knew you’d be there. You wouldn’t stand me up.”
“He’s wrecked the apartment.”
“At five o’clock, I was at the window, waiting for the storm. I always like to see the first of it.”
“What storm?”
“Snow. It was supposed to be snowing by five, but it still isn’t. I saw him park at the curb and get out of his car. He didn’t know about that address or any of the other seven. Someone ratted me out.”
Remembering the name of the one man whom her father trusted to be her guardian, I said, “Teague Hanlon?”
“If it’s him, I’m finished sooner than later. But it isn’t him. There’s another possibility. Anyway, when I saw Telford get out of that car, I knew if he had the address he also had a key. So I went out the bedroom window, down the fire escape. Addison, will you help me?”
“Yes. Of course. What can I do? Anything you need.”
“Let’s be careful,” she said. “In case someone’s listening. I’m gonna ask a couple questions. Just answer yes or no. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“Remember the fish?”
“No.”
“Last night. The fish that weren’t there.”
“No. Yes! All right,” I said, remembering the pond in Riverside Commons, where the koi had been moved inside for the winter.
“Can you meet me there in an hour?”
“Yes. Or sooner.”
“An hour. Look for a Land Rover.”
“What’s a Land Rover?”
“Like a truck. An SUV.”
“You drive?”
“I won’t be pushing it. Just don’t be frightened off by it.”
“Don’t you be frightened, either. I’m wearing a ski mask now.” Belatedly explaining why I hadn’t spoken when I’d picked up the receiver, I added, “This is the first time I’ve ever used a phone.”
“It can’t be.”
“But it is. I don’t know anyone to call.”
“How do you like it?”
“The phone? It’s okay. But I’d rather we were in the same room.”
“Fifty-eight minutes now.”
“I’ll be there,” I promised.
She hung up, and after maybe half a minute, so did I.
WHEN I WAS FOURTEEN, I GOT MY WATCH FROM a dead man. Father assured me that it wasn’t stealing, but I never really thought it was in the first place. Before he finished dying, the man wanted to give the Rolex to Father; and under the circumstances it would have been a great unkindness not to accept it.
On a night in November, we were abroad with little fear of being unmasked and savaged, because pounding cold rain roared down like a judgment. The people of the city were proud of being tough. They said of themselves that they were case-hardened negotiators, brutal competitors, sharp with fools, stripped of illusions by the realities of the streets and therefore not softened by sentimentalism, never looking for a fight but ever ready for one. I can’t say whether any significant portion of the population actually possessed all of these qualities or any of them. What I do know is that the city was a comfort machine designed to provide amenities and conveniences, and regardless of how flinty and indurate its people might have been with outsiders and even with one another, they retreated at once from Nature when she turned furious. They took refuge in warm cozy rooms replete with so many forms of entertainment that the wet and windy world beyond their walls could be forgotten for hours at a time.
That night, the sky poured out such torrents that the city was a drum set, every surface a source of rhythms, pavements and windows and canvas awnings, street signs and parked cars, Dumpsters throbbing like tom-toms, garbage-can lids swishing as the wind swirled bursts of rain in imitation of a drummer brush-stroking the batter head of a snare.
Father and I wore rubber boots, gloves, fleece-lined black raincoats that had hoods secured under the chin with Velcro closures. We hid behind ski masks, too, though pedestrians were rare and, when seen, were bent and hurrying, sheltering under umbrellas that had to be held close over their heads to prevent the wind from turning them inside out.
The storm, which would prove to be the worst of the decade, also sluiced most of the traffic from the streets. In this post-midnight tempest, no taxis were cruising for fares on the deserted avenues. The drivers of the few cabs answering calls were challenged by flooded intersections and blinding sheets of water that overwhelmed their windshield wipers, and they had no time to be curious about us. Even police patrols were at a minimum, perhaps because, as statistics confirm, crime drops sharply during nasty weather because criminals prefer warm and cozy rooms as much as do law-abiding folks.
The outlaws weren’t all tucked in their beds or playing video games, however, because we came upon four of them during our explorations.
We had no pressing errand to run, nothing that we needed. We were out and about sightseeing.
In good weather, even at night, we had to avoid well-lighted places and scurry through shadows like two cockroaches anticipating the stamp of a crushing shoe. Most nights, of necessity, our time aboveground was efficiently managed and spent on essential tasks.
When the raw wind shrieked through the canyons of high-rises, when the deluge blurred those monoliths as if intent on erasing in one night a civilization that would otherwise be reduced to dust only by a thousand years of history, then Father and I were as free in the city as we would ever be. We could travel where we wished and linger without fear at the lighted display windows of the best stores and galleries on the most elegant streets. As window-shoppers, we could enjoy fine art and the sparkle of luxuries that we would never be able to afford and that, even if a fortune fell on us, we could not purchase without coming face-to-face with a salesclerk who would judge us, by our eyes alone, to be abominations.
On such nights, the freedom to go places we usually had to avoid was no more satisfying than the weather itself, which we relished. Underground, there was no weather, save for the runoff from a storm. We yearned as much for open air and the feel of the sun on our skin and the buffeting wind as we did for daylight. We were delighted by weather so wild that others fled from it, because it was the only weather we could ever experience leisurely and without fear.
We were blocks from the finest stores, in a different kind of neighborhood, when the gunfire started.
The soaring wind and the rush of rain felt and sounded like a flock of a million birds continuously startling into flight around us, wings beating against us, as we walked a street, enchanted by the Beaux Arts architecture of the low-rise commercial buildings
