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

“I live in Paris, I already told you that!” he mimicked in a snooty French accent. “Listen, lady, I don’t see how we can avoid going to the police. We have no money, no change of clothes, no way to prove our identities—”

“Oh, quit whining. Let’s start by getting a cell phone, okay?”

“And how are we supposed to do that? We don’t have a cent between us!”

“Simple. We just have to steal one.”

4Handcuffed

LEAVING THE PARK behind, Alice and Gabriel came out onto the stretch of road known as Central Park West. After only a few yards, they felt like they had been sucked into the whirlwind of urban life—the yellow taxis speeding toward Midtown with their horns squealing, the hollering of hot-dog vendors, the battering of jackhammers.

No time to lose.

Alice scrutinized their surroundings. Rising above them on the other side of the avenue was the imposing sand-colored façade of the Dakota, the apartment building in front of which John Lennon had been murdered more than three decades earlier. The edifice looked out of place; with its turrets, gables, dormer windows, and balconies, it was like a Gothic intruder into the Manhattan skyline, a medieval fortress in the middle of the twenty-first century.

On the sidewalk, a street vendor was selling T-shirts emblazoned with the former Beatle’s face.

Alice spotted a group of teenagers a dozen yards ahead of her, noisy Spanish tourists taking pictures of themselves with the building in the background. Thirty years later, the legend was still going strong.

After observing them for a few seconds, she decided on her target and worked out a basic plan of attack. She gestured with her chin at the group. “You see the boy talking on his phone?”

Keyne scratched the back of his neck. “Which one? Half of them are on their phones.”

“The little fat one with glasses in the Barcelona shirt.”

“Seems kind of mean to attack a kid.”

Alice exploded. “You don’t seem to realize how serious this is, Keyne! He’s at least sixteen and we’re not attacking him, we’re just borrowing his phone.”

“I’m starving,” he said. “Couldn’t we steal a hot dog instead?”

She gave him a murderous look. “Stop being such a smart-ass and listen. You are going to walk very close to me. When we’re right in front of the kid, you push me into him, and as soon as I grab the phone, we get the hell out of here. Understood?”

Gabriel nodded. “Sounds easy enough.”

“Easy? You’ll see how easy it is to run when you’re handcuffed to someone.”

Everything went according to plan—while the teenager was still off balance, Alice snatched his phone, then yelled at Gabriel, “Run!”

The white Walk signal was flashing. They took advantage of this to cross and disappear down the first side street. Running in handcuffs turned out to be even harder than Alice had feared. Not only did they have to try to match their strides, but there was a considerable height difference to deal with. And with every step they took, the steel bracelets dug painfully into their wrists.

“They’re following us!” Gabriel shouted, looking back over his shoulder.

Alice turned and saw the group of Spanish teenagers hot on their heels.

Damn it!

She nodded and they increased their pace. They were running down Seventy-First Street, a typically calm Upper West Side block lined by elegant apartment buildings and brownstones. The sidewalks were wide and free of tourists, enabling them to move quickly. The teenagers were not giving up, though, continuing to sprint after the thieves and yelling at passersby to help them.

Columbus Avenue.

More crowds—shops opening for the day, cafés beginning to fill up, students filing out of the neighboring subway station.

“Go left!” Gabriel shouted, veering suddenly to the side.

The change of direction took Alice by surprise. Knocked off balance, she cried out as the handcuffs cut into her skin.

They ran south down the avenue, pushing past other pedestrians, overturning several display stands, and almost crushing a Yorkshire terrier.

Too many people.

Dizziness. Head spinning. A stitch tearing at her side. To avoid the crowd, they tried running a few yards along the road.

Bad idea.

They were nearly hit by a taxi. Brakes screaming, the driver leaned on his horn and yelled a torrent of insults at them. Attempting to get back on the sidewalk, Alice caught her foot on the curb. Again, the handcuffs sliced into her wrist. Her momentum sent her flying headfirst to the ground, dragging Gabriel down with her. The collision took her breath away and she dropped the cell phone that had been the cause of all this trouble.

Shit!

Moving fast, Gabriel grabbed the phone. “Get up!”

They got to their feet and glanced back again at their pursuers. Most of the group had fallen behind, but two of the teenagers were still racing after them, undoubtedly hoping to come out victorious in a chase through Manhattan that would amaze all their friends back home.

“Those little bastards can run, I’ll give them that!” Gabriel hissed. “I’m too old for this shit.”

“Keep going!” Alice urged, forcing him to match her stride.

Every yard was torture, but they ran through the pain, hand in hand. Ten yards, fifty yards, a hundred yards. A jerky series of images flashed past them: steam rising from manholes, metal ladders leaning against brick façades, children making faces through a school bus’s windows. And always that succession of glass-and-concrete buildings, that profusion of store logos and advertising billboards.

Sixty-Seventh Street. Sixty-Sixth Street.

Their wrists were bleeding, their lungs burning, but still they kept running. Driven by the adrenaline in their bloodstreams and the kids on their heels, they found their second wind. Their movements started to synchronize and become more fluid. They reached the point where Columbus met Broadway. Here, the avenue was transformed into a gigantic intersection of three roads and multiple lanes of traffic. They only had to exchange one look.

“Now!”

Taking their lives into their hands, they ran diagonally across the intersection amid a cacophony of screeching tires and car horns.

Between Sixty-Fifth and Sixty-Second Streets, the entire western part