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"You should see the other guy"

"The man who killed my mother? He&039;s dead Definitely dead Not much left of his cerebrum, it looks like I suppose it&039;s funny to say this, but thank you I appreciate it"

"Sure thing," Chapel told her "Will you help et out of here"

"You need to go to a hospital"

"I can&039;t do that Just get "

He saw Julia bite her lip "Maybe I can do better than that," she said

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK: APRIL 12, T+9:31

Arash Borhan did not need this shit No, not at all

Earlier that day he&039;d gotten a call fro woman who said his cab was needed for a special fare, and that he stood to hton Beach Normally he didn&039;t work that far south in Brooklyn, but the money the woman promised him would more than make it worth his while So he drove down there, he picked up aon the sidewalk, and he drove theo into a house there, while the wo away

Then everything had gone to hell

So out of the house and jumped in the back of the cab, and when Arash de on, the maniac had nearly ripped his ear off The maniac told him to drive, to break so many laws And then this other ht off the road

Now his cab edged into a wooden construction barrier The paint was scratched to hell, and he wasmirror He would be lucky if the front fender could be saved at all

He touched the side of his head He was still bleeding, too

"Motherf-" Arash shook his head He would not say the swear out loud He was a decent man But this was just too much

Arash had come to America in 1979 to escape the Iranian Revolution He&039;d thought he was getting away from violence, that he could be safe in the States He&039;d worked hard to get this cab, to beco it stood for

Except-everybody here had guns And he had seen more violence in New York City than he&039;d ever witnessed in Tehran Twice he had been robbed at gunpoint, just because he was a cabdriver and had some cash on him This was the first time he&039;d actually been hurt He found he did not like it at all

As he stood there, wondering what to do, his fare and the wo on her shoulder like he could barely walk under his oer What was theof this? "Hey! Hey, you!" he called to the to pay for this mess?"

The woman stared at him like he was crazy Like he was crazy "Thisaway

"What about me? I&039;m wounded, too!" Arash shouted after theize He would have chased them if he didn&039;t need to stay with the cab

He fuain But Arash Borhan had nothing if he did not have a sense of practicality He got in his cab and worked hard at getting it free of the wooden barrier Metal shrieked and groaned, and the front fender did, in fact, fall off But eventually he got loose from the pile of broken wood It felt like the cab could still drive Well, maybe this was not the end of the world, after all

Then sohed In New York, people saw nothing They wouldn&039;t care if his cab was half destroyed-they still had places to be They would want to know if he was available for a new fare Crazy! They were all crazy He rolled down the , prepared to tell sory businesset back to the garage for repairs

The nose of a pistol cah theand tapped Arash on his cheek

Wonderful This day was going to get even worse

"I have nothe pistol seehed heartily at the thought

Arash looked at hi a black suit and had the crew cut of a soldier But much, much worse was the dead look in his eyes Arash knew that look It was the look he&039;d fled when he left Iran The look of a ot a new fare," the et the words out "We&039;re going to Bed-Stuy"

"Whatever you say," Arash told hiue with such a ot worse, though

It could always get worse

"Oh no, no," Arashnized the dead man-it was the maniac who attacked him and forced him to drive his cab here "No, please, no," he said, when the laughingway to Bedford-Stuyvesant, one of the worst neighborhoods in Brooklyn The laughingthe whole way When they reached the address he indicated, Arash saas an abandoned warehouse The roof was falling away, and the interior was full of rat nests and the cardboard shelters of the hoood place, not at all Arash maneuvered his cab around piles of rubble to reach the very dark heart of it

"Good Now get out and open the trunk," the laughingsoftly to himself

"God protect me," Arash whispered But he did as he was told What choice did he have? He looked down at the body curled up in the trunk Much of theWhat did this allas can in the trunk The deady"

There was no doubt in Arash&039;sto make him burn up his own cab His livelihood, the only possession Arash had that orth anything This was terrible

There was nothing he could do He opened the gas can and poured it all over the deadhis eyes, but that was not the reason he started crying

"You&039;re hurt," the laughing un This he seeuy? He hurt you?"

Arash nodded He could find no words

"Well, that&039;s a da h a haze of tears Was he going to find sympathy here, in the unlikeliest of places? Arash knew such men as this-soulless men-could act unpredictably at times They could even be charitable if it suited their whi man said

"Iwhat?" Arash asked

"Get in the trunk with him Come on I&039;m in a hurry"

"This I will not do," Arash said

"Yeah, you will One way or another"

Arash was a practical er he was in, and that he had no options left He tried to run

The laughing ed hiasoline fro his nose and s was unbearable, and his brain contained nothing but clouds of pure agony

He could barely see, could feel nothing but pain But still he heard the laughter

"I can put a round in your head, so you don&039;t have to burn alive," theto himself "You want that?"

Arash Borhan was a practical reement

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK: APRIL 12, T+10:52

"Hop up there," Julia said

Chapel looked around the room It was a small examination room in the back of Julia&039;s veterinary office A stainless steel table dominated the space, which was otherwise filled with cabinets full of medical supplies, jars of cotton swabs, dispensers for hand sanitizer, and, of course, pictures of dogs A flatscreenscreen saver of pictures of Portuguese water dogs

"Do you have dogs yourself?" Chapel asked

"I used to Now my ex has theain at the stainless steel table "It&039;s clean"

"You&039;re divorced?" he asked, still not corad school It got to the point where I wanted to get reed Now he lives on a fars" She looked at the flatscreen, which was showing at thatbehind it She rubbed the corner of the screen as if she were petting the animal "They&039;re better off up there, of course They need space to run, and the city air is no good for dogs Are you going to get on that table, or should I consider this a symptom of mental deterioration?"

Chapel smiled He did what he was told The table had clearly beenat most It creaked under him but it held

"There are two kinds of head injuries," she told hiht "The kind that go away on their own, usually pretty quickly, and the kind that kill you It can be hard to tell theht ahead, not at ht into his eyes, dazzling him He tried to re hiutted department store where he&039;d left the body of the detainee He re put in a cab, and then not much more until they&039;d reached this place There had been a receptionist out front, but the office was mostly deserted-Julia had canceled all her appoint hersome time," he said "I don&039;t remember the ride here, really"

"Blackouts like that are common with concussion Do you feel nauseated?"

"No," he told her She brought out a tongue depressor and he obediently opened his ulped down soed "Just call me Julia You may have saved my life, so that seems fair" She smiled Her face was only inches away from his She put a thu deep into his eye When she let go, he had to blink

She was very close He couldn&039;t help but smell her faint but sweet perfume and feel the warmth of her body so near his

"When that ht for sure he was going to kill me"

Chapel pulled hi He put out of his ood she smelled, and instead he studied the woher than most civilians he&039;d met, mentally and emotionally She could handle this "That was his plan He killed your uilt for soht ht The fact that she was already dead, that his plan made no sense, doesn&039;t seem to have occurred to him"

Julia nodded She shoved her hands in the pockets of her stained lab coat "I gathered as much from what he said to me"

"He spoke to you? In the cab? This could be iet too excited He just kept saying he was going to maketo fulfill that debt That was all he said-well, that and he kept threatening the cabbie if he didn&039;t go faster At one point he reached through the opening in the partition and grabbed the cabbie&039;s ear He nearly tore it off I&039; to assume-because I know you won&039;t tell s of some kind Speed, or perhaps PCP That&039;s the only explanation I have for why he was so strong"