HOW FAST WOULD a Honda Odyssey need to be traveling in order to smash through wrought-iron cemetery gates?
Apollo Kagwa tried to do the math. He’d abandoned the creek boat at the edge of Barretto Point Park and ambled to the closest subway station, East 149th Street on the 6 line. He descended the stairs in wet jeans and boots, dog tired and half crazed with otherworldly knowledge, and even the homeless man squatting in the station looked at him with mistrust and worry. When he reached the turnstile, he reached for his wallet so he could swipe his MetroCard—a habit so ingrained that even now he couldn’t stop himself—and this was when he remembered it had been lost in the waters of North Brother Island when he’d almost been drowned. Since he’d survived, maybe it was more like a baptism. Reborn now as what? Apollo hopped the turnstile, then waited on the downtown 6 calculating the amount of force required to ram a car through Nassau Knolls Cemetery’s gates. He assumed he’d be going in during the night. It was doubtful they’d just let you dig up a grave while the sun was up.
But by the time he got home, it was early morning. A Wednesday. Thousands of people off to work. As New Yorkers do, they studiously avoided looking at Apollo even as they paid him their full attention. If he acted crazy and dangerous, they might switch cars, but if he only looked crazy and dangerous, they’d tolerate him. He stood the whole time because he felt he’d pass out if he sat. He reached the apartment and let himself in, took off his clothes, and it was as if he’d taken off an exoskeleton or a cast. Without the clothes his body melted. He hardly made it to the bedroom before he passed out. And when he woke, it was evening.
He felt no better rested, but he could sit up, stand up, and almost in passing he forced himself to eat. He dressed and went on the computer to reserve a Zipcar. When he discovered the Honda Odyssey was available—Suave, the same one he’d driven when he and Brian found the first edition in Riverdale—it felt like fate.
Apollo drove from Manhattan into Queens and from Queens out to Plainview, Long Island. Nassau Knolls Cemetery. Concentrate on that. He’d never been good at math, but he thought that fifty miles an hour in a 4,400-pound vehicle would tear a pair of iron gates apart.
THE FRONT ENTRANCE to Nassau Knolls Cemetery sits on Port Washington Boulevard, and while the grounds are enormous, what surrounds those grounds is still a residential neighborhood. Even more to the point, the Port Washington police department sits literally right next door to the cemetery and the Port Washington fire department is across the street. And yet Apollo Kagwa noticed none of this as he burned down Port Washington Boulevard, approaching ramming speed.
He slowed down, a bit, only when he calculated that he couldn’t drive straight into the gates from Port Washington Boulevard. So he made a right on Revere Road, then turned the Odyssey around in the parking lot of a pharmacy. Now, moving west on Revere, he pressed his foot onto the gas pedal. It was eleven o’clock on a Thursday night, and the roads were empty in that baffling suburban way. He zoomed down Revere Road in an almost meditative silence. He crossed Port Washington Boulevard doing thirty-five miles an hour.
Then Patrice Green stamped his size-fifteen foot on the brakes, and the Odyssey spun out in a half circle, and the howl of the tires seemed loud enough to rouse the living and the dead. Apollo levitated in his seat. The seatbelt slapped him back down. His head spun a moment longer than the car. He bit his tongue and let go of the wheel.
“That was your plan?” Patrice asked Apollo from the passenger seat. “You’re just going to bust through the gates with the police department right up the road?”
Apollo’s foot had come off the gas. He looked down at it as if it had betrayed him. Patrice’s big old hoof remained steady on the brake. Apollo looked back at Patrice with a catatonic air. He’d picked up the big man because he needed Patrice’s help—digging up a grave would be exhausting work. But he hadn’t said a thing about the tribute page. Patrice still believed Apollo didn’t know who’d started the damn thing. But Apollo had a hard time playacting, kept wanting to haul off and crack his former friend in the teeth.
“I’d suggest we drive back to the parking lot and turn off the car,” Patrice said.
Apollo watched Patrice for a long second.
“You hear me in there?” Patrice punched Apollo, not lightly. “I told you I’d help you,” he said as calmly as he could. “You came to my place, told me and Dana a lot of shit that didn’t make any fucking sense, but it didn’t matter. We’re your friends, do or die.”
“Friends,” Apollo repeated.
“Plus Dana was heated this guy took us for all that money,” Patrice said. “We thought we could put a down payment on a place! But we’re not going to spend money this motherfucker stole from his dead wife.” Patrice rubbed the top of his head softly. “I admit I was still kind of impressed with what he pulled off. High technical skill. No question. A worthy foe.”
Patrice slipped the car into park, took his foot off the brake, opened the iPad case sitting in his lap, and turned the tablet on. “Right now though you and me are two black men sitting in a minivan in the middle of the road in the middle of White Ass, Long Island, and that’s bound to draw attention soon enough. I told you I’d help you, so let me help. Cool?”
“Yeah,” Apollo said. “You’re my friend after all.”
Patrice watched Apollo thoughtfully for a few seconds. “Yeah. First thing we need to do is back up. Put the car in reverse.”
Apollo nodded. He might as well have been a robot working under voice commands. Now the car coasted backward slowly.
“You’ll have to steer this thing,” Patrice said, looking out the back. “?’Cause right now you’re about to go up on the sidewalk.”
Apollo looked into the rearview mirror, then the passenger mirror, then finally turned the wheel. He parked in a spot behind the pharmacy on the corner. When Patrice demanded the car keys, Apollo handed them over.
“You know, if me and Dana had kids like you once suggested, I couldn’t be out here helping you right now.” He grinned. “Now thank your child-free friend.”
“Thank you,” Apollo said stiffly.
“You’re welcome.”