Bloodshot - Cherie Priest [105]
“What’s a pinwheel?”
“What’s a …? Jesus Christ, I’m not that old. A pinwheel—you know. You blow on it, and it spins around. Usually made of pretty colored paper or foil or something. Work with me, kid.”
“Whatever you say.”
I got the distinct impression he thought I was yanking his chain, but that was fine. Anything to keep him occupied while he scaled the entirety of a sixteen-foot story vertically, in a metal tube with not a shred of light.
“It’s an old-fashioned toy.”
“Never seen one.” Another three-word response. It was probably all he could get in between heaves and hos.
After what felt like an interminable amount of time just waiting for him to reach the top, he did in fact reach it. He reached it with a fumble and a slip that came perilously close to dumping him straight back down the chute. He didn’t tell me this, but I could hear it in the havoc of the phone turning and flipping in that pocket, and in the desperate scrabble of his feet on the metal, hunting for some purchase that wasn’t compromised by dust and the decay of decades.
“You make it?” I asked, once I was pretty sure that he had, in fact, made it.
“Yeah,” he said with a gasp.
“Good job. Now like I said, just go left.”
He did, and before long he’d worked his way up to the vent with the spinner, and thank God I was right—he dislodged it with just a couple of shoves. I could hear rusty metal giving way and a clatter as the rooftop wonder burst up into the open sky and into a faceful of rain.
I had no way of knowing if he’d made enough noise to summon anybody, so I said to him, “No time to dawdle. Run around the rooftop edge and see where they’re parked; then pick the farthest fire escape and let yourself down onto the ground.”
“What?”
The phone had still been in his shirt. Out in the open, he couldn’t hear me that way. I repeated myself, and he said, “Yeah, I’m way ahead of you. Hang on.”
The whistling of wind and the occasional patter of rain on the microphone made a strange symphony while he darted from corner to corner, keeping low and staying light-footed if he knew what was good for him.
“They’re parked out front, on the street. I don’t see any cars in the back.”
“Then go down the back, but be careful. Put the phone back in your shirt. Let me know when you’ve got your feet on the ground.”
“Okay.”
Again I waited—always this god-awful waiting, where there was nothing I could do and I couldn’t even say anything to be helpful, because the kid would never hear me, and anyway, I’d only distract him.
I detected the wet creak of old metal, and bolts that were rusting into place.
A splash announced his landing, and shortly thereafter he had the phone back up to his face again. “I’m down,” he told me.
“Right. Now I want you to walk away from the building at a swift but innocuous pace, all the way to the end of the street where the frozen yogurt place is, next to that coffee shop.”
“Away from the building? But Pepper—”
“Pepper is either in one of those cars outside the building, or inside it very securely.”
“And what does that word mean? Inno-something.”
“Innocuous. It means try not to look like you’re running away. Listen, punk. When you get to the end of the street, I want you to go into that coffee place and buy some hot chocolate.”
“Are you crazy?” He was on the verge of losing his whisper.
“And stop whispering,” it occurred to me to tell him. “It makes you look guilty.” Before he could interrupt me again I continued, “Go get some hot chocolate and then, nice and lazy and slow, I want you to stroll back down the street to where their cars are hanging out.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Good, he was catching on. “They don’t know what you look like, do they?”
“I don’t guess.”
“Let’s assume they don’t. And let’s also remind ourselves that being a nosy kid isn’t a crime. So go get yourself some hot chocolate and mosey back over to the vehicles. Hang around and listen, if you can. See if you can overhear anything. But keep the phone up to your ear. Pretend like you’re talking to somebody.”
Suddenly he sounded afraid again. “You