It was late October and starting to get dark.
Thomas Garcia was adjusting the rearview mirror when he saw the man.
This part of Boston sounded classy, but in reality, it was the largest open-air whorehouse in the city. Kids watched from the sandbox as prostitutes disappeared into the nearby bushes with their johns. And then threw the condoms into the sand of the playground. Accordingly, Thomas Garcia drove quickly. Just quickly passed here. Until he saw the man just staggering across the street. The man came out of nowhere.
In front on the left was the hotel with its red clinker facade. Red clinker. Like tiles. The tiles of a butcher shop. On the other side, the fireplace store. Behind it the Asian restaurant.
Thomas Garcia saw all of this.
And then this man came out of nowhere.
Showed up right in front of his car. Walked across the street in front of him with staggering steps. Suddenly stood directly in front of Garcia's car, approaching thirty miles an hour. For a moment, time seemed frozen. The man on the road looked Garcia in the eye. They were eyes like plaques. Eyes that had no depth. The mouth open. A long thread of saliva. The man clutched a cardboard box like a strange treasure with both hands. He staggered as if he had to support himself. But he couldn't, because he was carrying the box. On his hands - somehow Thomas Garcia had immediately noticed his hands - he wore rubber gloves. Strangely stained rubber gloves. On which ... there was something. Something red-brown. Yes, something red-brown.
This image burned into Thomas Garcia's pupils as he slammed on the brakes like a madman.
Just in time, the car came to a stop. The man stood before him, looking down at him through the windshield. Then raised his eyes to the sky. And, somehow roborter-like, started moving again.
"Idiot," Garcia shouted. Though the other could barely hear him. Behind him, cars honked. Didn't these idiots see why he had to brake? That he would have run the guy over if he hadn't?
Garcia wanted to confront him and ask this moron what was in his mind to just run across the street like that. Without a traffic light and a crosswalk.
But the honking grew louder.
The man looked at him one last time through the window with his badge eyes. Then he went on. Continued to cross the street with jerky movements, like a poorly programmed roboticist.
Garcia drove on.
Saw a truck out of the corner of his eye on the other side of the road.
Accelerated.
It wasn't just because of the impatient honking of the cars behind him that he kept going.
It wasn't just because he was in a hurry and should have been home by now. With his wife. Who had driven the car last and had adjusted the rearview mirror.
It was also because the man had looked at him.
And how he had looked at him.
That had been enough for Thomas Garcia.
When he had driven about fifty yards, he heard the bang.
