Youth Unemployment Climbs to 44 %.
White House Defends President Walters’ Vacation Amidst Growing Crisis.
Divided We Falclass="underline" How the Haves Robbed the Have-Nots.
I’d seen a couple of recessions in my time. But this one seemed worse than all the others put together. The pundits, by and large, laid the blame on the shoulders of President Wade Walters. They wanted an FDR-style New Deal of domestic programs to invigorate the economy. A vocal minority called for the exact opposite solution. They wanted Walters to do less, much less. Fewer regulations, less taxes.
Graham hiked into the stairwell. Craning his neck, he studied the second floor landing. “Looks clear.”
As I returned the tablet to the desk, I noticed a thick layer of dust. It covered the tarps, the walls, the buckets, everything. Everything but the desk and the area around the doors. Ahh, that explained why the lobby looked and smelled old. The renovation was on hold, probably due to the poor economy. Most likely, it had sat this way for weeks. Maybe even months.
Long-forgotten childhood memories popped into my brain. Memories of when I still had a family. Memories of visiting Dad, memories of watching construction at his various properties. Back then, he was one of New York’s premiere developers. That was before he’d lost his mind. Before he’d waged an epic war on Manhattan’s skyline.
Before his untimely death.
I hiked into the stairwell. Two sets of bloody footprints, both going up, were etched into the dusty steps. One set had come from the ankle boots. The other set was a good deal larger and had been made by a pair of thick shoes or boots.
“No return footprints,” Graham remarked. “They must still be up there.”
I thought about the dead guard. “Think we’ve got time to bash a few skulls?”
“There’s always time for that.”
Stepping quietly, we climbed the staircase. Up and up we went, passing multiple landings in the process. I kept waiting for the other footprints to break off, to drift out onto one of the many unfinished floors. But no. They just kept going and going.
After sixteen floors, the stairwell came to an abrupt halt. A metal access door, closed, lay before me. The footprints appeared to continue through it.
Beams of artificial light blinded me as I opened the door. A full moon shone brightly in the sky, a solitary orb of natural light. A hot breeze struck my skin. Although stifling, it was nothing compared to the heat rays.
Dousing my satphone beam, I walked onto the gravel-covered roof. Sounds flooded my ears. Sirens blared repeatedly, endlessly. Flames roared. Distant jets of water slammed into metal and brick. Glass shattered, plastic squeaked, and metal clanged. And through it all, I heard screaming. Soft screams, punctuated by sobs. Loud, high-pitched screams. Long screams, short screams, all sorts of screams.
“See anything?” Graham whispered from inside the stairwell.
My eyes traced the rooftop. “Gravel and wire. Lots of wire. No people though.” A soft metallic ding filled my eardrums. “Hang on.”
A small concrete structure enclosed the stairwell. Sidling up to it, I heard dull muttering along with crunching gravel and metallic dings.
“I told you,” a woman crowed. “You wouldn’t listen. But I told you.”
A man grunted. “Yeah, yeah.”
“Don’t yeah me.” Her voice turned furious. “This is your fault. You lost your job. You wasted our savings. If it weren’t for me, you’d be dead in a gutter by now.”
“I know.” A brief pause. “Sorry.”
“That’s better.” The woman’s tone took an authoritative turn. “Now, get back to work.”
A new sound, like snipping scissors, filled my ears. I peeked around the side of the concrete structure. About twenty feet away, a man knelt next to an open vent. He wore a New York Mets hoodie and was equipped with a pair of long wire cutters. A short woman stood nearby, arms crossed, foot tapping impatiently. She wore a matching hoodie with the hood lowered to her shoulders and a pair of ankle boots. Her hair was pulled into a tight ponytail and she watched the man work with pursed lips. Sheer disdain emanated from every pore of her body.
“Well?” Graham hissed. “What do you see?”
“Looks like we’ve got a couple of copper thieves on our hands,” I replied.
“Oh, goodie. The lowest of the low.”
“It’s lower than you think.” I studied the man, studied his shaking hands and trembling shoulders. “I’m pretty sure one of them is a meth addict.”
Due to supply shortages, copper prices had jumped to eight bucks a pound. Many abandoned buildings were stocked with the stuff, making them prime targets for the truly desperate. When all was said and done, the couple could probably make off with a couple of thousand dollars. Not a bad haul actually, although the meth addict would almost certainly piss it away in short order.
I focused my gaze on the woman’s tight pants. A small pistol was tucked into her waistband. Immediately, my mind flashed back to the dead security guard in the lobby.
Graham slid through the open door and joined me on the roof. Peering around the other edge of the concrete structure, he studied the thieves. “Please tell me we’re taking these jerks out.”
The man and woman stood on the north side of the roof, blocking the route to 1199 Madison Avenue. A confrontation was unavoidable.
Not that I minded.
“Can you handle the woman?” I asked.
“I just need a weapon.” Stooping down, he hefted a handful of gravel. “This ought to do the trick.”
Silently, we edged around either side of the concrete structure. But in one of those strange twists of fate, the man chose that exact moment to stretch his neck. His head swiveled toward us and his eyes opened wide.
Roaring with anger, I sprinted toward him. The man jumped to his feet and reared back, only to trip on some copper wiring. He toppled over, striking his head against the gravel.
The woman spun toward me. Maintaining near-perfect poise, she went for her gun.
And that’s when Graham unleashed the gravel.
It whipped through the air, banging into the woman’s chest and shoulders. She staggered backward and crashed onto her rear. The pistol squirted out of her hands and slid across the roof.
She reached out, but Graham beat her to it. With a smooth motion, he picked up the gun and smacked it against her forehead. Her eyes rolled backward and she slumped to the gravel.
The man’s face darkened. With a soft grunt, he started to get up. But I was already on him and a vicious blow to the face sent him flopping back to the ground.
“Ahh.” I wrung my sore, aching hand. “Why do the worst people always have the hardest heads?”
“So they can take more punishment.” Graham knelt over the woman for a second, making sure she was unconscious. “What should we do with them?”
Still wringing my hand, I glanced at a roll of copper wire. Any other time I would’ve tied them up and left them for the authorities to find. But Beverly’s life was on the line and every second counted.
“Nothing.” I ran to the raised edge of the roof. It closely abutted the next building. I shot Graham a knowing look as I backed up a few feet.
He looked confused for a second. Then he groaned. “Don’t tell me…”
I never heard the end of that sentence. Instead, I ran forward, my tuxedo shoes scraping against gravel. Upon reaching the raised edge, I leapt into the air.
My body hurtled through space, arms spinning like windmills. I wondered what people below would think if they saw me, this tuxedo-laden man, leaping buildings. And just like that, my mind flashed back to several decades earlier. To that moment. To the ice cream dripping down my arm. To my stopped heart. To the sight of that other man attempting to defy gravity.