Free The Corpse Wore Pasties by Jonny Porkpie Page B

rather than buttons. I prefer shirts with snaps. Makes them easier to remove quickly, which is a plus in my line of work. And you never know when a piece of clothing from your wardrobe will make its way into a number.
    Ease of removal was a plus tonight, too. I lunged forward, tearing the shirt open as I did, and ran, leaving the garment in the hands of my escort. And I kept running, across Broadway, towards City Hall. The park was closed this time of night, but the winding pathway between the Tweed Courthouse and City Hall stays open later. If I made pursuit difficult enough, maybe the drunken band members would decide they’d prefer to return to Danny’s Deep-Fry and finish packing up their equipment, rather than chasing me around downtown.
    As I passed the cluster of concrete chess tables that lined the path, I shot a glance behind me. Had my plan worked? No such luck. All five were sprinting across Broadway towards me. I had a good head start, but Krash and the biggest one were beginning to catch up. And they looked like they were enjoying themselves. Great. They’d gotten themselves all riled for a pummeling, and they weren’t going to give up their punching bag just because it was running away.
    I popped out of the pathway and into the wide pedestrian mall on the other side of City Hall. I glanced around, assessing my escape options. From this vantage point, I could see four choices nearby:
    Option 1: The 6 train. There was an entrance to my left. Now, in almost every movie, TV show, or after- school special ever written about New York by an L.A. writer from Ohio, the escapee running away tries to elude capture by ducking into a subway station. This is something no self-respecting New Yorker would ever do. Look, it’s the subway. When you get into the station, you’re going to have to wait for it to arrive . For at least 10 minutes. On the same platform as the people chasing you .
    This is not a viable escape plan.
    Option 2: Downtown, via Park Row. Not a chance. Like I said, the financial district shuts down after dark, and is full of twists, turns, and delightfully dark alleys in which I could be beaten up with impunity.
    Option 3: Uptown on Centre Street, similarly abandoned at this time of night. Where, just a couple of blocks north, there was a park perfectly situated for a quiet and unobserved pummeling.
    Option 4: Brooklyn. Across the street from me was the pedestrian ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge. Sure, getting all the way across would be a bit of a hike, but I figured no one in their right mind (and certainly no one who’d left all their instruments at a venue called Danny’s Deep-Fry) was going to chase me across an entire river and into a different borough.
    You’ve already seen how well that worked out.

CHAPTER 8
    So, there I was, four and a half minutes later, halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge, half-naked and completely out of breath.
    The porkpie that the breeze had taken off my head was lying a dozen or so feet away, directly in the path of the oncoming horde of hair-metal rockers. Krash, her mohawk flapping from side to side as she ran, and the big guy—who still had my shirt clutched in his hand—were quite a bit ahead of the rest of the band. Even at this distance, it was clear that the three bringing up the rear were several beers worse for wear.
    To hell with it.
    I like that hat.
    I ran directly at them, screaming my lungs out, hoping the element of surprise would shake them.
    They weren’t surprised. Amused, maybe. Not surprised. I had forgotten that I was dealing with people who probably pulled this sort of maneuver all the time.
    The big one was in the lead. He leapt over my hat and we barreled toward each other on a collision course. At the last minute, I dropped my shoulder and hit the ground rolling. Hair Metal did the instinctual thing and jumped. I tumbled under him and popped back up onto my feet, grabbing my porkpie as I did so.
    Ow. That sort of thing didn’t hurt as much when