No Way Out by Joel Goldman Read Free Book Online

immigrants and refugees from Somalia, Sudan, Burundi, Mauritania, Ivory Coast, Cuba, Myanmar, and Vietnam.
    Bright lines are hard to come by, but Independence Avenue comes close, defining and dividing the Northeast. Everything is available on the Avenue, from sex to groceries, from salvation to cemetery plots; everything, including Frank Crenshaw’s scrap and Roni Chase’s bookkeeping. It’s where life happens.
    North of Independence Avenue, people fight to put their homes on the national register of historic places, to put their kids through school, and to gain a foothold in a strange new land. South of the Avenue, they fight to survive poverty, gangs, and despair.
    The Vietnamese woman with her two children, the older man, the three teenagers, and I got off at the intersection of Independence Avenue and Brooklyn. It was late morning, the sun was playing tag with the clouds, and a crisp breeze gave the low fifties a chill. The man buttoned his jacket, pulled a watch cap from one pocket, covered his head, and waited for a break in the traffic. He crossed the Avenue, slow, sure steps taking him north on Brooklyn. The woman shepherded her children a block east before turning south onto Park.
    I watched the gangbangers study the man and the woman; their eyes narrowed to predatory slits, whispers and looks passing between them, casting their votes with shrugs and tilted heads. When they took a step toward the curb, aiming toward the old man, I let them see the gun on my hip, closing the distance between us.
    Eberto caught my advance, stopped, and stared, his eyes shifting from my face to my gun and back again. He was wearing a ball cap turned backward, both hands in the pockets of his zippered sweatshirt. He ran his tongue across his lips, took off his cap, and swept his hand across his buzzed scalp. He shifted his weight from right to left, his eyes flickering. His boys were behind him. They were young and thought themselves tough, outmatching a middle-aged man, yet they saw something more than my gun that made them hesitate. They saw that I was willing.
    I took another step toward them, Eberto backing up, one foot slipping off the curb. The woman was gone, the man nearly out of sight.
    “Don’t need this shit today,” he said.
    He turned and shuffled west toward Woodland, the other two trailing him, reclaiming respect with a slow retreat. I waited until they disappeared before collapsing on the metal bench at the bus stop.
    Looking up, I saw a flier with Evan and Cara Martin’s pictures on it taped to a light pole. The photographs, headshots, had been taken at their elementary school, Evan’s cowlick standing at attention, Cara’s grin gap-toothed; both smiles were full-faced and easy, their place on the light pole unimagined and unimaginable. Beneath it was another flier with a picture of another child, Timmy Montgomery, his image faded from too many months on the pole, the flier listing the date he was last seen as two years ago. I took a deep breath, hugged myself, and shook so hard the bench rattled against the bolts locking it to the concrete.

Chapter Nine
     
    I was in Simon’s office the first time Peggy Martin called. Lucy answered, warm but professional, listening, her jaw easing open, her eyes widening.
    “Hang on. I’m going to put you on speaker. I want my partners to hear this,” Lucy said, punching a button on the phone, shifting from professional to soothing. “Start over, Mrs. Martin.”
    “He took my kids,” she said, her voice cracking. “You’ve got to find them.”
    Lucy grabbed a notepad and pen as Simon and I pulled our chairs closer to the phone.
    “Start from the beginning, Mrs. Martin. Take your time.”
    Her voice caught as she fought back tears. “I’m sorry. It’s just that the police say they’re doing all they can, but my kids have been gone for two weeks. Why would he do a thing like that? What kind of man kidnaps his own kids, for Christ’s sake?”
    “I don’t know,