Several minutes after the scheduled meeting time I heard someone walking up the ramp. He came around the corner into the light. He was a thin, dark man, his skin the color of old asphalt. He was wearing an open green military coat and khaki pants that sagged below his waist. A black nylon shirt hugged his sinewy upper body. He had on white high-top sneakers with no socks. I wondered if that was a drug-world fashion statement. His hair was close-cropped, and he had a short beard. He paused and looked around. “Stone?”

I stayed in the shadows. “Yeah.” He turned toward my voice and saw me. “Who are you?”

“Amram. I’m Amram.”

I kept my hand on Mighty Chair’s control module. I had several options available if needed. I moved a few feet closer. “What do you need from me?”

He waved his empty hands. “I need you to help me.” It was as much a demand as a plea.

“Tell me who’s after you.”

His tongue ran across his lips. He moved closer, walking in the center of the ramp. Cars were parked diagonally on either side of him. He was about twenty feet away. “The drug guys. They want their money. The government people too. The FBI come to my sister’s house. They tell her they lookin’ for me.”

I heard a car winding slowly up the ramp. “Were you living there?”

“That was my house,” Amram said loudly and defiantly, angrily pointing his index finger toward me. “My house. But we weren’t no terrorists in there. No fucking way. Those are crazy fuckers, those terrorists. I heard them when they call me a terrorist, and I think, What the fuck, man? you know. I’m Muslim, right?” He sneered at the insult. “So I gotta be a terrorist. I’m telling you the truth, Stone, we had the drugs. We come to New York…”

The squeal of tires twisting on damp cement caught our attention. We both turned. A black SUV careened around the corner, its engine roaring. Amram turned. The SUV accelerated. “Run!” I screamed. By the time he understood what was happening, it was too late. The SUV plowed into him, flinging him into the air. With a horrific thud, his body slammed into the rear of a parked white van. The back of his head smashed against its rear window, his blood spattering across the rear gate. His body dropped to the cement floor. He lay there faceup, eyes open, mouth open. Rivulets of blood winding down the gate dripped onto his face like melting red icicles.

The SUV raced past me, the parked cars preventing the killer from angling into me. The SUV’s windows were deeply tinted, so I couldn’t see the driver. It skidded to a stop at the end of the fourth-floor ramp, its rear end rising like a bucking horse. Smoke churned from the spinning wheels. I smelled the burning rubber. The driver jammed it in reverse, slammed it into the rear wall, bouncing off it as he turned.