Just then, a massive black SUV appeared at the top of the block. Its headlights, resting high atop the huge grill, cast a wide beam down the street.
“Jesus,” I whispered.
I sidled up against an unlit storefront, beneath an awning, as the SUV began to move slowly down the street. Then, inching along, I rolled myself around a corner and found myself in a three-foot-wide alley directly across the street from Brentwood’s. The SUV glided past, as if moving through a tall, narrow frame. I poked my head out, watched as it went up the street, turned right at the next corner, and disappeared.
I got out my cell and tried Lawrence’s cell again. Even before he’d finished his short message, I was shouting, but in a whispering kind of way, into my phone: “Man, you gotta get here! It’s going down! The bad guys are here! They’ve just gone by once and I think they’re coming around again! I’m in an alley right across the street! Where the hell are you?”
I hit the button to end my call. Even in the cool night air, I felt myself breaking into a sweat.
The cops, I thought, maybe I should call the cops. Get them out here fast, because I had a feeling, I just had a feeling that the next time these guys came around in that Annihilator they’d-
I heard the roar of the engine for only a second, then a huge crash. The sound of shattering glass and crumbling brick and twisting metal.
I looked across the street and saw the tail end of the Annihilator. The front of it was, literally, in Brentwood’s. The two back doors of the SUV flung open and two men dressed entirely in black, with black hoods or ski masks pulled down over their heads, were leaping out and charging through the destroyed storefront. The Annihilator was already backing out, then screeching to a halt, turning around and backing up to the shattered window. The rear tailgate rose automatically, and in the time it had taken for the driver to conduct this maneuver, the two guys inside had evidently cleared several racks of suits and were throwing them into the back of the SUV, then leaping back into the still-open rear doors, and now the Annihilator was back in gear and screeching up Garvin.
In another few seconds, the only sound was the alarm system, wailing irrelevantly, from inside Brentwood’s.
“Lawrence,” I said softly under my breath, “where the fuck are you, man?”
17
I GOT OUT MY CELL and called 911 first.
“I’m calling to report a robbery,” I said.
“You’ve been robbed, sir?”
“No, I’ve witnessed a robbery.” I told her the name of the store, its location, and that a huge black SUV with at least three guys in it was screaming away from the scene. “A black Annihilator, couldn’t make out the plate, but it’s heading east.”
“What is your name, sir?”
I ended the call. I knew they’d have my name sooner or later. Their call display system would have my number, and a check with my cell service would turn up my name. I’d be happy to talk to them-later.
I began running back, through the light rain, in the direction of the doughnut shop, to pick up my car and figure out what I should do next. What I didn’t want to do, right now, was hang around at the scene, and be kept there all night by cops asking a lot of questions.
Not one to give up, I tried Lawrence’s numbers again. As long as I’d had cell phones, I’d never figured out how to program in my most frequently called numbers. And I was learning right now that it was impossible to tap in numbers on a tiny keypad while jogging, so I stopped long enough, under the shelter of another store awning, to call. Still no answer at either number.
I decided, once I was back to the car, that I would go to Lawrence’s apartment and try to find him there.
As I approached the doughnut shop, winded and damp, I could see that there was still no Buick there, but a taxi had pulled in next to my Virtue. I got out my key, slipped into the car, and turned the ignition.
“Shitfuckdamn!” I shouted, banging my fist into the steering wheel. I tried it again, then again, without success.
I went into the shop. There were customers at only three tables. A man and two boys in soccer jerseys, evidently coming home from a late game or practice, sat at one, a young man and woman whispering to one another were at another, and at the third, a fat, unshaven guy in a Celtics sweatshirt. He was drinking coffee from a paper cup, hovered, pencil in hand, over the crossword puzzle from
“That your cab?” I asked.
He chewed slowly on his fritter, barely looking up from his paper. “Yeah.”
“I need you to take me someplace.”
“I’ll just be a couple of minutes.”
I breathed in and out twice. “It’s kind of an emergency.”
“I tell ya what,” he said. “Answer me this. Five-letter word, last letter ‘h,’ and the clue is ‘Luke’s pa.’ You tell me what that is, we leave right now.”
“Darth,” I said.
The cabby cocked his head, pursed his lips in surprise. He studied the puzzle. “Shit, I think that’s it. Oh yeah, right, Luke Skywalker’s daddy. I shoulda been able to get that, but you know, sometimes, it’s just not there.” He penciled in the answer I’d given him.
“Yeah.”
“Okay, where you headed?”
I told him, and he snapped the plastic lid back onto his coffee, then folded back the opening that would allow him to drink it while he drove. It was about a ten-minute ride, and my driver tried to engage me in conversation about some trades in the NHL, but my mind was elsewhere, and he quickly gave up.
We pulled up in front of the address from Lawrence’s card, which turned out to be a single door fronting onto a sidewalk in a business district, sandwiched between a hairstyling place and a cheese store. Lawrence’s apartment had to be over one of the shops.
“Stay here,” I said, handing the cabby a twenty.
“No problem,” he said. “I’ll work on my puzzle, save the hard ones for you when you get back.”
I got out of the back of the cab and rang the buzzer next to the door. I leaned on it for several seconds and then, after getting no answer, tried to open it myself. It was locked. I went back to the cabby and said, “Don’t go anywhere. I’m going round back, see if his car’s here.”
I ran to the corner and down the cross street until I had reached the lane and parking lots behind the row of shops. When I figured I was behind the cheese store and beauty parlor, I looked for some familiar vehicles and spotted them right away. There was Lawrence’s Jaguar and, parked next to it, his old Buick, rear window replaced. Both cars were locked and no one was inside either one of them, at least as far as I could tell. I couldn’t exactly open the trunks.
That gives you an idea of how my mind was working. I was expecting to find something bad. There are times when you just know.
There was a fire escape at the back of the shops, and I mounted it as quickly as I could, which wasn’t very fast. It was steep, and narrow, and the metal steps were slippery from the drizzle that continued to come down. I gripped the metal handrail to steady myself on the way up to the second floor, where there was a small landing outside a door. The window in the door was covered with a blind that kept me from seeing inside.
I knocked. I waited about ten seconds, then tried the door. It was unlocked.
I eased the door open, ran my hand up alongside the wall just inside, hunting for a light switch. I found one and flicked it up. “Lawrence?” I was pretty sure I was in the apartment that also connected to the door that led in off the street. “Hey, Lawrence! It’s Zack. You home?”
I eased the door open wider, stepped in, and closed it behind me. The door to the fire escape was off the kitchen, which was compact and immaculate. The appliances appeared to date back to the late fifties, but looked
