Page 118 of The Mafia's Christmas Baby
A driver who loves the middle lane until it matters.
I take the next right and cut south, slow like I don’t have a plan.
Tino slides up the cross street and drops in behind the SUV.
We don’t run.
We bleed distance.
“Change of route,” I say. “Not going home.”
Elisa tightens her seat belt and sets her palm against the dash.
She doesn’t ask what I’m doing.
Good.
I take us into the old lanes under the bridge where the blocks still remember our grandfathers’ runs.
Eldridge to Hester.
Hester to Allen.
Right on Canal, left before the light, through a delivery bay where a guy with a pallet jack knows to look the other way when he sees my face.
Rafe holds a steady speed and lets me open the gap.
Tino calls the SUV’s turns like he’s reading a box score.
When they try to follow on Essex, I cut through a school zone and hit the back alley that spits onto Henry.
There’s a new camera on the corner but it faces the wrong way if you hug the curb and take the swing early.
The SUV overshoots and has to loop for another pass.
“Lost visual,” Tino says calmly. “He’ll search the grid.”
“Let him,” I say. “Rafe, two turns and then loop back to the hospital garage. We reset.”
Elisa watches the buildings change from glass to old brick, then to narrow stoops and iron railings that have been painted too many times.
Her breath finds a steady rhythm.
She’s reading the road now too, picking up the tells—where I slow, where I don’t, what I check twice.
“You’ve done this before,” she says.
“Since I had legs,” I answer. “The old guard kept their lanes. When the city forgets, we remind it.”
We swing into the garage beneath St. Adrian’s.
I pick a bay with sightlines and a blind exit.
Rafe takes the ramp and idles, ready to block.
Tino slips down on foot to watch the elevator lobbies.
I walk Elisa into the lobby and hand her to the guard who knows how to watch a screen and pretend not to.
