Chapter Eighteen: HIDE NOR HAIR

I came to in a strange room. It reminded me of what it was like to be a baby again, you fall asleep one place and hours later wake up somewhere else entirely.

I sensed I wasn’t alone. I cranked open my eyes. When you live alone, you’re used to waking up alone, so waking up now with two people staring down at me was disturbing.

I tried to sit up, but I couldn’t. I was strapped down to some makeshift operating table. Also disturbing.

Why had I immediately made that snap judgment of ‘operating table’? Because of a chemical smell in the air? Or the greenish glow from a fluorescent ceiling fixture? Or was it the fact that the old man, Mr. Gower, had a pair of latex gloves on and was opening up the package of a brand new syringe?

The blond kid, FL!P, was fidgeting on a metal stool, playing with a set of scales on the marble countertop.

Mr. Gower said to him, “I’ll need your help with this part.” He fitted a new needle onto the tip of the syringe.

FL!P hopped off the stool.

I said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up.” I was trying to gather my wits, but it was like reconstructing a blown-apart dandelion. “What’s on the menu?”

Mr. Gower said, “Lie still, we are going to ask you some questions.”

“Ask away. Don’t delay another second. But whatever you’re doing there, stop! You don’t need that, whatever it is. I’m more than willing to tell you whatever you want to know.”

Gower ignored me, spoke to the blond kid.

“Roll up his sleeve.”

I started to struggle. It was only a makeshift set-up, how sturdy could it be?

Pretty damn sturdy. I only got about a centimeter of give out of the straps.

“Hold up!” I said. “Listen, kid, this isn’t good, don’t do this.”

“Just tell us where Michael Cassidy is,” he said.

“Done!” I said.

“You know where she is?”

“Of course.” And this time I wasn’t lying, because suddenly I did know. Knew all along, I guess, just never put it together. Amazing how the threat of death can galvanize one’s mind. Something that had been bothering me earlier finally came into sharp focus. The stuff emptied from my pockets after Michael Cassidy hit me on the head in Owl’s hotel room. Now I knew exactly what’d been missing: the room’s magnetic card key.

“Where is she, then?”

“I’ll take you to her,” I said. “Right now. Just get me out of this thing. There’s no need for—”

“His sleeve,” Mr. Gower blandly repeated himself.

“But,” FL!P began, “I…I think he’s telling the truth.”

Mr. Gower remained perfectly still, holding the hypodermic needle shoulder-high, thumb on the plunger, while at the other end a milky dribble hung suspended. He smiled benignly.

“This will only make certain that what he tells us will be the whole truth. It’s perfectly harmless, I promise you. I believe he might even enjoy the trip.”

“Don’t listen to him, kid! Undo these straps and I’ll take you right over to Michael Cassidy and…and…Law Addison, too!” I said in desperation, falling back on lying since the truth wasn’t setting me free. “Yeh, that’s right, both of them together. Right now.”

Mr. Gower shook his head sadly.

“See what I mean? That’s a lie. We’ll never know the truth unless we do it my way.”

“What do you mean a lie? How the fuck do you know?”

“His sleeve.”

“Stop saying that!”

He stopped saying it, but only because the blond kid was capitulating. He had his hand on my sleeve and was tugging it back, revealing my bare, exposed, naked arm.

“Okay,” Mr. Gower said, extending the needle “this will only take a—”

“Look out, kid!”

I don’t know why I shouted it, reflex I guess, seeing that needle as Gower aimed it at the kid’s upper arm. I had no love for FL!P, but I absolutely hated needles. I didn’t want to get stuck by one and didn’t want anyone else to get stuck either.

Why he believed me, I don’t know. Must’ve heard something in my voice, the urgency, because the kid responded like a whip, flinging himself backwards. He landed on the floor, skidding out of view, screaming up, “What the fuck, old man! You almost stuck that into me!”

“I told you to hold him still,” Mr. Gower tried to explain. “You moved.”

“You tried to stick me! What’s in that?”

“Harmless, I tol—”

“Then stick yourself with it! Sh-uh’ya!”

“Please talk sensibly, just come back here and hold his arm again.”

“Hold this!”

FL!P sprang back up on his feet, holding his skateboard close to his chest like a narrow shield. Then suddenly his arms shot forward with the skateboard jutting straight out. Its edge caught Mr. Gower below the chin in the soft flesh of his throat.

I heard a crunch.

Mr. Gower dropped the syringe. Mr. Gower made hissing noises and scuffled his feet. Mr. Gower sat down on the floor. He didn’t get up again.

The kid was wild-eyed, he was mumbling, murmuring, “Y’see that, y’see that, motherfucker?”

I didn’t want to interrupt, but I urged steadily, “Undo the straps, undo the straps.” He must’ve heard me, because he dropped his board and his fingers began working at the buckles. I heard the wheels of his skateboard freely turning, the steely sound of its ball bearings a familiar one to me, the same sound I heard before something hit me in the basement stairwell.

The kid kept mumbling, “Y’see that, y’see that?”

Yeh, I saw it. And I saw how the wound looked on the old man’s neck, same as the one I’d seen on Luis’ throat.

Unrestrained, I sat up on the table, rubbing my wrists, and asked, “So who is—who was this guy?”

“I never met him before tonight. He came up to me at the party, said he had a way to get you to tell where Michael Cassidy and Law Addison were hidden. He knew all about it, so I thought, what can I lose? All he wanted was help lugging you up here. But he didn’t say nothing about shooting you up with drugs. Or me!”

I stood up, looked around the place as I worked the circulation back into my wrists. It was a mini chemical lab with scales, test tubes, beakers, and Bunsen burners. In addition to equipment were the varied and variegated ingredients for cooking up drugs, including nail polish remover, industrial pesticide, and several household cleansers. There were also piles of tiny glassine envelopes, the sort the post office gives with stamps, and for the same reason: to keep out moisture. The envelopes contained chunks of white powder, the finished product. It was scary what kids will ingest in any white powder form, never stopping to question what made up the substance they snorted, smoked, shot up, or swallowed in a pill, just as long as the longed-for numbness ensued.

Mr. Gower, or whatever his name really was, looked to have been some kind of low-level cook. And judging by how he’d showed up at the hotel this morning, he was probably the person who’d been on the other end of the phone when I’d walked in on Michael Cassidy. He must have been one of her drug suppliers, quite possibly the one who’d concocted the hot bag that took Craig Wales’ life. And he’d been ready to do the same thing to FL!P, and then surely to me, too, once I’d given him whatever information I had. I wouldn’t be shedding any tears over his death.

There was a knock at the door then. A knock that developed into a heavy pounding. BANG BANG BANG.

The kid turned to me, “Who’s that?”

“It’s probably whoever told Gower here to off you and me.”

The knocking got louder, then stopped being a knock. The doorframe trembled. Whoever it was was trying to kick in the door. Three or four more like that and he’d succeed.

I spun around, saw a window with a fire escape outside it.

“That way,” I said.

We flung it open and crawled out onto the rusted fire escape. We were on the third floor of an apartment building. Outside it was full-on night, the streetlamps blazing orange.

The kid scrambled down and I was right on his heels. He didn’t bother releasing the ladder at the bottom, just grabbed onto the last rung and dropped down to the sidewalk below. I did the same, and as soon as my feet touched pavement I started running.

The kid was fast. Ordinarily I never would’ve been able to keep up with him, but I’d heard other feet coming down the fire escape behind us—its whole framework shaking—and it gave me wings.

I wasn’t even sure in what direction we were running until we ran out of island. We were on East Sixth Street and East River Drive when I yelled to the kid to hold up. He was headed for the overpass that traversed the drive and gave access to the athletic fields of East River Park.

He stopped halfway up the walkway ramp and looked back. Not at me. He seemed to be searching in the distance, back the way we’d come.

I needed to get close enough to grab him. If what I now believed was true, he’d not only killed Gower, he’d killed Luis, too. Gower could rot for all I cared—but I was going to see FL!P got nailed for Luis.

But as I got to the foot of the walkway, he saw something that spooked him. He started running again at full tilt, all the way across the cement overpass and into East River Park. I almost lost him in the dark, but as I reached the park I saw furtive movement off to my left. I headed in that direction.

Several years ago, the retaining wall that ran along the edge of the park had eroded and begun to crumble into the East River, and the asphalt promenade that lay over it started caving in, producing potholes which grew into sandy sinkholes. For safety, the city had erected high chain-link fences closing off the worst sections, making them off-limits until they were repaired. But of course they’d never gotten around to repairing it, too many other things needed patching up. It was the same all over the island. This was an old city that suffered too much weight bearing down on its thin shell of civilization. It had started collapsing in on itself like a star on its way to becoming a black hole.

Where I’d glimpsed FL!P moving was inside one of these fenced-off areas of the park. A crescent-shaped section of grass and trees about eighty feet across and thirty feet deep at its widest, that was cut off on the land-side by an eleven foot high chain-link barrier. On the river side was the promenade’s waist-high wrought-iron fence.

The enclosed area was in shadow, but I could just make out the humps of two unoccupied cement benches inside. I saw movement again beside one of them.

I looked around for a way to get in. Far to my right, where the fence started to angle in toward the promenade’s railing, I found a five-foot-high gap someone had clipped in the chain links with wirecutters. Not recently, done some time ago, probably by kids looking for a private place to do drugs or make love, or both. The gap swayed slightly though there wasn’t any breeze. Which suggested FL!P had passed through it moments earlier. I stepped through myself, careful that none of my clothes snagged on the sharp edges.

I measured my steps, breathed deeply and softly, until I found the kid crouched down beside one of the benches.

He sprang up as I got closer.

“Oh, it’s you.”

“Relax,” I said. “Nobody’s coming. We lost him.”

The kid shook his head from side to side.

I said, “Thanks for helping me back there. Quick thinking the way you handled the old man. It’s a shame you left your skateboard behind.”

“Oh, fuck.” I guess he’d been too busy to notice.

“Yeh. It’s how the cops are going to pin you for murder.”

“What?” He whirled round to face me. “No way. You saw, he tried to stick me with that needle. I was defending myself. Self-defense.”

“Oh, absolutely. But I didn’t mean him, I meant the man whose life you ended this afternoon. The super of that building. You really shouldn’t have done that, y’know.”

It was dark and I couldn’t see his face all that well, but I heard the distress in his voice.

“I didn’t—”

“Don’t bother denying it, kid. I know you did it. Soon the cops will know too. Your fingerprints are all over that skateboard, and those bruises on both their necks are going to match up perfectly. You’re done.”

“They’ll never be able…there’s no way they’ll know it was me—”

“Sure they will. See, I’m going to tell them.”

“What?” His voice became very small, like a worried mouse in a Beatrix Potter book.

I told him how it was. “I liked that old guy. And I’m not really that fond of you.”

“But I…I saved your life!”

“And I said thanks.”

“Please don’t…don’t tell. I didn’t mean to do it.”

“Why did you?”

“It was an accident. I followed you there and I was just listenin’ outside the door. I thought it’s where Michael Cassidy was. Then that old bastard saw me. I tried to get away, but he grabbed me by the arm. I didn’t mean to—he just grabbed me and I wanted him to let me go. It was an accident. Please don’t tell.”

He started to cry. It was the first time since I’d met him that he sounded his age. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

“Yeh, an accident,” I said, “just like Owl, this morning, falling into traffic.”

“That…” He sniffled. “That wasn’t any accident.”

“What do you mean?”

“Somebody shoved the old guy in front of that car. I saw the whole thing. I even—” He shut up.

“You’re making it up. I don’t believe you,” I said, but I was lying. It was the only thing that might’ve explained why Gower had tried to stick him with the needle instead of me. Someone wanted to silence the kid. Which meant he knew something, had seen something.

The kid pleaded, “No. No, really. I saw it. Honest! They were talking and then that black car came and—I couldn’t believe it—he shoved the old guy right in front of it.”

“Who did?”

“Look, I’ll tell you, okay? But we gotta trade.”

“Trade what?”

“I tell you and you let me go.”

I said nothing.

“Come on, you gotta let me go. Will you, if I tell you?”

I thought about it, but there wasn’t much to think about. The cops would probably land him without my help anyway, so what did I have to lose versus what I had to gain?

“Okay,” I agreed.

“You’ll trade?”

“I said all right. Now tell me. Who was it?”

He sniffled some. “I don’t know his name.”

“Then what the fuck are—”

“I can describe him!”

“Okay, so describe him.”

“That’s easy. You must—”

He stopped talking, his head tipped back. For a second, I thought he’d gotten beaned by a badly thrown Frisbee, I saw something go flying off after skimming the top of his head.

Only it was the top of his head. It landed about three feet behind him.

Hearing the shot was an afterthought as I ate gritty macadam, trying to will myself flat as a sheet of paper. My body hit the ground before the kid’s landed in a loose-limbed pile. Then a second shot rang out and a spurt of dirt hit my face. Shit. It stung.

I’d been wrong when I said we’d lost our pursuer. It wasn’t exactly a new experience for me, being wrong. Unlike getting shot at in the dark. Never served in the military, so this was a new one on me, one I could’ve gladly gone my whole li—but why bother thinking about it? I’d lost my cherry.

Shit shit shit.

I was trapped in here. Around me on three sides was the chain-link fencing, eleven feet high, and the only exit the open gap through which the kid and I had entered. If I tried to go back through that gap or to scale the fence, the gunman would see me and kill me. Unfortunately the only other choice was the fourth side of this little enclosure—and that direction held nothing but a fifteen-foot drop to the foul, fast-moving water of the East River. The current would pull me under like a hundred cold hands.

Shit.

As I glanced about, I felt my skin prickling. There’s an undeniable thrill in being hunted. Whether it’s race memory, instinct, or perversion, since childhood we’ve all enjoyed the game of hide-and-seek. And there was an atavistic part of me that wanted to enjoy it even now. But seeing a boy’s head shot off would dampen even the most ardent player’s enthusiasm.

Shit.

I started to crawl along on my belly, making for the promenade’s railing and the water’s edge.

I could hear the rattle of the chain-link fence. The shooter was looking for the opening I’d passed through, and it wouldn’t be long before he found it.

Shit. Or have I already said that?

In danger and in lovemaking, our bodies are transformed. Blood flows rapidly to all the necessary parts, our muscles expand and our joints become more fluid. We’re at the height of our efficiency, like it’s what we were meant to do. It makes all the other activities in our life seem like a ridiculous waste of breath. Meaningless fillers between love and death. But to be honest, I’d much rather been home watching TV.

Fuck.

I finally reached the railing and could see the East River beyond, its choppy surface dark silver and oily. Off in the distance were the lights of the Williamsburg Bridge, full of cars which were full of people, all too far away to do me any good except as an extravagant night-light. One that wasn’t going to keep the bogeyman away.

I started to pray. Nothing elaborate, just “God help me” over and over again. My grandma used to tell me it was all you ever needed to say.

There was a gap beneath the lowest part of the fence railing where the ground was crumbling away. Just wide enough for me to squeeze through.

I didn’t hear the rattling of the chain-link fence anymore, just footsteps. He’d found the opening. He was here.

I slipped over the side, dislodging pebbles and chunks of asphalt into the water below. I kept my hands tight on the base of the railing. The last thing I wanted was to land in the East River, it was as sure a death as a bullet.

So I just hung there, my legs dangling over the swift moving current of the night tide.

But I couldn’t stay in one place. I was in a direct line with where the kid’s dead body lay. I wouldn’t be hard to find and I wanted to be hard to find.

God help me.

I began working my way, hand over hand, farther down the fence railing.

I was wishing I’d thought to blacken my fingers with dirt so they wouldn’t stand out so clearly. But I’d had a lot on my mind.

God help me.

I’d gone only about three feet when something dark appeared at the railing above my head. I looked up.

Into a face looking down at me.

I thought I was dead.

But it was the face that was dead.

Then the shoulders and the arms and the chest of a dead body. It was the kid who wanted so badly to be famous, being hoisted over the railing and pitched down into the anonymity of the East River. He made hardly any splash at all.

I just hung there for a long time, not daring to move, risking only shallow breaths. My fingers felt fragile as ice, I imagined them cracking and splintering away into tiny shards.

But I didn’t let go. I hung on.

It’s what I do.

And eventually I bucked up, started moving again, hand over hand down the railing. I took some of the weight onto my feet against the wall, while minimizing as much as I could the scuffling noises I made.

I lost track of my progress, and of time, until I finally came to an outcrop of building extending out over the river. It was a water-treatment facility. The air was perfumed with an aroma like Tide laundry detergent.

I heard shouting as I climbed up and back over the railing. A skeleton crew of workmen had spotted me and were threatening to call the cops.

I took off running.