I hollered in Mandarin: ‘He stole my wallet!’ There are decided advantages to having parents who give you a nomadic, worldwide existence as a kid. I can produce a large selection of random utterances in two dozen languages. I knew that phrase because I’d had it yelled at me, more than once, in Beijing when I was fifteen. I got bored easily.
The vendor grabbed at Jack, who screamed: ‘He’s lying, he’s trying to kill me!’
Which story is more likely to be believed in New York?
The vendor closed his hold on Jack, who kicked away from him, landing an awkward punch on the man’s face. The old man fell back onto a stack of Bollywood epics that now spread on the asphalt like a fallen house of cards.
I was jumping over the table when Jack proved himself.
Next vendor over was a stir-fry stand and Jack seized the searing hot pot and flung it at me.
I twisted and ducked and the scalding grease and shreds of meat landed against my jacket, in my hair. Real, honest pain. I dusted the meaty napalm free from my head and shoulders and singed my palms and fingers in the process. Glops of grease bubbled the plastic cases of the DVDs. The vendor caught a small splatter of it on his arm and cried out in pain.
I gritted my teeth, finally free of the searing mess, and ran out the booth.
Jack was gone.
Fifteen seconds is a lifetime in an urban chase; that was about what I had lost. Run. Catch him. How hard could it be to kill a computer geek?
I saw him skid into a cross-street and grab a cab. He piled in the back and the cab roared forward. I reached the intersection, hurrying to its middle, trying to see the cab name and a number. A guy in a Ducati motorcycle nearly ran over me, yelling at me in furious Spanish as he barreled past. He called out unkind words about my mother.
I ran after him. The Ducati slowed for braking traffic; the cab was several cars ahead. I stayed three steps behind Mr Ducati, just past the corner of his eye, and as he came to a stop I introduced an elbow to his throat, between the shielding of the helmet he wore and his jacket.
When I hit, I don’t tickle. I hit hard. It’s a lot harder blow than I look like I can deliver. The guy was blocky and squat and he perched on the Ducati like it was a mobile throne. He’d mouthed off at me, the fool in the intersection, and then forgotten about me, his eyes looking ahead for the next obstacle.
I slammed him off the bike. He didn’t yell, he just went over and he made a choking noise. I knew he’d recover; I’d pulled the punch.
‘Manners,’ I said in Spanish. And I roared onto the sidewalk.
People screamed and parted out of my way. I could see the cab, four or five cars ahead of me, to the right. I was surrounded by witnesses but he was here. He was here and I had to make this work. The gun felt heavy at the back of my ruined suit jacket. I left it there.
I veered the Ducati hard, past a parked truck between me and his cab.
And saw the cab’s back door open, swinging as the cab braked. Jack had jumped somewhere along the street. He’d seen me pursuing him.
I scanned the crowd. Alleyways, streets, doors.
Then I saw him. Stumbling, running in the distance.
I powered the Ducati, cutting across the traffic.
He ran up the stairs in front of a hipsterish, modern-architecture brownstone that was all glass and cube. And I saw him pull a small gun awkwardly from his pocket.
The door opened and a young woman exited. Jack waved the gun in her face and she screamed and crouched, obeying his order. Then Jack vanished inside. The cowering woman kept the door propped open, frozen in fear.
I roared the bike up the stairs after him, through the open door. I wanted him scared. I wanted him panicked. I wanted him not stopping to aim at me.
He ran up the apartments’ stairs as I vroomed across the tile floor of the lobby. Eyes forward, intent on fleeing. Only glancing at me.
I braked with a foot, wheeled the Ducati in a circle with a deafening screech, and powered the bike up the sleek steel stairs, the motorcycle jittered and roared, not built for this punishment, but I rocketed it. The roar of the bike made him run and he was about to run out of road, so to speak. I spun on the landing, zoomed up the next flight. My spine felt like it was about to separate from my body.
He ran up the final flight. I followed, the engine huffing its protestations. He glanced back at me once, but because I hunkered down on the bike, when he shot, the bullet zoomed well past me. He was unnerved.
I needed him to stay that way if this was going to work.
I reached the landing and Jack ran hard down the hallway, in the direction of the street, toward a window- covered dead end.
Fear is a weird mistress. She can stop you dead and cripple you, or she can harden your heart with courage.
Jack Ming’s heart hardened in those last few seconds.
52
He spun and he fired, the blasts from the gun bright and heat-dizzying in the dim of the hallway.
I fell back off the bike and it roared forward the remaining few feet, straight toward him. He threw himself out of the way. The bike rocketed past him, smashing through the glass wall. It tipped out into the sudden glare of the day, and I distantly heard it crash three stories down onto the pavement.
For a second, lying on my side, time froze. Jack leveled the gun at me, face wrenched with shock and horror – I had nearly run him down with the motorcycle, and the gust of wind from the window ruffled his hair.
Now I could see every detail of his face. He was barely past being a kid. He fumbled at a door lock, the door marked with a red Exit sign. The knob wouldn’t move.
I groped at my back, my fingers searching, my ragged voice saying, ‘I’m sorry.’
But my gun was gone from my holster.
He stared at me as he worked the knob.
Oh, God, I must have lost it, either in the jump to the car or along the hallway when I skidded.
Then he fired the gun. But not at me. He shifted its aim, sent a bullet into the lock of the door marked STAIRS. The lock broke. He shoved the door open and he ran.
I lurched to my feet as he bolted through the door.
I followed. He hurried up a short stairway and then through a rooftop door he opened and then slammed shut.
On a rooftop I could be king, and Jack Ming had no chance.
I grabbed the doorknob as he tried to shut it. The door froze in our tug of war. Then the little gun appeared in the gap, close by my head.
I ducked. He fired. I let go.
The door slammed shut.
I counted to ten. Fifteen. The moment I opened the door he could shoot me in the head.
Twenty. I yanked open the door, just a bit.
I could hear, in the open air, the approaching whine of a police siren. This building would soon be swarming with New York’s finest and, if they caught me before I could reach Jack Ming, my son was dead.
I eased out onto the roof. I didn’t see him. Lots of places for him to hide: water tanks; AC units; vents. All he had to do was wait until the police showed. Maybe he’d surrender to them and they’d ferry him to August or Special Projects. Compared with the option of dying at my hands, he’d prefer the police.
The roof was quiet. The neighboring roofs were both a half-story higher; but I didn’t think he’d have had time to clamber up them. Then I saw him. Running. He had scrambled onto the roof next door, hunkered down for a moment, but I could see the top of his head, ducking back down. He’d risked a look. It was a bad risk.
