For a moment he didn’t breathe, since there was nothing to breathe but the fire in the air.
Then he felt pain in almost every joint, and the hardness of the road against his back. He became aware of the screams around him, which he hadn’t heard before; the blast had sucked all the sound out of the air along with the oxygen.
“You all right, buddy?” he asked the man who had helped him.
“Yeah—you?”
“Fine.”
The next thing he knew, there was a young EMT hunkered down in front of him. He tried to struggle up.
“Take it easy. Don’t move until we’re sure you haven’t broken something, sir,” the med tech said.
“There’s nothing broken. I’m good,” Joe told him. “The guy who helped me—”
“He’s being taken care of.”
“The man in the car—I think he was hurt pretty bad,” Joe said.
“We, uh, we got it,” the med tech told him. “And,” he added gently, “the girl is fine. Everyone’s already talking about how you saved her life.”
“Great, good,” Joe said. “But the man needs—”
“Sir, I’m sorry to tell you, but he’s dead.”
“I thought he had a chance.”
The med tech was silent for a minute. “You did a good thing,” he said very softly. “But that man…he died on impact, sir. Broken neck.”
“No—he talked to me.”
“I think maybe you hit your head, sir. That man couldn’t have spoken to you. I’m sure his family is going to be grateful you got the body out, but he’s been dead since the first impact. Honest to God. It was a broken neck. He never suffered.” As he spoke, the med tech got a stethoscope out; apparently he wasn’t taking Joe’s word that he was okay.
Joe had his breath back. He pushed the stethoscope aside and sat up, staring at the med tech. What did the kid know? He wasn’t the coroner.
“He was alive. He spoke to me. I wouldn’t even have seen the girl if he hadn’t told me she was in the car.”
“Sure.”
Joe knew damned well when he was being humored. “I’m telling you, I’m fine.”
He knew the EMT was all good intentions, but he was just fine—except for this kid trying to tell him that the man had died on impact.
“Sir, let me help you,” the med tech said.
“You want to help me? Get me the hell out of here,” Joe told him. “Fast.”
“Just let me get a stretcher.”
“Sure,” Joe said, figuring anything that would get the guy out of the way was fine.
As soon as the med tech went off for a stretcher, Joe took a deep breath and made it to his feet. Damn, it hurt. Well, he’d been pretty much sandblasted when he skidded down on the roadway, and he wasn’t exactly eighteen anymore.
He saw that there was no way in hell he would be leaving the scene in his own car. But it wasn’t blocking anyone, so the thing was just to start walking, to get away.
He did. It was easier than he’d imagined, but then, he was walking away from a scene of chaos, and everyone’s attention was on the wreck, not on one lone pedestrian. He could hear voices—most alarmed and concerned, some merely excited—surrounding him as he escaped the scene. More and more cop cars and ambulances passed him.
He headed south along the shoulder, and at last he followed an entrance ramp down to the street, where he hailed a taxi. The driver didn’t even blink at his appearance. Hey, this was New York.
He suggested a route to Brooklyn that didn’t involve the FDR.
He got home eventually, where he showered and changed, then went out into his living room and turned on the television, looking for the local news.
The accident was center stage.
“Twelve were injured and are being given care in various area hospitals,” the attractive newscaster was saying. Her face was grave. “There was one fatality. Adam Brookfield was killed when his car flipped over the median. The medical examiner reports that Mr. Brookfield died instantly, though a heroic onlooker, who fled the scene, carried the man’s body from the automobile just instants before the car exploded. That same man rescued Mr. Brookfield’s six-year-old niece, Patricia, who is doing well at St. Vincent’s Hospital, where her parents are with her.”
The woman shifted in her chair to look into a different camera. The somber expression left her face. She smiled. “This weekend, we welcome the All American Chorale Union to Kennedy Center, and for those of you with tickets, remember that tonight’s the night for the special showing of ancient Egyptian artifacts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. All those pricey meal tickets will pay for more archeological research right here in New York. And now…”
Joe no longer heard her. He was irritated.
That man, Adam Brookfield, had been alive; he had spoken to Joe. It was bull about him dying on impact. He couldn’t have spoken if he’d been dead.