Page 35 of Antihero

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?