The Lightning Rule

by Brett Ellen Block

  “What’s your fault?”

  “He’s gone. When I woke up, Freddie was gone.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Time was against him. Ionello and Vass had a ten-minute lead. The roadblocks might slow them some, though not much. Emmett pushed the speedometer to sixty on residential streets, passing and dodging other cars. He had committed the intersections with barricades to memory, circumnavigating all except two of them. At the first, he flashed his shield and flew through. At the second, on Washington and William, he was delayed by traffic.

  Emmett anxiously tapped his thumb on the steering wheel. He was willing the line to move faster and he was willing Freddie not to go to his mother’s house. The kid had been pining to go home. He shouldn’t have been shocked that Freddie made a break for it. Emmett had just assumed that he got the picture: his apartment was the least safe place for him to be.

  The line moved up by a single car. The pace was infuriating. With evening approaching, the troopers must have been making the interviews lengthier to dissuade people from entering the Central Ward. Emmett imagined them reciting the speech about the curfew to every driver. When it was finally his turn, a middle-aged National Guardsman in fatigues greeted him with a cheery smile. Emmett could picture the man as an insurance agent or store clerk in everyday life. His smile seemed incongruous with the fatigues.

  “Sir, we’re here to remind you that the mayor has imposed—”

  Emmett thrust his badge in the man’s face. “I’m in a hurry.”

  Flustered, the Guardsman stepped aside, as if he were the one who had been impolite. “Pardon me. Go right ahead, officer.”

  Reservists like him would be fish out of water in the Central Ward. If Emmett had a second to spare, he would have warned the man. But he didn’t.

  Given the military presence throughout the ward, he couldn’t race through the streets and risk being stopped. The speed limit felt ridiculously slow. Emmett itched to floor the gas. Gliding along at twenty-five was as exasperating as being corralled at the roadblock.

  Dusk had drifted down the skyline and shadows were blossoming from the crevices in between buildings. There was no breeze to dilute the smoke that permeated the air. The neighborhood was deserted, Rose Street included. Emmett swung into a parking space up the road from Freddie’s building, hunkered low in his seat, and trained his eyes on the tenement’s front door. He couldn’t tell if Ionello and Vass had beaten him or not. He would give it five minutes, then go inside. Emmett didn’t have to wait long. The detectives came out in half that time, alone.

  An audible sigh of relief escaped Emmett’s lips. Freddie wasn’t home. Ionello and Vass had to be wondering where he was. Emmett was wondering that too. He watched the detectives get into a brown sedan and let them pull away before he left. Freddie could have been anyplace. City Hospital, where his mother was, topped the list. Fortunately for Freddie and for Emmett, Ionello and Vass wouldn’t think to look there.

  In order to find Freddie, Emmett would have to find Lossie, which meant he had to find Cyril. Since he never got Cyril’s last name, Emmett skipped the hospital’s main desk and went straight to the emergency room where Cyril had been admitted. The waiting area was a refugee camp of women with children huddled on their laps and men whose wounds were wrapped with rags or ripped T-shirts improvised into bandages. For all Emmett knew, it could have been the same people from last night.

  The admitting desk was swamped, so he stopped a nurse in the hall. “I’m looking for a patient who was brought in yesterday night. Can you help me?”

  “I’m going on break. You can ask at the desk.” The nurse was haggard from hours in the packed ER. Her once-neat bun was loose and lopsided.

  “Please,” Emmett said, showing his shield. “A cop cutting the line won’t go over too well.”

  The nurse contemplated that for a second. “All right. What’s the name?”

  “I don’t have a last name. His first is Cyril.”

  “Lotta good that’ll do ya.”

  “He had a head wound. It was pretty serious.”

  “That’s a start. Stay here.”

  Emmett stood in the corridor, apart from the mob, as the nurse begrudgingly went to the admitting desk and scrolled through a voluminous stack of papers. She returned with Cyril’s last name and his room number.

  “It’s Denton. Cyril Denton. His skull was cracked, right above the eyebrow. He’s on the third floor.”

  “His injury, is that life threatening?”

  “No, but he’ll probably have a headache for the rest of the year.”

  Shouting echoed through the hallway. “At this rate, I might too,” the nurse said. “It’s been like this all day.”

  “It wasn’t me,” a man protested loudly. “It wasn’t me, my brothers.”

  The inebriated plea was issued by a black man strapped to a gurney. An orderly was pushing him toward the elevator with two patrolmen as chaperones.

  “My brother. My brother,” he repeated. “Tell ’em it wasn’t me.”

  The man’s left arm was handcuffed to the gurney while his right hung in a sling. He also had a cast on his leg, and his head and shoulders were completely covered in a fine, white powder, as though a bag of baking flour had exploded in his face. To the crowd at the admitting desk and those in the waiting room, the scene was a welcome diversion from their misery. They gawked at the strange spectacle of the man dusted in white. Emmett recognized what the powder was. When intoxicated prisoners became unruly, officers would sometimes douse them with a fire extinguisher. The carbon dioxide usually knocked them out. Apparently, the extinguisher hadn’t done the trick.

  “You with them?” the nurse asked him.

  The entire fifth floor of City Hospital was sectioned off as a prison ward. Emmett presumed that was their final destination.

  “Not today.”

  “I only get fifteen minutes for break. Will that be all, Officer?”

  “Yeah, thanks.” He tossed her a quarter, saying, “Have a cup of coffee and a doughnut on me.”

  The nurse gladly accepted the quarter and the gratitude. It seemed to be the first thank-you she had heard all day.

  Compared to the emergency room, the third floor was unnaturally quiet. Emmett’s every step thumped through the stark corridors. He peered through the window in the door to Cyril’s room. Cyril was asleep in the bed. His forehead had been stitched, and he was wearing a foam neck brace for the whiplash caused by his forehead colliding with the sink. Lossie was napping in a chair beside his bed. Her cheek was black and blue and distended. It would ache once she awoke.

  “She’s okay.”

  Freddie had come up behind him, hands buried in his pockets sheepishly.

  “Are you?” Emmett was careful not to let on how grateful he was to see him.

  “Yeah. I’m okay.”

  “That was a dumb move.”

  “I couldn’t stay there. Not when she was here. Figured you’d catch up with me.”

  “Ionello and Vass came to the house. They’re trying to catch up with you too.”

  Freddie leaned into the wall, absorbing the bad news.

  “This isn’t some con you’re running. These people mean business. From now on, you’ve got to listen to me and do what I say. You have to promise.”

  Taking orders was tough for Freddie to commit to. He fidgeted with the belt loops on his dungarees, then finally said, “All right already. I promise.”

  “Your fingers aren’t crossed, are they?”

  Insulted, Freddie showed him his hands.

  “Okay then, let’s go.”

  “Will they be safe here?” Freddie was too short to see in the window to the room where Cyril and his mother were. He just looked at the door dolefully.

  “Yes, they’ll be safe.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yup.” Emmett put out his hands. “See? My fingers aren’t crossed either.”

  The lamps in the parking lot popped on in unison as they got to E
mmett’s car. It was seven o’clock on the dot, an hour into the citywide curfew. Emmett didn’t hear any police sirens or gunfire. The night was starting off well.

  “We gonna need this?” Freddie asked. The empty cardboard box sat atop the passenger seat.

  “Not anymore.”

  Freddie gladly tossed it to the ground. The feather-light box flopped onto the pavement like a fallen pillow.

  As Emmett was pulling out of the hospital’s parking lot, he happened to check his rearview mirror. “Damn. I spoke too soon.”

  “What is it?”

  “The guy in the Oldsmobile. He’s back.” The contour of his trademark Borsalino was outlined in the glow of Emmett’s taillights.

  “Aw, brother.” Freddie sunk in his seat to hide.

  “Don’t bother. He’s seen you.”

  “I thought you got rid ’a him.”

  “So did I.” Emmett’s ruse had worked, temporarily. “I didn’t give the guy enough credit. I bet he picked up my trail at your house. He may be smarter than he seems.”

  “I sure hope not.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Now whadda we do?”

  Emmett removed his jacket. “If he wants to follow us, he’s going to have to keep up.”

  They took Market Street and were soon stopped at a checkpoint on Central Avenue.

  “I’m taking this boy home from the hospital. He’s a witness,” Emmett explained to the Guardsman on duty, who took special note of his gun holster and police badge.

  “Be careful, Detective. It’s getting rough out there. Wouldn’t wanna wind up right back at the hospital, would ya?”

  That was precisely what Emmett was attempting to avoid. “We’ll be careful,” he said.

  The Delta was briefly detained at the blockade, then hard on his tail again.

  “Why didn’t you make that army man slow him down like last time?”

  “We need something more.”

  “Like what?”

  “We need to get this guy arrested.”

  Emmett led the Olds onto Route 280, an interstate highway that cut through Newark and fed into the 95 Turnpike. The speed limit on the highway was fifty miles per hour. Emmett pushed it to seventy-five. Traffic was almost nonexistent because people were staying clear of the riot-stricken area altogether. The two westbound lanes were wide open.

  “He’s gaining.” Freddie was facing backward, holding on to the headrest. “The Delta’s got a five-liter V-8 engine. That’s a fair match for your L-head Flat 6.”

  “I don’t think a fair match is what he’s after. Tell me if he comes around on my left.”

  “He’s comin’ around on your left.”

  The grille of the Olds crept into Emmett’s side mirror. Soon they were neck and neck. He gunned the engine, nosing into the lead. A station wagon was puttering along in his lane and Emmett was closing in. The Delta’s driver edged up, preventing him from changing lanes.

  “You see that car, right?” Freddie asked nervously.

  “Hold on to something.”

  Emmett jammed the brakes, letting the Oldsmobile speed ahead, then swung in behind him, leaving the station wagon in the dust. Freddie slid across the seat, gripping the armrest for dear life. To counter, the guy driving the Delta did the same, switching lanes and breaking to regain the advantage, that way he was chasing them.

  Freddie glanced back. “He’s so close, I can hear him breathin’.”

  “There’s an off-ramp after the bridge. Highway patrol uses it as a speed trap. We keep him behind us, the patrol catches him first.”

  In the distance lay the Passaic River, its dark expanse creating a broad gap between the city lights. The needle on the speedometer tottered at ninety and the river was fast approaching. They hurtled over the bridge with the coupe glued to their bumper. Emmett listened for sirens and looked for flashing lights, expecting one of the Traffic Division’s big-motored Chryslers to swoop in any second.

  “Where are they?” Freddie cocked his head from side to side.

  Emmett smacked the steering wheel. He realized his error too late. “The patrol cars must have been pulled off duty to help with the riot. We’re on our own.”

  The white lines on the road were whisking by. The Oldsmobile filled Emmett’s rearview mirror. A string of freight cars was lumbering along on the train tracks that ran parallel to the highway, visually distorting the speed they were traveling. The tracks veered off a quarter mile ahead and were replaced by an embankment. Beyond was a shallow basin.

  “I’m about to do something dangerous.”

  “About to? Everything you done’s been dangerous.”

  Freddie braced himself against the dashboard as Emmett mashed the accelerator into the floor, outpacing the Delta, then lurched into the lane closest to the median and dropped back until they were fender to fender. The embankment was fifty feet away. The Olds started breaking. Emmett matched him and jerked the wheel to the right. Metal screeching, he forced the coupe off the road, hoping it would blow a tire or fishtail to a stop, but the driver lost control and jumped the embankment just as the freight train passed. The car went airborne, the hood popped, and the Delta went careening into the basin.

  “Gotcha sucker,” Freddie cheered. “Guess you won’t be followin’ us no more. Wait. Why you slowin’ down?”

  Emmett pulled onto the shoulder, kicking up a cloud of dust. “Stay in the car.”

  Gun out, he ran over to the Oldsmobile. The windshield was cracked, and blood was oozing from a gash on the driver’s forehead, the cut nearly identical to the one Cyril had received at his hands. On the floorboard lay the Borsalino hat. Emmett frisked the guy, found a Beretta in a holster, and threw it aside into the dirt.

  “He dead?’ Freddie was standing at the top of the embankment.

  “Didn’t I tell you to stay in the car?” Emmett felt for a pulse. “And no, he’s not dead. He’s out cold.”

  Air wheezed from the guy’s nostrils. “I think he broke some ribs. He might have punctured a lung.” Emmett put the guy’s arm over his shoulder and lifted him from the car seat by pulling on his belt. “Come get on the other side of him.”

  “Uh-uh. That jive ass turkey was about to run us off the road.”

  “Please?”

  “Man,” Freddie groaned, taking the guy’s other arm. “This sucker’s fat too.”

  The driver was short but heavy, an onerous load. They struggled to carry him to Emmett’s car and get him situated. On the off chance he regained consciousness, Emmett cuffed him.

  “You’ll have to squeeze in the middle, Freddie.”

  “This cracker best not get any blood on me.” He clambered in from the driver’s side. “I can’t believe you takin’ this gangster to the hospital after he tried to kill us. You white folks is too nice.”

  Emmett got in behind him, so the three of them were crammed into the front seat together. “Who said we were going to the hospital?”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Valentine’s was an unassuming café on a corner of Mount Pleasant Avenue. It was the safest corner in the entire North Ward. Nobody littered or shouted or even jaywalked there. That was because the café was Ruggiero Caligrassi’s unofficial office. A red-and-green wind-frayed awning veiled the windows in shadow from the streetlights, making it impossible to see inside.

  “I don’t know about this idea ’a yours.”

  “If you’ve got a better one, I’m all-ears. If not, let’s see if our pal has a name. Reach in and grab his wallet, will you?”

  “No way.”

  “What? You can pick the pockets of strangers but not his?”

  “That’s for money.”

  “And this is for your protection.”

  “Okay, okay.” Freddie fished through the guy’s pockets. “Here,” he said, proffering a flimsy wallet.

  The driver’s license said the guy’s name was Tomaso Amata, twenty-three, five foot five. The picture wasn’t too flattering, though it was more presentable than
he was at the moment. The bloody cut on his forehead had coagulated into an ugly mound, and a single stream of blood had dribbled down the bridge of his nose. At first glance, Amata looked as if he had been shot between the eyes.

  Emmett went to the passenger side and unlocked the handcuffs. He slung Amata’s arm across his neck, then hoisted him to his feet. “Now when I say stay put, I mean it this time.”

  “I ain’t going nowhere,” Freddie swore. “A brotha ain’t safe in the North Ward. You even wear black in this neighborhood and you’ll get beat up.”

  “You can drive, right?”

  “Don’t got no permit, but yeah, my dad showed me how.”

  “If you hear shots, don’t stick around.” Emmett threw Freddie the car keys, entrusting the kid with their lone means of escape. “Promise?”

  “Promise.” Freddie pulled the door closed and depressed the lock.

  Amata’s head lolled forward, and the tips of his shoes dragged as Emmett hauled him into Valentine’s. A handful of men were seated in the café’s licorice black leather booths, cigarette smoke coiling from ashtrays alongside demitasse cups of espresso. They all stared at him, then at Amata, and said nothing.

  “I’m here to see Mr. Caligrassi,” Emmett announced as a drop of Amata’s blood splashed onto the octagonal tile floor.

  Behind the bar, an old man in shirtsleeves and a waiter’s bow tie was operating the espresso machine. He promptly put aside the coffeepot and slipped behind a curtain into a back room, like a butler summoning the master of the house. A rotary fan plugged in by the bar ticked off the passing seconds.

  Sal Lucaro came out a moment later. His eyes seized on Amata, whose body was getting heavier and heavier. Holding him also hampered Emmett’s access to his gun.

  “I said I wanted to see Mr. Caligrassi.”

  The men in the booths averted their eyes, registering Emmett’s request as an insult. Lucaro gave him a caustic glare and darted behind the curtain. The man who emerged next wore a silk necktie and had hair the color of dirty snow, furrowed from the marks of a comb. He had the distinguished affect of someone so important that “hurry” didn’t exist in his vocabulary.