him.
She couldn't run another step. She jumped out of the snowplow's path, threw herself into a snowdrift at the curb, and dolphined under the surface of the cold powder.
* * *
'Fuck!' Bogosian shouted from the sidewalk. He watched the snowplow roll down the street toward the center of the city. The bitch was nowhere in sight, even if he could see that far. He couldn't go after her. There'd be people there for sure, emergency crews, and he had blood all over his shirt from the guards. Bobby wasn't about to risk his ass.
'Fuck!' he yelled into the storm. He spun around on his heels. He broke a sweat even though it was zero fuckin' degrees. Bogosian felt like he was all closed in, like he was back in the joint. He couldn't move, he couldn't breathe. The fuckin' noise from the radios. The fuckin' niggers with the do-rags. The stink.
'Fuck!' he shouted louder, but it only made him madder. He was all tensed up. He felt like a big giant coil ready to come unsprung. Like a cork that needed to pop. He wanted to scream. He wanted to kill. He wanted to come. Blood filled up his muscles, his dick. He heard himself yelling again and rammed his fist into the thick concrete wall of a bank.
Once, then again. He didn't even feel the pain. He hit it again and again until the skin on his knuckles split open and blood gushed out. Then he felt everything. Pain exploded in his hand. Heat came out of his own blood. Skin crawled all over his body.
Bogosian could take pain. He could take any pain. He drew his hand back and stared at his bloody fist like it belonged to somebody else. He remembered how his sister would cut herself. A straightedge razor that made little baby slices on her thighs and arms. All in a row, like lines of coke. Dumb bitch. They were all dumb bitches. The one up the street and the other two. The young ones from the law office, going to the Twenty-fifth Street Bridge. Bobby knew what that meant. Grays Ferry, where Steere had popped that nigger.
He slumped against the building, suddenly exhausted. The snowplow and the other trucks were gone. The street was quiet. Bobby hid his face against the building. The concrete scratched his forehead. Snowflakes collected on his shoulders and fell in his collar. He didn't want to tell Steere he fucked up. He never fucked up before. He had to make it right, then he'd call.
Bobby stood up and tried to button his jacket to cover the blood, but his beat-up hand wasn't working. He was a stupid fuck to mess it up like that. He'd have to score a new shirt. Now where the fuck was he gonna get that? Motherfuck! Everything was fucked up! It was all that bitch's fault. She'd pay for it.
Bobby had to get it going again. He'd find her and the other ones, too. He might have to call Gyro, but that was okay. Gyro could help out, he was a meat-eater. Gyro would cut big time into his profit margin, but Bobby had to get the job done. That's what it meant to be a professional. Bobby closed his jacket and lurched into the snow.
18
Marta yanked the ratty curtain closed and flopped onto the plastic seat of the photo booth. Woolworth's was the only open store on Chestnut Street and it smelled simultaneously of disinfectant and dirt. Her pulse thudded, her chest heaved. Each breath was agonizing, and Marta inhaled to slow her breathing and ease the pain. She slumped in the booth like a boxer in his corner.
There was no noise outside the booth, and Marta suspected she was the only person in the store except for the salesclerks in their red smocks, two of whom she'd run into as she was coming in. The store would be closing in ten minutes, they told her, wide-eyed at her bedraggled appearance. She'd explained by saying she'd gotten caught in the storm. In a way, she had.
Marta's breathing returned to normal and the rib pain subsided slightly. She sat up and rested her back against the wall of the booth. PHOTO ILLUSIONS, read the sign in front of her. Underneath the sign was a TV monitor, and across the screen flickered a sampling of the photos offered with hokey cutouts: YOU with the President! YOU on a dollar bill! YOU wanted by the FBI!
Marta's gaze fell on a mirror framed with a fake wood. YOU with ELVIS THE SNOWPLOW! She looked away, purposefully avoiding her reflection. She didn't need a mirror to know what she looked like. Her hair stuck to her face in soaked strands and her skin was mottled with exertion, every wrinkle boldface with anxiety. Her suit was wet and hung in rags, but at least she was alive. She had escaped Bogosian. It was a miracle. Then she thought about the security guards, who hadn't been so lucky. They had families, unlike Marta. Who would have missed her if she'd been killed?
It caught her up short. The answer was clear. Nobody. Marta had no family left and wasn't seeing anyone who mattered. She loved no one; she supported no one. Not a soul depended on her except maybe her office personnel, who would find other jobs in a blink. They weren't exactly well paid. And they certainly wouldn't miss her. Once she'd overheard her secretary wishing her dead.
Marta squirmed on the hard seat. She bucked up as she always did, by calling on her inner resume. After all, she was one of the country's premier criminal defense attorneys. Past chair of the Criminal Justice Committee of the ABA, member of Trial Lawyers of America, guest lecturer and legal commentator. In other words, a highly retained pain in the ass. A bitch with a tax bracket that just wouldn't quit. Suddenly it didn't seem like much to have accomplished.
Marta used to think she had come so far. Escaped the Maine woods, gotten herself to law school and beyond. Put a country between herself and a woman who for years took her into car after strange car with the same dangerous lie.
Marta knows the men don't believe the lie even as they give her mother the money and drop them at the train station, where mother and daughter wait five minutes and go right back out to the highway. Marta knows that the men give the money because of her; she's the prop, the token. An exhibit, even then. The only time there's trouble is the blue station wagon and after that, it stops. After that her mother goes out alone to the highway. And after a time, is gone longer.
Marta shook it off. It was past. It was over. Why did it keep coming back up? Why now? Her thoughts were mixed up, her world out of kilter. She wiped the bangs off her damp brow. She should be in the present, happy to be among the living. How many dead had there been, and why? Would she be the next one? No time to feel sorry for herself. She had to keep moving. Bogosian could still be after her. She still had the jury to beat and Woolworth's would be closing any minute. Marta stood up, brushed snow from her wet suit, and peeked out of the photo booth's curtain.
No Bogosian and no customers. The store was well lit and empty. Steel bins overflowed with cosmetics, hairbrushes, and rubber boots. Potato chips, spiral notebooks, and discounted videos stocked the shelves. Hot dogs rolled on a greasy rotisserie next to racks of women's shoes and winter coats. Marta hoisted her sopping purse to
