"Which one?" demanded the driver.
"The, ah...Hispanic-"
"The guy with the eye patch," Marianne shrieked. At least, Nelson thought, he hadn't been the one to say it.
The driver frantically gestured to Nelson to come around the passenger side, and leaned across to unlock the door. "Get in, get in."
"Go," Nelson snapped. He shoved Marianne toward the door, and jogged back into the crowd to wrestle Javier (and, he supposed, Randy) from the pandemonium. He grabbed Javier by the arm and hauled him out of the crowd that was trying to suck him toward a silver compact coupe, where the crowd had swarmed the car like ants around a dropped hunk of coconut-flavored manna. They pounded the windshield with the flats of their hands, and beat the roof and the hood with their fists. When that didn't result in whatever they'd been trying to achieve, they began rocking the car.
A scream pierced the crowd, mostly muffled by the closed windows, but Nelson still heard it. A woman's scream.
The whump of helicopters sounded-overhead, or maybe the noise of the blades was being thrown through the corridor of the tall buildings-when finally Nelson pulled Javier from the throng, and Javier towed Randy out behind him. They sprinted toward the truck and climbed in, one after the other. Randy, who was last, collapsed in the passenger seat, breathing hard. Half his face was swollen and red, and would no doubt bruise green, purple and blue in a few hours. Javier and Nelson ducked into the space between the seats and crammed into the back of the truck, where Marianne had already squeezed herself among a bunch of cardboard boxes as if she was trying to be invisible.
The driver's head appeared in the gap, sizing up his passengers. "Javier?" he said.
"Yes...you're Tim, right?"
"Right." Tim looked Javier up and down, panicky eyed, then looked Nelson up and down, too. "Who are you?"
"Nelson Oliver." As if that explained anything at all, but Nelson owed the guy his name, at least. Tim stared at him for a good, long second, then turned and threw the truck into gear.
Nelson looked out through the windshield and took in the sight of the crowd rocking the...no way, they'd overturned the silver coupe. Then he navigated through the boxes in the cargo hold and peeked out the tinted back window. "I'd back up and go the other way if I were you," he shouted as the truck started to move. Tim checked his mirrors, stomped the brake, then did just that: he threw it in reverse. The truck thumped against something-or maybe something thumped against the truck-and Tim went a lot faster and a lot farther in reverse than any sane driver should have.
What had Tim hit? It sounded suspiciously like a person. Nelson's stomach lurched, and he assured himself that it wasn't necessarily a person. It could have been a trash can. Or an A-frame sign with daily specials on it. Or a...a...his brain didn't seem to be working and he felt like he was going to puke.
He pressed his cheek against the rear window and struggled to see if they were mowing anyone down in their hurry to save their own skins. There was a flash-gunfire? He didn't know. He'd only seen gunfire on TV, and unlike most people, he knew better than to believe everything he saw on the idiot box. Another thump that sounded exactly like a person being hit by a truck, and Nelson saw a planter roll away, spraying soil and beer cans and stunted flowers and cigarette butts. Thank God.
Thank God.
More flashes-and it wasn't gunfire, Nelson realized. It was his own fucking head. Pins and needles, that's what he'd always called it, because it looked the way your foot feels when you've been sitting on it playing video games too long. White flashes. Sparkles. Shapes sometimes, shapes that you might give names to, in the way some people lie on their backs, stare up at the summer sky, and find animals and faces in the clouds.
Nelson's pins and needles were far less benign than cloud shapes; they were the aura that heralded his worst migraines.
He turned away from the window and knuckled his eyes, even though he knew the visual disturbance had zero to do with his eyes and everything to do with his brain. He groped in his pockets to see if his magical dose of Peritriptan was still there. It was. While he hadn't exactly been expecting a migraine, he'd been worried today might be the day the next big attack reared its ugly head. He'd been sleeping badly, and eating badly, and worrying about defaulting on his student loans. Add to that the stress of the Canaan Products seminar and the ridiculous office drone costume he was wearing....
"Hey." He touched Javier on the shoulder. Javier was crouched beside Marianne's hidey-hole, speaking to her in low, soothing tones. He turned to look up at Nelson. Such pretty cheekbones. Exquisite, even. Nelson didn't suppose he usually thought of a man's facial features as exquisite. It must have been the eye patch, or the scars it was hiding, that sent Nelson's mind into a flurry of compare-and-contrast that made the beautifully-formed features that were still intact even more appealing by comparison.
"Well? What is it?"
Staring. Right. "Timing sucks, but I gotta take a pill."
"Okay." Javier said it cautiously, with undertones of and why are you telling me? shot through it.
"A migraine's coming. A bad one. I'll be totally useless, either with the pill or without it. Stupid thing costs about a month's salary." His current salary, anyway, as a movie rental clerk. "If I take it, I'll be high as a kite for a couple of hours. If I don't take it, I'll be a basket case for a few days."
"Then take it!"
Nelson pulled the precious, single pill from its wrapper and dry-swallowed it. "I might say things."
"Okay."
"It's just the serotonin flooding my brain. It gets pretty trippy."
"I understand."
"I'll probably mention that I think you're totally hot and I'm dying to sleep with you."
"Oh." Javier almost smiled. "I hadn't noticed."
The truck braked again, suddenly, and they all lurched sideways. Marianne and Javier fell into boxes, but Nelson would have gone sprawling into the spaces between, if Javier hadn't reached out and grabbed him. Gears shifted. Now the truck sprang forward, turning sharply, and Javier fell back into Marianne, Nelson forward onto Javier.
Way to jumpstart the serotonin-rush. Nelson's chest was pressed into Javier's, and all of them were frozen in place, bracing themselves on anything their hands and feet could shove against. "Do me a favor," Nelson said over the ominous rattles, screeches, screams and thumps.
"What?"
"Just in case the worst-case-scenario happens while I'm out," and he could think of at least fifty ways they'd all die before the Peritriptan wore off, "let me take one good memory with me."
Javier hesitated. Nelson dreaded the refusal for just a moment before he resigned himself to it, and began to pull back. Javier was still holding onto him, though. Instead of letting him pull away, Javier dragged him forward and covered his mouth in a kiss.
A real kiss, hard and wet. Nelson felt his lips part in surprise, and Javier's tongue slid into his mouth. The truck jostled, and their teeth clacked together. Their mingled saliva was metallic with adrenaline. Nelson clutched something-he couldn't even tell what. Javier's hip? His thigh? A wad of his sportcoat? It didn't matter, nothing mattered but the kiss.
When it seemed to Nelson that he might be pressing his luck, that he should probably disengage even though it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do, Javier slid a hand around the back of his neck, gently cupping the ridge of his skull. The wiseguy faade Nelson kept so carefully in place slipped for a moment at the unexpected tenderness, and he moaned without meaning to. The sound was lost in the vibration of the truck bed, the panicked din of screaming people that carried through the metal walls, and the screech of the tires biting into pavement.
Javier might have felt the moan as a subtle vibration against his lips and tongue. Nelson supposed he would never know.
Chapter 5.
Nelson Oliver. It was a good name, Tim decided. Like Nelson Mandela. And Oliver Twist. Nelson Oliver would be a good superhero name-although it would be the hero's street name, the identity he used while he navigated the mundane world. His crime-fighting name would be something sleeker. Something that showed fierceness, but intelligence, too. Dark, but not evil. Something that hinted at power, without being too overt....
"I fink my toof is loose," Randy moaned.
"Don't wiggle it."
"Oh fug. Definitely loose."
Tim dodged a garbage can with smoke streaming out of it rolling down the middle of the street. How could a garbage can manage to roll and burn at the same time? "Stop messing around with it-leave it alone. If you were a dentist, would you have your office open right now? Because I wouldn't. I'd be home. Or locked in the basement."
Randy groaned in dismay.
Four people. Tim had expected to pick up one person outside the Canaan Products protest, and he'd ended up with four. He supposed he should be glad for the support, but he'd never been all that good with people.
Even people like Nelson Oliver. Especially people like that. Good-looking, effortlessly cool guys like Nelson Oliver made Tim nervous. And when he was nervous, he sounded like a creep. In an effort to seem less creepy, he supposed he should attempt to be nice to Javier's friends. "So," he said to Randy. "You're an activist? What group?"
"Huh?"
Tim assumed Randy hadn't heard him over all the crashing outside. And the screaming. He repeated, louder, "What group do you belong to?"
"I dunno what the fug you're talking about."
Javier came forward and crouched in the gap between the seats. "None. We just met at the conference."
Javier didn't know him? That could be dangerous. Randy might be just the type of extremist right pro-foodie who worked at Canaan Products and loved every minute of it. Or a nutjob from one of the extreme leftist groups who'd shown up outside to protest-with guns. Why were moderates who could think for themselves so hard to come by? "What about Nelson? He's with you. Right?"
"No," Javier said. "I don't know anyone. But they helped me get out of the conference hall when the power blew." Javier was there in Tim's peripheral vision, trying to pull him into a conversation. But Tim had more urgent things to do-like staying on the road without hitting the car in front of him that kept jolting forward and braking fast. Or like running anyone over, because even though the truck was now well past the mob, scattered people were still throwing things-bricks, shoes, clods of broken asphalt-and darting into the street to chase each other. Plenty more were realizing that running while trying to carry big electronics got old, really fast. Javier suggested, "We should at least get them home safe."
"This isn't a limo service."
"I am not attempting to find my way home in this," Marianne shouted from the recesses of the truck behind Javier. "It's not safe for a single girl. You can see it isn't safe, can't you?"
Tim spared a glance toward the back. Marianne was straining to see past Javier. Nelson must have been somewhere behind her. "Right. Yeah. We'll all go back to my place and figure out what's going on." All was good, Tim decided, since all included Nelson Oliver.
"What the fug is going on?" Randy said. He turned on the radio. There was a weather report playing.
A weather report.
Tim did lock gazes with Javier, then. It was disconcerting with the eye patch-how was it that in the week they'd been chatting online, Javier had never thought to mention the eye patch? Still, the fact that someone else in that truck realized how screwed up everything had become...that was a great comfort. More of a relief than Tim would have ever anticipated. He nodded, once, then clenched his jaw and fixed his eyes on the road again.
The line of cars he was in slipped past a dark traffic signal, the fourth one they'd passed. Perpendicular traffic was stopped. Those drivers gesticulated wildly as they laid on their horns, but Tim couldn't risk letting one in. If he let one in, others would follow right on their bumpers, and pretty soon he'd be the one stuck on Lafayette, and the drivers behind him would pour out of their cars and tear the truck apart.
When the line lurched to a stop that didn't immediately begin sprinting forward again, Tim wondered if maybe someone had grown tired of waiting to cross, and had panicked and made a break for a too-small gap in traffic. But soon it started again, and Tim saw, to his surprised relief, that the traffic light on Lafayette and Grand was still working-though the drivers who wanted to turn left looked like they were pretty short on luck.
Just a few more blocks and they'd be home free. Tim had never had four people in his Soho efficiency walkup at once. The day was turning out to be full of surprises.
A man stepped into the street, just as he thought that. A swarthy man of indeterminate ethnicity, about as wide as the truck itself, wearing a FUBU jersey, a sideways baseball cap, and a look on his face that said he'd gladly kick Tim's ass.
"You got to pay the toll," he called.
"Nice fuggin neighborhood," said Randy.
Tim knew better than to open the window, but he yelled back, "Move it, or I'll drive."
The thug in the baseball cap eased forward-did he realize the extent of what was happening up in Greenwich Village? How could he, with the cell towers overloaded, the subways jammed and the radio playing weather reports? Tim put a foot on both the gas and the brakes and lurched forward to show he meant business-and four more guys with baseball bats peeled out from between the parked cars and converged on the truck.
"You got to pay the toll," the thug said, with mock patience.
"What toll?" Tim yelled.
The thug looked to his pals on either side-damn it, one of them had a gun-and said, "A hun'ret dollar."
Tim fumbled out his wallet. "I have twenty. I'll give you twenty." He had twenty-three, though he didn't suspect the three would sway the guy one way or the other. Besides, he figured he should leave himself at least that much leverage.
The main thug cocked his head toward one of the guys holding a baseball bat, and bam, the left headlight was history. "A hun'ret dollar."
"Does anyone have some money?" Tim called, although he couldn't say if a hundred dollars really would call off the wolves, or if they were likely to be dragged from the vehicle and beaten to death whether they paid it or not.
"He's got it." Marianne shoved Javier aside and threw herself into the cab, against the center console. She jammed her hand into Randy's pocket, pulled out some Tic Tacs which she threw aside, stuck her hand in the other and came up with a crisp, new bill. She pressed it into Tim's hand and said, "Pay the man. I've gotta pee."
"Hey-" Randy said.
Well...at least it wasn't his own money. Tim rolled down the window two inches and stuck the hundred through. The thug with the gun took it, smiling around the stump of a cigarillo. "A'ight," he called to the big guy with the baseball bat, who backed off a few steps, then stood aside with a smug "after you" gesture.
Tim's heart pounded in his throat as he rolled past them. He was under no illusions that they could very well have just been carjacked. Maybe they would have, if the retired moving truck had been something the thugs would be caught dead in.
His heart was still hammering as he turned left, turned again, and approached his building. The dingy parking lot with weeds sprouting up between the cracks where he paid three hundred a month to park was open, too. He'd been expecting it to be full of strangers' cars, tourists' cars, given the rioting. But somehow the battered Private Parking sign had managed to do its job.
Even though the rest of the neighborhood had apparently gone straight to hell.
The block Tim lived on was mainly residential, with Mom-and-Pop businesses on the first floors of the old brick four- or five-story buildings, and apartments or condos above. His apartment was two floors above a Clip House franchise that gave twelve-dollar haircuts, no appointment necessary. He'd never had the same stylist more than three or four times, but at least it was convenient to keep his hair from getting to that annoying stage where it hung in his eyes. It was a good neighborhood. Not pretentious, but not too shabby.
But now Clip House was dark, and the Closed sign on the door was turned over. Closed. In the middle of a weekday afternoon. Other stores were closed, too. The coffee shop. The music store. The little boutique that sold "natural" cosmetics in flecky brown packaging that were made with the same ingredients as any other soaps, shampoos and perfumes, though they had much "greener" names.
More people were loitering around on the sidewalk than was usual for a weekday afternoon, too. Not walking somewhere, like people usually did. Just...standing. People he didn't recognize-all of them male. They lurked in entryways and beneath awnings, smoking, or listening to headphones, or scowling at the sleet. Waiting. For what, Tim didn't know. But he dreaded it.
"Go to the entryway to the right of the Clip House," he told his passengers as he pulled into his spot. "Don't stop. Don't talk to anyone." It might have been overkill, but Tim didn't care. He'd seen enough at the protest to err on the side of caution. Nelson Oliver was the last out of the truck. He stumbled, and Javier caught him on one side, Marianne the other. "What's wrong with him?" Tim asked.
"He's out of it," Marianne said. "He took some meds."
Meds? He was staggering like a drunk.
"It's fine," Javier said. "We've got him. Let's go."
While it might have been overwhelming to think of fitting four other people in his small efficiency, Tim had to admit he was glad to be part of a group while he made his way from the truck to the entryway-even if one member of that group was a petite young woman, and another needed to be dragged-since his Mom-and-Pop neighborhood suddenly didn't feel much like its usual self.
Their five pairs of feet sounded loud on the stairwell, but even the steady tramp of stairs being climbed didn't drown out the distant sound of sirens. Tim unlocked his door and sized up his apartment. He had, at least, straightened up; he'd been expecting Javier. The trash had been disposed of, the clutter stashed away, the sheets changed.
"Get in. Come on. Hurry." He hustled everyone into the room that was his living room, office, kitchen-the room, in all its ten-by-twelve glory, where he kept everything he owned but his bed.
Javier leaned Nelson against the wall so Marianne could strip his coat off. "He needs to lie down somewhere dark," she said. Nelson didn't seem to notice all the commotion. He was busy staring up at the light fixture. Tim followed his gaze. He saw the globe held at least a dozen long-dead flies, their wings and spindly legs clearly visible through the milky glass.
So much for his housecleaning skills.
"There's a bedroom, through that door." Tim wasn't about to let the opportunity to get closer to Nelson slip through his fingers. He edged Javier aside and ducked his shoulder under Nelson's arm, touching him.
He felt thinner than Tim expected. Lighter. Nowhere near as tough as he'd seemed during the riot. There was no room for Marianne to bring up Nelson's other side, but she followed them into the bedroom anyway.
Tim sat Nelson down on the bed. Nelson's sleeve was hanging open, baring his scratched shoulder. A tattoo, some barbed-wire tribal thing, peeked out from under the torn seam. There was blood on his damp clothes. It wasn't quite dried, given that everything Nelson had on was soggy from the sleet, but it had probably set. His wet hair stuck to his forehead and cheeks.
"He's shivering," Marianne said. "Let's get him into something dry."
Tim would have thought he'd resent Marianne's presence, when in fact, he realized he was actually so intimidated he wouldn't have even thought of changing Nelson's clothes himself. Marianne got down on one knee and began to take off Nelson's shoes. Tim reassured himself she couldn't possibly know his attraction to Nelson had him practically paralyzed, and he dug up a mismatched set of sweats.
His hands were trembling as he slipped off Nelson's tie and unbuttoned his ruined shirt.