I take my anger out on the road, thrashing my way through traffic. I've cooled off a little by the time I hit the yard at Champion. But when Robin suddenly skids to a stop beside me, I'm still ready for a fight. I start in on her before she can say anything.
“You think you know so much more than me. Always treating me like a kid,” I say. “Since when are you so perfect?”
Robin just holds her hands up, trying to slow me down. “You're right, Sam. Totally right. I'm sorry, okay? I shouldn't have lost it on you.” She puts a hand on my shoulder and reaches to stroke my cheek. “I just worry about you, all right?”
“Well, you shouldn't have freaked out,” I say lamely. All my anger melts into a nervous buzz. Awkwardly, I walk my bike into the garage. Robin follows beside me.
“So what's the deal?” I ask. “Are you jealous that Viktor gave me the dead run instead of you?”
“No, it's not that.” She shakes her head. “It's really not that. I don't care about Viktor. Not the way you do.”
“I just think he can take me places, you know? Make me into something.” Robin stops and looks at me.
“Sam, you don't have to be made into anything. You've got everything you need. And I'm worried about what's going to⦔ She cuts off, looking up. I follow her gaze and see Viktor staring at us from the top of the stairs to the office.
“Get up here, Sam. You have work to do,” says Viktor.
I leave Robin, prop my bike against the wall and follow Viktor. All of a sudden, I feel like a soldier. Not in a good way. Like I belong to someone else. When we get to his office, Viktor shuts the door.
“She giving you trouble?” he asks.
“No, no problem,” I mutter. He eyes me for a second, then walks over to sit heavily in a wooden chair behind the desk.
“That girlâtoo many questions. Too many opinions. Maybe I should fire her.”
“You don't need to do that,” I say quickly. “She does her job.”
Viktor grunts. “Sometimes she does. All right, pay attention. Tonight, you pick up from Diamond Club on 47th and Main. Seven o'clock. A guy will meet you at the door with the package.” He stops and rubs his eyes with one hand, squeezing the bridge of his nose.
“You all right?” I ask.
He looks sharply over at me and shrugs. “Headache.” He opens a drawer and pulls out a bottle of pills. “The dead-run clients, they ask for more and more.”
“Can't you refuse?”
Viktor snorts. “You don't say no to these guys. Now back to work.” He swallows a pill and turns away from me toward the big window, staring out at the yard outside. Seeing him, I realize he's kind of like those warehouses in the distance. Worn down. Beaten up by time.
When I emerge back into the garage, I'm surprised to see that Robin is still there, waiting at the bottom of the stairs, hugging herself through her thin T-shirt.
“I forgot to tell you something,” she calls out. I clank down the stairs, jumping the last few to land in front of her. Anxious to try and patch things up.
“Listen, I know what you're thinking,” I say quietly. “But I can't stop now. If I want to keep training, keep working hereâthen I don't have a choice.”
Robin suddenly leans in and kisses me. Her lips are soft. Her body is warm and pressed hard against mine. For a long minute, nothing else matters.
Then she pulls away and gently leans her head on my shoulder.
“Sam, you always have a choice. Always.”
I want to stay like that with her, locked in that moment. But then Hub yells down to us.
“Yo, Robin! You got a drop in the District. Move it or lose it!” Self-conscious, Robin pulls away. She fumbles in her bag, checking her gear, not looking at me.
“Tonight?” I say. “Can we talk tonight after work? At the alleycat?”
“Yeah,” she says. “I'd like that.” She pulls her bike around, gets on and is ready to go. She looks at me. “Just don't do anything stupid, okay? Be safe.”
By the end of the afternoon, I've burned through a million possibilities for Robin and me. A million what-ifs. I still make my deliveries without screwing up. But my mind is totally on her. Not on the job. The hours seem to drag on forever. The day finally grinds to an end. I grab a hot dog from a stand on the street and check the time. Almost seven o'clock. Time to start the dead run.
I don't know what goes down in the Diamond Club. Maybe it's gambling, maybe worse. Whatever it is, they don't want to draw attention to themselves and their customers. The place is almost impossible for me to findâno sign on the street. In fact, it's just a door with a buzzer. And a big guy in a UFC shirt standing beside it. I push my bike up to him.
“Viktor sent me.”
The bouncer is all muscle under his shirt, a pale scar across his cheek. He nods, then opens the door and pushes me into a dark, hot hallway. There's the stench of old cigarettes and spilled beer. Far away, I can hear the dull thump of a bass. I start to walk down the hallway, but the bouncer stops me with a grunt.
“
Nyet
. You don't go all the way in. Just take this.” He shoves something into my arms. “Now get out.” I fumble the canvas package into my messenger bag.
I'm relieved to be back on the street, free again in the cool night air. As I ride away from the club, it hits me hard. Robin was totally right. I've got to get out of this deal before things get worse. Tell Viktor I'm done. Maybe he wants to work with these clients. But I don't.
I'm into midtown and headed for the Five Continents Imports building when I see the big clock on the City Bank billboard. 7:45
PM
. How did that happen? I'm way behind. There's no way that I can make the drop and still get to the start of the alleycat. Crap. I think about my options for a couple of minutes, weaving down street. Then I pull a U-turn.
Viktor and the clients can wait this time. I'll run the alleycat with Robin. Then make the drop. Nobody will ever know the difference. It's a dead runâno one is there to check when it arrives. And if Viktor does find out, so what? Maybe Robin's right. Maybe I need to make a choice, do things for myself.
I run a red light, putting some speed on.
The meet-up point for the alleycat is actually at the top of an eight-story parking garage. I crank slowly up the last ramp, emerging on the rooftop level. The first thing that hits me is the view of the city at night, spread out like little Christmas lights in all directions. But it's hard to pay attention to that because of the party. There must be fifty or sixty couriers up here. Hip-hop pounds from a car stereo. A couple of guys are pulling stunts on
BMX
bikes and fixies. I walk through the crowd, pausing to ask someone I know if they've seen Robin. No luck.
Then a guy hops up on the hood of his car and starts calling out instructions. We get a map with five checkpoints. At each checkpoint, we'll get a special card. First one to bring all the cards back here wins. While he's talking, I finally spot Robin. She's on the other side of the roof. I try to make my way over to her, but the crowd is too thick.
Everybody starts bunching up behind a chalk line drawn on the concrete. I get on my bike and try to move up. There's a lot of laughing, a lot of shoving. I think nobody is taking this seriously. Until the air horn sounds. Then I realize that this is going to be intense. Crazy intense.
The pack slams down the ramps of the parking garage. Four levels to go. Riders are screaming at each other, guys spilling to the ground. Two levels to go, picking up speed. Then one. We burst out onto the street. The pack stays pretty much together, weaving in and around cars and buses. It's high-speed mayhem as we hit the first intersection and the pack streams through a red light. We all make it to the other side, no problem.
Now I'm positioned in the middle of the pack, holding my own but trying not to kill it too early on. I catch a glimpse of Robin again. She's up near the front. That's where I want to be. We head into a construction zone. Flashing orange warning lights and wooden barriers mark the edges of a series of holes and trenches. The street is a mess, and everybody starts slowing down, forced to dodge around the obstacles.
I flash back to the warehouse, to those stupid drills Viktor made me do again and again. Instead of slowing down, I start accelerating, shifting my weight back and forth as I slide in between the barriers. Don't touch the brakes, I keep telling myself, just use your balance. Left, right. Leftâmy tires spin on some loose gravel, and suddenly I'm headed for a muddy ditch. I lean hard, and I'm back on track in a milli-second. Right, left. I stay focused. Keep my speed up. By the end of the street, I've passed a bunch of other riders. And I'm closing in on Robin. I yell out her name, but it gets lost in the rush of wind and street noise. She's headed into another intersection. Another red light. Robin doesn't stop.
That's when a yellow cab comes screaming through the intersection, horn wailing.
My stomach clenches. Robin is headed right into the path of the taxi. I don't think there's any way she can avoid getting hit. At the last second, the taxi slams on the brakes, skids to one side and misses her by inches. The driver screams at Robin, but she doesn't look back. I wonder if she even knows how lucky she was.
Now it's my turn through the intersection. And I'm not so lucky. The problem is that I'm so distracted by watching Robin's near miss that I don't see the old woman with the stroller step off the sidewalk. Right in front of me.
No time to shout at her. No chance to hit the brakes. Just the sickening sensation of my bike crunching into the stroller. The street rushing up at me. Then I'm out.
I must have been unconscious only for a minute, max. When I come around, I'm confused and groggy. Nothing is making sense. I'm lying on my side in the middle of the intersection. There are beer cans everywhere, spilling out of the broken stroller. The old woman is kneeling next to me, yelling swear words at me through a mouth full of broken teeth. There's a bunch of horns honking. There's a siren too, far away but getting closer.
What the hell is going on?
I peel myself off the pavement. Nothing feels broken, but I've got major road rash down one leg. My helmet is still in one piece. And I've got a huge headache. Which isn't helped by the old lady screaming at me.
“The strollerâis your baby all right?” I croak.
She looks shocked.
“Baby? There's no baby, idiot. Twenty bucks in beer cans, that's what you just dumped on the street!” she yells. “Now I've got to pick them all up!”
I stare at her for a second and then laugh with relief. Which pisses her off even more. Screw itâI feel bad, but at least nobody's hurt. Except me.
She's still complaining while I pick up my bike. I realize I need to get out of the intersection fast. Even at this hour of the night, we've caused a traffic jam, and cars are backed up in all four directions. I'm checking my bike to see if it's rideable when, out of the corner of my eye, I see flashing red and blue lights. My headache gets worse. A motorcycle cop has worked his way through the stopped cars. He parks the bike and walks toward me. When the old lady realizes the cop is here, she jumps in front of him and starts babbling away. That buys me a few seconds to pull myself together.
This is going from bad to worse. I'll get a ticket or something. I can handle thatâI've been busted for traffic violations before now. Occupational hazard. I know the cop is going to want to see my
ID
, so I reach for my messenger bag. But it isn't strapped to my side anymore. I scan around and spot the bag lying on the street, in between me and the cop. I start to walk over to it, but then I freeze.
The dead-run package. It's fallen out of the messenger bag. And it's torn open down one side. Not all the way, but enough to show something green sticking out it.
Cash. Bills. Stacks of them. I glance over to the cop, praying he hasn't seen the ripped package yet.
But when I see the look in his eyes, I know he already has.
I'm running on reflex, panic, adrenaline. The old lady is still in the cop's face, blocking him as he tries to lunge toward me. So I'm able to grab the package and messenger bag. Then I'm on the bike, praying that it will still ride.
I dodge around the cars in the traffic jam, headed the wrong way up a one-way street. The cop is yelling for me to stop. Not a chance. How the hell can I explain the package? If I just hand it over, I'll get dragged into whatever scheme Viktor has going, probably get booked as an accomplice. But if I run, maybe I can ditch the package. Maybe the cop didn't get a good look at me. Maybe I can get away clean.
Pretty quickly, I figure out that this isn't going to be easy. I stick to alleys, taking shortcuts through underground parking garages, staying out of sight. Hiding in the shadows every time I see a police cruiser. Which happens more than I would like. After an hour of this, I'm totally freaked out. Totally exhausted. And I don't know where I'm going, I'm just running. Finally, I find a locked-up loading dock and hide behind a garbage container. Curling into a ball to try and stay warm, I pull out my cell phone. There's only one person I want to talk to.
“Hello?” Robin answers, happy. From the music in the background, she must be celebrating after the alleycat race at a club or something.
“Robin, I'm in trouble.”
Her mood changes quickly when I explain about the dead run. About the money. About the cops.
“I can't make the drop now. The cops will totally catch me, stick me in jail,” I say. My teeth are chattering. “I think I should ditch the package. Stuff it in a Dumpster. End it, right here.”
“You think the clients are going to be okay with that? No way. They'll just come after you.” There's silence for a moment while she thinks. “You need to get the package back. To Viktor. This is his problem to fix.”