Jeffery Deaver - Manhattan Is My Beat

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, it's payable to cash. You can have it. But, listen, you have to come with me!"

"Come with you?" Stephanie asked. "Where?"

"To Ohio."

"No way. I've got an audition next week."

"Stephanie…"

"I'll get you a couple of hundred. I'll stop at the bank. Where'll you be?"

"How 'bout Union Square Park? The subway entrance, southeast side."

"Okay. Good. A half hour."

"Is it safe?" Stephanie asked cautiously.

"Pretty safe."

A pause. "I don't want to get beat up or anything. I bruise real easy. And I can't be bruised for my audition."

As she stepped into the street, Rune heard the man's voice right beside her.

"You're a hard person to find."

Panicked, Rune spun around.

Richard was leaning on a parking meter. The yuppie in him had been exorcized; Mr. Downtown was back. He wore boots, black jeans, and a black T-shirt. He also wore a gold hoop in his ear. She noticed that it was a clip-on. He looked tired.

"You have," he continued, "as FDR said, a passion for anonymity. I called you at the store a couple of times. I was worried about you."

"I haven't been in for a while."

"There was this party last night. I thought you might want to go."

"You didn't ask… what's her name? Cathy the Amazon?"

"Karen." He held on to the parking meter and spiraled around it slowly. "We've only had dinner that once. Don't worry about her. We're not going out."

"That's your business. I don't care."

"Don't act so possessive."

"How can I be acting possessive if I tell you I don't care what you do with Cathy/Karen?"

"What's wrong?" He was frowning. Following her eyes to the short, dark-complected man with curly hair standing two doors away. His back was to them.

Rune inhaled with a frightened hiss. The man turned and walked past them. It wasn't Pretty Boy.

She turned back to Richard, trying to focus on him, though what she was seeing was the stupid grin of the plaster statue of Dopey or Sneezy as it disintegrated under the shotgun blast. The gun had been astonishingly loud. Sounded more like a bomb going off.

Richard took her by the shoulders. "Rune, aren't you listening to me? What's wrong?"

She backed away, eyes narrowing slowly. "Leave me alone."

"What?"

"Stay away from me. Do you want to get hurt? I'm poison. Stay away."

"What are you talking about?" He reached out and took her hand.

"No, no!" she shouted. The tears started. She hesitated, then hugged him. "Get away from me!

Forget about me! Forget you ever met me!"

She turned and ran through the crowds of Greenwich Village toward Union Square.

Waiting under the art-deco steel entrance to the subway, Rune slouched against the cool tile.

She absently watched a crane, a lopsided T-shaped structure rising above an enormous new housing project on Union Square. It's just a crane, she told herself. That's all it was. Not a tool of the gods, not a huge skeleton of a magic animal. What she. saw was just a construction crane. Moving slowly, under the control of a faceless union worker, lifting steel reinforcing rods for workmen in dusty jeans and jackets to install.

Magic… hell.

She thought again about calling Manelli or Dixon.

But why should they believe her? There was probably an all-points bulletin out on her already, just like there'd been for Roy the cop after he'd stolen the loot in Manhattan Is My Beat. At least she'd had the foresight to get rid of some of the evidence: When she'd stopped by her loft to pick up the check, she'd realized she still had Spinello's accordion envelope and thrown it into the trash. If the cops found her with that, it'd be a sure conviction.

No, she'd leave town, leave the Side, leave the Magic Kingdom. Go back home. Get a job. Go to school.

Well, it was damn well about time.

Time to grow up. Forget quests…

She saw Stephanie, her reddish hair glowing in the afternoon sun as she walked through the park. They waved at each other. It seemed ridiculously innocent, Rune thought, as if they were girlfriends meeting for drinks after work to complain about bosses and men and mothers.

Rune looked around, saw no one suspicious-well, no one more suspicious than you'd normally see in Union Square Park-then joined Stephanie.

"You're hurt." The woman glanced at her forehead, where Rune had been cut by a piece of glass or plaster.

"It's okay."

"What happened?"

Rune told her.

"God! You have to go to the police. You can talk to them. Tell them what happened."

"Yeah, right. They can place me at two different crime scenes. I'm the number one suspect."

"But won't the cops find you in Ohio?"

She gave a faint smile. "They might-if they knew my real name. Which they don't."

Stephanie smiled back. "True. Oh, here." She handed

Rune a wad of bills. "It's about three hundred. That enough?"

Rune hugged her. "I don't know what to say." She gave Stephanie the check.

"No, no, this is too much."

"Little Red Hen, remember? I just need enough to get home on. You keep the rest. Tony'll probably fire you too. Just for helping me."

"Come on," Stephanie told her. "I'll help you pack and take you to the airport." They started down into the subway. "You think it's safe to go back to your loft?"

"Emily and Pretty Boy don't know about it. Manelli and that U.S. marshal do, but we can sneak in through the construction site. Nobody'll see us. We can-"

A chill like ice down her back. She gasped.

Ten feet away Pretty Boy stepped out from behind a pillar, holding a black pistol. "Don't fucking move," he muttered to Rune.

Anger on his face, he moved forward toward Rune, not paying any attention to Stephanie. Apparently he didn't even think they were together.

Rune froze. But Stephanie didn't.

She stepped past him fast, which caught him completely off guard. Screaming "Rape, rape!" she shoved her palm, fingers stiff and splayed, into his face. His head snapped back and he staggered against the wall, blood pouring from his nose.

"Fuck," he cried.

Her self-defense class…

Stephanie stepped toward him again. It looked like she was going to kick him this time.

But Pretty Boy was good too; he knew what he was doing. He didn't try to fight back. He leapt to the side about three steps, out of range, wiped the blood from his mouth and started to raise the pistol toward her.

Then the arm closed around his neck.

A passenger-a huge black man-had heard Stephanie's cry and had come up behind their attacker and locked his muscular arm around Pretty Boy's throat. Choking, he dropped the gun and grabbed the man's forearm, trying futilely to break the grip.

The big man behind him seemed to be enjoying the whole thing. He said cheerfully to Pretty Boy, "H'okay, asshole, leave th'ladies 'lone. You hear me?"

They ran.

Stephanie in the lead.

She must have belonged to a health club-she was moving like a greyhound. If Pretty Boy was there, Rune figured, Emily must be nearby too. Besides, the token seller would've called the cops by then; Rune wanted to get as far away from the station as possible.

Gasping, running. Following Stephanie as best she could.

They were two blocks from the subway when it happened.

At Thirteenth and Broadway a taxi jumped a red light just before it changed.

Which was the exact moment Stephanie ran into the intersection between two double-parked trucks.

She didn't have a chance…

All she could do was roll onto the hood to keep from getting crushed under the wheels. The driver hit the brakes, which gave a low, wild scream, but still the cab hit her hard. Some part of her body-her face, Rune thought in despair-slammed into the windshield, which turned white with fractures. Stephanie cartwheeled onto the concrete, a swirl of floral cloth and red hair and white flesh.