Free Brighton by Michael Harvey

boneless heap. Kevin got a glimpse of blank eyes peeking back at him from under the desk. Then he was being dragged down the hallway, feet skipping across the ground as he went. It was Bobby, a black revolver in his fist, sticky gray tape wrapped around the grip and the muzzle pointed to the ceiling. He pulled Kevin through a set of fire doors and glanced up and down the stairwell. Kevin twisted free and sprinted back down the hall, Bobby hissing at him to stop.
    A slick of blood was already creeping across the tiled floor of the apartment. Kevin almost slipped as he scrambled behind the desk. It was layered with the cash, a set of keys, and two bottles of pills. The pendant had rolled off the desk and into a corner. Kevin grabbed it, wiping off a tiny necklace of blood with his thumb. Then he picked up the gun he’d dropped.
    Curtis Jordan’s body was all twisted up under the desk, one arm flung over the top of his head like he was trying to scratch his opposite ear. Kevin rolled the body onto its back and took a good look, carving the image onto the surface of his brain in quick, deft strokes. Then he dropped to a knee, pressed the gun against Jordan’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. The twenty-two barely made a sound and left behind a dry, puckered hole. Kevin stuck the gun in his pocket and ran out of the apartment, straight into the hollow gaze of a black girl. She was standing stock-still in the middle of the hallway, a finger in her mouth and pink and white bows in her hair. Their eyes locked for a moment before Kevinsprinted for the fire doors. Bobby pulled him down two flights and into the basement of the building. The hallway smelled like stale piss, and a dark slick of grease ran along the base of the walls where rats had rubbed themselves against the yellow brick. Bobby pointed to what looked like a janitor’s closet.
    “There’s probably a sink in there.”
    “I had to get the gun.” Kevin pulled out the twenty-two. Bobby stashed it inside his jacket.
    “We can’t be here when the cops arrive. Now, go wash up.”
    Kevin looked down at his hands. They were smeared with blood. He also had some rimming the soles of his shoes.
    “Now, Kevin. Go.”
    He walked into the janitor’s room and turned on the faucet. The pipes groaned and the water ran like rust. Kevin waited a few seconds and it began to clear. Somewhere in the distance, a police siren howled. All told, they’d been in the building less than seven minutes. In other words, a lifetime.

12
    AT LEAST he wasn’t taking a leak. Kevin had read somewhere that’s what Mike Royko was doing when they told him he’d won the Pulitzer Prize. True or not, it’s one of those stories print reporters love to tell. Kevin’s moment wasn’t nearly as memorable. Just standing in line at the Registry of Motor Vehicles. The woman in front of him was eating an Egg McMuffin and talking on her cell phone, telling her friend that no, she hadn’t slept with Joey DeTucci and that Cindy was a fucking bitch who was going to get her ass kicked across Chelsea if she didn’t shut her fucking mouth. The guy behind him was thumbing through the Herald, breathing garlic and peppers down Kevin’s neck and pushing up against his shoulder every chance he got. That’s where he was when he got the call from his boss at the Globe .
    “Done deal,” Jimmy Edwards said, laughing his fat man’s laugh. “Done fucking deal.”
    Edwards was a member of “The Cabal,” a group of newspaper editors who made it their business to sniff out the Pulitzer’s annual list of nominees. This year Edwards had done one better. It wouldn’t be official for another few days, but he’d gotten the word from a source Edwards called “bulletproof.” Kevin turnedoff his phone just as it buzzed again. He’d moved somehow, at least two feet out of line. The ranks had already closed, Mr. Herald ’s newspaper firmly tucked up against the sloping back and greasy hair of the girl from Chelsea.