Honeymoon

Chapter 8

THE LIGHT TURNED GREEN and the New York City cabbie hit the gas pedal as if he were trying to squash a bug. What he really almost squashed was a bike messenger—that rare breed of daring and death wish for which red lights and stop signs are merely a crazy suggestion, an un-joke.

As the cabbie slammed on his brakes in the middle of the intersection, the messenger swerved and kept right on going, his speeding bike missing the bumper of the cab by no more than an inch.

“Asshole!” screamed the messenger over his shoulder.

“Up yours!” the cabbie yelled, flipping him the bird. He glanced at Nora in the backseat and shook his head in disgust. Then he floored it again as if nothing had happened.

Nora shook her head and smiled.

It was good to be home.

The cabbie continued his mad dash south on Second Avenue toward lower Manhattan. After a few blocks of relative silence, he switched on the radio. It was 1010 News.

A man with a deep, mellifluent voice was just finishing up a report on the latest city-budget crisis when he announced that there was breaking news in midtown. He turned it over to a female reporter who was at the scene.

“Just about a half hour ago, a tense, if not somewhat bizarre, situation unfolded here at the corner of Forty-second and Park Avenue outside Grand Central Station.”

The reporter described how a man took a young woman hostage at gunpoint, only to be shot dead by another man whom onlookers believed to be an undercover police officer.

“Except when the police finally did arrive, it became clear that the man was not affiliated in any way with the NYPD. In fact, at this time, no one seems to know who he is. After the shooting he fled from the scene—but not before first absconding with a large suitcase belonging to the dead man.”

As the reporter promised more on the story as it developed, the cabbie let out a long sigh and glanced in his rearview mirror. “Just what this city needs, huh?” he said. “Another vigilante on the loose.”

“I doubt that’s what it is,” Nora said.

“Why’s that?”

“The suitcase. Whatever happened—and why—obviously has to do with what’s inside it.”

The cabbie shrugged his shoulders, then nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right. So what do you think it is?”

“I don’t know,” said Nora. “But you can bet it wasn’t dirty clothes.”