Marcus Sakey - At The City's Edge

There were a lot of documents, and they were complicated. He didn't rush. It took most of an hour. But even before he was finished, he understood. Understood why his brother was dead. Why his nephew was in danger. Why they were all hunted.

More than anything, he understood the problem was bigger than he'd dared imagine.

Cruz had finished first, and was staring into the darkness, her hair drying frizzy, a twist of it between lips. She pulled the hair from her mouth and said, "This can't just be Galway and DiRisio."

He set the paper down. "No."

"Do you think it means-"

"Yeah," he cut her off. "I think it does."

Cruz shook her head, rubbed her eyes. "Jesus Christ."

He listened to the soft steady patter of rain on the stairs. The violence of the storm had settled into an easy rhythm, the kind of soaking drizzle that could go all night. Normally he liked rain, but he found no comfort here, entombed in the dark below the spot his brother died.

"No wonder they killed him. This…" She shook her head. Blew air through her mouth. "So now what?"

"We got what we need. Let's go." He collected everything, rapped the stack against the floor to even the edge, and put the manila folder back in the briefcase.

After the sepulchral darkness of the basement, the world above seemed huge and wild. Climbing the ladder, he had an eerie feeling that something had changed. That he was coming out the trap hatch a different man. He stood to one side and offered Cruz a hand, and she took it. They picked their way across the rubble, the rain soaking clothes that hadn't dried from the last time.

"Who do we take this to?" Cruz asked.

"No one."

"Huh?"

"We don't take it anywhere." He stepped over a charred beam. "We stay out of sight. Just make copies, and send them to everyone."

She smiled. "NBC 5, for one."

"Yeah. The Tribune . The Sun-Times ."

"The mayor. Fast Eddie Owens."

"Fast Eddie Owens…" He had an image of a sun-faded poster, a campaign ad. It had been in the front window of Michael's bar. "The alderman? Why?"

"This is his district, and he's an anti-gang crusader. He's even backing a budget proposal to upgrade the equipment of cops on the street, buy digital cameras and PDAs. I won't bore you with details, but believe me, it would make a huge difference." She stepped gingerly onto the sidewalk and began digging in her pocket. Came out with the keys and went around to the driver's side of Washington's Honda. "And he's not part of the police department."

"Good by me. Hell, let's send it everywhere ." His head buzzing. Thinking of the documents he'd read in a darkness beneath the world. Just words, just paper and ink. But more, too. Blood. Lives. All being manipulated with a sheer and brutal pragmatism that left him sick inside.

But at least it was almost over. They had what they needed to end it. Jason opened the passenger side door, the air inside stuffy with the smell of Washington's tobacco. He tossed the briefcase in the back and brushed off what dirt and ash he could from his clothes.

He was just about to sit down when his window exploded.

His body moved before his brain caughtup. Jason whirled, saw a car screaming toward them, something low-bodied, a dark shape cutting the rain. A strobe of lights flared from the passenger side, and as he dropped he processed the image, someone shooting at them with a submachine gun, a drive-by, he was in a goddamn drive-by, and as he realized that, fivesixseven holes ripped in the door beside him, the firecracker rattle of the gunblasts arriving just afterward, the bullets traveling faster than the sound.

He heard an engine turning over, looked to see Cruz cranking the key. Jason threw himself into the passenger seat as Cruz slammed the car into reverse, the Honda whining like a toy as it rocketed backward. The sudden motion had him scrabbling for a grip, and he got a hand against the dash just as the rear window blew in spiderwebs of broken glass. Cruz's lips were moving but he couldn't hear what she was saying, and then the Honda slammed into something solid, a bone-crunching jerk he felt in his teeth, the impact of metal on metal, a screeching sound that pitched him back into the seat, neck whiplashing, the angry slippy hum of tires against wet concrete, momentum slamming shut the passenger door, and then Cruz threw it into drive and spun the wheel and stamped the accelerator, and they were moving again, the Honda leaping forward gamely, a rattling from behind like they were dragging the bumper or muffler.

His head hurt, and he realized he must have hit it against something, maybe the dash. Cruz kept mumbling to herself as she squinted out the windshield, foot jammed all the way down on the gas. The world blurred and shifted, lights running like melting wax, and for a moment Jason wondered if he'd hit his head harder than he thought. Then he realized it was water streaming down the glass, the rain, and he said, in a voice that sounded calmer than he would have expected, "Wipers."

She reached for them with her left hand, and he could hear what she was saying now, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed are thou among women, the wipers starting now, shick-shock, their pace steady and fast and metronomic, her words timing to them.

Get it together, man. You're a soldier. What's your goddamn situation?

The sit rep was that they were streaking north on Damen, the wind howling in the passenger window, where a few scraps of safety glass clung stubbornly to the frame. Turning, he could see headlights through the splintered back window. Someone chasing them. He couldn't say who, though he'd seen the car. Low and fast-looking. A Mustang, a Charger, something like that. Something that would be able to smoke a '94 Honda. Her ramming maneuver had bought them a little time. But unless she'd been able to take out a tire or bend an axle, it wouldn't be enough.

"Holy Mary, Mother of God." Cruz's voice was settling now, not the panicked mumbling of before. Her eyes flicked to the rearview, narrowed. "Hold on."

Jason reached for the seatbelt, clicked it into place as she yanked the wheel to the right, a hard, sliding turn on streets slick with rain and grease. The back fishtailed, skidding around, and then she hit the gas again, the vector overwhelming the spin as they charged east. The street was ghetto-residential, sagging houses drooping toward cracked earth, rusting fences, weeds shining damp in gardens of broken glass. Battered cars lined both sides of the street, shit, all facing toward them, which meant they were going the wrong direction down a one-way street. The rain had driven people off the street to their porches, and Jason heard angry yells. Someone threw a bottle wrapped in brown paper, the glass smashing in their wake.

Behind them, headlights spun around the same curve, slid too far, side-slammed into a parked car. Jason watched, willing the car to flip. It didn't. Another set of headlights came in behind.

"There's a second car," he said.

Cruz nodded, her knuckles white on the wheel.

He'd have given a finger for a weapon. He felt helpless, Cruz driving, him riding shotgun without a shotgun. More flashes exploded behind them, but didn't seem to hit anything.

A hundred yards ahead, headlights glowed. An oncoming car. The street was too narrow for them to pass. It would trap them.

"Elena-"

"I see it." She stayed on course, running straight, the accelerator to the floor. There was a cross-street between them and the oncoming car. A northbound street, Racine he thought. It was a toss-up whether they could get there first. A horn shrieked from the oncoming car. Behind them, the Charger was gaining fast. Jason gripped the armrest. Angry yells poured in the Honda's broken windows. A couple years ago a white delivery driver had accidentally hit a black kid in this neighborhood. The crowd had pulled him from his car and beaten him to death before the police arrived. Jason watched the headlights grow larger, the distance disappearing.