Assume the worst, she told herself, assume five. Time slowed to a crawl as the missionary lined up his next photograph. She gripped the lamp with one hand and squeezed the strap of her backpack with the other, and her racing pulse became a roaring drumbeat in her ears. Now or never.
She burst from the doorway with what she hoped would be a ferocious war cry. It came out more like a strangled mouse squeak, but it still did the job, surprising him, spinning him around as the camera went pop. She was a silhouette in the camera’s eye, sprinting for the front door, teeth gritted and leaning into the run. He went for his gun and she threw the lamp as hard as she could. It hit his shoulder and glanced away, but she heard him grunt, the impact throwing his aim off. She yanked the door wide.
There was another pop, lower and throatier. She felt a fist slam her in the back and wondered how he’d gotten that close that fast. She was in the hallway now, running, and she didn’t waste her breath on another scream. It was one thirty in the morning; by the time she got anyone’s attention, she’d already be dead, and whoever poked their heads out would be next in line. Better to run, better to go it alone.
The elevator banks, trimmed in gilded brass, taunted her. She fired right past them and hit the stairwell door with her shoulder. White cinder block, white railings, smooth stone steps plunging down. She took them two at a time, flying by ivory lights set into the walls under wire cages. She was out of breath by the second floor, lungs burning, air turning to lit gasoline in her throat. She just pushed harder, all the way to the bottom.
There should have been a night doorman on duty. There was always a doorman on duty. She skidded to a dead stop on smooth Italian marble, staring at an empty lobby and a vacant desk.
Just as well, she thought. What was I going to tell him, ‘Call the police, and by the way, I didn’t kill Arthur, please believe me’?
The elevator was coming down. Amber-lit numbers shifted from four, to three, to two.
Seelie gave herself just that long to catch whatever breath she could. Then she was off and running, through the glass revolving doors and out into the Manhattan night. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. It came down icy-cold, kissing her upturned cheeks, matting her rough bangs and speckling her tongue. She would have welcomed a deluge if it meant more water to drink.
She waited for a delivery truck to roll by, then darted across the span of Fifth Avenue. Central Park closed at one in the morning, but the park cops mostly rousted people who tried to sleep on the benches. Seelie knew better than that. There were places you could go, off the beaten path, if you were small and quiet like her.
She scrambled down a muddy slope, almost losing her footing, and knelt in the knotty shadow of a row of bushes. She froze that way for a while. Head bowed, body shaking, muscles on fire, just waiting for the fear and the exhaustion to pass her by.
She kept her ears perked. No footsteps dogged her, no cops or killers.
Seelie remembered something. That throaty popping sound at Arthur’s front door and her feeling of being punched in the back. She unslung her backpack and turned it around.
The tortoiseshell canvas sported a round, ragged hole about the size of her index finger. She unzipped the back pocket. Then she fished out her copy of Das Kapital, now with a crumpled brass slug buried in the heart of its blood-red cover.
Karl Marx had taken a bullet for the proletariat. She zipped back up, shouldered her backpack, and tossed the book in the next trash can she passed. She had to keep moving.
5.
Nell waited until the next morning to break Arthur Wendt’s no-contact rule. She swung by his place with two tall cups from Starbucks in a cardboard cradle, a peace offering in the making. She hoped to sit down with him, provide an appropriate level of encouragement to cooperate, find out what he had for her, and then vanish before his wife came home.
The squad cars along the curb set her on edge. When the elevator chimed and let her out on five, and she saw all the heads poking into the hallway like gophers from half-open holes, her stomach flipped the rest of the way over.
A rubber wedge propped Arthur’s door open. Uniforms were coming and going, and an officer who looked barely old enough to shave had pulled move-along duty, standing outside like a statue. Nell knew she’d only get one shot to steal a peek, and a fast one at that. Then again, she had a fresh distraction.
“Coffee,” she said, brandishing her cardboard tray. The cop blinked.
“For me?” he asked.
“You’re protecting our building, and we want you to feel appreciated.”
“Uh, thanks,” he said. His hand hovered near the closest cup, but he didn’t take it. That was fine—she didn’t care what he did, she just wanted a few seconds of uninterrupted eavesdropping. She flicked her gaze to his left and took a mental snapshot.
Swanky place. Floor-to-ceiling custom bookshelves, California king with burgundy silk sheets. Another sheet, this one bleach white and issued by the city, draped a motionless Arthur-sized lump in the middle of the room. Crime-scene techs were swirling, taking pictures, measuring angles.
“I’m sorry,” the kid said, “but I can’t have people standing here. I’ve got to ask you to move.”
Too nice, too uncertain of his own authority. They were going to eat him alive on the street. Nell finished her assessment with a pair of cut-crystal glasses. One on the nightstand, one on a credenza, both still cradling the dregs of a bottle of red wine.
“Did you catch the guy?” she asked, conversational.
“The…the guy?”
“Who killed Arthur Wendt.”
“Ma’am, I really can’t comment on that. Now, if you’ll please move along—”
A new face loomed in the doorway. Dark skin, high cheekbones, eyes like a surgeon’s scalpel. He reached out and plucked one of the cups from Nell’s tray.
“You,” he said to the rookie between sips of coffee, “go inside and see if anyone needs a hand. Failing that, stand in the corner and be quiet. Bluth, the hell are you doing here?”
“Detective Jordan,” she said as the red-faced officer vanished. “Maybe I live in this building.”
He snorted. “On a reporter’s salary? You couldn’t afford to live in the dumpster out back. Try again.”
“Arthur Wendt.” She gestured to the lump under the sheet, daring him to deny it. He didn’t bother.
“What about him?”
“He’s a source.”
“What kind of source?”
“The confidential kind,” she said. “You know how that works.”
Jordan looked over his shoulder at the sheet-draped corpse. He shrugged.
“Bet I won’t hear him complain if you tell me more.”
“It’s an ongoing investigation, just like yours,” she said. “You get a collar?”
He leaned against the doorframe.
“Nah. Report came in an hour ago when his cleaning lady found him. ME estimates the corpse is seven or eight hours cold.”
“What does the night doorman say?”
“Gotta give to get, Bluth.”
She weighed what she had against what she wanted. She dropped her voice low.
“He had some potentially explosive info about his employer.”
“Barron Equity,” Jordan said. He’d done his homework.