On the Avenue by Antonio Pagliarulo Page B

engrossed in worry to think about anything but his own stupid mistakes. And he had made a lot of them tonight.
    “Hey,
papi,
step on it, will you?” he snapped at the driver.
    The driver, a quiet, skinny man of obviously foreign origin, nodded, but the cab didn't gain speed.
    Hopeless,
Chicky thought. He turned around in the seat and looked through the window. There were no cars following him. The cops were probably still too busy responding to the crime scene at the Met, and that was perfectly fine. But he knew it was only a matter of time before they'd come looking for him. He had been through the legal system repeatedly in the last twenty years, and one way or another, the law always seemed to sink its teeth into his ass. That was the unfortunate result of a lifetime of petty crimes.
    Chicky had turned thirty-six back in January, but he looked at least ten years older. He was short, fat, and bald. He had stubby cream-filled fingers. And his small eyes too often flashed hate and anger. Not at all the kind of guy who looked good in pictures. But, ironically enough, he was quite good at taking them. So good, in fact, that he had managed to make a respectable living snapping celebrity shots for several national tabloid magazines. It was tough, sketchy work that required more guts than skill. A paparazzo wasn't merely a photographer; a paparazzo was a photographer with a
mission
. These days, the security that surrounded celebrities was thicker than the pack of brides at a Vera Wang sample sale. You had to maneuver your way through a series of nearly invisible holes to get close enough to click a good shot. And only the good shots got you cash. To date, he had scaled thesides of private mansions, slept on rooftops in the freezing cold, and hid in more bushes than he could count. All for the perfect pics. It wasn't easy, but it was amazing what the tabloids paid for relatively simple shots of famous people picking their noses, peeing on parkways, or just sunning themselves butt naked in the supposed privacy of their own opulent backyards.
    Two years ago, when he'd decided that being a “celebrity photographer” was his true calling, Chicky had surpassed dozens of veteran celebritychasers by way of sheer guile. His years in prison had paid off. He knew how to create fake identification badges and press passes. He knew which security guards to bribe. He knew which paparazzi to lock in closets and bathrooms, and how to get close enough to screw up their shots with a simple nudge of his finger. They weren't major crimes, but they were as good as he would ever get.
    Chicky had been branded with the feathery nickname while in the slammer, after his fellow inmates found out that he'd been convicted of robbing a poultry factory in upstate New York and holding a frightened farmer—and several fowl—hostage. But in all this time, and despite all his dirty tricks, Chicky had managed to stay somewhat beneath the radar, thanks to his ever-changing disguises. He had dressed up as a priest, a nun, a forklift operator, a waiter, a surgical technician, and a telephone repairman.In the process, he had taken tremendously scandalous pictures and banked a lot of sweet cash. But not enough cash to get him a good lawyer.
    And right now, he was sure he needed a good lawyer.
    He stared out the front windows of the cab. The silent driver wasn't half bad. The guy had gotten him to the outskirts of Harlem in under seven minutes. “Right here,” Chicky called out, already opening the back door. He pulled a ten-dollar bill from his pocket and tossed it over the partition. Then he stepped out onto the dark stretch of Third Avenue, his feet breaking into a run. Every extra pound of his stocky frame jiggled as he trotted up to the small, dilapidated apartment building at the next corner. It was one of those gritty almost-a-tenement structures, with barred windows and broken concrete steps. Rats the size of cats skittered up the flanking alleyways. The