Jeffery Deaver - Manhattan Is My Beat

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.

On the streets of TriBeCa she paused.

Looking around.

There were construction workers, there were businessmen and businesswomen, there were messengers.

She'd thought Pretty Boy and Emily were gone, wouldn't bother with her. But she'd been wrong there. And that meant they might have other partners. Was it any one of these people?

Several faces glanced at her, and their expressions were dark and suspicious. She shrank back into an alley, hid behind a Dumpster. She'd wait until it was night- just hide there-then hike up to the bus station.

Then she saw a bum coming up the alley. Only he didn't look quite like a bum to her. He was dirty like a homeless man and he wore shabby clothes. But his eyes seemed too quick. They seemed dangerous. He looked up and saw her. Paused for just an instant too long. Lowered his head again and continued up the alley.

Ignoring her. But really trying too hard to ignore her.

He was one of them too!

Go, girl. Go! She slung her purse over her shoulder, grabbed the heavy suitcase, and bolted from behind the Dumpster.

The bum saw her, debated a moment, then started running too. Directly behind her.

Rune couldn't run fast, not with the suitcase. She struggled into Franklin Street and paused, gasping, trying to figure which way to go. The bum was getting closer.

Then a man's voice: "Rune!"

She spun around, heart hammering.

"Rune, over here!"

It was Phillip Dixon, the U.S. marshal. He was waving toward her. She started toward him instinctively, then stopped, remembering that he was one of the people who wanted to arrest her.

What should she do?

She was in the middle of the street-thirty feet from the subway. She heard a rumbling underground-a train was approaching. She could vault the turnstile and be on her way uptown in fifteen seconds.

Thirty feet from the bum, running toward her, anger on his face.

Thirty feet from Dixon.

"Rune!" the marshal called. "Come on. It's not safe here. They're around here somewhere. The killers."

"No! You're going to arrest me!"

"I know you didn't kill Symington," Dixon said.

But what else was he going to say? And after the cuffs were on, it'd be: You have the right to remain silent…

The bum was closer, staring at her with dark, cold eyes.

The train was almost in the station. Run for it! Now.'

"I want to help you," Dixon shouted. "I've been worried about you." He started across the street but stopped when she turned away from him, started toward the subway.

He held up his hands. "Please! They're after you, Rune. We know what happened. They set you up! They hadn't figured on you getting away in Brooklyn. But we know you didn't do it. You were just at the wrong place at the wrong time."

Choose, she told herself. Now.'

She started across the street tentatively toward Dixon. The bum was closer now, slowing.

"Please, Rune," the marshal said.

Beneath her feet, through the grating, the train eased into the station, brakes squealing.

Choose!

Come on, you've gotta trust somebody…

She bolted toward Dixon, ran to his side. He put his arm around her. "It's okay," he said. "You'll be all right."

She blurted out, "There's a man after me. In the alley." And saw a car pulling up at the curb beside them.

The bum turned the corner. He stopped cold as Dixon drew that huge black gun of his.

"Shit," the bum said, holding up his hands. "Hey, man, I'm sorry. I just wanted her purse. No big deal. I'm just going to-"

Dixon fired once. The bullet slammed into the bum's chest. He flew backward.

"Jesus!" Rune cried. "What'd you do that for?"

"He saw my face," Phillip said matter-of-factly, lifting the suitcase and purse away from Rune.

From the car that had just driven up, a woman's voice said to Dixon, "Come on, Haarte, you're standing right out here in broad daylight. There could be cops any minute. Let's go!"

Rune stared at the woman; it was Emily. And the car she was driving was the green Pontiac that had tried to run her and the other witness down at Mr. Kelly's apartment.

Wrong place, wrong time…

Phillip-or Haarte-opened the back door of the Pontiac. He shoved Rune inside, tossed her purse and suitcase into the trunk. Haarte got into the backseat with Rune.

"Where to?" Emily asked.

"Better make it my place," he answered calmly. "It's the one with the basement. Quieter, you know."

Lost in a forest. Hansel and Gretel. Rune stared at the ceiling and wondered what time it was.

Thinking how fast she'd lost track of the hours.

Just like she'd lost track of her life over the past few days.

It reminded her of the time she was a little girl, visiting some relatives with her parents in rural Ohio. She'd wandered away from a picnic in a small state forest. Strolling for hours through the park, thinking she knew where she was going, where her family's picnic bench was. A little confused maybe but, with a child's confidence and preoccupation, never even considering that she was lost. Never knowing that hours had passed and she was miles away from her frantic family.

Now she knew how lost she was. And she knew, too, how impossible it was to get home again.

Welcome to reality, Richard would've told her.

The room was tiny. A storeroom in the cellar. It had only one window, a small one she couldn't possibly reach, barred with twisty bars of wrought iron. Part of the concrete floor was missing. The dirt beneath was overturned. When Haarte had shoved her into the room she'd noticed that right away: the dug-up dirt. She told herself it was just because he was doing some work down there. Replacing pipes, putting in a new concrete floor.

But she knew it was a grave.

Rune lay on her back and looked at the cold streetlight coming through the unreachable window.

Back-street light.

Light to die by.

There was a sudden metallic snap, and she jumped.

A shuffle of feet outside the door.

A second lock clicked and the door opened. Haarte stood in the doorway. He was cautious. He looked around the room, maybe to see if she'd rigged any traps or found any weapons. Then, satisfied, he nodded for her to follow. Tears of fear pricked in her eyes but she wouldn't let them fall.

He led her up some rickety stairs.

Emily's attention was on her. She was amused, studying Rune like a real estate agent appraising an apartment. When Rune hesitated outside the doorway Haarte pushed her in. Emily didn't seem to like that but she didn't say anything.

No one spoke. Rune felt the tension in the air. Like the scene inside the bank in Manhattan Is My Beat where the cop is staring down the robber. His hand is out, not moving, saying over and over, "Give me the pistol, son. Give it to me." The lighting shadowy and stark, the camera moving in close on the muzzle of the.38.

Would the robber shoot or wouldn't he? You wanted to scream from the tension.

Haarte pushed Rune into a cheap dining-room chair, stared down at her. She whimpered, feeling not the least bit adult.