Gone Tomorrow

FIFTY

New York City. One o’clock in the morning. The best place and the worst place in the world to be hunted. The streets were still warm. Traffic was light. Whole ten second intervals went by with no cars on Madison. There were still people around. Some of them were asleep, in doorways or on benches. Some of them were walking, either purposefully or aimlessly. I took the aimless route. I chose 30th Street and crossed to Park, and then Lex. I was never trained in the art of staying invisible. They picked smaller guys for that. The normal-sized people. They took one look at me and gave up on the whole proposition. They assumed that a guy my size would always be too easy to make. But I get by. I taught myself a few techniques. Some of them are counterintuitive. Night is better than day, because places are lonelier. When places are lonelier, I stand out less, not more. Because when people look for me, they look for a big guy. And size is easier to judge when there are handy comparisons all around. Put me in a crowd of fifty civilians, and I stand out, literally head and shoulders above the rest. On my own, people are less sure. No benchmarks. People are bad at judging height in isolation. We know that from experiments with eye-witness testimony. Stage an incident, ask for first impressions, and the same guy can be described as anywhere between five-eight and six-four. People see, but they don’t look.

Except for people trained to look.

I paid a lot of attention to cars. No way to find an individual in New York City except by cruising the streets. The place is just too big for any alternative method. The NYPD’s blue and white cruisers were easy to spot. Their light bars made a distinctive silhouette even far in the distance. Every time I saw one coming I paused in the nearest doorway and laid myself down. Just another homeless guy. Unconvincing in winter, because I didn’t have a mound of old blankets over me. But the weather was still hot. The real homeless people were still in T-shirts.

Unmarked cop cars were harder to make. Their front-end silhouettes were the same as everything else’s, which was the point. But domestic politics and law enforcement budgets restrict choice to a specific handful of makes and models. And most individual vehicles are characteristically neglected. They’re dirty, they sag, they wallow.

Except for unmarked federal cars. Same makes, same models, but often new and clean and waxed and polished. Easy enough to spot, but not easy to distinguish from certain car service rides. Limousine companies use some of the same makes and models. Crown Vics, and their Mercury equivalents. And livery drivers keep their cars clean. I spent some time horizontal in doorways only to see T&LC plates flash past. Taxi and Limousine Commission. Which frustrated me, until I remembered Theresa Lee’s comment about the NYPD’s counterterrorism squad cruising around in fake cabs. After that I erred on the side of caution.

I figured Lila Hoth’s crew would have rentals. Hertz, Avis, Enterprise, or whoever else was new on the scene. Again, a fairly specific handful of makes and models, mostly domestic pieces-of-shit, but new and clean and well maintained. I saw plenty of vehicles that fit the bill, and plenty that didn’t. I took all reasonable precautions to stay out of law enforcement’s way, and I made all reasonable efforts to let Lila Hoth’s people see me. The late hour helped. It simplified things. It categorized the population. Innocent bystanders were mostly home in bed.

I walked for half an hour, but nothing happened.

Until one thirty in the morning.

Until I looped around to 22nd and Broadway.