The Fifth Avenue Series Boxed Set (37 page)

Today, the excuse was saying hello to the elderly woman with the rusty shopping cart.
 
If he hadn’t stopped to say hello to her, he never would have seen the three men watching him from the Mercedes.
 
And if he hadn’t rushed up the steps to his apartment and looked out his only window, he wouldn’t have seen those men leaving the Mercedes to cross the street.

He turned up First Avenue, looked over his shoulder.
 
The men were still there, closer than before, threading their way through the crowds on the sidewalk.
 
Michael knew that as long as they kept him in sight, they could force him to keep running blindly, not knowing which street or alley he took might lead to a dead end where he could no longer run.

He felt a sudden, overwhelming sense of rage.
 
They had killed his dog.
 
Did they think they could kill him, too?
 
Right here in the open?

And then he thought of the woman who was shot dead outside his apartment.
 
Of course they could kill him here.
 
In these crowds, they could fire three or four muted gunshots at close range and escape in the resulting chaos.

He was moving faster, his mind racing.
 
Why were they here?
 
He still had a week to come up with the money.
 
He didn’t think they wanted to kill him, but he was certain they wanted to hurt him.

He was running so quickly now, the people on the street gave him looks ranging from annoyance to indifference to surprise and even a sense of fear.
 
Lower First Avenue was a mecca of stores and shops.
 
If he could somehow slip unnoticed into one of the shops, he could wait a few minutes and then leave for a place where he knew he would be reasonably safe—Leana Redman’s apartment.

But he cast it idea aside.
 
The moment they couldn’t see him was the moment they’d start searching each shop for him.

The men were fifty feet behind him.
 
Desperation rose in him.
 
Michael’s legs were beginning to cramp.
 
He bumped into a woman stepping out of a Laundromat and sent her clean clothes flying—a rainbow of color was tossed into the air.
 
He stumbled, righted himself and began wondering if this was worth it.
 
Why run?
he thought.
Sooner or later, they’ll find me.

But he wouldn’t give up.

An intersection was approaching.
 
The light was red and cars were racing by.
 
He couldn’t cross.
 
He looked left, then right….and was surprised to see a van rounding the corner and screeching to a stop in front of him.

Car horns blared and there was the sudden stench of burnt rubber in the air.
 
Then the van’s passenger door shot open.
 
Michael recognized the driver instantly.

“Get in!” Vincent Spocatti shouted.

Michael did as he was told and the van shot forward

He tried to catch his breath.
 
The muscles in his legs and lower back ached.
 
He looked at Spocatti, saw him glancing in the rearview mirror, saw the determined set of his jaw and knew it wasn’t over.

“They’re following us, aren’t they?”

Spocatti didn’t answer.
 
He jerked the van to the left.

Michael looked out the rear window. A cab was following them at a dangerously close distance.
 
He turned back to Spocatti.
 
“Can you lose them?”

“The driver probably has a gun to his head.
 
Shut up and let me concentrate.”

“Just one question.”

Spocatti gritted his teeth.

“You were following me.
 
You must have been.
 
Why?”

“Your father told me to.”

“Why?”

“That’s two questions,” Spocatti said.
 
“If you ask one more, I’m throwing your ass out of here.”

They hurtled across 21st Street.
 
Traffic was dangerously light.
 

Michael looked out the rear window, saw the cab trying to pull alongside them and was about to speak when Spocatti spun the wheel to the right.
 
There was a sudden scraping of metal against metal, the blaring of a car horn and the cab was behind them again, front end dented.

Tires screaming, they turned onto Second Avenue. Although traffic was heavier here, the cab was able to pull alongside them.
 
Michael looked down at the cab.
 
At the same moment he saw a glint of steel from the cab’s rear side window, Spocatti darted right, busted a red light and swung onto 19th Street, leaving a traffic cop blowing her whistle.

The cab followed.

“We’re not going to lose them,” Spocatti said.
 
“The driver is too skilled.
 
To stay alive, he’ll do anything those men tell him to do.
 
I won’t be able to lose them unless you listen very closely to me and do exactly as I say.”

Michael was surprised by how calm Spocatti sounded—how measured and precise his words were.
 
“What do you want me to do?”

Vincent told him what he wanted him to do.

Michael told him he’d be shot.

“No, you won’t.
 
If those men wanted you dead, they would have killed you earlier. Now, move.”

Michael moved to the back of the van, pushing his way through a sea of large cardboard boxes.
 
He looked out the front window.
 
They were rapidly approaching Third Avenue.
 
Traffic was backed up 19th Street and the light at the end was red.
 
If it didn’t turn green soon, there would be no escape—no matter how well Spocatti drove, no matter how well Michael did as he was told.

Michael braced himself by gripping a rusty steel rod bolted to the metal wall behind him.
 
He waited, adrenaline pumping.
 
Never in his life had he been filled with so much hatred or fear—hate for his father, hate for Santiago, hate for these men chasing them, fear for his life.

He remembered his dog’s brutal death and the fear turned to rage.

The light at the end of the street turned green, traffic lurched forward and Spocatti said, “Do it now, Michael.”

Michael tightened his grip on the steel rod, threw open the door with his free hand and was struck by the sudden suction of wind.
 
He glimpsed the startled expressions on the men in the cab, saw them reach for their guns, and then he began kicking out the boxes that surrounded him, one after the other, in a steady stream of cardboard.

The driver was overwhelmed.
 

He swerved left, then right, attempting to dodge the boxes, but he wasn’t that skilled.
 
The boxes struck the hood of the car, rolled over the windshield, obscuring the driver’s vision.
 
Michael turned to kick out more boxes—but as he swung around, the steel rod he was holding onto suddenly gave way and he toppled out of the van, his head and shoulder striking the pavement as he rolled.

The cab screeched to a stop behind him.
 
As he lay there, stunned, his body screaming with pain, he watched in disbelief as Spocatti shot around the corner to Third Avenue, leaving him alone.
 
He turned his head toward the people on the sidewalk.
 
They were either standing back in shock or hurrying past him, heads lowered.
 
No one would help him.
 
He had to get out of there.

He tried to struggle to his feet, but he was too weak.
 
He heard the distant shrill of police sirens, the sudden opening of car doors, the controlled voice of a man saying, “Put him in the back.”

At the same moment Michael recognized the man’s accent as French, strong hands lifted him from the pavement and shoved him into the back of the cab.
 
Michael knew it was over when his eyes met Ethan Cain’s.

*
  
*
  
*

They drove back to Michael’s apartment.

The city sped by, flashing vignettes were briefly framed by the window, but Michael didn’t notice.
 
He was sitting between two men in the back of the cab who looked like twins with their slick jet ponytails and oversized bodies.
 
The other man, the older and seemingly wiser of the three, sat in front, smiling over his shoulder at Michael, pressing a gun against the cabbie’s side.

Michael was paralyzed by fear.
 
There was a roaring in his ears that had nothing to do with the sound of the cab’s engines.
 
If they’re not going to kill me, then they’re going to hurt me.
 
Badly.

He closed his eyes.
 
His head and shoulder ached from the fall.
 
There seemed to be no strength left in his body.
 
He wondered how much more of this he could take.
 
What was his limit?
 
Whatever it was, Michael knew he was approaching it.

The cab driver, an Iranian, was whispering something in a language Michael didn’t recognize or understand.
 
He listened.
 
The man was repeating the same phrase over and over.
 
It was a form of chant.
 
And then Michael knew.
 
The man had been confronted with death several times today and he was praying.
 
Michael wondered what God could save them from this.

A window was open and he could hear the fading shrill of the police sirens.
 
The cabbie was losing them.
 
Michael wondered where Spocatti went.
 
They slowed to a stop outside his apartment building.
 
Cain said something in French to his men and looked at Michael.
 
“Understand this,” he said.
 
“We will kill you if you try to escape again.
 
Do you understand me?
 
I’ll put a bullet through your head myself.”

“I doubt that,” Michael said.
 
“I have a week to come up with the money.
 
If Santiago wanted me dead, you would have killed me when I fell out of the—”

His words were cut short by a crushing blow to the stomach.
 
Michael doubled over in pain and two fists slammed hard against the small of his back.

For a moment, he couldn’t move or breathe—then Cain grabbed a handful of his hair and jerked him into an upright position.

“Listen to me,” he said, his accent stronger than before.
 
“It would be very easy for me to tell Santiago that you pulled a gun on me and I had to shoot you in self-defense.
 
Don’t for one minute think I won’t do it.”

Michael spat in his face.

Cain pulled back a hand and was about to strike when the cabbie’s voice suddenly rose and his praying became hysterical.
 
Cain looked at the man, grimaced and reached into his jacket pocket.
 
He removed a silencer, attached it to his gun and glanced out the windows.
 
No one on the street was looking in their direction.

Like a flash, he covered the driver’s mouth with one hand, jammed the gun into the man’s stomach with the other and fired four shots in rapid succession.
 
The cabbie’s eyes grew huge with sorrow and disbelief, a wet, clotted gasp escaped his lips, and he slumped forward, dead.