Charges Read online

  “When did this start?” he asked. He wanted to shout Why did you let Benny go to school?, but that wouldn’t have been very constructive. That Jessie was worried concerned him. Things must look bad from her standpoint; otherwise, she wouldn’t even be mentioning it.

  “Half an hour ago. Maybe sooner, but I took a long shower after Benny left for school. They said the riots were starting because people are lining up for food at all the grocery stores. Traffic’s horrible today, especially on the surface streets. Do you think I should get Benny?”

  Vincenzo grabbed the remote control and started flipping through the channels, looking for some news about what was happening in Los Angeles. He found a satellite station broadcasting helicopter footage from KTTV. The chopper was near the eastern edge of MacArthur Park, orbiting over the blocks between West Sixth Street and Wilshire Boulevard. The view was of Westlake, a mostly Latino community in central Los Angeles. A Home Depot and a Food 4 Less grocery store were on fire, and Vincenzo glimpsed a cordon of police vehicles amassed around the park, right in the middle of the intersection of West Sixth and Alvarado. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of people in the streets, a mass of turbulent humanity that Vincenzo hadn’t seen since the riots of the early 1990s. Damn! People are seriously panicking over this?

  “Tony?”

  “I’m here, babe. Sorry, I was tuning in what’s going on over there. It looks… it looks like things are definitely getting out of hand.”

  “Should I go get Benny?” Jessie asked again.

  “Honey, go inside. I need you to write some things down.”

  “Just tell me, should I go pick up Ben?” Jessie snapped.

  Vincenzo got up and closed his office door, almost right in Danny’s face. He turned back toward the window and looked down at the street. Traffic was getting worse, and he heard hovering helicopters. While that was a normal occurrence in Los Angeles, hearing a plethora of helicopters pounding away was fairly anomalous for New York City, especially midtown. “Yes, I want you to go get Benny but not yet. Go inside. Get a pen and paper. Let me know when you’re ready.”

  His mind was whirling. In New York, he’d mostly been able to ignore the goings-on in the rest of the world, but since Jessie had introduced him to the burgeoning upheaval in Los Angeles, a stab of fear had lanced through his heart. He didn’t give a damn about solar flares or coronal mass ejection, but if Los Angeles was going to fall apart while he was trapped on the other side of the nation, he very much needed to give his wife an action plan.

  “I’m inside,” Jessie said. “I’m going to the kitchen. There’s a pad there.”

  “Let me know when you’re ready.” Vincenzo kept his eyes rooted to the TV.

  On the screen, smoke billowed into the air, keeping the news helicopters at bay. A thick curtain of what looked like gray, curdling milk obscured the tall sign that marked the Westlake Theaters. He wondered how long it would take for the unrest to spread. As the helicopter orbited the area, the camera panned toward the hills in the north, where Vincenzo’s house sat. In the distance, everything appeared normal, but he had no doubt that the supermarkets in Hollywood and Sunset would soon be mob scenes, if they weren’t already. Jessie and Ben would have to stay put.

  “I’m ready,” Jessie said finally.

  “In the garage, where all the boxes are, you need to find the three that have ‘S.R.’ written on the sides. There’s a year’s worth of food there from Shelf Reliance—”

  “I hate that stuff, and so does Benny.”

  “Don’t interrupt, Jess. Write it down. There should still be about a month’s worth of water in the storage room off the garage. After you pick up Ben, you need to start adding to it. If you can’t get to a store to buy more, stop at gas stations or 7-Elevens, any place where they might have some. You get that?”

  “Yes! I’m going to get Ben now, and—”

  “Jessie! Shut the fuck up and listen to me!” Vincenzo bit his cheek to stop himself from shouting at her. Months of apathy and depression, and now she’s starting to panic. Awesome. “I’m sorry. Just listen. Please. Here’s the combination to the gun safe: three spins to the right to twenty-seven, two to the left to five, one to the right to zero. Pull out the shotgun that’s not painted in camouflage. That’s a 20-gauge, you’ll be able to handle it easier.”

  “You want me to get a gun?” She hated guns, always had, even when Vincenzo, an occasional small game hunter, had tried to get her interested by taking her to the gun club range a few times.

  “I want you to get a specific gun. Don’t use the 12-gauge, the camouflage one. It’s too big, and it’s got too much kick. Get the one with the wooden stock, the one you’ve fired before at the gun club—”

  “I remember which one it is, Tony. Why am I getting a gun?”

  More sirens wailed in the street outside, and Vincenzo turned away from the TV and looked out the office window. Several trucks from the Emergency Services Unit—the SWAT team of the NYPD—were trying to move up the street, which was swollen with traffic. Pedestrians darted in and out of the slowly moving vehicles.

  “Because if things get out of hand, Jessie, you’ll need to protect yourself and Benny until I can get there. Baby, when you get back with Ben, fill the bathtub with water. And the sinks, too. Every container you can put your hands on, fill it with water. Make sure the food is safe, and get the damn shotgun. Take it with you when you go for Ben.”

  Jessie let out a nervous laugh, but she sounded frightened. “You want me to take a shotgun with me when I go pick up our son. Am I hearing you right?”

  “Jessie, I want you to take a loaded shotgun with you when you pick up Ben. You might need it. There are four boxes of shells on the top shelf of the safe marked 20-gauge. Put five shells in the gun. Remember, in order for it to fire, you need to pump the slide and then flick off the safety with your thumb. The switch is on the top of the shotgun, right next to where your thumb would be when you hold it in a firing position. And remember: never put your finger on the trigger unless you intend to shoot something.”

  “I remember this stuff! But why do you think I need to bring a shotgun with me to pick up our son?”

  “Because from what I’m seeing on KTTV, there’s a good chance LA is about to fall apart.” The sirens from the street were getting louder. “And New York might be following. There’s lots of police activity outside.”

  “Are you going to come home?”

  Vincenzo had already thought of that. “If I can get a flight, yes. Listen, Jessie, if things really do go bad, try to hook up with Grant and Lisa. I’ll call them now and let them know you guys will need to link up. Because if this solar flare thing really turns out to be as bad as some people are saying, then we’re probably not going to be able to talk again for a long time.”

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t really know, aside from what I’ve heard on the TV. Weeks. Months, maybe.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “That’s why I want you to write everything down, babe. You’ve got to remember this stuff. After you pick up Ben, you’ve got to get ready to start organizing. Take care of the food and water first then worry about keeping the house secure. And remember, fill up every container we have with water, including the bathtubs! You got all of that?”

  “I have it,” Jessie said. “Now what?”

  “Now you go pick up our boy. You have the safe combination?”

  “Three times to the right to twenty-seven, two times to the left to five, one time to the right to zero. Get the 20-gauge, load it with five shells. I’m not going to take that into the school with me, Tony.”

  “No, don’t do that. But keep it in the car. You can cover it with a blanket or something. Just stay sharp, Jess. Go out and look for some more water, some non-perishable food, and gasoline. Maybe another tank or two of propane for the grill, if it looks safe enough. Don’t take any chances. If things don’t feel right, keep driving.”

  On the TV, the KTT
V news chopper was pulling away. Someone had started shooting at it, and the news ticker said that another helicopter, possibly belonging to the LAPD, had crashed near Culver City. The entire plaza that had housed the Home Depot and Food 4 Less stores was fully involved, a raging inferno that belched tremendous clouds of thick, dark smoke into the bright morning sky.

  He heard Jessie sniffle. “Babe, do all that I told you, and you’ll stay safe. I’m going to call Grant then start looking for a flight out of here. If I have to, I’ll hire a private jet, so if American Express calls about a suspicious charge from a charter service or something, tell them it’s legit.”

  “All right.” She was crying a little, but she sounded a lot more like the old Jessie, ready for action and with her head in the game. She would protect her remaining child with her life.

  “My phone is charged, but I’ll slap it back on the charger when I get back to the condo. You should make sure your phone is charged, too. I’ll call you as soon as I know what’s going to happen, all right?”

  “Tony, this solar flare, if it knocks out all the power, what will happen to an airplane?”

  He hadn’t thought of that. “I don’t know. I’ll try to find out. But I’m coming back to LA, regardless.”

  “If I can’t take any risks, you can’t either,” she said with some real iron in her voice.

  “I won’t be stupid about it, I promise.”

  “All right, Tony. I love you.”

  “I love you too, babe. I’ll try to call again when I know more.” Vincenzo disconnected and hit the speed dial combination for Grant’s office phone. He got a recorded message: All circuits are busy. Please try your call again later. He tried Grant’s mobile number then his home one but only heard the same message. He dialed Jessie’s phone again but met with the same results.

  Oh, shit. We’re out of touch already?

  There was a knock at the door, and Danny stuck his head in. “Hey, I’m going to go, all right?”

  “Lunch already?” Vincenzo glanced at the clock. It was indeed twenty minutes past twelve.

  Danny’s brow furrowed. “No, we’re all going home. You saw the e-mail, right?”

  “No.” Vincenzo turned back to his workstation. “What e-mail?”

  “We were told to go home. There’s a full emergency in place. The city’s going to shut down. Curfew, too. No one outside after eight.”

  “You’re kidding me.” Vincenzo opened his e-mail program. The last email was a high-priority message from Belinda Frazier, the network president, stating that all staff not responsible for continuing operations were free to leave as soon as they were able to do so.

  “Not kidding,” Danny said, stepping inside the office. He glanced at the TV. “Wow, where’s that?” he asked, pointing at the screen, which was still displaying the fiery conflagration consuming Westlake.

  “Los Angeles,” Vincenzo said. “Riots are breaking out. And someone’s been shooting at helicopters.”

  “Same thing here. Someone shot an NYPD pilot, and his helicopter crashed into the East River just south of the Williamsburg Bridge.”

  Vincenzo was shocked. “What the hell is happening?”

  Danny shook his head. “The city’s panicking, man. It’s everyone for himself.”

  There were no flights out of the city. Vincenzo worked the Internet to his full advantage, but whenever he found an opening on any carrier, it was booked by the time he tried to submit his credit card. All the sites kept crashing, as well, including voice and data services, like Skype and Yahoo Messenger, which he tried to use to contact Grant or anyone else in California who might be of some assistance to Jessie and Ben. His parents had moved to Fort Lauderdale, and he tried to contact them as well, but to no avail. The news networks were saying that the extreme leading edges of the corona discharge were already caressing Earth, and it was playing havoc with wireless communication systems. All other modes of communication were essentially gridlocked, and that included air travel websites and credit card processing centers. The charter services were either booked solid or plagued by the same problems as the major carriers. There was just too much traffic hitting the sites, and they were crashing.

  His shiny Samsung smartphone was of no use. He couldn’t make or receive calls, nor could he surf the web. The e-mails he sent through his office system garnered no responses, and his personal web mail accounts were mostly inaccessible, or they timed out when he tried to send messages. With no other recourse, Vincenzo left the office at two o’clock. On the way out, he noted that the cable channel’s floor was mostly vacant.

  The walk home took almost thirty minutes. Harper Cable wasn’t the only employer that had dismissed its workers, and the streets and sidewalks of midtown Manhattan were thoroughly congested. He had a Land Rover parked in the basement of Metropolitan Tower, but if the streets along Central Park’s south side were anything like midtown, he wouldn’t be getting anywhere fast. It also had less than a quarter of a tank of gas left, he remembered. There was virtually no chance of him being able to refuel if he took to the streets, and the possibility he might run out of gas after making it no farther than West Seventieth Street didn’t seem very appealing.

  With that sobering thought, Vincenzo marched through the hot, early June afternoon, threading his way through the crowd. Every corner was blocked by an undulating throng of people fighting to get across the intersection. Their progress was slowed even more by the fact that they had to wend their way past the cars and trucks and buses that filled the streets. Arguments broke out between motorists and pedestrians, and one fistfight broke out, despite the four uniformed police officers standing next to a nearby parked cruiser. Outside the Hilton Hotel at the corner of Sixth Avenue and West Fifty-Fifth Street, a filthy bald man with a long beard stood, holding a placard in grimy hands. The sign read:

  THE END HAS COME.

  CHOOSE TO MEET MY GOD

  OR TO MEET YOUR DEVIL

  “Choose!” the man bellowed when his washed-out blue eyes found Vincenzo.

  Tony tried to put some distance between himself and the obviously crazy man dressed in soiled, ragged clothes, but there was nowhere to go. The crush of the crowd was too strong, and he was carried toward the man against his will.

  “Choose!” the man shouted again, looking at Vincenzo directly. “Choose, now! My god or your devil!” He was missing teeth, and the strong stench of urine clung to the placard-bearer like a heavy cloak. “Choose!” The man stepped toward Vincenzo, reaching out with one grubby hand. His fingernails were cracked and caked with weeks’ worth of grime.

  Vincenzo caught a whiff of excrement as the man bore down on him, and he suddenly had an idea just what the grunge under the man’s nails might be. He raised his left leg and kicked out, catching the placard evenly and driving the man back into the crowd. “Don’t touch me!” he shouted then pushed on, moving up Sixth Avenue.

  The doomsayer cackled behind him. “It’s the devil for you! Burn in hell! Burn in hell, you fucking kid toucher!”

  Broken glass crunched beneath Vincenzo’s feet, and he glanced to his left. A small family jewelry store had been vandalized, and the big plate glass windows that had formed the storefront littered the sidewalk in thousands of shards. An alarm was whooping, and he caught a glimpse of a couple of masked figures—and several people in business and casual attire, as well—going through the store and filling bags, pockets, and purses with anything they could get their hands on. A man in a blue suit with gray pinstripes picked up a chair and slammed it against a display case containing Rolex and Tag-Heuer watches. Glass imploded, and the man threw the chair aside and reached in for his winnings.

  “Let us through! Let us through!” a female cop screamed, as she and her much bigger but apparently less zealous partner pushed their way into the crowd, heading for the jewelry store.

  A siren blared, and Vincenzo saw another police car fighting to merge into the lane nearest the sidewalk, its lights flashing. He pushed onward, passing the
cops as they edged toward the jewelry store, hands on the butts of their pistols.

  At the next corner, a Sabrett hot dog pushcart was tipped over, spilling its load of water, wieners, and condiments into the street. The yellow and blue umbrella had cracked against a black Cadillac Escalade, scratching a deep gouge in its lustrous paint. Vincenzo slipped in the morass of watery hot dogs and fought to keep his footing. A few feet ahead, a portly man went down, dragging two women with him. They floundered on the cement sidewalk, splattering themselves with a colorful mixture of mustard, ketchup, and relish. Vincenzo almost laughed at the sight, but he was still in the middle of the splash zone, and he didn’t want to take a header into the gruesome goo as he stepped past the thrashing people.

  He noticed his shoes were covered with mustard, chili, and rapidly congealing melted cheese. It’s a great day to be back in New York.

  Back in his condo on the seventy-second floor of Metropolitan Tower, Vincenzo felt trapped and anxious. Several hundred feet above the street, he didn’t feel the twin currents of dread and desperation that sluiced through the city like a hot knife neatly bisecting a stick of warm butter, but he could see the signs of it clearly enough. Helicopters orbited the vast crowds that had formed in Central Park, only a block north of him. More choppers flitted back and forth across midtown, to the south. A fire had started in the towering One57 skyscraper right across the street, and West Fifty-Seventh Street was filling up with fire trucks, which had doubtless had a difficult time making it in. Beyond the park, in Harlem and the Bronx, and even from the tony neighborhoods of the Upper East Side, columns of smoke rose into the blue sky. Vincenzo was amazed at the vista. Even during 9/11 he hadn’t seen the city suffering so horribly and in so many places at once.

  He tried Jessie and Grant and his parents from his home phone but got either the same recorded message or just a fast busy signal. The satellite TV was out, so there was no news about what was going on in the rest of the world. Vincenzo ground his teeth in frustration and no small amount of fear. Even if the coronal mass discharge speeding toward Earth turned out to be harmless, he didn’t doubt that mankind would do himself in before morning.