Manhattan Is My Beat

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The way he fell is what saved Rune.

The gun was small but the impact knocked Symington backward and he slammed into the pole of the floor lamp, which fell against the bathroom door, sending a shower of glass into the hallway.

Emily danced out of the way of the splinters, which gave Rune a chance to sprint into the bedroom. But the woman recovered fast. She fired the gun again and Rune heard a terrible stereo sound of noises: the blasts of the gun behind her, the crash of the bullets slamming into the plaster wall inches from her head.

Then-with another punch of breathtaking pain- she dove through the bedroom window.

Hands covering her face, shards of glass flying around her, trailing the window shade, she rolled onto more sad evergreens and dropped onto the grass, coming to rest against one of the plaster dwarfs. Panting, she lay on the lawn. The smell of dirt and damp grass enveloped her. She could hear birds squabbling in the trees overhead.

And then the air around her exploded. A dwarfs face disintegrated into white splinters and dust. On the street, fifty feet away, Rune caught a glimpse of a man with shotgun. She couldn't see his face but she knew it was Pretty Boy-Heart probably, the one Symington mentioned. Or Heart's partner. He and Emily were working together… She didn't know who they were exactly or why they wanted to kill Symington but she didn't pause to consider those questions. She rolled under another plant, then scrabbled to her feet. Clutching her purse, she sprinted into the backyard. Then clambered over the chain-link fence.

And then she ran.

Behind her, from Symington's yard, came a shout. A second shotgun blast. She heard the hiss of something over her head. It missed and she turned, down an alley. Kept running.

Running until her vision blurred. Running until her chest ignited and she couldn't breathe another ounce of air.

Finally, miles away it seemed, Rune stopped, gasping. She doubled over. Sure she was going to be sick. But she spit into the grass a few times and remained motionless until the nausea and pain went away. She trotted another block but pulled up with a cramp in her side. She slipped into another backyard-behind a house with boarded-up windows. She crawled into a nest of grass between a smiling Bambi and another set of the Seven Dwarfs, then lay her head on her purse, thinking she'd rest for ten, fifteen minutes.

When she opened her eyes a huge garbage truck was making its mournful, behemoth sounds five feet away from her. And it was dawn.

They'd be watching for her.

Maybe at the Midtown Tunnel, maybe at a subway stop. Emily and Pretty Boy. And not just them. A dozen others. She saw them all now-Them with a capital T. Walking down the streets of Brooklyn on this clear, cool spring morning. Faces glancing at her, knowing that she was a witness. Knowing that she and her friends were about to die-to be laid out like Robert Kelly, like Victor Symington.

They were all after her.

She was hitching her way back to Manhattan, back to the Side. She'd thumbed a ride with a delivery van, the driver a wild-eyed Puerto Rican with a wispy goatee who swore at the traffic with incredible passion and made it to the Brooklyn Bridge, a drive that should have taken three-fourths of an hour at this time of day, in fifteen minutes.

He apologized profusely that he couldn't take her into Manhattan itself.

And then she ran once more.

Over the wooden walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge, back into the city, which was just starting to come to life. Traffic hissed beneath her; the muted horns of the taxis sounded like animals lowing. She paused halfway across to rest, leaning against the railing. The young professionals walked past-wearing running shoes with their suits and dresses-on their way to Wall Street from Brooklyn Heights.

What the hell had she been thinking of?

Quests? Adventures?

Knights and wizards and damsels?

No, she thought bitterly. These were the people who lived in the Magic Kingdom: lawyers and secretaries and accountants and deliverymen. It wasn't a magic place at all; it was just a big, teeming city filled with good people and bad people.

That's all. Just a city. Just people.

It's a factory, Rune. There's shit and pollution. It mahes a living for people and they pay taxes and give money to charity and buy sneakers for their children. Who grow up to be lawyers or teachers or musicians or people who work in other factories. It's nothing more than that.

Once over the bridge she walked north toward the courthouses, past City Hall, staring up at the twisty gothic building-the north face made of cheap stone, not marble, because no one ever thought the city would spread north of the Wall Street district. Then into Chinatown and up through SoHo to Washington Square Park.

Which, even this early, was a zoo. A medieval carnival. Jugglers, unicyclists, skateboard acrobats, kids slamming on guitars so cheap they were just rhythm instruments. She sat down on a bench, ignoring a tall Senegalese selling knockoff Rolexes, ignoring a beefy white teenager chanting, "Hash, hash, sens, sens, smoke it up, sens." Women in designer jogging outfits rolled their expensive buggies of infant lawyers-to-be past dealers and stoned-out vets. It was Greenwich Village.

Rune sat for an hour. Once, some vague resolve coalesced in her and she stood up. But it vanished swiftly and she sat down again, closed her eyes, and let the hot sun fall on her face.

Who were they? Emily? Pretty Boy?

Where was the money?

She fell asleep again-until a Frisbee skimmed her head and startled her awake. She looked around, in panic, struggling to remember where she was, how she'd gotten there. She asked a woman the time. Noon. It seemed that a dozen people were staring at her suspiciously. She stood and walked quickly through the grass, north through the white, stone arch, a miniature Arc de Triomphe.

They were old films, both of them.

One was She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, the John Wayne cavalry flick. It was playing now. Rune didn't notice what the other one was. Maybe The Searcher or Red River. Yellow Ribbon was showing when she sat down. The seats in the old theater on Twelfth Street were stiff-thin padding under crushed fabric upholstery. There were only fifteen or so people in the revival house, which didn't surprise her-the only time this place had ever been crowded was on Saturday night and when they were showing selections from the New York Erotic Film Festival.

Watching the screen.

She knew the old John Ford-directed western cold. She'd seen it six times. But today, it seemed to her to be just a series of disjointed images. Salty old Victor McLaglen, the distinguished graying Wayne, the intensified hues of the forty-year-old Technicolor film, the shoulder-punching innocent humor of the blue-bloused horse soldiers…

But today the movie made no sense to her. It was disconnected images of men and women walking around on a huge rectangle of white screen, fifty feet in front of her. They spoke funny words, they wore odd clothing, they played into staged climaxes. It was all choreographed and it was all fake.

Her anger built. Anger at the two dimensions of the film. The falsity, the illusion. She felt betrayed. Not only by Emily Symington or whoever she was, not only by what had happened in Brooklyn, but by something else. Something more fundamental about how she lived her life, about how the things she believed in had turned on her.

She stood and left the theater. Outside, she bought a pair of thick-rimmed dark glasses from a street vendor and put them on. She turned the corner and walked down University Place to Washington Square Video.

Tony fired her, of course.

His words weren't cute or sarcastic or obnoxious like she'd thought he'd be. He just glanced up and said, "You missed two shifts and you didn't call. You're fired. This time for real."

But she didn't pay him much attention. She was staring at the newspaper on the counter, lying in front of Tony.

The headline: Mafia Witness Hit.

Which didn't get her attention as quickly as the photo did: a grainy flashlit shot of Victor Symington's town house in Brooklyn, the six surviving dwarfs, the shattered window. Rune grabbed the paper.

"Hey," Tony snapped. "I'm reading that." One look at her eyes, though, and he stopped protesting.

A convicted syndicate money launderer who had been a key witness in a series of Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) trials of midwest crime leaders earlier this year was shot to death yesterday in a gangland-style hit in Brooklyn.

Vincent Spinello, 70, was killed by gunshots to the chest. A witness, who asked not to be identified, reported that a young woman with short hair fled from the scene and is a primary suspect in the case.

Another witness in the same series of cases, Arnold Gittleman, was murdered, along with two U.S. marshals, in a St. Louis hotel last month.

The paper crumpled in her hands. Me! she thought. That's me, the young woman with short hair.

She used me! Emily. The bitch used me. She knew all along where Symington was and got me out there to make it look like I killed him.

And, hell, my fingerprints're all over the place!

Primary suspect…

Tony snatched the newspaper away from her. "You can pick up your check on Monday."

"Please, Tony," she said. "I need money now. Can't I get cash?"

"No fucking way."

"I've got to get out of town."

"Monday," he said. Returned to his paper.

"Look, I've got a check for fifteen hundred bucks. Give me a thousand and I'll sign it over to you."

"Yeah, like you've got a check that's going to clear. I'm sure."

"Tony! It's payable to cash. From a law firm."

"Out."

Frankie Greek stuck his head out of the storeroom and said, "Hey, Rune, like, you got a couple calls. This cop, Manelli. And that U.S. marshal guy. Dixon. Oh, and Stephanie too."

Tony barked, "But don't call 'em from here. Use the pay phone outside."

Stephanie! Rune thought. If they'd been following me, they've seen me with her.

Oh, Jesus Mary, she's in danger too.

She ran back to the counter and swept the phone off the cradle. Tony started to say something but then seemed to decide that it wasn't worth fighting the battle; after all, he'd won the war. He turned on his worn heel and retreated to the other counter, carrying the newspaper.

Stephanie's groggy voice finally answered.

"Rune! Where've you been? You missed work last night. Tony's really pissed-"

"Steph, listen to me." Her voice was raw. "They murdered that man I was trying to find, Symington, they're trying to make it look like I did it."

"What?"

"And they tried to kill me!"

"Who?"

"I don't know. They work for the Mafia or something. I think they might've seen you too."

"Rune, are you making this up? Is this one of your fantasies?"

"No! I'm serious."

Several customers glanced at her. She felt a shiver of fear. She cupped her hand over the receiver and lowered her voice. "Look on the front page of the Post. The story's there."

"You have to call the police."

"I can't. My fingerprints're all over the house where Symington got killed. I'm a suspect."

"Jesus, Rune. What a mess."

"I'm going back to Ohio."

"When? Now?"

"As soon as I can get some money. Tony won't pay me."

"Prick," Stephanie spat out. "I can lend you some."

"I can give you a check for fifteen hundred."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, it's payable to cash. You can have it. But, listen, you have to come with me!"

"Come with you?" Stephanie asked. "Where?"

"To Ohio."

"No way. I've got an audition next week."

"Stephanie…"

"I'll get you a couple of hundred. I'll stop at the bank. Where'll you be?"

"How 'bout Union Square Park? The subway entrance, southeast side."

"Okay. Good. A half hour."

"Is it safe?" Stephanie asked cautiously.

"Pretty safe."

A pause. "I don't want to get beat up or anything. I bruise real easy. And I can't be bruised for my audition."

As she stepped into the street, Rune heard the man's voice right beside her.

"You're a hard person to find."

Panicked, Rune spun around.

Richard was leaning on a parking meter. The yuppie in him had been exorcized; Mr. Downtown was back. He wore boots, black jeans, and a black T-shirt. He also wore a gold hoop in his ear. She noticed that it was a clip-on. He looked tired.

"You have," he continued, "as FDR said, a passion for anonymity. I called you at the store a couple of times. I was worried about you."

"I haven't been in for a while."

"There was this party last night. I thought you might want to go."

"You didn't ask… what's her name? Cathy the Amazon?"

"Karen." He held on to the parking meter and spiraled around it slowly. "We've only had dinner that once. Don't worry about her. We're not going out."

"That's your business. I don't care."

"Don't act so possessive."

"How can I be acting possessive if I tell you I don't care what you do with Cathy/Karen?"

"What's wrong?" He was frowning. Following her eyes to the short, dark-complected man with curly hair standing two doors away. His back was to them.

Rune inhaled with a frightened hiss. The man turned and walked past them. It wasn't Pretty Boy.

She turned back to Richard, trying to focus on him, though what she was seeing was the stupid grin of the plaster statue of Dopey or Sneezy as it disintegrated under the shotgun blast. The gun had been astonishingly loud. Sounded more like a bomb going off.

Richard took her by the shoulders. "Rune, aren't you listening to me? What's wrong?"

She backed away, eyes narrowing slowly. "Leave me alone."

"What?"

"Stay away from me. Do you want to get hurt? I'm poison. Stay away."

"What are you talking about?" He reached out and took her hand.

"No, no!" she shouted. The tears started. She hesitated, then hugged him. "Get away from me!

Forget about me! Forget you ever met me!"

She turned and ran through the crowds of Greenwich Village toward Union Square.

Waiting under the art-deco steel entrance to the subway, Rune slouched against the cool tile.

She absently watched a crane, a lopsided T-shaped structure rising above an enormous new housing project on Union Square. It's just a crane, she told herself. That's all it was. Not a tool of the gods, not a huge skeleton of a magic animal. What she. saw was just a construction crane. Moving slowly, under the control of a faceless union worker, lifting steel reinforcing rods for workmen in dusty jeans and jackets to install.

Magic… hell.

She thought again about calling Manelli or Dixon.

But why should they believe her? There was probably an all-points bulletin out on her already, just like there'd been for Roy the cop after he'd stolen the loot in Manhattan Is My Beat. At least she'd had the foresight to get rid of some of the evidence: When she'd stopped by her loft to pick up the check, she'd realized she still had Spinello's accordion envelope and thrown it into the trash. If the cops found her with that, it'd be a sure conviction.

No, she'd leave town, leave the Side, leave the Magic Kingdom. Go back home. Get a job. Go to school.

Well, it was damn well about time.

Time to grow up. Forget quests…

She saw Stephanie, her reddish hair glowing in the afternoon sun as she walked through the park. They waved at each other. It seemed ridiculously innocent, Rune thought, as if they were girlfriends meeting for drinks after work to complain about bosses and men and mothers.

Rune looked around, saw no one suspicious-well, no one more suspicious than you'd normally see in Union Square Park-then joined Stephanie.

"You're hurt." The woman glanced at her forehead, where Rune had been cut by a piece of glass or plaster.

"It's okay."

"What happened?"

Rune told her.

"God! You have to go to the police. You can talk to them. Tell them what happened."

"Yeah, right. They can place me at two different crime scenes. I'm the number one suspect."

"But won't the cops find you in Ohio?"

She gave a faint smile. "They might-if they knew my real name. Which they don't."

Stephanie smiled back. "True. Oh, here." She handed

Rune a wad of bills. "It's about three hundred. That enough?"

Rune hugged her. "I don't know what to say." She gave Stephanie the check.

"No, no, this is too much."

"Little Red Hen, remember? I just need enough to get home on. You keep the rest. Tony'll probably fire you too. Just for helping me."

"Come on," Stephanie told her. "I'll help you pack and take you to the airport." They started down into the subway. "You think it's safe to go back to your loft?"

"Emily and Pretty Boy don't know about it. Manelli and that U.S. marshal do, but we can sneak in through the construction site. Nobody'll see us. We can-"

A chill like ice down her back. She gasped.

Ten feet away Pretty Boy stepped out from behind a pillar, holding a black pistol. "Don't fucking move," he muttered to Rune.

Anger on his face, he moved forward toward Rune, not paying any attention to Stephanie. Apparently he didn't even think they were together.

Rune froze. But Stephanie didn't.

She stepped past him fast, which caught him completely off guard. Screaming "Rape, rape!" she shoved her palm, fingers stiff and splayed, into his face. His head snapped back and he staggered against the wall, blood pouring from his nose.

"Fuck," he cried.

Her self-defense class…

Stephanie stepped toward him again. It looked like she was going to kick him this time.

But Pretty Boy was good too; he knew what he was doing. He didn't try to fight back. He leapt to the side about three steps, out of range, wiped the blood from his mouth and started to raise the pistol toward her.

Then the arm closed around his neck.

A passenger-a huge black man-had heard Stephanie's cry and had come up behind their attacker and locked his muscular arm around Pretty Boy's throat. Choking, he dropped the gun and grabbed the man's forearm, trying futilely to break the grip.

The big man behind him seemed to be enjoying the whole thing. He said cheerfully to Pretty Boy, "H'okay, asshole, leave th'ladies 'lone. You hear me?"

They ran.

Stephanie in the lead.

She must have belonged to a health club-she was moving like a greyhound. If Pretty Boy was there, Rune figured, Emily must be nearby too. Besides, the token seller would've called the cops by then; Rune wanted to get as far away from the station as possible.

Gasping, running. Following Stephanie as best she could.

They were two blocks from the subway when it happened.

At Thirteenth and Broadway a taxi jumped a red light just before it changed.

Which was the exact moment Stephanie ran into the intersection between two double-parked trucks.

She didn't have a chance…

All she could do was roll onto the hood to keep from getting crushed under the wheels. The driver hit the brakes, which gave a low, wild scream, but still the cab hit her hard. Some part of her body-her face, Rune thought in despair-slammed into the windshield, which turned white with fractures. Stephanie cartwheeled onto the concrete, a swirl of floral cloth and red hair and white flesh.

"No!" Rune screamed.

Two women ran up and started tending to her. Rune dropped to her knees beside them. She hardly heard the litany of the cabdriver: "She ran through light, it wasn't my fault, it wasn't my fault."

Rune cradled Stephanie's bloody head in her arms.

"You'll be okay," she whispered. "You'll be okay. You'll be okay."

But Stephanie couldn't hear.