The Hard Stuff

by David Gordon

  With a jerk, the cops behind him stopped, and a kind of shiver ran down the row of cars as each one hit its brakes. Everything came to a halt. The car Joe had hit was up on the curb, wedged into the demolished bus shelter, its right side crumpled, its disoriented occupants still trying to get out. The lead cop car sat in confusion, its occupants peering at Joe’s headlights through their shattered windshield, and behind them the others shouted into their radios, unable to see what was going on. That’s when Yelena opened fire.

  She leaned her rifle out and began blasting at the first cop car, blowing away both tires and piercing the grill and radiator, just as she had already obliterated the windshield. The frantic cops inside ducked as they struggled to take their belts off and unholster their weapons while crouching under the dashboard. Joe hit the gas, and as the light turned green, he tore out into the intersection, while the cops in the first car sighed with relief at being free of bullets and those behind them tried frantically to pull around the sides.

  Then Joe made a U-turn, a wide loop around the intersection and, bouncing over the curb, cut through the plaza once again. He was going right back the way he’d come.

  *

  In the unmarked car at the rear of the parade, Powell was losing his mind. He punched the dashboard and yelled at Fusco to back up, which he was trying to do, though the traffic that was collecting behind him made that difficult. Fusco shouted over his radio for the patrol units ahead of him to turn around and continue pursuit—and get out of his goddamn way—but that was made harder by the crippled cars in front. Meanwhile, was anybody still giving chase?

  “All units, come in,” Fusco called over the radio. “Anyone still in pursuit of green Lexus four door?” There was silence. “Hello? Come in … Speak the fuck up!”

  “Negative,” came the sheepish reply.

  “Sorry, Detective.”

  “We put out an alert. We got the plates.”

  “Fuck me,” Powell muttered as Fusco, having backed and filled a few times, finally got loose. They raced across the park and on to the trail of the Lexus with the other cops now free to follow behind. “They went that way,” he told Fusco, who already knew and ignored him. In back, Andrew watched the show calmly, while Henderson hung on to the strap, grunting and cursing as Fusco drove over curbs and made wild turns. His back and kidneys did not need the pounding.

  The other suspects, in the black Audi and the BMW, were long gone by now, away clean. There was an alert out, but it was unlikely to help: they had vanished into the vast sea of city traffic. More units called in, converging on the area, tightening the net, but the only fish left to catch was the slippery Lexus, which seemed to be returning to where they’d all started. It wasn’t a smart move: they’d be cut off by the river and the dense traffic heading over the two bridges into Manhattan with a small army of police officers closing in.

  “Can you trap them?” Powell asked.

  Fusco shrugged, hands on the wheel, eyes forward, navigating the streets while his siren screamed. “Looks like they’re going to trap themselves,” he said, still not entirely sure of what he’d have if he did catch them or if he wanted it.

  “You back there!” Powell twisted around to shout at Andrew. “FBI. Why don’t you do something?”

  “I am,” he answered evenly. “I was told to observe and advise. So right now I am observing you lose your shit.” He returned Powell’s glare. “And I advise you to get the fuck out of my face.”

  35

  Joe and Yelena had boxed themselves in. They’d had no choice. They had to help Liam get loose so he could take Josh for medical care. And they had to shake Felix free, with Cash and Juno on his tail, relaxed enough to settle down and lead them to the diamonds. So Joe had drawn the heat deliberately, first slowing things down to give them a head start, then looping back the way they’d come to take the pursuit off track before the net closed in too tightly. Now the others were breathing easy, and they were getting choked off.

  “I’m thinking we should ditch this car,” Joe said as he sped through the streets. There were cops in his rearview and he could see sirens at the intersections as more police moved in. Yelena was busy transferring the dope from the duffel to two smaller backpacks. She tossed the empty bag out of the window.

  “Let’s park,” she said.

  Joe turned back into the street where they had met Felix to start with, but this time he was coming up the wrong way with cops behind him, and there were more flashing lights coming down to meet him. They were blocked in.

  “Hold on,” he said, and Yelena braced herself. Skidding as he turned, Joe cranked the wheel and entered the parking garage.

  Before, when Liam and Josh had used the roof as a sniper’s perch, it had been easy to access. They just walked in the main entrance as if they were picking up their car and left via the stairway and a street exit, which was unlocked from inside in case of fire. The only thing the building was really guarded against was someone stealing a car or avoiding payment. Breaking in with a car hadn’t occurred to anyone. Now Joe sped past the shocked attendant and crashed through the barrier, splintering the wooden arm.

  He drove up the ramp, following the rise of the curve and leaning on his horn to clear the way, though the structure was quiet, with the parked vehicles in for the night. He could hear the police sirens behind him. At the second level, when he saw the elevator he cut the wheel right and stopped, parking the Lexus the long way across the elevator doors and also blocking the ramp. He removed the keys from the ignition and leaned out his window to press the elevator Call button. As the police arrived, Yelena leaned out her window and took aim.

  “Try not to kill anyone,” Joe said. She gave him a dirty look. “Please,” he added.

  “I haven’t killed anyone all day,” she pointed out, then opened fire, spraying the police cars and the parked vehicles. The cops scrambled for cover as her bullets rained down, creating a huge storm of noise and breaking glass. A couple tried to return fire but they were just shooting blind. Joe watched the elevator’s indicator light.

  “One more floor,” he said. She kept shooting. Joe aimed his handgun at the doors as they opened, just in case, but the elevator was empty. “Let’s go,” he said and opened his door, pushing out the two backpacks and then sliding through. Yelena followed, continuing to fire over the hood of the Lexus while Joe pressed the top button and the elevator doors slid shut.

  They waited. It was unnerving riding the elevator in silence, as though on their way to the office, but unless paratroopers had landed there was no way the cops had made it to the top floor yet. Joe had left the Lexus so that it blocked the ramp and they were in the only elevator, so the police would be humping it up the stairs. Still, they slid the backpacks onto their shoulders and aimed their guns outward as the doors slid back.

  No one was there. Joe held the Open button while Yelena grabbed the trash can that stood beside the elevator and set it to keep the doors from closing.

  The top floor was mostly empty and open on all sides, with a bunch of maintenance and repair equipment piled in a corner, which they had seen when checking the place out the day prior. Joe ran and grabbed a mop and pushed it through the handles of the stairwell doors. That would slow them down a bit, though they had to assume that officers on foot would be running up the car ramp, too, in a few minutes.

  While he was doing that, Yelena was dragging an extendable aluminum ladder over to the concrete barrier that ran around the open sides. Joe ran to help. Beneath them was a narrow alley, an airspace really, and then the roof of the building next door, one story shorter. Holding the ladder together and extending it to its full length, they set the bottom onto the roof below, with the top propped against the parking structure.

  “You first, kitty cat,” Joe said.

  Yelena smiled. “Scared, Joe?”

  “Absolutely,” he said, bracing himself to hold the ladder steady. Yelena climbed onto the wall and then, on her hands and knees, began to crawl downwa
rd, moving carefully but swiftly across. The ladder bent under her weight a little, but Joe held it tight, leaning his weight on it while glancing over his shoulder. The elevator doors bounced against the trash can.

  Yelena hopped gracefully off the ladder and onto the roof. Taking hold of the ladder on the other side, she waved for him to join her. Joe took a last look back. He could hear pounding on the stairwell door now. So he went.

  He climbed onto the wall and then, very carefully, he set first one hand and then the other on the side rails of the ladder. He tested it by pressing and, though it gave slightly, it held steady as he began to inch forward, moving one hand then the other, until his knees were resting on the crosspieces. Then he began to crawl. He felt wind and space around and beneath him, and the ladder seemed to bend under his weight, but he kept going, equally worried about falling to the concrete below and the cops arriving from above. He’d be an easy target here. It would almost be a game to shoot him off.

  Yelena smiled up at him. “Good,” she called out. “Keep going. And don’t look down.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’m afraid to look up, too. If you see a cop now, it’s okay to shoot him.”

  She grinned. He kept going. When he crossed the point where the ladder rested against the edge of the lower roof, he immediately rolled off. Together, they pulled the ladder down onto the lower roof and left it hidden in darkness and shadow. They could hear cops yelling now and see flashlights moving around in the garage, searching cars and corners, but no one had yet looked down.

  Yelena dashed to the door that led to the building stairs. It was locked, with no keyhole on the outside for her to pick. She shook her head at Joe and pointed at the back side of the building. He waved her on, keeping watch while she ran over, then followed. They clambered onto the fire escape. Now they were out of sight of the parking structure, as well as hidden from the police gathered out front on the street. The fire escape led down to a small cement backyard, only accessible through the building. Another trap. They began quickly but quietly to move down the steps of the fire escape, checking the windows. The first window they reached was dark and barred with a heavy security gate that looked as if it had not been opened in years. But the next was lit and open, with the gate pulled back, no doubt to accommodate the gray cat curled on the fire escape, enjoying the night air. At their approach, the cat jumped back through the window. Yelena went in right after it, her gun drawn, and pointed it at the head of the young woman who sat on the couch. She was in sweatpants and a Columbia T-shirt, redheaded and pale, probably even paler than usual at that moment. Joe came through fast as well, moving immediately to check the rest of the small apartment: a tiny bedroom, an overstuffed closet, a bathroom, and the main room, which comprised living room, kitchen, and dining.

  “Clear,” Joe said, as he put his gun away and went back to the window. He shut it, locked the gate, and drew the curtains. Yelena remained focused on the young woman, gun steady.

  “Don’t worry,” Joe told her, grabbing her remote and silencing the TV show she was watching. “I won’t let her shoot you as long as you behave, okay?”

  She nodded, petrified.

  “Now,” he asked her, “is there anybody else coming over here tonight? Boyfriend? Girlfriend? Did you order food?”

  She shook her head. “No,” she croaked, voicelessly, then cleared her throat and tried again. “No one’s coming. I was going to order Seamless but I don’t have to.” Her lip trembled. “Take anything you want. Take my laptop and money. Just please don’t hurt me … or …” She gasped for air, as though drowning in her own fear. “ Please don’t rape me.”

  Yelena scowled. “Rape?” she asked, breaking her silence. “You think I look like a rapist?”

  “No, no, I’m sorry. I’m sure you’re not. I mean, couples don’t usually rape do they? I don’t know!” She started crying. “This is my first time!”

  “Calm down,” Joe said, gesturing for Yelena to put away the gun. “Nobody’s going to do anything to you. And we won’t rob you either. I promise. You’re going to be okay.”

  She nodded, still petrified. “Um … are you okay?” she asked him then, staring in horror at his torn and bloodstained shirt.

  “Don’t worry. That’s not his blood,” Yelena explained and the girl paled again, eyes wide.

  “She means it’s fake,” Joe reassured her. “Like Halloween. It’s a long story.”

  Her face rapidly registered hope, then confusion. “Then what do you want?”

  “We just want to hang out here awhile,” Joe said. “You see, right now, outside, cops are swarming all over the place looking for us. So we can’t go out. We need to stay out of sight until they clear off, and then we will clear off, too. They might search this building. They might even knock on your door, but as long as you do what we say, everything will be fine. Understand?”

  “You’re like fugitives or something?”

  “Right,” Joe said, removing his backpack and sitting in a chair. “We’re criminals making our getaway.”

  Yelena shrugged her pack off, too, and put it near Joe’s, then perched on the couch. The cat crept up onto her lap. She stroked it behind the ears and it purred as she smiled sweetly at the terrified girl. “We are like Bonnie and Clyde,” she told her. “Isn’t that fun?”

  36

  As soon as Liam was clear from the police he slowed down. He knew he should probably ditch the car, but Josh was bleeding quietly beside him, slipping into shock, and he didn’t have time to stop. Instead, he quickly turned a few corners and joined the flow of cars heading up the ramp toward the Brooklyn Bridge, trying to lose himself in traffic the way a runner might hide by slowing down and walking with a rush hour crowd. It worked. The only heat he drew was angry drivers honking at him for shouldering his way in, but now he was freaking out over the traffic that had been his shield. They inched over the river, like a worm crossing a fallen log. He glared furiously at the dark rear window of the Jeep in front of him, like it was a TV screen about to light up with an important message, then turned, every few seconds, to check on Josh. Head back, eyes closed, profile silhouetted against the city light and river darkness. Looking at him, Liam felt, to his surprise, and to use the word that he spoke to himself, silently, tenderness. It was like the end of a gangster movie, an old one, where the heroes, maybe best friends from childhood, maybe sworn enemies till now, face the end together, one dying in the other’s arms, with so much unsaid and yet nothing needing to be said at all.

  It was a silly thought he knew. Romantic. Yet weren’t criminals, in some sense, romantics? Even if they themselves would puke at the idea? Even if most of the ones Liam actually knew, having grown up around them, were dumb, brutal bastards, thick as planks or mental. They were playing with fate, rolling the dice on their own freedom, betting their lives that it would come out all right, while knowing, in the long run, the odds still ran against them like in gambling or love.

  Then again, criminals were hardcore realists, too, and as a cold-blooded, clear-eyed cynic, Liam also knew: someone had talked, someone had tipped off the law. That’s why he was here now. How else could the cops have popped in at exactly the right time and place? Someone had grassed. And that someone needed to pay in blood for the blood his friend was spilling now.

  So when the phone in his hip pocket buzzed and it showed an unknown number and Liam answered, asking “Yeah?” the voice, clearly Gio’s, asked only: “This phone safe?” Reassured by Liam that it was one of the burners he and the rest of the crew had bought for the job, he went on to say: “Liam I have some hard news for you.” Liam listened, saying nothing in response but: “I understand. Tell me what you need.” And he knew. It really was like the end of a gangster picture, the wicked twist. Yes, someone had talked, and it was he. He, Liam, had betrayed his mates and set up Josh to be shot, because as it turned out, talking to his grand old uncle Pat was just the same as talking to the filth.

  The traffic moved. Some light somewher
e had changed, opening the clogged roadways, releasing the backup. Or some accident or incident had been cleared, someone else’s tragedy or comedy playing out on another stage, the best or worst night of some stranger’s life, merely a pain in the ass for the rest of us.

  Liam crossed the river. Descending into Manhattan, he drove swiftly over Centre Street and across Chambers toward the clinic whose doctor, a do-gooder serving the underserved all day, made his real money serving do-badders by night. He was waiting and ready. Liam would get his partner there alive and make sure he was all right. Then he would make this car disappear. Then he would visit his uncle.

  Josh was moving. His eyes were closed but his head turned and his lips worked silently, like he was having a bad dream. Liam reached out and squeezed his hand.

  “You’re alright, Josh,” he said. “We’re getting you help. You’re going to be fine.”

  Josh’s eyes fluttered. He tried to speak. “Liam?”

  “I’m here Josh. Don’t try to talk. Save your strength. You’re going to be fine. We’re almost there.” He squeezed Josh’s hand again, harder. “I’m here with you.”

  Josh smiled then, his full, pretty lips soundlessly forming the words “thank you,” and he squeezed back. They held hands the rest of the way.

  37

  Cash and Juno made a good team. They were roughly the same age, grew up in similar neighborhoods, and succeeded through similar means. Half street, half geek, smart and quick, but never as athletic as their older brothers or as tough as the local thugs, they survived by developing skills that the people around them came to value and admire: Juno the tech wizard, Cash the ace car thief and driver. And both took pride in being the best.

  So now they operated like pros and got along like pals, even agreeing on the music to which they nodded in unison as Juno tracked the diamonds on an iPad he held in his lap and Cash smoothly and seemingly effortlessly glided them through the streets, making sure never to fall too far behind and lose the signal or press too close and get made. In fact they had not actually seen the car containing Felix, Vlad, and Heather since the scramble with the cops. They’d hung back, keeping out of sight but always within a one-block radius.