Page 41 of Antihero

“… him…” The word sandpapered through Osman’s constricted throat, making Evan realize he’d unwittingly tightened his grip. “… all I know … swear … I…”

Evan released the belt. Osman toppled forward, banged off the table, and slid to the floor, gasping. Crawling away on elbows and knees, glistening strands of snot dangling from his face, he made meager progress.

Evan rose, lifting the crossbar of his chair from the back of the bouncer’s neck. The crew around the pool table watched him silently, holding their cue sticks before them with the butts resting between their feet.

Evan nodded at them. They nodded back.

Bubbles-Rebecca looked up from her phone.

Evan said, “Ma’am.”

She grinned. “Sir.”

The rear door swung open, the manager launching through. He froze, taking in the tableau.

Evan nodded at Osman. “Wouldn’t relinquish the VIP table.”

The manager cleared his throat but no words came out.

Evan peeled a hundred from his money clip, set it on the edge of the stage before Rebecca. “For the sitter,” he said, in a stage whisper.

She smiled again, twirled a lock of dehydrated hair around a finger.

The song had ended. The other patrons stayed motionless in their spots. Osman breathed wetly as he scraped his way across the floor. Evan stepped over him on his way out.

19The Bronx Kill

Using a fake account under the name Jake Van Dorn, Evan rode an Uber Black north along Malcolm X Boulevard.

While he’d been busy playing tetherball with Osman’s head, Joey had pwned the moving truck’s surveillance camera. While the assailants had not shown up on the recordings, a few frames of footage had captured an injured young woman stumbling off the sidewalk a few paces to the right of the basement stairs. Flower-patterned dress in tatters, contusions everywhere, gaze hollow with shock. In Joey’s capable hands, Devine’s powerful facial-identification software had done its job.

Anca Dumitrescu, twenty-five years of age, no criminal record. Her place of employment, a Romanian Orthodox Church called Sfânta Maria, was in the Bronx, as well as her residential address, toward which Evan was currently beelining.

In Joey’s adrenalized voice over the RoamZone, he could hear how shaken she was at the sight of the battered young woman. “I called the church, said I was a friend worried about her since she’d gone missing. And they were, like, really sweet and concerned. She shows up there every day, like, religiously—ha—but she didn’t come this morning, didn’t call in sick, nothing, and they couldn’t reach her on the phone or at her place and they said that wasn’t like her at all, that she’s really professional and responsible and a really caring person. And, I mean, did you see her, X? She looks so broken. It’s like some scene from a war or something. You have to find her. You have to get to her.”

“I will.”

The Escalade banked onto the Macombs Dam Bridge, its Gothic Revival abutments, latticework gates, and stone-end piers a perfect Early Republic collaboration of old-world beauty and new-world engineering.

“You jailbroke Osman’s phone?” he asked.

Joey had texted a link to the purloined phone that Evan had opened, allowing her remote access. “Yep. Have everything downloaded here in Devine’s creepy Orwell room. I’ll turn that thing inside out.”

Evan rolled down the window and flipped Osman’s phone out onto the roadway.

“Cracking the VenSend database is gonna take some time,” Joey continued. “We know about Solventry’s encryptions and they’ve kept up with the race even after Allman’s, uh, departure. But I left a few backdoors in the system so I’m already leapfrogging through their VPNs and proxies with various credentials. I’ll pin down a physical address for YngTl69 within twenty-four hours at most.”

“I need a vehicle,” Evan said. “For base camp, mobile office—something comfortable. Can you have one meet me at Ms. Dumitrescu’s address?”

“Okay, okay. Hang on.” Muffled phone, then Joey saying: “What? He wants a car.”

A voice replying in the background.

She came back to Evan: “Rawlings is asking if you want diplomatic plates.”

Down below, the slate-green chop of the Harlem River surged south toward the narrow strait of the Bronx Kill.

Evan said, “Why the hell not.”