Prologue: The Weight of the Uniform
My alarm went off at six in the morning with all the delicacy of a fire alarm triggered inside my bedroom.
I groped around on the nightstand, hit an empty glass that rolled dangerously toward the edge, then slammed the button until the device got the message.
Silence returned.
Well, a New York version of silence.
Traffic was already rumbling several floors below. A neighbor was running his shower through plumbing that sounded as if it had been installed during the Civil War. Someone, somewhere in the building, was moving furniture with the determination of a man who had waited until six in the morning to declare war on his floorboards.
I stayed lying down for a few seconds, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
The damp stain above my bed had grown again.
Three months earlier, it had vaguely resembled Florida. Now it looked more like an obese dog lying on its side, which represented a questionable artistic progression.
I had planned to call the landlord.
Fine. "Planned" was a generous word. I thought about it regularly, which was almost the same thing, provided one was not too demanding with the concept of responsibility.
The alarm clock showed 6:03.
I closed my eyes again.
At 6:05, I opened them and got up before nine more minutes of sleep started to look like a reasonable decision.
The bathroom mirror told me nothing I did not already know.
Dark circles. Two-day beard. Hair flattened on the left side. The general expression of a man who would rather have been anywhere else, including in his own bed five minutes earlier.
At twenty-eight, I was beginning to suspect that splashing cold water on one's face did not actually repair lack of sleep. Years of movies, advertisements, and advice given by people who certainly went to bed before ten had lied to me.
I shaved, brushed my teeth, then put on my uniform.
Dark blue shirt. Matching trousers. Black tie. Polished boots. Security company patch sewn onto the shoulder.
I had ironed it the night before.
I always ironed my uniform.
The trousers. The sleeves. The tie, sometimes, though that required particular caution.
And, once or twice, certain socks.
No one looked at the socks. That was not the point.
The uniform was nothing impressive. No official badge. No gun. No real authority beyond the right to ask someone not to block an emergency exit or not to sleep in front of the bank doors.
It was not even very well tailored. The shirt pulled slightly at the shoulders, and the trousers had been designed by someone who harbored a personal hostility toward human hips.
And yet, every time I put it on, I stood a little straighter.
It was probably ridiculous.
It still worked.
I started the coffee and picked up the newspaper that had been slid under my door.
A shooting in Brooklyn took up half the front page. Lower down, an article discussed a series of burglaries and a gang the police had been looking for for several weeks.
New York truly did everything it could to make breakfast pleasant.
I folded the paper, grabbed a slice of toast, and bit into it at the exact moment the phone started ringing.
At that hour, the possibilities were limited.
Either someone was dead, or my mother had decided socially acceptable hours did not apply to her.
I picked up.
"Good morning, Mom."
"Frankie, were you already awake?"
I looked at my uniform, the steaming coffee, and the open newspaper in front of me.
"No. I answer the phone in my sleep."
"Very funny."
She did not find it funny.
My mother had a very particular way of pronouncing "very funny." It generally meant: I love you, but you are sometimes profoundly irritating.
"Your father wanted to know if you had thought about his offer."
"I thought about it."
"And?"
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
No one was dead. Only my career, once again.
"My answer hasn't changed since last time."
"You could at least come discuss it with him."
"We've already discussed it."
"Not seriously."
"He had prepared a chart."
A silence passed on the other end of the line.
My father liked charts. He believed an upward curve could solve any problem, from company profits to family conflict, including the general disappointment represented by his only son.
"He simply wanted to show you the opportunities available to you," she resumed.
"I understood the opportunities."
"Then why refuse?"
I drank a sip of coffee.
It was too hot. I burned my tongue, but I was already committed to this conversation, so I considered it an administrative punishment.
"Because I don't want to work at the company."
"You'd have a good position there."
"Exactly."
"I don't understand."
"Assistant vice president, Mom. I don't even know what an assistant vice president is supposed to do."
"You would learn."
"That is not as reassuring as you think."
She sighed.
I could almost see her in the kitchen of the family home, a cup in hand, already done up and dressed even though she probably had nothing scheduled before nine.
My parents belonged to that category of people who considered sleeping after sunrise a moral weakness.
"You have a degree," she said. "You know the company. The employees like you."
"The employees like me because I don't work with them."
"Frank."
"I'm only saying that could change."
"Your father wants to give you a chance."
"Dad wants to put me in an office and wait until I become a younger version of him."
"That's not fair."
"He at least hopes I'll wear the same suits."
She remained silent for a few seconds.
"You still want to join the police?"
The question was simple.
So was the answer.
"Yes."
"Even after the rejections?"
That one stung more.
I had taken the exam twice. Passed the written tests. Passed the physical tests. Answered absurd questions in front of panels that seemed to measure a man's moral worth by how he explained why he had received a ticket eight years earlier.
Then I had been rejected.
Too many candidates. Not enough spots. Better luck next time.
Polite phrases that simply meant: no.
"I'll try again."
"Your father thinks you're wasting your time."
"Dad thinks anything that doesn't generate quarterly profits is a form of mental illness."
"He doesn't think that."
"No. He also likes golf."
This time, I distinctly heard the laugh she tried to smother.
Small victory.
"We worry about you, Frankie," she resumed. "That's all. You work a lot for a salary that barely lets you pay for that apartment."
I raised my eyes toward the stain on the ceiling.
It had probably grown since I woke up. At this rate, it would soon end up paying part of the rent itself.
"My apartment has character."
"Your ceiling is molding."
"That's what gives it character."
"Frank."
"I'm fine, Mom."
That was my usual answer.
It had the advantage of being short and not completely false.
I was not rich. I did not know whether I would ever manage to join the police. My bank account contained no sum capable of impressing anyone, except possibly a six-year-old child.
But I had chosen this life.
Maybe that choice was bad. Maybe I was simply too proud to admit it. Maybe my father was right on some points, which remained a possibility I preferred not to examine before finishing my coffee.
At least the choice was mine.
"You're still coming to dinner on Sunday?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Your father is cooking."
"I'll bring medicine."
"He's improved."
"Does he still put raisins in the stuffing?"
She did not answer.
"I'll bring a lot of medicine."
She finally laughed.
"Be careful, Frankie."
"Always."
We hung up.
I finished my coffee, took my jacket, and went down into the street.
The neighborhood was waking slowly, or brutally depending on how close one stood to the metal shutters of the shops.
The morning air carried the smell of damp asphalt, coffee, and exhaust fumes. Taxis were already honking as if the city might fail to start without their active participation. A bus coughed a black cloud into the middle of the avenue. Someone shouted from a window that another man was a son of a bitch.
New York.
The city that never slept and was apparently in a bad mood because of it.
Mr. Patel was setting crates in front of his grocery store. Short, with a slightly bent back, he wore his eternal brown vest over a white shirt whose sleeves were rolled up to the elbows. He raised a hand when he saw me approaching.
"Officer Frank!"
"Still not an officer, Mr. Patel."
"You wear a uniform."
"So do movie theater employees."
"Movie theater employees never helped me fix my lock."
The day before, the door to his storage room had jammed. I had pushed it with my shoulder while he turned the key.
Since then, I had become a locksmith in his mind.
He took an apple from a crate and tossed it to me.
I barely caught it against my chest.
"For the road."
"I can pay for it."
"I know. But if I wait for you to voluntarily buy fruit, I'll be dead first."
I looked at the apple.
"Coffee comes from a plant."
"Go to work, Frank."
I slipped the fruit into my jacket pocket and kept walking.
Two teenagers were sitting on the steps of a building, their schoolbags abandoned at their feet. One of them was hiding something in his sleeve with all the discretion of a man trying to conceal a forest fire.
I slowed down.
"You know the smoke is still visible, right?"
"We're not doing anything, Frank."
"Then you're really bad at doing nothing."
The younger one removed a cigarette from his sleeve and crushed it under his shoe. His friend looked away while trying to appear innocent, which mostly made him look guilty of something else.
"You gonna tell our parents?" the first one asked.
"That depends. Are you planning to do it again tomorrow?"
They exchanged a look.
"No."
"Then I don't see what I could possibly tell them."
I walked away before they noticed I was smiling.
I knew most people in the neighborhood.
They knew my hours, my habits, and my mother's first name. They also knew I wanted to become a police officer, which apparently was enough for them to entrust me with their neighborhood problems, their jammed locks, and, once, a cat stuck on a gutter.
I had never managed to retrieve the cat.
It had come down on its own while I was looking for a ladder.
Its owner had thanked me anyway, which proved the expectations placed on me remained reasonably low.
I was two streets away from the bank when an old woman stepped onto the crosswalk, pushing a plaid shopping cart.
The light had just turned red.
She did not seem to notice.
Neither did the driver of the truck turning at the corner of the avenue.
I saw the vehicle before she did.
A large white mass, moving far too fast, driven by a guy looking to his left while the danger was very clearly in front of him. The truck was about twenty meters away. Maybe less. Close enough for the rumble of the engine to nearly cover the sounds of the street.
I dropped my apple and grabbed the woman by the arm.
I probably pulled harder than necessary.
She tipped against me with her cart just as the truck passed in front of us in a howl of horn. The vehicle's draft snapped the panels of my jacket and pushed my tie over my shoulder.
The truck braked several meters farther on.
The driver stuck his head out the window and shouted something.
I could not make out the words, but the tone indicated he had a creative interpretation of the traffic code and of his own responsibilities.
I answered him with a finger.
Not the most diplomatic one.
"You could have broken my arm," the old woman protested.
I looked down.
My hand was still gripping her coat.
I let go immediately.
"Sorry."
She looked at the truck, then at the road where she would have been if I had not pulled.
The anger slowly left her face.
"You saved my life."
"Then we're even for the arm."
She stared at me for a second, then let out a small trembling laugh. Both her hands closed around the handle of her cart.
"Thank you, young man."
"At least wait for the light to turn green before crossing this time."
"I'm not senile."
"I didn't say that."
"You thought it."
"I work in security. I think a lot of things I don't say."
I walked her to the other side of the street and waited until she reached the sidewalk.
When I retraced my steps, my apple was split open on the asphalt, crushed on one side by a wheel.
I was strangely upset by that.
It was ridiculous. I had probably just prevented a woman from being run over, but part of my brain remained focused on the free fruit I would not get to eat.
Human beings truly were remarkable creatures.
I threw the apple into a trash can and checked my watch.
I was going to be late.
Well, no.
I had seventeen minutes left to cover two streets. But I usually arrived twenty minutes early, which meant that by my personal standards, the situation already qualified as an emergency.
First National Bank occupied the corner of the avenue in a building of pale stone and glass. Four columns framed the main entrance. Behind the tall windows, the marble lobby shone beneath chandeliers too imposing for their own good. There was enough gilding to convince clients their money was in the hands of serious people, or at least people capable of paying someone to clean a great deal of gilding.
I went through the staff entrance at 6:45.
Paul, the night guard, was sitting in the security office, feet on the desk and a cup of black coffee in his hands.
The drink looked thick enough to repair my ceiling.
Paul was a little over fifty, with a stomach that put his buttons under serious strain and a gray mustache of which he was far too proud. He looked at the wall clock, then at me.
"I thought you were sick."
"I had a traffic problem."
"You walk here."
"That's what makes the situation particularly worrying."
He grunted as he removed his feet from the desk, then handed me the radio.
"Nothing to report. The rear alarm tripped again around three."
"The same sensor?"
"The same damn sensor."
"Did you notify maintenance?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"They said they'd send someone."
We looked at each other.
"So no one will come," I concluded.
"Probably never."
I quickly went through the log. Apart from the faulty sensor, the night had been quiet.
"Go home and sleep before you collapse."
"I already tried sleeping standing up. Bad idea."
He put on his jacket, slapped me on the shoulder, and shuffled out.
I began my pre-opening round.
Doors. Cameras. Emergency exits. Fire extinguishers. Access to the office corridor. Technical room lock.
I checked everything twice because I always checked everything twice, even elements that had no reason to change between two inspections spaced thirty seconds apart.
The rear sensor was indeed blinking.
I tested it, checked the corresponding door, then noted the fault in the log. This would allow management to continue ignoring it while possessing a written record proving they ignored it in an organized manner.
When I returned to the lobby, Claire had arrived.
She stood behind the reception counter, brown hair tied in a ponytail and a pencil tucked behind one ear. She wore a cream blouse under a dark jacket, and was sorting a stack of forms beside the "WORLD'S BEST RECEPTIONIST" mug I had given her for her birthday.
She had laughed for almost five minutes when she discovered it.
I still had not understood whether she had found it funny or simply awful.
She raised her eyes to me and frowned slightly.
"What happened to you?"
I stopped.
"Nothing. Why?"
"Your tie."
I looked down.
It was crooked.
Very slightly.
Barely.
I immediately put it back in place.
"I nearly got hit by a truck."
"And your tie is what worries you?"
"The truck left. The tie is still here."
"Your priorities are fascinating."
"They are very well organized."
Claire shook her head, her lips already stretching into a smile.
"One day, you're going to end up ironing your socks."
I did not answer.
Her smile froze.
Then slowly faded.
"Frank."
"What?"
"Do you iron your socks?"
"Only some."
She stared at me as if I had just confessed to keeping corpses in my kitchen.
"What does that mean, 'only some'?"
"Dress socks."
She burst out laughing and had to place a hand on the counter. Several employees turned their heads in our direction. Claire tried to catch her breath, looked at me again, then started laughing all over again.
I smiled despite myself.
I liked making her laugh.
I probably liked too many things about her, which explained why I had been thinking for months about the best way to ask her out and why I had still done nothing.
Every time the opportunity presented itself, my brain convened an emergency meeting, examined all possible consequences, and voted unanimously in favor of retreat.
"What time do you finish?" I asked.
"Six p.m. Why?"
There.
A perfectly simple question.
All I had to do was ask her to go for a drink. Men had done this sort of thing since the joint invention of beverages and bad decisions.
It was statistically impossible for it to be as complicated as I thought.
"For closing," I answered. "I need to know who will still be here."
Claire tilted her head slightly.
"Of course."
"It's important for security."
"Obviously."
"Exactly."
She waited.
I said nothing.
Her right eyebrow rose.
"You're really bad at this game, Frank."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Of course not."
She returned to her forms, still smiling.
I returned to my post, wondering whether it was possible to die of shame and pass it off as a workplace accident.
Tonight.
I would ask her tonight.
Not tomorrow. Not the following week. Not after establishing a twelve-step plan including market research, several fallback scenarios, and an evacuation route.
Tonight, at six o'clock, I would ask her to go for a drink.
She would accept or she would refuse.
In either case, the Earth would probably keep turning.
The morning was perfectly ordinary.
A child triggered the alarm on an emergency exit by leaning on the bar. A man spent twenty minutes explaining to an employee that bank fees violated the Constitution. A woman asked me where the restrooms were while standing directly in front of the sign pointing to them.
Security work was mainly made up of long periods during which nothing happened, interrupted by very short periods during which something stupid occurred.
Around eleven o'clock, I noticed the man sitting in the waiting area.
I had already seen him, of course.
He had entered shortly after opening and sat on one of the benches near the east wall. Dark cap pulled down over his forehead, gray jacket too thick for the temperature of the lobby, cheap shoes worn at the sides.
People waited in banks. It was practically the building's main activity.
The problem was that he had been waiting for almost three hours.
He had filled out no form. He had asked for no information. Two employees had offered to help him, but he had said he was waiting for someone.
Maybe that was true.
Maybe his mysterious appointment was simply three hours late and had a particularly relaxed relationship with respect for others.
But he almost never looked at the door.
He watched the cameras.
The hallway leading to the administrative offices.
The counters.
The side exit.
Me.
His right leg moved constantly. His shoulders were tense, and his hands stayed in the pockets of his jacket despite the heat.
Something was wrong.
It was not a supernatural revelation. Not the legendary instinct of the police officer I was not. Only several small details that, taken separately, did not mean much, but together formed an image I did not like at all.
I slowly left my post to move closer to the entrance, while bringing the radio to my mouth.
"Front desk to security. Suspicious individual in the..."
The man stood.
His hand came out of his jacket with a pistol.
"Drop that."
His voice was calm.
Not truly calm.
It was the voice of a man who had rehearsed that sentence several times before coming and hoped never to have to improvise a second one.
I dropped the radio.
The doors opened behind me.
Two other men entered the lobby, faces covered. The first held a shotgun against his chest. The second had a pistol in one hand and a large black duffel bag in the other.
They split up immediately upon entering.
That detail struck me.
They knew where to go.
The man with the shotgun took two steps toward the center of the lobby, raised his weapon, and fired into the ceiling.
The explosion filled the entire space.
The sound had nothing to do with movies. It was brutal, compact, almost physical. I felt it in my chest and all the way into my teeth. Plaster burst above us and fell back onto the marble in white dust.
For half a second, no one moved.
As if all our brains needed the same instant to accept what had just happened.
Then the screams began.
"Everybody on the ground!" shouted the man with the shotgun. "Hands where we can see them!"
Customers threw themselves to the floor. A woman knocked over a chair while backing away. An employee stood frozen behind his counter until his colleague grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him down.
I stayed standing one second too long.
The man in the cap pointed his weapon at my chest.
"You too, guard. On the ground."
I briefly looked at my baton.
A baton against three firearms.
Even the stupidest action movies would have rejected that scenario.
I slowly lay down on my stomach and placed my hands behind my head. My cheek touched the cold marble. The smell of dust and cleaning product filled my nostrils.
The man approached, ripped the radio from my belt, and sent it sliding under a desk. Then he removed my baton and threw it several meters away.
"No bullshit," he said. "No heroes."
That was not likely to happen.
My heart was pounding against my ribs so violently I could almost feel my uniform move with each beat.
I had imagined this kind of situation dozens of times.
Not voluntarily. But when one worked in a bank while nurturing a frustrated desire to join the police, imagination inevitably ended up producing a few scenarios.
In those scenarios, I was calm.
I noticed everything. I found an opening. I subdued one of the robbers and bought enough time for the police to intervene.
Reality was less flattering.
I was afraid.
Not a noble fear. Not controlled tension hidden behind a steel gaze.
An animal fear that dried my mouth, stiffened my shoulders, and made my limbs too heavy. Every sound of a weapon, every shoe striking the floor, every breath too loud seemed to announce the moment someone would make an irreversible mistake.
I wanted to disappear into the marble.
I wanted a more competent man to enter the building and handle the problem in my place.
Two of the robbers seized the manager and dragged him toward the vault corridor. When he tried to explain that the opening mechanism took time, the man with the shotgun struck him in the face with the stock.
The manager collapsed against the wall before they hauled him back up by the arms.
The third stayed in the lobby to watch the hostages.
The man in the cap.
Up close, he looked young. Twenty, maybe less. Pale skin marked by a few pimples, a too-thin jaw, almost no beard. His shoulders rose and fell quickly. His hand trembled around the pistol grip, and his gaze constantly jumped from one hostage to another.
He was probably just as afraid as we were.
The difference was that he had a gun.
I slowly turned my head.
Claire was lying a few meters away from me, behind her counter. Her hands covered the back of her neck, and her face was almost pressed to the floor. Forms were scattered around her.
She was breathing too fast.
Our eyes met.
I would have liked to make her understand that everything would be all right.
I had absolutely no idea.
A child began to cry near the entrance. His mother held him against her and murmured something into his hair.
"Silence!" the young robber shouted.
The crying lessened, but did not stop.
He walked between the hostages, waving his gun. The barrel passed from one person to another without him even seeming to realize it. His index finger remained on the trigger.
He controlled nothing.
Not the lobby. Not the hostages. Not his own fear.
The more he tried to look threatening, the more obvious his panic became.
Then he stopped in front of Claire.
Her breathing was now producing small strangled sounds. She was trying to hold them back, which only made things worse. Her fingers clenched against the back of her neck.
"Stop that," he said.
Claire brought a hand to her mouth.
She could not stop.
"I said stop!"
He grabbed her by the shoulder and forced her to turn over.
She screamed.
The pistol ended up a few centimeters from her face.
I raised my head.
"Hey."
The young man turned toward me.
"Shut up."
"She's having a panic attack. Let her breathe."
I do not know why I thought logic would work.
Maybe because I needed to do something, and talking was the only option that did not seem to immediately cause my death.
"I said shut up!"
His foot struck me in the ribs.
The pain cut off my breath and made me roll onto my side. For several seconds, I could do nothing but search for air, my stomach muscles clenched around a burning void.
"Frank," Claire breathed.
The robber turned back toward her.
"You shut up too!"
She tried.
I saw her inhale, clench her teeth, and fight her own body. But panic attacks were not known for their respect for orders given under the threat of a gun.
Another sob escaped her.
The young man looked toward the vault.
His accomplices still had not returned.
"Fuck..."
He passed his free hand over his face.
His gun now trembled enough for me to see it from the floor.
Claire inhaled sharply.
He raised his arm.
Maybe he only meant to hit her.
Maybe he was going to shoot.
There was certainly a smarter version of myself that would have waited to know for sure, judged the distance, observed his balance, and prepared a real attack.
That version was not present.
I got up and threw myself at him.
My shoulder struck his stomach. He folded around me with a muffled cry, and we crashed into Claire's counter. Her mug fell, shattered against the marble, and sent coffee over the forms scattered around us.
The pistol went off.
The detonation burst right next to my ear.
The world disappeared under a high-pitched ringing.
The robber punched me in the face. My lip split against my teeth, and the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth.
He tried to bring his weapon back toward me.
I grabbed his wrist with both hands.
He was younger.
I was heavier.
It was not a sophisticated combat technique, but gravity had always been a reliable ally.
We rolled on the floor. His elbow dug into my throat. I tightened my fingers around his wrist, pinned his forearm against the marble, and struck.
Once.
He groaned and tried to shove me away with his knee.
I struck a second time.
His fingers opened.
The pistol fell between us.
I seized it before he did, backed onto my knees, and pointed the weapon in his direction.
"Don't move."
My voice trembled so much the order could have been comical under other circumstances.
I was holding a gun for the first time since the few sessions at the shooting range I had taken years earlier.
It was heavy.
Hot.
Far too real between my hands.
The young robber looked at me with enormous eyes. His breath passed quickly between his parted lips.
He was no longer an armed man.
Only a terrified kid lying on the floor.
"Don't move," I repeated.
For an instant, the entire lobby seemed to hold its breath.
Then the hallway doors opened.
The two other robbers were returning, bags swollen with bills thrown over their shoulders.
The one carrying the shotgun saw his accomplice on the floor.
Then he saw me with the pistol.
I moved the barrel toward him.
I wanted to order him to drop his weapon.
I did not even have time to open my mouth.
The first shot hit me in the shoulder.
I pivoted under the impact.
The pain did not come immediately. Only a monstrous force that threw me to the side and tore the weapon out of alignment.
The second shot entered beneath my ribs.
This time, I felt something.
Not exactly pain.
More a brutal heat that crossed my side, drained the strength from my legs, and turned my breathing into a useless motion.
I fell onto my back.
The ceiling appeared above me, with the black hole left by the first gunshot.
White dust was still floating in the chandelier light, like especially unwelcome snow.
People were screaming.
So were the robbers.
They pulled their accomplice up and ran for the exit. One of them passed close enough for me to make out the ribbed sole of his shoe and a dark splash on his jeans.
No one fired again.
The door slammed behind them.
Then the lobby exploded into motion.
Customers got up. Someone was calling the police. A woman was screaming that they needed an ambulance. A man was asking where the first aid kit was while it was mounted on the wall directly behind him.
I tried to breathe.
That was a bad idea.
The pain arrived all at once, deep, burning, devouring. Something warm was spreading beneath my shirt and running down my side.
My beautiful, perfectly ironed uniform.
Ruined.
I found that strangely insulting.
Claire appeared above me and dropped to her knees. Her face was pale, her hair had come loose from its ponytail, and several strands clung to her damp cheeks.
Her hands pressed against my chest and side.
"Frank."
Her voice broke on my name.
"Frank, look at me."
I was already looking at her.
She pressed harder on the wound.
The pain became so intense that my vision whitened for a moment. My back arched against my will, and a strangled sound came out of my throat.
"Sorry," she breathed. "Sorry, but I have to press. Has someone called an ambulance?"
Several people answered at the same time.
I understood nothing.
Claire had blood on her hands.
My blood.
Which was probably the worst possible way to finally manage to hold her hand.
"You're going to make it," she said. "Do you hear me? They're coming. Stay with me."
People always said that kind of thing in movies.
The wounded person nodded. The ambulance arrived. After a sufficiently moving hospital scene, everyone went home with an impressive scar and a new appreciation for life.
I did not feel like it was going to happen that way.
I tried to speak.
Only a breath came out of my mouth.
"Don't talk," Claire ordered.
For once that I had something important to say, she chose that exact moment to become authoritarian.
"Claire..."
She leaned toward me.
"I'm here."
"I wanted..."
My breathing locked.
I had to wait several seconds before I managed to draw in a little air. Even that gave me the impression a blade was rising between my ribs.
"You'll tell me later."
"Tonight..."
Her face was beginning to lose its edges.
I blinked and managed to bring it back into focus.
"I wanted to ask you if..."
I could not finish.
Claire stared at me.
Then she understood.
I saw it in her eyes, in the way her brows drew together and her mouth trembled before she managed to smile.
"Yes, Frank."
I did not know whether she was telling the truth.
Maybe she would have accepted.
Maybe she would have gently refused before spending the following weeks pretending it did not make every one of our conversations profoundly strange.
Maybe she was simply saying yes because I was dying on the floor in front of her.
It did not seem very important anymore.
"Yes," she repeated. "We'll go out together. Wherever you want. But you have to stay with me, okay?"
I tried to smile.
I did not know whether my face still obeyed.
A siren sounded in the distance.
I thought of my mother.
Of course I thought of her.
She had asked me to be careful less than five hours earlier, which was going to make her right in a way neither of us would have appreciated.
I also thought of my father.
Of his company.
Of Sunday dinner.
Of the stuffing with raisins I would no longer be able to complain about.
Of my apartment, the moldy ceiling, and the landlord I had never called.
Of all those insignificant things that suddenly became incredibly precious because I would no longer have to endure them.
My gaze lowered to my uniform.
The blue fabric was almost black around the wounds.
I had spent years wanting to become a police officer.
Imagining myself wearing a real uniform.
Doing something that mattered.
Becoming the kind of man who ran toward danger while others moved away from it.
The truth was that I had not run toward danger.
Not really.
I had been afraid from the first second. I had obeyed. I had lain down on the floor, hoping no one would notice how badly my hands were shaking.
Then Claire had been threatened, and I had moved before my fear could hold me back.
Maybe that was not courage.
Maybe courage was not a quality one possessed permanently. Maybe it was only a stupid decision made at the right moment, when staying still became worse than everything else.
I had never gotten the badge.
I had not arrested any criminal.
I had not saved the city.
The robbers had even left with the money.
But Claire was alive.
So was the child near the door.
No one else had been shot.
It was little.
It was enough.
Claire removed one hand from my chest and placed it against my cheek. Her fingers were warm and slippery.
"Stay with me, Frank."
I wanted to promise her.
I had always been fairly good at making promises I thought I could keep.
This one would have been a lie.
The siren drew closer, but Claire's voice seemed to drift farther away. The ceiling lights lost their outlines, and her face became the only thing still clear in my field of vision.
My last thought was neither heroic nor particularly profound.
I really should have asked her out sooner.
Then everything went dark.