Trust Me

43

The hose held, the desk dangling a good ten feet above the pavement.

Luke held hard to the fabric of the hose, slid down to the desk’s surface. Drummond was wiry, all muscle, and he weighed a ton.

Luke looked up and saw a sparrow-thin man staring down at them from the broken window.

The thin man raised a sleek rifle, aimed it with confidence in his eyes. He let five seconds pass, saying, ‘You made it easy now.’

Against his back, Drummond twisted. The weight of Luke’s gun, jammed in the back of his pants, came free and a thundering boom went off near Luke’s head.

The thin man ducked back or fell dead, Luke didn’t know. He lost his grip on the hose and he and Drummond hit the canted desk, slid, hit air again. He felt Drummond’s arms wrapping around him to cocoon him, to drink the impact of the concrete.

And it hurt. Luke felt all the air drive out of him. Drummond lay beneath him, breathing in short sharp pants. Luke’s vision swam – he saw the desk, swinging above him.

Move.

Luke scrambled to his feet – muscles feeling like they’d been pulled from his body and hastily stuffed back inside his skin – and tried to lift Drummond from the sidewalk.

‘Can’t – leg broken – go.’ His voice was a hiss.

No way he was leaving Drummond behind. Luke hiked the older man up. Supported him on his shoulders. The hard shrill knife of a police siren sliced the afternoon, cutting through the Manhattan hum.

He pulled Drummond into his arms and carried him, heading for the cross street. He wanted to put buildings between him and the killers.

‘My keys,’ Drummond patted at his pocket.

‘You have a car?’

‘My keys,’ he repeated and then the shot rang out, piercing him in the back, near where Luke’s hand held him. The bullet tumbled through spine and organs and the impact nearly knocked him loose from Luke’s grip.

The crowd that had been starting to close around them scattered, a woman shrieking, students bolting.

But Luke did not stop. A tea shop was a few yards away and he stumbled through its door as the proprietor opened it to see what fresh hell had erupted in the Village. At tables people with laptops looked up from their web-induced isolation and gasped; the counter person erupted with a series of short screams.

‘Call 9-1-1,’ Luke said. ‘Please.’

Drummond opened his eyes with visible effort. ‘My keys. Run. No police.’ His eyes focused on Luke’s face. He clutched at Luke’s Saint Michael medal, which dangled above his face as Luke knelt by him. Then his hand went to his pocket and he died.

Oh, God, Luke thought. In the pocket he found a ring of car keys with a bottle opener. He grabbed the keys and Snow’s gun, still nestled in Drummond’s hand.

When he grabbed the gun everyone in the tea shop scrambled backwards. He paused. Then he tore the Saint Michael medal from Drummond’s throat, cupped it in his hand. He hurried past a counter and ran into a small side alley of brick. It was closed to the main streets by an iron gate.

Keys. A car. Drummond must have a car. A rental garage’s address was printed on the back of the bottle opener. Four blocks away.

Luke climbed over the iron gate, dropped to the next street, and ran.