F. Paul Wilson - By the Sword

"Yeah. Look, I have an idea. Let me help you carry these back into the store. We'll head toward the front, drop them off, then I'll escape to the street."

She gave Dawn a suspicious look. "I don't know…" she said slowly.

Dawn had totally expected this and had come prepared. She pulled a hundred-dollar bill from a side pocket of her shoulder bag and handed it to her.

"Please? He really creeps me out."

The woman's eyes bulged when she saw the zeroes. She quickly shoved it into a pocket.

"Okay. How we do this?"

Dawn pulled a green linen table napkin she'd snared from the penthouse and knotted it around her head do-rag style. Then she looked around and spotted another sundress, a light blue flowered print, in the pile the woman had been arranging. She grabbed that along with a couple of others and held them high by their hangers—high enough to obscure her head and torso. If she kept the dresses between her and Henry, he'd never see her.

Or so she hoped.

Her stomach totally cramped. This so had to work. If she blew it she'd never get another chance.

Do it.

"You lead the way," she said.

The woman nodded, filled her arms with clothing, and darted between the curtains.

"Ándale!"

Dawn followed, dresses held high, gliding toward the front in the woman's wake. As she reached the checkout area she tossed the dresses on a counter and kept going—out the door, onto the sidewalk, and into the ambling crowd.

This was dangerous, she knew, as she wove through the throng. Yeah, she had her hair covered, wore sunglasses, and was holding her hand across her mouth, hiding most of her lower face, but someone still might recognize her. Wouldn't be easy to do, but with the way her luck had been running lately, she couldn't take anything for granted.

She risked a look back as she turned the first corner she came to. No sign of Henry.

Relieved, she pressed on. He probably didn't even realize she was gone, and when he finally did, he'd be looking for someone wearing a pak chadar . But he wouldn't find one, or if he did, someone else would be wearing it. And if he asked anyone if they'd seen a woman wearing a veil, whoever they'd seen wouldn't be Dawn.

The sidewalks here on Spring Street were narrower than Broadway, slowing her progress. She resisted the urge to step off the curb and walk in the street. She wanted to avoid anything that would separate her from the pack.

She looked around and saw a cab but it was occupied. She didn't want to stand in the street signaling for one. She wanted off the street and sidewalk.

She'd been shopping in SoHo tons of times, sometimes with her mother, sometimes with friends. The closest subway stops were each two blocks away, but both too near Broadway. She might run into Henry. She continued along Spring. She knew of another straight ahead on Sixth Avenue.

Time to get totally lost in New York.

I must be living right, Darryl thought as he followed the girl through the crowd.

Or maybe it was because he was dissimilated. Hank had always said good things would start to happen once you dissimilated yourself. Darryl had memorized his words:

The time has come to separate yourselves from the herd. You don't belong with the herd. Come out of hiding. Step away from the crowd. Let the dissimilation begin!

Darryl had done just that. One of the guys on the line with him at the Ford plant in Dearborn had handed him a copy of Kick during a break and told him to read it. Said it had changed his life and would do the same for Darryl. Well, he'd never been much of a reader, but one look at that spidery black figure on the yellow cover and he'd had to know what was inside.

He'd read it. Then he'd read it again. And again. And when he checked Hank Thompson's Web site and learned that he was speaking in New York City, he'd headed east.

And after he'd heard him in person, he never went back. What for? Back to his dead-end job? Back to an ex-wife who hated him, and a kid who barely knew who he was? Fat chance, baby.

So he'd declared himself dissimilated and stuck around, earning room and board playing gopher for Hank, and grooving to the whole Kicker Evolution thing. For the first time in his life he felt like he belonged. His brother and sister Kickers were like the family he'd never had.

He had no idea why Hank wanted Dawn Pickering found, but that didn't matter. She was going to make Darryl a star among Kickers. The five-grand reward in his pocket wouldn't hurt neither.

He couldn't believe his luck. He'd got up this morning, scrounged some breakfast, and got out and wandered. That had been his pattern since Hank had put up that reward for finding her. Some days he'd go uptown, some days down, subwaying as far up as the Bronx and all the way down to the Battery, and everywhere between. But ever since Monday, after seeing that chick with the Arab thing around her head outside Blume's, he'd been sticking to the shopping areas. Hank had thought she was the girl he was looking for, and that was good enough for Darryl. He had Dawn's face branded on his brain, but he was also keeping an eye peeled for anyone wearing a veil.

So today he'd landed on Broadway in SoHo. Why not? Blume's had another store down here. And what does he see—the same chick in the same veil thing. But with that chauffeur guy again. Darryl wasn't gonna mess with him. His back still hurt a little from where he'd landed against that car. Guy was stronger than he looked. A lot stronger.

But no way he was letting her out of his sight. He'd followed from a distance, watching the two of them go in and out of one store after another. So he'd been hanging across the street from the fourth store, killing time, when all of a sudden this blonde with a green dishrag or napkin or whatever tied around her head comes rushing out. It took him a second or two to realize it was the girl from the flyer—without her veil.

He had a frozen, what-the-fuck? moment, and then he'd started to move—cautiously, expecting her driver guy to pop out behind her. But he didn't show.

Darryl was hanging well back. Good thing too, because she kept looking over her shoulder, like she was on the run from someone. Her driver? That didn't make sense.

Whatever, she was easy to track with that dumb green thing on her head. Sure, it hid most of her blond hair, and she wore these big sunglasses, and she kept her hand clapped over her mouth, but none of that had been enough to fool old Darryl.

He wished to hell he had a cell phone so he could call Hank and get some backup. If she jumped into a cab and he couldn't find another one in time, he could kiss that reward good-bye.

He followed her along Spring until she headed down the steps of a subway station.

Darryl pumped his fist. You are living right!

Alonzo Cooter glared defiantly up at them from his chair.

"You slopes think I'm scared of you? Think again."

Hideo looked down at the man's angry black face. Most people would be terrified and begging for release or at least an explanation. This man radiated defiance. Hideo had seen that in his photo and so had prepared this building for… persuasion.

Cooter-san had not been hard to find, but he had been difficult to isolate. He pumped gas at a Lukoil station on Tenth Avenue in Manhattan and was not accessible at work. After work he spent some time at a Ninth Avenue bar with two of his coworkers. Then he took the subway to the Bronx. Kenji, Ryo, and Goro accosted him outside his apartment building and shoved him into a van where Kenji asked him a question that an average man would have been frightened enough to answer without hesitation. But Cooter-san had refused and so the yakuza brought him to this abandoned building, duct-taped his wrists and ankles to the arms and legs of a sturdy wooden chair, and called Hideo.