Central Park by Guillaume Musso (ebook reader macos .TXT) 📕

mumble a few words of thanks, but Nikovski interrupted her coldly, pointing to the door. “Just get out. Now.”

Relieved to be free again, Alice and Gabriel obeyed.

They were both smiling when they emerged onto the docks. This deliverance had not answered any of their questions, but it was still an important step forward—they were autonomous again. Now to find out the truth.

Feeling as if a huge weight had been lifted from their shoulders, they walked along the docks. The wind had grown less cold. The sky, still perfectly blue, contrasted with the harshness of the postindustrial landscape: abandoned work sites, endless lines of hangars and warehouses. But the view was intoxicating; from where they stood, they could see all of New York Harbor, from the Statue of Liberty to New Jersey.

“Come on, I’ll buy you a cappuccino!” Gabriel said cheerfully, gesturing to a tiny café located in an old graffiti-covered train carriage.

Alice was quick to rain on his parade. “And how are you planning to pay for it? Or are we going to steal that too?”

He grimaced at this intrusion of reality into his happiness. Then he touched his injured arm. The pain he had felt on waking was now more intense.

Gabriel took off his jacket. His shirtsleeve was bloodstained. He rolled it up and saw the bandage wrapped around his forearm—a wide cloth compress soaked with coagulated blood. When he lifted it, he discovered a nasty wound that immediately started to bleed again. The entire length of his forearm had been hacked with something like a box cutter. Thankfully the cuts were not too deep. In fact, now he looked at them, they sort of resembled a…

“They’re numbers!” Alice exclaimed, helping him wipe away the blood.

Engraved in his skin, 141197 appeared in little red notches.

Gabriel’s expression had changed. Within a few seconds, the relief he’d felt at being free again had given way to anxiety. “Another code? Damn it, I’m beginning to get tired of this bullshit!”

“Well, this one’s not a phone number, anyway,” said Alice.

“Maybe it’s a date?” he suggested bitterly, putting his jacket back on.

“The fourteenth of November, 1997…it’s possible.”

Exasperated, Gabriel looked into the Frenchwoman’s eyes. “Listen, we can’t just keep wandering around like this, with no cash and no ID.”

“What do you suggest? Go to the police? You’ve just stolen a car!”

“Only because you made me!”

“Oh, how brave of you! You’re such a gentleman! It’s always the same with you—everything is someone else’s fault. I can see the kind of person you are.”

Deciding that arguing would only make things worse, he let it drop. “I know a pawnshop in Chinatown,” Gabriel offered. “The guy’s legit. A lot of musicians who are short of cash pawn their instruments there.”

She sensed a trap. “And what do you think we should pawn? Your piano?”

He gave a tense smile and looked pointedly at Alice’s wrist. “The only thing we have is your watch.”

She took a step back. “No chance. Never.”

“Come on, it’s a Patek Philippe, isn’t it? We could get at least—”

“I said no!” she yelled. “It was my husband’s watch.”

“But what else do we have? Apart from this cell phone.”

Seeing him take the phone from his pocket, she came close to strangling him. “Why the hell did you keep that thing? I told you to toss it.”

“I don’t think so. After all we went through to steal it? Anyway, it’s all we have at the moment. It could still be useful.”

“But they can track us in three minutes flat with that! Don’t you ever read thrillers? Don’t you ever watch movies?”

“Chill out, will you? This isn’t a movie.”

She opened her mouth to insult him, but she was stopped by the distant sound of sirens carried on the wind. She turned in that direction and froze—there was a red light flashing on the horizon. Siren screaming, the cop car was heading straight toward them.

“Come on!” she shouted, grabbing Gabriel’s arm.

They ran to the Mini. Alice got into the driver’s side and started the engine. Van Brunt Street was a dead end, and the cops had made it impossible for them to escape the way they came.

Impossible to escape at all…

The only way out was through a wire gate that led onto the docks. Unfortunately, it was padlocked.

No choice.

“Fasten your seat belt,” she ordered as the tires squealed under them.

Hands gripping the steering wheel, Alice accelerated over thirty yards and plowed the Mini into the gate. The chain yielded with a metallic crunch, and the car sped out onto the tracks of the old streetcar line that wound around the abandoned factory.

Sheepishly, Gabriel rolled down his window and tossed out the phone.

“It’s a bit late for that!” Alice raged, shooting him a black look.

Sitting only a few inches up from the ground, the young woman felt as if she were driving a go-kart. With its narrow wheelbase and tiny wheels, the Cooper jolted over the uneven ground.

She glanced in the rearview mirror. Unsurprisingly, the cop car was chasing them along the seafront. Alice drove along the docks for about a hundred yards before spotting a street to the right. She took it. The smooth asphalt and the long straightaway enabled her to step on the accelerator and speed northward. At this time of day, traffic was picking up in this part of Brooklyn. Alice ran two red lights, almost causing an accident, but she still didn’t manage to shake the cop’s Interceptor.

The Mini was not the most comfortable car in the world, but it could certainly move. After negotiating a bend at top speed, tires shrieking, it turned back onto the neighborhood’s main road.

Alice saw the Taurus’s menacing radiator grille grow larger in the mirror.

“They’re right behind us!” Gabriel warned her, turning to look.

Alice prepared to take an underpass that led to the highway. She was tempted to try melting into the traffic, but on a highway, the Mini Morris would not have the power to escape the Interceptor’s V-8.

Trusting her instinct, Alice braked and veered suddenly onto the pedestrian ramp designed