He couldn’t find the gun.
Torres landed a hard right to Vega’s backside. The rod dropped from his hand. The two men rolled in a tumble of fists. The soft wet snow melted beneath them, soaking through Vega’s pants and jacket. His hands were like slabs of stone he could swing but not feel. He and Torres hadn’t fought since that day over thirty years ago when Torres took the can of black spray paint from Vega’s backpack. Vega had been outclassed then—in weight, size, and skill. But he was in better shape than Torres now. And he had more to lose. His daughter was on the other side of that door.
Vega landed a hard right to the side of Torres’s face. He was too numbed to feel the flash of pain as his knuckles connected with Torres’s cheek. The blow stunned Torres, who fell back against the snow. It bought Vega enough time to sweep his arms through the drifts, willing his frozen fingers to find the gun. His small motor skills were fading fast. And then he felt the sharp outline of metal. He pulled up the gun and aimed it at his old friend as Torres was pushing himself to his knees.
“Stay down!” yelled Vega. “Hands behind your head!”
“Dad! Talk to me!”
Vega sucked in air and tried to catch his breath. He was soaking wet from the melted snow and shivering from a combination of sweat, fear, and ice water.
“Joy! Take Yovanna and go wait by the front doors. The police are on their way. Tell them I’m on the roof. Tell them Torres pulled a gun on me. I’ll explain later.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” she cried.
“You’ve got to. Now do as I say.”
Vega waited until he was sure Joy had retreated. “Get up,” he ordered Torres. “Take the key out of your pants and unlock the door.”
Torres got to his feet. His sweatpants and puffy jacket were dark and heavy with water. He shivered.
“Keep your hands where I can see them,” Vega ordered.
Torres smiled. “Really, Jimmy? You think being the one holding the gun changes anything?”
“Get the key.”
“You shoot me, you’re going to spend the rest of your career with a cloud hanging over you, man. I’m a pillar in this community. And you? You’re the pigeon crap that people scrape off their windshields around here.” Torres shot a glance over his shoulder. “Don’t count on a swift response from the boys in blue. People ’round here take care of their own—or have you forgotten?” Torres nodded his head to the street below. “Don’t believe me? Take a look down there, carnal.”
Vega wasn’t about to take his gaze off Torres.
“Unlock the door,” Vega hissed at him. Already, his wet pants were freezing up stiff on him. His feet were soaked. His fingers had lost most of their feeling.
Torres reached into his pocket.
“Don’t you hear it, Jimmy?”
And suddenly he did. A rumble of voices over the soft, compacted snow. Angry voices growing louder. Encircling the building forty feet below. Not police. There were no sirens. These people were chanting.
“Kill-er cop! Kill-er cop!”
“What do you think is going to happen,” asked Torres, “if you shoot me up here? You think they’re going to say it was all in the line of duty?”
“Open the door, Freddy!”
Torres pulled the copper-colored key out of his pocket. It was attached to a white plastic key fob. He dangled it in his hand for a second and then flung it over the side of the building.
“What did you do that for?” Vega demanded. “Now we’re both locked up here.”
“That’s right, Jimmy. There’s no escape. Either you shoot me and the Bronx mourns a fallen hero or I shoot you and they lament the tragedy of a cop who went off the deep end. Those are your only two choices.”
Chapter 40
Adele left Fordham quickly, zigzagging through one-way streets, maneuvering around parked cars. Her GPS had told her the location of the Bronx Academy of Achievement. But she had no idea if she could get within a block of the building.
She wondered if she was already too late.
She parked her Prius on a cross street and raced back to the building. It was surrounded in front by several dozen people, all of them chanting, with fists raised in the air. The police had arrived, their flashing lights lending a circus atmosphere to the crowd. A woman watched the spectacle from the doorway of an adjacent laundromat.
“What’s going on?” Adele asked her.
“This police officer went crazy. He dragged a young girl out of here and into the school. And now I think he’s holding poor Dr. Torres at gunpoint.”
Adele’s head was spinning. None of it sounded like Vega. Then again, when he called her Friday night and told her he’d shot a man, that didn’t sound like him either. Nor did that fistfight with a bunch of college students last night.