The City of Mirrors
Page 32

“I’m not the one who missed those. That was Jaxon’s section.”
“It’s yours now.”
“Fine,” the boy huffed. “Whatever you say.”
Jock unclipped his harness, scrambled up the ladder to the uppermost cleat, and wedged his pry bar under one of the tiles. As he lifted the mallet to strike, Peter realized he was straight above them.
“Wait a sec—”
The tile popped free. It sang past, narrowly missing Foto’s head.
“You idiot!”
“Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
“Where did you think we were?” Foto said. “You did that on purpose. And clip in, for Christ’s sake.”
“It was an accident,” Jock said. “Calm down. You’ll have to move.”
They shifted to the side. Jock finished up and had begun to climb down when Peter heard a pop. Jock let out a yelp. A second pop, and with a loud clatter the ladder rocketed down the roof with Jock still attached. At the last second he lunged clear and began to slide down the roof on his belly. After his first cry, he hadn’t made a sound. His hands were madly searching for something to grab hold of, his toes digging into the tiles to slow his descent. Nobody had ever fallen that Peter knew of. Suddenly this seemed not possible but inevitable; Jock was the one chosen.
Ten feet from the edge his body halted. His hand had found something: a rusty spike.
“Help!”
Peter unclipped and scrambled down to the lowest cleat. Gripping a bracket, he leaned out. “Take my hand.”
The boy was frozen with terror. His right hand was clutching the spike, his left gripping the edge of a tile. Every inch of him was pressed to the surface.
“If I move I’ll fall.”
“No, you won’t.”
Far below, people had stopped on the street to look.
“Foto, toss me my safety line,” Peter said.
“It won’t reach. I’ll have to reset the anchor.”
The spike was bending under Jock’s weight. “Oh God, I’m slipping!”
“Stop squirming. Foto, hurry up with that rope.”
Down it came. Peter had no time to clip in; the boy was about to fall. As Foto pulled the line taut through the block, Peter wrapped it around his forearm and lunged toward Jock. The spike broke loose; Jock began to slide.
“I’ve got you!” Peter yelled. “Hold on!”
Peter had him by the wrist. Jock’s feet were inches from the edge.
“Find something to grip,” Peter said.
“There’s nothing!”
Peter didn’t know how much longer he could hold him. “Foto, can you pull us up?”
“You’re too heavy!”
“Tie it off and get down here with some brackets.”
A small crowd had gathered on the street. Many were pointing upward. The distance to the ground had enlarged, becoming an infinite space that would swallow them whole. A few seconds passed; then Foto was moving across the cleat above them.
“What do you want me to do?”
Peter said, “Jock, there’s a small lip at the edge just below you. Try to find it with your feet.”
“It’s not there!”
“Yes, it is—I’m looking right at it.”
A moment later, Jock said, “Okay, got it.”
“Take a deep breath, okay? I’m going to have to let you go for a second.”
Jock tightened his grip on Peter’s wrist. “Are you kidding me?”
“I can’t get you up unless I do. Just lie still. I guarantee, the lip will hold you if you don’t move.”
The man had no choice. Slowly he released his grip.
“Foto, toss me a bracket.”
Peter caught it with his free hand, wedged it under a seam in the tiles, removed a nail from his tool belt, and pressed it into the gap until it bit. Three strokes of the mallet drove it home. He set the second nail, then lowered himself a few feet.
“Toss me another.”
“Please,” Jock moaned, “hurry.”
“Deep breaths. This will all be over in a minute.”
Peter set three more brackets in place. “Okay, carefully reach up and to your left. Got it?”
Jock’s hand gripped the bracket. “Yeah. Jesus.”
“Now pull yourself up to the next one. Take your time—there’s no hurry.”
Bracket by bracket, Jock ascended. Peter followed him up. Jock was sitting on the cleat, gulping water from a canteen. Peter crouched beside him.
“Okay?”
Jock nodded vaguely. His face was pale, his hands trembling.
“Just take a minute,” Peter said.
“Hell, take the whole day,” said Foto. “Take the rest of your life.”
Jock was staring into space. Though he wasn’t really seeing anything, Peter guessed.
“Try to relax,” Peter said.
Jock glanced down at Peter’s harness. “You weren’t clipped in?”
“There wasn’t time.”
“So you just…did all that. Holding the rope.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
Jock looked away. “I thought I was dead for sure.”
—
“You know what gets me?” Foto said. “That little shit didn’t even thank you.”
They’d knocked off early; the two of them were sitting on the front steps, passing a flask. They’d seen the last of Jock; he’d turned in his tool belt and walked off.