At the City's Edge (30 page)

‘Holy Mary, Mother of God.’ Cruz’s voice was settling now, not the panicked mumbling of before. Her eyes flicked to the rearview,
narrowed. ‘Hold on.’

Jason reached for the seatbelt, clicked it into place as she yanked the wheel to the right, a hard, sliding turn on streets
slick with rain and grease. The back fishtailed, skidding around, and then she hit the gas again, the vector overwhelming
the spin as they charged east. The street was ghetto-residential, sagging houses drooping toward cracked earth, rusting fences,
weeds shining damp in gardens of broken glass. Battered cars lined both sides of the street, shit, all facing toward them,
which meant they were going the wrong direction down a one-way street. The rain had driven people off the street to their
porches, and Jason heard angry yells. Someone threw a bottle wrapped in brown paper, the glass smashing in their wake.

Behind them, headlights spun around the same curve, slid too far, side-slammed into a parked car. Jason watched, willing the
car to flip. It didn’t. Another set of headlights came in behind.

‘There’s a second car,’ he said.

Cruz nodded, her knuckles white on the wheel.

He’d have given a finger for a weapon. He felt helpless, Cruz driving, him riding shotgun without a
shotgun. More flashes exploded behind them, but didn’t seem to hit anything.

A hundred yards ahead, headlights glowed. An oncoming car. The street was too narrow for them to pass. It would trap them.

‘Elena –’

‘I see it.’ She stayed on course, running straight, the accelerator to the floor. There was a cross-street between them and
the oncoming car. A northbound street, Racine he thought. It was a toss-up whether they could get there first. A horn shrieked
from the oncoming car. Behind them, the Charger was gaining fast. Jason gripped the armrest. Angry yells poured in the Honda’s
broken windows. A couple years ago a white delivery driver had accidentally hit a black kid in this neighborhood. The crowd
had pulled him from his car and beaten him to death before the police arrived. Jason watched the headlights grow larger, the
distance disappearing.

Then they reached the corner and Cruz yanked the wheel left in a full-speed turn. Centripetal force threw him against the
seatbelt. Tires screamed on asphalt. Jason had a glimpse of the terrified eyes of the driver of the other car, a Buick, and
then they cleared it by inches.

He swiveled to look behind in time to see the Charger slam into the Buick. The squealing horn died, replaced by the nails-on-chalkboard
sound of metal tearing. Glass cracked and popped, and headlight beams swam wildly up the sides of rotting houses.
Then the Charger flipped to its side and surfed a trail of sparks out of sight.

Jason let himself breathe again.

They were heading north, the Honda’s four cylinders as close to roaring as they were likely to get, a clank coming from the
engine that he didn’t like. Fifty blocks up, Racine was a lovely residential street of hundred-year trees and million-dollar
graystones. But on the south side it twisted between abandoned factories and weed-filled lots strewn with black garbage bags.
The rain covered everything with a greasy film.

‘We made it,’ he said.

Cruz nodded, blew air through her lips. Didn’t even slow for a red light. Shipping containers packed dark parking lots under
broken ware house windows. They hit a bump that knocked loose glass from the broken rear, the green pieces glowing eerily
under dingy streetlights. Jason tried to picture where they were on his mental map. They’d made distance on the empty streets,
probably putting them at the south end of Bridgeport. There weren’t any headlights behind them. With luck, the second car
had gotten tangled up in the accident. At very least, it would have to reverse and circle around.

Cruz eased up on the gas, letting the Honda drop to fifty. She took one hand off the wheel, flexed it, the knuckles popping,
then did the same with the other.

‘Nice driving, Officer.’ He smiled, postcombat shakes hitting now, that goofy energy. ‘They teach you that at the academy?’

She laughed, a nervous sound. ‘Jesus.’

‘Mary,’ he said. ‘You were saying Hail Marys.’

‘I was?’ She shook her head. ‘Didn’t even notice. Haven’t said a Hail Mary since I was sixteen.’

‘I guess somebody was listening.’

‘Guess so.’ She put on her blinker for a left turn onto Thirty-fifth.

‘Where are you headed?’

‘The Stevenson. Put some distance.’

He settled back into his seat. From the expressway they could get most anywhere, then wind their way back to Washington’s
place at leisure. The light at the lonely corner ahead was green. He could see the darkness of the river just west of them.
The windshield wipers thunked back and forth, strangely comforting.

They were almost through the turn when the Escalade jackhammered into them. The Honda rocketed forward, spinning, the back
wheels lifting. The spider-webbed rear window exploded, fragments of safety glass raining in sparkling slow motion. There
was a blur of headlights, flashbulb bright. The world spun like a carousel. Through the windshield he saw the pitted and scarred
landscape of some kind of construction site swing by, replaced by a flash of the truck that had rammed them, then a metal
railing and yawning darkness. He felt a sick slippy sensation as the Honda hit the guardrail, half bending it and half bouncing
over it, and briefly they hung in a fantasy of flight, wheels spinning over nothing.

Then black water rushed up to meet them.

The impact slammed Jason against the seatbelt, his head snapping forward, white stars flaring. The front of the car plowed
water up in a shimmering arc lit by one unbroken headlight. He just had time to wonder if the water would be cold before it
started pouring through the shattered windows.

It was.

He gasped for breath, shook his head, dazed. Felt like he’d been hit by a linebacker, the wind yanked out of him, vision darting
and narrow. He fumbled at his seatbelt as the Chicago River rushed into the car, the water sheened with oil.

Beside him, Cruz moaned.

Jason looked over, saw her sprawled across the steering wheel, blood trickling from her forehead. Her fingers fluttered like
she were waving away bugs.

‘Elena?’ Water was coming in at an unbelievable rate, gushing over the side of the car. He tugged at his seatbelt, fingers
unwieldy. The release button seemed stubborn, and it took a moment to realize he was pressing the wrong side. ‘Are you all
right?’

She moaned again, straightened slowly. In the heat of the chase, she hadn’t had time to buckle her seatbelt. Her eyes were
wide and unfocused, her bangs wet. He leaned over and the car reacted to his movement like a tipping rowboat. The water had
filled to seat level. The windshield cracked in lightning ripples.

‘Elena. Let’s go!’ Her eyes seemed to spin glassy in her head, then she blinked, long slow blinks like she was focusing. She
nodded at him.

Free of his belt, Jason scrambled half over his seat, splashing in the back for the briefcase. It was too dark to see, and
the angle hurt his head, blood rushing in to make the world pulse. He bumped something, lost it, reached again. Found one
leather edge jammed under the seat. The briefcase must have slid under and gotten wedged in the impact. He leaned over, breath
coming hard, tugging.

Cruz moaned, and he looked over to see her with her head back on the steering wheel. Dark blood ran down her cheek. She lay
there like she were taking a nap.

‘Elena!’ He made his voice snap. ‘We have to move.’

She stirred, then slumped again.

The windshield creaked from the pressure of water. If it gave, the car would go like a brick.

He was bent over the seat, the edge of the briefcase in one hand. He yanked at it, and it gave a little, but then stopped.
It was wedged on something, the handle probably caught. He could get it. He was certain. It wouldn’t take a minute.

The windshield creaked again. Cruz had stopped moving.

Jason cursed, then let go of the case and leaned across her. With fast cranks he lowered her window, the water pressing against
it hungrily, slopping in. She gasped at the cold, eyes widening. The Honda made a sickening groan and lurched forward. A crack
rippled across the windshield like ice on a lake.

Jason grabbed the passenger side window frame, chunks of safety glass poking dull into his hands, and
hauled himself out to belly-flop in the oily water. The headlight below him lit the river like a polluted swimming pool.
He took a breath and dove, his eyes closed against the murk. Counting, one, two, three, four, frog-legging down and over.
Then surfacing slow, one hand above to make sure he didn’t hit the bottom of the car. When he felt air he kicked hard and
came up alongside her door.

She stared at him, blinking like she was surprised he was there. The Honda shuddered, the entire hood submerged, three-quarters
of her window underwater. He grabbed the frame with his right hand and with his left leaned in for her, clamping his arm in
a crude hug under her shoulders. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I need you to help.’

She blinked, shook her head, then nodded. Her hands found the window frame, white fingers clenching the edge. He tugged at
her, planting his feet against the side of the car, the traction of his sneakers lending purchase. She steered herself out
the window, body slipping through. He had her most of the way out when the windshield gave. Water flooded in, yanking the
car downward. He kicked frantically, one arm slung around her, terrified she would get caught and tug them both to the bottom.

And then she was clear, and he was on his back, pulling her in a lifeguard cradle through inky water.

The Honda canted up, only the crumpled trunk sticking out of the water, already beginning to sink. Iridescent bubbles streamed
around it.

‘Are you okay?’ He kicked backwards. The eastern shore was closer, so he headed that way. There was hardly any current; this
section of the river was really a channel, used for shipping.

‘I’m dizzy,’ she said.

‘Can you kick?’

Her legs began to scissor. It was wobbly at first, but grew stronger as they moved.

Jason looked up to the bridge twenty feet above. From this angle he couldn’t see much, but an Escalade was a big vehicle.
If it were there, he should have been able to spot it. Maybe they’d continued on, not wanting to linger near the accident.
The corner had been deserted when they’d gone over, but surely other cars would have come soon.

An Escalade. Until now, he hadn’t had time to process what that meant.

The east bank of the river was lined with scrub trees, their branches festooned with plastic bags and rotting sneakers. A
sludgy, organic smell surrounded them. The channel walls were vertical concrete three feet high. He looked at it, then at
her.

‘I’m okay,’ she said.

He let her go cautiously, and she tread water with one hand on the wall. Jason took a breath, ducked underwater, then kicked
hard, flinging an arm up to catch the lip of the breakwall. He brought his other to join it, then pulled himself up, the concrete
scraping against his body. A thin ribbon of trees bordered the construction site he’d seen before the car went
over. Heavy equipment was parked fifty yards away, and mounds of dirt screened them from the road.

He lay on his belly and extended an arm for Cruz. Water sluiced off her as he hauled her out, her feet scrabbling against
the concrete.

When she was safely on dry ground, he flopped down on his back. He hurt in a hundred places, and his breath came hard. But
they had made it. He stared up at the sky, the rain cool and cleansing. Clouds hid the stars. Cruz lay beside him, panting.
Her upper arm touched his, and the warmth felt good. He lay still, not thinking and enjoying it.

Then Cruz jerked upright. ‘The briefcase.’

He shook his head.

She stared at him. ‘You were reaching for it. I remember.’

‘It was caught.’ Jason sat slowly. He ran a hand through his hair, brushing twigs. ‘Under the seat. I couldn’t get it in time.’

Her eyebrows knit. ‘It had everything to save your life, and Billy’s. You needed that briefcase.’ City light reflected off
the clouds to paint her profile, and he saw something like understanding dawn there. ‘But I couldn’t move.’

He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing at all.

Cruz stared for a long moment. Then leaned forward to bring her face close. Her hair was matted and wet, and she had a leaf
stuck to her neck, but she glowed anyway. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘You would have done the same.’

She smiled. ‘Don’t believe it.’ Then she kissed him, her lips cool, her tongue sweet, and he felt something loosen in him.
The Worm giving ground, and he realized that what ever else happened, what ever this thing between them turned out to be,
he hoped he didn’t screw it up the way he screwed most things up. He prayed that if it did end wrong, at least let it be a
new
screwup. A screwup that came of reaching for something more. Maybe even of daring to be responsible to someone else.

Then he heard a voice he recognized.

‘Y’all kissing on each other after climbing out of the Chicago River?’ Playboy sounded mean and close. ‘That’s just
got
to be love.’

Full circle.

The first time they’d met, Playboy had been smiling and armed as he took Jason by surprise. Now here they were again, a few
days later, history repeating itself yet again. Like a little kid making the same joke over and over: not that funny the first
time and worse with each repetition.

‘Stand up
real
slow.’ Playboy wore a black track suit made of some shiny material. The Cadillac necklace gleamed from his chest, and in
his right hand he held what looked to Jason like a Ruger P90, chrome over black. Behind him stood two men: a tall, skinny
guy who kept shifting on his feet and a stocky muscle-man with tape across his nose. The wrestler Jason had hit with a car
door. Full circle.