TWENTY-SEVEN
He was flying. At first, he thought it was beautiful. He could feel the onrush of air sweeping over his body, whipping at his outstretched hands and bare feet. He could see over the rooftops, out into blue sky, all the way to the river, and down onto roof gardens with their splashes of early summer colors, yellow and purple and pink. And there were quick glimpses into windows as they flashed by: TV sets blinking, food being cooked, life, thought to be hidden, suddenly revealed.
Best of all, it was exquisitely quiet. Eerily, wonderfully silent.
He didn't understand what was happening. Didn't know how he could have such power. All he knew was that it was magical. Everything was moving so slowly. A soft haze enveloped the entire world. It all seemed so unreal.
And then it wasn't beautiful.
And it wasn't unreal.
And he wasn't flying. He was falling.
He remembered suddenly. Just a flash of remembering. Someone in his apartment. Leading him outside. He remembered words. Just a few words…
I love you…
Things were moving faster now. There were no more glorious rooftops, only the drab sides of buildings with their pockmarked bricks and scarred concrete blocks. The wind cut into his eyes, blinding him so he could no longer see into people's secret worlds. His hands and feet were not outstretched, they were clawing, reaching upward, trying desperately and illogically to reverse what couldn't be reversed.
More words came into his head. Standing on the balcony. Looking out…
Why don't you love me?
Everything was even faster. And faster still. Out of control. Spinning. Faster and faster and faster.
Whose voice was it?
I love you…
Why don't you love me?
Sounds blared, overwhelming him: horns honking, tires screeching, dogs barking. People yelling. Someone screaming. A painful, terrible scream that filled the air, swept over the city. A siren of death.
It was his scream. Louder and more terrible as the pavement below swept up to greet him, as a passing couple scrambled to get out of the way, as a car swerved, knocking over metal garbage cans. As his flight ended and his teeth were jarred from his body and his nose flattened, then splattered on the cement. As his skull splintered and bones in his arms and legs and hip and back cracked and shattered.
The screaming stopped.
For a moment, there was quiet.
And then a new summer color was added, a bright and savage red, which spread over the dirty gray New York City sidewalk beneath him, then flowed into the gutter and streamed quickly onto the newly poured patches of ragged black tar on the street.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Latrell Sprewell scored his twelfth point of the fourth quarter, a beautiful spin move under the basket, followed by a soft little jumper from maybe five feet away, over the outstretched fingertips of Jalen Rose. The crowd went wild and Sprewell raised a fist, pumped it in excitement, and the Knicks took their biggest lead of the night, eight points.
Normally, there was no place Jack Keller would rather be than at Madison Square Garden during a Knicks play- off game. Especially in his second-row seats, in the corner, right under the home-team basket. He loved the crowd's electricity and the Scoreboard's computerized graphics, the Knicks City Dancers, and most of all the game itself. Tonight, especially, Jack should have been in heaven. His beloved team was hounding and containing Reggie Miller, Sprewell was slashing to the basket as only he could and his outside shot was on, and while the game had been close the whole time, the Knicks led from the very beginning. They had that look to them: the look of winners. But when the final buzzer sounded and the game was over, 103-98 Knicks – now they were on their way to L.A. to meet the Lakers in the finals – Jack was not a part of the ecstasy and hysteria around him. He barely noticed Allan Houston running around the court, the ball held high over his head. He never saw Spree slapping five with the courtsiders and he barely heard his longtime cronies and fellow lunatic fans – season ticket holders, ushers, vendors – congratulating him or felt them pummeling him on the back. All around him, people were hugging and screaming but Jack was still staring at the empty seat beside him, the seat that had never been filled during the course of the game. So as the crowd stood and yelled for the players to come back and share the celebration, Jack rushed out of the arena, raced onto Eighth Avenue, yanked his cell phone out of his pocket, and, huddling against the deafening noise that was even spilling out into the street, dialed.
He was pissed.
Jack did not like irresponsibility. He did not like wasting a Knicks ticket. And he especially did not like being stood up.
He'd called twice during the game. Once after the first quarter, once at the half. Both times he'd heard the same recording; neither time did he leave a message. Now, his third call of the night, the phone picked up and the machine offered the same apology: 'Hey, it's Kid. Sorry I'm not available right now but I'll be checking in, so if you leave your name and number I'll call you back as soon as I can. Bye-bye.'
This time, Jack spoke: 'It's Jack, Kid, and you are in deep shit. You'd better have a damn good excuse for not showing up. Damn good. I'll be home in a little while. Call me whenever you get in.' He hesitated and then, out of spite, added, 'Great celebration. Thanks.' He pressed the 'Okay' button, disconnecting the call. Then he shook his head, muttered a fierce 'Shit' to himself, and didn't even hear the fan to his right taunt, 'Hey, what's the matter? Indiana fan?'
Jack shoved his phone back into his front pants pocket and started walking briskly uptown. He walked about twenty blocks before his legs started feeling tired. By then he was far enough away from the Garden to hail a cab. Ten minutes later he was saying a curt, distracted hello to Ramon, the doorman, another Knicks fan. By then, Jack was too busy being angry and wondering what the hell could possibly have happened to notice that there was someone watching him.
The someone was across the street, standing in the shadow of the small birch tree on the corner. It was someone who had been waiting for him to come home. And was prepared to wait as long as necessary.
Someone who had been waiting a long, long time for what was about to happen.
TWENTY-NINE
Patience McCoy had had a lot of bad nights over the past twelve years. There was the night that Carmen Maria Mendez, a perfectly harmless transvestite whose real name was Alonso Jorge Mendez, had managed to get her/his testicles sliced off and stuffed into her/his mouth. McCoy had responded to the call with her partner, a rookie named Johnny Johnson, a big tough white boy, and when they arrived under the highway at the scene of the crime, Johnny took one look at his first murder victim and puked all over the body.
That was bad.
It wasn't a great night either when she'd responded to a phone call from an executive at a small brokerage company down on Wall Street, Pettit and Bandier, who said that a dissatisfied client was in the office waving a gun, threatening to kill everyone who'd been involved in his latest trade, which had lost him $265,000. By the time McCoy got there, the client had become even more dissatisfied. He'd shot four brokers, killing three and wounding one seriously in the back of the right shoulder, before turning the gun on himself and blowing his brains out.
Oh, yeah. She couldn't forget the time they were shooting a TV series, a cop show, down on Hudson in front of
