by S. L. Wright
It took some searching to find out that the New York City Planning commissioner, Dennis Mackleby, lived in Battery Park City. He owned an apartment in one of the high-rises filled with wealthy urban families. It wasn’t far from where I was sitting.
A search through the phone records yielded his home number. I keyed it into my phone, but didn’t press SEND until I was back out on the street. It was just after midnight—no better time for a blackmailer to strike. The phone rang six times before a sleepy voice picked up. “Mackleby residence.”
It was a woman, perhaps his wife. My hands were sweating and I wasn’t sure I could do this. “I need to speak to Dennis Mackleby. It’s an emergency.”
“Who is this?” she asked more sharply.
“Tell him it’s Allay from the Den on C. With bad news.”
She repeated the words after me, and sooner than I would have imagined, Dennis Mackleby was on the phone. “Who is this? What is this about, calling me at this hour? I won’t stand for prank calls.”
“Mr. Mackleby, we’ve never met, but I know your driver, Nelson. He comes to my bar to pick up your bribe from Prophet Anderson the first of every month.”
That cut him off at the knees. It sounded as if he were strangling; then he put his hand over the mouthpiece but not quickly enough before I heard him give some excuse to his wife. “Hold on,” he said. Then the sound of the door shutting preceded his terse demand. “You had better rethink what you’re doing. I’m not the kind of guy you want to mess around with.”
“Yes, it would be very messy. Splashed all over the papers, exactly how those waterfront variances for the Prophet’s Arena were bought and paid for with regular installments.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mackleby said. “You have nothing on me. This is a sick joke and you should be ashamed of yourself.”
But he didn’t hang up. His breathing was harsh in my ear. He was saying those things because he had to, in case I was taping him. He was hooked and on my line.
“I’ll keep my mouth shut—forever—if you do one thing,” I promised. “You have to convince the prophet to release the man known as Theo Ram. They’re holding him in the Prophet’s Center, and unless I see him free on the streets by tomorrow with my own eyes, I’m going public with my evidence. Remember, Theo Ram.”
I hung up, shaking. I turned and hurried up Vesey Street. It was tragic, what I was reduced to. I think in that moment I gave up hope for myself as a human being.
I wouldn’t subject myself to Revel’s relentless questions, and I couldn’t admit how much I cared about Theo out loud to anyone, not even Shock, so I spent the rest of the night riding around on the subway, changing from line to line. The clack-clack rhythm of the rocking car lulled me, as people came and went. The stations all began to look the same—the platforms, steel I-beams, and tiles stained with black, brown, and white residue seeping down from the streets.
I felt glimpses of other demons as the train stopped at the stations, but deep in the tunnels, the layers of concrete blocked all signatures. I felt relatively safe, knowing it would give time for Mackleby to pressure Dread, and for Dread to pressure Vex. It was anyone’s bet what would happen next.
At every stop, I glanced at my phone as reception returned. Just as the morning rush hour picked up, my battery started running low. Vex liked to ride the subways during rush hour, irritating the cramped passengers, so I couldn’t stay any longer. I decided to get my car and drive around for a while to charge up my cell. That would also keep any demons from detecting a pattern in my movements.
As I got out at Canal and Broadway, a message that wasn’t from Revel finally beeped through. But it wasn’t the message I was expecting. It was from Lolita. Hi Allay. I hope everything’s going okay. I talked to Darryl and Pepe, and I’m meeting with both of them this morning to give them their pay. Pepe said he was on his way over to the bar to clean up since we didn’t get to it last night, so you may see him before I do. Give me a call when you get up and get this.
My blood ran cold. Pepe was going to the bar. I called his home, but his wife said he had left a while ago. He didn’t have a cell phone, so I couldn’t intercept him.
I had to go back to the bar to tell him to go home. Nobody should go near that place. It was like nuclear waste, deadly. Any demon looking for me would start there, and Vex had made it clear with Theo that he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt people to get to me.
The Monday morning rush hour didn’t make it easy to get to the bar in a hurry. The subway would take me only halfway. Rather than wait on the crowded platform and shove into a full car, I sprinted up Broadway, heading north. I tried to grab a cab, but they were all full, or people were waiting to step into one as soon as somebody got out.
I had to run nearly thirty blocks to get back home, but I was glad I did when I saw the metal shutter on the bar was halfway up. Pepe was moving around inside, sweeping the floor.
I ducked under the shutter and went inside. With a glance, I saw he had gathered all the glasses we left out and stacked them neatly by the sink to be washed. The tables were wiped down. “Pepe! What are you doing here? Didn’t Lolita tell you the bar is closed?”
Pepe didn’t stop sweeping, smiling his slow grin. “It’s my job to leave it clean. I’ll leave it clean for the boss.”
“We aren’t working for him anymore,” I said firmly. “Besides, this place will be torn down more than likely. Who cares if there’re glasses on the tables?”
“I care.” Pepe was looking straight at me. “I took care of this place for ten years. I’ve been proud to do it. I know you’re proud, too, Allay.”
I looked around. This bar had been my refuge, my pearly conch shell of safety that I could retreat into and make my life my own. For a moment, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing it all. But it was only an illusion.
“Come on, Pepe. We’re not allowed to be here anymore.” I gently took the broom from his hands, and he finally realized I wasn’t going to let him finish his job.
Then something slammed against the metal shutter, making us both jump and cover our ears from the earsplit ting echo. Then came more high-pitched popping. I saw Pepe’s look of surprise, and there was nothing more as everything went dark.
14
As I slowly woke up, despite my body’s best attempts at staying under, my head was ringing and it felt as if my lungs were scorched with every breath. I realized I was staring at the ceiling of the bar, its dust-covered ducts and pipes as familiar as the back of my hand.
For far too long I lay there dazed, unable to remember anything. It was disorienting, deeply frightening. I wasn’t even sure of my own name.
The faint tinkling of glass and the harsher sound of gasps next to me got me moving. I turned my head and saw Pepe lying beside me. Blood was everywhere.
Everything came back in a rush. We were lying in the midst of a sea of glass and splintered wood. Someone had shot out the front windows of the bar.
I crawled over to Pepe, not even feeling the broken glass. He had been hit in the lower abdomen and the thigh. Blood poured sluggishly from the dark pits where the bullets had entered. His eyes were wide-open, shocked, and insensible.
My hands fumbled my phone out of my pocket, and I dialed 911, my bloody fingers slipping on the numbers. A perfunctory voice answered, and I managed to give the address of my bar. “A man’s been shot. Send an ambulance as fast as you can.”
I could hear keys clicking as she placed the request. “Are you injured, ma’am?” she replied.
“No. No. I’m fine. But he’s been shot. You have to hurry!”
Dropping the phone, I looked for something to press down on the wounds to staunch the bleeding. I started to unzip my hoodie, figuring it was large enough to cover both holes, when I realized it was soaked in blood already.
Well, wouldn’t you know it, I was hit. One charred hole was centered just below my heart, and the other two were lower down in my belly.
I had be
en killed.
Dread was right; I could come back to life after a mortal blow. So that was what it felt like. It was awful; I couldn’t think straight, and my body couldn’t function properly. I must have been out cold for a few minutes.
As I pulled off my hoodie, a bullet fell down. It must have been stopped by my ribs—I could feel the residual pain there—and been pushed out as I regenerated. My stomach was smeared with blood, its sharp demon scent, like that of the pool of blood around me, blending with the alcohol-infused wood in the bar.
Using the hoodie, I covered each of Pepe’s wounds with my hands. Pepe groaned and flinched at the pressure, but I couldn’t let him bleed like that. He was muttering in Spanish, so I assured him, “It’ll be okay, Pepe. They’re coming to help you.”
The metal shutter was still pulled halfway down over the front. Shadows moved outside the bar, visible through the windows below the shutter. “Is somebody in there?” a man called through.
“Yes! A man’s been shot!” I called back.
It turned out to be one of my neighbors, a guy with a tattoo on the front of his neck who walked his Chihuahua by the bar several times a day. He pushed up the metal grate and carefully climbed through the busted window. There was a huge piece of plate glass hanging from the other window frame like a guillotine waiting to fall. He crunched through the broken glass on the floor, using his foot to swipe clear a spot on the floor next to Pepe. He looked as shocked as I felt. I didn’t know what to say; from friendly waves and casual talk on the street, to being caught up in attempted murder. It was too much.
I had no doubt I was the target. Poor Pepe had gotten in the way.
Other people were gathering, peering inside in appalled fascination. This was their block, where they lived, and an ordinary Monday morning had suddenly turned into the lead story on the evening news.
An ambulance pulled up with sirens and lights flashing. They seemed to have gotten here awfully quick, and they surrounded Pepe, ripping open his shirt and pants, giving him oxygen and lifting him onto a white-padded gurney. None of them associated me with Shock, for which I was grateful; I didn’t need any special attention right now while I was so rattled.
I picked up the blood-soaked hoodie they dropped on the floor, and threw it into the garbage can behind the bar. I didn’t want anyone looking at those bullet holes. But the tallest EMT noticed—he must have been right out of college, he was so baby- faced. His eyes went to my bare stomach, smeared with blood.
I realized for the first time that I was wearing only my black bra and jeans.
“Are you hurt anywhere?” he asked, joining me. “Here, sit down.”
I sat down where I could watch them working on Pepe. “I’m okay.”
His doubt was clear as he quickly checked me over with his gloved hands. He even probed the slices on the knees of my jeans from when I had knelt next to Pepe. I had cut myself, but I healed it before he noticed.
“Is Pepe going to be okay?” I asked.
“He’s stable, but he’s going to need surgery.”
More sirens were approaching. The cops. Perfect.
The EMTs swept out with Pepe strapped to their rolling gurney as the police arrived. I wasn’t surprised to see no-nonsense Lieutenant Markman among them. He came right up to me. Fab-ulous. This was just the cherry on the cake of my morning, round two with my local cop.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on here, Ms. Meyers?” he asked.
“God, I wish I knew!” I meant every word.
Markman’s aura turned the distinct orangey red of suspicion. “Just tell me what you do know. Who was the victim? Your employee? He was almost killed. Do you want that to happen to someone else?”
He could have been my own conscience speaking. For a wild moment, I almost wanted to confess everything—but I’d land up in Bellevue for fourteen days of observation. And wouldn’t that be a sight if I imploded on them while under the glare of the hospital cameras? I’d be the star of the demon Revelation whether I wanted it or not.
Don’t tell me it’s fate! I don’t believe in fate.…
So I did my best to live in the real world. “I quit yesterday, so I shut the place down. I have no idea why anyone would want to shoot me. I’m just a bartender. And Pepe’s the janitor.”
“Where were you when this happened?”
“I was in the cooler. Pepe was sweeping out here.”
It took a lot more questions in the same vein before Lieutenant Markman was done with me. Clearly, I was under suspicion now, even though I was one of the victims. The cops were also interviewing people who had been on the street—someone had seen a man running away wearing a black bandana around his head.
I picked up my phone out of the glass when Markman asked for the number for the owners. I gave him Michael’s contact info as the management agent, and I called Michael right then.
He sounded tired when he answered. “Michael, here.”
“Hi, it’s me, Allay.”
His gravelly voice grew much warmer. “Allay, dear, what’s up?”
“Michael, there’s been a… shooting.” I almost said “accident,” but it certainly had been intentional. “Pepe’s hurt and they’re taking him to the hospital. Someone shot through the front windows of the bar.”
Instantly Michael was in take-charge mode. “Is he all right? What about you? Are you hurt?” In spite of my protests that I was fine, he insisted, “You should go to the hospital, Allay, and get checked out. You don’t sound good.”
“I’ll go as soon as the police let me.”
“Which hospital is it? I’ll meet you there, and I can take care of the bills for Pepe.”
“Thank you, Michael. You’re the best.”
“It’s why we have good insurance, dear.”
My throat closed at how kind he sounded. Why couldn’t Revel be more like Michael? I never felt that Michael had an ulterior motive for helping me. Vex may have been paying him to manage the bar, but I knew his concern for me was genuine.
But I didn’t want to question Michael in front of Lieutenant Markman, about why he hadn’t told me that the prophet had bought the bar—or that I had quit and closed the place down. It was just as well, because my battery finally died, cutting our conversation short. As long as Pepe was taken care of, the rest didn’t matter.
I wanted nothing more than to get out before demons started showing up en masse. But Lieutenant Markman would only allow me to go upstairs to change my clothes. He wouldn’t let me go to the hospital to check on Pepe. I had to wait while the cops photographed the scene of the crime and gathered up evidence, such as the bullet that had my blood on it. I should have picked it up and kept it—what if they tested it and realized I’d been shot?
An ever-shifting crowd of curious onlookers gathered around outside watching. At one point, when I thought we were nearing the end of my little drama fest, I felt Savor approaching. I almost bolted away, to hell with the consequences. Emma Meyers was dead, anyway. That bullet had killed her as surely as if I had been human.
But Savor might be bringing word about Theo’s release. She might even be bringing Theo himself, if Vex was smart.
So I waited on the edge of my chair. I recognized Savor immediately, though he was in a new male persona. This guise was an older gentleman with a good head of receding silvery hair and a perpetual golf tan, a little rough around the edges, someone who had built an industrial or mechanical empire.
Theo wasn’t with him.
Savor waited until the cops were pulling out to approach the open door. “Ms. Meyers?” he said to me, in case anyone overheard. “I was sent to assess the damage and authorize repairs.”
I joined Savor as he entered. “Michael called the Prophet? Figures.” Lowering my voice so no one outside could hear through the broken windows, I added, “Did Dread send you? Or was it Vex?”
“Dread. He said shots had been fired but…” Savor didn’t finish, shaking his head as he stared at the damag
e.
“Hmm… I wonder if Vex is in the loop. I see now why it’s risky for him to let Dread control things. Vex must be dying to get back in charge.”
Savor opened his arms wide at all the debris. “What are you thinking, Allay? Dread sent me over to Mackleby’s this morning to try to calm the guy down. He practically had a stroke in front of me.”
“I’ll call the Internal Revenue auditor next. He took payments for years. You can tell Dread that. He’s a nice juicy bug I can squish.”
Savor was shaking his head as if I’d gone crazy. “You’re upsetting Dread, Allay. You don’t want him against you.”
“Oh, I think it’s a little too late for that.” The name of the game was dissension in the ranks. And I was causing it.
By the time we made cursory rounds so Savor could fulfill his role, the cop cars had disappeared up the street. I went outside and drew down the metal shutter in front of all the lingering, curious eyes and padlocked it. As I walked away, my last sight of the bar was of streamers of yellow crime tape the cops used to hold people back, fluttering from the tree trunk into the gutter.
Savor caught up with me, muttering, “I knew you wouldn’t run to Glory.”
I gave him a look. “Glory wants me dead; why would I go to her?”
“Don’t be so sure of that. You never know what people will do. Look at you—you’re the last person I can imagine who would turn to blackmail.”
That stung. “Tell Dread to let Theo go. If they don’t cut him loose and keep out of his life, I’ll report every dirty deal I’ve been involved in for the past decade. The fact that my bar was just strafed like some kind of gangster movie will lend me some credibility, don’t you think?”
Savor smacked his forehead with a beefy hand. “Allay, Allay. You’re in way over your head. My advice is for you to run away. As far and fast as you can.”
I rounded the corner onto Houston, the busy crosstown street. “What do you think I’m doing? If you’ll leave me alone, I can get on with it.”
Before Savor could reply, I sensed other demons— at least four, maybe five—approaching rapidly from the south.