(Sneak Peek)
SNOWSTORM
A Christmas Story for Our Time
SNOWSTORM
A Christmas Story for Our Time
The new "Three Kings."
Chapter One: The Snowstorm
Christmas Eve, and no one in New York City expected it to be any different this year. Afterwards, only Annie Williams and a few others knew it changed the world forever.
*
The first man appeared in a blinding gust of snow just as twilight fell, the wind increased, and the Christmas lights all down 5th Avenue—store windows, light poles, building lobbies-- flickered on. Suddenly the city was a fairyland. One moment he wasn't there, the next he was. He wore a white Stetson, rough-out ranch coat, jeans, and $400 a pair Tony Lama boots with a red vamp, cornflower rosettes, and a steer’s head on the instep. Wisps of blonde hair stuck out from the hat, over a pink Southern face quickly reddening in the snow. It had just started, after several dry cold days. He looked around. No one he knew in sight, “Hey, buddies, where are you?” His voice had a Tennessee twang. “Mackie, late as usual. No surprise. But B?” He drew a breath.
“Where are you? You know this is life and death. For so many.” He shrugged. He rolled his collar against the wind. “OK, guess I just wait.” He looked around. “This city is pretty tonight.” Grinning, he cleared his throat, threw out his arms, and sang. “New York….New York….” in a melodious voice. A few people stopped and stared. He kept right on singing.
*
Across the city, Annie Williams and best work friend Julie stood under the towering skeleton of the Tyrannosaurus Rex in the American Museum of Natural History where the New York Office of Tourism always held its annual Christmas party. They sipped their complimentary Santa’s Little Helper cocktails amid the happy holiday hubbub of their colleagues among halls replete with innumerable bones of stegosauruses, diplosaurs, brontosauruses, and other hard-to-believe-in creatures from long ago.
Julie was saying, “I just love Christmas Eve. Almost anything, you feel, can happen.”
“I don’t know. When you’re a kid, maybe,” replied Annie.
“It’s all about anticipation, isn't it? All those wonder stories. Flying reindeer. A big, amazing star. Angels all over the place. Three kings out of nowhere. A miraculous birth. In a barn!”
“Manger.”
“Oh, right. But seriously: Christmas Eve is so full of magic. Especially when you're a kid. Surprise gifts the next morning! New clothes! A bike! Your little life transformed!”
“I hope so. Right now, I’m ready for a change.”
Julie continued: “That T Rex has scared me ever since I was a kid. I keep thinking it might come after me.”
“Oh, it might, tonight.”
Julie was plump, with a round, pink face, puffy white vest, slacks with whales, and a calm face like a pond. Annie was all elbows and knees. She had dark eyebrows, black eyes like beach pebbles, dark skin that flushed quickly. Right now Annie was dressed for the holidays, in her red dress with the black piping.
“Annie, what do you want for Christmas?”
“Truly? Honestly? A real life. What heroes and heroines live. What full people live. Climb Everest. Sing the Met. Discover a cure. Not just job, subway, home, job, subway... that rut. I want to know I’ve lived when I die. Big. Big as T Rex."
*
The second man showed up behind another blinding burst. A woman with arms full of packages ran right into him. He was big, burly, broad, brown, and tattooed. The purple spirals spun in tight circles on both cheeks, ran up over his forehead, then back down to his chin. His head was shaved. His oversize cashmere overcoat flapped in the wind, exposing a luxurious purple lining. When he saw the man in the Stetson, he threw out his arms. They hugged on the corner of 50th. The snow, falling faster now, softened the air, damping the city's noises.—bus tires, car horns, cop whistles, boots on the pavement.
The men drew apart.
“We really haven’t much time,” said Cowboy.
“Just tonight,” nodded Overcoat. His head, face, and neck were so big and blocky they looked like they’d been hewed from a chunk of raw mahogany. But a gleam in his eye and a ready smile softened the whole effect. It was hard to figure him one way or the other. Would he knock you over or hug you so tight you’d laugh?
*
From the museum’s lobby a skinny man in a tight haircut and grey suit called Annie and Julie. “Can you join us, please? She’s almost finished.”
Annie and Julie rolled their eyes.
“Come on. Sammy time is not optional.”
In the lobby a platform was set up with a podium and mic. Under the great marble dome a tall, big-boned woman with big hair, Sammy Jacques, was waving at the group. She wore a dazzling white Hermes knock-off, gold accents. Behind her was a huge video screen and a wall fresco of a prehistoric mountain range behind that. Raging and grazing dinosaurs, mammoths, etc. In a voice that needed no mic, she blasted, “Merry almost Christmas, everyone! Thank you for another year as the most fabulous tour guides in the entire United States.” She raised her hands and applauded. The crowd joined her.
“Finally, we come to the most important item, the Parker Bixby Award. As you know, Parker was our most beloved guide—.”
Here Julie and Annie glanced at each other.
“--until his retirement six years ago--.”
“—because he was caught extorting tips from his guests--” Julie knocked back her drink.
“Shhhh.”
“—recognizing, that while everyone in this room—everyone in this room—does an outstanding job, it’s so important to encourage our younger guides. They may not know what you know, but they are trying.”
Again Annie and Julie looked at each other.
“The Parker Bixby award recognizes that guide who’s been with us at least five years and shows promise for a career with us as long as Parker’s. He was with us fifty-three years. This year the award goes to---Annie Williams!”
Annie grabbed Julie.
Julie grabbed Annie.
The lights dimmed. The screen behind Sammy flicked on. There was Annie standing in Battery Park pointing over the water to the Statue of Liberty, a big smile on her face. A moment later, there was Annie, her arm around a little old lady with a kerchief on her head, in front of the Empire State building.
“That’s you on the Alice statue?” shot Julie.
Sure enough, there was Annie, up on the statue with a bunch of kids, arm around Alice, flashing the peace sign, tongue out. Annie…. Speeding up, the images ended in a mad collage, then froze abruptly.
“Annie came to us straight out of Elon College,” Sammy narrated. “Our wonderful intern Zara took most of these.” Scattered applause. “Annie? Come up here!”
It was actually a very nice pewter bowl, with her name on it, and all Annie had to do was accept it, and wave to the crowd, and blush, and listen to a few rowdy cheers from her classmates. “Annie! Annie! Annie!"
“Sammy continued, “One reason Annie earned this is she always goes the extra mile. So Annie is doing one more tour tonight. Yes, even on Christmas Eve.” She looked at Annie. “You don’t know it yet. It’s a short VIP at Rockefeller Center. The mayor of Dublin, his family, plus a few late adds.”
Julie hissed, “How dare she?”
Annie waved her quiet. “What was I doing tonight, anyway?
“Aw, Annie. She’s a ----”
“I know. Except now, am I trapped forever? I fucking don’t want a life like Parker’s.” Annie wheeled. “Julie, look out!”
“What?”
“It moved.”
“You’re impossible.”
*
The third man was slight, Black, thin as a stick, dressed for hiking in a downpour, with Gore-Tex shoes, gray nylon pants, limp olive rain jacket, navy watch cap, and a frayed backpack with a red cross. He stood still looking back and forth as if he had no idea where to go. The other two stepped up and grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. “B!“ Hey!” He lifted his hands to them, but his expression didn’t change. He said in a dead flat voice: “We’ve only till dawn. Then it’s too late. It’s all over.”
“B, Merry Christmas to you, too,” roared the big man.
Cowboy just hushed him. “Smile more, man; smile more.”
“You see her?” asked B.
“Not yet,” said Overcoat.
“Which way to this Center?” the third man just asked.
Cowboy pointed.
A blast of snow whirled over them.
“Let’s go,” said B.
And the men started walking.
*
In the company van Annie sat up front with Lovelie rolling through the Park towards midtown. Her special handbag was clutched in her lap, leather, embossed, from Paris, family trip. “So how’s your Christmas Eve going?”
“First Christmas here. Wonderful.”
“Because?”
“What? No gangs. No shoots.”
“Oh, yeah. Of course.” Annie thought. “It’s Amer, right?”
“Si, Amer. Still in Caracas.”
“I’m sorry, Lovelie.”
“Eh.”
They rode on in silence, the park passing dark and deep on both sides. They could have been far out to sea.
Emerging onto Fifth, they turned right. And suddenly there was traffic and traffic lights and lights in building windows and taxis and a bus and e-bikes and scooters honking and the hum of tires, and it was a different world. A black longtail with two men in parkas cut in front. Lovelie slammed the brakes. It wobble-snaked through the cars ahead.
“Vole!” Lovelie spat. “Crap on them! They take your bag. Guy drives. Other guy—“she reached out. “Grabs purse.”
“On Christmas Eve?”
“Bad boys never sleep.”
“Look!” cried Annie. The e-bike jumped the curb onto the sidewalk. A woman strode, back turned, pack over her shoulder.
“No!” Lovelie gunned the van, laid on the horn.
The woman turned, saw, jumped aside. The men shot by, swerved, hit a bench, almost crashed, bounced back into traffic.
The woman crossed the Avenue running.
“Nice work, Lovelie!
“Eh. We have to look for each other, don’t we?’
Annie got out at the top of the promenade to Rockefeller Plaza, where wonderful intern Zara was waiting with the tourist group, most of which was children. With snow pouring down and a chilling wind, Annie ran the short tour. They did Tiffany’s, St. Pat’s (big hit with the Irish), and Atlas, right on the Avenue, then Radio City and 6th, ending on the Plaza terrace overlooking gold Prometheus, the little rink, and the Christmas tree. Of course.
“Christmas Eve may be the most magical night of the year in New York,” Annie concluded to the group, as they stared at the 95’ fir. The star itself weighed ninety pounds—as Annie, of course, noted. Six thousand multicolored lights dappled the branches. At its feet skating music guided circles of young and old on the ice rink.
“In fact,” Annie finished, “don’t I see two actual angels in front of me?” Two girls in the first row wore fairy wings and tiaras.
Annie bent down. “Are you an angel?’
The skinny one flushed. “Oh, yes!”
“Do you come to bring us good news?”
“Oh yes!” the second one blurted.
Annie stood up, raised her voice above the gusts of snow. “There you go. We have angels right here. Next it will be flying reindeer. A gigantic star in the sky. Three kings. What can’t happen? On behalf of the City of New York, thank you for taking our tour. Come back soon. Merry Christmas!”
“It’s really snowing now!” cried a woman, holding out her hands.
“Indeed it is,” said Annie. But no one heard her. They were already breaking up. Snow blew right through the space between them, and she lost sight of them all. I love it like this, she thought. Snow in the dark? It’s like the Nutcracker, only real. It’s like the city’s a huge theater, and the house lights dim, and you just slip into a whole other, truly fantastical, world. Snow shawled down, obscuring everything.
Then the wind blew a clear view, and she saw three men, unmoving, facing her, staring. Where did they come from? She didn’t remember them from the tour. Were they in the back?
“Doing anything tonight?” called the short one in the cowboy hat.
Annie just stared. Not this. On Christmas Eve? Please.
The large one in the big coat said, “Chase, you’re so rude. Sorry, Ma’am.” His voice boomed like he was down a well. He started forward.
When Annie saw the tattoos—on every inch of his face--she looked left and right. What’s my plan?
The third one, the skinny, dark one, said, “I apologize. We've had a long journey.”
Now all three were striding towards her, shoulder to shoulder.
Annie turned on her heel, starting for the stairs down to the rink, where there were a lot of people, a warm café—and Security folks.
Then suddenly, from her other side, she was jerked off her feet, her bag torn from her shoulder. Thrown face down on the granite, hands out, she caught a glimpse of two men in black, racing for the stairs. One had her bag.
Annie struggled to her knees. She shook her head. Some people came over. She got to her feet. Stumbled to the wall at the edge of the terrace. Below, she saw the two men running, circling the rink, headed for the stairs to street level, on the other side. “Stop! Stop, thief!” she croaked. She didn’t know what else to do.
But on the first step of the rink’s stairs stood three men shoulder to shoulder, blocking the way. The same men she’d just seen at the back of her group. The one in the cowboy hat; the huge one in the overcoat; the third, skinny man. What the hell? How did they get there?
Security was chasing the two thieves, a fast young woman in blue in front, a slower, heavier man behind. The music stopped. The skaters, too.
Annie just stared as the first man in black threw out an arm to shove Cowboy aside. But Cowboy just put out a hand as if to shake, grabbed the man’s hand, and the man stopped in his tracks. Overcoat spread his thick arms and the second man ran right into his huge bear hug. The handbag fell to the ground. Running up, the young woman whipped out cuffs. While Overcoat held him, she hauled the man’s hands back. The man didn’t move. It was like he was frozen. When the cops appeared, Cowboy released his man.
Annie’s question lingered. How did they get there before them?
Slowly, carefully, shaking, she descended.
At the bottom of the stairs, the skinny man was already waiting. “Hello, I'm B. Where did you get hurt?”
“B? Just B? Hey, leave me alone, OK?”
“I'm a doctor.”
“Oh.”
“Track my finger?”
“What?”
“You hit your head. I can see the scrape.”
“You’re not my doctor!”
“MSF.”
“What?”
He reached out, gently laid a hand on her cheek. “We have to look out for each other,
don’t we?”
END OF EXCERPT
*
The first man appeared in a blinding gust of snow just as twilight fell, the wind increased, and the Christmas lights all down 5th Avenue—store windows, light poles, building lobbies-- flickered on. Suddenly the city was a fairyland. One moment he wasn't there, the next he was. He wore a white Stetson, rough-out ranch coat, jeans, and $400 a pair Tony Lama boots with a red vamp, cornflower rosettes, and a steer’s head on the instep. Wisps of blonde hair stuck out from the hat, over a pink Southern face quickly reddening in the snow. It had just started, after several dry cold days. He looked around. No one he knew in sight, “Hey, buddies, where are you?” His voice had a Tennessee twang. “Mackie, late as usual. No surprise. But B?” He drew a breath.
“Where are you? You know this is life and death. For so many.” He shrugged. He rolled his collar against the wind. “OK, guess I just wait.” He looked around. “This city is pretty tonight.” Grinning, he cleared his throat, threw out his arms, and sang. “New York….New York….” in a melodious voice. A few people stopped and stared. He kept right on singing.
*
Across the city, Annie Williams and best work friend Julie stood under the towering skeleton of the Tyrannosaurus Rex in the American Museum of Natural History where the New York Office of Tourism always held its annual Christmas party. They sipped their complimentary Santa’s Little Helper cocktails amid the happy holiday hubbub of their colleagues among halls replete with innumerable bones of stegosauruses, diplosaurs, brontosauruses, and other hard-to-believe-in creatures from long ago.
Julie was saying, “I just love Christmas Eve. Almost anything, you feel, can happen.”
“I don’t know. When you’re a kid, maybe,” replied Annie.
“It’s all about anticipation, isn't it? All those wonder stories. Flying reindeer. A big, amazing star. Angels all over the place. Three kings out of nowhere. A miraculous birth. In a barn!”
“Manger.”
“Oh, right. But seriously: Christmas Eve is so full of magic. Especially when you're a kid. Surprise gifts the next morning! New clothes! A bike! Your little life transformed!”
“I hope so. Right now, I’m ready for a change.”
Julie continued: “That T Rex has scared me ever since I was a kid. I keep thinking it might come after me.”
“Oh, it might, tonight.”
Julie was plump, with a round, pink face, puffy white vest, slacks with whales, and a calm face like a pond. Annie was all elbows and knees. She had dark eyebrows, black eyes like beach pebbles, dark skin that flushed quickly. Right now Annie was dressed for the holidays, in her red dress with the black piping.
“Annie, what do you want for Christmas?”
“Truly? Honestly? A real life. What heroes and heroines live. What full people live. Climb Everest. Sing the Met. Discover a cure. Not just job, subway, home, job, subway... that rut. I want to know I’ve lived when I die. Big. Big as T Rex."
*
The second man showed up behind another blinding burst. A woman with arms full of packages ran right into him. He was big, burly, broad, brown, and tattooed. The purple spirals spun in tight circles on both cheeks, ran up over his forehead, then back down to his chin. His head was shaved. His oversize cashmere overcoat flapped in the wind, exposing a luxurious purple lining. When he saw the man in the Stetson, he threw out his arms. They hugged on the corner of 50th. The snow, falling faster now, softened the air, damping the city's noises.—bus tires, car horns, cop whistles, boots on the pavement.
The men drew apart.
“We really haven’t much time,” said Cowboy.
“Just tonight,” nodded Overcoat. His head, face, and neck were so big and blocky they looked like they’d been hewed from a chunk of raw mahogany. But a gleam in his eye and a ready smile softened the whole effect. It was hard to figure him one way or the other. Would he knock you over or hug you so tight you’d laugh?
*
From the museum’s lobby a skinny man in a tight haircut and grey suit called Annie and Julie. “Can you join us, please? She’s almost finished.”
Annie and Julie rolled their eyes.
“Come on. Sammy time is not optional.”
In the lobby a platform was set up with a podium and mic. Under the great marble dome a tall, big-boned woman with big hair, Sammy Jacques, was waving at the group. She wore a dazzling white Hermes knock-off, gold accents. Behind her was a huge video screen and a wall fresco of a prehistoric mountain range behind that. Raging and grazing dinosaurs, mammoths, etc. In a voice that needed no mic, she blasted, “Merry almost Christmas, everyone! Thank you for another year as the most fabulous tour guides in the entire United States.” She raised her hands and applauded. The crowd joined her.
“Finally, we come to the most important item, the Parker Bixby Award. As you know, Parker was our most beloved guide—.”
Here Julie and Annie glanced at each other.
“--until his retirement six years ago--.”
“—because he was caught extorting tips from his guests--” Julie knocked back her drink.
“Shhhh.”
“—recognizing, that while everyone in this room—everyone in this room—does an outstanding job, it’s so important to encourage our younger guides. They may not know what you know, but they are trying.”
Again Annie and Julie looked at each other.
“The Parker Bixby award recognizes that guide who’s been with us at least five years and shows promise for a career with us as long as Parker’s. He was with us fifty-three years. This year the award goes to---Annie Williams!”
Annie grabbed Julie.
Julie grabbed Annie.
The lights dimmed. The screen behind Sammy flicked on. There was Annie standing in Battery Park pointing over the water to the Statue of Liberty, a big smile on her face. A moment later, there was Annie, her arm around a little old lady with a kerchief on her head, in front of the Empire State building.
“That’s you on the Alice statue?” shot Julie.
Sure enough, there was Annie, up on the statue with a bunch of kids, arm around Alice, flashing the peace sign, tongue out. Annie…. Speeding up, the images ended in a mad collage, then froze abruptly.
“Annie came to us straight out of Elon College,” Sammy narrated. “Our wonderful intern Zara took most of these.” Scattered applause. “Annie? Come up here!”
It was actually a very nice pewter bowl, with her name on it, and all Annie had to do was accept it, and wave to the crowd, and blush, and listen to a few rowdy cheers from her classmates. “Annie! Annie! Annie!"
“Sammy continued, “One reason Annie earned this is she always goes the extra mile. So Annie is doing one more tour tonight. Yes, even on Christmas Eve.” She looked at Annie. “You don’t know it yet. It’s a short VIP at Rockefeller Center. The mayor of Dublin, his family, plus a few late adds.”
Julie hissed, “How dare she?”
Annie waved her quiet. “What was I doing tonight, anyway?
“Aw, Annie. She’s a ----”
“I know. Except now, am I trapped forever? I fucking don’t want a life like Parker’s.” Annie wheeled. “Julie, look out!”
“What?”
“It moved.”
“You’re impossible.”
*
The third man was slight, Black, thin as a stick, dressed for hiking in a downpour, with Gore-Tex shoes, gray nylon pants, limp olive rain jacket, navy watch cap, and a frayed backpack with a red cross. He stood still looking back and forth as if he had no idea where to go. The other two stepped up and grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. “B!“ Hey!” He lifted his hands to them, but his expression didn’t change. He said in a dead flat voice: “We’ve only till dawn. Then it’s too late. It’s all over.”
“B, Merry Christmas to you, too,” roared the big man.
Cowboy just hushed him. “Smile more, man; smile more.”
“You see her?” asked B.
“Not yet,” said Overcoat.
“Which way to this Center?” the third man just asked.
Cowboy pointed.
A blast of snow whirled over them.
“Let’s go,” said B.
And the men started walking.
*
In the company van Annie sat up front with Lovelie rolling through the Park towards midtown. Her special handbag was clutched in her lap, leather, embossed, from Paris, family trip. “So how’s your Christmas Eve going?”
“First Christmas here. Wonderful.”
“Because?”
“What? No gangs. No shoots.”
“Oh, yeah. Of course.” Annie thought. “It’s Amer, right?”
“Si, Amer. Still in Caracas.”
“I’m sorry, Lovelie.”
“Eh.”
They rode on in silence, the park passing dark and deep on both sides. They could have been far out to sea.
Emerging onto Fifth, they turned right. And suddenly there was traffic and traffic lights and lights in building windows and taxis and a bus and e-bikes and scooters honking and the hum of tires, and it was a different world. A black longtail with two men in parkas cut in front. Lovelie slammed the brakes. It wobble-snaked through the cars ahead.
“Vole!” Lovelie spat. “Crap on them! They take your bag. Guy drives. Other guy—“she reached out. “Grabs purse.”
“On Christmas Eve?”
“Bad boys never sleep.”
“Look!” cried Annie. The e-bike jumped the curb onto the sidewalk. A woman strode, back turned, pack over her shoulder.
“No!” Lovelie gunned the van, laid on the horn.
The woman turned, saw, jumped aside. The men shot by, swerved, hit a bench, almost crashed, bounced back into traffic.
The woman crossed the Avenue running.
“Nice work, Lovelie!
“Eh. We have to look for each other, don’t we?’
Annie got out at the top of the promenade to Rockefeller Plaza, where wonderful intern Zara was waiting with the tourist group, most of which was children. With snow pouring down and a chilling wind, Annie ran the short tour. They did Tiffany’s, St. Pat’s (big hit with the Irish), and Atlas, right on the Avenue, then Radio City and 6th, ending on the Plaza terrace overlooking gold Prometheus, the little rink, and the Christmas tree. Of course.
“Christmas Eve may be the most magical night of the year in New York,” Annie concluded to the group, as they stared at the 95’ fir. The star itself weighed ninety pounds—as Annie, of course, noted. Six thousand multicolored lights dappled the branches. At its feet skating music guided circles of young and old on the ice rink.
“In fact,” Annie finished, “don’t I see two actual angels in front of me?” Two girls in the first row wore fairy wings and tiaras.
Annie bent down. “Are you an angel?’
The skinny one flushed. “Oh, yes!”
“Do you come to bring us good news?”
“Oh yes!” the second one blurted.
Annie stood up, raised her voice above the gusts of snow. “There you go. We have angels right here. Next it will be flying reindeer. A gigantic star in the sky. Three kings. What can’t happen? On behalf of the City of New York, thank you for taking our tour. Come back soon. Merry Christmas!”
“It’s really snowing now!” cried a woman, holding out her hands.
“Indeed it is,” said Annie. But no one heard her. They were already breaking up. Snow blew right through the space between them, and she lost sight of them all. I love it like this, she thought. Snow in the dark? It’s like the Nutcracker, only real. It’s like the city’s a huge theater, and the house lights dim, and you just slip into a whole other, truly fantastical, world. Snow shawled down, obscuring everything.
Then the wind blew a clear view, and she saw three men, unmoving, facing her, staring. Where did they come from? She didn’t remember them from the tour. Were they in the back?
“Doing anything tonight?” called the short one in the cowboy hat.
Annie just stared. Not this. On Christmas Eve? Please.
The large one in the big coat said, “Chase, you’re so rude. Sorry, Ma’am.” His voice boomed like he was down a well. He started forward.
When Annie saw the tattoos—on every inch of his face--she looked left and right. What’s my plan?
The third one, the skinny, dark one, said, “I apologize. We've had a long journey.”
Now all three were striding towards her, shoulder to shoulder.
Annie turned on her heel, starting for the stairs down to the rink, where there were a lot of people, a warm café—and Security folks.
Then suddenly, from her other side, she was jerked off her feet, her bag torn from her shoulder. Thrown face down on the granite, hands out, she caught a glimpse of two men in black, racing for the stairs. One had her bag.
Annie struggled to her knees. She shook her head. Some people came over. She got to her feet. Stumbled to the wall at the edge of the terrace. Below, she saw the two men running, circling the rink, headed for the stairs to street level, on the other side. “Stop! Stop, thief!” she croaked. She didn’t know what else to do.
But on the first step of the rink’s stairs stood three men shoulder to shoulder, blocking the way. The same men she’d just seen at the back of her group. The one in the cowboy hat; the huge one in the overcoat; the third, skinny man. What the hell? How did they get there?
Security was chasing the two thieves, a fast young woman in blue in front, a slower, heavier man behind. The music stopped. The skaters, too.
Annie just stared as the first man in black threw out an arm to shove Cowboy aside. But Cowboy just put out a hand as if to shake, grabbed the man’s hand, and the man stopped in his tracks. Overcoat spread his thick arms and the second man ran right into his huge bear hug. The handbag fell to the ground. Running up, the young woman whipped out cuffs. While Overcoat held him, she hauled the man’s hands back. The man didn’t move. It was like he was frozen. When the cops appeared, Cowboy released his man.
Annie’s question lingered. How did they get there before them?
Slowly, carefully, shaking, she descended.
At the bottom of the stairs, the skinny man was already waiting. “Hello, I'm B. Where did you get hurt?”
“B? Just B? Hey, leave me alone, OK?”
“I'm a doctor.”
“Oh.”
“Track my finger?”
“What?”
“You hit your head. I can see the scrape.”
“You’re not my doctor!”
“MSF.”
“What?”
He reached out, gently laid a hand on her cheek. “We have to look out for each other,
don’t we?”
END OF EXCERPT