Christopher Hebert - Angels of Detroit

Darius was on them in seconds, slamming one hand onto the hood of the car, his other reaching around toward his holster.

Four months ago McGee and Darius had been sitting together on a loading dock, smoking and staring at a distant light and fretting over failures and half-baked plans. And now, somehow, they’d arrived at this.

“Stop.” Through the glass it sounded more like a plea than a command.

She let her foot off the brake, and the car crept forward. Darius crept backward, keeping pace. She did it again, and so did he. It was as if they were dancing. Maybe they would do it this way, then. In ten minutes or so, a few inches at a time, they would reach the street. But by then, of course, the cops would already be here. Something told her they’d move more quickly for Mrs. Freeman than they bothered to for anyone else in the city.

“Just stop it already,” the old woman yelled from the backseat.

The next thing McGee knew, the window behind her was rolling down. She reached for the buttons on the door panel, trying to figure out which one to press. But it was too late.

Mrs. Freeman poked her head out through the opening. “It’s okay, Darius,” she said. “There’s no need for anyone to get hurt.”

Hurt. There was another thing McGee had never considered. Raising her eyes from the window buttons to the windshield, she discovered Darius had pulled his gun.

And she was surprised, unpleasantly, by how steadily he held his aim.

“Let us go,” Mrs. Freeman said. “Let us go.”

When Darius looked at the old woman, his gun drifted slightly, shifting from McGee’s heart to her shoulder.

“I can’t—” he said. “I can’t—”

“It’s just business,” Mrs. Freeman said. “I’ll be fine.”

All the while, McGee said nothing, clenching the steering wheel at ten and two. It was strange watching the two of them negotiate this without her, as if she were merely the chauffeur. Everything about this had turned ridiculous. Everything gone exactly wrong. And yet McGee could also see she was about to get out of here, and with Mrs. Freeman.

“Please,” Mrs. Freeman said, “let us through.”

Darius stepped aside slowly, reluctantly, standing there with his gun in his hand as the car jerked forward.

When they passed, McGee met his eyes. After all that, he didn’t look angry. It was something else. An expression she felt familiar with, though she wasn’t accustomed to seeing it on him: pity. He felt just as sorry for her as she did for him.

And there was something else she was aware of as they left Darius behind: he knew exactly where they were going. He’d seen Michael Boni’s map. The question his eyes had refused to answer was, would he tell?

There was no traffic out on the street, almost no one on the sidewalks. But the lights were on at the stadiums. Along the curb, the sewers were blowing steam. It had grown chilly, just as every meteorologist within broadcast range had predicted.

They headed north.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” Mrs. Freeman said from the backseat as her building shrank in the rearview mirror. “You’re the one who broke in.”

McGee curled her fingers around the wheel. The most important thing was to maintain control.

“They showed me your picture,” the old woman said. “They showed me all of them.”

“I’ve seen your picture, too.”

When she looked back, Mrs. Freeman had disappeared from the mirror. McGee spun around, nearly pulling the car into the curb.

The old woman had ducked, searching for her belt buckle.

“Jesus Christ,” McGee said, heart surging from her chest.

“Where did you think I went?”

They drove the next few blocks in silence, coming to a stop at a red light.

“What were you looking for?” Mrs. Freeman said. “Evidence of all my crimes? Lord knows it’s not hard to find.”

“You sure went to a lot of trouble to hide it.”

Mrs. Freeman shrugged. “Maybe you were just looking in the wrong place.”

“And where should we have looked?”

Mrs. Freeman turned toward the window. They’d left the business district behind, cruising now past blocks of empty storefronts, weedy lots.

“Anywhere,” Mrs. Freeman said, gazing beyond the glass. “Everywhere.”

“You take credit for all this?” McGee said. “You must think an awful lot of your little company.”

Mrs. Freeman turned back toward the front. “Isn’t that what you think?”

“I’m not that naïve.”

“Anyway,” Mrs. Freeman said, returning her attention to the view outside, “who said I was talking about the company?”

McGee once again felt a danger of the old woman slipping away from her. She had to stay focused, keep track of the timeline in her head.

The roads all around them were getting darker now, streetlights growing scarce.

“You think we’re enemies,” Mrs. Freeman said.

Michael Boni had suggested gagging her. Maybe the idea hadn’t been so ridiculous after all.

* * *

It was ten minutes before ten. McGee had texted Michael Boni to let him know they’d arrived. She’d brought the car to a stop in a far, dark corner of the parking lot, concealed from the road. The building before them was just shapes and shadows, and high up above, as if floating in place, there was a small blinking red light.

“We’re waiting,” Mrs. Freeman said. “Why are we waiting?” Her voice was as calm and measured as it had been from the start.

McGee felt calm herself, particularly now that the car was still, the engine off, its various clickings and clackings having finally ceased. Even on the city’s crumbling roads, the old woman’s car had ridden as smooth as a speedboat. Now that they were here, the snug, silent interior made it easy to forget why.

“Could you turn on the radio?” Mrs. Freeman said. “I wouldn’t mind some music.”

McGee turned the key halfway. Anything would be better than talking. But when she tried to make sense of all the buttons and knobs, she discovered it was the most complicated console she’d ever seen. Unlike Michael Boni’s, though, at least everything here was still in one piece.

“Upper left,” Ruth Freeman said.

A moment later the old woman added, “Just push it in.”

they care more about fish and turtles than they do about their country. More taxes, more regulations. I say, fine. Next time they need a job, let them ask the fishes

“Maybe we should listen to something else,” the old woman said. And then after a brief silence, “Lower right.”

McGee pressed a button, and on came the moans of a cello.

Mrs. Freeman’s chest rose and fell, and a slim, relieved smile came into her face. “Do you like classical?”

It was Elgar. The concerto in E minor. McGee remembered a kid at camp, fourteen years old, who’d played it. Not well, but still. More than she could ever do. The music seemed fitting, here among the ruins of an abandoned parking lot, as if old man Elgar had had precisely this place in mind, a lament for this particular lost city.

“Not really.” In the rearview mirror, McGee could see Mrs. Freeman squinting into the darkness, trying to make out where they were.

“We’ve never met before, have we?” the old woman said.

“We’ve never met,” McGee said. “But I know you very well.”

“Do you?” Mrs. Freeman took another slow, deep breath, and a fog spread across the window. “I suppose you do.”

There was a pause, and McGee wondered if the old woman was busy contemplating the loss of all her secrets.

“In that case,” Mrs. Freeman finally said, “I wonder if you might tell me something about yourself?”

“I don’t think so.”

The old woman sighed. “It would make this easier.”