Dark City Lights

by Lawrence Block

  Columbus attempted to shake his head. “No, it canna be! He tinks we are too stupid-o to talk with.”

  But Robbie Burns wasn’t so sure. “Nae, you’re wrong, laddies. I ken our William finally has something to say to us!”

  While Walter Scott, having been a baronet and so every bit Shakespeare’s equal, if not his better, just snorted and said, “I doubt it will be of much interest.”

  Then Shakespeare slowly raised one arm and pointed toward the hastening Harry. “See what draws near, my friends. A lone man who knows not that Hell is on his heels!”

  Now this Scott got. After all, he had also been a judge and sheriff-depute of Selkirkshire in his day. So he knew a thing or two about criminal behavior. But he also knew a thing or two about playwrights and, frankly, the one in front of him now had a tendency to overdramatize, Walter felt. Let us not forget Titus Andronicus, he thought.

  Still he thought it best to take a gander, so he shifted his bulk around to face north and spied Harry Dillon on the run.

  Yet Harry still didn’t realize that there was real danger to run from. He was still lost in thoughts of his lost love. Robbie Burns was the first to pick up his vibe.

  “Och, the poor man has no idea that he’s doomed! His heart, t’is breakin’, I ken. Do you not see?”

  Halleck, who’d long ago ceded the poetic high ground to his cohorts, observed dryly, “I’d say it’s more than his heart that’ll be broken. Look at those ruffians coming up behind him! In a nonce, they’ll jump his ass.” (Fitz-Greene had also, despite himself, picked up street slang.)

  IT WAS AT THIS MOMENT that Jo-Jeff grabbed Manny’s elbow and said, “Slow down!”

  Manny jerked his arm away and hissed, “You nuts? We almost got him!”

  But Jo-Jeff had freakishly good night vision. He could see the unawares Harry, but he could also perceive something that was just not right ahead of him. “Uh, Manny, those statues—they’re not where they s’posed to be.”

  “Huh?”

  “They not, like, in place.”

  “Wha’ the fuck! ’Course they are. They’re fuckin’ statues. They gotta be in place, man.”

  “I dunno, dude.”

  Of course, Jo-Jeff was right. But, in case you’re wondering, it’s no easy task for statues to just hop back up on pedestals. It takes some doing. Right now, the statues on the ground were, uh, playing Statues. They froze as they were, scattered around the revered William, and waited for matters to unfold.

  For Harry Dillon, matters weren’t so much unfolding as imploding. At least that’s how his chest felt; he wasn’t used to running long distances—or short ones, either. He wasn’t one of those actors who spent time between auditions at the gym or jogging. So his flight from the Boathouse had left him winded, bent over, and gasping for breath.

  When he finally managed to stand erect, he was vaguely aware that something was off on the Poets Walk. But he couldn’t say what. His night vision wasn’t the best and now, with only one contact lens in place, it was the worst. Still he sensed things were somehow amiss.

  Well, sure they are, dummy. You’re alone in Central Park, running away from Jeri. You’re a damn fool. . .

  “Sirrah, you are Fortune’s fool if you tarry here a moment longer.”

  “What?” Harry clamped a hand over his contact lens-less eye and squinted.

  There appeared to be a gray man with a high-domed forehead standing in front of him. From somewhere to his left, he heard another gravelly voice groan, “Oh, spare me. He’s paraphrasing his own stuff. How trite!”

  Harry spun round toward the other voice but he couldn’t see Fitz-Greene, who was in the shadows. What he did see was a short figure hurtling toward him with an outstretched arm. At the end of that arm was a fist that held something ominous.

  “I’m gonna cut you, sucka!” Manny cried. By now, he was just one hundred-and-thirteen pounds of pent-up frustration, out for blood and money. But even to his own ears, his voice sounded shrill rather than terrifying.

  Jo-Jeff started to run after him, but he was stopped short by a deep voice with a funny accent intoning, “Ah, Man’s inhumanity. Makes countless thousands mourn.”

  “Really, Robbie? You, too?” Halleck sighed as he started to lumber forward.

  Harry Dillon was vaguely aware of figures shifting in the dark but he couldn’t take his eyes off that arm and that fist and what it held. And he found he couldn’t budge.

  Son of a bitch, he thought. That guy wants to kill me. I should do something.

  But before he could move, a cold, heavy hand clamped down on his shoulder and a voice said, “Move not. But speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounce it to you . . .”

  The rest of the words Harry heard, not with his ears, but oddly reverberating in his head. By now, he was pretty sure he was either A) Going to die or B) Losing his mind. So what did he have to lose by following directions? He shot his arm out, pointing toward the accelerating Manny and shouted, “Is that a dagger I see before me?”

  Manny shouted back, “Bet your ass, mother fuc—”

  Then Manny went down like a sack of bricks.

  Drawing back one granite foot—the one Manny had just tripped over—Walter Scott smiled down at the unconscious would-be mugger and said, “How darest thou, then, to beard us lions in our den?”

  “Oh, Scott, come on!” Halleck was hopping mad now, though actual hopping was out of the question. Upstaged again, he fumed at the others, “I am the only American amongst you and yet you leave me out. Come on, Christopher, don’t you want to get your two lira in as well?”

  Columbus, as was his wont, hadn’t been paying the least attention. He’d been exploring. Now he slowly straightened up from a bent position with something small and white in his hand. “Look, fellas, I find’a the mushroom!”

  Then his triumphant grin faded as he saw Jo-Jeff running toward them—not that Jo-Jeff wanted to. But Manny was on the ground, not moving. You don’t leave a brother, not even one as bat-crap crazy as Manny Ruiz, lying on the ground with a bunch of . . . statues?

  Columbus pointed toward Jo-Jeff and mildly pointed out, “I t’ink tha’s one angry fella coming.”

  Then Halleck saw him coming, too, and knew that finally, finally his own moment was at hand. He nodded to his fellows, then pointed to Jo-Jeff and roared:

  “Strike—till the last armed foe expires.

  Strike—for your altars and your fires;

  Strike—for the green graves of your sires!”

  Jo-Jeff stopped and dropped his box-cutter as if it were a red-hot iron.

  Burns nudged Scott and murmured, “That’s nae half bad, is it?” And Walter agreed, “No, no, it’s not. I’d forgotten his Marco Bozzaris.” Even Shakespeare admitted, “Good words and well spoken.”

  And Harry Dillon said, “Uh, I, ah, I think I’m going to . . .” Then he, too, hit the pavement in a dead faint.

  In that instant, Joseph Hardy Jefferson, who had paid scant attention when they’d read Hamlet in class, but kind of liked the Mel Gibson version he saw once on TV, dimly recalled someone saying that there were more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. . . . This had to be one of those things.

  So he raised both hands in the air and asked, “Is it okay with you dudes if I just drag my boy’s bony ass outta here?”

  The statues nodded once, as one. And Jo-Jeff hauled both his and Manny’s ass as he’d never hauled ass before. When Manny finally came to, he was lying on a bench on the uptown A train next to his friend. He blinked several times and then asked, “Jo, what the hell happened?” Jo-Jeff just patted his shoulder, smiled and said, “Oh, man, we just been schooled.”

  BUT WHEN HARRY DILLON CAME to, he was still on the pavement of the Poets Walk and there was a face looking down at him, but it wasn’t made of stone. It was flesh and blood and lovely—it was Jeri’s.

  “Harry, Harry, can you hear me? Honey, are you alright?”

  “Hmm? Yeah . .
. I think so.”

  As Jeri’s face came into focus, he saw that she was surrounded by her friends from the restaurant.

  “Harry, I saw you at the Boat House. Why did you run away like that?” Jeri asked.

  “Uh, you looked kinda busy.”

  “Busy?”

  “I thought you were with . . . where’s the guy with the pony tail?”

  “Roberto?” One of the other girls gave a half-snort, halflaugh. “That wuss made a beeline for Fifth Ave as soon as we locked up.”

  “Really?” Harry raised himself up on his elbows and looked around. Sure enough Roberto was nowhere to be seen—and neither were the gray guys.

  “What happened, dude?” one of the waiters, a tall fellow asked. “Did you get jumped or did you trip or what?”

  “Never mind that,” Jeri cut in. “Just help me get him to his feet. Can you walk, honey?”

  At that instant, Harry Dillon felt he could walk, run, or jump tall buildings in a single bound. But the concerned look on Jeri’s face prompted him to milk the moment just a tad.

  “I think so.” Harry put one arm around Jeri’s shoulders as he grinned down at her. “Lead on, MacDuff.”

  “Oh, honey, you know that’s a misquote.” Jeri gave him that little smile that made her nose crinkle up. God, how that smile slayed him! Harry was in heaven now “You’ve told me so often enough.”

  “You’re right, you’re right,” he agreed happily. “It’s ‘Lay on, MacDuff.’”

  From somewhere off to his left, he thought he heard a soft voice sigh, “Thank you.”

  It seemed the others had heard something as well for they all stopped for a second. The girl who had hooted at Roberto’s wussiness, looked around, then waved a hand in the general direction of the now seated statues and asked, “Who are these guys anyway?” “Tch, Madison, you are such an illiterate!” This from the tall waiter, who happened to be an English lit major at NYU.

  “This is the Poets Walk. With the exception of Christopher Columbus down there at the end of the walk, these are all men of letters. Shakespeare is way over there to the left. To either side of us is Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott.”

  “Alright, enough,” Jeri said. “I need to get Harry home and in bed.”

  This was followed by a wave of lascivious chuckles as the group moved forward. But Madison held back and pointed to the statue of a man, seated on a chair and holding pen to paper.

  “Okay, but who’s that guy?”

  The English lit major gave the statue a cursory glance then pronounced, “Oh, that’s, uh . . . that’s James Fenimore Cooper.”

  Harry Dillon’s head was still a bit muzzy, but he could swear he heard a stony voice hiss, “Son of a bitch!”

  OLD HANDS

  BY ERIN MITCHELL

  “You have an old soul.”

  “I’m not sure about that, but I definitely have old hands.”

  LUNCH IS ALWAYS INTERESTING. I sit on the same bench in a relatively quiet corner of Central Park most days with a book and my sandwich because I have to get out of the store, away from the squawking, yipping, mewling . . . not to mention the smells. I must look approachable, because usually at least one of the homeless men wandering by will have a pithy comment or three. I’ve gotten good at responses that are dismissive without being rude. The Soul Man, for example, had no comeback for my hands retort, and shuffled off muttering about pigeons.

  This isn’t where I intended to be. Killing a person has a funny way of getting your life off-track.

  Don’t misunderstand . . . I’m not a glamorous or interesting hitwoman. I have no idea how a silencer works, wouldn’t know how to buy a gun if my life depended on it, and I don’t collect stamps. I’m kind of dowdy; my most attractive feature, my Dublin accent, is fading fast into a typical New York twang. I’ve spent my entire life taking directions from those in positions more powerful than my own.

  I was a nurse. Technically, I still am; my license is good for life, and my registration has another year before it expires. But I hadn’t deliberately chosen nursing so much as I’d fallen into it by default, and my illustrious career ended when Mr. Richards took his last breath. I gave him the right painkiller—but the wrong dose. I had glanced at the chart, filled the syringe, and with all the efficiency in the world, depressed the plunger into his IV. He was dead within minutes.

  There was a morbidity and mortality conference, of course. The resident gave his presentation, after which it was abundantly clear that the mistake was mine. The order was correct, but I had misread it. When I met with the HR woman who was trying just a little bit too hard, she explained that I would get a reprimand. The Incident would be recorded in My File.

  “But given that you’ve never had something like this happen before, we don’t see the need to take any further action.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. You seem surprised.”

  “I am. I mean, I expected to be fired. I should be fired.”

  “We don’t see it that way.”

  “I was negligent. A man died. It was my fault. How else is there to see it?”

  “These situations are always difficult. We have a counselor we’d recommend you talk to.”

  Instead of making an appointment with the counselor, I used the typewriter at the nurses’ station to prepare my resignation—it only took a few minutes thanks to typing skills courtesy Sister Lamb at St Mary’s Holy Faith—and slipped it under HR’s door before leaving that night.

  I grabbed a newspaper on the way home and saw a help-wanted ad for a small pet store on West Seventy-first. I figured I could handle furry and scaled creatures. The owner of the store is eighty if he’s a day, and he was impressed by my credentials so he hired me on the spot, and now I spend my lunch hour here.

  “WHAT ARE YOU READING?”

  “A book.”

  “Which one?”

  “One from the library.”

  “Is it The Joy Luck Club?”

  “No.”

  “Have you read that? Seems to be all the rage.”

  “No.”

  “No as in not the rage, or no as in you haven’t read it?”

  At this point, I looked up, because it seemed this particular pesterer wasn’t going to meander away any time soon. Much to my surprise, it was the physician who had been the attending on Mr. Richards’s case. Almost a year older and sporting longer hair than I recalled, but definitely the same guy.

  “What do you want?” I believe in getting right to the point.

  “It’s been a while. I was wondering how you are.”

  “Why? And how did you find me?”

  “Because you had a traumatic experience, and then you disappeared. And the phonebook. If you’re hiding, you’re not very good at it.”

  “Bullshit. The phonebook doesn’t list my work address.”

  “No, but your neighbor was happy to tell me where the store is. And the old guy there told me you’d be here.”

  “Go away.” Again, the point.

  “Have dinner with me.”

  “No.”

  “Look, I’ve been worried about you. You shouldn’t have quit. You’re an excellent nurse.”

  “Excellent nurses don’t kill patients.”

  “It was a mistake. They happen. It’s horrible, but they do. Hell, I wrote the order, and I know my handwriting is not always clear.”

  “That’s an understatement, but you’re no different from any other doctor. It was my responsibility to double-check if it wasn’t clear.”

  He looked like he was getting ready to either babble or lecture. “I miss seeing you around, talking with you, and—”

  “Fuck off.”

  So much for witty retorts. But I’d had enough. As much as I hated to, I stood up, ready to cut short my precious lunch hour by a few minutes and head back to the shop.

  “Have dinner with me.”

  “No.” As I started down the path toward the sidewalk, I stepped in a pile of gray goo. It might
have once been food or even a bird, but now it was just . . . slippery.

  And slip I did, forward, right onto my knees. My book—Lullaby, as it happened—went flying. In that instant, I fully expected to feel his hand on my arm, being oh-so chivalrous, helping me up, but he went for the book instead.

  “Ed McBain. I’ve heard of him.” I rolled my eyes. “Look, that was karma telling you to talk to me.”

  “No, that was this gray . . . shite that’s now all over my trousers and will probably ruin them. Just give me my book.”

  He handed it to me. I wasn’t lying to the homeless guy; my hands are wrinkly and knobby and look like they belong on an old woman. I gripped the novel so hard that my antediluvian mitt slipped on the cellophane cover.

  NOT LONG AFTER DARK AS I was about to close up the shop, in he walked, doing that Doctor Strut like he owned the place.

  “I’m persistent.” He grinned.

  “You say that like it’s a good thing: the perseverance of the stupid. And we’re closed.”

  “Have dinner with me.”

  “You already asked, and I declined the invitation.”

  “This is where I’m hoping my persistence pays off. I really want to talk to you. And it’s just dinner. Nothing fancy.”

  “You make it sound so-o appealing.” He guffawed. “Even if I wanted to, I can’t. I have to go home. I need to feed the cat.”

  “I think the cat can wait.”

  “You don’t know this cat. She’s gets grumpy when she’s hungry. And she doesn’t appreciate dinner being late.”

  “Luckily, cats can’t tell time.”

  “Again, you don’t know this cat. She can.”

  “I’ll spring for an extra entrée you can bring home to her.”

  “You have an answer for everything.”

  “Not really, but I’ve been practicing this conversation for months now. I feel so guilty, like I participated in your giving up your calling. If I’d—”

  “I also need to change my trousers. They’re stained.”

  “You can barely see it. Nobody will notice. You look great. You—”

  “Fine. I’ll have dinner with you.” I said it as much to shut him up as anything, but I’d wanted to say yes because I found him weirdly, if amusingly, sincere. I grabbed the slightly tatty purple LeSportsac that I carried everywhere and headed toward the door. As he fell in step next to me, I noticed that he had a slight limp.