Great, he thought, having arrived at the first 400 building. He was proud that he’d come so close to the delivery address, his first try.

He chained the bike to the low iron railing that bordered the playground area, double-checking the address on the receipt. He undid the takeout from the rear carrier, and went across to Number 444.

When he entered the lobby he heard Christmas music playing somewhere, drifting down through the elevator shaft, carried along with the faint smell of urine and feces. He tapped the elevator button, measured his breathing, and considered having to make change for the customer.

The elevator door opened with a sound of scraping metal. He instinctively peeped inside, making sure it was empty before stepping in with the bags of food, knuckling the button for the fourteenth floor.

The floor numbers lit up as he was carried aloft, floating on the Christmas music, thinking about the Chinese Club party, and how late he was going to be . . .

On This Holy Night

The windy blasts from the East River had pummeled Jack every breath of the four long and dark blocks through the Alphabets—Avenues A, B, C, D—the frigid gusts shrieking and driving the flurries sideways.

Avenue A was deserted except for a few lonely neon lights in scattered storefronts.

He went past open lots, and areas set off by wire fences, filled with debris, car parts, garbage, all partly frosted by the snow.

Avenue B began with derelict buildings. A bus pulled away in the distance, too much of a sprint for him even in good weather. He crossed over, walking along the tracks of the bus tires, until he was able to cut across the park at Tompkins Square.

Walking from Avenue C to D, the wind tore at him with icy claws. His fingers got numb, and when he touched his Colt, he felt the frozen metal burn. He took quick breaths and blew on his hands. Almost to the corner, he could see the Riis Houses stretching outward above him. Some bunker-shaped buildings were only six stories tall, others beyond looked like fifteen flights or more. From what he remembered of his precinct review, the Riis consisted of nineteen red-brick towers lining Avenue D, built after World War Two, in part, to provide jobs and homes for returning war veterans.

The Riis Projects were once the most infamous of low-rent communities. Thirteen thousand apartments, currently still a significant source of the crimes that challenged the 0-Nine, still one of the meanest neighborhoods in the country.

He tapped the number on the delivery receipt into his cell phone. It went to voicemail again and he hung up. Miller, Das . . .

The building numbers ran down, south along the avenue. He was in the thousands and he figured another five blocks, somewhere around East Fifth then, leading him back toward the stationhouse.

The lighting was unnatural, especially where the yellow of the street lamps arcing overhead ran up against the black night sky. Nothing was clear, everything appeared in a flat monochrome, and his imagination created things that weren’t there. The streets ahead were all shadows and the skeletal overhang of trees. To his left, he saw the backboards of basketball courts, and in the middle view beyond, the overpasses of the FDR Drive pointing to Brooklyn far in the distance. To his right, a run of bodegas, fried-chicken joints, a deli—all closed now behind the blinding veil of snow, and everywhere, covering everything, the dim yellow wash of the chromium light.

He didn’t want to take it lightly, missing persons being what it was, but he also wanted to keep an open mind. Until proven otherwise. Trying to be objective, to keep his emotions out of it. It was mostly the mother’s fears that drove the situation, but he felt the father wasn’t sure. Scared, but unsure. It wouldn’t be the first time a high-school kid, a teenager, did something he shouldn’t have.

He marched forward, following the building numbers down.

Somewhere around Fourth Street, the last building, the address came up. He went toward the courtyard, wondering if P.O. Wong had found anything. Probably the kid’s back at the takeout already . . .

Twenty yards in, he could make out the shape of a bicycle next to a railing, and getting closer, the building, Number 444. He decided to check the bike before trying the phone again. In the yellow light he saw where the heavy chain had obliterated the manufacturer’s logo, a beat-down bike, cheap, its skin a scarred generic black. Some sort of modified carrier over the back tire. The bike leaned against the railing, held there by a big lock. When he brushed the snow off and rubbed away the tarnish, he could see that the clunky lock bore a Chinese character sing, for star.

He quickly scanned the courtyard grounds but saw not a soul. Fresh falling snow covered all tracks. He dialed the Miller number again, got voice mail again, and hung up. Still, could be anybody’s bike, he told himself as he went toward the building.

Inside the lobby it was warm. He was glad to be out of the snow and wind. He stopped to catch his breath, but the air was foul. He heard Nat King Cole crooning a Christmas song through the PA system, and he tapped the elevator button, hoping the smell in there wouldn’t be worse. The door scraped open. The smell was more garbage than human waste, and he tapped the button for Fourteen, measuring his breath through his mouth, Nat King Cole fading below him. He unzipped his jacket. Thinning his breaths past six, nine, to fourteen.

The door screeched open. A loud raucous hip-hop beat filled the long corridor, some rapper he didn’t know, angry and cussin’ about nigga dis, an nigga dat. . . . Fourteen D was left? Right? He followed the beat, a,b,c,d, into the corner, the strong smell of reefer bringing him around the bend.

The smell concentrated around 14D, though he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t seeping from one of the adjacent apartments, or if someone had puffed some quick hits in the dead end. He knocked on the door firmly, three times. When he heard the hip-hop turn down a notch he said, “Police, need to ask about . . .”

“Who?”

“Police. You had a food delivery recently . . .”

“Delivery? Nah, man, dat was uh hour ago.”

“Could you open up, please?” Jack brushed his jacket back, cleared the draw to his holster.

“Yo!” the voice barked. “Chop suey, we busy up in here! STEP THE FUCK OFF!” The hip-hop beat boomed back up.

That did it for Jack. “Open the door!” he yelled. “Police!” He pounded on it, pulled out his Colt, and brought it up as the door opened.

“Don’t understand English, muthafucka?” The man’s jaw dropped when he saw Jack’s gun. “Yo, chill,” he said with red ganja eyes. “Yo, chill, chill, yo, chill, yo.” His friend in the red do-rag brought his hands up above his head as Jack backed him into the dark apartment, the rap beat booming out into the corridor’s dead end.

Jack couldn’t see a wall switch. He yelled, “Turn the lights on!” a split second before he saw a brown flash, a pit bull lunging into the air at him. He twisted his body, folding himself down. A praying mantis.

The man in the red do-rag grabbed a baseball bat and swung as Jack dropped, pegging a shot even as he felt the dog’s jaws clamp down on his left forearm, the frenzied pit bull’s jerking, snarling head drooling blood and spittle.

Screaming, Jack jammed the Colt’s barrel into the mad dog’s ear and fired, splattering brain matter and blood as the animal suddenly went slack, its eyes still open. Jack rolled, his chest heaving, his heart hammering. He heard things smashing, then saw the bat come around a second time, splintering the wood table. He squeezed off two rounds, one of the bullets going through the bottom of the table. The man was falling backward. There was a big crash and then the screaming hip-hop stopped.