kid just shook his head.
Fucking thief.
‘Okay,’ Shane said. ‘A hundred is the best I can do. Anything more than that, and I have to do paperwork. Take it or leave it. The video ain’t all that, believe me.’
The kid stared at him for an uncomfortable amount of time. Maybe this was a mugging after all. Maybe the kid just showed him the footage to keep him around until his friends showed up. The kid then looked over at Shane’s car.
‘That your whip?’ he asked.
Shane was glad that his bag – including the Panasonic camera, digital still camera, and lenses – was in the trunk, and not visible through the passenger side window. ‘Yeah.’
The kid smirked. Shane soon realized why the kid had asked. The car was a piece of shit. If he had been driving a BMW or a Lexus, the kid would have either held out for more, or walked. Or worse.
Shane had him. Saved by a shitty car.
‘Let me see the money.’
Shane fished out his wallet, peeled out the long creased C-note. He unfolded it, but didn’t hand it over. ‘How do I get the footage? Can you email it to me right now?’
The kid handed him the cell phone.
Shane was dumbfounded. ‘What, are you just giving this to me?’
The kid dug into his pocket, pulled out four or five other phones in a rainbow of colors.
Shane shook his head, handed him the bill. The kid held it up to the light streaming from the coin laundry’s windows. Then, apparently having confirmed that the bill was genuine US currency, turned his bike around, started pedaling, and disappeared into the darkness.
Shane stood there for a moment, a bit paralyzed by what had just happened. He soon snapped out of it, glanced at his watch. He had time to get this to the station, edit the video, and get it on at eleven. He sprinted to the driver’s side, unlocked the car, got in, and sped off.
Fifteen minutes later, when he made the turn onto Broad Street, his heart still racing, he pulled to the curb. He picked up the kid’s phone, and soon made sense of the menu. He navigated to the footage. In the confines of the car, the phone’s tinny speaker was too loud. He dialed it back.
He watched the footage. It was beautiful. No, it was beyond beautiful. He saw no other reporter or shooter in the hallway, or even in the neighborhood for that matter.
What did he have in his hand?
He had a white Philadelphia police detective threatening an unarmed black man with a gun. Not just threatening. He had the gun up to the man’s forehead.
Not quite the Rodney King footage, but damned close. And he got it for a hundred bucks.
Shane pulled back into the traffic, already thinking of how soon he would be sending his reel to CNN.
TWENTY-FIVE
Byrne sat at the bar in the Quiet Man pub on the lower level of Finnigan’s Wake complex, named for the famous John Ford film starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara.
He wanted to be all right with what he had done, but wasn’t. He had lost his cool. Pure and simple. The fact that he had a relatively short fuse was no secret, but the point of it all was to never let it control your behavior. He had felt the rage building all day. When he heard the fear in Gabriel’s voice it had all come out.
Good work, Kevin.
When Margaret, one of the best bartenders in the city of Philadelphia, saw Byrne sit down, she knew it was a Bushmills night. There was a glass in front of him before he’d gotten his coat off.
Halfway through his first drink, he allowed himself to think about what had really happened in that dilapidated hallway, the real message he’d received when he laid hands on DeRon Wilson, the feeling of –
– cold stone walls, the expression of The Boy in the Red Coat as he looks up in silence –
– the coming confrontation.
Byrne drained his glass. Before he could call for the next drink a shadow spilled across the bar next to him. There were four open stools to his right, so it was not someone looking for a spot.
‘Crazy days, huh?’ a female voice said.
Byrne turned to look. The woman was in her early thirties, dark-haired, pretty. She wore a black turtleneck sweater, tight jeans. Around her neck was a delicate silver chain. Byrne had the feeling they had met before. He couldn’t place her.
‘Well,