Free Onion Street by Reed Farrel Coleman Page B

For their sakes, I hoped they had nose plugs. The place stank badly enough before I’d deposited the contents of my digestive system on the second floor landing. I couldn’t imagine how bad it reeked in there now. I got a little sickly just thinking about it.
    When the two of them came down a few minutes later, they were each carrying small, rope-handled, wooden crates that they loaded in the back of the truck. I couldn’t make out anything about the crates from where I stood, but they must have been heavy because the truck sat down on its rear tires. Either that or the truck’s springs were shot. Frick and Frack made two more round-trips, each time carrying similar crates as on their first foray. On their last trip, Frick had a small duffel bag slung over his right shoulder. Frack was empty-handed. Then when Frick threw the duffel bag onto the floor of the truck box, Frack went nuts.
    “What the fuck are you doing, man? You wanna get us killed?”
    “Fuck you,” said the guy who’d slammed down his duffel. “You’re not the boss of me.”
    Then there was a third voice, a girl’s voice, one that cut through the night air like a straight razor. “Shut up! The Committee is the boss of us all, and they won’t be happy if these are damaged or if we get caught here. Now let’s go. We don’t have much time.”
    When the owner of that third voice stepped out into the ambient street light, my heart caught in my throat. I recognized her. How could I not? I’d sat next to her in Romantic Poetry class three times a week during fall term. Her name was Susan Kasten. She’d said about five words to me during that time, four of which were “shut up” twice. But those were five more than she uttered aloud in the rest of the class. She was a petite, mouse-haired, plain-faced girl who struck me as the kind of person who longs for invisibility. And if it wasn’t for her cat-green eyes, she might have been able to disappear into the background. I squeezed my eyelids shut, combing my memory to recall if there was anything about Susan that would connect the girl from class with the one barking orders at Frick and Frack. Nothing came to mind. The sound of the truck door slamming shut broke my trance. I looked up to see the Dugan’s truck pulling away, coughing big clouds of exhaust as it went. I was half hoping that Susan had slammed the white door shut behind her so that there’d be no way for me to get back up to the third floor. She hadn’t. In fact, she’d left it wide open.
    There was a fair amount of traffic in both directions on Coney Island Avenue when I stepped out of the shadows to cross the street. At least a minute passed before I could even make it halfway across. When I got stuck there on the double yellow lines, I looked up at the third floor windows. I got weak in the knees and lightheaded thinking about what I was going up there to do. But when I looked up, I saw orange light dancing in the windows of the bedroom where the body lay. Before I could take another step, flames completely engulfed the room. I was frozen in place. Then I remembered what Sue Kasten had said to her flunkies: “We don’t have much time.”
    As my eyes shifted down one story, there were two loud explosions. The second and third floor windows blew out, showering the street below and the cars below with jagged glass shards, bits of plaster, and wooden shrapnel. The hallway coughed flames out onto the sidewalk. Some of the debris flew over my head. Some of it bit into the blacktop around my feet. More than just fire had caused that blast. Gas, maybe? Molotov cocktails? I couldn’t say. The explosion unfroze me and I ran. As I did, I kept thinking that I’d asked Lids to get me an address so I might find some answers. What I got instead were more questions wrapped in other questions. I’d worry about that later. First I had to get back to the car.
    • • •
    Bang!
    This explosion was of a completely different, more personal nature.