Weecho: First Shots

Chapter 5 - Hood Fake

He watched the BQE pillar from a block away, from the side opposite where he wrote that message with the charcoal. Wanted to sneak in on the surroundings, see if he could maybe luck out and spot the hoodie guy he’d caught in the picture.  

After ten minutes, all Weecho had seen was a couple of drunks arguing about who’d just farted and a woman walking a big dog he had no interest in getting near. He waited another minute, let a truck piled with old tires go by, then crossed over and walked down to that pillar. When he stepped around it he saw that somebody had used one of the charcoal pieces he’d left, had scratched something under where he wrote What did you see? 

It said lv nmbr. 

Yeah, right. Get calls from who knew who. But how else to do it? He decided to just hang for a while. 

Two minutes later, the problem took care of itself. 

Or took on another dimension, depending how you looked. 

A little ways down and across the street, somebody in a hoodie came out of one of the abandoned buildings, started walking away from him. Not too fast. Almost like they were asking to be followed. Which he did. 

Guy had his back to him, hood up, so Weecho couldn’t see his face. Weecho hung back maybe half a block, picked it up when the guy turned a corner, fell back again and stayed with him while the guy headed away from the BQE and its elevated traffic. 

He took a route opposite from the one Weecho took when he ran from the cops. The neighborhood, hard to believe, got even grungier, more remote. Ruined factories lined both sides of the streets, pavement and sidewalks buckled, strewn with junk. A pack of stray dogs came to the head of an alley, stared at Hoodie, stared back at Weecho. Weecho heard some growling, fingered the folding knife in his pocket. Hoodie raised his hand and the dogs stayed put. 

 Interesting.    

They came to a street that paralleled Newtown Creek, an offshoot of the East River and one of the city’s great toxic landmarks. Weecho saw Hoodie make a sideways check to see if he was still being followed. Turned east and followed the creek, both sides lined with warehouses bombed with graffiti. 

By this time Weecho had been watching Hoodie walk for maybe ten minutes. There was something about the way the guy moved that didn’t track with that picture Weecho took. A little too… you know? Then it hit him. 

Hoodie was a girl. 

Or at least this Hoodie was. She led Weecho to a warehouse that hung partway over the oily creek. Glanced again to see that Weecho was there, let herself in by a side door. 

Weecho went up to the door and stood there, could see that Hoodie Girl had left a piece of chipped concrete in the frame to keep the door open. Weecho reached for the handle, backed off. If she wanted him in there, why do it this way? Who knew what kind of setup she could be sucking him into? 

Maybe there was another entrance. Weecho looked around. No low windows, at least not on this side. Just high ones and big roll-up doors, which, even if they weren’t locked, would be more exposed, chancier to go in by. And truth was, it was him who got this started, leaving that message on the pillar. 

So he sucked it up and went in the door. 

Keeping low. Moving quick to one side. Letting the door shut so he wouldn’t silhouette. 

Like he knew what he was doing. 

He did a quick take in the bad light, saw he’d come into an office nobody had used for years. Dust coating everything, thick layers, papers all over the place. Beat-up desks with typewriters could’ve been put in a museum. No sign of Hoodie Girl. Everything quiet.