prodding him out of the cell and down a corridor lined with more identical cells holding hundreds of felons. Muffled voices called out a mixture of greetings, insults, and threats. Having spent overnight in holding, Ethan knew that he would now be processed and given his own Department of Correction clothing: standard procedure, along with the strip search and the questions.
The guard guided him to the front desk, where a young cop with tightly bobbed blond hair looked up at him with a disapproving gaze.
“Warner, Ethan. Public disorder. Again,” the guard said from behind him.
Ethan offered her what he hoped was his best smile. “Morning, Lizzie, how you doin’?”
Lizzie rolled her eyes, placing a piece of paper on the desk before her and grabbing a sealed plastic bag filled with loose change, a watch, and a packet of Lucky Strikes.
“Your belongings, Mr. Warner. Sign here.”
Ethan looked down, seeing an unfamiliar form before him.
“Signature bond?” he asked, looking up at Lizzie.
“Anonymous,” Lizzie said without interest. “Somebody obviously cares what happens to you, even if you don’t.”
Ethan reached down and scrawled something approximating his signature on the slip of paper. Lizzie handed him the plastic bag. As Ethan took it from her she gripped his wrist, catching his gaze.
“Get a grip on yourself, for God’s sake.”
The guard gave him a shove in the direction of another set of heavy-looking doors, and moments later Ethan was propelled through them and out into the cool morning air. After passing through two sets of security gates a bustling street greeted him, vehicles thundering past and cloaking him in clouds of exhaust fumes as the jail gates slammed shut behind him.
Ethan turned and trudged wearily down the street, ignoring the traffic and the hordes of people passing him by. He walked by a shop window and saw his reflection staring back at him, a cut beneath his left eye. He vaguely recalled arguing with someone in the street the previous night after drinking perhaps a little too much: a running volley of shouts, threats, and then blows as he’d punched someone, only to find himself flat on his back moments later.
Then the flashing lights and sirens, more shouting.
Then the booking and the jail.
Just another day. Nothing matters.
Ethan continued on his unsteady way, grabbing the “L” elevated train and following the Red Line south until he reached 47th at Fuller Park, getting off and walking toward a soaring housing project. Cars parked bumper to bumper lined the sidewalk of West 42nd Place, the project that had been his home for the past six months. An old man sitting outside with a cane greeted him with a broken-toothed smile as he walked inside.
As he reached his apartment door he saw a broad bouquet of carnations propped against the wall, the petals battered and wilting with age. Ethan sent them ritually once a year, every year, and they were ritually returned unopened within a few days. He sighed and grabbed the drooping bouquet. The damned things were an expense he could ill afford, and he wondered again why he sent them at all.
If you’ve got nothing, then nothing matters.
Ethan closed his eyes, his fists clenching as a wave of despair rose up from somewhere deep within him. He inhaled and struggled against an unyielding tide of hopelessness, scrambled above it, and stamped it back down into some deep place where it could no longer bother him. Nothing to worry about. Nothing matters. He stood in silence as the panic receded, breathing alone in the center of his universe, and for a brief instant he was asleep on his feet.
And then he heard the sound coming from within his apartment. Ethan’s eyes flicked open, his senses suddenly hyper-alert. Footsteps, crossing softly across his living room. Heavy enough to be male. Left to right. Right to left. Ethan glanced down at the door lock and saw a few tiny bright scratches against the dull steel of the barrel.
His heart skipped a beat and a hot flush tingled uncomfortably across his skin.
Without conscious thought Ethan set the flowers down in the corridor and slipped his key from his pocket, taking a deep breath before sliding it into the lock, turning it, and then hurling himself through the doorway.
Ethan lunged at the form of a man standing in the center of the apartment, catching a brief glimpse of a dark-blue suit and gray hair as he swung a fist toward the man’s face.
A knife-edged hand shot into Ethan’s view with practiced fluidity to