Avenue. New Yorkers like to complain about the proliferation of Starbucks and Barnes & Noble shops in their great city. They bitch about the “malling” of Manhattan.But me? I’m all in favor of anyplace in this city that has a public bathroom.
The rain is keeping people at home. A few of the tables in here are occupied by NYU students or street people with enough change for a cup ofjoe. Based on appearances, I could belong to either group. Outside, the streets are wet and empty. Rainy Sunday night, plus folks are probably waiting at home for play to restart out atShea. I look up at the sky. There’s a good wind blowing and the clouds are moving along pretty damn fast. They should get it in.
The pain from my wound is growing, spreading. I could take a pill. Shit, I could take a dozen pills. I need to stay sharp. The pain will help me to stay sharp.
I sip my decaf herbal tea and look out the window at the cube. Astor Place, St. Mark’s, Fourth Avenue, Bowery and Lafayette all collide in an impossible knot of an intersection out there, and in the middle is a sliver of a traffic island. And in the middle of the island is the cube. Black steel, maybe eight feet to a side, it sits there balanced on one of its corners. It’s mounted on some kind of pivot so that if you give it just a little shove, it rotates. It is a prime example of ugly fucking municipal art.
The tea doesn’t really taste like tea and it tastes nothing at all like beer, but it has no caffeine or alcohol, so it’s good for my surviving kidney. I also got a croissant, but I don’t have an appetite just now because it’s a few minutes to ten and I really want to see Roman and Bolo walk out onto that traffic island and stand there in the rain. Then I will get up and go to the pay phone by the bathroom (which I already checked to be sure it works) and I will call Ed and Paris and they will drive over from where they are parked nearby and, while I watch, they will shoot down Roman and Bolo in the street. After that, I will step outside, Ed and Paris will pick me up and we will speed away. I don’t see much point in trying to imagine what might happen after that.
Out in the rain, Roman and Bolo cross over to the traffic island from the direction of St. Mark’s.
They’re both carrying the kind of cheap umbrellas that vendors hawk for five bucks a pop when the rain starts up. Roman is wearing a long raincoat over his suit. Bolo is out there in just his leather pants and motorcycle jacket. He has his left hand pressed down on his head, trying to keep the wind from blowing his long hair around. I watch them getting wet for a moment.
A gust of wind comes along and blows the cheap umbrellas inside out. Roman turns his to face the wind and it flops back into shape. Bolo takes his hand from his head to fix his own and all that black hair flies off in the wind and lands in the gutter a few feet away.
I turn to run for the phone and bounce off the real Bolo, who is standing right behind me with a Band-Aid on his thumb where Bud clawed him. He points out the window.
– Fucking Russians got nothing but shit for brains.
– I can understand you thinking
We’re sitting at my table. Bolo picks at my croissant, keeps one eye on me and another out the window on the decoys.
– Asshole. You had Ed’s fucking card on you when the cops picked you up. We knew you’d been talking to him. “Meet me at ten and just wait.” Come on. You get away with the money and then you call us to give it back? That had fucking bushwhack written all over it.
I nod toward the fake Bolo, adjusting his wig in the rain.
– New friends?
– Shut the fuck up. I will tell you when to talk.Fuckin’shithead Russians. I told him to pin thatfuckin ’ thing down, but he wanted to use fucking spirit gum.In the rain.Idiot. Now talk about pissed? I’m pretty flamed. And Roman, well, imagine.But the Russians? Shit. We tell them youkacked two of their top ex-Red Army special forces guys, and not only that, but you also took all the loot. They started talking about black market nuclear weapons and shit. Roman tells them we need two more guys, we’re lucky they didn’t send some fucking Cossack militia riding through the streets on horseback. Roman talked them down, though, explained the whole deal was too loud as it is. Once you get them settled, those guys understand terms like
– When I call them.
He throws a piece of croissant on the table.
– And when were you gonnafuckin ’ tell me that?
– When you told me I could talk. Man, you really are kind of the stupid one.
– Watch it.
– Seriously. I mean, I thought Ed and Paris had mastered the whole
He holds up a giant finger and presses it against my lips and keeps it there for a second.
– OK?Enough. Where are you supposed to call them?
He takes the finger away.
– They’re nearby. I don’t know where. I’m supposed to call Ed’s cell from the pay phone.
He looks over at the pay phone and the few customers scattered through the café and takes out his own cell phone.
– Does Ed have caller ID?
– Don’t know.
He puts the cell away.
– OK. Let’s walk over there and make that call. You go first and go easy.
– Where’s Roman?
He just looks at me, gestures for me to get up. I stand. He stands. I turn and start toward the phone. He follows.
Halfway to the phone I stumble and break my fall by grabbing one of the little café tables. I freeze like that, getting my balance and taking a good grip on the edges of the table,then I speak loudly and clearly.
– I AM HENRY THOMPSON. I AM WANTED FOR MULTIPLEHOMICIDE.
It works great.
There isn’t a beat or a moment of frozen silence. I say my name and people just freak and scatter. I lean back, lifting the table high off the floor, swinging it to my left. I spin around, the table building velocity. Bolo revolves into my line of sight, standing motionless, more stunned by my announcement than anyone else in the place. Frozen, he does nothing to dodge the table.
The impact jolts the table from my hands. It flips and a corner clips me on the chin. I flinch back and the table drops and lands on my toes. I stumble back, crashing through several chairs until I hit the wall ten feet away.
Bolo is standing perfectly still in the middle of the room. A little hole has been punched into his left temple by the triangular base of the table. Blood wells up and gushes out of the gap and floods down the side of his face like it’s running from an open faucet. He puts his hands out as if trying to find his balance, his eyes locked on mine. Hewobbles, rights himself and picks up his left foot to step forward. Immediately he’s out of true and his arms windmill and after that, it’s all about the bigger they are and the harder they fall. He goes down face first, sending chairs and tables skittering and crashing across the floor. Then he lies there and quickly bleeds to death while I feel at the cut on my chin and massage my throbbing toes.
The decoys must have seen people scrambling from the Starbucks. I run out the door on one side of the place and the decoy dressed like Bolo goes in on the other side. I spare a glance through the windows that line the street and see one Bolo standing over the corpse of the other Bolo,then I’m crossing the street toward the cube sculpture and the fake Roman standing there. I’m worrying about where the fuck the real Roman is, and thinking maybe that’s really him, when he lifts his arm and points it at me and it goes BANG and the bullet buzzes past me and that’s not Roman. He wouldn’t shoot me without knowing where the money is.
The Russian Roman is to the right of the cube. I run to the left and put it between us before he can take another shot. He dodges to his left and I go to my right, listening to his skipping feet as he tries to juke me into the open for a clear shot. I back away from the cube until I can see his shoes. He’s edging around to his right now, letting the sound of the rain cover his creeping steps. I move in close to the cube, put my shoulder against it, and
