Depraved Indifference Read Online Free Page A

workers by the thousands across the gray police barriers. In a sense, an unexploded bomb, with its burden of the catastrophic unknown, caused more disruption than a bomb that had already done its worst.
    The sergeant gestured to a dark young man in bomb armor who was hanging around outside the van. “Luke, go help the kid with the carrier. I want to get out of this whorehouse before my head falls off. I’m dying!”
    â€œYeah, you look it, Sarge,” laughed D’Amato, though he knew he looked just as haggard. He picked up his helmet and checked his phone line, then headed through the polished brass doors and into the echoing, deserted station.
    Working efficiently in the wordless cooperation of good technicians, Doyle and D’Amato placed the pot and the envelope in a large steel and Kevlar bucket. This they closed with a heavy lid and hoisted between them on a pole, like Chinese coolies carrying a water jar.
    Once out in the street, they carried the bucket over to the bomb transporter, a heavy flatbed truck mounted with what looked like a diving bell. As Doheny supervised the securing of the bucket within the huge safety vessel, he reflected for the hundredth time on what would happen if a major bomb ever did explode in the glass-lined canyons of midtown Manhattan.
    With the bomb thus enclosed, Doyle and D’Amato removed their helmets and had a smoke. They were both dripping sweat, and Doyle’s damp blond curls were nearly as dark as D’Amato’s thin black hair. Kevlar, despite its many virtues, such as the ability to stop bullets and flying shrapnel, does not breathe like your natural fibers.
    D’Amato was a round-faced man of about thirty-five. He was puffing hard, coughing around his Kent, and his face was flushed and blotchy. “Too many damned beers last night,” he grumbled. As he began removing his armor, Doheny spotted him from the doorway of his van, where he had been making arrangements to clear the route for the bomb-transport convoy. “Hey, Luke! You gonna get out and back in again when we get to the range?” Somebody had to take the bomb out to the bunker and handle the deactivation. This would have been D’Amato’s job today.
    Doyle spoke up. “I’ll do it, Sarge. Luke don’t look so hot.”
    Doheny could appreciate that. “Oh, yeah? The kid’s right, D’Amato. You look like I feel. Hell of a party, hey?”
    Everybody agreed that it had been a hell of a party. The phone in the van buzzed, and Doheny received word that the route clearance had been set up. He turned back to his squad. “Whaddya say, Luke? You really crapped out?”
    â€œYeah, well, I could still do it, but you know, I think the heat’s getting to me, or something—”
    â€œI’ll do it, Sarge,” Doyle said cheerfully.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œSure, let old Luke fuck the dog for a while. Old fart like him’s about worn out anyway.”
    D’Amato had peeled off the armor, which lay about him in sections on the pavement like the shed carapace of an immense beetle. The air blowing against his sodden sweatsuit felt delightful, and he was not inclined to argue with Doyle for the privilege of crouching for perhaps hours in the armor.
    â€œOK for you, Doyle,” he said with a smile. “Just wait. You’ll be old and tired someday.”
    Doyle laughed. “I’ll never be as old as you, baby.”
    Doheny winced at another pang from his stomach. He wanted this day to be over. “OK, people. Let’s clear up our shit and get rolling.”
    The sirens screamed. Two patrol cars, lights flashing, pulled past the barriers up Vanderbilt, followed by the bomb squad van and the bomb transporter and an ambulance. At 42nd Street one of the patrol cars pulled aside and slid back in behind the ambulance. The convoy, now complete, sped toward FDR Drive, the Triboro Bridge, the Bruckner, Pelham Bay Park, and the