Manhattan Is My Beat (31 page)

“What’s a contusion?”

“A bruise.”

“Oh,” Rune said softly.

Stephanie, who didn’t want to get bruised for her audition.

She asked him, “Is she awake?”

“No. She won’t be for a while.”

“Thank you, doctor.” She hugged him hard. He endured this for a moment then retreated wearily back through the swinging doors.

At the nurses’ station Rune asked for a piece of paper and a pen.

Rune wrote:

She handed the note to the nurse. “Please give this to her when she wakes up. Oh, and please tell her I’m sorry.”

Running again.

Looking behind her, as often as she looked forward. Past garbage cans, litter on the street, puddles. Past the fake, gaudy gold of the Puck Building in SoHo, surrounded by the sour smell of the fringe of the Lower East Side. Running, running. Rune felt the trickle of sweat down her back and sides, the pain in her feet as they slammed on the concrete through the thin soles of her cheap boots.

Air flooded into her lungs and stung her chest.

A block from her loft Rune pressed against the side of a building and looked behind her. No one was following. It was just a peaceful, shabby street. She checked out the street in front of her loft: No police cars, even unmarked ones. Familiar shadows, familiar trash, the same broken-down blue van that had been there for days, plastered with parking tickets. She waited until her pounding heart calmed.

If Emily and Pretty Boy found out about her place, would they come here? Probably not. They’d know the police would be staking it out. Besides, they were probably gone themselves. She’d been the fall guy they needed; their job was done. They’d probably left town.

Which is what I’m going to do. Right now.

Round on the ends and hi in the middle, it’s O-Hi-O
.

Rune walked around the block then snuck through
the plywood fence of the construction site. Workers in hard hats came and went.

She walked past them quickly, into her building. She started up in the freight elevator, smelling the grease and paint and solvents. She was already sick—from exhaustion and fear—and the scents turned her stomach even more.

The elevator clanked to a stop at the top floor. She unhooked the chain guard and stepped out. No sounds from the loft upstairs. But there was a chance somebody was there. She called, “Rune? It’s me. Are you home?” No response. “It’s your friend Jennifer. Rune!”

Nothing.

Then up the stairs, slowly, peering out of the opening in the floor. The empty loft stretched out around her. She raced to her side of the loft, grabbed one of the old suitcases she used for a dresser, opened it. She walked around the room, trying to decide what to take.

No clothes. No jewelry—she didn’t own much other than her bracelets. She picked some pictures of her family and the friends she’d met in New York. And her books—twenty or so of them, the ones she’d never be able to replace. She considered the videos—Disney, mostly. But she could get new copies of those.

Rune noticed the tape of
Manhattan Is My Beat
. She picked it up and flung it angrily across the room. It crashed into a table, shattering several glasses. The cassette itself broke apart too.

She found a pen and paper. She wrote:

She folded the paper, left it on Sandra’s pillow, and picked up the heavy suitcase.

Which is when she heard the footsteps.

They were on the floor below.

Whoever it was hadn’t come up via the elevator. They’d snuck up the stairs. So they wouldn’t be heard.

The only exit was the stairway—the one the intruder was now coming up. She heard cautious feet, gritty.

She looked across the loft to her side of the room—at her suitcase and leopard-skin bag.

No time to get a weapon. No time for anything.

Nowhere to run.

She looked around her glass house.

Nowhere to hide.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

He took the stairs one at a time, slowly, slowly.

Pausing, listening.

And struggling to control his anger. Which throbbed like the pain in his face—from when that fucking redhead had nailed him in the subway. Listening above him and listening below. He was out of his uniform now— he’d ditched the meter reader’s jacket a while ago, before he trailed the little short-haired bitch to Brooklyn—and downstairs some of the construction guys had given him some shit about just walking into the building. He’d just kept walking, giving them a fuck-you look and not even bothering to make up a cover story.

So, listening for somebody laying in wait for him upstairs, listening for somebody following.

But he heard no footsteps, no breathing, no guns being racked.

Pausing at the top of the stairs, head down.

Okay … go!

Walking fast into the loft, eyes taking in places he could go for cover.

Only he didn’t have to worry. She wasn’t there.

Shit. He’d been sure she’d come back. If only to get her stuff before she took off. Pointing the gun in front of him, he made a circuit of the loft. She’d been there— there was a suitcase half filled. There was that God-ugly purse of hers. But no sign of the bitch.

Maybe—

Then he heard it.

A click and a grind.

The elevator! He ran to the stairs, thinking she’d snuck out behind him. But, no, the cage was empty. It was going down. So, she
was
coming home. He’d gotten there before her.

He ducked behind a half-height wall of cinder block, out of view of the stairway, and waited for her to come to him.

Rune was exactly eight feet away from Pretty Boy, standing in the steady stream of wind outside the loft, a hundred feet above the sidewalk.

Her boots perched on a thin ridge of metal that jutted out six inches from the lower edge of the building’s facade. Most of her body was below the glass windows, and if she ducked, Pretty Boy couldn’t see her.

Only she was compelled to look.

Because she’d heard the elevator start down. Somebody was coming up!

And Pretty Boy was going to kill them.

Her hands quivered, her legs were weak, as if her muscles were melting. The wind was cold up there, the smells different. Raw. She looked down again, at the cobblestone patches of the street coming through
the asphalt. She closed her eyes and pressed her face against her arm for comfort.

Cobblestones—the final scene in
Manhattan Is My Beat
. Ruby Dahl, walking slowly down the wet street, crying for her tormented fiancé gunned down in Greenwich Village.

Roy, Roy, I would have loved you even if you were poor!

Rune looked back into the loft and saw Pretty Boy shift slightly, then cock his ear toward the doorway.

Who was coming up in the elevator? Sandra? Some of the construction guys?

Please, let it be the police—Manelli or Dixon. Coming to arrest her for the shooting in Brooklyn. They had guns. They’d at least have a chance against the killer.

Suddenly, Pretty Boy crouched and held the gun’s muzzle up, his right index finger on the trigger. He looked around him, turning his head as though listening.

Whoever was there was calling out some words. Yes, she could vaguely hear a voice, “Rune? Rune? Are you here?” It was a man.

Richard ran up the stairs, shouting something.

No, no, no! she cried silently. Oh, not him. Please, don’t hurt him!

She closed her eyes and tried to send him a message of danger. But when she looked again she saw that he’d walked farther into the loft. “Rune?”

Pretty Boy couldn’t see him from the other side of the wall. But he was following Richard’s steps with the gun. Rune saw him cock it with his long thumb and point it to the spot where Richard was about to appear.

Oh, no …

There was nothing else to do. She couldn’t let anybody else get hurt because of her. She raised her right fist above the glass. She’d break the window, scream for Richard to run. Pretty Boy would panic and spin around,
shoot her. But Richard might just have enough time to leap down the stairs and escape.

Okay, now! Do it.

But just as she started to bring her fist down on the window, Richard paused. He’d seen the note—the note she’d written to Sandra. He picked it up and read it. Then shook his head. He looked around the loft one more time and then started down the stairs.

Pretty Boy peeked out from behind the wall, slipped his gun into his belt. He stood.

Thank you, thank you
…

Rune lowered her right arm and held on to the ledge again. Pretty Boy searched the loft again, looking for her, then started down the stairs. Rune’s fingertips were numb, though her arm muscles ached and her legs were on fire with pain. But she stayed where she was until below her she saw Pretty Boy jog out of the building and disappear east.

She edged to the small access door and crawled inside. She lay on her bed for five minutes until the quivering in her muscles stopped.

Then she picked up the suitcase and purse and left the loft. Not even thinking to say good-bye to her castle in the sky.