Bronx Requiem(39)
“Got it,” said the patrol cop.
“Be thorough. You got gloves?”
The uniformed cop pulled out a pair of blue latex gloves and slipped them on, as did Palmer. As the patrolman turned toward the back of the apartment his radio crackled with the information that the cops on the street had captured somebody.
Palmer smiled. This just keeps getting better and better.
21
Out in the McDonald’s parking lot, Amelia climbed back into the driver’s seat and steered the Jeep onto Jerome Avenue. She drove south, determined to get something else to wear. It was difficult enough for her to drive, but now she had to scan the stores along either side of Jerome Avenue. She passed empty lots, food stores, bodegas, pharmacies, automotive-supply stores. Finally, she found what she wanted: a discount clothing shop.
She parked the Jeep next to a fire hydrant, unworried about getting a ticket, and walked back to the store. She found an off-brand pair of jeans that fit her. She found a gray women’s T-shirt decorated with an image of a fedora with a pink feather and the words: Thinking about the summer vacation makes me lighthearted.
Amelia didn’t bother to read the words as she quickly shoplifted the T-shirt. In another section of the store she found a cheap pair of red ballet flats. By the time she bought the jeans and shoes she was down to thirty-eight dollars.
She walked back to the Jeep, changed in the front seat, and dumped her old clothes and shoes in the back. She still needed a shower, her hair felt filthy, she had no bra, but at least she didn’t have to wear the stinking, cut-off, rhinestone-decorated T-shirt, short-shorts, and stupid whore shoes.
Night was coming on as she turned off Jerome Avenue worried that someone would see her driving Derrick’s Jeep. She drove south on local streets, forcing herself to keep going so could put more distance between her and Derrick’s neighborhood, but she soon found herself squinting into the darkening streets because she didn’t know how to turn on the Jeep’s headlights. Finally, she had to pull the Jeep over and stop. She turned off the engine and rested her forehead on the steering wheel, fighting off the urge to cry.
She looked around and found herself in an isolated, mixed residential and commercial section of Shakespeare Avenue. Across the street she saw a derelict two-story brick house with all the windows covered in sheets of plywood. Next to it, occupying the corner, was a three-story building with a bar on the ground floor, closed off behind roll-down security gates. It looked like it had gone out of business long ago.
Amelia stared at the abandoned house. She’d known kids on the run who had squatted in such places. But she’d never done it herself. She never thought she would have to, until now. Beyond everything that plagued her, she had an overwhelming urge to hide. To hide from the men and boys and guns coming for her.
She slipped out of the Jeep, walked back, and lifted the hatch door. She rummaged around until she found a car cover, which she pulled out and folded into a bundle small enough to carry under her arm. She also found a tire iron, which she hid in the folds of the car cover, and a partial roll of paper towels, which she stuffed into the pocket of her hoodie.
She went to the passenger side of the Jeep and took the gun out from under the seat, threw aside the red wig, and slipped the gun into her hoodie with the paper towels.
She pulled the hood over her head and walked around the corner until she reached a chain-link fence blocking access to the backyards behind the houses on Shakespeare. Past ragged bushes and stunted ailanthus trees, Amelia could see the back of the abandoned house. Much of the back wall was covered in large sheets of plywood.
There was a gate made of corrugated metal attached to the chain-link fence, secured with a padlock and an eyebolt welded to an iron pole. Amelia looked around, then placed the tire iron in the eyebolt, turning and twisting it until she broke the eyebolt off the pole. She pulled back the corrugated metal fence and slipped into the backyard, waded through the overgrown area, and climbed over another chain-link fence to get behind the abandoned house. She had to step over junk and around discarded furniture to reach the back of the house. Once there, she spotted two half-windows at ground level. One was sealed by concrete blocks, the other by a set of iron bars in front of a piece of plywood.
Amelia squatted down and used the tire iron to pry the bars out of one end of the window frame and pulled them away as if she were opening a stuck gate. She punched the end of the tire iron into the plywood blocking the window until it dropped into the basement with a thud.
She peered into the dark space, unable to make out anything. She shined the light of her cell phone screen into the dark, but it revealed almost nothing.
The basement smelled moldy and damp, but she didn’t detect the stink of urine or feces that would signal someone might be living down there.
She heard a sudden movement in the overgrown grass and bushes behind her. She let out a short scream and turned, half expecting to see Biggie Watkins or the hulking Whitey Bondurant behind her with a gun pointed at her.
“Shit, shit, shit.”
Must have been a cat or something, but she hardly believed it, the noise had been so loud.
She pulled the iron bars open wider, laid the car cover over the sill, and turned over on her stomach. She maneuvered her feet into the window opening and squirmed backward, lifting herself over the bottom of the frame so the gun and paper towels in the pocket of her hoodie wouldn’t catch. Fearful that she might be dropping into a hole she would never get out of, she lowered herself all the way in. Even hanging full length from the windowsill, her feet didn’t reach the ground. She looked down. She thought she could see the floor, but could only hope that once she let go, she wouldn’t land on something that would hurt her.