Chapter 17
Fucking Dumb Move
Within channels of concrete, steel, and glass, Devine’s helicopter carved through Manhattan.
From his lofty perch, Evan surveyed the unearthly panorama through ancient eyes.
Piloted on a man-made bird, he felt his bones thrum with the machinery encasing him.
As the airborne dreamscape scrolled past at eye level, his gaze took in the denizens laboring within it, pallid faces at science-fiction cubicles, insects tending the hive.
It seemed impossible that the crowded island hadn’t sunk under the sheer mass of the towering habitats.
Joey’s voice memo, routed through his RoamZone, poured into his earpiece, jarring him back into the present.
Hey, hey, that was so badass today, how you read, like, everything and backed the guards down.
And when you told him to get me the Aperol spritz I thought you were being all, “Lemme order for the little lady here.” And I was secretly pissed off, I was, but you had a plan after all and that was so cool to watch you operate, like, firsthand.
And you totally did it, X. You totally got to Devine.
He texted: On the bird. Limit comms.
And how ’bout when I stepped in and was all like, “Say it, motherfucker.” And that was totally the right timing, right? Like, serious movie moment.
Evan texted: We’re in the middle of the mission. Let’s not play our favorite hits.
…
Okay, but damn. And also? The whole cigar thing—
Evan swiped and tapped.
Notifications silenced.
The rotors beat the air, straining against shoulder bolts and load-bearing screws holding them improbably aloft. He closed his eyes, did several rounds of four-square breathing. Then swiped again.
Notifications allowed.
He texted: Update.
Rawlings is pretty cool, like you said. We’re figuring out how to work with each other but the vibe is good, and I’m pretty sure he respects me.
And they’ve given me unfettered access to this beast of an NAS in Devine’s secret lair, which is, like, insanely incredible.
No one should have this much access and this much power.
The Brain can see everything. Which means, right now, I can see everything, so it’s like, Orphan J at the helm of the free world.
I’m really appreciative you gave me this opp—
Pause.
No, he texted. Update on the young woman who was taken from the subway.
…
Oh. Right. Sorry. Thought you wanted color commentary.
Never.
Fine. The surveillance cameras in the subway cars were blacked out.
Not a coincidence. And whoever did it—it was spray-painted—knew how to not be seen.
The cameras at 125th are glitchy as fuck—thanks, city budget—but I picked up a crew of guys flashing past an ATM camera on Saint Nicholas Avenue.
And they’re half carrying a girl, her arms over their shoulders, like she’s super drunk.
And no one really notices. They’re just, like, carrying her off in the middle of a crowded city. It’s super fucked up, X. Hard to watch.
Facial ID?
Too hard to see her. Visuals are grainy af. And they’re, like, mobbed all around her. Smart fuckers, they have baseball caps pulled down low so I can’t grab features, nothing. Sending you screen grabs now.
Here they came: Bink. Bink. Bink.
He pictured Joey dictating into her phone, fingers fluttering across the keyboard, the massive screen heaving up data at her command.
I tracked them across a kilometer and change via internet-connected cameras, traffic lights, store security, lobby cams, all that, but I lost them on this half block. Hang on, sending map.
Bink.
I’m still scraping the databases looking for cams registered within a five-block radius to see where they reappeared but NYC isn’t at full Big Brother London yet so it’s spotty going.
Maybe the men doubled back with her. Maybe they took a route through a blind spot.
Maybe they ducked into one of the buildings along the way or hopped into a car.
Evan clicked on several of the images and zoomed in.
The resolution was terrible, as Joey had said.
Four military-aged males in hats with flat brims worn low.
Jeans, Nikes and Adidas, dark sweatshirts without logos.
Because they were stumbling together and handing off the young woman, gait recognition was off the table.
The young woman was barely visible, her lolling head a blur.
In one freeze-frame, her wrist showed either a bracelet or a band of shadow.
Another captured a length of her periwinkle dress.
Evan enlarged the smeared face and the wrist and sent Joey the screenshots.
Crisp up pixelation with a digital de-blur tool. Maybe a bracelet? Same for the men’s shoes. Let’s see if any of the sneakers are collector’s items, etc. Can you get a clearer image of the dress pattern, too? And her hair? Zoom in and check for tattoos?
A moment later, Joey’s reply voice text came through: Already checked her face—no go. Hair is too blurry. No bracelet as far as I can tell. And the men’s sneakers are basic. No visible tats. Here’s the dress at higher res.
Bink.
The dress had cleaned up into a decent resolution, showing a pattern of tiny lilies.
Not particularly useful. He scrolled back to the woman being drag-carried off.
The pack-versus-prey image brought him back to the Trinitarios pursuing a young man with a severed arm.
He texted Joey: Update on Lesandro Candella.
…
Stable. Transferred from ICU to step-down
unit this am. I’m keeping an eye. Check it.
A link.
Evan clicked.
A security-camera view of Lesandro in a common area in the step-down unit, sitting in one of three aqua-green-vinyl-covered chairs near the nurses’ station.
He wore a hospital gown and slippers. His left arm terminated in a bulb of bandaging.
His right hand was also swathed, the reattached finger held in place by a mechanical-looking splint that no doubt secured the pins.
The injured hand was gripping something loosely.
A beige half-arm prosthetic.
It looked cheap and uncomfortable, a lowest-bidder fulfillment for the uninsured.
Lesandro held the detached prosthetic vertically before him, staring at the palm that stared back, the pose reminiscent of Hamlet’s if Yorick’s skull were replaced with a mannequin arm.
Lesandro looked utterly dejected. It was as if he was looking not at the arm but into the future and finding nothing there worth visiting. He sat so still Evan wondered if the footage was frozen, but a passerby made clear it was not.
After a moment, Lesandro rose and walked out of frame, the prosthetic swinging at his side.
Evan thought about Lesandro’s first utterance when he was bleeding on the pavement, words emerging from the depth of life-altering shock: My watch. I can’t find my watch.
Evan typed: Does he have insurance?
Now Joey switched to text: he works @ gamehut
So that’s a no?
y, dum-dum thass no. he applied 4 a financial assistance installment plan from hospital
How much?
so far? 37k 4 arm. 54k 4 finger. w interest @ min payment itll b paid off in … hang on … 429 months.
Evan rubbed his eyes. With no insurance company to negotiate costs, Lesandro was bearing the full brunt of the not-so-free market.
Cover his expenses anonymously, he texted. Draw from the Luxembourg account, alias Timothy Rackley.
kk
The helicopter banked, lifting Evan’s gorge, and he pocketed his RoamZone and tightened his grip on the harness.
They perched not on the roof of the UN but on the crumbling playground asphalt of a fenced-in Title I school, the surrounding streets not unlike the East Baltimore ’hood he’d come of age in.
As he climbed out, ducking beneath the rotor wash, he spotted black and brown faces filling the windows of the nearest classroom.
The sight brought him back to the Pride House Group Home, foster brothers all around, Evan one of the few white boys in the mix.
He gave a finger flare of a wave and the kids smiled big and waved back, a few jumping up and down on their chairs. A helo setting down on their basketball court might as well have been Santa landing on the roof.
Evan cut back to the subway station and retraced the route the young woman had been carried, skirting the edge of gentrified Art Deco refurbs.
Big ugly residential buildings thrust up, interspersed with old-school tenements.
Crammed streets, gridlocked traffic, plenty of sidewalk jostling.
Check-cashing joints, bodegas, a ubiquitous Pret a Manger.
Street vendors hocked busted watches and junk antiques on bedsheets unfurled across the sidewalk.
Incense wafted into his face, seasoning the scent of halal-cart kebab.
Five-foot-tall South American women sold mango on Popsicle sticks.
Basement dry cleaners, cobbler shops, and braiding salons spoke to a vibrant belowground economy.
A windowless van screeched up to the curb, and a young African man rolled up a cluster of knockoff Vuitton purses in a blanket like a giant joint and climbed in.
The van made another pimp stop twenty feet up the street, vacuuming in another laborer working slave wages.
Evan came to the half block where the young woman and her pack of kidnappers had evanesced.
Slowing down, he examined stoops and balconies, storefronts and foyers.
A night laborer with a jackhammer made unsteady progress against a sidewalk rippled by the unruly root of a honey locust. A giant moving van overspilled the bike lane, block letters screaming from the back: HOW’S MY DRIVING? CALL TO REPORT.
Evan cut around it, staying tight to a row of dilapidated brownstones, staring up at the sprawling limestone veined darkly with water infiltration. A drainpipe swung free, rotted through vertically like a slender canoe. The smell of garbage was strong on the air, singeing the back of his tongue.
Irregular movement on a subterranean stairwell drew his eye.