Page 107 of The Mafia's Christmas Baby
“Try it,” I say.
From the van behind us, two more men step down like extras who got called early.
One puts a hand inside his jacket.
Tino’s gun is already in his hand, low and sleepy.
He doesn’t point it.
He lets the idea of it sit in the air.
“Don’t,” Tino says.
He sounds like a librarian.
The man decides to be a pacifist.
Good choice.
Alvarez’s siren shows up without a siren.
He rolls in slowly in an unmarked with a chewing gum wrapper for a badge.
He parks sideways like a comma.
You told me to take a nap, the guard messages.
He learned punctuation in the last thirty seconds.
He stands in the shadow like a man in a painting.
Alvarez opens his door and leans on it like he is exhausted by everyone. “Nicholas,” he says. “What a coincidence. You find a picnic without me.”
“Misdelivered,” I say. “These people lost their map.”
He squints at the woman’s lanyard.
“That ID belongs to a nurse named Hector,” he says. “Is that you?”
She smiles. It would sell soap to saints. “We were returning a patient to intake,” she says. “She got confused.”
“I’m confused too,” Alvarez says.
He looks at the driver, who bleeds a little onto his collar. “Why don’t you all stay put while I get even more confused?”
Two uniforms appear where concrete meets river.
He called them before he called me.
Good.
He still plays at being a boy scout when it matters.
Elisa stays by my shoulder, breathing like a runner who is not tired.
She looks at Alvarez as if he is a menu and she doesn’t trust any of the choices.
“You all right?” he asks her.
