Read Online The Bridge by Solomon Jones - Free Book Online Page A

from the scene. They just didn’t know what.
    But Lynch knew. Even as he and Wilson left Central Detectives in an unmarked car with Judy’s sordid tale swirling in their minds, he knew.
    Still, he remained silent as they rode west on Vine Street—the northern border of Philadelphia’s Chinatown. Wilson did the same because, like Lynch, she was wondering if the search for Kenya was in vain.
    They had already spoken by radio with the officer who had spent
the last two hours driving Daneen in circles, and arranged for him to bring Daneen to Eleventh Street. They would meet her there and take her back to Central Detectives to file a missing person’s report. In the back of their minds, they were praying that Kenya would come home on her own. Because if she didn’t, statistics said she wasn’t likely to come home at all.
    Lynch turned onto Eleventh Street and tried not to think about that. Instead, he thought of Judy’s willingness to talk, and idly wondered if the Bridge would give up its secrets as easily. Of course, Lynch knew the answer. The streets would never surrender Sonny. Rather, the worn concrete would crack open and hide him in its bosom, like a mother protecting its child.
    If the case dragged out, there would be noise about Kenya’s disappearance. But it wouldn’t be long before the people of the Bridge resumed living by the rules—rules that said if the wind blew, everyone bent, because it was the bending that allowed them to stand.
    These were the same rules that caused the working people in the projects to labor to get out while pretending not to see the ones like Sonny. After all, they’d grown from the same concrete as he, in such close proximity that they could smell each other’s breath in the morning.
    No one could hide in such a place. Not even Sonny. But while Lynch knew that there was no love lost between Sonny and his neighbors, he also knew that very few of them would talk. Lynch had grown from the concrete, too, and he remembered the rules as well as they did.
    He was cursing those rules when an alert tone from the radio broke the silence between him and Wilson. He reached down to adjust the volume just as the dispatcher uttered the name he had been waiting to hear.
    â€œFlash information on Sonny Williams, black male, fifty-two years, wanted for an assault on a police officer within the last five minutes. Williams is six-foot-two, dark-complexioned, with brown
eyes, black hair, and a mustache. He’s wearing a white, short-sleeved shirt, blue jeans, and black sandals. He was last seen on the roof of the East Bridge Housing Project. He made his escape on foot. Direction unknown. Use caution. This male should be considered armed and dangerous. This is KGF-587. The correct time is 8:10 A.M.”
    Lynch flipped on the car’s lights and punched the accelerator to the floor.
    Wilson grabbed the radio and screamed into the handset. “Dan 25, we’re en route, coming north on Eleventh from Spring Garden.”
    â€œSix-A,” the sergeant said over the radio. “I’m on the roof at this location. I’ve got a neighbor saying she saw that male go out the back of the building heading toward Eleventh Street.”
    After that, dozens of voices exploded over the radio, and it was difficult to understand any of them.
    â€œDan 25, we’re on location,” Wilson said, adding her voice to the commotion as Lynch flew past Poplar Street and slowed to a stop at the rear of Judy’s building.
    They were cruising slowly, each of them looking out their respective windows, watching for movement. Lynch didn’t see anything, but Wilson heard a rustling at the rear of an abandoned car they’d just passed.
    She tapped her partner and pointed to the sound, then pulled her gun and leveled it out the window. She had never fired her weapon in the line of duty before, and the thought of it caused her palms to sweat. The gun felt