Chapter Eleven

The slick black sedan bombed down the dull streets of New York's back end, carving a way through the darkness towards the mortuary. I click my fingers, and the car freezes.
Driving, with hands clasped to the wheel, is Candida. There is a slight reddening around her neck where Keyes once had the upper hand, but Keyes himself is now in the backseat, splitting his attention between Candida's frantic driving and the nine millimetre pistol being pointed at him from the passenger seat, where George is sitting. Keyes appears to have missed the irony of the situation.
George is dressed sharply - perhaps not as finely as Malchance - but his otherwise fine looks are marred by the past few months. Life on the edge, both of sanity and the law, has tired him, lined his face, battered his complexion. The only part of him still alive are his eyes, which burn as they survey his two hostages. In the fire of George's eyes, Ray sees depicted his own weaknesses. He has no doubts about where they are heading, nor what his fate will be tonight. He wonders if his wife had even noticed him being abducted. Probably not. Then, for some reason, he wonders if she'll ever find a replacement for the crystal vase.
For a fraction of a second, conveniently the fraction we currently inhabit, Keyes' mind flickers back to the papers on his desk. The Russian mob links. The shipment of assault rifles. The potential - no, probable - links with the latest quasi-mafia outfit. Did they factor into this at all? The gun's deep, dark barrel bestows much clarity upon the gazer. Like staring into the night sky - your vulnerability and meaninglessness is condensed into darkness, and you feel powerfully alone. But Keyes found no links, no answers. Did you find any? The documents linking Ivashko Tabor with George's brother. The hastily scrawled map of disused subway tunnels through which, Falk had posited, the shipment would be hauled. Did you see any of that? Or did Keyes hide it from you, too?
A click of my fingers. Suspension slams into action. Friction, drag, thrust, the eternal dance of physical constants and relationships resumes, and the sedan moves onwards to its final destination.

~ ~ ~

You stand in a mortuary hallway. In front of you, through plexiglass barriers, the entrance hall shows signs of a struggle. Papers are strewn here and there, and a glass lamp has been shattered on the floor. You strain your eyes to see through the battered doors which seem to have been kicked open, but you cannot see much in the darkness. The streetlamps appear to have been extinguished.
You realise that you have your back to the wall. To your left is a row of large filing cabinets, which no doubt hold the remains of a hundred murders. Old, young, male, female. You suspect that most of the holding chambers are full, and shiver slightly. It is a place encased in death.
You look to your right. Ray is sat on a chair in the middle of the room, with his hands apparently bound. His nose is bloodied and his head rests on his chest. It is unclear whether he is alive or not.
In front of Ray, George is standing. He is talking to Keyes, who is also sat on a chair to the right of Ray, but is clearly still conscious. Though Keyes is clearly being addressed by George, his eyes are on Maria, who stands with her right arm wrapped tightly around Sonia's neck, and her left with a pistol pointed at the pretty girl's temple.
"DON'T FUCK WITH ME KEYES!"
You watch them. Don't you? You're watching them now. See, how Keyes turns his eyes towards George, a stony look of determination on his face. Has he woken from Sonia's siren call yet? Perhaps not. Ray still sits motionless.
"George, just..." Sonia strains the words out. There is a slick noise as Maria's grip tightens, and her words are cut off. George turns to Sonia, livid.
"YOU FUCKING BITCH!"
Ray launches himself off the chair, angles himself towards George, who turns slightly too late to react sufficiently. He puts out a hand, but Ray impacts it, sending them both sideways between Maria and Keyes, who similarly leaps out of the chair, grabbing his gun from George's pocket.
Freeze.
You are now three metres closer to them. George's knarled fist is about to roundhouse Ray, knocking him off of George's chest and towards Keyes. Keyes himself has managed to turn a hundred degrees and extend the gun towards Maria, who has done the same to him. Sonia is now in real danger of passing out.
Keyes' instincts as an officer have now coincided with his madness. The nine millimetre cartridge sitting in the chamber of the Beretta is all that seperates the situation from a messy end. He has exactly two hundredths of a second to decide whether to pull the trigger or not. After that, fate makes the decision for him as Ray collides with him, sending him off balance.
Maria has already made her decision. The adrenaline kick about to make the second cycle around her body has already tightened her left index finger around the trigger on the glock. In a few moments she will tighten it far enough to fire the weapon.
Her right arm, meanwhile, is beginning to restrict Sonia's airways. She will black out in one and a half seconds, and then die soon after if Maria's grip is not slackened.
You are witnessing five separate hostage situations. The police are not on their way. There is no superhero. There is barely even a hero. The endings branch out delicately into the future like a crystallising solution - you can see the potential, but to touch or realise any of them would be to destroy the rest.

But you've been blind, reader. You've seen so much. You know so much. But you've shut your eyes, and been so foolish. It is not Keyes who is trapped. Not is it George. They are merely constructs, the creations of idle men. The one who is trapped is you. For behind you, in the mortuary hallway, is the entity that creates this world and decides fate. He is holding a knife to your back and whispering words in your ear. He tells you things and you take them to be true. It was not Ray who was led helplessly along this track - how could he take any other path? Instead, it was you who was taken, dragged, forced through these events. You never questioned the purpose of the intelligence outfit Keyes worked for. You never protested against the findings of the forensics teams. You just sat there, and let the god of this world feed you reality.

The curtain falls.

fin