Jeffery Deaver - Hell's Kitchen

Why no pain? Pellam thought, staring at his shattered arm.

“If you’re wondering who was in that lawyer’s office,” the crazy young man said matter-of-factly. “That was your friend Alex. The snitch-bitch. Wheeled him from my place in an oil drum – bent him nearly double. Now that was an unpleasant trip for him, I’ll bet. And left him under the tanning lamp. Had to get all you faggot cowboys off my back.” He opened one latch on the cuff.

Sonny nodded toward the theater. “This’ll be the last one. Come on, front row seat.” Sonny grabbed Pellam by the collar and pulled him to his feet. “We’re going out together, Joe Buck, fucking Antichrist… You, me and about five thousand other good folk.”

He kicked an oil drum over and the soapy liquid flowed through the corridor and into the theater itself. The second drum followed.

“This is my juice,” he said matter of factly. “I invented it myself. See, you couldn’t do this with gas alone. Gas is shitty. Low flashpoint, big flare, cool fire, and then it’s over with. I knew this pyro one time…” Sonny began to unlatch the second ring of the cuff. His hands shook badly. He paused, inhaled deeply. While it nauseated Pellam the smell of the liquid seemed to calm Sonny down. He began working on the cuff again. He continued. “He used gasoline. Thought he was soooo cool. One time he had this job on the third floor of an old tenement. He takes two five-gallon cans up, douses the place and breaks a lightbulb so when the guy comes in and flicks on the light up he goes. Then he starts going through the guy’s drawers, looking for jewelry or something. What he doesn’t realize is that gas vapors’re heavier than air and while he’s fucking around upstairs the gas fumes are flowing down to the basement. Where there’s… guess what? Ta-dah… A pilot light in the water heater. I think they found part of his skeleton.

Pellam choked. There was probably a hundred gallons of liquid flowing into the building. Pellam remembered what Lomax had told him about the Happy Land fire. A mere gallon of gas had turned the place into an inferno.

“Let’s go, Midnight Cowboy.” Sonny touched Pellam’s shattered arm. The bone shifted and, at last, a searing jolt of pain shot up into Pellam’s shoulder and neck and face. In pure reaction he lashed out with his left palm, catching Sonny in the jaw. It was a weak blow but it caught the young man by surprise and he stepped back a few feet.

“You shit.” He shoved Pellam against the wall.

On his knees Pellam scooped up a handful of the napalm, splashing it into Sonny’s face. It missed his eyes but splashed on his mouth and nose and he stumbled backwards, screaming in pain. He dropped the cigarette lighter, which Pellam grabbed. He started for the young man. But Sonny was madly pulling the Colt from his belt.

“Why did you do that?” he cried. He sounded incredulous. His cheek was bright red. His mouth was swollen. But his eyes were clear and brimmed with madness. He lifted the pistol, pulled the trigger.

Pellam turned and stumbled through the door.

Sonny wouldn’t have realized that the gun was single action. You had to cock it before you could shoot. In the delay Pellam staggered outside and shouted for help.

There might’ve been a person at the end of the block, looking toward him. He wasn’t sure. He tried to wave with his good arm but felt the gritty kiss of the ends of the broken bone in his other. Nearly fainted. Pellam shouted again but in his haze he couldn’t tell if the person – if anyone was actually there – heard or noticed him.

Sonny spit the chemical from his mouth and followed. Glancing back, Pellam had an image of a white face, slits of blue eyes, the white hand holding the black pistol. White hair, dancing like smoke.

Oh, man, that hurts. He gripped his arm tighter and stepped into the middle of the street.

The twin eyes of a car flicked toward him. The vehicle approached and then paused. Choosing not to see him, the driver stared ahead with the uncomfortable distraction of someone late for a dinner party and sped on.

Pellam continued away from the theater, back toward the Tower itself.

A wave of pain flowed through him. Sweat flowed. Every jar of his boots multiplied the agony. He wanted to pause, just catch his breath.

Don’t stop. Keep going.

A glance behind. Sonny was stumbling too but he was gaining on him. Pellam assumed he’d figured out how the gun worked. In a minute or so he’d be close enough to shoot. Pellam ran through an alley toward the back of the Tower, speeding over glints from bits of foil and bottles and syringes. Crack vials. The sparkle of ground glass smoothed into asphalt.

The blond man’s feet sounded behind him.

Crack.

A bullet shattered the window of a deserted tenement.

Another shot.

Somebody might hear and call the police.

But no, of course not. Who’d pay any attention? This was just the soundtrack to an average night in Hell’s Kitchen. Ignore it.

Keep walking, eyes down, people would be telling themselves.

Stay away from the window.

Come back to bed, lover…

It’s a white man’s world…

Pellam staggered out of the alley, turned into the middle of Thirty-fifth Street. He was now a block away from the theater and its festivities, and this street was even emptier than Thirty-Sixth.

The only motion he could see was moths beating themselves to death on the heavy lenses of street lamps.

The sound of rock music was faint. At least, he thought, he’d led Sonny away from the people in the theater. The guests would smell the liquid and evacuate the building.

Pellam cocked his head and found himself in the middle of the street, on his knees. Looking back, he saw Sonny, lips blood red and puffed up from the chemical, getting closer, the handcuff dangling from his wrist. Pellam stood and struggled again down the street, which was in shadow, like the boarded-up tenements and the construction site and the alleys. He came to the fence that surrounded the base of the Tower and slipped through a gap in the chain-link gate.

Here, in the construction site, he’d be safe. It was very dark. Sonny’d never find him mong the construction sheds, stacks of lumber and plywood, compressors, equipment, scaffoldings decorated with red, white and blue bunting. Plenty of shadows in which he could lie. Plenty of vehicles to hide under.

Places where he could stop running and lie down, stop the terrible pain.

He staggered to a small metal shed and climbed into the murky space beneath. Sonny approached. The chain link fence rattled once. Did the young man just test it and pass on? Or did he enter? No, no, he slipped inside too. His footsteps were nearby.

The steps passed very close.

“Hey, Joe Buck… Why’re you running?” He sounded perplexed. “We’re going together.” The jingle of the handcuffs. “You and me.”

Pellam opened his eyes and saw feet in tattered white shoes moving slowly over the gravel and dirt. One shoe was untied and the laces dangled gray and muddy. He thought of Hector Ramirez and the stolen Nikes.

Sonny padded over the gravel.

My blood, Pellam realized. He’s following the trail of my blood to my hiding place. But why hasn’t he found me yet? It was too dark, he supposed.

Metal grated on metal.

A resonating sound like a steel drum, a bell.

Then, a gushing sound as liquid began flowing on the ground. He clutched his arm more tightly. What was Sonny doing?

A second gush joined the first. Then another.

A pause. Then a gunshot sounded very nearby. Pellam jumped in shock. There was a huge flash of light and Pellam realized that Sonny had opened drums of gas or diesel fuel in the construction site and set the liquid ablaze with the gun.