Vincent was in the middle of a flashback passage about the hero’s gruesome torture in the Iraqi camp when a disheveled-looking guy dressed in a ratty T-shirt walked through the revolving doors. Guy was white, but his black T-shirt was emblazoned with a fake cereal box advertising CHEERI-HO’S, and the busty woman on that fake cereal box—with oversize lips, hips, and bust—wasn’t exactly a General Mills mascot.
Vincent sighed.
It was Terrill Joe, your friendly neighborhood crackhead.
What was interesting was that this neighborhood—if you could call this corporate canyon of towers a “neighborhood”—had any crackheads at all. Center City West was heavily policed, scrubbed, swept, and kept nice and clean for the business set. It was a far cry from the area forty years ago, when it was full of broken-down storefronts and porno theaters on one side, and a huge monstrosity called the Chinese Wall on the other. Actor Kevin Bacon’s dad was the city planner back then, and he decided to rip out the Chinese Wall—rail lines leading out of the city—and replace it with a corporate playground. By the 1980s, Bacon’s dream had been fully realized. Concrete, glass, steel, and sheer height were the order of the day. If you wanted to see what West Market Street looked like in the 1960s, you had to venture up past Twenty-second Street. But even that was going fast. Condos were moving in, even though nobody was buying them.
Crackheads like Terrill Joe would have loved it back in the 1960s, had there been crack to purchase. Of course, back then, they would have just been hippies.
Vincent had no idea where Terrill Joe holed up at night. Couldn’t be neighboring Rittenhouse Square—too fancy, even though Terrill Joe was the right shade of white. Probably some corner of Spring Garden, which lay to the north.
He thought about asking Terrill Joe where he holed up, but decided it wasn’t worth it. It was tough enough getting him out of the building.
“Mr. Marella,” he said. “You’ve got serious trouble.”
“Every day,” Vincent mumbled.
“Huh?”
“What can I do for you, Terrill Joe?”
“You gotta take a look around back.”
“Do I.”
“You’d better. Otherwise it’s your job.”
Terrill Joe’s skin was a spiderweb network of broken veins. His teeth were like tombstones in a graveyard that had been bombarded with short-range missiles. And the stench rolled from him like a tsunami, engulfing countless innocent nostrils. In short, Terrill Joe was an absolute wreck.
Usually, Vincent’s MO with Terrill Joe was to get him out of the building as soon as humanly possible, lest he disturb the taxpayers. He saw no reason to change his MO now, even though it was a humid, swampy mess outside.
“Show me,” he said.
There were two entrances to 1919 Market. The main entrance faced Market, and across the street was the symbol of Philly financial strength: the stock exchange. The place took itself so seriously, it was pretty much licking its lips after 9/11, thinking Wall Street would migrate southeast by a hundred miles or so. Yeah. Like that had happened.
The other entrance faced Twentieth Street, which faced another corporate tower. Terrill Joe led him out the Twentieth Street side.
“What’s the deal?”
“You see, you see.”
Yeah, I’ll see, I’ll see.
The crackhead led the security guard around the back to the small alley between the corporate tower and the apartment building behind it. It was too small to have a name—it was only ten feet wide. Maybe a real street had run through this spot at some point. Not forty years ago, certainly. Then, the Chinese Wall dominated. Whatever street had existed before then had been obliterated by years of paving and repaving and demolition and construction. The object lesson: If you’re not careful, they can take away your name.
“Lookit that.”
Vincent saw what the crackhead was worried about. Shattered glass, on the dark asphalt of the nameless alley.
Where had that come from?
Vincent craned his neck up, even though he knew it was a silly gesture. Like he’d be able to see if there was a single pane of glass missing from one of the thirty-seven stories.
“You see this happen?”
“See it?” Terrill Joe asked. “Thing nearly cut my head off comin’ down.”
“How far up, about?” He squinted. The sun was blazing this morning.
“Real high up.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He squinted for a little while longer—the sun was bright, shining over the top of the white building—then turned to look at the apartment building on the other side. More than likely, the pane of glass had fallen from that side.
Still, he had to check.
Which meant a grueling floor-by-floor check on this side of the building.
Thanks, Terrill Joe.
“You want a smoke?” the crackhead asked.
“Those things’ll kill you.”
“Like I want to live forever?”
His Saturday, ruined by a crackhead. Typical. But what really pissed him off was that it’d probably be at least an hour or so before he got back to Center Strike, and he wanted to know how the torture thing turned out.
Thirty-six floors above, Ethan Goins was sprawled out on an uncomfortable slab of concrete with a pen tube sticking out of his throat.
He was breathing out of it. And he was thankful for it. Don’t get him wrong.
Pens were wonderful.
He loved pens.
But stilclass="underline" He was breathing out of the plastic tube of a ballpoint pen. Even an eternal optimist had to admit that life for Ethan Goins had taken a serious downturn in the past fifteen minutes.
Once Ethan had heard Amy’s voice, and he’d confirmed that there was actually hope of rescue from this friggin’ fire tower, the decision had been clear. He needed to open his throat.
There was pretty much only one way he knew how to do that.
Granted, his imagination may have been limited by his time in Iraq. Maybe that experience prevented an easier solution from popping into his head. Some quick and simple way of opening up his throat, so that air could make its way into his lungs and bloodstream and muscles and brain.
If there was an easier way, it wasn’t coming to him. Blame his oxygen-starved brain.
Pen to the throat it was.
Ethan worked quickly so he didn’t have too much time to dwell on it. Fished the pen out of his bag, pulled the tip and ink stem out of the pen, yanked the neck of his black T-shirt so it wouldn’t get in the way, and then started feeling for his Adam’s apple, and then the cricoid cartilage, and back up to the cricothyroid membrane. Bingo.
Do it, Goins, do it fast.
He wished he had any kind of blade to make an incision. He wished hard. But he knew the contents of his bag, and there was nothing even close. His car keys, maybe, but by the time he sawed open an incision, it might be too late.
Ethan had dots appearing in front of his eyes as it was. So enough messing around. He knew his target: the valley of flesh on his neck.
He knew there would be no do-overs, no second chances.
He had to strike powerfully and cleanly.
First, though, he had to shatter the tip of the pen on the concrete landing. A flat tube would do nothing to his throat … except hurt.
Ethan jammed it against the ground. The plastic chipped as he’d hoped.
There.
Nice and jagged.
Ready to go.
He imagined the air he’d be breathing through that pen tube. Sweet, cool nourishing air. His for the taking, all for one little stabbing motion—
Now!
That had been fifteen minutes ago.
Ethan was still alive, and breathing sweet, nourishing air through the pen tube in his neck.