‘Yeah.’
Braxton closed my badge holder and tossed it on the floor beside me.
‘I didn’t cap that DA.’
‘Oh.’
‘Listen to me! I didn’t shoot him.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It doesn’t matter?’
‘The DA just wants to question you. You can tell her-’
He snorted. ‘Tell her what? That I’m innocent? Gee, you think she’ll believe me? They think I killed cops. I never killed no cops.’
‘Actually they think I killed one too.’ I pushed myself up on all fours.
‘Stay down,’ he ordered. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘They think I killed that DA.’
‘You’re a cop, right? And they think you killed a DA?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Man, that is fucked up. That is…’ His voice trailed off. He could not think of another way to describe it. ‘That’s fucked up.’
I struggled to my feet. Above me — very close now — was the navel of the dome, that shadowy little dimple. To my left, only space — air — and below, the carpet spilling red down from the altar and into the aisle.
Braxton stepped away from me. He tossed my empty gun on the floor and pulled one of his own, a little snub-nose thing.
I said, ‘You can help me.’
‘Help you?’
‘They’re going to put it on me, the Danziger thing. I can feel it.’
‘It’s Gittens, idn’t it?’
‘What?’
‘Gittens. Up to his old tricks.’
‘What do you-’
There was a sound at the front of the church.
Standing now, dizzy, I twisted to look over the edge of the catwalk — down — who was here? — the fluid in my skull shifted — it pulled me — I reached for the railing but it was too low and I missed it — momentum began to carry me over — the egg yolk, bleeding — and I fell.
My arm hooked the steel railing, jolting my elbow. But the bar slipped down my sleeve and past my fingers. I had time to realize, I’m falling.
Braxton punched my back as he grabbed my sweatshirt — then slapped his other hand down on my arm.
We looked at each other. He was breathing heavily, frightened now, and straining against the weight of my body. ‘Pull!’ he snarled.
I flailed for the railing or the ledge of the catwalk, but I was clumsy, scared, disoriented.
Braxton leaned precariously over the rail, his breath rasping. Before long my weight would carry us both over.
‘Don’t let go!’ I pleaded.
There was a clatter below. Gittens burst in. He looked up at Braxton and me, swore under his breath, and sprinted for the stairs.
‘Gittens,’ I said.
‘Fuck!’
Braxton tugged me up high enough that I could grab the railing again, and together we were able to pull my body back over. I fell onto the catwalk like a sailor toppling into a lifeboat.
Gittens’s steps on the staircase grew louder.
Braxton hustled over toward his pile of clothes, shuffling, moving as quickly as he dared go on the narrow catwalk.
I staggered up again. The weight of that swirling yolk made me unsteady, threatened to carry me over again. I lurched toward Braxton, around the narrow ring.
Braxton, who had been gathering his clothes, straightened up to watch me. He had an incredulous expression. He shook his head and returned to his clothes, tying off knots in the pile. Teetering toward him, I must have looked like Frankenstein. Why would he give me any thought?
When I reached him, though, I clapped my hand around his upper arm and squeezed. He tried to pull his arm away, but I had decided that nothing — nothing — would force me to open my fingers. Braxton was a strong kid, but it turned out I was pretty strong too. Those were Claude Truman’s hands he was pulling against.
‘There’s nowhere to run, Harold. There’s no way out. Don’t fight them.’
‘I didn’t do it,’ he implored. ‘I didn’t do it.’
‘Harold, what are you going to do? Fly away?’
Gittens appeared at the door. He was panting. He stepped onto the catwalk, holding one hand on the doorpost to steady himself.
‘Let me go,’ Braxton growled. ‘I didn’t do this.’
Gittens held a pistol, a blue-black Beretta like mine. ‘Ben. Get down.’
Braxton’s eyes were on the gun, then on me.
‘Ben, if Braxton did it, then you didn’t. Get down.’
Gittens racked the Beretta, and at that instant — when I heard the metallic movement of the slide I saw Gittens Why should I get down? and I understood. I knew what was about to happen.
‘Ben,’ Gittens repeated. ‘Get down.’
Gittens meant to kill him. It wasn’t in his face or in his voice. But I knew. There was not going to be an arrest. It was an execution, pure and simple. And he was offering a bargain: Braxton instead of me.
I decided that was not going to happen.
‘Ben!’
Even if it was all true and Braxton was a murderer and a cop killer — even if he owed an eye for an eye, a life for a life — and even if it would get me off on this absurd charge of killing Bob Danziger, a man I’d met all of one time — I couldn’t allow it, much less take part. I’d gone far enough.
I released Braxton’s arm. ‘Go,’ I said.
He looked at me, not sure whether to trust me. Then he grabbed the clothes and tossed them over the ledge. The bundle unfurled into a crude rope, shirts and towels and whatnot, each item tied to the end of the next one. He’d secured the rope to the railing. It was too short, though. The end dangled ten feet from the church floor.
‘Ben, get out of the way!’ Gittens ordered.
I looked at him.
Braxton went over the railing.
Dizzy, I slumped to my knees.
Braxton clung to the rope for a moment, swinging, legs scissoring.
Gittens fired at him but missed.
The gunshot boomed through the empty church.
Braxton dropped onto the red rug below. He splayed on his knees but quickly scrambled to his feet and sprinted under the catwalk, where Gittens did not have a shot at him.
Gittens scurried around the platform to find him, but there was no chance. He had no line of fire until Braxton bolted through the door, and at that point he did not even take the shot. Instead Gittens put up his gun and, across the shadowy dome, glared at me.
PART THREE
