Blinded (8 page)

He looks ahead at the driver and then seems to regain his focus.

“Do you understand that the best thing that can happen to you is for you to just disappear? And there’s only one way I can
make
you disappear. Got that?”

You nod.

“So, now, let’s say we let you go. You’re going to leave J alone, right? I mean, she has enough distractions in her life without someone else bothering her. Right?”

Again you nod in agreement.

“You a resourceful man?”

“Sure,” you say.

Just let me out of this car
.

“Carl, this a good place?”

The driver nods. “Sure is. The next five or six blocks take the prize.”

“Well, let’s see just how resourceful you are.”

The car slows down and you look around. You see a wall of graffiti where the car stops.

“Get out,” the guy says.

A torn-down building to your right tells you it might be hard getting a cab.

“Here?” you ask, suddenly afraid of opening the door.

“You
so
want to get out of this car and away from me. You don’t want to see me again. Got that? Not me, not J, not anybody else. Not tonight. Understand?”

He’s holding the gun in your face again. You nod and open the car door. The night is cool and your legs feel stiff.

The car rushes away and you’re left in a silent, dimly lit block somewhere in New York.

Somewhere in a very bad part of New York.

You’re not in Soho anymore.

Y
OU WOULD BE A LOT MORE SCARED
if you weren’t so drunk.

Maybe drunk is not the right word. You’re above the legal limit, sure, but you can also walk in a straight line. At least when nobody is looking.

The reality is not only that you’re in a run-down and desolate part of the city but that you’re out past midnight with a gorgeous blonde grinning at you and holding your hand and guys with spiked hair and uncaring eyes pointing guns at you. This isn’t your life.

There’s no sidewalk on this street. A big two-story building next to you looks black and deathly empty. The closest streetlight is a block away. There’s no sign of any cars or any life. Across from you stands the remains of a building that looks half gone.

You start to walk down the street, half hoping to see a car coming, half hoping the street stays this deserted.

Sometimes when you take out Jack the Lhasa Apso one last time to do his nightly duty, you can look up at the stars from your modest-sized backyard in the suburb of Deerfield. It’s an expensive house and lot, and it’s small moments like this that you pay for. But now, walking on this side street, you look up and see only grayish black. No stars, nothing.

You check your phone again and see that you missed a call. A symbol says that you have voice mail. You check it and hear Lisa’s voice.

“Hey—where are you? You’re not going to believe what happened before bedtime. Jack wallowed in crap again, and I had to clean him up. I love how he only does this when you’re out of town. I swear. Call me if you can. Sorry to hear about the dinner. Peyton played with his mac and cheese at my parents’. Olivia didn’t eat anything. Typical dinner. Love you.”

Lisa’s voice sounds so out of place here and now. You miss her. You miss the normalcy of seeing her. You miss resting by her right now.

Because you’re scared
.

You tell yourself you’re not scared, but you are. It’s just coming over you right now, the wave of fear that should have covered you in the car.

You’ve got a wife and two children
.

You know that and you always know that. You leave the
house and go to bed thinking that. It’s branded on your heart and soul. But sometimes—sometimes—you want to forget. You want to simply have a drink and a good time and not worry so much. You don’t want so much weighing you down.

Too late
.

You wonder what you were thinking. But you know. You know what you were thinking the moment you dialed those numbers. There was a slight hope, a slight tease. You thought maybe, perhaps, possibly

just maybe

and wanted to see where the night took you.

Atmosphere.

345.

That’s where it took you.

And now here, wherever here is.

Good job, Mike
.

You delete Lisa’s voice mail and notice there’s another.

You listen to the second voice mail and stop when Jasmine’s erratic voice comes on the line.

“My God, Mike, I can’t—you gotta help me. I don’t know—I’m sorry—I don’t know who else to—I’m at Exit, this club—please come—”

And then nothing.

You hear muffled noise in the background—a street or a public place or something like that.

The phone number is unlisted. You can’t redial.

You remember that her license is still in your pocket.

I can at least go and see if she’s back home by now
.

You just had a gun pointed at you, waved in your face, brushed up against your cheek.

Those guys weren’t kidding.

They dropped you off in the middle of nowhere. You should be glad you’re alive.

Enough’s enough, Mike
.

But you’re not tired and you’re worried about Jasmine. She might be a flirt and frivolous and flippant but she’s still a young woman and you don’t want to see her hurt.

Jasmine’s going to be fine. She’ll be okay. You don’t need to protect her
.

But maybe she wanted and needed protection. Maybe she’s reaching out for someone to save her.

And maybe, just maybe, that someone is you.

Y
OUR HEAD HURTS
. B
URNS
. S
TINGS
.

The adrenaline is slowing down but you still hurt.

You look around and keep walking.

Walk. Step. Step.

You have no idea where you are and you’re a little afraid.

A little?

Maybe a lot.

You check your phone. Who can you call? The cops?

Call them
.

To say what? To do what?

Are you really in trouble? Does being in a bad part of the city necessarily mean—

“Hey.”

You turn to see a car slowing down. You stop looking when you see the figures in the car.

“Looks like you’re lost,” the voice says, laughing.

You keep walking.

“Slow down there now.”

You walk faster.

“We ain’t gonna do anything.”

But there are three of them and you are sticking out.

Sticking way out.

“Buddy, come on over here.”

And you look and see the grin and the glistening, hazy eyes and think it might be best for you to start hauling tail out of here.

You begin to sprint down the sidewalk. The street feels hard beneath your shoes and you suck in air but you feel like you could run five miles this way.

The engine behind you revs up but you don’t bother looking. You keep running down the sidewalk until you come to a narrow alley.

It’s too small for a car to go down.

You don’t bother looking to see where it heads. You go down it, the darkness of the two buildings on each side making it impossible to see all the way down.

You hear the squeal of tires stopping. The sound of car doors opening.

“Come on, man!” someone shouts at you. “Come on back here!”

But you keep running. You’re not going to look back and you’re not going to stop.

You feel air and suck in air and feel the alley walls closing in and hear the echoes of your footsteps.

You can sense them coming after you.

A wall stops you dead in your tracks. It’s a wood fence, about six feet tall.

You look back and see three figures walking toward you.

A curse escapes out of your mouth. You put one hand on the top of the fence and then try to scale the wall.

Nothing. You fall back.

They’re still coming.

You try again. This time, you manage to scale the wall and hoist your body high enough to drape one leg over the wall.

You try to pull the rest over. One second passes. Nothing. Another.

You’re about to fall off.

Come on Mike do it pull yourself up
.

“Where you think you’re going?” a voice asks.

You finally manage to get another leg over. You pull and get the rest of your body over the fence. It feels unsturdy as you get behind it and feel your feet fall to the concrete street.

You don’t bother looking behind. You keep running down the rest of the alley, opening up to another street.

Call someone
.

You look right and left. Neither looks particularly appealing. Empty, dark streets. Deserted, blackened shells of buildings.

Right or left. Pick your poison.

You head right and start running. You run. And keep running. Until your chest feels like it’s going to explode. And your legs have to stop. You suck in air. And you try to listen to see if you can hear anything. For the moment, it’s nothing but silence.

B
EFORE A VOICE CAN WARN YOU
to go the other way, you hear the sound of the engine racing down the street, then slowing and pulling up close to you. You can’t help but feel your breath catch as you see the dark face smoking a cigarette behind the jacked-up Cadillac SUV.

“You lost there?” a low voice asks above the raucous beat of the dance music.

“I’m fine, thanks,” you say, not even looking at the driver, walking on.

“I don’t think you’re fine, man.”

You keep walking.

“You know where you are?”

You look at him and see his eyes below thick dreadlocks. There is a humor in them, laced with friendliness.

“Actually, I don’t.”

“Your car broke down?”

“It’s been a long night.”

He laughs. “Gonna be a lot longer if you don’t get in the car.”

His voice and his attitude seem friendly enough. You survived the gun in your face, you can tackle this.

You get into the car. The driver is a big African-American with funky, bright clothes and a mass of dreads. The interior smells like cologne and is remarkably clean. The leather feels good.

“So what’s your story?” he asks as he accelerates down the empty street.

Glowing red numbers on the dash read 1:24 a.m. The bass almost massages you as the driver heads down streets as if he knows where he’s going.

“You won’t believe it.”

“You’re not from around here, huh?”

“Chicago,” you say.

“You live in New York long enough, you’ll get to see everything. But a white guy wandering around this part of the Bronx at one in the morning—now that’s a first for me.”

“This is the Bronx?”

He laughs, a deep guttural laugh that makes you do the same. “Yeah, a very nasty section. Don’t even ask what I’m doing driving down here. But you—you gotta have a story.”

“It started with meeting a chick.”

The driver curses in amusement. “Stop there. No need to say anything else.”

“Half an hour ago someone had a gun in my face.”

He curses again, now in astonishment. “What for?”

“Info on the woman.”

“And what’s her story?”

You shrug. “Just met her today.”