“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.
“That was smart, with the brackets,” Foto continued. “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”
“You might have. I just got there first.”
“That kid is fucking lucky, is all I have to say. And look at you, not even rattled.”
It was true: he’d felt invincible, his mind perfectly focused, his thoughts clear as ice. In fact, there was no lip at the edge of the roof; the surface was perfectly smooth. I make you see the game the way I need you to.
Foto capped the flask and got to his feet. “So I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Actually, I think that’s it for me,” Peter said.
Foto stared at him, then gave a quiet chuckle. “Anybody else, I’d figure they were worried about getting killed. You’d probably like it if somebody fell every day so you could catch them. What will you do instead?”
“Somebody’s offered me a job. I thought I wasn’t interested, but maybe I am.”
The man nodded evenly. “Whatever it is, it’s got to be more interesting than this. It’s true what they say about you.” They shook hands. “Good luck to you, Jaxon.”
Peter watched him go, then walked to the capitol. As he entered Sanchez’s office, she glanced up from her papers.
“Mr. Jaxon. That was fast. I thought I was going to have to work a little harder.”