Page 54 of A Friend in the Glass

Disbelief made him falter. It was only for a moment, and then his body recovered, and his pace smoothed out again. But it happened at exactly the wrong time, as Lew was turning away from the concierge desk, disgust scribbled across his features. He locked eyes on Sam. The color washed out of his face, and he turned and ran.

Sam sprinted after him.

At the same time, so did Chad and Shane.

“Rufus!” Sam shouted, and all he could do was hope Rufus understood what he was asking.

Ahead of him, Lew slid through the crowd near the doors. He didn’t shout or shove. He didn’t make any noise, although maybe that was because of the blood rushing in Sam’s ears. Lew moved like a snake, and he was getting away.

Samdidshout. “Move! Move! Get out of the fucking way!”

Men and women squawked and shuffled and looked around. They reminded him of a flock of birds too dumb to care as a hunter started picking them off. Pheasants, Sam wanted to say.

He clipped one lady with his shoulder, and she screamed. A wide-eyed man in a fedora half-fell out of Sam’s way. Then he reached the doors. Checking the crash bar with his hip, he spared a glance back for Rufus.

The redhead had body-slammed Chad to the ground, who was howling in pain as he was pinned, bad arm against the linoleum floor. Rufus scrambled over Chad’s prone body, holding his neck brace with one hand while grabbing at Shanewith his other. He caught the back of Shane’s jacket and yanked, but the other man remained on his feet, kept moving, actually pulled Rufus along for a foot or two, before he tore free and broke into a run after Sam—after Lew.

Then Sam was plunging into the cold, weak daylight. He spun, trying to catch sight of Lew, and—

Hands caught him by the coat and spun him. Sam caught a glimpse of Lew’s face as he bum-rushed Sam toward the street. It wouldn’t have worked if he hadn’t been off balance from turning around. It still might not have worked if the sidewalk hadn’t been icy. But Sam’s feet went out from under him, and all he could do was Scooby Doo the soles of his shoes against the frozen concrete, trying to get purchase, as Lew hurled him into traffic.

Sam stumbled, caught his balance, and was hit by a car.

It was a tap, really. Barely enough to jar him. Sam steadied himself with one hand on the hood. A wide-eyed kid who looked barely sixteen stared back at him from behind the wheel of the Audi. Horns blatted as traffic began to back up.

Sam gave the kid a wave. The kid waved back, eyes growing wider.

By the time Sam got to the sidewalk, Lew was halfway down the block. Shane wasn’t far behind him. They moved down the crowded sidewalk like an arrow, parting the crowd behind them, leaving furious, shouting people in their wake. Sam started after them, trying to ignore the throbbing heat in his hip and hamstring, but he could already tell it was a lost cause. Sam had the advantage of an already cleared path, but Lew was faster, and he had too much of a lead. Unless he slipped and fell, which didn’t seem likely, he’d lose Sam sooner or later.

Shane seemed to reach the same conclusion because he stopped running. Then he pushed back his coat, grabbed a gun from his waistband, and started firing at Lew.

One. Sam counted the shots as he broke into a run again. Two, three—

Lew slewed sideways. His feet went out from under him, and he rolled across the sidewalk.

—four—

The fuckhead was still shooting. The angry pedestrians had dissolved into a screaming, fleeing mob.

—five—

“Stop!” Sam shouted. And then, because it came to him: “Police!”

It was hard to believe Shane heard him over the chaos, but his head whipped around, and he took off at a run.

Distantly, Sam registered a minor miracle—none of the bystanders seemed to have been hit. Maybe because of the slanting light of sunset and the deep shadows. Maybe just luck. But that thought was peripheral; Sam’s focus was on Lew, and he sprinted toward him. He lay on the sidewalk, and for a moment, he was so still that Sam thought he’d stopped breathing. Blood darkened his jeans, seeping outward from where the bullet had sliced open the side of his thigh. Not life threatening, although it probably hurt like a motherfucker. Scrapes and cuts on Lew’s face and head suggested the fall had been even nastier than it looked; if he was in danger, it was from that more than the gunshot wound. Even as Sam performed the field triage, Lew raised his head and moaned.

“Fucking shit” seemed to be the extent of what he had to say.

“Sam!” Rufus was shouting, practically screaming, from farther down the sidewalk. He came running toward the two sofast he nearly plowed into them. “Oh my God, are you ok?” He raised his phone, hand shaking. “Do I call Erik again?”

Sam shook his head as he caught Lew’s arm and dragged him upright. Lew let out a sharp cry; with the foot traffic still fleeing from the shooting, the sound echoed up and down the empty block. As soon as Sam had him upright, Lew started to fold, but Sam shook him and said, “Stay on your fucking feet.” Then, to Rufus, he said, “No.” Sirens sounded in the distance. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

Chapter Thirty

At the northeast corner of West Thirty-Seventh, across from the Javits Center, was a high-rise construction site that Rufus was pretty sure stood on the ashes of a formerly mob-run mechanic garage and a shitty burger joint that’d had, like, at least a dozen health code violations at all times. There were no sounds of drilling or hammering, no shouting back and forth between workers. All that could be heard from the site was the ever-present wind off the Hudson whistling through the skeletal frame. Union hours must have meant work had already wrapped for the day.

Underneath the impromptu roof scaffolding, and behind the netted walkways for pedestrians, some idiot had left one of the site access doors unlocked. After a quick check both up and down the block, Rufus yanked the heavy chain from the door handles, tossed it behind a nearby Porta-Potty, and motioned Sam and Lew to follow him into the structure. Bare overhead bulbs pockmarked the site with cones of dirty yellow light, but far corners remained shrouded in harsh darkness—where even that fiery orange of a setting sun couldn’t quite reach. The floor was littered with heavy machinery and various tools of the trade.

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