Kill the Messenger

43

Tyler put the radio in his backpack and tried really hard not to start crying. He thought maybe he would pull out a granola bar and eat it to distract himself. It was suppertime anyway. But the idea of eating made him feel sick, so he didn’t.

He went back inside the Central Library, his base of operations for most of the day. It somehow made him feel calmer to be in this big, solid, beautiful building full of things he loved, books. All that knowledge and wisdom and excitement and mystery around him, his for the small price of reading words.

But he was really tired now, and he still didn’t have a plan that didn’t involve superpowers, like Spider-Man had. And he doubted there was a single book in this building that could tell him what to do next. He kept thinking if only he could talk to Jace, but Jace hadn’t answered a single radio call all day, and that made him worry.

Why would Jace have bothered to take the radio with him if he wasn’t going to use it? Did the fact that he wasn’t answering mean he was out of range, or that his batteries were dead? Or did the fact that he wasn’t answering mean he couldn’t answer? And if he couldn’t answer, was it because he was in jail, or in a hospital because he’d been shot, or that he was dead?

Or maybe he was just plain gone—out of LA to Mexico or someplace—and Tyler would never see him again. Just like when their mother had died. She’d gone out the door with Jace to go to the hospital, and never came back. No good-bye, no I love you, no I’ll miss you. Just gone.

That horrible empty feeling came over him from the inside out, like giant jaws opening to swallow him whole. Tyler pulled his feet up on the bench and hugged his arms around his knees, holding tight as his eyes welled up again.

Jace always told him he borrowed trouble. That wasn’t true, Tyler thought, or else he would have for sure given it back to whoever he was supposed to have borrowed it from.

He had thought maybe if he went to the places he knew the bike messengers hung out, he would find Jace.

Jace never told him anything, but Tyler had long ago gotten on the Internet to find out everything he could about the bike messengers who worked downtown. He knew there were about a hundred messengers working for about fifteen different companies. He knew the “tag price” was the base price the client paid for the delivery. He knew the difference between being W-4 (having taxes withheld from salary) and 1099 (being an independent contractor).

Tyler knew that there were certain places that the messengers hung out together when they were between runs. So he had walked to the Spring Street station in Chinatown, taken the Gold Line train to Union Station, transferred to the Red Line, got off at the Pershing Square station, walked down Fifth to the corner at Fifth and Flower.

On one side of the street, messengers were hanging around in front of the library, but none of them was Jace. He went into the Carl’s Jr. on the other side of the street and found plenty of weird-looking people—a bald guy with his head tattooed all over, Goth kids with piercings everywhere, green hair, pink hair, dreadlocks—but Jace was not among them.

At Fourth and Flower, Tyler walked up and down in front of the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, looking across the street at the messengers hanging out under the bridge, but he was afraid to go ask them if they’d seen his brother—afraid for himself, on account of they looked kinda scary, and afraid that if he said the wrong thing to the wrong person, he might get Jace in even bigger trouble. Maybe that person would rat him out to the cops or something.

But if Jace had been over there, looking back at the hotel, he for sure would have seen Tyler walking up and down. No one called to him, except a doorman from the hotel, who got suspicious. Tyler had beat it out of there in a hurry.

Over and over during the afternoon, he had gone back and forth between the hangout spots and the library, each time thinking this time he would see Jace, but he never did. He had tried and tried to get him on the radio, but he never had. Now it was dark, and he was afraid to go back down to Fourth Street.

Downtown was a busy place during the day, but once all the people in the office buildings went home, the only ones left on the streets were way scary—crazy, on drugs, looking for trouble. Not a place for a little kid to be walking around alone.

Madame Chen would be worried about him, he knew. Worried sick. The idea made him feel really guilty and bad. He had almost called her a couple of times during the day, but he didn’t know what exactly he could tell her. He still didn’t know. He didn’t know what he was going to do.

He worried that maybe the detectives had bugged the Chens’ phones, and if he called, the cops would be able to find him. He was already worried the Chens would be arrested for harboring a fugitive or something. And maybe the fish market was under surveillance, and the cops would see him if he tried to go back.

Tyler sat down on a bench near the restrooms. The library closed at eight. He supposed he could spend the night here if he could find a good hiding spot. But if he was stuck inside the building, he couldn’t get radio reception, and what if Jace tried to reach him? Besides, Tyler could only imagine how creepy it was in here when the lights were out and everyone was (supposed to be) gone.

He was right back where he started: alone and scared.

Tyler stuck his hands inside the pockets of his sweatshirt and fingered the business card Detective Parker had given him. He didn’t seem like a bad guy. He was kind of funny in a cool sort of way. And when he’d told Tyler he didn’t want to see anything bad happen to Jace, Tyler had wanted to believe him. The other detective could have told him the sun comes up in the east, and Tyler would have been suspicious.

Always trust your instincts, Jace told him.

It was now 6:19. His instincts were telling him he wanted to go home. Maybe if he went up the fire escape onto the roof, he could sneak back into the building and let Madame Chen know he was okay. They would have to communicate with notes or sign language or something, in case the place was bugged, but then she would know he was okay, and he could sleep in his own bed, then sneak out really early and come back downtown to try again to find his brother. It wasn’t a master plan, but it was a plan.

Tyler wiggled into the straps of his backpack and headed outside. There was some kind of commotion going on across Fifth Street, at the foot of the Bunker Hill Steps. People were standing around talking excitedly, gesturing wildly. Two police cars sat at angles to the curb, lights flashing. Traffic had come to a horn-honking standstill.

Whatever it was about, Tyler wanted no part of it. He hurried up the sidewalk toward Olive Street, his backpack bouncing against his butt as he went. The thing was heavy with his life essentials—granola bars, walkie-talkie, Game Boy, bottle of water, schoolbooks, comic books, and pocket dictionary.

Tyler imagined if he went up a really steep hill, the thing would overpower him and flip him over backward, and he would have to lie there like a turtle until somebody turned him over. Tomorrow he would leave the schoolbooks at home.

He crossed Grand Avenue and kept going, but the traffic didn’t get any better, and the closer he came to Olive Street and Pershing Square, the more people and cop cars and disorder there seemed to be.

The square was bright with floodlights and full of activity and yellow crime-scene tape and people shouting at one another. Tyler felt like he was walking onto a movie set, the scene seemed so unreal. He wound his way between people until he stood on the fringe of it all, eyes wide, ears open.

“. . . and they were just standing there, and the next thing I knew . . .”

“. . . Freeze! Police! And man, it was like . . .”

“. . . insane! I thought it was part of the movie, even when . . .”

“. . . the guy on the motorcycle. You mean that wasn’t a stunt?”

“. . . shooting . . .”

“. . . screaming . . .”

“. . . awesome cycle!”

Tyler had worked his way up to the yellow tape that was preserving the crime scene. He didn’t see anyone in handcuffs. He didn’t see anyone lying dead on the ground. But about twenty feet in front of him he saw two men having an argument, and he knew them both. Detective Parker and Detective Kyle. Good cop, bad cop.

Detective Kyle was so red in the face, he looked like his whole head was about to pop like a pimple. Detective Parker was so angry, a cop in a uniform got in front of him to hold him back from hitting Detective Kyle.

Pin prickles raced up Tyler’s back and down his arms and inside his belly, and he felt weak in the knees. The two detectives had one case in common that Tyler knew about: Jace.

“. . . shooting . . .”

“. . . screaming . . .”

“. . . Bam! And the guy is dead on the ground. . . .”

Tyler looked around to see if The Beast was propped up somewhere, or thrown on the ground.

“. . . Bam! And the guy is dead. . . .”

Tyler tried to back up a step, and banged into someone who had come up behind him. His head was swimming. He thought he was going to be sick.

Parker was still yelling at Kyle. Kyle was yelling back at him.

“I wasn’t firing at her! How many times do I have to tell you that?” Kyle jabbed a finger at him. “None! That’s how many times I have to tell you a goddam thing, Parker! You’re not on this case, and if I have anything to do with it, you’re not on the force.”

“You don’t have any power over me, Bradley,” Parker barked back, leaning around the chubby cop who was still blocking him from getting to the other detective. “Nothing you could say or do could make any more impact on my life than a mouse dropping.”

He stepped back, lifted his hands in front of him to show the guy in uniform he had no dangerous intent, then stepped around him. He leaned toward Detective Kyle and said something only the two of them could hear.

Then Parker turned, took three steps away, and looked right at Tyler.