesome!” Linus, bouncing, wrapped Trella in a bearhug.
Trella had been elegant, graceful, and sure-footed. I was standing on rubbery legs on a narrow cornice five stories above the ground, attached to a Chinese goliath. I half climbed, was half-hauled by Ming, who wouldn’t let go until I had both feet back on the tar paper roof.
“Thanks.” I shook the pain out of my fingers. Ming nodded, Lu shrugged. My heart raced, my skin sizzled with the adrenaline surge. It took a few moments for my brain to clear, to remember where we were, what had just happened, and why rescuing Trella didn’t make things okay. Unfairly, but I had no way to be fair, it was Trella I blew up at.
“Jesus Christ!” I bellowed. Everyone jumped. “What the fuck was that? What were you thinking, you were Supergirl? You were going to grab that son of a bitch Kevin out of the sky, is that what you were thinking?”
Trella looked at me, big eyes wide. Her glowing grin, which matched the one on Linus, faltered. “No,” she said. “I was thinking about this.”
She stuck her hand in her pocket, brought it out and offered me Kevin’s phone.
My heart stopped.
“We needed the phone.” Trella spoke in that tone that said she was explaining the obvious to me. “I mean, I knew where the flagpole was.”
“Dudess!” Linus hugged her again. I snatched the phone, stared at it. Then, afraid to screw something up, I passed it to Linus.
“The assistant,” I managed.
“I know, dude, I know.”
Linus poked buttons. Lu said to Trella, “Damn. You’re something else. Who exactly are you?”
“Trella. I work with Linus.”
“You want to work with me?”
“You’re not serious? Your girls—”
“Not that way. I always have room in the organization for someone with skills like yours.”
“Mr. Lu?” Linus looked up from the phone. “She has a job.”
“This is a better job.”
“Dude—”
“Thank you.” Trella smiled sweetly. “And thanks for the assist just now. But I have a job.” She hooked her arm through Linus’s. He flushed to his scalp.
Lu shrugged. “Well, if it’s like that. Listen, maybe I could use you, too, Junior. Show Jasmine a thing or two about the computer. And she could show you a thing or two, too.”
Trella looked inquiringly at Linus. He focused single-mindedly on the phone. Turning it so I could see the highlighted number on the screen, he said, “This one. Gotta be. Press the green button.”
Before I could, Ming, leaning over the parapet, called out, “Hey. The cops. I think they’re coming up here.”
“Shit.” Lu’s phone rang as he strode over to take a look. He answered it, spoke briefly while he peered down. “Smith, you’re a goddamn cop magnet, you know that? That was Strawman. He lost your lunatic.”
I gripped Kevin’s phone, heard cop feet pounding up the stairs. “I—”
Lu sighed. “Yeah, I know. Go on. We’ll deal.”
“Jesus,” I said. “Thanks.” I turned to Linus and Trella. “You guys stay—”
“I don’t think so, dude,” said Linus. Trella said nothing, just raised her eyebrows.
“No, I didn’t, either,” I said. “Okay, come on.”
We headed for the roof to the south, the one Kevin and then Strawman had jumped to. I pocketed Kevin’s phone, swung over the parapet, held on, and dropped about twelve feet. A second later Trella landed lightly beside me. We looked up to see Linus peering over. “Shit, dudes!”
“Just bend your knees as you land,” Trella said. “It’s fun.”
“Oh, right,” Linus grumbled, but he slid over on his stomach, scrabbled to hold on to the wall for a moment, then slipped off in a windmill of arms and legs. I moved under him, tried to catch him, but the best I could manage was to break his fall. We both went sprawling. From the silver-painted tarpaper he looked up at Trella. “Fun?”
“All in the technique. I could teach you.”
He snorted. She stretched a hand to pull him to his feet. I stood up, Linus dusted himself off, and we all made for the fire escape at
the back of the building.
“Smith!” I turned at Lu’s shout. He was leaning over and smiling. “You owe me, that’s all. You and Chin, too, if she makes it.”
“I owe you? You’re the idiot who—”
“Dude?” Linus called.
“Yeah. Fine. Whatever.” I joined the kids on the steep steel stairs.
The fire escape landed us in a back alley—this involved another jump, from the fire escape ladder, which, though shorter than the first jump, still made Linus roll his eyes—and the alley landed us on Broadway. No sign of Kevin, or of Strawman. That was the bad news; the good news was, no cops on this street. I went a few yards north, stopped in a loading dock. I pulled Kevin’s phone out and said to Linus, “Kevin’s assistant. What do I do again?”
Patiently, he thumbed buttons until a number came up. “The green one.”
I took the phone, pressed the green button. I turned my back to the street, the better to hear. Two rings, three. Son of a bitch, come on, can’t be too late, can’t be—
“Hello? Kevin?”
The voice was a woman’s.
A girlfriend. Jesus Christ, what was wrong with us, why hadn’t we thought of that? “This isn’t Kevin,” I said, trying to keep my tone even. “But I’m calling to tell you not to call the number he gave you.”
Pause. “Who is this?”
“A friend.”
“Of whose?”
“Yours and Kevin’s.”
A bitter laugh. “We don’t have any mutual friends. Who the hell are you?”
Deep breath. “All right, I’m a friend of Kevin’s and I’d like to be a friend of yours. Who are you?”
“You want to be friends and you don’t know who I am? Where’s Kevin? What’s going on?” She had a ragged sound, someone just holding it together.
“Kevin’s in trouble. That’s why I have his phone. He said to tell you, don’t call the number.”
“Okay,” she said tentatively. “What should I do, then?”
“Meet me. We need to talk about it. About how to help Kevin.”
“Help him? Fuck him. Wait! No, all right, whatever you say. Where?”
“Where are you?”
“Home.”
“Where’s that? I’ll come up.”
“No. No, wait a minute. Who the hell are you? How do I know you’re not a cop? What kind of trouble is Kevin in?”
Think, Smith. “That kind. The cop kind.”
“Shit!”
“I think the only way to help him, the only thing we can do, is find the hostage.”
“What?”
“She hasn’t got much time before her air runs out, and Kevin’s not talking.” That part was true, anyway. “If she dies it’s all over for Kevin. If we can find her they’ll go easier on him.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know, but whatever it is, his sentence will be lighter—”
“I don’t give a shit about that. What about my baby?”
My breath caught. “What?”
“My baby. When do I get my baby back?”
The other prize. “Kevin has your baby?”
“Why the fuck do you think I’ve been doing all these sick things he wants? He didn’t tell you?”
“About a baby? He didn’t say anything.”
“You’re a friend of his and he wants you to get him out but he didn’t tell you about my baby? That bastard! That motherfucking bastard! Well, get him to tell you. Make him tell you where he has Jason!”
“I can’t talk to him.”
“Why? Is he in jail? Then get the cops to make him! Make him tell!”
“He can’t. He’s been—injured. He can’t talk. Tell me what happened. Who are you?”
“Jason’s mother, goddammit. Who the hell are you? And what do you mean, ‘injured’?”
I ignored that. “We can’t waste time, if he has your baby somewhere. The other hostage doesn’t have much time, either. Tell me where you are, I’ll come to you. You have to tell me everything you know.”
“No. No! I don’t know anything and you can’t come here.” Her voice turned cagey. “Who are you? I think you’re a cop. I think you want to arrest me because I helped Kevin. I bet Kevin’s not injured and you’re a lying bastard just like him. Well, fat chance. No cops! He said, no cops. If he finds out I helped you—no, no way, I’m not helping you!”
Her words were coming faster, uncontrolled. Praying I could calm her, keep her from losing it, I said, “I’m not a cop. I’ll get Jason back, but you have to help me.”
“You get Jason back, then I’ll help you.”
“I need to know things from you. I need to know everything Kevin said, anything that might help. We need to talk.”
“No we don’t!” She drew a long breath. “Okay, look, whoever the fuck you are. I didn’t even know that son of a bitch was out of prison until he showed up early this morning and smacked me around. He grabbed Jason, he took my baby, and he said he was keeping him until whatever this is, whatever he was doing, this goddamn shit”—her voice cracked—“until it was over. He’s messing with some guy’s head and he needs someone to help him. I told him no fucking way, but … anyhow if I do what he says I’ll get Jason back. He said Jason should have been his anyway, so he has a right to him and I was lucky he wasn’t keeping him. That’s what he said, that’s every goddamn word he said.”
I stared at the grafitti-blazed door in front of me. Oh, Jesus, Smith! “You’re Megan. His fiancée. That’s what he meant, the baby should’ve been his. Megan, it’s Bill Smith. We met, back then.”
A long silence. “Bill Smith? You’re the guy? The guy he’s doing all this to screw with? Whose girlfriend he has?”
“Yes.”
Another brief pause. “Fuck me, why didn’t I know that? Of course. Kevin has a hate on for a lot of people but no one more than you.”
“Megan, I need your help.”
“And I need Jason back.”
“You have to help me find him.”
“Ask Kevin.”
“I don’t know where Kevin is.”
“I can’t help. How can I help? I told you everything that happened. He said he’d call. He said when it was over he’d give Jason back. Find my baby!”
“I’ll try. But—”
“No! Try! Try is bullshit. You find him. This is all your fault. You and Kevin, what a fucking pair! What did you get me in the middle of your bullshit for? You find him! You find my baby. Then—” She drew a long breath and her words went sly. “Then I’ll tell you where your girlfriend is.”
A great rush, a wave of hope almost knocked me down. “Megan, my God, you know? Tell me now. Please. We can do both things at once. Find Jason, and find Lydia. Please, Megan.”
“No. You find Jason. That’s all I care about. How do I know you’re not lying? How do I even know you’re really Bill? Maybe you’re a cop. You’re a cop and you’re lying.”
“No. Megan—”
“I DON’T CARE. If you are Bill then why the hell would you look for Jason once you got your girlfriend back? No, I want my baby and that’s what you have to do. And nobody’s going to arrest me and Jason and I are going to disappear when you find him and you can all go fuck yourselves! When you find him!” A short pause, marked by quick breaths. “Deal: I won’t make Kevin’s phone call. Whatever bullshit it was supposed to be this time, I won’t do it. You find my son. Call me when you do. How’s that? You want to know where your girlfriend is? Then find Jason.”
The line went dead.
25
“WHAT, DUDE?” LINUS demanded as I frantically tried for redial. “Dude, give it to me.”
I stood facing the door, my back to the street and to the kids. I’d forgotten they were there, forgotten anything was there except Megan and, somewhere, Lydia. I spun around, handed the phone over. “Call her back.”
“Her, who?”
“That was Megan.”
“Megan, the ex?” asked Trella, eyes wi
de, as Linus thumbed buttons.
I nodded. “Kevin took her baby.”
“Oh, my God,” Trella said.
“Shit,” said Linus, not looking up. “A baby?” He handed me the phone.
“Yes. That’s the first prize, that he was ranting about. Jason.” I pressed the green button again. “We dismissed her as the assistant because she hates him. But we never thought of something like this.”
“But the baby—if it’s first prize, he’s keeping it. Did she—” I waved him quiet as Megan’s voice burst in my ear. “Hello? Bill? What? Do you have Jason?”
“Megan, I need to—”
“Bullshit! Don’t call until you have my baby!”
She hung up.
“This button?”
“Yes.”
This time I got voicemail. “Shit!” I snapped the phone shut.
“You could say you found him,” Linus suggested. “Leave a voicemail, I guarantee she’ll call back in thirty seconds.”
“She’ll want to see him. She’ll want him back before she tells us anything. Fuck!” Again, I was thinking about air.
“Damn,” Trella said slowly. “The baby. I knew she had a baby. But when I saw her on the street, she was alone. But the stroller was in the hallway. So where was the baby? It didn’t even occur to me! God, I’m sorry! I should’ve—”
“No.” I shook my head.
“Baby,” Linus said suddenly. He looked at me. “Lydia called you ‘baby.’ ”
I stared. “You’re right. Oh, son of a bitch! Not kid’s clothes or ob-gyns. She said, ‘It’s not just me,’ and she called me baby. She was telling me she wasn’t the only hostage. Telling me about the baby.”
“And he said, remember Mr. Crazy said she was taking care of something else for him? That must be what he meant. Although.”
“Although, what?”
“Well, dig, is he serious? He thinks he can just, I don’t know, take someone else’s baby and go have that life someplace, that life he thinks you stole from him? The condo and the car and the hoops and all?”