The Artful (Shadows of the City) (30 page)

“So that’s really it? I take this and go home?” I began to sober up. Everything seemed to be happening at a dizzying pace. I had finally gotten what we were looking for. I was almost home.

“And come back, should you choose.”

“All I can promise is to think about it.” Which wouldn’t take long. Brooklyn was full of nothing but savages. I couldn’t leave soon enough, and, once I left, I planned to never set foot across the damned bridge again. “So, can I leave now? I don’t want to be rude, but I really don’t know how long Dodger has or how he’s doing.”

“Of course, of course. As I said you are now a welcome member of this grand nation. You may come and go as you please. However, I will have to have you escorted by vehicle. The Skinlickers are a necessary pest, but they know to steer clear of cars marked by Chrysler.” He held out a well-manicured hand and offered a gracious smile; I shook it as firmly as I could. A shiver ran through my body. Somehow I felt like I just made a deal with the devil himself.

From the backseat of a car, I watched the world pass by like an old film. I felt detached, not just from the world I tried to escape, but from life itself. Everything had changed. Smith was dead, and I had murdered someone in order to avoid the same fate. I had finally got what we were searching for, but the price was too great. I had lost too much in the process. Even with the notion that it was all for Dodger, and Smith would have died anyway, I couldn’t help feeling all this could have been avoided if I had chosen to stay in bed a couple of days back.

But had it all never happened I would have never met her. Like that mattered. She was just another heartbreak. She had lied and betrayed us, played us from the beginning, I would never see her again, and she wouldn’t care because she never cared.
But she had to care! She even made me promise not to leave her, no matter what.

I couldn’t leave her like that; I had to find out straight from her mouth. My stomach was filled with anxiety, and the closer I got to that bridge back to Manhattan, the farther away she would be. Once I left, there would be no turning back.

“Hey.” The words left my lips before I could fully think about what I was about to do. “How far is it to the Botanical Gardens?”

“Not far, couple blocks that way.” The driver pointed a thumb behind his back, indicating the way we came. I looked out the back window, wondering if I could find it on my own, and how bad it would hurt jumping out of a moving car. In the end, I thought better of it. I didn’t have all the time in the world, and I wasn’t in a hurry to add more bruises to my broken body.

I bent over, feeling the hilt of the dinner knife in my sock. “Do you think we can make a stop? There’s something I have to see there, won’t be long.”

He looked at me in the rearview mirror. His eyes narrowed, but I saw a crooked smile cross his face. “What do you think this is, a cab? I got orders, bring you into Manhattan, I’m no tour guide.”

“I don’t need you to show me around. I just need you to make one stop.”

“Even if I wanted to make a stop for you, kid, it would have had to be something on the way. I’m not turning back and wasting my day chauffeuring you up and down the city.”

I leaned in closer behind his seat. “Come on, man. Didn’t you see the arena match? I was the winner. I’m Chrysler’s champion. That has to come with some perks.”

“Yeah, I saw the match, and let’s face it, kid, the only perk you’re getting is a ride home. I had a lot of money riding on Samsung. So stop bothering me, will ya?”

“There’s something else about the match I’m wondering if you noticed.”

“What?”

I pulled the knife out and brought my arm around his chair, pushing it into the soft skin of his neck. “I’m really good with a blade.”

“What the hell are you doing?” he yelled, struggling under my weapon

“I told you I needed to go to the Botanical Gardens. We didn’t have to go through all this unpleasantness, and, frankly, I’m sick of people not taking me serious!” I don’t know what it was, but something ignited in me, my feeling of being lost was replaced with anger. All these years, people had just walked all over me, taking me as seriously as they would take Dodger’s shadow. Yet here I was, up the middle of crap creek, going through my own pains and suffering, all to save my friends. I would be damned if this bastard kept me from them. “Now, turn this hunk of junk around and take me to the damn garden!”

His body tensed as he pushed on the brake, slowing before taking a wide U-turn. My position behind him wasn’t the most comfortable. I rested my forehead on the back of his chair and tried to gather my thoughts. I didn’t know what I would say to Gia when I saw her. What would she say? I was most worried she would look at me with bitter eyes. Had she thought of me as a disgusting street urchin from Manhattan, someone below her whom she had to suffer in order to get back home? Out of everything going on, my biggest fear was it was all a lie, and I already knew it would all be made clear once I saw her alone.

We drove for a little while before the industry of the city began to fall away and sparse trees and greenery began to make an appearance. After a while we came to a stop in front of a park with a copper sign that read
Botanical Gardens
arched over a path that led inside vibrant gardens of greens and yellows. Beyond the gate was a completely different world, one that thrived with beauty and life while the rest of the world fell under the monotone shadow of nothingness.

“We’re here. Can you kindly remove the knife please?”

“Um, yeah… here’s the thing, I kind of need you to knock yourself out.”

“You what?” he shouted, staring razors into my reflection in the rearview.

“I’m kind of in an awkward position back here; if I try to leave the car I have to remove the knife from your neck, and no telling what you’ll do. You could speed off and leave me here. I still need you to drive me out of the city.”

“So you think knocking me out―”

“Not me, you need to knock yourself out.”

“Me knocking myself out will be helpful? What if you need a quick get away?”

“Well, I don’t know what else to do.”

“How about my word, my word that I have the fear of God in me that if Chrysler finds out I didn’t drop you where I was supposed to, he’ll throw me into the arena. Okay? How about that? I have no choice but to sit here waiting for you to stroll through the gardens and decide it’s time to go home.”

“Okay, I can live with that. So you’ll wait here?”

“Yes! Just go, okay, go and do whatever it is you gotta do. This is ridiculous. First, you kill my prize fighter, you force me to be your own personal chauffeur, and then you have the nerve to demand I knock myself out.”

He continued in a tirade of insults and complaints as I uneasily drew the knife away from his throat and opened the door. He was still shaking his head and taking his anger out on the steering wheel when I jogged over to the entrance. My jog slowed down to a slow walk, I was amazed at the world I entered. If Eve’s Garden of Eden filled me with a fascinating awe, the Botanical Gardens put it to shame with sheer size and beauty. The path I walked was paved with marble bits that sparkled under the moonlight. On either side were endless lawns of grass adorned with flowers of various kinds and colors. Flowers grew into larger plants, and even further, trees of varying shapes and sizes, leaves of green, orange, and purple surrounded me, swaying through the night breeze at every turn.

Birds flew from branch to branch in merry games of tag; others bathed in fountains that had a different stone angel or cherub spouting water into a waiting pool. In the distance, I saw a glass structure covered in black tarps, no doubt to keep out the sun, but it was easy to tell at one time this building was something of pure elegance and beauty. Glass spires reached up high over the trees, offering anyone who climbed to the top a wonderful view of the whole garden. I thought to make my way to the structure until I noticed a small arched bridge overlooking a blue pond where swans lazily drifted back and forth. What caught my full attention was the lone figure sitting on the bridge railing, her soft, white dress fluttering in the breeze. The colors of her hair danced about her face, seemingly one with the rest of the garden. Gia looked absolutely beautiful. She needed to be painted and forever immortalized for all to see.

Nervousness crept into my body as I approached her. I kept telling myself I wasn’t ready; I should turn around and wait for another time to talk to her. By the time I was close enough to call her name, I had completely convinced myself she wouldn’t want to see me. I paused and watched as she stroked her hair behind her ear, staring into the pond’s shallow reflection. She looked up, and my heart stopped as our eyes met, and I froze like a trapped deer staring into the eyes of a ferocious predator. The moment held for an eternity, and then she was running toward me, a mixture of emotions painted her face―happiness and sadness, but most importantly there was no anger or disgust. She closed the distance by throwing herself around me, locking her arms around my neck, resting her face on my chest.
She’s going to hear my pounding heart.

“I thought I’d never see you again.” No hint remained of the girl I met before, the hardened, street smart girl was gone, and the girl I now held in my arms was as delicate as the flowers that surrounded us. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of this.”

I was at a loss for words. Part of me wanted to lash out at her for lying to me, demand an explanation. But the rest of me, the majority, just wanted to hold her and breathe in the sweet smell of her hair. “I had to come see you, to know if it was all a lie.”

She pulled back from me, tears falling down her cheeks. “Of course it was a lie!”

I couldn’t find my voice. I stared at her, knowing my face must have been nothing but confusion. It made her lighten up and smile. “Come here, will you?” she said, leading me by the hand to the bridge. She sat down, and I sat next to her. She held our hands in her lap. Leaning in close, she kissed me on the cheek.

“I was lying to Chrysler―” At the mention of his name, I stared at her accusingly. She sighed and continued, “Daddy, I was lying to Daddy. I needed to figure out the safest way to get you out of here. You have to understand. When he found us together, it took everything in my power to keep him from killing you. I had to make up a story about using you to get back home. I convinced him you were just a pawn. He took pride in the fact that his favorite qualities were rubbing off on me, that I could easily use you to my advantage. It lightened his mood. But there was no way to keep you out of the arena, so the best I was able to do was talk him into letting the both of you fight together…”

Talking about the arena made me remember the look on Smith’s face right before…

“I’m so sorry,” she continued. “I know it must hurt, but you have to understand that both of you were going in, regardless of anything I did. At least I gave you a fighting chance. And… and you made it.”

“But you were using me. You needed to get back here, and you didn’t tell me. You just went along for the ride.”

“None of what I told you was a lie. I wanted to escape Brooklyn. That’s all I felt you needed to know. Would you have helped me if you knew who I was?”

“Yes!”

She looked down at our hands. “Maybe, yes, you probably would have. But I didn’t know that then. And, by the time I knew you better, it was already too late.”

“How did you end up in Manhattan? Smith said Randy was supposed to pick him up, but you weren’t supposed to be in the car.”

“I’ve been trying to figure out a way to leave Brooklyn forever. Twist, you have to believe me. I hate it here, and I hate my father. He parades around like he’s some sort of elegant man of honor, but he’s a monster. He’s done things, things I can’t believe a sane human being would willingly take part in. He’s been planning to make a move on Manhattan for some time now, and with Smith I saw an opportunity. Randy, he’d been giving me the eyes for a while, a comment here, a touch there, hugs that lasted too long. He wanted me. So when I found out he was going into Manhattan to get Smith, I talked him into taking me with him. I promised him that, once we were safely into the city, he could do whatever he wanted to me. All he had to do was let me go after. Daddy would have no reason to believe I went with him, and I would be free.”

“You were going to sleep with him just to get out?”

“Of course not! I planned to beat the living crap out of him before he put his hands on me. But he was all amped up on some drug; I didn’t take into account how much of a horny monster he was, and, before I had time to think, he was all over me. I started freaking out, fighting back like a nutcase. It only got him going more. That’s when you guys showed up and saved me.” She rolled her eyes when she admitted we saved her. “But I was rattled big time, and technically it was the first time I was ever completely on my own. So I kind of clung to you guys.”

“That’s why he never met Smith.”

“Yeah, I asked him about Smith, hoping to gain some time. He said Smith could wait. What we had to do was more important. Only there were so many Suits around. I guess they were looking for you guys. So he thought it was best we go to Times Square, where the law wasn’t allowed.”