One Fell Swoop

by David Linzee

  Hannah bore it for a surprisingly long time, but at last she came in view through the glass panel in the door, descending the stairs. Renata released the buzzer. Hannah opened the door a few inches.

  “You’re crazy to be out here tonight,” she said. “What do you want?”

  “Is Don here?”

  “I haven’t seen or heard from him since the last time I talked to you. Not so much as a text message.”

  “He’s around somewhere. He has no car. He’s been beaten up. Nobody in Parkdale will help him except you.”

  “What makes you think I will?”

  Renata flinched. “Hannah, you care about him.”

  “Every relationship has a clock. I told you. Ours ran out, about the time the Medical Park plan got leaked.”

  “The Medical Park is a red herring.”

  Hannah ignored her. “Made me think back to my thrilling meeting with Chancellor Reeve. At the party where he announced he was going to save the neighborhood. Give me more community gardens. We chatted about how I was planting my daffodil bulbs for next spring, resting my vegetable bed next summer so the tomatoes would be especially sweet and juicy the year after that. And the great man is nodding and smiling, knowing all along, those bulbs will never sprout, those tomatoes will never be planted because my garden’s going to be paved over.”

  “Hannah—”

  “I know what you’re going to say. How can I be worried about my little garden when big things are going on. But I’m fed up with men lying to me. Like Reeve did. Like Don did.”

  “Neither of them knew about the Medical Park plan. It’s not going to happen.”

  Hannah shut her eyes and wagged her head, bored with the denial. “What are you doing here? You called the cops on Don. If he’s out on the streets tonight, they’re going to get him. They’re everywhere. Isn’t that what you want?”

  “I want to talk to Don. Or listen to him, really. I want him to tell me everything he’s done.”

  “You’re not afraid to find out?”

  “No. My brother is not a bad man. But he’s been used.” She hesitated. Hannah’s eyes were fixed on hers through the gap between door and frame. She was listening, as she hadn’t been before. Renata felt the need to tell her the exact truth. “He’s let himself be used.”

  “He’s not guilty,” Hannah said, “but not innocent, either. I mean, not innocent enough to satisfy you.”

  “I’m not setting myself up in judgment.”

  “No. You don’t think you’re a judge. You think you’re a priest. He’s going to confess to you, and you’re going to give him his penance. You’re going to tell him to turn himself in.”

  “Don’s never done what I say.”

  “That’s not what I’m asking you.”

  Renata looked away from the searching eyes. But she knew the truth now and so did Hannah, so there was no reason not to say it. “I’ll tell him to turn himself in.”

  Hannah shook her head. “Go home to your boyfriend, Renata. Let the cops finish the job you started them on. You can talk to Don in jail.”

  “He’s not in jail yet. He’s bound to come to your door. Does he have a key?”

  “No. I never gave him my key. I have that to congratulate myself on, at least.”

  She was stepping back, closing the door.

  Renata said desperately, “If you see him, call me. Please!”

  “You won’t hear from me. I’m going to bed. I won’t answer the door. I won’t look out the window. Not on this night. Go home.”

  The door slammed, and through the glass she saw Hannah turn away and mount the stairs. She went back to her car. Then she sat behind the wheel without turning the key. Hannah was right. There was nothing to do but go home. But that was impossible when Don was somewhere around here, running or hiding.

  A hollow explosion, like a thunderclap in the small car, sounded in her ear. Small objects hit the right side of her face. When she opened her eyes, she saw a car accelerating away. Her passenger side window was gone. A mound of shattered safety glass pebbles was on the seat, along with a chunk of broken cinderblock. Someone in the passing car had thrown it through the window.

  She looked at herself in the driving mirror. Round frightened eyes but no blood. The nuggets of glass had bounced off her cheek harmlessly. She had only to brush away the ones caught in her hair. She was unharmed and had no excuse for giving up. She started the engine and drove on. At the first intersection, she recognized a familiar building. It had been her first stop in Parkdale, the night she arrived. On the top floor was the apartment where Joel Rubinstein and his fellow landlords watched for drug dealers. She leaned out her window and looked up. A light showed in a top floor window. She parked across the street and went to press the buzzer.

  “Who’s there?”

  Through the intercom distortion she recognized Joel’s voice. “It’s Renata.”

  The door release snarled and she pushed through and started climbing. Joel was standing at the top of the last flight. “Where’s Peter? You shouldn’t be out there alone. Even with a squad of Marines it wouldn’t be a good idea.”

  “Why are you here, then?”

  He waved her into the apartment and closed and locked the door. She noticed that the table and chairs were gone. There were two cases of beer on the bare floor, and that was all.

  “I was emptying the fridge. Before I turn the keys over to Adams U. It was getting dark, and somebody called, told me kids were breaking windows and looting stores on the main drag. I figured it might be a bad night. So I’m hanging around.”

  He turned off the lights and went to the window. A pair of binoculars rested on the sill. He picked them up.

  “What are you looking for?” Renata asked.

  “Fires. I’m sort of like a forest ranger up in my watch tower. My final service to Parkdale.”

  Renata sank down on one of the cases of beer. She felt very tired. “Let me know if you spot my brother, will you?”

  “What would he be doing here?”

  “Running from the police. I won’t explain, if you don’t mind. Do you really think people will set fires?”

  “I can hardly blame them, the way they’ve been jerked around the last couple of days. We all have. If only I’d turned down Reeve’s offer. Tried to talk the others into doing the same. I never would’ve sold my buildings if I’d known they’d be destroyed.”

  “They’re not going to be destroyed.”

  He lowered the binoculars and turned to her. “What?”

  “Professor Baraku found a video made by some low-level people at Granger Hospital. Reeve had never heard of it.”

  Joel came over and sat on the box facing her. “You sure about this?”

  “Peter talked to him that day. And Peter’s hard to fool. Anyway, if Reeve knew all along he was going to flatten Parkdale, he wouldn’t have gotten up in front of the cameras to say what a fine neighborhood it was.”

  “That’s true. If he really was deceitful, he would have arranged not to look as deceitful as he does now. Jeez. I’ve been sitting here hating the guy. Now I’m going to have to feel sorry for him. ’Cause he’s in the shit now.”

  “Yes. But Parkdale is going to be just fine.”

  “So I didn’t make the mistake of my life.”

  “No.”

  “Well, this is going to take some getting used to.” Joel straightened up and shrugged, as if a backpack full of bricks had been lifted off his shoulders. He rose and went back to the window. After a while, Renata followed.

  They watched in silence. There were more yells and pistol shots. Every second car that passed under the streetlight below the window was St. Louis Police or Adams Security. The little groups that had been standing around parked cars or sitting on front steps were gone now, the people seeking shelter. The streets were left to the young men, glimpsed fleetingly as they ran from shadow to shadow.

  “What a clusterfuck,” Joel said. “And it’s all a misunderstanding? No one�
��s responsible?”

  “Oh, someone’s responsible, all right. A rich man on the other side of the world who’s pulling Don’s strings. He doesn’t know or care that you’re up here looking for fires, or that Herb is standing in front of an empty restaurant in a pig suit, or that Baraku’s trying to save people’s homes, or that Hannah’s mourning the gardens she thinks are lost. He’s never set eyes on Parkdale. But he spotted a chance to make some money off it, and that’s why all this is happening.”

  “You mean, by buying eighty-nine buildings cheap and selling them to Adams?”

  “That was just the opening move. A bigger game is going on. With higher stakes. But I have no idea what it is.”

  Two men ran laughing under the streetlight. Joel watched them vanish into the darkness. He said, “Hannah.”

  “What?”

  “That must be where Don is. Who would take him in but Hannah?”

  Renata shook her head. “I’ve already been there. She said if Don came to her she wouldn’t let him in. He lied to her and she’s through with him.”

  “Sounds like Hannah, all right. Hard-bitten, self-sufficient. But I’ve noticed, she likes to hear herself say those things, because in fact she’s doing the opposite, and she’s afraid she’s making a fool of herself.”

  Renata ran through her conversation with Hannah in her mind. This time she heard the false notes. Joel was right.

  “Oh God. He got there before me. He was up in her apartment, the whole time she was talking to me. He’s there now. I’m going back.”

  She spun away from the window and ran toward the door. Joel followed. They ran down the stairs. As they came out he said, “My truck’s right here.” An old pickup was parked in front of the building. They climbed in.

  As Joel accelerated and ran through the gears, Renata said, “Don’s there. She won’t buzz us in.”

  “We’ll go up the fire escape.”

  He turned into the alley next to Hannah’s building and stopped. Far down the alley, she glimpsed a running figure as the headlights went off. Something different about him from the other running men she had seen tonight. She said, “Joel, turn on your lights.”

  He did. The figure was gone.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing. Let’s hurry.” But as she got out of the pickup, she realized what had caught her eye about the figure. His straight-up posture even as his legs and arms were pumping rapidly. It was the way the man had run, chasing her along the canal in London. Flathead. But he couldn’t be here. She must’ve imagined it.

  “Hannah’s second floor, isn’t she?” Joel asked. He was looking up at the building. Renata looked up, too. Behind Hannah’s windows was a strange flickering light. It took a moment for her to realize the apartment was on fire.

  Joel was already rushing up the back steps. He banged on the doors of the first-floor apartments, shouting “Fire! Get out!” Renata ran past him and mounted the next flight. She had to get out of the way of people running down—the occupants of the apartment across from Hannah’s, who must have already smelled smoke. The window above her shattered, blown out by the heat. She ducked her head under the shower of glass fragments. She looked up to see a gout of flame erupt from the hole where the window had been.

  The back door of the apartment stood open. She rushed into the darkness of the narrow kitchen, felt the heat, and smelled the fire on the other side of the wall. She remembered the layout of the apartment she had visited two days ago. The fire was in the dining room. The sound was eerily familiar, the rustle and crackle of burning logs on a hearth, but a thousand times louder. Fighting all her instincts, she advanced into the smoke pouring from the doorway into the dining room. Her eyes were running and she was coughing. Through the smoke, she could see the dining table and chairs in flames. A pool of fire was spreading across the ceiling.

  The smoke was so thick that breathing was as useless as if she were underwater. She dropped to her knees and it was better. The floor was hot under her palms as she crawled blindly on. Her hands found a soft obstruction. A body on the floor. It was still, unresponsive—no telling if the person was alive or dead. She ran her hands over the torso, felt the breasts: Hannah.

  Don was farther in, then. She swept an arm through the smoke. Her hand hit a wall. She turned into what she hoped was the entrance to the living room, shouting, “Don!” It was no use. She could barely hear herself. No hope of hearing a response. She was coughing helplessly again. She had to go down on her belly to be able to breathe.

  Through streaming eyes, she was able to see again. The smoke wasn’t as thick. In the living room the sofa was on fire but the walls and ceiling hadn’t caught yet. She could not see Don. Nor the entrance to the bedroom—it must be in the thick smoke behind her. No more time to search for him. She had to hope he had gotten out. Save Hannah and herself.

  She got to her feet and ran to the front door, grabbed and twisted the doorknob, cried out as the hot metal burned her hand. The door wouldn’t budge. Locked. She remembered seeing the key in the deadbolt lock, assuming Hannah habitually left it there. She felt for it, but it wasn’t there now.

  She swung round and dove into the smoke, hit the floor and started crawling on her stomach. There was almost no breathable air left. She crawled back to Hannah, scraping her cheek along the floor, gulping smoky air, coughing. Her fingers found Hannah’s hair, sank into its tangles. She was going to drag her through to the kitchen and the open back door. But the ceiling of the dining room was all flame. Too much smoke. She would pass out before she reached the kitchen.

  She crawled back the way she had come, into the living room, dragging Hannah behind her. The smoke thinned a little. Flames from the sofa were licking at the smoke-blackened walls and ceiling. Any second, the paint and plaster would catch fire. Holding her breath, she rose to her knees. Grasping Hannah by the wrists with both hands, she pulled her across the room. She blinked at the front windows. The glass had been blown out and sparks were flying into the black sky. Just a few feet beyond the window were the limbs of a tree. Clusters of leaves were burning. At the window now, she smelled—or imagined she could smell—the outside air. One strong limb stretched toward her, a bridge to safety. For a terrible moment, she was tempted to abandon Hannah and leap for it.

  She looked down. Two stories—less than twenty feet. It seemed farther. She saw the upturned faces and open mouths of people standing on the lawn, people who could do nothing for her. Looking straight down she saw lumpy shapes in the darkness and remembered the yews along the front of the building that she had seen Hannah trimming. The shrubs could break their fall.

  Crouching, she slid her arms under Hannah’s and straightened her knees. God the woman was heavy, or Renata was weak—she could barely lift her onto the windowsill. Grasping her ankles, she flipped her legs out and Hannah fell. Renata climbed into the other window, had a fleeting impression of people rushing to Hannah, where she lay sprawled across the yews. Renata sprang out and to the right to clear them, stretching out her arms and legs. She seemed to fall for a long time, long enough to register with pleasure the cold fresh air rushing against her face.

  The shrubs flattened beneath her. The ends of branches jabbed her breasts and belly, though the impact was lessened by a mound of coats that must have been contributed by onlookers. She toppled to the ground and lay on her side. For a while she did nothing but breathe. All the years she had spent training her muscles to draw great draughts of air into the depths of her lungs seemed worth it now.

  Eventually she became conscious of someone leaning over her, talking to her. She blinked and brought the face into focus: Joel.

  “Hannah?’ she said.

  He shook his head. “Renata, her throat was cut.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  At three in the morning, Renata was lying in a bed in the emergency ward of Granger Hospital. She was wearing a patient’s smock, soft and worn from many washings. Her own clothes, reeking of smoke and soaked with Hannah’
s blood, had been cut away as soon as she was brought in, and she hoped never to see them again. Her left hand, which she had burned badly on the metal doorknob, was heavily bandaged. A lead attached to her right middle finger measured the oxygen content of her blood. A clear plastic tube running under her nose was boosting the content with every breath, she hoped. The doctors had wanted to put a tube down her throat. Worried about damaging her precious vocal cords, she had convinced them the external tube was enough.

  The door opened and Frank Muldaur leaned in. “The doctors say you’re well enough to chat with me for a few minutes. Do you agree?”

  Warily Renata nodded.

  Muldaur came in. He was carrying a large, heavy plastic bag, which he dropped on a chair. Standing by the edge of the bed, he put his hands in his trouser pockets, which dragged back his suit coat and made him look especially broad in the beam.

  “I have some good news. The crime scene investigators haven’t finished their work yet, but they haven’t found any human remains. They say there was no one else in the apartment.”

  So Don had gotten out. It was the news Renata had been hoping for, but she kept her face impassive.

  “That is good news, right? Didn’t you go up there hoping to find your brother?”

  “I didn’t know where he was.”

  “You were looking for him. That’s why you were in Parkdale in the first place, right?”

  “I won’t answer any more questions.”

  Muldaur took his hands out of his pockets and raised them, palms up. “Renata, I’m not a cop anymore, and this is not an interrogation. Anyway, whatever your reasons for going down to Parkdale last night, all you ended up doing was rushing into a burning apartment and trying to save a woman’s life, and we don’t arrest people for that.”