Brad Parks - Eyes of the Innocent

Denardo and Tommy had differing reactions to this: the former disappointed, the latter relieved.

“We need to know what we’re up against first,” I said. “Let me just have a look. I’ll be right back.”

I peeked around the corner and saw a black Lincoln Town Car-the brand preferred by livery cabdrivers and short, squat goateed kidnappers everywhere.

Next to it, I could see a rickety set of metal steps that led to a second-floor office. At the top of the stairs there was a small landing, with a door that had windows on either side. The first story of the warehouse was windowless-just a long brick wall. So I crept along it, staying flush to the building to diminish the chance I could be spotted from above.

I reached the stairs and gently tiptoed up, taking the last few steps on my hands and knees so I could stay below the sightline of the windows, then crawled over to the side of the building. Leaning against the concrete, I stayed perfectly still for a few seconds, just to have a listen. But all I could hear was the wind hitting the dried stalks of grass in the nearby marshland.

Were we too late? Had Primo already done something awful and irreversible? It was possible, but there was no sense lingering on that thought. We had to push forward as if Sweet Thang and Akilah were still among the breathing.

That meant I had to take a look inside. Flattening myself against the building, I quietly eased into a standing position next to one of the windows, then turned and nudged myself, inch by tiny inch, toward the pane. I didn’t want any large movements, nothing that might make the metal grates squeak or catch the peripheral vision of someone on the inside. But slowly, achingly, I got my body in a position, and soon my right eyeball was nearing the point where I would be able to see into the office.

And then, with roughly the same volume as a jet plane taking off, my cell phone rang.

* * *

I jerked my head back and my hand flew to my pants pocket to silence the phone, but I was too slow-it let out two piercing rings before I could find the correct button.

As I withdrew my hand from my pocket, I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. I braced myself for the office door to fly open and for Primo or one of his goons to come barreling out, gun first. I considered jumping off the landing-it was only one story down. But then what? It was just me and a nearly empty parking lot. I’d be target practice.

I waited, but there was no barreling. No gun. No Primo. I sank back down against the warehouse wall, thankful for soundproof doors or the wind direction or whatever it was that ensured that the county coroner wouldn’t be listing my cause of death as “Verizon Wireless LG Flip Phone.”

It took me a moment to get my nerve, then I began sliding back toward the window so I could finally have a look inside.

I’m not sure what I thought would be in there-Akilah and Sweet Thang bound and blindfolded, pleading for their lives? Primo cackling while he sharpened a comically large knife? Blood and gore everywhere? — but the first thing I saw was a battered gunmetal-gray desk, heaped with old mail, invoices, and other assorted paper. There was a Chinese restaurant calendar from 2004 taped to the wall behind the desk. A black filing cabinet had been shoved in one corner. In the other corner, a small flat-screen television sat atop a cheap entertainment center. It was sparse, and other than the TV, all the furniture looked like it had been claimed off the side of the road somewhere.

More to the point, there were no people inside, at least none that I could see. They must have been in the warehouse-and the only entrance to the warehouse I could see was inside the office.

I tried the door. Locked. Of course. And Denardo wasn’t crashing through this one-it was steel, with a metal lock guard. I focused on the windows instead. They had bars on them, but maybe if I could break through the glass, I could reach around behind the door and unlock it.

Was I capable of punching through a window? I had no idea. It wasn’t exactly a graduation requirement at Amherst. There was only one way to find out. I hiked my jacket sleeve down over my hand, made a fist, and threw a hard jab.

I connected-it helps when you’re hitting a stationary target-but I’m quite sure it hurt me more than it hurt the window. The pain shot through my hand into my wrist and I recoiled, shaking my arm until the pain stopped radiating. Then I gritted my teeth and tried again, harder. This time, the pain made it all the way to my elbow.

“Dammit,” I said.

“You sure make a lousy action hero,” Tommy said from the bottom of the stairs, where he, Denardo, and Gomes had assembled to watch my effort.

“You got a better idea?” I said, feeling my battered knuckle throbbing.

“I do,” Denardo said. He disappeared around the corner for a second, then came back wielding a large, L-shaped tire iron. He climbed the metal stairs, which rattled and groaned under his weight, then performed a quick appraisal of the window.

“You might want to stand over there,” he said, gesturing to the other side of the landing.

I did as instructed. Denardo swung the tire iron with both hands, baseball style. The glass cracked but did not break. It was thick stuff and, apparently, shatter resistant. He hit it again. And again. As the crack in the glass got marginally larger, our chances of being able to sneak up on Primo were getting rapidly smaller. But, at this point, I couldn’t think of an alternative. This was our only way in. All I could do was hope Primo didn’t hear us.

Denardo bore down on his task, getting some good licks in, grunting at the effort. My phone rang again, but I didn’t bother to look at it, nor was I as concerned about the noise. It was now but a soft tinkle compared to the racket Denardo was making.

Finally, he created a small hole in the window. From there, the rest of it came away pretty easily. He cleared away a few shards that clung to the frame, then reached around and fumbled with the door handle until it opened.

“Nice work,” I said.

Denardo, who was breathing heavily, went inside, straight to the door that led to the warehouse on the far side. He began studying it.

“This thing is for real,” he said. “I don’t know if I’d do anything but dent this one.”

My phone rang again. Again, I reached into my pocket and silenced it.

“Do you know how to pick a lock?” I asked.

“No. Do you?”

“Yeah, me and all the other kids from Millburn.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Think our pal Hector knows?”

“Even if he did, you need tools for that,” Denardo said. “That boy ain’t got nothing but boxer shorts and shriveled balls right now.”

We stared at the door a little more.

“We’re wasting time,” I said.

My phone rang again.

“Why don’t you answer that?” Denardo asked.

“It’s just the office,” I said.

“Maybe they could call a locksmith for us.”

Somehow I doubted any reputable locksmith would walk past a shattered window and pick an interior door with no questions asked. Then again, I was starting to feel desperate and didn’t have a lot of other ideas. It couldn’t hurt.

I fished my still ringing phone out of my pocket. Out of habit, I glanced at the screen before answering it, expecting it would read “Office Incoming.”

But it didn’t. The words on the screen took me a second to parse. Then I felt another one of those primal rushes of energy.

The caller was “Thang, Sweet 2.”

Primo was surprised at how resourceful Byers’s little whore had been at eluding him.

Torching the girl’s house had actually been Byers’s idea-a pointless, pathetic attempt to save his own wretched life. Byers told Primo he instructed the girl to hide the evidence in her house, in a place where no one could find it. So, it stood to reason, destroying the house would mean destroying the evidence. If it took out the girl, as well? All the better.