Page 103 of The Mafia's Christmas Baby
I’m in the street.
Rafe hears my feet and tosses me the keys mid-run.
Tino is already in motion two doors down, jacket open, face blank.
I bark the grid without breath.
“Rafe, take Pike. If they’re smart, they cut under the bridge. If they’re dumb, they try the FDR. Tino, you go Canal to Rutgers. If you see that dent, you kiss its ass until I tell you to stop.”
They don’t waste questions.
The car coughs once and then decides to behave.
I hit speaker and call Alvarez.
“Tell me you’re looking at monitors,” I say.
“I’m looking at my sandwich,” he says, and then, hearing my voice, drops the joke. “What happened?”
“Abduction at your hospital. Sedans and bad IDs. I need Pike and East Broadway cams now.”
He mutters to someone who owes him a favor.
Keys clatter.
“I’ve got a black sedan heading under the Manhattan Bridge approach. Rear passenger door’s got a scar. You owe me. Again.”
“Send me stills and the last three turns.”
“Lawyer words,” he says. “You didn’t ask me. Your face isn’t real.”
“Neither is yours,” I say and hang up.
Stills hit my phone.
It’s the right dent.
They took her fast.
Good for their timeline.
Bad for mine.
I call Mr. Leon at the bodega because old men with radios see what cameras miss.
“You want oranges?” he says.
“I want to know if a black car cut East Broadway in front of your awning thirty seconds ago.”
He sniffs like I insulted him. “A rude driver almost killed my crates. I threw a hand, he showed me a finger. Why?”
“Because I’m going to find him and take his finger.”
“Tino just flew past like a devil,” Mr. Leon says, pleased. “You boys be careful.”
We hit Pike.
Under the bridge, the light changes into warehouse daylight, flat, dirty, honest.
