Hell's Kitchen

So

Oh, man, that hurts. He gripped his arm tighter and stepped into the middle of the street.

The twin eyes of a car flicked toward him. The vehicle approached and then paused. Choosing not to see him, the driver stared ahead with the uncomfortable distraction of someone late for a di

Pellam continued away from the theater, back toward the Tower itself.

A wave of pain flowed through him. Sweat flowed. Every jar of his boots multiplied the agony. He wanted to pause, just catch his breath.

Don’t stop. Keep going.

A glance behind. So

The blond man’s feet sounded behind him.

Crack.

A bullet shattered the window of a deserted tenement.

Another shot.

Somebody might hear and call the police.

But no, of course not. Who’d pay any attention? This was just the soundtrack to an average night in Hell’s Kitchen. Ignore it.

Keep walking, eyes down, people would be telling themselves.

Stay away from the window.

Come back to bed, lover…

It’s a white man’s world…

THIRTY-ONE

Pellam staggered out of the alley, turned into the middle of Thirty-fifth Street. He was now a block away from the theater and its festivities, and this street was even emptier than Thirty-Sixth.

The only motion he could see was moths beating themselves to death on the heavy lenses of street lamps.

The sound of rock music was faint. At least, he thought, he’d led So

Pellam cocked his head and found himself in the middle of the street, on his knees. Looking back, he saw So

Here, in the construction site, he’d be safe. It was very dark. So

Places where he could stop ru

He staggered to a small metal shed and climbed into the murky space beneath. So

The steps passed very close.

“Hey, Joe Buck… Why’re you ru

Pellam opened his eyes and saw feet in tattered white shoes moving slowly over the gravel and dirt. One shoe was untied and the laces dangled gray and muddy. He thought of Hector Ramirez and the stolen Nikes.

So

My blood, Pellam realized. He’s following the trail of my blood to my hiding place. But why hasn’t he found me yet? It was too dark, he supposed.

Metal grated on metal.

A resonating sound like a steel drum, a bell.

Then, a gushing sound as liquid began flowing on the ground. He clutched his arm more tightly. What was So

A second gush joined the first. Then another.

A pause. Then a gunshot sounded very nearby. Pellam jumped in shock. There was a huge flash of light and Pellam realized that So

What had been dark now became dazzlingly bright.

“Ah, Pellam…”

There, clearly visible in the shocking, yellow light, was the trail of Pellam’s blood, leading to his cave. Still, he remained where he was. No way, he thought, can I outrun him. In the fiery illumination he could now see So

Pellam felt heat from all around him. The burning fuel was flowing into the scaffolding and piles of wood, setting everything aflame. And two, no, three of the wooden sheds. Then another. A truck caught fire. Tires burst and melted amid vibrant orange flames and turbulent black smoke. Wood snapped like bullets and there were explosions as fuel tanks – gas and propane – cracked apart, firing hissing buckshot through the night.

The whole site, half block long, was suddenly awash with fire. More trucks ignited. The sheds, stacks of wood and rich, dark paneling – destined perhaps for Roger McKe

The noise of the fire was like a subway train.

At this moment – when the entire lot was enveloped in flames, when there was virtually nothing left untouched by the fire – a small half moon of red, white and blue bunting ignited. Unlike the massive tide of flame in the yard this scrap burned placidly. The hot, rising air carried it aloft.

And it was this shred of patriotic cloth, not the gallons of fiery gasoline or stacks of blazing wood, that finally ignited McKe

The burning scrap wafted onto a stack of cardboard boxes in the open atrium. The cartons began to glow then burn brightly. In a few minutes the flames were in the lobby, rolling over artists’ conceptions of offices, over the tall palm trees that had so astonished Ettie Washington when she watched them being delivered, over piles of linoleum and wallpaper, buckets of paint. More propane tanks, on parked forklifts and high-climbers, exploded, shooting shrapnel throughout the lobby and shattering the huge plate glass windows.

Fire everywhere.

The paper wrapping of the statue burned away but Pellam, stumbling toward the gate, still couldn’t make out what it was.

Finally he could wait no longer. The flames were too close, the heat too much. He eased from his hiding space as the window of the shed popped out in a quiet burst and scattered scalding glass around him.

Only one exit remained – the way he entered, though the chain link. So

As he staggered out from his hiding place and made his way to the fence he saw a rich glow in windows on the second floor of the Tower, then the third, then the sixth or eighth, then higher. The fire had been sucked quickly into the gullet of the building.

Huge sheets of Thermopane windows burst, glass shards and black pellets of plastic rained down.

He stumbled to the chain-link and still could not see So

A stone of the heart…

He managed to squeeze through the opening in the gate but one side sprung out of his grip and struck his broken arm. For a moment he passe out completely and then found himself on his hands and knees. He inhaled deeply and crawled away from the site into the middle of Thirty-fifth Street. Behind him was a tide of yellow flame and tornadoes of orange flame and spouts of hissing blue flame. Windows exploded and walls collapsed. Heavy bulldozers and sheds and dump trucks settled down to die.