Body Surfing

expected.
     
    “Daddy?”
    On the corner of 60th and York Avenue, Sue Miller stared at the cable car coming in off Roosevelt Island. For some reason she couldn’t sit up. She wasn’t sure why. It just seemed like, well, like she couldn’t move.
    “Daddy, are you there?”
    Still, it was a warm evening. The air smelled good and green. Wet.Whatever she was lying on was comfy. She wanted to touch herself but she couldn’t move her hands.
    “It’s okay, Daddy. I’ll be good. I promise.”
    Her daddy didn’t like it when she touched herself. Down there. Like that. But it felt so good! Sometimes she just couldn’t help it. Daddy shouldn’t have come in when she was taking a bath anyway.
    “I won’t do it anymore, Daddy. I promise.”
    Someone in the cable car waved. She couldn’t wave back, but she smiled at the angels. Angels in a box waving down at her.
    A tugboat blew its horn on the East River.
    “Toot toot!” Sue chortled. “Toot toot!”
    Just then a car came too fast off the FDR and clipped the foot of her gurney. Sue spun round and round and round. The lights of the city whirled above her glazed eyes like a kaleidoscope.
    “Phlox!” she cackled through her smeared smile. “Toot toot! Toot toot!”

18
    J .D. Thomas drove a 1933 Pierce-Arrow limousine that had once been owned by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Or maybe Theodore. Q. forgot more or less as soon as the doctor told him. The doctor’s car was fifteen feet long, could seat six people in the cavernous back compartment. The two men rode up front however, where the doctor gripped the enormous steering wheel as though piloting an old-fashioned sailing ship through rough seas.
    “You were expecting a chauffeur?” Dr. Thomas said. “Maybe one with an allergy to nuts?”
     
    The enormous car cruised up First Avenue. After ten blocks of silence, Q. said,
    “Um, nice ride.”
    “Why thank you, Q. The shell’s authentic, but the engine and the chassis and those kinds of things are new. Cannibalized from a BMW or a Chrysler or something. I love the way these old cars look, but, you know, they don’t really drive all that well, unless you make a few adjustments.” He patted the leather-trimmed steering wheel. “This baby will do zero to sixty in just over five seconds.”
    Q. stared at his driver for a long time. Then:
    “So, uh, are you going to tell me what happened back there?”
     
    Q. had looked over the railing. Had seen the paramedic’s body nine stories down, arms and legs askew on the staved-in roof of what looked like a Town Car. But by the time he and the doctor made it outside, the man was gone. Admittedly, they’d had to take the stairs because the elevator wouldn’t move unless the security gate was closed, and the one the paramedic had kicked in wouldn’t budge. They’d also lingered in the lobby, where Dr. Thomas clumsily reloaded the shotgun—he put the shells in backward at first—and Q. tried not to stare at Ramon, the night man, who lay behind the desk in a pool of blood, naked except for his underwear. But even so, Q. didn’t see how five minutes could make a difference. Dr. Thomas had shot the paramedic in the chest. Twice . The man had fallen nine stories . He should not be gone . But he was. The only signs that he’d been there were the blood that filled the collapsed roof of the Town Car, smeared footprints that tracked through the carpet of broken glass spread over the sidewalk.
    The doctor dropped the car in park. He regarded Q. over the barrel of the shotgun that sat between them on the wide leather seat, still emitting the faint tang of gunpowder.
    “I can help you, Q. But you must drop the pretense of ignorance.”
    “Hey, look. You just broke into my parents’ apartment and shot a man off the terrace—”
    “That was not a man . And you know it.”
    “What was it then? A Mogran ?”
    Q. started. He had meant to say “demon,” but instead that other word came out.
    Just then a busted-up ambulance squealed around the corner and roared up First Avenue. The two men sat in silence until it was gone, Q. nervously fingering the door handle, the doctor tapping out a staccato rhythm on the steering wheel. After the siren had faded, he put the car in gear and pulled away from the intersection.
    “Answer one question for me, Q. Where did that word come from? Mogran. Or Anschluss for that matter?”
    “That’s two questions,” Q. said. But that was all he said.
     
    The doctor stored his car in a