The gun . . . That's what'd made her suspicious. Geneva Settle was no gangsta girl, but you couldn't be a student at Langston Hughes High School in the heart of Harlem without having seen at least a few guns in your life. When she'd heard a distinctive click--very different from the cell phone closing--she wondered if the laughing man was just fronting, here for trouble. So she'd stood casually, gotten a drink of water, ready to bolt. But she'd peeked through the stacks and spotted the ski mask. She realized there was no way to get past him to the door unless she kept him focused on the microfiche table. She'd stacked up some books noisily then stripped a nearby mannequin, dressed it in her hat and sweatshirt and rested it on the chair in front of the microfiche machine. Then she'd waited until he approached and, when he had, she'd slipped around him.
Bust her up, bust the bitch up . . .
Geneva now stumbled down another flight.
The tap of footsteps above her. Jesus Lord, he was following! He'd slipped into the stairwell after her and was now only one landing away. Half running, half stumbling, cradling her scraped hand, she raced down the stairs as his footsteps grew closer.
Near the ground floor she leapt four steps to the concrete. Her legs went out from underneath her and she slammed into the rough wall. Wincing at the pain, the teenager climbed to her feet, hearing his footsteps, seeing his shadow on the walls.
Geneva looked at the fire door. She gasped at the chain wrapped around the bar.
No, no, no . . . The chain was illegal, sure. But that didn't mean the people who ran the museum wouldn't use one to keep thieves out. Or maybe this man had wrapped it around the bar himself, thinking she might escape this way. Here she was, trapped in a dim concrete pit. But did it actually seal the door?
Only one way to find out. Go, girl!
Geneva pushed off and crashed into the bar.
The door swung open.
Oh, thank--
Suddenly a huge noise filled her ears, pain searing her soul. She screamed. Had she been shot in the head? But she realized it was the door alarm, wailing as shrilly as Keesh's infant cousins. Then she was in the alley, slamming the door behind her, looking for the best way to go, right, left . . .
Get her down, cut her, cut the bitch . . .
She opted for right and staggered into Fifty-fifth Street, slipping into a crowd of people on their way to work, drawing glances of concern from some, wariness from others. Most ignored the girl with the troubled face. Then, from behind her, she heard the howl of the fire alarm grow louder as her attacker shoved the door open. Would he flee, or come after her?
Geneva ran up the street toward Keesh, who stood on the curb, holding a Greek deli coffee carton and trying to light a cigarette in the wind. Her mocha-skinned classmate--with precise purple makeup and a cascade of blonde extensions--was the same age as Geneva, but a head taller and round and taut as a drum, round where she ought to be, with her big boobs and ghetto hips, and then some. The girl had waited on the street, not having any interest in a museum--or any building, for that matter, with a no-smoking policy.
"Gen!" Her friend tossed the coffee cup into the street and ran forward. "S'up, girl? You all buggin'."
"This man . . . " Geneva gasped, felt the nausea churn through her. "This guy inside, he attacked me."
"Shit, no!" Lakeesha looked around. "Where he at?"
"I don't know. He was behind me."
"Chill, girl. You gonna be okay. Let's get outa here. Come on, run!" The big girl--who cut every other P.E. class and had smoked for two years--started to jog as best she could, gasping, arms bouncing at her sides.
But they got only half a block away before Geneva slowed. Then she stopped. "Hold up, girl."
"Whatchu doing, Gen?"
The panic was gone. It'd been replaced by another feeling.
"Come on, girl," Keesh said, breathless. "Move yo' ass."
Geneva Settle, though, had made up her mind. Anger was what had taken the place of her fear. She thought: He's goddamn not getting away with it. She turned around, glanced up and down the street. Finally she saw what she was looking for, near the mouth of the alley she'd just escaped from. She started back in that direction.
*
A block away from the African-American museum Thompson Boyd stopped trotting through the crowd of rush-hour commuters. Thompson was a medium man. In every sense. Medium-shade brown hair, medium weight, medium height, mediumly handsome, mediumly strong. (In prison he'd been known as "Average Joe.") People tended to see right through him.
But a man running through Midtown draws attention unless he's heading for a bus, cab or train station. And so he slowed to a casual pace. Soon, he was lost in the crowd, nobody paying him any mind.
While the light at Sixth Avenue and Fifty-third remained red, he debated. Thompson made his decision. He slipped off his raincoat and slung it over his arm, making sure, though, that his weapons were accessible. He turned around and started back toward the museum.
Thompson Boyd was a craftsman who did everything by the book, and it might seem that what he was doing now--returning to the scene of an attack that had just gone bad--was not a wise idea, since undoubtedly the police would be there soon.