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That hit me like a two-by-four. I leaned close to her, and once more she unconsciously leaned toward me, too. That much money can do that to anybody. Closer still and her breathing got a little ragged. And then my breath brushed across her face, and for just a moment I was sure that—but no, goddamn it! At the very last instant Monique turned her head to one side and my lips landed on her cheek. I held my lips there a second too long, thinking maybe—but no. Not going to happen. I sighed and stepped back. “All righty then,” I said. I eyeballed her one more time and then turned and walked toward the window. “I’ll see you in three weeks,” I said.
“Riley, use the fucking door!” Monique called, but it was too late. I was already out the window and away into the night. But just before I got out of range, I heard her say to herself, “Eight figures! Jesus Christ, Riley!”
CHAPTER
6
The night air was cool. But after the heat I’d just gone through with Monique, it wasn’t cool enough. I needed a cold shower. An ice bath. Something about her got me going like nobody else. But Riley’s First Law: The job comes first.
So save those thoughts for later. Out the window and away. This time I went up, climbing easily to the roof. There was a nice raised lip around the roof, and I stood on it for a moment, breathing in the night. There was electricity running through me, and I felt twenty feet tall and invincible. It was not just seeing Monique, although that was a lift of its own. Maybe even more this time, as if the sight of her was a first small reward for a plan that was riskier than anything I’d ever tried. In a weird way, seeing her, having her in on it with me, made me sure it was going to work. Shit, it almost had to work—and it would be my greatest achievement ever when it did.
So I just stood there for a few minutes, watching the lights of the city and feeling pure delight. Say what you want about anyplace else. New York is the greatest city in the world. The air is different here. Just breathing it makes you think you can do great things. And goddamn it, I was going to.
I took one more big hit of New York air. And then I gave in to the pure joy and electricity, ran to the far edge of the roof—and launched myself into space. For a moment I was flying, feeling the air rush past. Then the adjoining roof came up at me. I tucked, rolled, and let the momentum lift me up, onto my feet, and off the edge to the next roof.
For ten minutes I raced across the rooftops, up walls, leaping out into the night air time after time and running full speed along the narrow rooftop ledges and then down the side of buildings and out into space again. It looked and felt like I was Spider-Man. I mean, I’m not. I’m just really good at parkour. It’s a way to move across a city like you really are Spider-Man, but without using webs. The French came up with it. Funny how many cool but very odd things come out of France. I was over there, and I saw it, and I knew I had to learn it. I saw right away that it would be incredibly useful as a tool of my trade. What I didn’t see until I got good was just how much fucking fun it is. It makes me feel like I own the night and everything in it. And it keeps me in top shape, which is also a good idea in my profession.
So I let it rip, really blew out the carbon. When I finally came down to the street, in a dark alley, the elation that had sent me into my parkour jag had settled down to a quiet burble. I walked toward the subway, still thinking about Monique. Not professionally; I wasn’t worried about the two paintings. I knew she’d do a near-perfect job. She always did. No, I was thinking about that night two years ago. Couldn’t get it out of my head.
I had just pulled off a very big score—not as big as this one would be, but way more than average. With Monique’s help, it came off perfectly. We got drunk to celebrate, one thing led to another, and somehow we ended up in bed.
Sex is almost always a good idea. It’s fun, therapeutic, good exercise. But that night it was something else. We did the same stuff everybody does, but somehow it took us to a brand-new place. And yeah, I do mean “us.” She was feeling it that way, too—I know it. And naturally, I thought it would be a terrific idea to keep it going, turn it into a semiregular thing.
Monique did not agree. She said it was a mistake, a onetime thing that shouldn’t have happened, and it wasn’t going to happen again. I tried to make her see how dumb that was. After all, we both liked it a lot, more than with other people, right? And I was really persuasive, too. The best I could do was talk her into the Bet.
I smiled when I thought of that. “There’s always a way,” I said. The Bet was my way back into Monique’s bed.
I went into a bodega a few blocks from my train station. I needed to buy a razor. But when I opened the door, I heard angry voices yelling. Two voices, one raspy and with a Hispanic accent, the other higher-pitched, much younger.
Over by the cash register a man with a large mustache and a larger belly held a boy by the hair and hollered at him. The kid looked to be about ten, scrawny, and he was trying desperately to get away without losing his hair and yelling back at the same time. Scattered on the floor at their feet were a bag of chips, two Little Debbie pastries, a bottle of Gatorade, and a handful of Slim Jims.
I knew right away what was going down. The kid got caught shoplifting. And from what the store owner was yelling, it wasn’t the first time, but it would damn well be the last.
I couldn’t
figure why, but all of a sudden I felt the Darkness slipping in. It’s what happens when somebody is in my way, or when they’re some kind of threat to me. It’s like Riley fades into the background and whatever it is that lives in that dark cloud takes care of the dirty work. And there was just no fucking way in the world it should happen now. I mean, because some fat guy was yelling at a kid? Why did that matter to me?
I froze there in the doorway and looked harder. The bodega guy was yelling, and the kid was trying to squirm away, and it was nothing to do with me. They could kill each other and it wouldn’t matter. I could find some other place to buy a razor.
But still, the scene had a familiar look, like something I should remember. It stumped me for a second. Then I got it. That’s me a few years ago. The painful memories came back, from the time when I was learning about life the hard way, by making stupid mistakes. And yeah, I’d been caught shoplifting, more than once—but never for the same mistake twice.
I pushed away the Darkness and just watched the struggle a few seconds more, remembering. And I knew I should avoid the hassle, find a different bodega. But the kid yelled again, in pain this time, and the owner said something about the police. Something kicked over inside me. And before I knew what I was doing, I was crossing the floor and putting a hand on the bodega owner’s arm.
He looked up at me, angry. “Hey, the kid’s just hungry,” I said. “We all been hungry, right?”
“That’s twenty-five dollar of hungry this time,” the guy said, really pissed off. “And he been in here before, who knows how many times?”
I reached into my pocket and took out my roll. I peeled off a fifty and placed it on the counter, raising an eyebrow at the owner. The man scowled. “I tole you, he been here before!” he said. “An’ he come again!”
“No, he won’t,” I said. I put another fifty down on top of the first one. “I guarantee it.”
The owner looked at the money, licked his lips. “I gotta call the cops,” he said, but all of a sudden he wasn’t as angry.
I could see those two big bills working on him. It made me smile. “No, you don’t gotta call the cops,” I said. I put one more fifty on top of the first two. And then, to make sure the bodega owner knew that was it, I put my roll back in my pocket. “Kids shouldn’t go hungry,” I said.
The owner’s eyes were glued on the money now. “I catch him here again, that’s it,” he said.
“He won’t be back,” I assured him. “Okay?”
