“Hey, are you okay?” O’Shea asked me, leaning against the back of the elevator. “You seem a little jumpy today. You jumpy? Something the matter, Nick?”
So much for my acting. Clearly I wasn’t the Second Coming of Sir Laurence Olivier.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “Rough morning, that’s all. I don’t like funerals much.”
“Nobody likes funerals,” O’Shea agreed, nodding but continuing to eye me as if his bullshit meter was ticking in the red zone. I was sure he was about to press the subject when I was saved by the bell of the elevator. We’d arrived at my floor.
O’Shea stuck his head out, peering left and right. “Okay,” he announced.
I fell in line behind him as we walked the beige and white wavy-striped carpeting of the hallway. The rug was kind of trippy. Staring at it was enough to give you some serious vertigo.
“What do you think you’re doing?” asked O’Shea as we reached my door. I’d taken out my key and made a move for the lock.
“Oh yeah, I forgot,” I said.
He shot me a look like a disapproving parent. “Sometimes that’s all it takes – forgetting one time, Nick.”
I handed him the key so he could scope out my apartment before I entered.
“Out of curiosity,” I said, “while you’re in there checking to make sure the coast is clear, who’s watching me here in the hallway?”
He didn’t hesitate. “That’s why Sam is in the lobby.”
“But what if, say, there’s someone waiting for me behind the door to the stairwell?”
O’Shea chuckled. He realized I was just busting his chops. “Would you like me to go check for you?” he asked slowly.
“No, that’s okay,” I said, and laughed lightly. We both did. O’Shea was a pretty good guy actually. I liked him and his partner, too. Hey, they were trying to keep me alive.
“Good. Now stay here,” he said with a grin as he unlocked my door. “Try not to get in any trouble.”
“Yeah, sure. That’ll be a first.”
Chapter 79
THE SECONDS OUTSIDE my door went by slowly, and I couldn’t help wishing that I could get back my old life, that none of this had happened. Except maybe Courtney breaking up with Ferramore.
“You better not be raiding my fridge!” I called to O’Shea from the hallway.
I’d been eating takeout for three days straight. With all the containers of Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, and Italian, I was just about housing the United Nations of leftovers.
“Hey, did you hear me?” I said.
O’Shea had been checking my apartment for about a minute, roughly a half minute longer than it usually took him or Brison to comb my twelve-hundred-square-foot one-bedroom apartment.
An uneasy feeling suddenly came over me, my mind starting to race.
Instinctively, I took a step forward to peek in around the doorway, only to catch myself. That was the last thing I should be doing, right?
Instead, I looked down at my striped tie, pushing it to the side. Behind it I could feel the outline of the alarm around my neck. Even underneath my dress shirt there was no mistaking the large panic button.
Shit, what do I do? Do I press it?
No. Not yet.
“Kevin?” I called out again, this time louder. No more joking around about my fridge. “Everything all right in there? Hey, Kevin?”
I heard nothing back. I heard nothing, period. My apartment, the hallway – everywhere was quiet.
Then, finally – thank God! – I heard him.
“Yeah, everything’s fine,” came O’Shea’s voice.
I couldn’t see him yet but I could tell he was walking toward me. He drew a deep sigh before explaining, “For a moment there, I thought I heard -”
Pffft! Pffft!
Before another sound came, I saw the blood, a bright red spray splattering across the hallway in front of the door. Then Officer Kevin O’Shea’s body came crashing down at my feet, the back of his head blown wide open.
Oh no! No! No! No!
I took a clumsy step backwards, nearly tripping over my own heel. My knees were beginning to buckle and I couldn’t think straight. My thought process felt completely fractured.
Run, Nick! Run now!
I turned, sprinting down the hallway as those crazy beige and white stripes of the carpet blurred before my eyes. I was ten feet from the stairwell. Could I make it?
Barely!
I pushed through the door to the stairs. For a split second I allowed myself to look back. Just one glance.
It was all I needed. Make that much more than I needed.
Storming out of my apartment, a gun fitted with a suppressor snug in his hand, was the man who should’ve killed me when he’d had the chance in that alley next to the pizza place in the South Bronx.
At least I’m sure that’s what Carmine Zambratta, the Zamboni, was thinking as his eyes met mine.
He raised his gun and my heart nearly stopped.
Keep running, Nick!
I PRACTICALLY FLUNG myself down the stairs, my feet barely keeping up with the rest of me. Could I outrun him? Would he get a clear shot at me? I didn’t see why not.
I was about to press the hell out of my panic button to alert Brison in the lobby, when a voice kicked in from the one brain cell remaining that wasn’t drowning in adrenaline. No, wait! Don’t come to me, Brison – I’m coming to you!
And I’m bringing company.
I kept flying down the stairs – the ninth floor… the eighth – my shoes pounding away on the concrete steps, my heart pounding away at my chest.
How far back was he? Was he gaining on me?
That’s when I heard it.
Nothing.
There were no footsteps from above, no sound of the Zamboni gaining on me. I was alone in the stairwell and that one working brain cell of mine immediately figured out why.
He was taking the elevator.
Shit!
On the landing of the sixth floor I skidded to a stop, gasping for air, trying to think in straight lines.
Up?
Down?
Stay put?
What do I do?
In a flash, I thought I had the answer. I’d go hide in someone’s apartment – just keep banging on doors until somebody let me in. Then I’d call the police.
Oh no! The police.
The image of Brison on that couch in the lobby suddenly came crashing into my head. He was a sitting duck down there. I had to warn him.
You know that company l’m bringing, Brison? He might get there first!
I jammed my thumb against the panic button as I took off again down the stairs.
The fifth floor…
The fourth floor…
My lungs were on fire, my legs aching – but what hurt the most was not knowing what was going to happen.
How would Brison respond to my hitting the panic button? Would he head straight for the elevator and Zambratta?
“Will you walk into my parlor?” said the Spider to the Fly.
The third floor…
The second floor…
I had to get to the lobby first!
Nobody else could die on my watch.
Chapter 81
THE LITTLE THINGS we take for granted.
Like the glass window cut into the door between the stairs and the lobby. Seven years living in the building and I’d never once noticed it. Not one time.
But there it was, no bigger than a loaf of bread – hell, even smaller; make that a slice of bread – but still big enough to catch a glimpse of Brison as I raced down the last set of stairs.
He had his gun drawn, his mouth twisted into a scowl so tight I thought his face would crack.
He was aiming the gun dead square at the elevator. Watching. Waiting.
I did neither.
I bolted straight through the door like… well, like the crazy, panicked guy I was. Only when Brison turned on a dime and nearly blew my head off did I realize that maybe that hadn’t been such a good idea.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” he said, his trigger finger still twitching. “I could’ve killed you!”