They approached the small truck, weapons in hand, one officer on each side of the vehicle.
'Come out,' called one of the officers. 'Hands up.'
The bakery truck door opened, and the driver climbed out slowly.
Big Stevie had stopped the bleeding. He had sat in the back of his bread truck with the heat on, took off his T-shirt and pressed it against the wound in his right leg, the thick fleshy part above the knee. When he reached back he felt the exit wound. That was bleeding less but the hole was bigger. No bones were broken. He wrapped the T-shirt tightly.
He would have to abandon the truck. He would have to see a doctor or a nurse or something. Who knows what's going on inside? Could be internal bleeding, one of those embolisms, something. And he would need money to get out of town. Steven Guista's needs were great and he had only one place to go with them.
He drove, thought about taking the bridge to Manhattan, changed his mind, and headed to the neighborhood he knew best. The makeshift bandage was holding reasonably well but some blood was seeping through. He drove to an outdoor phone, in front of a twenty-four-hour grocery where he had stopped a few dozen times before. He parked and hobbled out of the truck.
'It's me,' he said when the woman answered. He gave her the number of the phone he was calling from. She hung up. He stood, shivering, light-headed, waiting, the lights of the grocery giving off no heat. She called back in ten minutes.
'Where are you?' she asked.
'Brooklyn,' he said. 'Went back to my place. Cop shot me.'
The pause was so long that Stevie asked, 'You there?'
'I'm here,' she said. 'How badly hurt are you?'
'Leg,' he said. 'I need a doctor.'
'I'll give you an address,' she said. 'Can you remember it?'
'I don't have a pencil, paper, anything,' he said.
'Then just keep saying it to yourself. Get rid of the truck. Take a cab.'
She gave him the name of a woman, Lynn Contranos, and an address. He repeated them to her.
'I'll call her and tell her you're coming.'
The woman hung up. Stevie pulled change out of his pocket, dialed information for a car service number, made the call, and waited. While he waited he almost sang the name of the woman he was supposed to see, Lynn Contranos.
His birthday was only a few hours from ending. He didn't want to think about it. His pants were sticking to his leg now, the blood freezing.
He kept repeating the mantra as he waited, didn't think beyond going to that address. One thing at a time and maybe he would come out of this.
There was no car fifteen minutes later, and Big Stevie got back in the bread truck, turned on the heat and waited, watching the curb for the arrival of the car.
If it doesn't get here in ten more minutes, I'm driving. He was having trouble remembering the name and address he was supposed to go to, but he kept repeating them as he waited for the car that might never come.
Mac sat in his living room in the worn brown chair with the matching ottoman. His wife had indulged him. He had loved the chair, was still drawn to it, but the love was gone. It was just a place to sit and work or watch a ball game or a dog show or an old movie.
Tonight, clad in a clean gray sweat suit, it was work. On the slightly scratched, inlaid wooden table by his side stood two piles of books, new, fresh smelling, and twenty-seven neatly typed pages of paper clipped together. On a small cutting board no larger than one of the books rested a mug of coffee he had just microwaved.
There was also a stack of book reviews, old and new, he had printed from the Internet.
It was just before ten.
He had the books by Louisa Cormier arranged in chronological order. Her first book was titled
Mac took a sip of coffee. It wasn't hot enough, but he didn't want to get up, go to the kitchen and go through the microwaving process again. He drank a little deeper and hoped he found the work of Louisa Cormier interesting.
Before he could open the first book, the phone rang.
It was a little after ten at night. Stella was looking over Danny's shoulder as he constructed the image on the computer screen in the lab.
Stella's eyes burned. She no longer doubted that she was coming down with something. Something was definitely causing her sinuses to fill, her eyes to water, and her throat to tickle. She tried to ignore it.
The image on the screen looked like something out of one of those computer generated games advertised on television, the ones in which people, who didn't look all that much like people, slaughtered each other with noisy weapons, vicious kicks, and painful sounds.
On the screen was a computer-generated brick wall. There was a single window in the wall.
'How high above the bathroom window was the window to Guista's hotel room?' he asked.
'Twelve feet,' Stella answered.
Danny's fingers played the keys and moved the mouse until the image scrolled down. A second window suddenly appeared.
'Reduce it so we can see both windows,' Stella said.
Danny did it. One window was now directly above the other.
'It was night,' she reminded him.
Danny created night.
'Was the bathroom light on?' he asked.
Stella pulled out her notes and a small packet of tissues. She flipped through the notes and said, 'She slept with the bathroom light on.'
'Bathroom light on,' Danny said.
And a light yellow glow appeared in the lower window.
'Now the chain from Guista's room to the bathroom,' Stella said wiping her nose.
'Chains, chains, chains, chains,' Danny said pushing his glasses back on his nose and searching. 'Here. Pick a chain.'
He scrolled down.
'This one's close to the one he used,' Danny said.
'Can you make it hang from Guista's window down to the bathroom?' Stella asked.
'You are definitely coming down with something,' he said.
'If he used the chain to lower someone,' she said, instead of responding to his comment, 'the person would have to be small, brave, and hope that the bathroom window was open.'
'Or know that it was open,' Danny said.
'Can you put a person at the end of the chain?'
A figure, male, dressed like a ninja, appeared.
'Make him smaller,' she said.
