Cole McGinnis 05 - Down and Dirty Read Online Free PDF Page B

his feet set and his legs spread apart, Sam put his hands on his hips, a blue Atlas straddling the remains of a carpet river, his eyes fixed on Jae standing above Ichiro. He raised the walkie-talkie to his mouth and began to inform whoever was on the other end of the radio that they’d caught the intruders and were moving in to apprehend.
    “Fuck, get down!” Ichi pushed off the wall in time to see Jae swinging his leg over the balcony railing. Before he could blink, Jae’s camera tumbled down toward his head, and Ichiro had to stretch to grab it before it hit the ground. “Jae, what are you—oh shit!”
    “Don’t drop me,” Jae warned as he slid down the side of the balcony to grip at the slight edge bulging at its base. Dangling above Ichi, he craned his head over his shoulder, watching the now steaming Sam barreling down the theater’s debris-covered aisles toward them. “Grab my legs and—”
    “I’m not that tall! No one is that tall. Shit.” Ichi looped the camera over his head, then stretched up to snag Jae’s feet. He could barely reach his friend’s toes, and the rubber of Jae’s Converses stung his fingertips. “Fuck—wait, shit.”
    Jae let go.
    Ichi grabbed anything he could, tightening his arms around Jae’s body as the man dropped. Something caught on the camera, probably Jae’s ass, and his neck jerked down with the added weight. Choking slightly, Ichi held on, the skin on his cheek roughed up from Jae’s torn jeans. With Ichi unable to do more than slow Jae’s descent, they tumbled to the floor, then rolled down the incline a few feet until they slammed into the stage’s front drop.
    The wind left Ichiro’s lungs, and his head swam with tiny prickles of stars and hammers. Shaking off the hit, he tried getting to his feet but couldn’t find which way was up. A tug on his hands helped. Then the weight of the camera was off his neck while a torrent of pissed-off Spanish peppered the air.
    Wood chips clung to his hair, digging through the strands to reach his neck, but Ichiro didn’t stop to brush them out. Not when he spotted Sam digging through the mounds of trash in a desperate attempt to reach them and Ralph, a thin, scraggly beanpole of a man, climbing over the auditorium’s back row to get to the clear aisle on the side they’d been standing on.
    “Ichi, hurry.” Jae’s English was gone beneath a torrent of Korean, and Ichi stumbled to his feet, feeling every ounce of Jae’s weight along his bruised body. “Back door.”
    “Back—” There was no time to talk about anything, not with Ralph clearing the rubble and rapidly moving toward them. Ichiro allowed himself to be dragged up the short flight of stairs to the stage and then into the cool confines behind a sea of backdrops and rolled-up canvases. A projection screen hung askew from its bar above their heads, and it swayed dangerously when Jae brushed against it. Ichiro didn’t like the creaking noises the enormous cracked sheet made, and when he tried to slip past its worn edge, he liked the rumbling shriek of its fabric tearing even less.
    The wall of fabric tumbled down, striking Ichi in the shoulder as he went by. A wave of dust vomited up into the air, clogging Ichi’s nose and watering his eyes. Barely able to see through the stinging makeshift dust storm, he pulled back in alarm when he felt someone’s fingers on his wrist.
    “Ichi, come on!” Jae exhorted, shouting through the noise of falling chains, ropes, and frightened security guards. “The door’s right there.”
    They hit the back exit coughing up mud and gasping for air. The day’s heat struck hard, searing Ichiro’s eyes, and he blinked, trying to see through grit and tears. Jae spat out a mouthful of saliva and grime, smearing a trail of gray-speckled saliva across his cheek when he rubbed at his lips with the back of his hand.
    “Jeep. Get in the Jeep,” Ichi ordered, already digging the keys out of his pocket. His chest hurt from where