Jeff Abbott - Adrenaline

“So all this energy, and you’re still sitting here in Brooklyn?”

“If I run, they grab me and I’m back in a jail cell.”

“Unless you’re smart about how you run.”

“August. I just got out of a Company prison. I’m not risking a return ticket. We are not having this conversation.”

August put his money on the table and said, “Don’t worry about the change.”

“Okay.” I watched him leave. It’s awkward to tip a friend and I didn’t want him to, but I slid the change into the tip jar. I got back to work, which involved making a pot of decaf for Ollie and serving a group of wannabe artists who came in five minutes later for a round of Pabst Blue Ribbon beers.

Most people at Ollie’s Bar drank beer and wine. But at least six times a day I made vodka martinis; five times a day I poured whisky; and now and then I made a margarita on the rocks. There wasn’t a frozen margarita machine; it wasn’t that kind of bar. Usually a couple of early customers at the lunchtime opening wanted Bloody Marys, and I made them extra spicy and got bigger tips. I made drinks and kept quiet and gained back weight I’d lost and slept a lot. August came and drank during my evening shifts. A few questions to my fellow barkeeps told me that he didn’t come in on my days off. I felt myself getting stronger but I was only running very basic parkour, vaults onto railings and low walls, because I was too out of practice and I didn’t want to risk an injury. I pretended not to notice the surveillance Howell had put on me. Three rookies, two on foot, one in a van, were nearly constant whenever I left the bar or my apartment. They were testing me, seeing what I might do, how close to their orders I would stay.

Or, conversely, waiting for someone to kill me.

I like bars. I don’t drink a lot but I like the air of a good bar-the ripe wisdom of animated conversation, the cutting smell of fine liquor, the sound of laughter among friends. Ollie’s was a good, simple bar. Quiet most nights, a wide, oaken bar surface, stools topped with leather that bore the imprints of loyal and regular customers, not a lot of kitsch on the walls-just mirrors from the beer companies and framed photos of Ollie’s father, the original owner, with many of his longtime customers. The regulars were a bit of a mix, older folks who’d been in the neighborhood a long while, younger folks with a bohemian bent who might be borrowing money from parents to pursue art or internships. Now and then the Manhattan-commuting professionals would slum at Ollie’s, and they tipped well and drank imports and more lavish cocktails. But the people, most of them, were nice. No one asked me questions. I just served the drinks, made idle talk when required, and no one knew my hell.

The Company got me an apartment three streets over from Ollie’s, on the edge of Williamsburg, in Brooklyn. It wasn’t cheap, but I wasn’t paying the rent, and the building I was in was seeing several units remodeled, so I didn’t have many neighbors. Howell, no doubt, liked my isolation. I assumed that Ollie’s and my place were being bugged, perhaps even with cameras hidden inside. Probably installed by August. I found the bugs, four of them, and the next morning I walked straight to the van, and as they stared at me in surprise, I laid the bugs on the van roof in a nice straight line. Then I walked away. The next day they had a new car to follow me in and I didn’t find any replacement bugs. Didn’t mean they weren’t there, though.

It was like life in a cage. But it wasn’t the stone prison cell. I wondered how long Howell’s men would keep an eye on me, and, if I didn’t draw out Lucy’s kidnappers, if they’d shutter me back behind bars.

I thought about how to escape. I would do myself no favors by rushing. I was still in a cage, but a cage where I could move. I did not want to be back in the Polish prison.

And when I wasn’t serving drinks, I thought about Lucy and The Bundle.

One day in late March, I arrived a bit hurt. A bicycle courier had sideswiped me while crossing a street and I’d fallen, scraping my forearm. My shadows did nothing to help me. I rolled up my sleeve to keep the shirt clean and went into the front; it was early afternoon on a Saturday and only one customer sat along the bar.

She was a few years older than me, maybe thirty. Pretty but with eyes of hard quartz, a slash of a mouth. Her cheekbones would have made a photographer contemplate a next great shot. She wore black slacks and a dark sweater. Her hair was blondish, the color of fresh straw, and cut to just above her shoulders. She picked up her neat whisky, drank it carefully. She moved with precision. She was not looking at me but I thought she was entirely aware of me. My first thought was: She’s major trouble.

“Do you have a first-aid kit?” I asked Ollie.

“Yes, in my office.” Ollie sounded irritated. I’d interrupted a discussion between him and the woman. He jabbed a thumb at me. “This one. Runs like a maniac, bouncing off stairs and buildings and such. He’ll fall and break his neck and then I’ll be out a halfway decent bartender.” Ollie felt self-esteem to be overrated.

The woman surveyed me. “ L’art du deplacement?” Her voice was low and cool, like a summer breeze coming out of a tree’s shadow, and she had an odd accent I couldn’t quite decipher. She was beautiful to look at-although I had no real eye for any woman but Lucy-but I did not like her.

But she’d used the original French name for parkour running. I nodded. “Are you a traceur?” I asked. A term for parkour runners, drawn from the French term for a special kind of bullet that leaves a trail.

“Oh, no. I used to live in Paris. I used to watch the kids trying parkour, running along the edges of buildings, throwing themselves from rooftop to rooftop, amazed that they didn’t break their legs.” She smiled the slash-smile again. “I wished I had their nerve, their fleetness.”

“I say if you want to run an obstacle course, get on a track.” Ollie poured more whisky in the woman’s glass, although she hadn’t asked.

“But life’s an obstacle course,” the woman said. “The runners run in the world we live in, not an artificial one.” She turned back to me. “I always thought they looked like animals.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“In their grace. Wolves on the street. Hunters. The runners looked to me like a pack, closing on prey.” The woman sipped her whisky. “I have a fondness for wolves.”

It was exactly the sort of bizarre comment you hear in a bar that would make no sense anywhere else but seems reasonable in dim light with the sting of booze on your lips. Ollie stared at the woman, auditioned an unsure smile, and decided to end the discussion of wolves with introductions. “Hey, Sam, this is Mila.”

Mila offered a hand. I shook it. “Are you a regular, Mila? I’m still learning who’s who in Ollie’s kingdom.”

“She’s a wandering regular. Stops in when she’s in town, which is only like three times a year. And then I can’t get rid of her for a week.” Ollie grinned. “She keeps wanting to buy the bar from me but you know I will never sell.”

“I can work on him for you,” I said with a polite bartender smile. “I’m sure he wants to retire to Florida.”

“Oh, God, no,” Ollie said. “New York till I die.”

“He won’t sell, but he listens to my proposals because he sells me a bottle’s worth of Glenfiddich during that week.” Mila kept her hands folded on the bar in front of her, primly.

“Nice to be able to travel,” I said.

“The world is a smaller place these days. Much smaller.” Mila shrugged-a small, elegant gesture. “Be careful on your parkour runs, Sam. Ollie will not spare the whip if you’re on crutches.”