Manhattan Is My Beat

"No!" she shouted in a whisper. Planting her feet on the opposite wall, leaning hard into the door, Rune ducked her head, waiting for the fist that she knew would slam through the cheap wood, clawing for her hair, her eyes. She'd be dead. Just like Robert Kelly. It would only be a matter of minutes, seconds, and she would die.

But, no… He turned and ran down the stairs.

Finally Rune stood, staring at her shaking hands and remembering some movie she'd seen recently where the teenage hero had escaped from some killer and had stood frozen, gazing at his quivering hands; Rune had groaned at the cliche. But it wasn't a cliche at all. Her hands were trembling so badly she could hardly open the door. She peered out, hearing sounds of chatting voices and far-off TVs. Children's squeals.

Why had he run? she wondered. Who was he? A witness? The killer's accomplice?

The killer?

Rune-every muscle shaking-walked fast to the incinerator room, scooped up the diapers, and hurried down the stairs. Two women on the landing nodded at her, preoccupied with their conversation.

Rune started past them, head down. But then she paused and in an exasperated voice said, "People don't know how to behave anymore. They don't know a thing about it, do they?"

The women looked at her, smiling in polite curiosity.

"That guy a minute ago? He almost knocked me over."

"Me too," one woman said. Her gray hair was in pink curlers.

"Who is he?" Rune asked, breathing hard, leaning against the banister.

"That's Mr. Symington. In 3B. He crazy." The woman didn't elaborate.

So he lived here. Which meant he probably wasn't the killer. More likely a witness.

"Yeah," the woman's friend added, "move up there last month."

"What's his first name?"

"Victor, I think. Something like that. Never says hello or nothing."

"So what?" the curler woman said. "He's nobody you'd want to talk to anyway."

"I don't know," Rune said indignantly. "I'd have a couple things to tell him."

The curler woman pointed to the box of diapers. "Greatest invention ever was."

"After TV," her friend said.

Rune said, "Well, sure," and started down the stairs.

She ran into Amanda on the street corner.

"Look," the woman said. She'd been to Hallmark and had bought a fake silver picture frame. Inside she'd put a picture of her and Mr. Kelly. It was at Christmas and they were in front of a ski

"It's totally cool," Rune said, and started to cry once more.

"You have babies?" Amanda was looking at the diapers.

"Oh. Long story. You want them?"

A faint laugh. "Did that years and years ago."

Rune pitched them out. "I've got a question. What do you know about Victor Symington?"

"That guy live upstairs?"

"Yeah."

Amanda shrugged. "Not so much. He been in the building for maybe six weeks. A month. He never say hi, never say how you doing. I no like him so much. I mean, why not say good morning to people? What's so hard about that? You tell me what's so hard."

"You said Mr. Kelly never talked about his life much?"

"No, he didn't."

"Did he mention anything about a bank robbery? Or a movie called Manhattan Is My Beat?"

"You know, I think he say something about that movie. Yeah. A couple times. He was real happy he find it. But he never say anything about a bank robbery."

"Are you going to have a funeral for him? I talked to the police and they said you wanted to bury him."

The woman nodded. Rune thought: This is what you think of when somebody says a "handsome" woman. Amanda wasn't beautiful. But she was ageless and attractive. "He has no family," Amanda said. "I have a friend, he cuts grass at Forest Lawn. Maybe I can work something out with him to get Mr. Kelly buried there. That's a nice place. If I can stay here in the U.S., I mean. But I no think that going to happen."

Rune whispered to her, "Don't give up just yet."

"What?"

"I think Mr. Kelly was about to get a lot of money."

"Mr. Kelly?" Amanda laughed. "He never said anything about that to me."

"I can't say anything for certain. But 1 think I'm right. And I think this Symington knows something about it. If you see him, will you let me know? Don't say anything to him." She gave the woman the number of the video store. "Call me there."

"Sure, sure. I call you."

Rune watched the skepticism surface on her face.

"You don't believe me, do you?" she asked Amanda.

The woman shrugged. "Believe that Mr. Kelly was going to get some money?" She laughed again. "No, I no think so. But, hey, you find it, you let me know," she said. Looked at the picture once more. "You let me know."

Once upon a time…

Walking west toward Avenue A. Rune looked up and down the street for Symington. Gone.

The heat was bad. City heat, dense heat, wet heat. She didn't feel like hurrying but she also didn't want to get into a shouting match with Tony so she broke one of her personal rules and hurried to work.

Once upon a time, in a kingdom huge and powerful and filled with many wonders, there was a princess. A very small princess who no one took seriously…

She continued along the sidewalk, feeling exhilarated. She'd met her first black knight-a pock-faced man in his sixties, wearing an ugly brown hat-and escaped from him without being broads worded to death.

Oh, she was a beautiful princess though she was too short to be a model. A beautiful princess-and would be a lot more beautiful when her hair grew out. Then one day the princess became very sad because a terrible dragon hilled a hind old man and stole his secret treasure. A secret treasure that he'd promised to give her part of and that'd also save the bacon of a friend of his who was getting hassled by the creeps at Immigration and Naturalization.

Third Avenue. Broadway. University Place.

So the beautiful princess herself set out to find the dragon. And she did and she slayed him, or slew him, or at least bagged his ass so he'd have to hang around Attica for twenty-five to thirty years. She got the treasure of gold, which she split with the friend and they both netted a cool half million.

Rune walked into the video store, watching Tony inhale the breath that would come out as "Where the fuck've you been?"

"Sorry." Rune held up her hands to pre-empt him. "It's been one of those mornings."

She stepped behind the counter and logged onto the register so fast that she didn't notice, across the street, the man she'd thought of as Pretty Boy, the one in the meter-reader jacket, slide into a booth in the coffee shop. He continued to watch her, just like he'd been watching her as he'd followed her from the building on Tenth Street where they'd hit the old man.

Rune grabbed a handful of tapes, started to reshelve them. Thinking:

And the princess lived happily ever after.