route. First was one way the wrong way and there was no way she was going to try riding on the sidewalk at this time of night. She could go over to Second, then down into the Financial District, but she’d be heading into a dead zone this late at night; if anything happened to her down there she’d never get help. Instead she turned the bike around and went back down to Avenue A, pumping the pedals full tilt as she sped past her building, then hanging a right, the fat tires hissing on the pavement as she stood up in the seat, getting as much speed as she could. She turned onto Houston and into heavier traffic, even at this time of night, keeping as close to the curb as she could, watching for parked cars opening their doors and keeping her eyes peeled for the dangerous yellow rush of taxis playing thread-the-needle on her left.
By the time she reached Eldridge Street and turned left, heading toward the bottom of the island, she sensed that someone was on her tail. Every time she zigged or zagged around a car she’d catch a brief glimpse of another bike a hundred yards behind. In the streetlights it gleamed, sleek and expensive-looking, its gold and black molybdenum frame with rams’ horn handlebars and razor-thin racing tires ridden by someone in the full package: skintight black racing shirt with dark Spandex cycle shorts, jet-black riding shoes and a black Kevlar raptor-style helmet, pointed down the back with an opaque angled visor in front. The kind of getup you saw on top-end bicycle couriers during the day running packages and envelopes all over the city, driving like bats out of hell and not giving a damn for anyone else on the road, from buses and garbage trucks right down to other bicycle couriers and even pedestrians.
He stayed on her tail, never gaining and never falling back, and by the time she got as far as Grand Street she was starting to get frightened. At first she thought the rider’s presence had been simple coincidence—two people going in the same direction—but what bicycle courier is still working at two in the morning? It might have been a cop, but she knew they rode mountain bikes and wore easily identifiable, bright-colored nylon shells. She remembered the awful sound Peter had made just before he died and pedaled faster, the sweat running down her sides and between her breasts. There had to be some way to lose him.
The best way to lose him was to lose herself. Without pause she swung the bicycle to the right, suddenly finding herself in a dangerous maze of delivery trucks around the big residential block of Confucius Square, known to the people who traveled through it as Confusion. She skidded around a man carrying the gutted corpse of two pigs, threw herself down a narrow alley piled high with boxes of rotting vegetables, then turned again down an even narrower alley packed with wooden crates that went flying as she passed. She heard screaming in Chinese as the clutch of a hand grabbed at her T-shirt and a bottle flipped by in front of her face, smashing loudly into the brick wall on the far side of the alley.
Sobbing, she swerved, tires almost slipping out from under her as she made the turn onto Pell Street and into the thick of the late-night Chinatown trade. Slaloming around cars, she bounced the old bicycle up onto the sidewalk, sideswiped a display of mysterious fruits and vegetables outside a tiny storefront then cut in front of an old man in a black cap and bedroom slippers, coming so close her shoulder actually brushed the butt end of the hand-rolled cigarette from the man’s slack lips, sending up a trail of sparks.
She came out onto Doyers Street and pulled hard left, still seeing her pursuer’s reptilian helmet out of the corner of her eye. He was closer, less than a hundred feet, and now he was making no pretense about following her. Directly ahead of her was the intersection of Doyers Street and Bowery, the lights at the corner just going from yellow to red. Heart
By the time she reached Eldridge Street and turned left, heading toward the bottom of the island, she sensed that someone was on her tail. Every time she zigged or zagged around a car she’d catch a brief glimpse of another bike a hundred yards behind. In the streetlights it gleamed, sleek and expensive-looking, its gold and black molybdenum frame with rams’ horn handlebars and razor-thin racing tires ridden by someone in the full package: skintight black racing shirt with dark Spandex cycle shorts, jet-black riding shoes and a black Kevlar raptor-style helmet, pointed down the back with an opaque angled visor in front. The kind of getup you saw on top-end bicycle couriers during the day running packages and envelopes all over the city, driving like bats out of hell and not giving a damn for anyone else on the road, from buses and garbage trucks right down to other bicycle couriers and even pedestrians.
He stayed on her tail, never gaining and never falling back, and by the time she got as far as Grand Street she was starting to get frightened. At first she thought the rider’s presence had been simple coincidence—two people going in the same direction—but what bicycle courier is still working at two in the morning? It might have been a cop, but she knew they rode mountain bikes and wore easily identifiable, bright-colored nylon shells. She remembered the awful sound Peter had made just before he died and pedaled faster, the sweat running down her sides and between her breasts. There had to be some way to lose him.
The best way to lose him was to lose herself. Without pause she swung the bicycle to the right, suddenly finding herself in a dangerous maze of delivery trucks around the big residential block of Confucius Square, known to the people who traveled through it as Confusion. She skidded around a man carrying the gutted corpse of two pigs, threw herself down a narrow alley piled high with boxes of rotting vegetables, then turned again down an even narrower alley packed with wooden crates that went flying as she passed. She heard screaming in Chinese as the clutch of a hand grabbed at her T-shirt and a bottle flipped by in front of her face, smashing loudly into the brick wall on the far side of the alley.
Sobbing, she swerved, tires almost slipping out from under her as she made the turn onto Pell Street and into the thick of the late-night Chinatown trade. Slaloming around cars, she bounced the old bicycle up onto the sidewalk, sideswiped a display of mysterious fruits and vegetables outside a tiny storefront then cut in front of an old man in a black cap and bedroom slippers, coming so close her shoulder actually brushed the butt end of the hand-rolled cigarette from the man’s slack lips, sending up a trail of sparks.
She came out onto Doyers Street and pulled hard left, still seeing her pursuer’s reptilian helmet out of the corner of her eye. He was closer, less than a hundred feet, and now he was making no pretense about following her. Directly ahead of her was the intersection of Doyers Street and Bowery, the lights at the corner just going from yellow to red. Heart
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