Hosts

Hosts

F. Paul Wilson

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Charlotte Abbott for her many valuable insights.

And thanks to the usual crew for their enlightened and discerning input: David Hartwell, Coates Bateman, Elizabeth Monteleone, Steven Spruill, and Albert Zuckerman.

TUESDAY

1

Kate Iverson stared out the window of the hurtling taxi and wondered where she was. New York was not her town. She knew certain sections, and if it were daytime she might have had some idea as to her location, but here in the dark and fog she could have been anywhere.

She'd started the trip thirty minutes and who-knew-how-many miles ago in the West Twenties with a follow-that-cab scenario—I still can't believe I really said that—that moved across town and up the FDR Drive. The East River had served as a comforting landmark for a while, but as twilight had faded to night, the river fell behind, replaced by dark shapes and fuzzy lights looming in the fog beyond the roadway.

"What road is this?" she asked the driver.

Through the Plexiglas barrier came the accented reply, double-rolling the r's: "Bruckner Expressway." The driver's ID tag showed a dark mustached face with glowering black eyes and indicated he was Mustafah Salaam.

She'd often heard "the Bruckner" mentioned in the incessant traffic reports on New York City radio but had no idea where it was.

"This is Bronx," the driver added, anticipating her next question.

Kate felt a quick stab of fear. The Bronx? Visions of burned-out buildings and rubble-strewn lots swirled through her brain.

Oh, Jeanette, she thought, staring ahead at the cab they were following, where are you going? Where are you taking me?

Kate had stashed her two teenagers with her ex and taken a short leave from her pediatric group practice in Trenton to stay with Jeanette during her recovery from brain tumor therapy. The experimental treatment had been a resounding success. No ill effects… at least none that would be apparent to Jeanette's treating physician.

But since completion of the treatment, Kate had noticed a definite personality change. The Jeanette Vega she'd come to know and deeply love over these past two years was a warm, giving person, full of enthusiasm for life, with an opinion about everything. A delightfully edgy chatterbox. But slowly she had changed. The new Jeanette was cold and distant, rarely speaking unless spoken to, leaving her apartment without a word about where she was going, disappearing for hours at a time.

At first Kate had chalked it up to an acute reactive depression. Why not? What medical diagnosis can rock the foundations of your world more deeply than an inoperable malignant brain tumor? But depression didn't quite explain her behavior. When Jeanette should have been depressed—when she'd been told she had a literal death sentence growing in her brain—she'd remained her upbeat self. Now, after a miraculous cure, after regaining her whole future, she'd become another person.

Maybe it was a stress reaction.

Or a side effect of the treatment. As a physician Kate prided herself on keeping current with medical progress, so she was familiar with medicine's cutting edge; but the experimental protocol that had saved Jeanette seemed damn near science fiction.

Yet it had worked. The tumor was dead, and Jeanette would live on.

But would she live on without Kate?

That, Kate admitted, was what was really disturbing her. Nearing middle age—in darn good shape for forty-four, she knew, but still six years older than Jeanette—she couldn't help worrying that Jeanette had found someone else. Someone younger.

That would be so unlike the old Jeanette. But this new Jeanette… who could say?

Jeanette had been put on notice that her remaining time on earth was numbered in months instead of decades; she'd believed she'd seen her last Christmas tree, tasted her last Thanksgiving dinner. And then it was all given back to her. How could anyone's psyche survive that sort of trauma unscathed?

Perhaps the ordeal had caused Jeanette to reassess her life. Maybe she'd looked around and asked, Is this what I want? And perhaps, in some new back-from-the-brink perspective, she'd decided she wanted something else. More. Different.

At least she could tell me, Kate thought. She owes me that much.

Jeanette hadn't asked her to leave—she had the right since it was her apartment—but she had moved out of the bedroom they'd always shared on Kate's visits and into the study where she slept on the couch. No amount of questioning from Kate had elicited a reason why.

The not knowing gnawed at her. So tonight, when Jeanette had walked out the door without a word, Kate had followed.

Never in a million years would she have imagined herself trailing the woman she loved through the night. But things change. It hadn't been all that long ago that she never would have imagined herself loving another woman.

Up ahead, Jeanette's cab turned off the Bruckner and Kate's followed it onto a road the signs identified as the Bronx River Parkway. And after a few miles the city suddenly disappeared and they were in the woods—in the Bronx?

"Stay closer," she told the driver. "You're letting them get too far ahead."

She didn't want to come all this way just to lose her.

Then Kate saw signs for the Bronx Zoo and New York Botanical Gardens. More turns, each new road smaller than the last until they were traveling a tree-lined residential street.

"Are we still in the Bronx?" she asked, marveling at all the well-kept homes trailing by on either side.

"Still Bronx, yes," the driver told her.

How come it never looks like this on TV? she wondered.

"Keep going," Kate said when she saw Jeanette's cab pull into the curb before a neat brick colonial.

Her anxiety soared as a thousand questions cascaded through her mind. Who lived there? Another woman?

She had the driver stop half a block beyond. She watched Jeanette's cab leave her on the sidewalk and pull away. As Jeanette started up the walk toward the house, Kate opened her own cab's door.

"Wait here," she said.

"No-no," the driver said. "You must pay."

Nice neighborhood or not, this was still the Bronx, and a long way from Jeanette's apartment. Kate did not want to be stranded here. She glanced at the meter and fished the exact amount out of her wallet.

"Here," she said, keeping her voice low as she handed him the money. "You'll get your tip when we get back to the city."

He seemed to accept that, nodding without comment as he took the money.

She pulled her raincoat tightly around her. A chilly night for June. The fog was thinning and the wet street glistened in the glow from the streetlights; every sound seemed amplified. Kate was glad she'd worn sneakers as she padded along the street, keeping the parked cars between her and Jeanette.

When she'd approached as close as she dared, she stopped behind a tree trunk and watched Jeanette walk up the front steps of the house. Kate's heart ached at the sight of her: a yellow rain slicker and loose jeans hid her feminine curves; a Yankees cap hid much of her straight, jet black hair, but Kate knew those curves, remembered the strawberry scent of the shampoo Jeanette used to wash that hair.

Suddenly Kate wished she hadn't come. Who was going to open that door? Forty minutes ago she'd been dying to know, now she was terrified. But she couldn't turn away. Especially not now, because the door was opening and a man stood there, a heavyset fiftyish man with a round face and small eyes and a balding melon head. He smiled and opened his arms and Jeanette embraced him.

Kate's stomach lurched.

A man? Not Jeanette! Anyone but Jeanette! It simply wasn't in her!

Stunned, she watched Jeanette follow him inside. No, this couldn't be. Kate moved out from behind her tree and approached the house. Her sneaker slipped on a wet tree root and she nearly fell, but kept going, stumbling on until she reached the foot of the front stoop. She saw the name Holdstock on the mailbox and fought a mad urge to hammer on the door.

Then she noticed silhouettes moving back and forth within the front windows. More than two. What was going on in there?

Kate started toward the nearer of the two windows but changed her mind. Too much light out here. Wouldn't do to have a neighbor pass by and catch her peeking in. She backed away and moved around to the shadowed side of the house. There she crouched between a pair of azalea bushes and peered through the screen into the Holdstock living room.

Six… seven—no, eight people in the room. Three men, five women, of varying ages, shapes, and sizes, all taking turns embracing Jeanette as if she were a long-lost relative. And Jeanette was smiling—oh, God, how Kate missed that smile. Days since she'd seen it, days that felt like a lifetime.

An odd group. And even odder that no one seemed to be speaking. Not a word. Apparently they'd been waiting for Jeanette, for immediately after greeting her they all seated themselves in the circle of chairs set up around the room. And still no one spoke. Everyone seemed to know what to do: they joined hands, closed their eyes, let their heads fall back… and smiled. Jeanette and all the rest wore beatific smiles, so full of peace and contentment that Kate, for an instant, envied them. They looked as if they were viewing God herself.

And then they began to hum. Not a transcendental "oum," this was a single note, and it went on and on, without a trace of harmony. Everyone humming the same note.

What are you into, Jeanette? A prayer group? Is that what's happened? Your old pantheism couldn't handle a malignant glioma so now you've joined some rapturous fundamentalist sect?

Kate heard a sob and realized it had come from her. She sagged against the bricks, weak with relief.

This I can handle, this I can deal with. As long as you don't reject me… us… what we've built over the years, I know we can come through this.

She backed away from the window, turning when she reached the front lawn. She gasped as she found a woman standing not two feet away.

"You have had fears, and now they are eased, yes?" A deep voice with a Russian accent.

She looked middle-aged and wore a white hooded cape that fell below her knees. Dark hair framed her face. Kate stepped back when she saw the big white dog standing at her side. It looked like some sort of husky. Its eyes reflected light from the street as it stared at her, but she sensed no hostility.

"You startled me," Kate stammered, not sure how to explain her presence here. "I… I was just—"

"You think is perhaps religious group? At worst a cult, yes?" Her dark eyes flashed, her lipsticked gash of a mouth tightened into a thin line as she raised a crooked index finger; she used it to emphasize her words by jabbing it at Kate. "Not cult. Worse than cult. Much worse. If you wish to save the loves of your life you must stop them."

"What?" Kate said, baffled. What was she talking about? "I can't—"

"Of course not. You will need help. Here is number to call." Her other hand wormed from under the cape and held out a card.

Kate hesitated, not knowing what to make of this woman. She seemed composed but her patter was paranoid. And yet… she seemed to know about her… and Jeanette.

"Take it," the woman said, thrusting the card at her. "And do not waste time. Time is short. Call him tonight. No one else… only him."

Kate squinted at the card in the dim light. Getting so hard to read lately—the price to pay for passing forty—and her glasses were tucked away in her bag. She pushed the card to arm's length and angled it for a better view. A phone number and a name, handwritten in an old-fashioned cursive style. She couldn't make out the number but the name was written larger: Jack.

That was it—no last name, no address, just… Jack.

"Who—?"

She looked up and found herself alone. She hurried out to the sidewalk but the woman and her dog were nowhere to be seen, vanished as if they'd never been.

Am I going crazy? she wondered. But the card in her hand was real.

The woman's words echoed back to her: If you wish to save the loves of your life…

She'd said loves, hadn't she? Yes, Kate was sure of it… the woman had used the plural. Kate could think of only three loves in her life: Jeanette, of course, but even before her came Kevin and Elizabeth.

Something twisted in Kate's chest at the thought of her children being in some sort of danger… needing to be saved.

But how could that be possible? Kevin and Lizzie were safe in Trenton with their father. And what possible danger could the hand-holding, regular middle-class folks in the Holdstock living room pose to her children?

Still the mere hint from someone, even an addled stranger, that they might be in danger jangled Kate's nerves. Danger from what? Attack? They were both teenagers now, but that didn't mean they couldn't be molested.

She glanced back at the house and thought she saw a curtain move in one of the front windows. Had one of the worshipers or whatever they were been watching her?

This was too creepy. As she turned and hurried back toward her waiting cab, more of the old woman's words pursued her.

And do not waste time. Time is short. Call him tonight.

Kate looked at the card. Jack. Who was he? Where was he?

2

Riding the Niner.

Sandy Palmer wondered what percentage of his twenty-five years he'd spent bumping and swaying along this particular set of subway tracks back and forth to Morningside Heights. And always in the last car, since that left him a few steps closer to his apartment.

Got to save those steps. He figured everyone was allotted only so many, and if you use them up too fast you're looking at early death or a wheelchair. Obviously marathoners and the hordes of joggers crowding the city parks either were unaware of or gave little credence to the Sandy Palmer theory of step preservation and reclamation. They'd regret it later on.

Sandy glanced around the car at his fellow passengers. Seven years now riding either the Nine or the One, starting with his first semester at Columbia Journalism and the frequent trips down to the Village or SoHo, now every damn day getting jammed in on the way down to midtown and back for his job with The Light. And in all that time his fellow riders still looked pretty much the same as they always had. Maybe a few more whites in the mix these days, but not many.

Take this car, for instance: Relatively crowded for a post-rush-hour run, but not SRO. Still a couple of empty seats. Working people—nurse's aides, bus drivers, jackhammer operators, store clerks, short order cooks, garment workers. Their skin tones ran a bell curve, starting with very black, peaking in the mid-browns, and tapering off into lily-white land. After growing up in Caucasian Connecticut, Sandy had had to get used to being a member of a minority on the subway. He'd been a little uneasy at first, thinking that people were staring at him; it took months before he felt comfortable again in his white skin.

The white guy dozing diagonally across from him on the L-shaped plastic bench they shared mid-car looked pretty comfortable. Talk about generic pale male—if Sandy hadn't been thinking about white people he probably wouldn't have noticed him. Clean shaven, brown hair sticking out from under the dark blue knit cap pulled down to his eyebrows, an oversized white Jets shirt with a big green 80, jeans, and scuffed work boots. The color of his eyes was up for grabs because they were closed.

Sandy wondered what he did for a living. The clothes gave no clue other than the fact that he wasn't white collar. Clean hands, not overly callused, though his thumbnails seemed unusually long.

The train slowed then and about a third of the passengers rose as signs announcing FORTY-SECOND STREET / TIMES SQUARE started slipping past the windows. The generic pale male opened his eyes to check the stop, then closed them again. Mild brown eyes. Definitely a GPM—an infinitely interchangeable example of the species.

Not like me, he thought. With my blond hair, hazel eyes, thick glasses, this big nose, and acne scars left over from my pre-Accutane teenage years, anyone could pick me out of a lineup in a minute.

New riders replaced those debarking almost one for one, spreading through the car in search of seats. He saw a slim young woman move toward a double seat at the very front of the car, but the man in it, a scraggly-bearded Asian guy in a stained fatigue jacket, with wild hair and wilder eyes, had his gym bag and a boom box on the empty half and he brusquely waved her away.

Wisely, she didn't argue—he looked like the sort who was heavy into soliloquies—and went elsewhere in search of a seat. Sandy figured that was a potential blessing in disguise because she was moving toward the middle of the car, toward him.

Keep coming, he thought, wishing he were telepathic. I've got your seat—right here next to me.

She looked about twenty or so, all in black—sweater, tights, shoes, even the wire rims on her tiny funky glasses. She'd done one of those shoe-black dye jobs on her short, Winona Ryder-style hair, which made her pale face—not Winona Ryder's face, unfortunately, but still pretty—look all the paler.

Sandy slid to his left, leaving half of his butt off the edge of the seat to give her plenty of room. She took the bait and slipped in next to him. She didn't look at him, simply opened her book and began to read.

Instead of rejoicing, Sandy felt his insides tighten. What now? What to say?

Relax, he told himself. Just take a deep breath, figure out what you can about her, and see if you can find some common ground.

Easy to say, but so hard to do. At least for Sandy. He'd never done too well with women. He'd been to a couple of the campus counselors when he was a student and they'd both said the same thing: fear of rejection.

As if someone needed a Ph.D. to tell him that. Of course he feared rejection. Nobody in the whole damn world liked rejection, but that didn't seem to stop people from courting it by coming on to each other with the lamest, sappiest lines. So why did the mere possibility of rejection paralyze him? The counselors liked to tell him the why of the fear didn't matter so much as overcoming it.

Okay, he thought. Let's overcome this. What have we got here? We've got a book-reading Goth chick heading uptown on the 9 express. Got to be a student. Probably Barnard.

As the train lurched into motion again, he checked out her book: Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut.

Bingo. Film student. Columbia.

Okay. Here goes.

He wet his lips, swallowed, took that deep breath…

"Going for your film M.F.A., right?" he said.

And waited.

Nothing. She didn't turn her head, didn't even blink. She did move, but just to turn the page of her book. He might as well have used sign language on a blind person.

But he knew he hadn't imagined speaking, knew he must have been audible because the GPM opened one of his eyes for a two-second look his way, then closed it again. Reminded Sandy of Duffy, their family cat: a one-eyed glance—two would require too much energy—was the only acknowledgment that chunky old torn granted when someone new entered his presence.

So now what? He felt like he was back in high school after asking some girl if she wanted to dance and she'd just said no. That had happened only once but that once had been enough to stop him from ever asking anyone again. Should he retreat now? Slink away and hide his head? Or push it?

Push it.

He raised his voice. "I said, are you going for your film M.F.A.?"

She looked up, glanced at him with dark brown eyes for maybe a whole millisecond, then went back to her book.

"Yes," she said, but she spoke to the book.

"I like Hitchcock," he told her.

Again to the book: "Most people do."

This was going nowhere fast. Maybe she'd warm up if she knew he'd gone to Columbia, too.

"I graduated from the School of Journalism a couple of years ago."

"Congratulations."

That did it, Sandy, he thought. That broke the ice. She's really hot for you now. Shit, why didn't you just keep your mouth shut?

He racked his brain for another line. He'd already been given the cold shoulder; nothing left to lose now. He'd swum beyond his point of no return, so he had to keep going. She was either going to let him drown in a sea of rejection or send him a lifeboat.

He smiled. Just the kind of crappy imagery his journalism professors had tried to scour from his brain. One had even told him he wrote the most cliché-ridden prose he'd ever read. But what was the big deal about cliches? They served a purpose in journalism, especially tabloid journalism. Readers understood them, expected them, and probably felt something was missing if they didn't run across a couple.

The sudden blast of music from the front of the car cut off the thought. Sandy looked around and saw that the wild-haired guy in the fatigue jacket had turned on his boom box and cranked it up to full volume. It was pumping out a sixties tune Sandy half knew—"Time Has Come Today" by the Something-or-other Brothers.

Back to the film student. Maybe he should dazzle her by mentioning his great job at the city's most infamous weekly tabloid, The Light, where his degree from one of the country's great journalism programs landed him an entry-level position one step above the janitorial staff—except in pay. Or how he's been doing interviews at every other paper around the city trying to move up from The Light and no one's calling back. That'll impress her.

Oh, hell, go for gold and let her put you out of your misery.

"What's your name?"

Without missing a beat she said, "Lina Wertmuller."

Not just unfriendly, she thinks I'm an idiot. Well two can play that game.

Sandy stuck out his hand. "Glad to meet you, Lina. I'm Henry Louis Mencken, but you can call me H. L."

To Sandy's shock she lifted her head and laughed. He'd made a funny and she'd laughed. What a wonderful sound, even if he could barely hear it over the blasting music.

And then the name of the group behind the song came to him: the Chambers Brothers.

Suddenly—other sounds. Shouts, cries, screams, and people stumbling, scrambling past him in a mad rush toward the rear end of the car.

"It's time now!" cried a voice. "Yes, it's time."

Sandy turned and saw the Asian in the fatigue jacket standing before the door at the front end of the car. His black eyes were mad, endlessly, vacantly mad, and he clutched in each hand a black pistol that seemed too long and too thick in the barrel. Then Sandy realized they were equipped with silencers.

Oh, Christ, he thought, shock launching him to his feet, he's going to start shooting.

And then he saw the bodies and the blood and knew that the shooting had already begun. Images flashed through his instantly adrenalized brain as he turned to run—not everyone from the front of the car had made it to the rear; the first to be shot lay where they'd fallen…

… like the Korean guy, maybe Sandy's age, with rust-colored hair and a Nike swoosh on his cap, sprawled on the red-splattered floor, facing Sandy with his headphones still on his ears, blood leaking from his nose, and black eyes staring into the beyond…

… like the heavy black woman in the two-piece sleeveless gray suit over a black polka dotted white blouse with starched pristine cuffs, lying face down, still twitching as the last of her life ran out from under her wig and stained the copy of Rolie Polie Olie that had spilled from her Barnes and Noble bag…

… or the others who'd hit the deck and now huddled and crouched and cringed between seats, holding up their hands palm out as if to stop the bullets, and pleading for mercy…

But they were asking the wrong guy, because the man with the guns was tuned to some other frequency as he shuffled along the aisle, swinging his pistols left and right and pumping bullets through the silencers. Phut!… phut!… phut! The sounds barely audible through the music as slugs tore into heads and tear-stained faces, sometimes right through the supplicating hands. He moved without the slightest hint of urgency, looking for all the world like a suburban homeowner on a sunny Saturday morning strolling his lawn with a can of herbicide and casually spraying the weeds he passed.

And somewhere up there, up front, someone's bowels had let loose and the stink was filling the car.

Brain screaming in panic, Sandy ducked and swung around and saw the GPM crouched behind his seat, facing the rear of the car, and he must have lost it because he was shouting something that sounded like, "Doesn't anyone have a goddamn gun?"

Yeah, asshole! Sandy wanted to say. The guy standing in the aisle has two, and he's coming your way!

Turning further Sandy came face to face with Lina or whoever she was and knew the naked fear in her blanched face must have mirrored his own. He looked past her at the rest of the screaming, panicked riders crammed like a mass of worms into the rear of the car, the nearer ones wriggling, kicking, biting, clawing to get further to the rear and the ones at the very back battling with all they had to stay where they were, and suddenly Sandy knew what the others had already discovered—that once you got back there you had nowhere to go unless you could find a way to open the rear door and jump onto the tracks at who-knew-how-many-miles an hour and hope that if you were lucky enough not to break your neck when you hit, you wouldn't land on the third rail and get fried to a cinder.

He saw a brown hand snake upward at the rear of the press, grip the red emergency handle, and yank down…

Yes!

Saw the handle come free as the cord snapped.

And just then the Fifty-ninth Street/Columbus Circle station lit up around the train but it didn't slow because oh shit it was going to skip Sixty-sixth Street as well and not stop until Seventy-second.

Seventy-second! No wonder the gunman was in no hurry. He had his prey cornered like cattle in a stockyard pen and could slaughter them at will—kill just about everyone before the train reached its next stop.

Sandy saw only one chance to save his life. If he could get to the rear there, worm his way through the massed crowd, even if he had to do it on hands and knees—he was thin, he could do it—and get as far back as he could and crawl under a seat, maybe he could survive until Seventy-second Street. That would be the end of it. When the doors opened the gunman would take off or blow his own brains out, and Sandy would be safe. All he had to do was survive until then.

Another glance at the gunman showed him pointing one of his pistols down at someone Sandy couldn't see. The only visible part of the next victim was a pair of hands raised above the back of a seat, a woman's hands, mocha colored, nails painted bright red, fingers interlocked as if in prayer.

Even more frightening was the realization that this faceless woman and the GPM appeared to be the last living people between Sandy and the killer. Panic took a choke hold on his throat as he turned and lunged toward the rear of the car—oh sweet Jesus he didn't want to die he was too young and he hadn't really begun to live so he couldn't die now oh please not now not now—but the film student was there, half in, half out of a crouch and he slammed against her, knocking her over, and they both went down, Sandy landing on top as they hit the floor.

He was losing it now, ready to scream at the bitch for getting in his way, but more important than screaming was knowing right now, right this instant where the gunman was, so he looked back, praying he wouldn't see that impassive bearded face looming behind the muzzle of a silencer. Instead he saw the GPM, whose face was set into grim lines of fury and whose eyes now were anything but mild, and he was muttering, "Shit-shit-shit!" and pulling up the cuff of his jeans where something leather was strapped and then he was yanking a metallic object from the leather and Sandy saw it was a tiny pistol. At first he thought it was one of those old-fashioned Derringers women and gamblers carried in westerns but when he saw the dude work the little slide back and forth he realized it was a miniature automatic.

And now the GPM—Sandy was finding it hard to think of him as generic anymore but didn't have any other handle for the guy—was on his feet and moving toward the killer and Sandy wondered, What's he think he's going to do with that little pop gun? and then it went off and after the dainty little phuts of the killer's guns the sound was like a cannon in the confines of the subway car and the bullet must have caught the killer in the shoulder because that was where his fatigue jacket exploded in red, knocking him back and spinning him half around. He screamed in pain and stared with eyes full of shock and wonder and fear at this guy coming at him from out of nowhere. Sandy couldn't see the GPM's face as he worked the slide to his pistol again, just the back of his head and not much of that thanks to the knit cap, but he did see the woman who'd been the next intended victim crawl out from where she'd been cowering on the floor and scrabble past the dude on her belly, her teary eyes showing white all around, her lip-sticked mouth a scarlet O of terror.

Then the killer started to raise the gun in his good hand but the GPM was still moving toward him like an eagle swooping in on a field mouse, had that little pistol raised and it boomed again, the recoil jerking his hand high in the air, the second bullet detonating another explosion of red, this time in the killer's other shoulder, knocking him back against one of the chrome hang-on poles in the center of the aisle where he sagged, both arms limp and useless at his sides, and gaped at the relentless man moving ever closer. He roared and lunged forward, whether to head-butt or bite the GPM no one would ever know, because without pausing, without the slightest hint of hesitation the GPM leveled that toy pistol at the killer's left eye and let it boom again. Sandy saw the killer's head snap back and the impact swing him halfway around the pole before he lurched free to do a loose-kneed pirouette and collapse, half sitting, half sprawled against one of the doors, very, very, very dead.

And then the GPM was working the little slide on his little gun again, and a fourth boom, this into the tape player, reducing it to a thousand flying black fragments and stopping its incessant cries about time having come today.

Stunned silence in the car after that final report—only the rattle of the wheels and the whistle of the wind racing past.

Saved!

The word batted around the inside of Sandy's head, bouncing off the walls, looking for purchase on the disbelieving, rejecting surfaces. Finally it landed and took root as Sandy accepted the glorious possibility that he would see tomorrow.

And he wasn't alone. Cheers and cries of joy arose from the multitude packed like sardines at the rear of the car. Some were on their knees, tears on their faces and hands raised to heaven, thanking whoever or whatever they called god for deliverance; others were laughing and crying and hugging each other.

"We're alive!" the film student under him said. "What—?"

Abashed, Sandy rolled off of her. "Sorry."

She sat up and stared at him. "God, I can't believe you did that!"

"Please," he said, looking away to hide his shame. He saw the GPM in a crouch, picking up something from the floor, but couldn't focus on what he was doing. Sandy had to frame an answer. How could he explain the terror that had taken control of him? "I don't know what came over me. I—"

"You shielded me with your own body!"

What? He turned and found her staring at him, her chocolate-brown eyes wide and wonder filled.

"I've heard of it and, you know, seen it in films, but I never believed—I mean, you were like some Secret Service agent!"

And then her face screwed up and she started to cry… huge racking sobs that shook her fragile body.

Sandy's befuddled brain finally registered that she thought he'd knocked her down and landed on her to protect her. What did he say to that?

But before he could respond he heard a voice call out behind him.

"We've got a lady who's still alive here! Somebody get up here and help her!"

Sandy turned and saw that the GPM had turned to face the rest of the car, but he'd first stretched his knit cap down to his chin. The effect might have been comical but for that deadly little pistol still clutched in his hand. What was going on here? A few moments ago he'd had his face out in the open for everyone to see. Why hide it now?

"Come on!" he shouted through the weave. "Someone move their ass up here, goddamn it!"

A young black woman with cornrowed hair, wearing white pants and a blue sweater stepped forward.

"I'm an OR tech. I know a little—"

"Well, come on then! Maybe you can save one of your fellow ewes!"

She edged forward, giving Sandy an uneasy look as she slipped past him and hurried to a woman who was moaning and clutching her bloody head. He understood her uncertainty. What he didn't understand was the anger in the GPM's voice.

"Why me?" the man shouted. "Why do I have to save your sorry asses? I don't know you, I don't care about you, I want nothing to do with you, so why me? Why did I get stuck with it?"

"Hey, mister," said a tall lean black fellow who could have been a minister. "Why you so riled at us? We didn't do nothing."

"Exactly! That's the problem! Why didn't one of you put him down?"

"We didn't have no gun!" someone else said.

"And this creep knew that. He knew he'd be dealing with a herd of human sheep. Losers! You make me sick—all of you!"

This was scary. The dude seemed almost as crazy now as the mass murderer he'd just killed. Sandy was beginning to wonder whether they'd traded one maniac for another when the train roared into the Seventy-second Street station. He saw the GPM pocket his pistol and turn toward the door. As soon as the panels parted he leaped through and dashed across the platform. In a flash he was lost among the crowd.

3

Keeping his head down, Jack dodged through the people waiting on the narrow platform. Pulled his cap up as far as the bridge of his nose and kept one hand on his face, rubbing his cheeks and eyes as if they were irritated.

Of all the luck! Of all the lousy goddamn luck! Why on my train, in my car?

Someone in that car had seen his face, would remember it, give out a decent description, and by tomorrow his likeness would be on the front page of every paper in the city and flashing across TV screens every hour.

Maybe I should leave town tonight. And never come back.

But his face would be plastered all over the national news as well—Time, Newsweek, the network and cable shows. He'd be on every newsstand everywhere. Even if the likeness wasn't good, sooner or later someone would make a connection and point a finger.

And then life as Jack knew it would be over.

Yanked off the cap as soon as he hit the stairs, taking them two at a time while he pulled off his football jersey. Stuffed that into the hat and wadded it all into a tight little bundle. Hit street level as a bareheaded guy in a white T-shirt carrying something blue.

Keep your head, he told himself. You've still got options.

But did he? At the moment he hadn't a clue what they were. Knew there had to be some but right now his adrenaline-addled brain was too wired, too pissed to think of them.

The Seventy-second Street station opened onto a wrought-iron fenced island in the middle of the perpetual vehicular chaos where Broadway forced its way on a diagonal across Amsterdam Avenue. His instincts wanted him in a full-tilt sprint away from the station, urged him to jump the fence and skip through the traffic, but he forced his legs to keep to a walk.

Don't attract attention—that was the key here.

Vibrating like a nitro-fueled hotrod at the start line, Jack stood with half a dozen other pedestrians and waited for the walking green. When it came he crossed and headed east on Seventy-second, which was perfect because, as one of the handful of two-way cross streets in the city, it was busy at this hour. No one else here seemed in a hurry, so he adopted a loose-limbed but steady amble to blend in. He slipped through the shoppers and the locals hanging out on this mild June night, all unaware of the bloody horror in the subway car a few dozen feet below. Two blocks ahead lay Central Park. The anonymity of its cool shadows beckoned to him.

What a horror show. He'd read about that sort of thing in the papers but never expected to be an eyewitness. What drove someone to that sort of mad carnage?

Damn good thing he rarely traveled without the Semmerling, but still he raged that he'd been forced to use it in front of all those citizens. Not that he'd had a choice. If he'd waited for someone in that crowd of sheep to save his ass, he and a lot of others would be as dead now as the poor souls splattered all over that subway car.

Why me, damn it? Why couldn't someone else play hero?

Hero… no doubt that was what they'd call him if he'd hung around, but that would last only the proverbial New York minute—right up until they escorted him to the cooler for illegal possession of an unregistered weapon and carrying said weapon without a permit. And sure as all hell some shyster would dig up the shooter's family and have them sue him for wrongful death and excessive use of force. And how long before the papers learned that he didn't have a job, or a known address, wasn't registered to vote or licensed to drive—hell, didn't even have a Social Security number? Then the tax boys would want to know why he'd never filed a return. On and on it would go, spinning out of control, engulfing him, ensuring that he never took another free breath for the rest of his life.

Jack picked up his pace a little once he crossed Columbus, leaving the shops and restaurants behind and walking through the ultra-high-rent district. Almost to Central Park West, he passed the two liveried gatekeepers outside the Dakota who kept watch on the spot where another gun-wielding lunatic had done his bloody work in 1980 and ended an era.

He crossed CPW and stopped at the mossy, soot-encrusted, rib-high wall of textured brownstone. The park lay just beyond… tempting… but if he entered here he'd have to exit somewhere else; his best bet would be to get out of sight as soon as possible. His apartment was less than half a mile from here. An easy walk. But first…

He stepped through an opening in the wall and entered the shadowed underbrush. Once out of sight he pulled his shirt from the cap and dropped it in a puddle. A dozen feet farther on he shoved the cap into a tangle of vines, then angled around and made his way back out to the sidewalk.

Keeping to the park side, he lengthened his stride and headed uptown. To his left, echoing along the concrete canyons, sirens began to wail.

4

Sandy Palmer crouched in an uptown corner of the Seventy-second Street subway platform with The Light's editor on the other end of his cell phone. The connection was tenuous from this underground spot, and he feared losing it at any second.

George Meschke's voice growled in his ear. At first he'd been pissed at being disturbed at home, now he was all ears. "You're sure you've got that number right?"

"Absolutely."

"Six dead?"

"As doornails. Two men and four women—I counted them twice before 1 left the car." Sandy peered through the controlled chaos farther down the platform. "A seventh victim, a black woman, was still alive but with an ugly head wound. The EMTs are just taking her away."

"You're amazing, kid," Meschke said. "I don't know how you kept your cool. I'd 've lost it after going through what you've just told me."

"Cool as a cucumber," Sandy said. "That's me."

He neglected to mention that he'd given up dinner soon after the train had stopped. Even now—what, fifteen minutes later?—his hands were still shaking.

Those first moments were something of a blur. He remembered seeing the GPM run out, and his abrupt exit had seemed to throw a switch in the crowd. Suddenly everybody wanted out—immediately if not sooner. Sandy had had to pull aside the still sobbing film student from the mass exodus to keep her from being trampled.

As he'd helped her to her feet he'd realized he had a golden opportunity here: he was a trained journalist who'd witnessed a front-page crime. If he could gather his senses, focus on the details, and make the most of the fact that he was his own primary source, he could accomplish something here, something big.

"What's your name?" he'd asked the shaken young woman. "Your real name?"

"Beth." Her voice was barely audible, her skin so white she looked almost blue.

"Come on. Let's get you out of here."

As he'd moved behind her, guiding her, half supporting her, he turned and checked out the front end of the car… the sprawled bodies of the victims… the killer, whose upper half had fallen through the doors when they opened, lying half in and half out of the car… the OR tech still tending to the wounded woman… and the blood, good Christ, the blood—the whole end of the car was awash in pools of it. Who'd have thought people could hold so much blood? And the smell—books always described the smell of blood as coppery, but Sandy had no idea what the hell copper smelled like, only that the whole car reeked of death and unimaginable violence and suddenly he couldn't breathe and the hot dog and Mountain Dew he'd wolfed down on the run after work couldn't stay where they were, wanted out of him as urgently as he'd wanted out of that charnel house on wheels.

And so as he propelled Beth ahead of him and stepped into the marginally fresher air of the station, his stomach heaved and ejected its contents in a sour, burning arc that disappeared into the dark chasm between the train and the edge of the platform.

Wiping his mouth Sandy looked around and hoped that no one had noticed. No one seemed to. After what they'd all been through, vomiting was a nonevent.

He'd then become aware of the noise that filled the station—the cries, the moans, the wails of the survivors who'd just escaped mixing with the screams of the waiting would-be passengers as they got a look inside and turned away with wide eyes and slack jaws. He noticed some getting sick just as he had, or collapsing onto benches and weeping, or simply slumping to the concrete platform.

He'd also noticed others hightailing it up the stairs, those who either didn't want to be questioned by the police, or didn't want to get involved in any way.

Sandy very much wanted to be involved—up to his eyeballs.

He'd found an empty spot on an initial-gouged wooden bench and eased Beth into it. Behind him he heard the automatic doors hiss closed after their programmed interval. He whirled, afraid the train would leave, but no chance of that: the killer's body was blocking one set of doors from closing—they kept pincering his corpse, then rebounding, closing again, and rebounding…

A conductor trotted down, his annoyed expression melting to horror, his forward charge stuttering to a halt when he saw the carnage, reversing to a wobbly-kneed retreat as he staggered away for help.

Sandy noticed a woman nearby sobbing into her cell phone. "Nine-one-one?" he asked.

She nodded.

Good. That meant the cops would be here in minutes. Scanner-equipped stringers and reporters wouldn't be far behind. He didn't have much time to get ahead of them.

"You'll be okay if I leave you here for a bit?" he'd said to Beth.

She'd nodded but said nothing. She was sobbing again. He felt bad leaving her but…

"I'll only be a couple of minutes."

Sandy had hurried then down to the far end of the platform where he could have some privacy and hear himself think. He wondered why he wasn't coming apart like so many of the others. He had no illusions about his inner toughness—he'd had lessons in piano, tennis, even karate, but none in machismo. Maybe it was because he had a job to do, and when he'd finished he too would fall apart. He hoped not.

That was when he'd got hold of George Meschke. He hadn't been sure what he'd accomplish. The Light was a weekly, published on Wednesdays, and tomorrow's issue had already been put to bed. But Meschke was the editor, this was news, and he seemed to be the one to call.

Cops and emergency teams had flooded into the station and he related everything as he'd seen it.

"This is great stuff, Palmer. Amazing stuff."

"Yeah, but what can we do with it? This week's issue is set." Never before had Sandy wished so fiercely that he worked for a daily.

"Not anymore. As soon as I hang up with you I'm calling everyone in and we're going to scrap the first three pages. Redo them top to bottom. I'm going to rough this out pretty much as you told it to me. It'll be your story—your first-person account—under your byline with a front page go-to."

"My byline—front page? My byline?" Sandy resisted the urge to jump up and do an arm-pumping victory dance. This was not the time or place. "You mean that?"

"Damn right. Now get off the phone and nose around there. Pick up as much as you can. The Times, the Post, and the News will be stuck up on street level. You're the only one down below, Palmer, so milk this dry. Then rush down here and we'll see about doing a box feature. Hell, with an eyewitness on staff, we're going to be the paper on this story."

"You got it, George. But listen. I've thought of a headline."

"Give it to me."

"'Underground Galahad.'"

"I don't think so."

"How about 'Nightmare on the Nine'?"

"Better. But let's leave the headline for later. Concentrate on your first-person opportunity down there."

"Sure. Talk to you soon."

Sandy snapped the phone shut and leaped up from his crouch. His nerve endings sang. Front page… his own byline… on a major story—the story of the year! This was better than sex!

As he started back toward the chaos, he realized he was probably grinning like a nerd who'd just lost his virginity. He wiped it off. And slowed his bounding pace. Had to be professional here. This was a monster leg up for his career and he'd better not blow it.

The NYPD had swarmed in and taken command. Plainclothes detectives and uniforms were everywhere, sectioning off the platform with yellow crime scene tape, stretching more between columns and across stairways.

They'd herded the survivors into one area. As Sandy approached he noticed some looking dazed, some still sobbing, one hysterical, a few trying to hide the large wet spots on their pants, all coming down from the adrenaline overload of fearing for their lives as cops tried to take statements from the more coherent ones.

Sandy wove slowly through the crowd, pausing to listen whenever and wherever he could.

"… and then out of nowhere, this savior appeared," said a stooped old woman in a wrinkled blue dress.

"What did he look like, ma'am?" said the female officer bending over her with notebook in hand.

"Like Jesus."

"You mean he had long hair?"

"No."

"Short, then?"

"Not exactly."

"Can you tell me what he looked like?"

"We were not to look upon his face…"

Sandy moved on, pausing again by the tall ministerial black man he recognized from the death car.

"… and so then I spoke to him."

"Spoke to who? The second shooter?"

"We think of him as the Savior."

"'We'?"

"We who were blessed enough to survive. When we were freed from the train, someone said, 'Who was he? Who was our savior?' And that's how we now refer to him."

"Can you give me a description of this 'savior,' sir?"

"Medium build, brown hair… I can't tell you much about his face because I didn't see it. He had this hat, you see, and he pulled it down to hide his face."

"How tall was he?"

"I'd say average height. Shorter than me, anyway."

Sandy kept moving, taking a circuitous route back to Beth, and along the way he kept hearing his fellow survivors trying and failing to describe this man they were calling 'the Savior.' He understood their problem: a guy so unremarkable seemed virtually invisible. Sandy had tagged him GPM for that very reason: he was a paradigm of the generic pale male.

He found Beth again but now she wasn't alone. A plainclothesman was seated next to her, his notebook held at the ready. Beth had her hands stuffed stiff-armed between her knees and was still shaking. Sandy knelt beside her. She jumped when he laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Oh, it's you," she said with a nervous flicker of a smile.

"And you are…?" said the detective.

"Sandy Palmer. I was on the train with Beth."

"Have you given a statement yet?"

The word no was approaching his lips when a subliminal warning from somewhere in his subconscious made him pull it back.

"Who's that policewoman back there?" he said, trying to avoid getting caught in a lie later. "I forget her name."

The detective nodded. "Were you able to get a look at the second shooter?"

"You mean the Savior?" Sandy replied.

"Whatever."

To avoid a direct answer Sandy turned to Beth. "You saw him, didn't you, Beth?"

She shook her head.

"But you were right there, just a couple of feet from him."

"But I wasn't looking at him. I barely looked at you, if you remember."

Sandy smiled. "I remember."

"I mean, I saw his back when he went after the killer—wait! He had a name on the back of his shirt!"

The detective leaned forward, his pencil poised over his pad. "What did it say?"

Beth squeezed her eyes shut. "It was all such a blur, but I think it said 'Sherbert' or something like that that."

"Sherbert?" the detective said, scribbling. "You're sure?"

Sandy rubbed a hand over his mouth to hide a smile. "Chrebet," he offered. "I remember now. He was wearing a green-on-white Jets jersey. Number eighty."

"Christ," the detective muttered, shaking his head as he scratched out a line on his pad with hard, annoyed strokes. "I think we can figure it wasn't Wayne Chrebet."

"You know him?" Beth said.

"Wide receiver for the Jets," Sandy replied, then added, "That's a football team."

"Oh." She seemed to shrink a little. "I hate football."

"You didn't see his face?" the detective said.

"No. He had it covered when he turned around." She turned to Sandy. "You didn't see him either?"

Sandy wet his lips. An idea was forming. Its boldness tied his gut into knots but its potential made him giddy. It meant going out on a limb—far out on a very slim limb. But then, nothing ventured, nothing gained…

"I saw what you saw," he said.

"Shit," the detective muttered and slapped his notebook against his thigh. "What was this guy—invisible?"

"When can we leave?" Beth said. "I want to go home."

"Soon, miss," the detective said, softening. "Soon as we get names and addresses and statements from all you witnesses, we'll see that you all get home safely."

As the cop moved off, Sandy leaned close to Beth and whispered, "I'm getting stir crazy. I've got to move around. You'll be okay for a few minutes?" He didn't know why but somehow he felt responsible for her.

"Sure," she said. "Not like there aren't any cops around."

"Good point."

He left her and edged back toward the death car where flashes from the forensic team's cameras kept lighting the interior like welders' arcs. He noticed a cluster of three plainclothesmen and one uniform gathered outside one of the open sets of doors. Farther on, a man wearing latex gloves—from the forensics team, no doubt—examined the killer where he'd fallen through the doorway.

Sandy needed to be over there, needed to hear what these cops were saying, but he couldn't get his feet to move. One step past that tape and he'd be sent scurrying back with his tail between his legs to stay put with the rest of the survivors. But he wasn't just a survivor, he was the press too, damn it—the people's right to know and all that.

He tried to remember techniques from that assertiveness training course he'd taken last year but came up blank except for the old bromide about how the worst that could happen was that someone simply would say No.

But fearing rejection, of all things, seemed more than silly after what he'd just been through.

Sandy pulled his press card from his wallet and palmed it. A quick glance around showed no one looking his way. He noticed that one of the plainclothes cops was pretty big. Huge, in fact. Choosing an angle of approach that used the big guy's bulk as a shield, Sandy ducked under the yellow tape and sidled up to the foursome, listening, taking mental notes.

"… like the second shooter knew what he was doing."

"How you mean?"

"According to what we're hearing he got the crazy in the shoulders first, then blew him away."

"Fucking executed him's more like it. But what was he carrying? Nobody can tell us anything about his gun except it was real small."

"And holds at least four rounds."

"Not a .22, I can tell you that. Not a .32 either from the size of the crazy's wounds. Guy took his brass with him so we can't use that."

"The whole thing's weird—including the way he blew away the crazy. I mean, why not just do the head shot and have it done with?"

"'Cause if you miss that first head shot—and if we're talking about a tiny little barrel, there's a damn good chance you will—you're a goner because this Colin Ferguson wannabe's got a pair of nines and he's going to blow you away. So if you're smart you do what our guy does: you go for an arm and—"

"Seems low percentage to me. I'd go for center of mass."

"Fine—unless he's wearing a vest. And witnesses say the crazy was turned sideways when he took the first hit. An arm's bigger than a head, and even a miss has got a good chance at the torso, vested or not. So our guy goes for an arm and makes the shot. Now there's one less gun to deal with, and he's also a few steps closer. So now it's easier to take out the other arm."

"Sounds like he's been trained."

"Damn straight. Taking his brass with him says he's a pro. But trained by who? With both arms messed up, the crazy wasn't going to do any more shooting. Could've left him like that. But he finished him off."

"But good."

"Probably didn't want to hear about 'yellow rage' for the next two years."

"Like I said—a fucking execution."

"You got complaints about that, McCann?"

"Maybe. Maybe I don't like executioners running around loose."

"Which is probably just why he took off. He—"

The black plainclothesman speaking caught sight of Sandy over the big guy's shoulder and pointed at him. "You are in a restricted area."

"Press," Sandy forced himself to exclaim, holding up his card.

Suddenly he found himself the object of an array of outraged expressions.

"How the hell—?"

"And an eyewitness," he quickly added.

That mollified them somewhat, until the big detective, the one they'd called McCann, florid faced with thinning gray brush-cut hair, looking a little like Brian Dennehy, stepped in for a closer look at his press card. His breath reeked of a recent cigar.

"The Light? Christ, he's from the fucking Light! Aliens and pierced eyeballs! Oh, shit, are you guys gonna have a ball with this!"

"That was the old days. We're different now."

It was true. The new owner had moved The Light away from the shock-schlock format that had made it notorious decades ago—every issue with an eye injury on page three, with photo if possible, and an alien story on page five—into a kinder, gentler scandal sheet, concentrating on celebrity foibles.

"Yeah? I wouldn't know."

"Of course not," Sandy said, feeling braver now. "Nobody but nobody reads The Light. Yet somehow the issues keep disappearing from the newsstands."

"Probably those aliens," McCann said. "Tell me, did your journalist's powers of observation happen to register a description of the second shooter's face?"

Sandy had already settled on how to play this. He shook his head. "No. But I know someone who did."

He was suddenly the center of attention, all four of the cops who-ing like a chorus of owls.

Sandy pointed to the killer. "Him."

"A wise-ass," McCann said. "Just what we need." He gave Sandy a dismissive wave. "Get back on the other side of the tape with the other useless witnesses."

Sandy managed not to move. He couldn't let this happen. What could he say? One of his therapist's remarks about every relationship being a negotiation of sorts filtered back to him. Negotiate… what did he have to offer?

The gun. They'd been talking about the gun, wondering what kind, and Sandy'd had the best look at it.

"Okay," Sandy said, turning and staring to move away. "I came over here because I got a good look at his gun. But if you're not interested—"

"Hold it," said McCann. "You better not be playing any games here, newsboy, or you're gonna find your ass in a sling."

Again he had their attention. Now he had to play this just right. Negotiate. Give them something they needed, something real, and in return get to hang here where the action was. But he sensed that a direct quid-pro-quo offer would only land him in hot water. Damn, he wished he had more experience at this.

Okay, just wing it and hope they're grateful.

"He pulled it out of an ankle holster."

The detectives glanced at each other. The black one nodded. "Go on. You know the difference between a revolver and an automatic?"

"It looked like an automatic. I saw him pull back the slide before he started toward the killer, but…"

"But what?"

"Maybe it wasn't working right because he pulled the slide back before every shot."

"I'll be damned!" said the lone uniform. "Could be a Semmerling."

"A what?" McCann said.

"Semmerling LM-4. Supposedly the world's smallest .45. Saw one at a gun show once. Would have picked it up if I'd had the dough. Looks like a semi-auto—has the slide and all—but it's really just a repeater."

"How small?" McCann wanted to know. He was looking Sandy's way.

Sandy tried to remember. "Everything happened so fast… but I think"—he straightened his fingers and placed his palm against his hip—"I think I could cover it with my hand."

McCann looked back to the uniform. "That about right?"

A nod. "I'd say so."

"Sounds like a stupid piece to me," the black detective said.

"Not if you want maximum stopping power in a little package."

"C'mere," McCann said to Sandy, motioning him to follow.

Sandy stayed right on the big detective's heels. Oh, yes. This was just what he'd been hoping for.

But when they came upon the killer's corpse he wasn't so sure. Close up like this he could see that the man's shoulder wounds were worse than he'd thought. And his face… the right eye socket was a bloody hole and the remaining eye was bulging half out of its socket… his face was all swollen… in fact his head seemed half again its normal size.

Be careful what you wish for, Sandy thought, averting his gaze as stomach acid pushed to the back of his throat.

He swallowed and looked again at the corpse. What a photo that would make. He felt in his pocket for the mini-Olympus he always carried. Did he dare?

"Hey, Kastner," McCann said to the gloved man leaning over the killer. "Your best guess on the caliber—and I won't hold you to it."

"Don't have to guess. If these wounds aren't from a .45, I'm in the wrong biz."

McCann nodded. "Okay. So our second shooter wanders around with something called a Semmerling LM-4 strapped to his ankle."

"Not exactly government issue," the black detective grunted. "And hey, if the crazy was hit with a .45, how come his brains aren't splattered all over the car?"

"Because the second shooter was using frangibles," Kastner the forensics man said.

"Whoa!" said the uniform.

"Frangibles?" Sandy asked. "What's a frangible?"

"A bullet that breaks up into pieces after it hits."

"Lots of pieces that bounce all over," Kastner commented. "They're going to find puree du brain when they crack this guy's cranium."

McCann turned to the black detective. "Which brings us back to what I said before, Rawlins: an execution."

With McCann not looking, Sandy had his chance. Carefully he wormed his camera out of his pocket and pointed it toward the corpse. He couldn't risk a flash but the lights looked bright enough. He covered the flash with a thumb. A quick glance showed Rawlins and the others facing McCann.

"Doin' a crazy who's just blown away half a dozen good people and on track to do a dozen or two more?" Rawlins said, pursing his lips and shaking his head. "That's not an execution, that's putting down a mad dog. That's steppin' on a cockroach."

Keeping his face toward the cops, Sandy held the camera at hip level and started shooting.

"Maybe," McCann was saying. "But I like to know who's doing the stepping."

After half a dozen quick frames Sandy slipped the camera back into his pocket. He was sweating. He felt as if he'd just done a two-mile sprint.

"Easy enough in this case," Rawlins said, breaking into a grin. "We just roust all the average-height-medium-built-brown-haired white guys in the five boroughs and check their ankles for holsters."

"We'll find him," McCann said. "Guy does something like this, saves a carload of lives, he thinks he's a hero. He's gonna tell someone. No way he'll be able to keep his yap shut. And then we'll have him."

"And then what?" Sandy said, alarmed. They were talking about the man who'd saved his life. "What'll you do to him?"

McCann squinted at him. "Probably nothing. A lot of people are gonna want to give him a ticker-tape parade—I know you and everyone else on that car sure as shit will—but plenty of others won't be so keen. He may have saved lives, but he's also probably some sort of gun nut, and as of tonight he's a killer. Not exactly the perfect poster boy for civic responsibility."

"You want to lock him up?" Sandy said.

McCann shook his head. "Not particularly. But I do want to know who he is. Anybody who wanders through my precinct carrying that kind of firepower and who's able to use it to such deadly effect, I want to know about."

"But you have no description beyond average-height-medium-built-brown-haired Caucasian, right?" Sandy asked. The answer was crucial.

"Don't even have his eye color," Rawlins said.

Sandy almost blurted brown before he caught himself in the nick of time.

"Think the survivors could be protecting him?" the uniform said.

McCann narrowed his eyes and scrutinized Sandy. "How about that, Mr. Newspaperman? You and your friends here wouldn't be obstructing justice now, would you?"

Sandy's tongue took on a leathery taste and texture. He swallowed and tried to muster some indignation.

"If you mean did we all get together and cook up a useless description, how could we? None of us was in any state of mind for that kind of thinking. If you want to see what I had for dinner, detective, check out the tracks over there. We were all too sick with relief at just being alive."

"Even if they'd wanted to," Rawlins said, "I doubt they'd 've had time. Let's face it: this second shooter was an average white male who hid his face and took off."

"Yeah, I guess so," McCann said. "Doesn't matter much anyway. Like I said: he'll turn up. Just a matter of time."

But I'm going to find him first, Sandy thought, as visions of talk shows and book contracts danced in his head.

The Savior… the second shooter… the GPM… whatever he was called, only one person in this whole city could identify him. And Sandy Palmer wasn't about to fritter that away. Simply having survived that death train would earn him a moment in the journalistic sun tomorrow. But what about the next day, and the day after that? He'd be—quite literally—yesterday's news.

But not if he held onto this ace in the hole… and played it right.

Mama Palmer didn't raise no dummy. A once-in-a-lifetime golden opportunity had been dropped into his lap, a chance to parlay his eyewitness status into an even bigger media coup: he'd find the Savior, wrangle an exclusive to his story, then bring him in.

He thought of reporters linked for all posterity with the sources of their greatest story: Jimmy Breslin and his Son of Sam letter, Woodward and Bernstein and their Deep Throat.

How about Sandy Palmer and the Savior?

5

Jack sat in the dark, sipping a Corona and watching his TV, terrified of what he might hear and see, but he couldn't turn it off. Started with Channel Five which kicked off its nightly news at ten, but tonight it didn't matter which New York station he chose; they'd all interrupted their regular lineups to cover the subway mass murder.

But the big hook, the story within the story that made this must-see TV, was the mystery man who had killed the killer and then faded away. Everyone wanted to know who he was.

Jack chewed his lip, waiting for the eyewitness description, the artist's sketch. Any moment now a likeness of his face would flash onto the screen. He cringed when he saw some of the survivors, people he recognized from the train, snagged by the cameras and microphones. Most hadn't much to say beyond how grateful they were to be alive and how they owed their lives to the mystery man, someone they'd labeled "the Savior." As to what this fellow looked like, none of those on camera had anything to add to the previously broadcast description of a brown-haired white male between twenty-five and fifty years old.

Relieved, Jack let his head fall back and closed his eyes. So far so good. But he wasn't in the clear yet. Not even close. Someone had to have got a good look at him; that kid trying to pick up the film student, for instance; he'd been sitting only a couple of feet away. Probably pouring his guts out to a police sketch artist right now.

Finally the newscasters moved on to other stories and Jack found himself up and moving about the apartment, wandering through the rooms. Had a stack of videotapes set up for his Terence Fisher festival. He'd planned to start tonight, opening with Curse of Frankenstein, but knew he wouldn't be able to sit still through it. His two-bedroom place usually was plenty of room for him, but tonight it felt like a noose around his neck. Slowly tightening.

Got to get out of here.

And go where? He ached for Gia but she was out of town. As soon as school let out she'd packed up Vicky and flown to Ottumwa, Iowa, for a week-long visit with her folks, part of her ongoing effort to keep Vicky in contact with her extended family. Hated that the two women in his life were so far away, resented sharing them with other people even if they were blood relations, but he never mentioned that to Gia. Who knew how many more years Vicky's grandmother would be around?

Maybe just wander over to Julio's, stand at the bar, have a beer, and pretend it was just another night. But the TV would be on and instead of the Yanks or the Mets everyone would be watching the special reports about the subway murders and that was all they'd be talking about.

How about simply going for a walk?

But what if—he knew this was ridiculous, but the thought stuck with him—what if he passed somebody from the train on the street and they recognized him?

Possible, yes. The least bit likely, no.

And let's face it, he thought. Tonight I'm safe. No sketch yet. Tomorrow might be a whole different story.

Tonight could be his last chance to wander the city at will. Might as well get out there now and take advantage of it.

He showered and dressed in a completely different look: khakis, a light blue shirt with a button-down collar under a cranberry V-neck sweater to hide the Glock 19 in his nylon small-of-the-back holster.

On the way to the door he stopped and looked around the cluttered front room where he kept all his stuff. Old stuff. Neat stuff. Most people would call it junk—premiums, giveaways, and kitschy tie-ins from the pulp magazines, comic strips, and radio shows of the 1930s and '40s displayed on century-old furniture. Another generation's nostalgia.

What about his own childhood growing up through the seventies?

He remembered little and cared less. Why keep a Brady Bunch lunch box when you could have one with The Shadow staring at you from under his black slouch hat? A Radio Orphan Annie decoder, an official Doc Savage Club certificate… nothing from his own past was anywhere near as neat as those.

Gia, perpetually baffled at his attraction to this stuff, had often asked him why—why a lunch box or magic ring or cheap plastic doodad from any era?—and he'd never been able to come up with an answer. Didn't care to try. Some shrink-type could probably fabricate a deep-seated reason for his compulsion to accumulate ephemera with no connection to his own past, but who cared why? He liked it. Enough said.

But if forced to cut and run he'd have to leave all this behind. Strangely it didn't matter. It was stuff. Neat stuff, but still just stuff. He could walk away with barely an instant's regret. Gia and Vicky, though… being separated from them would be a killer.

Not going to happen, he told himself as he headed down the stairs for the street.

He'd do whatever it took to keep this one lousy incident from disrupting his life and his business.

His business… he hadn't checked his voice mail in a while.

Walked over to Broadway, found a phone booth, and tapped in his codes. One call. From a woman who said she'd been referred to him as someone who could help her with a problem involving a friend and a cult. Left her cell phone number but didn't say who'd referred her or any details about the cult or her problem with it. Decided she was worth a call back. An indefinable something about her voice appealed to him, made him want to work on her problem.

Glanced at his watch: 11:20. Might be late to call her, but he needed something to do and this could be it. A new customer with a new fix-it job would occupy his mind and time while waiting for the fallout from tonight's fiasco.

Dialed her number. When she answered he said. "This is Jack, returning your call."

"Oh. I didn't expect you to call back so soon." A nice voice; soft and mature. Not too old, not too young.

Good start, Jack thought.

"Some problems can wait," he said, "some can't. You didn't say anything about yours. I can meet you tonight if necessary."

"Gosh, it's late but…"

"Where do you live?"

"I… I'd rather not say."

"Not your street address, your section of the city."

"Oh. It's called the Flower District. It's—"

"Know it." Upper Twenties around Sixth, above Chelsea. "I can meet you anywhere you want down there in about fifteen minutes."

"Tonight? Gee, I don't…"

"Lady, you called me."

A pause during which he swore he could hear her chewing her lip.

"Okay. But someplace public."

Someplace public… could meet her on Forty-second Street. Few places in the city more public than the Deuce since Disney moved in. Maybe too public. Better to make it closer to where she lived…

Considered the Seventh Avenue Papaya on the corner of Twenty-third, but that was usually a madhouse this time of night. He grinned. Maybe he should freak her out and suggest La Maison de Sade, the S-and-M supper club next to the Chelsea Hotel. Wait—that was it.

"How about the Chelsea Hotel?"

"Where's that?"

Something not right here. "Thought you said you lived in the Flower District. You live down there and don't know the Chelsea?"

"I'm visiting. I'm from… from out of town."

"Okay then. It's right down Seventh from you. On Twenty-third. I'll meet you in the lobby. Is that public enough?"

"I don't know… this is so strange."

Hesitant. Jack liked that. He'd take a hesitant customer over a gung-ho out-for-blood type any day.

"Here's how we'll work it: I'll hang out there until midnight. If you change your mind and don't show, fine. If you see me and don't like what you see, just turn around and go back home and we'll forget the whole thing."

"That sounds fair, I guess."

"And you should know up front that I don't work cheap."

"I think it's a little early to haggle about fees. How will I spot you?"

"No problem. I'll stand out."

"How?"

"I won't be wearing black."

A tiny laugh. "I've spent enough time here to appreciate that!"

Her laugh… something vaguely familiar there… an echo of a laugh from long ago, but damned if he could remember who or when.

"Do I know you?" Jack asked.

"Oh, I doubt that. I doubt that very, very much."

Probably right. She said she was from out of town and Jack didn't leave the city much.

She added, "I only heard of you a couple of hours ago."

"From whom?"

"That's the strangest part. This woman I've never seen before gave me your number and said you could help."

"A stranger? What's her name?"

"I don't know. She had a Russian accent and a big white dog. She said to call you tonight… only you."

Got his number from a stranger… that didn't sit right, especially since the only people he knew with Russian accents were members of a Brighton Beach crew he'd had a brush with last year, and they weren't too fond of him.

A little extra caution might be in order here.

"You call someone you've never heard of on the recommendation of someone you don't know. You must be a very trusting person."

"No, I'm not. I'm just a very upset person. Maybe even a little frightened."

Thought he heard her voice threatening to crack at the end there. Okay. She sounded genuine. He could figure out later who the mystery woman was. For now…

"All right. I'll be dressed like Joe Prep; no way you'll be able to miss me in that crowd." Thought of something. "And remember, it's the Chelsea Hotel, not the Chelsea Savoy which is a couple of doors away. You want the big old red building with wrought-iron balconies all up and down its face and a red-and-white-striped awning over the entrance. Got it?"

"Got it."

"Okay. See you then."

Hung up and flagged a cab. As the driver headed down Broadway,

Jack wondered why he felt so determined to involve himself in fixing this woman's problem, whatever it was. He knew he was looking for a distraction, but it went beyond that.

Shrugged it off. Important thing was he was on the move, doing something instead of hanging around his apartment like a prisoner in a cell.

6

Sandy sat before one of the workstations in the darkened editorial pool, cursing as he tried by trial and error to decipher the workings of the unfamiliar program.

Once he'd figured he'd learned all he was going to at the crime scene, he got McCann to spring him and made a beeline for The Light offices just off Times Square. Immediately he'd had a face-to-face with George Meschke and the rest of the staff during which they'd listened with wide eyes as he recounted his tale. What a buzz getting the rapt attention of all those hardened pros.

Only Pokorny, good old smart-ass Jay Pokorny, the only other reporter on the staff anywhere near his age, had tried to rain on his parade.

"You sure you didn't stage this, Palmer?" he said, looking down at him along his long, thin, patrician nose. "You know, hire some guy to off people in front of you just so you could make the front page?"

"Only you'd think of that, Jay," he'd said.

"I could be home getting laid," Pokorny mumbled, and wandered away.

After Sandy had written up his first-person eyewitness account—sans the GPM's description, of course—he zapped it to Meschke's computer. From there it would go to the printers who were standing by, readying a double run of tomorrow's edition.

All he needed now to make this incredible evening complete was just one usable frame on that roll he'd given the photo lab.

At the moment, Sandy was on his own time, doing his own thing. That involved a program called Identi-Kit 2000. He'd seen a reporter using it once and learned it was loaded onto the mainframe. Tonight he'd found and accessed it, and was now trying to get it to work for him. A manual existed somewhere in the building, he was sure, but he couldn't go asking for it. Anyone hearing about a witness to a major crime who wanted to know how to use the computer equivalent of a police sketch artist would catch on fast to what Sandy was up to.

He wasn't doing too badly without the manual, but the program offered so many variations on facial features that he felt his mind going numb. He'd wasted a lot of time trying to guess the hairline, then realized that was a mistake. He'd never seen the GPM's hairline and if he got it wrong it would work against him. So he had the program stick a knit watch cap on the head and that solved that.

A truly amazing piece of software. Slowly, steadily, through trial and error, hit and miss, he'd seen the GPM's face emerge and take shape on the screen. Except for the damn eyes. He'd worked the chin, the nose, the lips until they were pretty close to what he remembered. But the eyes—when he raised them they looked too high, yet when he lowered them they looked equally wrong.

He closed his own eyes and tried to remember the man's face as he'd looked past Sandy's shoulder to check the station stop… brought it into focus and zeroed in on those mild brown eyes…

Wider. That was it.

Back on the screen, Sandy widened the eyes then moved them up just a tad.

It's him! he thought, feeling his fingers tingle. Damn me, it's him!

He saw a world, a universe of possibilities bursting open before him.

But only if he kept it to himself. If anybody else got hold of this he'd lose his exclusive… lose that glorious future.

Sandy glanced around. No one nearby. He mouse-clicked PRINT, typed a "10" into the COPIES box, then turned off his monitor. He rose, stretched, and made his way as casually as he could to the printer. There he watched the sheets with that face, that wonderful generic face, sliding into the tray.

When all ten were done, he folded them once and buttoned them inside his shirt, then returned to the workstation.

Now… what to do with the Identi-Kit file? His first instinct was to delete it. But what if he needed to come back to it, maybe revise it? He didn't want to have to start from scratch all over again. He decided to label it GPM and leave it in the Identi-Kit folder. That way it would have no connection to him, and anyone finding it would think GPM stood for the initials of the guy in the drawing. Gerald P. Mahoney perhaps.

Sandy grinned as he closed out the program. Sometimes I'm so sneaky I scare myself.

He headed for the exit, gliding like a dancer through the maze of empty desks. A little shut-eye, then he'd be up early to catch the morning edition with his first byline. Maybe a call to the folks to make sure they picked up The Light so they wouldn't miss seeing how all those years of tuition were finally bearing fruit, even if he was working for a sleazbloid.

And then later tomorrow… starting the search.

Only problem was, he wasn't the least bit tired. In fact he was still totally wired. He wished he could drop into a bar where all his friends hung out and hoist a few beers while he blew their minds with his story of the subway ride to hell and back.

Trouble was, he didn't have a gang of friends. Not even one good friend, to tell the truth. Hell, he didn't even have a roommate. He still lived alone in the co-op his parents had bought in Morningside Heights when he'd entered Columbia. They still owned it and had been letting him live on there rent free since graduation—a great perk for him and a solid investment for them with the relentless rise in West Side property values.

Most of the time he didn't mind not having close friends. Acquaintances were perfectly adequate. But tonight… tonight he wished he had one person—just one—he could share this with. That film student, for instance. Beth. What was her last name? He could kick himself now for not getting her phone number. And the least he could have done was to have found her and said good-bye before he'd dashed back to The Light.

Typical me, he thought. A brown thumb with relationships.

And face it, what did he have to offer? Not as if he was setting the world on fire like some of the guys he'd known in undergrad. A few of his fellow English majors had gone on to brokerage houses and investments banks and mega-bonuses—English majors without a single business course to their names! And don't mention the computer geeks who spent every waking moment of their college years playing Ultima Online and then joined dot-coms in the Flatiron District to haul down six figures plus stock options. The market collapse had stifled their brags, but financially they remained light years ahead of Sandy.

When's my turn? he'd asked himself.

Well, he'd got the answer tonight. Sandy Palmer's turn was now. He'd always dreamed of breaking a big story, and now that dream was about to come true.

He kept flashing back to Woodward and Bernstein. Who were they before they connected with Deep Throat? Nobodies. But afterward they were household names. This story wasn't the caliber of Watergate, but it had the same potential for hooking public interest, and not just locally—nationwide eyeballs could be staring his way.

He tried to rein in the fantasies—never paid to get your hopes up too high—but he could feel them taking off, soaring in a high, jet-fueled arc.

Fifteen minutes of fame? Screw that. He'd do a network hour with Charlie Rose, be on all the talk shows. He'd be the man to know, the guy to be seen with, his name would pop up in gossip columns, his face a regular on "The Scene" page of New York Magazine as he's spotted attending film premieres, gallery openings, and literary receptions, and don't forget parties in the Hamptons where his dalliances would be mentioned in the "Sunday Styles" section of the Times.

Dalliances… oh, yeah. Those models and starlets just throw themselves at famous writers and journalists. No more worrying about relationships, everybody will want to know Sandy Palmer.

But first he'd have to find the guy.

That sobering reality brought him back to earth. This was not going to happen by itself. He had some work ahead of him. Hard work.

Out on the street Sandy flagged a cab. He'd already decided to splurge on a taxi home. He didn't think he could handle another subway ride tonight.

7

Jack knew it was her the moment she stepped through the door.

He'd been sitting in the Chelsea's intimate, marble-tiled lobby on an intricately carved sofa situated between the equally intricately carved fireplace and a metallic sculpture of some sort of jackal sitting atop an undersized elephant. He'd spent the waiting time admiring the vast and eclectic array of art festooning the walls.

The Chelsea had been a fabled haunt of artists and entertainers for decades, and nowadays most of them seemed to own clothes of only one color: black. So when this woman in beige linen slacks and a rose sweater set stepped through the door she stood out among the leather and lingerie habitues as much as he did. Her head was down so he didn't see her face at first, but the style of her curly honey blond hair and mature figure jibed with the voice on the phone.

Then she looked up and their eyes met and Jack's heart stuttered and missed a beat or two.

Kate! God, it was Kate!

Her voice, that little laugh—now he knew why they'd sounded familiar. They belonged to his sister.

Kate looked as stunned as Jack knew he must, but then her shock turned to something like fear and dismay.

"Kate!" he called as she started to turn away. "My God, Kate, it's me! Jack!"

She turned toward him again and now her face was more composed but hardly full of the joy one might expect at seeing her younger brother for the first time in a decade and a half.

Jack hurried up and stopped within a foot of her, staring.

"Jackie," she said. "I don't believe this."

Jackie… Christ, when had he last heard someone call him that? The word sundered an inner dam, loosing a flood of long-pent-up memories that engulfed him. He'd been the last of three kids: first Tom, Kate two years later, and Jack eight years after her. Kate, the natural nurturer, had half-raised him. They'd bonded, they'd been pals, she'd been the coolest person he knew and he'd fairly worshipped her. And then she'd gone off to college, leaving a hole in his ten-year-old life. Med school and pediatric residency after that. He remembered her wedding day…

Most of all Jack remembered this face, these pale blue eyes, the faint splash of freckles across the cheeks and nose, the strong jawline. Her hair was shorter and faintly streaked with gray; her skin had aged a little with a hint of crows feet at the corners of her eyes; and her face was a bit fuller, her hips a tad wider than he remembered, but her figure wasn't that much different from the one that had kept the boys calling all through high school. All in all his big sister Kate hadn't changed much.

"I don't believe this either," he said. "I mean, the odds are…"

"Astronomical."

He felt they should kiss, embrace, do something other than stand here facing each other, but they'd never been a huggy clan, and Jack had dropped out of his family and never looked back. Hadn't spoken a word to Kate in fifteen years. Until tonight.

"You look great," he said. And it was true. Even with very little make-up she did not look like a forty-four-year-old mother of two. She'd always been fair haired, but now she was a darker shade of blonde than he remembered. What a mane she used to have. "I see you've stopped straightening your hair. I still remember watching you use Mom's iron to flatten out your waves."

"Eventually you get to the point where you have to stop fighting your nature and just go with it." She glanced away. "Look. This was a mistake. If I'd had the slightest inkling you were the Jack I was calling, I never would have…" She let it trail off.

"Why not? If you've got a problem you should call family."

"Family?" Kate's eyes blazed to life as she turned back to him. "What would you know about family, Jackie? You vanished from our lives without even saying good-bye! Just a note saying you were leaving and not to worry! As if that was possible. For a while we didn't know if you were dead or alive. Do you have any idea what that was like for Dad? First he loses Mom, then you drop out of college and disappear. He almost lost it!"

"I'd already lost it, Kate."

Her eyes softened, but only a little. "I know how Mom's death—"

"Murder."

"Yes, you always insisted on calling it that, didn't you. It hit us all hard, and you the hardest perhaps, but Dad—"

"I've been back to see him."

"Only rarely, and only after he tracked you down. And I sent you all those letters, invited you to christenings and graduations and anniversaries, but you never responded. Not even to say no. Not once."

Jack's turn to look away, focus on a painting of a Manhattan street scene, but viewed at a crazy angle. Kate was right. She'd made a major effort to keep in touch, tried hard to bring him back into the family, and he'd snubbed her.

"Jackie, you've got a niece and a nephew you've never even met. They used to look at the wedding pictures and point to this young stranger who was one of the ushers and ask who he was."

"Kevin and Elizabeth," he said. "How are they?"

He knew them only from their photos. Kate was one of those people who sent out an annual here's-what-we've-been-doing-all-year letters with her Christmas card, usually accompanied by a family photo. At least she used to. Nothing at all from her for the last few years. Since the divorce.

"They're wonderful. Kevin's eighteen, Liz is sixteen, as if you give a damn."

Jack closed his eyes. Okay. Deserved that. He'd seen her kids grow up long distance, on Kodak paper.

But after he'd cut himself off and reinvented himself here in New York, how could he go back? He could never explain who he'd become. Tom, Kate, Dad especially—they'd never get it. Be horrified, in fact. Took enough to live his own life; didn't want to have to invent another life just for their approval.

"Look, Kate," he said. "I know I hurt people, and I'm sorry. I was just starting my twenties and coming apart at the seams. I can't change the past but maybe I can make up just a tiny bit of it to you now. Your friend and this cult you mentioned… maybe I can help."

"I don't think this is in your field."

"And what field would that be?"

"Appliance repairs, right?"

He laughed. "Who told you that?"

"Dad."

"Figures."

His father had called one of Jack's numbers years ago and heard an outgoing message that went: This is Repairman Jack. Describe the problem and leave a number and Ml get back to you. Naturally he'd assumed his son was some sort of appliance fixer.

"He's wrong?"

"I make my living fixing other things."

"I don't understand."

"No reason you should. Let's go someplace where we can sit and talk."

"No, Jackie. This won't work."

"Please, Kate?"

He reached out and gently gripped her wrist. He felt at the mercy of the vortex of emotions swirling around him. This was Kate, his big sister Kate, one of the best people he'd ever known, who'd been so good to him and who was still smarting from the awful way he'd treated her. She thought badly of him. He had to fix that.

She shook her head, seemed almost… afraid.

Afraid of him? That couldn't be. What then?

"Look. This is my city. If I can't help out your friend, I'll bet I know someone who can. And if that doesn't work out, at least we can talk. Come on, Kate. For old times' sake?"

Maybe his touch did it, but he felt a change in her muscle tone as some of the resistance seeped out of her.

"All right. Just for a little while."

"Great. What are you up for—coffee or a drink?"

"Normally I'd say coffee, but right now I think I could do with a drink."

"I hear you. Let's hunt up a place without music."

He took his sister by the elbow and guided her out to the street, then up along Seventh Avenue, wondering how much he dared tell her about himself, his life. He'd play it by ear. The important thing was he had her with him now, and he wasn't letting her go until he'd done something to make up for the hurt he'd caused.

8

Kate stared at the man sitting across the table from her. Jackie… her little brother… though he was hardly little anymore. She supposed she should start calling him Jack now.

They'd come upon a place called The Three Crowns that Jack had said looked good. A fifty-foot bar ran down the right side, a row of booths with green upholstery along the left, all of it oak. Oak everywhere. But not too crowded. The patrons seemed a mix of straight couples and gay males of varying ages, par for the course in Chelsea. The lights and the sound from the TVs over the bar were low and they'd found an empty booth in the rear. No table service, so Jack had made the trip to the bar and just returned with a gin and tonic for her and a pint of Harp for himself.

She quickly downed half her drink, hoping it would help dull the shock still vibrating through her. Jackie! Of all people! And worse, she'd mentioned "my friend" and the cult on his voice mail. She couldn't let him know about her and Jeanette. Nobody could know. Not yet.

Jackie… Jack. A part of her wanted to hate him for the pain he'd caused everyone. Well, not everyone. Tom was too self-involved to worry much about anyone a few inches beyond his own skin. But damn, she and Dad had gone half crazy with worry over Jack.

Yet she looked at him now and felt an urge to smile, to laugh aloud. This might be a terrible time to run into him, but despite everything that had happened—not happened, actually—between them, she couldn't deny this heart-swelling joy at seeing him again. Jackie… she'd helped feed him and change him when he was an infant, read him stories and baby-sat for him into her teens. And look at him now. Lord, how he'd changed. He'd been a boy the last time she'd seen him—a senior at Rutgers, one semester to go, but still a boy. A dark and brooding boy after Mom's death.

She still sensed a darkness in him, but he seemed comfortable in his skin now. And how he'd filled out that skin. Jackie had been so skinny as a kid, now she could sense sleek muscles coiling under his shirt. But was that a healing laceration running from the edge of his hairline into his right frontal scalp? Yes, definitely. It looked about four weeks old. She wondered how he'd got it.

He'd said this was his city and she could believe that. He seemed to belong here, moved so easily down its streets. She couldn't tell whether it had adopted him, or he'd adopted it. Whatever the case, they seemed made for each other.

Little brother or not, she had to keep this brief. One drink, promise to keep in touch, then get out of here. Keep the talk on the family, the good old days when Mom was still ruling the roost, keep it off Jeanette and the cult. Kate would find another way, sans little brother, to deal with that.

So they talked.

Actually Kate found herself doing most of it. Mostly about Kevin and Lizzie; she touched—a very glancing touch—on her divorce from Ron, mentioned a few details about her pediatric group, and then ran out of steam.

"See much of Tom?" Jack asked after a lull.

She shook her head. "No. He's a judge in Philly now, you know."

"I'd heard."

"He's on his third wife now. Saw him briefly over Christmas. I didn't see it when you were younger, but you and he look amazingly alike. Put on ten years and twenty pounds, add a little gray to your hair, and you could be twins."

"My big brother," Jack said, frowning as he shook his head. "Of all things, a judge."

Wondering at Jack's tone of chagrin, she raised her glass for another sip but found only ice cubes.

"Time for another," Jack said, taking it from her.

Before she could protest he was up and moving away from the table.

Moves like a cat, she thought as she watched him go.

Time to change the subject. So far the conversation had been pretty much a one-way street. Now it was his turn.

"So," she said as he set the second drink before her. "Enough about me. I need some answers from you. Most of all, I want to know why you simply disappeared from our lives. Was it what happened to Mom?"

Jack nodded. "Indirectly."

I knew it! Kate thought. Knew it, knew it, knew it!

"We were all devastated, Jack, but why—?"

"You weren't there in the car when that cinderblock came through the windshield, Kate. You didn't see the life seep out of her, see the light fade from her eyes."

"Okay. I wasn't there. Neither was Tom. But Dad was and he—"

"Dad didn't do anything about it. I did."

"I don't understand," she said, baffled. "Did what?"

He stared at her a long moment, as if weighing an important decision. Finally he spoke.

"I found him," he said softly. "Took me a while, but I found the guy who did it."

"Who did what?"

"Who threw the cinderblock off the overpass."

The words jolted her. Jackie had gone out looking… hunting… by himself?

"How come you never said anything? Did you tell the police?"

He shook his head. "No. I took care of it myself."

"What… what did you…?"

Suddenly it was as if a mask had dropped from Jack's face. She looked into his eyes now and for an instant, the span of a single agonized heartbeat, she felt as if she were peering into an abyss.

His voice remained low, flat, as cold as that abyss. "I fixed it."

And then the mask was back in place and an old memory flashed though Kate's brain… a newspaper article about a dead man, battered beyond recognition, found hanging upside down from a Turnpike overpass not too long after Mom's death, and she remembered wondering if it might be the same overpass, and if so it should be torn down because it must be cursed.

Could that have been the "guy" Jack said he'd tracked down? Was that why the body had been hung from that particular overpass?

No… not Jackie… not her little brother. He'd never… he couldn't kill. It had been someone else hanging from the overpass. And this man he'd mentioned… Jack had simply beaten him up.

Kate wanted very much to believe that. She turned her mind from the other possibility, but it lingered like a shadow across the table.

"Did… what you did solve anything? Did it make you feel better?"

"No," he said. "I'd thought it would, I was so sure it would, but it didn't do a damn thing for me. And after I… afterward nothing seemed to make much sense. College seemed particularly pointless. I had to get away before I exploded. I dropped out, Kate—way out. Spent years in- a blind rage, and by the time I'd blown off some of it and locked up the rest, I'd burned too many bridges to go back."

"Maybe you told yourself that. Maybe that made it easier for you, but it wasn't true."

"It was. And is. My life and your life… they're different worlds. No way you'd understand."

"Understand what? This repair business of yours? Just what is it you fix?"

"Hard to say. Situations, I guess."

"I don't get it."

"Sometimes people have problems or get themselves into situations where the legal and judicial system can't help, or they're involved in something they can't bring to the system. They pay me to fix it for them."

An appalling thought struck her. "You're not some kind of… of hitman, are you?"

He laughed—a real laugh, the kind you can't fake—and that reassured her. A little.

"No. Nothing so melodramatic as that."

"Do you pay people off?"

"No, I just sort of… it's hard to explain. And not the sort of thing I can advertise on a billboard."

"Is it legal?"

A shrug. "Sometimes yes, sometimes no."

Kate leaned back and stared. Who was this man across from her? He'd said he lived on a different world, one she'd never understand, and she was beginning to believe him. He was like a stranger from a faraway planet, and yet in many ways he was undeniably still her little brother Jackie.

First Jeanette, now Jack… her own world, never a comfortable place these past few years, now seemed to be crumbling. She felt unmoored from her life. Wasn't there anything left she could rely on?

Jack said, "Now can you see why I thought it best for all concerned that I keep to myself?"

"I don't know." Earlier tonight Kate would have said no—nothing you could have done would have changed the way we felt about you. She wasn't so sure anymore. "Maybe."

"I think Dad has scoped that I'm hiding something. Know what he asked me last time we talked?" Jack grinned. "Wanted to know if I was gay."

Kate gasped. She couldn't help it. She felt as if someone had just dashed a bucket of cold water in her face.

***

"It's not all that bad," Jack said, seeing Kate's shocked look.

He wondered at that. As a pediatrician she must have run into her share of teenagers who thought or knew or feared they might be gay. Maybe that was still a big deal in Kate's white-collar, middle-class-citizen world. Around here it was no deal at all.

"He flat-out asked you?" she said, her eyes still wide. "Just like that? When?"

"Couple of months ago. It was when he was planning to come up from Florida and visit you and Tom. I was trying to deflect him from including me in his itinerary."

"What did he say? Exactly."

Jack wondered at her sudden intensity.

"He said something about how he realized there might be aspects of my life I didn't want him to know about—which was dead-on right—and then he said that if I was gay…" Jack had to smile here. "He could barely get the word out. Actually he said if I was gay 'or something like that'—he never got into what the 'something like that' might be—it was okay."

"He said it was okay?" Kate couldn't seem to believe it. "We're talking about our father, the Reagan Republican, the Rush Limbaugh fan. Dad said it was okay?"

"Yeah. He told me, 'I can accept it. You're still my son.' Isn't that a killer?"

Not that it changed a thing. His father might be able to accept a gay son, but he'd never accept how Jack made his living.

He saw tears in his sister's eyes and asked, "Something wrong?"

She quickly wiped them away. "Strange how some people can surprise the hell out of you." Eyes dry again, she looked at him. "Well, are you:

"What?"

"Gay?"

"No. Strictly hetero."

"But you never married?"

"No. I kicked around a lot when I was younger, but I'm pretty much settled with one woman now."

"Pretty much?"

"Well, I'm settled, but let's just say she's got some issues about my work. How about you? I'll bet a lot of guys came around after the divorce. Seeing anyone?"

"Yes." A little nod, a little smile, but very warm. "Someone special."

"Are we going to hear wedding bells again?"

And now a sad look. "No."

Strange answer. Not at all tentative. Unless she was seeing a married guy. That didn't fit with the straitlaced Kate he remembered, but as she'd just said: people can surprise the hell out of you.

He'd never thought of his sister as a sexual being; she'd always been just… Kate. But smitten enough to be making it with a married guy… a sure recipe for hurt. He hoped she knew what she was doing.

"So much of what we do comes down to sex, doesn't it," he said. "Sometimes too much, I think."

"How so?"

"I mean it's a part of life, a really wonderful part of life, but not all of life. There's work, play, food, mind, spirit—lots of things. But I tell you, I run into so many people who seem to define themselves by their sexual preferences." "'So many'?"

"Let's just say I don't hang with too many members of the middle class, and no members of the upper class. So yeah, many of the people I know do not have what might be considered 'normal' lifestyles."

"'Normal' being within two standard deviations from the mean?"

"Sure, why not. Everything's a bell curve, right? I'm talking about people on either fringe of the curve."

"Give me a for-instance."

He thought a moment, then remembered Ray Bellson.

"I did a fix-it for this guy once who was totally into bondage. Always wore black leather, had a belt made out of handcuffs, paintings of tied hands and feet on his walls, furniture made out of chromed chain… it went on and on. You'd sit and talk to him and he'd be tying and untying knots in this piece of cord he always carried around. It had completely taken over his life."

She sipped her G and T, then said, "Where do you think I'd fall on that curve?"

Weird question for his big sister to ask her little brother.

"Never thought about it, but I assume somewhere right in the middle. I mean, I don't see you squeezing into black vinyl and brandishing a whip."

She laughed—her first real laugh tonight. "I don't see that either. But I'm just wondering what qualifies someone for 'normal' on your bell curve."

Jack shrugged, not comfortable with pigeonholing people. "How did we get on this subject anyway?"

"You brought it up."

"Actually Dad brought it up."

"How did you feel when he asked you if you were gay?"

Jack noticed her eyes fixed on his, as if the answer were very important.

"I remember being sort of glad he wasn't wondering if I was a rapist or a pedophile."

"But you've never been attracted to a man?"

"Never. I'm as attracted to guys as I am to sheep, goats, and chickens. Which is to say, not at all. Zero chemistry there. In fact the idea of getting cozy with a guy—blech!

"But you're not a gay basher."

"I figure everybody's got a right to their own lives. You may own nothing else, but you own your life. So if you don't tell me how to live mine, I won't tell you how to live yours."

"You've got no problem with lesbians either?"

"Lesbians are cool." He tried to draw out the c like Beavis. Or was that Butthead? He always got them confused.

"Really." An amused smile played around her lips.

"Sure. Look at it this way. I've got a number of things in common with lesbians right from the get-go: we both find women attractive, and neither of us is interested in having sex with a man. Now that I think about it, I've got definite lesbian tendencies."

"You know many?"

"A few. There's a lesbian couple who're regulars at this bar where I hang. It's a workingman's place and a couple of the guys weren't exactly welcoming at first; but these gals weren't about to let that stop them, so they kept coming back and now they're part of the family. Anybody tries to hassle them now will find himself nose to nose with those very same guys who gave them a hard time at first. Carole and Henni. I sit with them now and then. I like them. They're brainy and funny, and you can, I don't know… relax with them."

"Relax?"

"They know I'm not coming on to them, and I know they're not the least bit interested in me. Take sex off the table and a lot of games disappear."

"So being with them is sort of like being with the guys."

"Not quite. Guys have a whole different set of games. No, it's more like… like sitting here with you."

Kate's eyes widened. "Me?"

"Well, yeah. We may have a lot family baggage between us, but neither of us is trying to slap a move on the other."

She narrowed her eyes and gave him a sidelong look. "You're absolutely sure about that?"

"Hey, don't go weird on me, Kate," Jack said, laughing. "I'm the family weirdo, and one is enough."

"You still haven't told me where you think I fit on your curve."

"You're not going to let this drop, are you?'

"Not until you tell me."

"Okay. Let me ask you a couple of questions first. You can have love without sex, and sex without love, agreed?"

"Of course."

"What if you had to choose between them? What if you had to live the rest of your life with either no sex or no love? And by no love I mean loving no one and no one loving you. Which would you give up?"

Kate barely hesitated. "Sex."

"There you go. That's normal."

"That's it? That's your sole criterion for normal?"

"Not mine—yours."

"I never said it was mine."

"You chose love over sex, and the very fact that love is your choice makes it normal, because you're one of the most decent, honest, normal people I've ever known."

"That's not just circular reasoning—it's spherical."

"Works for me, Mrs. Wife-mother-pediatrician."

"Ex-wife."

"Which is probably even more the norm these days. Hey, if I'm wrong, prove it."

Kate opened her mouth, looked as if she was about to say something, then closed it again. She glanced at her watch.

"I've got to go."

"But what about your friend and the cult?"

"I'll work something out."

She seemed afraid. Of what? What was she hiding?

"Is your friend into something illegal?" He couldn't believe Kate would be involved with someone who was but… you never knew. "Because that's okay. Most of the people I know—"

"No-no, nothing like that. She's recovering from cancer therapy and she's acting strangely. It's more psychological than anything else."

"Some of these cults can play rough if you interfere."

"It's nothing like that, Jackie… Jack. Really. I was upset when I called; now I think I was overreacting. I don't think I need to get you involved."

"Involve me," he said. "I'm here for you." Before she could put him off again, he grabbed a cocktail napkin and said, "Got a pen?"

"I think so." She fished one out of her shoulder bag and handed it to him.

"I'm putting down my number and the numbers of two people I've worked for recently—both women and, coincidentally, both doctors.

Before you write me off, you call them and see what they say. If you still don't want my help, I won't like it, but at least it'll be an informed decision."

She took the napkin but didn't promise to make the calls.

"Come on," Jack said. "I'll walk you home."

"I'm practically there already."

"Little brother does not let big sister walk the mean streets alone at night."

"Jack—"

"I can walk beside you or six feet behind you, but you might as well resign yourself to the fact that I'm seeing you safe home."

Kate sighed, then smiled thinly. "Let's go then."

Out on Seventh they walked and talked about getting together again during her stay in the city and keeping in touch afterward until a neon sign down one of the streets caught Jack's eye: FYNYL VYNYL. He thought he knew all the used record shops in the city but this was a new one. Almost 1 A.M. and it was still open. He couldn't pass this up.

"Mind if we stop in here for a sec?" he said.

"Not at all."

Inside, a guy with a shaved head and huge muttonchop sideburns looked up from behind the counter as they entered. "We're closing in about fifteen minutes."

"We'll only need one of those if you really know your stock," Jack told him.

"What I don't remember, this baby does," he said, patting the Mac to his left.

"Great. It's a single from 1971. A&M Records. 'Tried So Hard' by the Flying Burrito Brothers."

The guy snorted. "Yeah, right. The Dutch 45? I've got a waiting list for that one. Still haven't seen a copy."

Jack waved and turned back toward the door. "Thanks anyway."

"Flying Burrito Brothers?" Kate said as they returned to the sidewalk. "They're from my time. How'd you get interested in them?"

"You."

"Me?"

"Sure. You had all those Byrds albums."

"Oh, right. Back when I was horse crazy. They did that song 'Chest-nut Mare' and that got me into them and buying up all their old records. But how—?"

"You played their stuff so much I got to be a fan. And my favorite Byrd was Gene Clark. Still love his songs. So a couple of weeks ago, after buying myself a dual-deck CD burner, I decided to make the ultimate Gene Clark disk. And I want the version of 'Tried So Hard' that he sang with the Burritos. Trouble is, it was only released in Holland on a 45. The group took his voice out when they put the song on their third album."

"So you're hunting a 1971 record that wasn't even released on this side of the Atlantic. Kind of obsessive, no?"

"All your fault. The enduring influence of my big sister."

"Wow. Should I feel pleased or guilty?"

"Guilty."

"Thanks a lot. As if I don't have enough…"

She never finished the thought because someone behind them said, "Hey."

Jack turned. He was pale, dressed in dusty black jeans and a rumpled long-sleeved shirt; looked all of twenty.

He said, "A spear has no branches."

Jack stared at him, baffled. "What?"

The guy blinked, as if coming out of a trance. "I need some money."

"Sorry about that," Jack said.

"You don't get it." He raised a shaky hand, showing a box cutter. "I need some money now." His desperation was palpable.

Jack heard Kate's sharp intake of breath. He guided her behind him with his left hand while slipping his right under his sweater and pulling the Glock from the small of his back. He held the pistol against the front of his right thigh where Kate couldn't see it.

"Look," Jack said, "I've had a bad day, a very bad day, and I'm in no mood for this. Try it somewhere else."

Looking as if he couldn't believe what he'd just heard, the guy waved the box cutter before him. "Money, man, or I start cuttin'."

"You don't want to start this, pal," Jack said. "You really don't. 'Cause if you do it's not gonna go down the way you were thinking." He raised the Glock a few inches and waggled it to make sure the guy couldn't miss it. "You see what I'm saying? So do yourself a favor and take a walk."

The guy's eyes angled down to the pistol, then back to Jack's face. He backed up a step.

"Hey, forget it, okay?"

"Forgotten," Jack said.

The guy turned and hurried away. Jack watched to make sure he kept going, then he turned Kate around and guided her ahead of him back toward Seventh, tucking away the pistol as they moved.

"I've never been so frightened in my life!" she said, looking over her shoulder. "My goodness, Jack, he had some sort of razor blade and you… you just talked him out of it! How on earth—?"

"I think that even though he was a mugger, he must be one of those naturally empathetic people."

"An empathetic mugger?"

"Sure. I told him I'd had a bad day and really didn't want to be bothered, and he understood."

"That's crazy! I've never heard of such a thing!"

"Happens now and then. You'd be surprised how many people like him respond to reason if given a chance."

Kate talked about the encounter non-stop until they reached the place where she was staying, an apartment in the mid-Twenties. Jack took one look and fell in love with the building. Its five-story brick front was lined with intricate terra cotta friezes, two per floor, one running along the floorline, the other arching over the windows, and in the keystone spot atop each window was set an open-mouthed face of some sort—animal or human Jack couldn't be sure in this light.

"What a neat building!" he said.

It stood out like a polished gem amid the debris of an otherwise purely commercial block of parking lots, print shops, frame galleries, and businesses dealing in wholesale fabric and sewing machine repairs.

"It's called the Arsley," Kate said. "The name's not anywhere on the building, at least not that I've seen, but that's what people who live here call it."

"I'll have to add this to my collection."

"You collect buildings?"

"Only neat ones. And this one is very neat."

"You're still saying 'neat'?"

"Never stopped." He snapped his fingers. "Hey, how about I take you on my Neat Building tour sometime?"

"I don't know, Jackie."

"I want to get together with you again before you go back to Trenton, Kate. I want Gia and Vicky to meet you too."

The need to reconnect with Kate was an ache in Jack's soul. He'd just got her back and couldn't let her slip away again.

Finally she smiled. "Okay. I think I'd like that. You have my cell number. Set it up and call me."

"I'll do that."

His delight was blunted as his mind darted back to the very real possibility that she was in some sort of trouble. She'd felt threatened enough to call a perfect stranger for help. Something was going on, something more serious than a friend acting strangely. Kate might say she didn't want his help, but that didn't mean she didn't need it. And if she needed help, like it or not, he'd see that she got it.

Then the briefest of hugs but the contact filled him with a protective fire.

Kate was his sister, damn it. Nobody was going to play games with his sister. Not on Jack's watch.

9

"Why did you follow me?"

Kate jumped at the sound of Jeanette's voice, turned and saw her standing at the end of the apartment's short front hallway. Kate had left Jack down on the sidewalk and had been expecting an empty apartment.

Jeanette was dressed for bed in her usual—an XXXL T-shirt that hung off one thin shoulder and reached almost to the knees of her long slim tanned legs; tonight's was emblazoned with the cover of the Indigo Girls' Come On Now Social album. Her dark shoulder-length hair was pulled back in a short ponytail. Her brown eyes fixed Kate with a reproachful stare.

Kate's first thought was, How does she know? Then she remembered the figure she'd thought she'd seen at the window of the Holdstock house. She'd had the impression it was a man but it must have been Jeanette.

And then guilt scalded her. She'd sneaked out behind the woman she loved and followed her like a cop tailing a criminal. But she'd done it out of concern.

"Because I'm worried about you, Jeanette. You're just not yourself and I—"

"You shouldn't have done that."

Kate sensed no anger in her voice, no threat, yet something in the words, a subliminal note in her tone, raised gooseflesh along her arms.

"I couldn't help myself. I'm so worried."

"Don't be. I'm fine. In fact I've never been better."

"But we never talk, and—"

"We'll talk soon," Jeanette said. "We'll talk as we've never talked before. I promise."

And then she turned and walked away toward the study at the rear of the apartment.

Kate trailed after her. "How about now?"

"No. Not now. But soon."

"Please, Jeanette. I'm… lonely without you."

Jeanette stopped and turned at the study door. "That's only temporary. Soon you'll never be alone or lonely again."

Kate was struck dumb. Before she could respond Jeanette closed the study door. Kate heard the click of the lock, just as she'd heard it every night since Jeanette had moved out of the bedroom. She felt her throat tighten.

I am not going to cry. I am not.

She was a grown woman, a mother of two, and a seasoned physician. She was an expert problem-solver, and she would solve this one. Somehow. And she would do it without tears.

Trouble was, she couldn't find a handle for this problem. Perhaps because her heart was breaking.

Kate stood in the center of the living room and looked around. Hardwood floors, an oriental rug, functional furniture, paintings by local artists picked up at street fairs—some they'd picked out together. The kitchen-dining area at the far end, which was not very far at all. A small, two-bedroom apartment with the second small bedroom converted to a study/office where Jeanette worked when she telecommuted to Long Island. She worked for a software company that designed custom databases for businesses. She could do a stand-up routine with her store of quips about the underdeveloped bodies and overdeveloped brains of the nerdy twentysomethings she worked with. A good dozen years older than most of them, she'd said she felt like a den mother most of the time.

But now her home office was back to being a bedroom. Four nights ago Jeanette had moved out of their bed to sleep on the couch in the office. No fight—they never fought—not even a mild disagreement. She'd simply picked up her pillow and moved out of the room. When Kate had asked—begged—for an explanation, all Jeanette would say was, "It's only for a little while. We'll be back together again soon."

Kate wandered into the little kitchen and saw the edge of a crumpled-up white paper bag sticking out of the garbage pail top. As she pushed it farther down to allow the lid to close she spotted the red and yellow McDonald's logo and froze.

McDonald's?

She pulled out the bag and found a Big Mac container inside and her heart sank. More proof of the change in Jeanette who'd lived her entire adult life as a strict vegetarian. She wouldn't even eat eggs. Until now.

Kate leaned against the counter and ran the events of the past week or so through her head again, trying to make some sense of it all.

Jeanette had come home from the hospital her cheerful, acerbic old self, so wonderfully upbeat that the experimental protocol had worked. Like a condemned prisoner with an unexpected reprieve from death row.

But slowly she'd begun to change. Kate hadn't noticed it at first, but looking back now she could identify the subtle initial signs of Jeanette's progressive withdrawal. Sitting and staring out a window instead of rattling off her usual running commentary as she read the paper; gradually she abandoned the paper altogether, stopped listening to music, lost interest in TV. Originally she'd said she wanted to use her medical leave to work on her pet project—a CD-ROM-based in-teractive drama for women—but spent less and less time at her computer with every passing day; even stopped mentioning her plans for Int-HER-active, Inc., the company she hoped to start someday.

Silence. It gave Kate the creeps because this little apartment had always been filled with the sounds of life: music, the TV, sound clips from the computer—a multimedia mélange combined with constant chatter. At thirty-eight Jeanette was a quasi-activist lesbian who had been out since her teens; Kate was a middle class mom of forty-four who still wasn't ready to come out. Their different perspectives had made for endless hours of lively discussion.

Until now.

And food. Whenever Kate was up from Trenton, and that was every other weekend, they'd always gone out of their way to whip up at least one elaborate meal. But now Jeanette had lost all interest in cooking, leaving it to Kate. Not that Kate minded—after all, she was here to help all she could—but Jeanette could at least show some interest in the food. She consumed hearty portions but didn't seem to care what was on the plate. Homemade eggplant rollatini and Kraft macaroni and cheese straight out of the box were non-greeted as equals.

And then Jeanette had begun her disappearing acts, leaving without a word of explanation, without even saying good-bye.

Kate sighed. She felt helpless, and she wasn't used to that. An alien feeling…

Alien… that was what Jeanette had become. This was like an episode of the X-Files, or Twilight Zone. Jeanette seemed to be turning into someone else, a remote being who sneaked out to prayer meetings or whatever they were.

And tonight the surreality had been compounded by a strange woman giving Kate a phone number that turned out to belong to her brother.

Jack… he'd become someone else too, an unsettling someone else.

Was the whole world going mad, or just her?

But at least she still recognized her brother. Some of the old Jackie she'd known was still part of the new Jack; she wished she could say the same about Jeanette. And despite all his changes she'd found something intensely likable about the new Jack, something solid and dependable. She sensed that the boy she'd known had grown into an upright man, one who'd do what he said he'd do, honor his word, stay the course… all those old-fashioned virtues that might seem corny and hokey in this city, in this time.

The incident with that razor-wielding youth had left her shaken, but when Jack had put his arm around her on the walk home she'd felt so… safe. Was that the right word? Yes. Safe. As if an impenetrable transparent shield had slipped over her.

Feeling as if her limbs were cast in lead, Kate dropped into a chair. She grabbed the remote and thumbed the POWER button, not caring what was on so long as it broke this unbearable silence.

Fox News… and someone talking about a mass murder on the subway. Her first thought was of Jack, fear that he might have been caught in the gunfire, then she realized they were talking about something that had happened hours ago.

She shook her head… big sister still worrying about little brother, when it had been abundantly clear tonight that little brother was quite capable of taking care of himself.

But what about big sister? She wasn't doing too well.

Something Jeanette had said tonight sifted back to her.

We'll talk soon… we'll talk as we've never talked before. I promise.

It had sounded so sincere… a ray of hope. Why didn't it make her feel better?

And what else had she said?

Soon you'll never be alone again.

What did that mean?

One day at a time, Kate thought. That's the way I'll have to deal with this… one day at a time.

10

The pain wrenched Kate from sleep.

A sharp stabbing sensation in her hand—and the feeling that she wasn't alone in the room.

"Jeanette?"

No answer.

Terrified, she rolled over and fumbled for the switch on the bedside lamp. Finally she found it and turned it on. She blinked in the sudden glare and scanned the room.

Empty. But she'd been so sure…

The bedroom door stood open. From down the hall came a sound… the click of the study door closing. And locking.

Kate looked at her stinging hand and found a small drop of blood leaking from a puncture wound in her palm.

WEDNESDAY

1

Sandy was up and out at the ungodly hour of 6:03 A.M., but the sun was ahead of him, peeking around the granite Gothic spires of St. John the Divine as he bounded along the sidewalk. He skidded to a stop before the newsstand and there it was: The Light. The headline took up the top half of the page:

SIX-GUN

SAVIOR!

A blurry photo of the dead killer occupied the bottom half. His photo! They'd found something usable on his roll.

And below that, the banner: EXCLUSIVE EYEWITNESS REPORT INSIDE! (see pg. 3)

"Yes!" he shouted and pumped his fist.

He snatched up an issue and opened it to page three and there he was: his first-person account boxed with his picture. Oh, no! They'd used the geeky photo from his HR file! But he forgot about that as soon as he started reading.

Butterflies fluttered up from his stomach and into his chest. This was his first Ferris wheel ride, his first look at the Magic Kingdom, his first kiss all rolled into one. He felt as if his head were about to float away.

"That is one dahlah," said an accented voice.

"Hmmm?"

Sandy looked up and saw the swarthy newsstand owner holding out his hand.

"You must buy to read. One dahlah."

"Oh, yeah." He fished singles out of his pocket. "I'll take four."

He'd have access to virtually unlimited free copies at work but that wasn't the same. The ones in his hand came from a newsstand, from the street, and somehow that made them more real.

"Oh yeah, and I'll take a copy of that subway map too."

He checked out the front pages of the competition. The Post headline was okay—"SUBWAY SLAUGHTER!"—but he liked the News headline better: "NIGHTMARE ON THE NINE!" As expected, the Times was more sedate with "SIX DEAD IN SUBWAY MASSACRE." But both ran photos from above ground, mostly of the survivors as they emerged from the subway station. He looked at The Light again with his photo and its banner about his story. His story. A laugh bubbled up inside and he let it loose. When the newsstand owner gave him a strange look Sandy pulled open one of his copies and pointed to his picture.

"That's me, my man! Me!"

"Yes," the man said. "Very nice."

Sandy got the feeling the guy thought he might be scaring away his customers and wanted him to move on. So Sandy moved on, feeling lighter than air. Nobody could bring him down this morning. Nobody.

2

"Yo, Stan."

Stan Kozlowski lowered his copy of the Times and looked across the table. His shorter, heavier younger brother Joe had a copy of The Light folded in half and was pinning it to the table with the index finger of his good hand. Usually he bought the Post but The Light's front page photo of the dead gunner must have caught his eye this morning.

They occupied their usual table near the front window of Moishe's kosher deli on Second Avenue. The kosher part didn't matter—they'd been raised Catholic—but Moishe's was convenient, the coffee free-flowing, and the bagels unbeatable.

"What?"

"You been reading about this guy on the train last night?"

"Some."

He'd skimmed the stories to see if the Times knew more than last night's TV news. It didn't. And the mystery about this "Savior" guy had the whole city buzzing. Moishe's was no exception: Didja hear? The Savior this, the savior that. Whatta y'think? Blah-blah-blah. The story wasn't a day old and already Stan was sick of it.

"Yours say anything about his gun?"

"No. Not that I recall. I—"

"You guys figured out who he is yet?" said a squeaky voice with a Brooklyn accent sharp enough to cut steel.

Sally, their usual waitress at this, their usual table, had returned with her usual pot of coffee. Seventy if she was a day and built like a hunchbacked bird, she dyed her hair flame orange and applied eye make-up with a trowel.

Stan noticed how Joe slipped his scarred hand off the table and onto his lap. An automatic move. Seeing it caused something to twist inside Stan. Joe shouldn't have to hide any part of himself.

Two years now since the accident…

Accident, hell. He and Joe had called the fire an accident and stuck to the story so well that Stan caught himself every now and then believing it really was an accident. But the fire that had ruined their reputations and put them both out of business and scarred Joe for life had been no accident.

Joe hadn't been the same since then. Before the fire he'd been Joe Koz, top torch in the Northeast, maybe the whole coast, and no slouch with C-4 either. Now… well, he was damaged goods, and his ruined hand was only the visible part; he'd been damaged inside as well. He'd stopped caring. He never worked out anymore. Must have put on forty pounds while Stan had maintained his fighting weight. He was four years younger but now looked a good ten years older.

Stan looked up at Sally. "Who? This Savior guy? Why should we care?"

"We might," Joe said. "We might care a lot."

Something in his voice made Stan give his brother a closer look; he noticed that Joe's face was set in grimmer lines than usual.

"Sure you do," Sally said, refilling their cups. "Especially if they offer a reward."

"If the city doesn't," Joe said, "I just might offer one myself."

Sally laughed. "You do that, Joe. You do that."

As she moved on, Stan stared at his brother. "What's up, Joe?"

"It doesn't say nothin' in the Times there about the kind of gun he used to whack the crazy?"

"No."

Joe smirked. "I guess bein' a college boy has its drawbacks. Even us lowbrow dropouts hit pay dirt once in a while."

They'd had a long running rivalry about who read the better paper. Joe had never finished high school. Stan had gone to college after Nam, earned a B.A. in English from Pace, not that he ever used it. All he'd ever needed to know he'd learned in Nam.

"Get to the point."

"One of The Light's reporters was on that train last night—right in the car where it all went down—and he says here this Savior guy used a tiny little .45 that he pulled out of an ankle holster."

Stan went cold. The Times articles had said the killer had used 9mm pistols with homemade silencers but hadn't mentioned a thing about the caliber of the Savior's gun or his holster.

"That doesn't mean it's him," Stan said.

"Yeah. I bet there's fucking thousands of guys running around with teeny-tiny .45s strapped to their ankles."

For the first time in two years Stan saw that old spark in his brother's eyes. He didn't want to douse it.

"You've got a point. It could be him. But don't get your hopes up."

"Get them up?" Joe grinned, showing yellow teeth. He'd never been much for dentists. "They're already up—way up. I hope to God it's him, Stan. And I hope if he doesn't show himself they track him down and drag him into the spotlight. Because then we'll see him, and then we'll know if he's our guy, and if he is he's gonna die!"

"Easy, Joe," Stan said. "You're getting loud."

"Like I give a steaming wet brown cruller! Damn fuck right I'm getting loud!"

He held up his left hand and waved it in Stan's face. Mottled shiny pink scar tissue gleamed under the ceiling fluorescents; it enveloped his index and middle fingers, fusing them into a single digit, and it swathed his ring and pinky fingers, joining them as well. The thumb too was scarred but remained separate.

"We've got issues with this guy, Stan. Serious business issues. But for me it's personal too." He began pounding the table with his good hand. "I've been lookin' for him two years, and if this is him, he's gonna die! I'm gonna blow him off the face of the fucking earth!"

Joe's final words echoed off the hammered tin ceiling of Moishe's kosher deli where patrons and staff alike stared at him in stunned silence.

3

I'm going to have to make some assumptions here, Sandy Palmer thought as he leaned over his subway map. He sat at his cluttered desk in the front room of his apartment and traced the Broadway line through the Upper West Side.

One indisputable fact: the Savior had taken off at Seventy-second Street. But had that been his intended stop or had he been forced by the circumstances? Had he been heading home or heading to work or on his way to his girlfriend's? Trouble was, the Nine went all the way to Van Cortlandt Park up in the Bronx.

Sandy stared at the face on the Identi-Kit printout propped up against the computer screen before him. Who are you, my man? Where do you live? Where do you hang? Where do I find you?

He couldn't see much choice in where to search. He'd have to assume that the mystery man either lived on or frequented the West Side around Seventy-second Street or somewhere above that.

He leaned back and rubbed his eyes. A lot of territory. Millions of people.

Well, no one said fame and fortune would come easy. Good journalism sometimes required a lot of legwork. He was up for it. He just had to hope he got lucky and—

The phone rang. Oh, no. Not his mother again. He'd called his folks last night to tell them about the shooting and his story in the morning edition. Bad move. Mom had lost it, crying for him to come back home where he'd be safe; Dad had kept his composure but agreed that Sandy should come home, at least for a few days. No way. He wasn't a college kid anymore. He was twenty-six and this was where he lived and worked. The conversation hadn't ended on a happy note.

He debated letting the answering machine pick up but decided against it. He got out half a hello when a gruff voice cut him off.

"That you, Palmer?"

Sandy recognized McCann's voice. And he didn't sound happy. Oh, shit, he was going to come down on him for sneaking that photo.

"Detective," he said. "Good to hear from you."

"I thought we had an understanding about that gun, Palmer."

"What gun?"

"The second shooter's. We were gonna keep certain things out of the press."

"I haven't breathed a word about it being a Semmerling."

"Yeah but your piece mentions that he used 'a miniature .45.' That kind of narrows the field, don't it?"

Shit. He hadn't spilled that on purpose. Sandy felt like saying, I thought you didn't read The Light, but he wanted to keep McCann on his side. He could be a valuable resource.

"I'm sorry, Detective. I didn't know. I don't know anything about guns."

"Well, you should start learning."

"Look, I'm sorry. I'll be more careful in the future."

"See that you are."

And then he hung up, but Sandy thought he'd detected the slightest softening of the detective's tone before the connection broke. Good. He couldn't afford to burn any bridges. And McCann hadn't even mentioned the photo.

The intercom buzzed. Someone calling from the foyer. What now?

"Yeah," he said, depressing the button.

"Is this Sandy Palmer?" said a woman's voice. Young, Tentative.

"That's me. Who's this?"

"Beth Abrams. From the… the train last night?"

Oh, wow!

"Beth! Come on up!"

He buzzed her in, then surveyed his apartment. What a sty! He scrambled around picking up the dirty clothes and junk mail that littered the place. He tossed everything into the bedroom and closed the door on it. The place still looked a shambles.

Should've showered, he thought. He gave each armpit a quick sniff. Not great, but not offensive.

The printouts! Shit, he didn't want her seeing those. He slipped them into a manila envelope just as she knocked. He pulled the door open and she looked awful as she stood on the threshold, her pale face tear-streaked and shadowy half moons under her big dark eyes.

"Beth," he said. "How in the world—?"

And then she was tight against him, her arms locked around his back, sobbing her heart out. Oh, man, did that feel good. When had any woman, let alone an attractive one like Beth, thrown her arms around him? He closed the door and held her as she cried, absorbing her shaking sobs.

It took her a good ten minutes to regain control. He wished she'd taken more time. He could have stood there all day.

"I'm so sorry," she said, backing up a step and wiping her eyes on her sleeve. She was still all in black, dressed in the clothes she'd worn last night. "I didn't mean to do that, it's just that I'm such a wreck. I mean, I can't sleep, I can't eat, I wanted to go back to Atlanta last night but there were no flights that late and besides no one's home because my folks are touring Scandinavia and are somewhere in fucking Oslo right now and I tried to talk to my boyfriend about it and I thought he understood but after a while he let it slip that he thought it was awesome. Can you believe that? He thinks it would have been so awesome to have been there! So I just walked out and I need to talk to someone who understands what it was like, someone who was there too."

"That's me," he said. "But how did you find me?"

"I saw your picture in the paper and remembered you saying you'd graduated from Columbia so I called the alumni office as soon as it opened and they gave me your last address. I hope you don't mind."

"Mind? Are you kidding? I was trying to figure out how to get in touch with you but I never got your last name."

"And I realized I never really thanked you for what you did."

"What I did?"

"Stop being modest. You shielded me with your own body. I'll never forget that."

"Oh, that," he said as guilt spiked him. "Let's not make too much of that."

"How can you be so calm?" she said, staring at him. "How come you're handling this and I'm not?"

He'd been asking himself that same question. "Maybe because I was able to write about it. I had to confront my terrors; maybe focusing and putting them down on paper was some sort of exorcism."

Not to mention how my being there is going to make my career.

"There's another way to look at it," he added—this had just occurred to him and it was pretty good. "You have to figure, with all the millions of people in this city and all the subway lines and trains that run every hour, what are the chances of being caught on a subway car with a gun-toting madman? A zillion to one, right?"

Beth nodded. "I guess so."

"So what are the chances of getting caught twice? Think about that. The odds of either of us ever having a gun pointed our way again has got to be eighty zillion to one. So the way I look at it, I just survived the worst moment of my whole life. Everything from here on is a cake-walk."

"I never thought of it that way." She took a deep breath. "I can't believe this, but I think I feel better already. Just seeing you so together after going through the same thing I did makes it easier to handle."

Did that mean she was going to leave? Hello, have a good cry, feel better, then back to the boyfriend? No way.

"Want some coffee? Tea? I've got some good green tea."

"You know," she said with a twist of her lips which, on a day like today, had to suffice for a full-fledged smile, "all of a sudden that sounds good."

He started toward the kitchenette. "How about something to eat? I don't have much but—"

"No. I still can't think of eating. Just some tea would be great."

Good, he thought, because unless you're into chunky peanut butter and stale Ritz crackers, I'm afraid you're out of luck. The cupboard is bare, babe.

"Have a seat on the couch there and I'll start the water boiling."

What do I do now? he asked himself as he filled the kettle.

He'd been planning to start canvassing the Upper West Side with his printout. He'd called in sick at work, telling them he was still too shaken up to make it in. They'd all been understanding, even going so far as to offer him stress counseling, which left him feeling guilty.

But what he needed far more than stress counseling was a big follow-up story.

Then George Meschke himself got on the line and went on about how sales of this week's issue were going through the roof. Lots of the outlets had squawked at first at the double shipments they received, but now they were calling to say thanks—they'd sold out.

So Sandy was the man of the moment down at The Light, but that wasn't going to help him here at home. As much as he needed to find the Savior, he so wanted to make the most of this chance with Beth too. She'd come looking for him, damn it, so he'd be a real jerk to blow her off. Turn her away now and he might never see her again.

Shit. Why couldn't anything be easy?

"Do you take yours with sugar?" he called as he checked the bowl.

He usually snagged a packet or two from the coffee shops and delis when he remembered to, but it looked like he hadn't remembered in too long. Just a few white granules speckling the bottom.

Beth hadn't answered him so he headed back toward the front room.

"I hope you don't need—"

And as he moved, for a second, just a second, he had a vision of her lying on the couch, stripped of her clothing, her white skin stark against the dark fabric, open arms reaching for him as she offered herself in grateful repayment for what she considered an act of unparalleled bravery. After all, if he'd been willing to sacrifice his life for her safety, the least she could do was…

And there she was, lying on the couch…

… limbs akimbo…

… fully dressed…

… sound asleep.

Got to hand it to you, Palmer, he thought. You sure do have a way with women. A real knack for riveting their interest.

And then it hit him that this was perfect. She could sleep here while he started canvassing.

Yes! Like having his cake and eating it too.

He tiptoed into his bedroom and grabbed a pillow and blanket, then returned to the couch where he slipped the former under her head and tucked the latter around her body.

He found a pad and scratched out a note.

Beth—

Had to go down to the paper. If you wake up before I'm back, please don't leave. We have LOTS to talk about! Sandy

He placed the pad where she had to see it, then leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

"You're safe here," he whispered.

He grabbed the envelope with the printouts, tucked them into his knapsack along with his note pad, pens, and tape recorder—be prepared, as the Boy Scouts say—then eased himself out.

Life hadn't been great before, but it was definitely getting better. Not a bowl of cherries yet, but on its way.

4

"All right already!" Abe said when he finally opened the door in response to Jack's insistent knocking. "My hundred-yard sprint days are long past."

"It's known as the hundred-yard dash, Abe."

"Dash, sprint, whatever—I can't do it anymore."

Jack doubted that Abe Grossman, the balding proprietor of the Isher Sports Shop, whose belt length probably equaled his height, had ever sprinted or dashed a hundred consecutive yards in his life. He strode by him and headed down one of the narrow, canyonesque aisles teetering with hockey sticks and basketballs and safety helmets, heading for the counter in the rear. His nose started to itch from the dust that layered everything. Abe didn't do high volume in sporting goods. His real business was in the basement.

"Got the morning papers?"

Silly question, Jack knew. Abe read every issue of every local English language paper—morning, evening, weekly.

Behind him he heard Abe's mocking tone, " 'Good morning, Abe, my good and dear friend.' And a very good morning to you, Jack. My, but it's early, even for you. 'Yes, Abe, so sorry to barge in on you like this—'"

"Abe," Jack said. "I'm feeling just a bit frazzled this morning and I could use your help."

He hadn't slept well. The combination of the subway mess and running into Kate on the same night had kept him turning and pounding his pillow until dawn.

"'Frazzled,' says he; cranky, says I. But I should be one to quibble? He wants help but he asks for the morning papers."

"Yeah. I need another pair of eyes to help me go through every article on last night's subway killings word by word and—"

"For why? To see if the police got an accurate description of you?"

Jack stopped and turned so fast he almost lost his balance. He felt his blood congealing as he stared at Abe.

"You know?"

"What's not to know?" Abe said, slipping his considerable bulk past Jack—no easy feat in these confines. He waddled on and led Jack back to the scarred counter where the morning papers lay scattered. "A gun-toting crazy gets blown away by this nondescript mensch with a .45 the size of a kreplach and I should think it's Senator Schumer? Or Bernie Goetz back on the job?" He grinned. "So where's your halo, Mr. Savior?"

"But… but how?"

This was bad, very bad. If the connection was that obvious to Abe, how many other people had made it?

"The Semmerling, of course. You forget already who sold it to you?"

"Could've been another make. An AMT Backup or—"

"Could've, shmoud've. Who else but my dear friend Jack would go up against two autoloaders with a five-shot double-action piece?"

"Not like I had much choice."

"And you did have five shots, didn't you?" Abe's eyes narrowed as he scrutinized Jack. "A round in the chamber and four in the clip, right?"

Jack shrugged and glanced away. "Well… not exactly."

"Please don't tell me you started off with an empty chamber."

"I know it's safe but a loaded chamber bothers me."

"What if four hadn't been enough, Jack? What if you'd needed that fifth round? Where would you be now?"

Jack noticed a shift in Abe's tone. He glanced at his old friend's face and saw real concern there.

"Point taken."

"So tell me: how close did he come to killing you?"

"What makes you think he came close at all?"

"You were outgunned and you had to work that farkuckt slide for every shot." Abe visibly shuddered. "You could have wound up in a body bag like the rest."

"To tell the truth. I think he was so shocked to see someone else with a gun that he didn't know what to do. Never occurred to him that he might have to defend himself."

"So you didn't need a fifth?"

"Didn't even need the fourth." Jack dropped the spent casings from last night on the counter. "Here's the brass."

"Very considerate of you. I'll recycle these and—wait: there's four here. I thought you said—"

"Used it to kill his boom box."

Abe winced. "Don't tell me: playing rap. Dr. Schnooky Ice or somebody."

"Nah. An old song I used to like, but I don't think I'll want to hear it again for a long while. Can we go through the papers now?"

"Newsday and the Times I've been through already. No detailed description in either."

That was a relief. "All right, you take the News and I'll take the Post." As Abe settled on his stool behind the counter, Jack scanned everything pertinent in the Post and found nothing.

"So far, so good."

"Nothing in the News either," Abe said.

Jack felt the tension coiled in his shoulders and along the back of his neck begin to ease. He spotted the Village Voice in the pile. No need to bother with that—a weekly wouldn't have a fast-breaking story like the massacre—but he couldn't resist a dig at Abe.

He tapped its logo. "I'm surprised, Abe. I didn't think you stooped to freebies."

"For the Voice I make an exception—but only because of Nat Hentoff. Even when it wasn't free, I bought the Voice for Nat. Such a mensch."

"Right. Like I used to buy Playboy for the articles. 'Fess up. You read the Voice for the personals."

"You mean those ads that show pictures of beautiful woman but feel the need to have a banner reading FEMALE plastered across her tuchis to assure me that what I'm looking at is what I'm looking at? That I don't need."

The logo of The Light was visible at the bottom of the pile but Jack gave no sign that he'd seen it.

"Got any scandal sheets?"

"Feh! Never!"

"Not even The Light'?"

'"Especially not The Light. Grant me a modicum of taste."

"Not even as paper to line Parabellum's cage?"

"Parabellum wouldn't allow it. Never. Not fit for his droppings."

"But here it is."

"Where?"

"There. The Light—right in front of you."

"Oh, that. Well, I can explain. You see, I was looking for birdcage paper this morning and Parabellum spotted the headline and liked it so he made an exception. A momentary aberration on the part of an otherwise splendid and tasteful bird."

"He's forgiven."

"Parabellum thanks you, I'm sure. But please don't tell anyone. He's very sensitive, and even those shlub park pigeons would laugh at him if they knew."

"My lips are sealed." Jack looked around as he tugged The Light from beneath the pile. "Speaking of Parabellum, where is the blue-feathered terror of the skies?"

"The perfect parakeet is sleeping in. You miss him? You want I should—?"

"No, let him sleep until we're finished. With my luck he'll drop one of his little packages right on some crucial para—oh, no!"

"SIX GUN SAVIOR" and "Exclusive Eyewitness Report" screamed at him. He opened to page three, almost tearing the paper in his haste. His gut clenched as he found a face he recognized staring back at him.

"Christ!"

'Wit?" Abe said, leaning forward to get a look. "What's up? What is it?"

Jack's memory colorized the grainy black-and-white photo—dark blond hair, hazel eyes, fair skin, gold wire on the glasses.

"This kid! He was sitting a couple of feet away from me on the Nine last night."

The byline identified him as Sandy Palmer. Jack felt his palms growing moist as he read Palmer's first-hand account, dreading each new paragraph, certain that here was the one that would describe his features; and if not this paragraph, then the one after it. Palmer had nailed the shoot-out pretty much as Jack remembered it, but when it came to describing the so-called Savior, the kid came up empty.

"He was looking right at me," Jack said. "And 1 know I looked at him right before I made my move. He had to have seen me."

"You think maybe he left it out for some reason?"

"But why?" Jack didn't know what to think.

"Here, look," Abe said, rotating the paper so he had a better angle. "He's got an excuse. Listen: 'I know I saw his face at one time or another during the trip, but it made no impression on me. Neither did any of the other faces I saw before the shooting began. Ships passing in the night, every night, night after night. And that's sad, don't you think? This man saved my life and I can't remember his face. Perhaps this is a lesson for us all: look at the faces around you, really look at them. They're not just faces, they're people. Remember them. You may wind up owing your life to the person behind one of those faces.' " Abe grimaced. " 'Ships passing in the night.' Oy. So original. This is journalism?"

"Do you believe him?"

Abe shrugged. "I should think that if he'd been able to sit down with a police artist and give him anything useful, your punim would be on page one of every paper in town."

"Good point." Jack was starting to feel better. "You know, I just might get through this."

"Let's hope so. But the vultures already are swarming. Senators, congressmen, councilmen pushing and shoving to see who can be first to climb on top of those dead bodies to get better seen. Their stomachs should burst. They yammer about stricter gun control but what we're getting is stricter victim disarmament. Next thing you know one of the dead folks' relatives will be running for office on a victim disarmament platform, arguing for more of the same kind of laws that left their dead loved one defenseless."

"Irony ain't always pretty."

"It goes further. These shlubs like to hit up small businesses for donations. They don't know how good their farshtunken laws are for my real business, but they shouldn't come to me looking for donations. A krenk I'll give them."

Jack thought about Abe's real business, about the scores of pistols and rifles racked in the basement. He hesitated, wondering if he should ask, then plunged ahead.

"You ever wonder when you hear about something like this if it was one of your guns that did the killing?"

Abe sighed. "Yes, I do. But I'm careful who I sell to. That's no guarantee, obviously, but most of my customers are solid citizens. Of course, their buying a gun from me automatically makes them criminals. Felons even. But mostly they're decent people looking for a little extra protection who shouldn't want to be awakened in the middle of the night by stormtroopers when someone decides to collect all the city's registered weapons. Lots of ladies I sell to. These victim disarmers would rather have a woman raped and beaten to death in some back alley than let her carry a little equalizer. A broch on all of them!"

Uh-oh, Jack thought as Abe's face reddened. Here he goes.

"Gun laws they want? Make me king and gun laws they'll get! Random checkpoints day and night! If you're not carrying a weapon—bam! A fine! Three offenses and we lock you up! Last night would never have happened in my city! That meshuggener would have thought twice, three, maybe four times before trying what he did, and even if he'd gone ahead he'd have got off one, maybe two shots and then everybody would have opened up on him and a lot fewer bodies would've been dragged out of that car. And just imagine what the body count would have been if you'd been delayed a few minutes and wound up on the next train. Think about that."

"I have. And I'm also thinking you're crazy. You have any idea what this city would be like if you gave everyone a gun?"

Abe shrugged. "A period of adjustment there'll be, of course, during which a lot of defective genes will be removed from the pool, and during which I might maybe think about going on vacation. But when I came back I'd be living in the politest city on earth."

"Sometimes I wish the gun had never been invented."

"No guns?" Abe put his hand over his heart. "You mean a world where I'd have to make my entire living selling this sporting junk? Oy! Wipe such a thought from your brain!"

"No, seriously. I wouldn't mind a world where no guns existed."

But if one gun existed—just one—Jack wanted to be the man to own it. And since lots of guns already did exist, he wanted to own his share, and he wanted to own the best.

"Enough sky blue," Abe said. "You have plans for the day?"

Jack thought about that. Hadn't made any because he hadn't been sure he'd be able to show his face on the street. Now the whole day had opened up. Gia wouldn't be back until tomorrow but…

"Maybe I'll get together with my sister."

Abe's elevated eyebrows wrinkled his forehead all the way up to where his hairline used to be. "Sister? I remember you saying once you had one but since when are you in contact?"

"Since last night."

"What's she like? She'd like a good deal on a .32 maybe?"

Jack laughed. "I doubt that. Tell you the truth, I'm not sure yet what she's like. It's been a lot of years. But I hope to find out…"

5

Sitting alone in Jeanette's sunny kitchen, Kate cradled the phone after the last of three calls she'd made this morning.

The first had been to Kevin and Elizabeth—one of her twice-daily calls—before they ran out to school. They were sixteen months apart in age but, because of the timing of their births, only a year apart in school. The school year was drawing to a close and neither could wait for it to end, especially Kevin who, as a junior, thought he knew it all. She hoped he wouldn't muff his final exams. Liz was a sophomore and practicing like mad for her big flute solo in Telemann's Suite in A Minor with the school orchestra, nervous but handling it pretty well. Kate had promised again for at least the hundredth time to be back home next Monday to hear her.

And of course the lies continued—about how the person she was nursing back to health was a dear old college sorority sister who'd been living in Europe and had returned for cancer treatment.

So many lies… lies to everyone. Sometimes she wondered how she kept track of them all. She was so sick of lies, but she couldn't quit quite yet. She'd have to go on with this double life for two more years. Just hang on until Liz was eighteen and heading for college. Then she'd come out. With a bang.

But until then…

Kate ached to be back with the kids but knew she couldn't leave Jeanette in this state. She'd have to find some resolution to the situation before she headed back to Trenton this weekend.

The next two calls had been to complete strangers. She had no intention of involving Jack in her problems, but hadn't been able to resist the opportunity to peek through a window into her brother's life and perhaps learn something about the enigma he'd become.

The first had been to a fellow pediatrician, an infectious disease specialist working not far from here in a clinic for children with AIDS; the second to an endocrinologist named Nadia Radzminsky.

Kate hadn't let on that Jack was her brother, saying only that he'd offered their names as references. Both women had been effusive in their praise, but evasive when Kate had pressed for details about what he'd done to earn their regard. Alicia Clayton, the pediatrician, had said something to the effect that Jack didn't come cheap, but was worth every penny. Each had made it clear, though, that she could trust Jack with anything. Even her life.

Her younger brother was sounding a little scary. He was known as Repairman Jack… and for a price he fixed things… problems. How bizarre.

Not that my circumstances are exactly run-of-the-mill, she thought as she rubbed the healing puncture in her palm.

It hadn't been a dream. Something had pricked her palm last night. It couldn't be a spider or insect bite because she saw no tissue reaction. It looked like a needle had stabbed through the skin.

The thought gave her chills. With HIV and hepatitis C and who knew how many other as yet unrecognized diseases floating about, a puncture wound was not something she could brush off. She couldn't imagine Jeanette doing anything to harm her, but then she'd never imagined Jeanette behaving as she had the past few days.

Kate looked up at the sound of the study door opening and saw Jeanette, mug in hand, crossing the living room. She'd been hiding away all morning. Dressed in a loose red T-shirt and jeans, her feet snug in her well worn Birkenstocks, she looked wonderful. Jf only she'd smile…

"More coffee?" Kate said, putting on a hopeful grin.

"Just need to heat this up," Jeanette replied, her tone and expression neutral.

At least she doesn't seem as angry as last night, Kate thought. I suppose I should be grateful for that.

"What are you doing in there? Working?"

Jeanette didn't look at her as she placed her cup inside the microwave and started jabbing the buttons. "What's wrong—couldn't see enough through the keyhole?"

That stung. "Darn it, Jeanette, that's not fair! I'm not snooping on you!"

Jeanette turned toward her with a sneer twisting her lips, but then her whole expression changed, flashing from smugness to wide-eyed terror.

"Kate, oh please, Kate, help me!" she cried, staggering forward against the counter and gripping it with white-knuckled intensity.

Kate was out of her seat, moving around the counter. "Dear God, Jeanette, what's wrong?"

"Something's happening to me, Kate! I think I'm losing my mind!"

She grabbed Kate's forearms, her trembling fingers digging deep into her flesh, but Kate didn't mind. She could see in her eyes that this was Jeanette—her Jeanette—and she was terrified.

"You're okay! You've got me! I'm here for you!"

"You've got to do something, Kate! Please don't let this happen to me! Please!"

"Don't let what happen?"

"It's taking over!"

Oh, Lord, she sounded so paranoid. "It? What are you talking about?"

"Please, Kate! Call Doctor Fielding and tell him it's taking over!"

6

Wonderful things, buses.

Rarely during his fifty-two years had the old Terrence Holdstock used mass transportation, unless of course one included jetliners in the category. He had never ridden a bus. But the One Who Was Terrence loved buses. Took them everywhere. The more crowded the better.

He'd boarded one on Fifth Avenue—didn't know which line, didn't care. One was as good as another. He bided his time during the stop-and-go progress downtown, edging toward the rear, waiting to make his move. The packed bodies in the aisle, the smorgasbord of odors would have bothered the old Terrence, but the One Who Was Terrence didn't mind at all.

Finally he saw his chance: the skinny black woman who had been occupying his favorite seat—right side, by the window, next-to-last row—rose and debarked. Quickly he slipped past her seatmate, nestled his stocky frame into her vacated seat, and settled down for a nice long ride.

Yes, this was by far the best seat. From here he could watch nearly all the packed humanity within, and observe the streaming crowds of hosts on the sidewalk beyond the glass. He would spend much of today here, just as he had spent much of yesterday, and the day before.

The old Terrence, before he'd finally faded away, had been baffled by this behavior. And he'd been upset, incensed even, when the new Terrence had quit his job at the agency without so much as a good-bye to his accounts. But he'd never been terribly fond of that job anyway. And besides, what would being an ad exec matter after the Great Inevitability? There would be no such wasted activity as advertising in the future, but the old Terrence was too stubborn and, in the end, too frightened to realize that.

The One Who Was Terrence looked forward to the glorious new world. Of course he should: he was going to be instrumental in bringing it about. And then—

A sudden ripping sensation—not in his clothing, not in his viscera, but in his mind—jolted him. Something was wrong. Who—?

Alarmed, he searched and realized that Jeanette was missing; gone without a trace. Was she dead? This was terrible. He knew her address. He had to go there!

The bus was gasping to a stop at just that moment. The One Who Was Terrence lurched from his seat and fought his way down the aisle to the exit doors. He caught them as they were starting to close and slammed them back. He jumped to the pavement and immediately stepped into the street, looking for a cab.

He was frightened. Nothing like this had ever happened. It wasn't in the plan. It might ruin everything!

7

Just as suddenly as it began, it was over.

Jeanette released Kate's arms and staggered back to lean against the counter, as if dizzy. She blinked and looked at Kate.

"What just happened?"

"I don't know," Kate said, as baffled by this new shift in mood as she was by the first. Like turning a switch. "Don't you?"

"No. I think I must have blacked out. First you were standing over there and now you're right in front of me and I don't remember you moving."

"'But you were talking to me, shouting, in fact. Something about 'it's taking over.'"

Shock mixed with uneasiness on Jeanette's face. "I said that? No, I… couldn't have said that. I'd remember."

"Why would I make that up, Jeanette?"

"I don't know. Taking over what?"

"You didn't get to it, but you seemed terrified." Kate stepped closer and placed a hand on Jeanette's arm. "Jeanette, I think you had a seizure."

She pulled away. "What? Epilepsy? Don't be ridiculous! I've seen seizures. I know what they're like. I wasn't shaking, was I? I didn't fall down and start foaming at the mouth."

"That's a grand mal seizure. But there are all kinds of seizures. Temporal lobe seizures can cause personality changes, bizarre behavior. I—"

"I did not have a seizure!"

"It could be the tumor, Jeanette. Maybe it's not responding as well as we thought. Or maybe this is an aftereffect of the treatment. We've got to call Dr. Fielding."

"No. Absolutely not."

"But just a moment ago you were begging me to."

"You must have misunderstood. Why would I want to see Dr. Fielding? I'm fine. Never felt better."

"Jeanette, please." The more Kate thought about what she'd just witnessed, the more concerned she became. She'd never seen such a dramatic personality shift—a real-life Jekyll and Hyde without the smoking potion. She felt the nape of her neck tighten. "This could be serious."

"It's nothing, Kate. Don't trouble yourself about it. Just leave me alone. I—" She turned her head sharply, as if listening. "Wait. Someone's coming."

Jeanette slipped past her and headed for the door. Before she was halfway across the front room the door swung open. A man stood on the threshold. Kate recognized him as the one who'd welcomed Jeanette into the house in the Bronx last night.

"How did you get in here?" Kate blurted.

His eyes briefly fixed on her—Kate hadn't been close enough until now to notice how small and cold they were—then flicked away. Neither he nor Jeanette bothered to answer her, but she noticed something metallic in his hand.

The realization that Jeanette had given him a key to her place made Kate queasy.

He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. He held out his hands to Jeanette. "What happened to you?"

She shook her head and placed her hands in his. They stood staring at each other.

"Concerned," the man said.

Jeanette only nodded. They stared a few seconds longer, then Jeanette said, "Seizure."

With that they both glanced at Kate.

"What is going on here?" Kate said. "And who are you?"

"This is Terrence Holdstock," Jeanette said. "A friend."

"All right?" Holdstock asked Jeanette.

"Not sure."

"See myself."

More staring, then Jeanette turned to her. "We're going for a walk."

A panicky voice inside was telling Kate not to let Jeanette go off with this man. She had this terrifying and wildly unscientific impression that there were two Jeanettes, and the one she'd known and loved was trapped inside this stranger and trying to claw her way out.

"I'll come along."

"No," Jeanette said. "We need to be alone."

Without another word, not even good-bye, they turned and left.

At any other time, Kate knew, she would have been crushed. But she was too shaken for that. Something was terribly wrong. The problem was neurological. It had to be. And the man who had worked on her brain was her oncologist, Dr. Fielding.

Her hand shook as she reached for the phone. She had to call Fielding. But after that… what? What could Fielding do if Jeanette refused to see him? That man Holdstock seemed to have some mesmerizing influence over her.

Which meant she should make another call. To her brother. Much as she'd wanted to keep him out of this, she couldn't discount how the two women she'd called this morning had said they'd trust Jack with their lives. Maybe someone like him was needed here, because Kate found the coldness in Holdstock's eyes as unsettling as Jeanette's behavior.

Could she trust Jack with Jeanette's life? She didn't have much choice.

God, she hoped she wouldn't regret this.

8

With aching legs and burning feet, Sandy plodded toward his apartment door, grimly certain that he'd find the place empty, Beth gone. Which would be in perfect synch with how he'd come up after a day of trudging through the Upper West Side: empty.

Can't expect to strike it rich first time out, he kept telling himself.

But he couldn't deny that the hope of a lucky lightning strike, however unreasonable, had nestled in his brain when he'd set out this morning.

So much for hope. By five-thirty he'd had it. He knew he should keep pushing but he'd run out of gas. The streets and sidewalks were jammed and he couldn't take any more suspicious looks or negative headshakes. He was tired of hearing "Never seen him before in my life," and even more tired of lying about why he was looking for the man in the drawing. So he'd packed it in.

Tomorrow was another day.

But what about tonight?

I could sure use some company now, he thought. Female company with big brown eyes and short black hair. Beth company.

But he couldn't allow himself to hope that she'd still be there. She'd probably awakened, maybe hung around a little, got bored, and went back to her boyfriend.

And then Sandy heard the music, the spellbinding strains of "It Could Be Sweet" from Portishead's first album filtering through his door. He keyed it open and stepped inside. The music engulfed him along with an odor. Food. Someone was cooking.

"About time you got back!" Beth said, smiling from the kitchenette. "I was getting worried."

Sandy tried to take it in. Bottles and jars and boxes on the counter—wine, Ragu, Ronzoni. A candle burning, the blinds drawn, music playing…

Beth's face fell. Something in his expression maybe.

"Is this okay?" she said. "I hope you don't think I'm horning in but I woke up and there was no food so I thought I'd cook us dinner. If you're not cool with that…"

Sandy couldn't speak so he held up his hand to stop her.

"What's wrong?" Beth said. "Say something. Look, if I've overstepped my bounds…"

What to say? Sandy thought. Then it hit him: try the truth.

"Sorry. I was kind of afraid to speak. I'm so happy you're still here I thought I'd cry."

Her smile lit the room. She ran to him and threw her arms around his neck. She hugged him, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, then stepped back.

She said, "Jesus, you're something, you know that? So sweet! I've never met anyone like you."

"Well, I—"

"And I can't believe you like Portishead—at least I assume you like them because you've got all their albums. I love them. And not just because the lead singer and I have the same first name."

Lead singer? Sandy thought, still dazed. Oh, yeah. Beth Gibbon.

"You bought food?" he said. So lame, but it was the best he could do at the moment.

"Yeah. Are you anorexic or something? I mean, there was no food in this place."

Sandy's head was spinning and Beth was talking at light speed. Could she be a crankhead or something?

"I eat takeout a lot. Look, uh, Beth, are you all right?

"All right?" she said, laughing. "I'm miles better than all right. I don't think I've been so all right in years!" She dashed to the couch and picked up a handful of yellow sheets from his legal pad, the one he'd left the note on. "Look at this! Notes, Sandy! It's just so pouring out of me!"

"Notes about what?"

"About what? What else? Last night. I woke up and found your note and remembered what you'd said this morning and suddenly it was like wow! Insight! I am 50 psyched!"

"What'd I say?"

She grinned. "Oh, so you like Ray Charles too."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. You said maybe you were able to handle what happened because you had to write about it. That the writing forced you to confront your reactions, that putting it all down on paper was some sort of exorcism. Remember?"

"Yeah." He vaguely recalled saying something like that. "Sort of."

"So that's what I've been doing! For months now I've been going crazy trying to decide what to do for my thesis film, and when I woke up this afternoon I remembered what you said and there it was, staring me right in the face!"

"Your film?"

"Yes! It's going to be about what happened on the train last night. Not literally, of course, but metaphorically about having your mortality so shoved right in your face. And you know what? Ever since I started writing down these notes, I'm not afraid anymore."

She tossed the yellow sheets back toward the couch. They never made it. They fluttered instead like dying birds and fell to the carpet.

She threw her head back and shouted. "I'm saved!"

They drank the wine and talked as she cooked the spaghetti and spiced up the Ragu in some wonderful way. And they talked while they ate. Beth was twenty-four, from Atlanta, with an English degree from Baylor. Her folks were the sort who valued stability, she told him, and weren't all that crazy about her going for a film degree; it wasn't a career that guaranteed a steady income and benefits—like teaching, for instance.

And all the while Sandy ached for her but couldn't say so, couldn't make the first move.

Finally the wine and the food were gone. Sandy cleared the table with Beth. They were both standing at the sink when she turned to him.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure. Anything."

"Have you got something against sex?"

Sandy blinked in shock, tried to say no, but found himself stuck in a Porky Pig stutter. "M-m-m-m-me? No. Why would you say that?"

"Because I'm here and I'm as willing as I'll ever be and you haven't made a move. Not a single move."

That fear of rejection shit again, Sandy thought. Damn me! How do I get out of this?

"Well, look," he said. "I mean, after you gave me such a brush-off last night I thought maybe you might be, you know, playing for the other team."

He hadn't thought that at all, but it was a good cover.

Her grin split her face. "Me? A lez? Oh, God, that's such a riot!"

"It is?" It was the best he could come up with on such short notice.

"You were just a stranger on a train then." She nudged him. "And hey, how about that—I was reading a Hitchcock book no less. But now…"

Beth slipped her arms around Sandy's neck again and pulled his face down to hers.

"Now you're a guy who saved my life, or at least was willing to take a bullet for me, and then you calmed me down when I was so freaking out, and then you inspired my student film. Where the hell have you been all my life, Sandy Palmer?"

"Waiting for you," Sandy said.

And then her lips were sealed over his and she was hooking her right leg around him and tugging at the buttons of his shirt.

She wants me! he thought, his heart soaring. Wants me as much as I want her.

What a difference a day makes.

9

Kate was waiting outside on the front step as Jack neared the Arsley. She wasn't alone. In the fading light he could make out a tall, thin, stoop-shouldered man in a suit.

Who's this? he wondered.

He'd figured the easiest way to get to Pelham Parkway and back was to drive, so he'd offered his services. But he'd expected only Kate as a passenger.

Felt a smile start at the sight of her, and was struck again by what a good-looking woman she was. Dressed simply and casually in a fitted white shirt and black slacks, she still managed to project taste and style. Guy with her looked to be about her age, but on the homely side. Jack hoped this wasn't the "someone special" she'd mentioned last night. She could do a lot better.

He pulled his two-year-old black Crown Victoria into the curb before the pair. Kate leaned in the passenger window.

"Jack, this is Dr. Fielding, Jeanette's oncologist. He wants to come along."

Swell, Jack thought sourly.

Didn't know what Kate was getting him into, and a third party might tie his hands. She'd told him about Jeanette Vega, a dear friend from college recovering from brain tumor therapy with no one to care for her. And she'd told him about this Holdstock guy popping into Jeanette's unannounced with a key; that plus his apparent influence over Jeanette earned him a high creep quotient. Hopefully tonight's excursion would run smoothly, but Jack found cults generally creepy. Too unpredictable. Jonestown and those Hale-Bopp weirdos were prime examples.

But he smiled and said, "Sure. Why not?"

The doc slipped into the back seat and Jack noticed his dark hair, over-gelled and frozen into long shiny black rows left by his comb. He stretched a bony, long-fingered hand toward Jack. "Jim Fielding."

"Jack," he said, shaking Fielding's hand. "An oncologist who makes house calls. Am I witnessing an historic event?" He turned to Kate who was belting herself in next to him. "Hope you didn't use any illegal means of coercion."

"As opposed to legal means of coercion?" Kate said. "No, Dr. Fielding insisted on coming along."

"Really."

"I'm concerned about Jeanette's bizarre behavior," Fielding said, "particularly the possibility that she might be developing a seizure disorder. She's fortunate a trained observer like Dr. Iverson was there as a witness."

Dr. Iverson? Jack wondered, then realized he was talking about Kate.

"I'd like to do a little first-hand observation myself. And if Jeanette won't come to me, then I'll go to her."

Sounds like a good guy, Jack thought.

Kate patted the seat between them. "Big car. Reminds me of Dad's."

"He's got a Marquis, same car but sold by Mercury. It's the state car of Florida."

"I wouldn't have thought you were a big-car type, Jack."

"I'm not."

"You rented this just for tonight? Jack, you should have told—"

"No, it's mine. Sort of."

"Sort of how?"

"Just… sort of." Should he explain how he'd paid for the car but it was registered under someone else's name? Nah. "Don't worry about it."

"I'm not worried about it—just you."

"It's okay."

Cars were an ongoing problem for Jack. With no officially recognized identity, he couldn't own one in the conventional manner. At least as a city dweller he had little call for one, but on those rare occasions when the need arose he wanted immediate access. Used to keep an old Buick registered under Gia's name but that arrangement had led to a dicey situation where Jack had been linked to the car and the car had been traced back to Gia.

Wasn't about to let that to happen again. He made a point of learning from his mistakes and so he'd hunted around for another way to have access to wheels that couldn't be traced to him. Came up with a beaut: find a guy equipped to field whatever a disgruntled target of Jack's work might toss his way, then clone his car.

After weeks of careful searching, Ernie, his documents guru, found just the man: Vinny the Donut Donate

Vinny D supplied muscle for a Bed Stuy shy; lived in Brooklyn Heights and drove a recent model Crown Vic—black, of course. Jack would have figured Vinny as more a Cadillac kind of guy, but when he looked in the Crown Vic's trunk he understood: big enough to hold three, maybe four bodies.

So Jack had Ernie make him up a set of tags and a registration identical to Vinny's; and a driver's license which, except for its photo, was a perfect match of Vinny D's. Then Jack went out and bought a Crown Vic like Vinny's—a banged-up version that he never washed, but the same make and model.

The thing Jack liked most about Vinny D was his perfect driving record. Ernie's probe of the DMV computer showed no points. Whether this was due to diligence and skill behind the wheel, or a liberal application of grease in official places, Jack neither knew nor cared. The important thing was that if Jack ever got stopped he wouldn't be hauled in as a scofflaw.

It wasn't perfect. Always the possibility of Jack and Vinny D winding up on the same street at the same time and Vinny just happening to notice that their tags were identical. But since Vinny kept his car in Brooklyn and Jack garaged his in Manhattan, and hardly used it, he figured the chance of that happening was practically nil.

"Do we have a plan?" Jack said. "Do we even know she's at this address?"

"It's the only place I can think of to start," Kate said. "She left with that man this morning and hasn't been back since."

Jack said, "I'm feeling a little left out here. You both know this woman and I've never met her. What's she like?"

Kate cleared her throat. "The Jeanette you'll meet tonight—if you do meet her—is not the same woman she was before her treatment."

"And just what was this treatment?"

"For a brain tumor—an inoperable malignant glioma."

Fielding added from the rear: "By far the most common primary tumor developing in the human brain and too often refractory to current therapeutic approaches."

Kate went on. "So when the diagnosis was made I did some research and found Dr. Fielding and his clinical trial. Jeanette qualified for his study and—" She turned in her seat toward Fielding. "Perhaps you can tell it best."

"Of course." Fielding leaned forward. "Jeanette's tumor was treated with a stereotactically administered recombinant adenovirus vector carrying the herpes simplex thymidine kinase gene, followed by intravenous ganciclovir."

"Oh," Jack said. "That clears that up." He glanced at Kate. "Anyone care to translate?"

Kate smiled. "I watched the whole operation. Under x-ray guidance, Dr. Fielding threaded a tiny catheter into the tumor in Jeanette's brain. He then injected the tumor with a special virus, a recombinant strain of adenovirus that's had a specific gene from a herpes virus spliced into it."

"Wait. Doc, you injected herpes into this woman's brain?"

"Not the herpes virus per se," Fielding said. "Just a piece of it. You see, the altered adenovirus is called a vector virus. I'm oversimplifying, but let's just say it's attracted to dividing cells, and wild cell division is what makes a tumor a tumor. When the vector virus meets the tumor cells it does what all viruses do: it adds its own genetic material to the tumor's."

Kate said, "Think of the vector virus as a Trojan horse, but instead of Greeks it's carrying this tiny piece of a herpes virus—"

"Thymidine kinase gene H5010RSVTK, to be specific," Fielding added.

"—which gets incorporated into the tumor cells along with the virus's own genes. Now, there's no specific drug that will kill malignant glioma cells, but we do have medications that will kill viruses. And one of them, ganciclovir, kills by destroying a virus's thymidine kinase gene."

"Exactly," Fielding said. "And so, after injecting Jeanette's tumor with the virus and giving it time to combine with the tumor cells, we flooded Jeanette with high intravenous doses of ganciclovir."

"Which made a beeline for the tumor," Jack said, getting the picture now. "The herpes gene acts as a homing device for the gan-whatever guided missile."

Fielding laughed. "Homing device and guided missile—I like that. I'll have to remember it next time I'm explaining the protocol to a patient."

Kate said, "The ganciclovir not only kills the tagged virus, it kills any cell carrying the thymidine kinase gene. And since the tumor cells now carry that gene…"

"Blammo," Jack said, filled with wonder. "No more tumor. Sounds like science fiction. Or maybe horror fiction. What kind of mind dreams up something like this?"

"I wish mine had," Fielding said. "But I'm merely following in others' footsteps."

"But who volunteered to be the first patient to have a virus injected into his brain?"

"Someone with nothing to lose. But lots of lab animals paved the way."

"So Jeanette is cured."

"Not completely," Fielding said. "At least not yet. Malignant gliomas are tough, resilient tumors. Her last MRI showed a marked reduction in the tumor's size but she'll probably have to undergo another course of therapy to finish it off once and for all."

Kate turned in her seat and looked at Fielding. "And you still don't see any possible link between the protocol and Jeanette's personality changes?"

Fielding paused before answering. "Getting a reprieve from what is in a very real sense a death sentence has been known to cause enormous psychological turmoil."

Which isn't exactly answering the question, Jack thought, but maybe he's worried about a malpractice suit.

Kate had given him Holdstock's address but Jack hadn't had the faintest idea how to get there. He'd checked out a map before leaving tonight and had the route pictured in his head.

Night had settled in by the time he reached Astor Avenue. He slowed to a crawl, watching for a number.

"There it is," Kate said, pointing to a brick house ahead. "The lights are on. I know Jeanette's in there."

"Okay," Jack said, pulling into an empty spot half a block down. "Now that we're here, what do we do? How do we confirm she's there?"

He was mildly uncomfortable with the situation. Too ad lib. Normally he'd have checked out the house in advance and have a plan in place. And he never would have brought anyone else along. But this was Kate's gig. He was along for the ride and to provide some backup if necessary.

Kate said, "I looked through the living room window last time."

"That's a little risky, don't you think? A neighbor could report us as peepers."

"That would be catastrophic," Fielding said. "My entire career would be in jeopardy if I were even charged as a Peeping Tom."

Your career? Jack thought. If Jack got hauled in for anything—from shooting a crazy on a subway to littering—he could kiss his freedom bye-bye.

"Just a quick look," Kate said, opening her door. "I'll go myself. I've never heard of a woman being charged as a Peeping Tom."

No way Jack was letting Kate do it on her own. He got out on his side, and Fielding did the same. Career or not, curiosity must have got the better of him.

"Let's make this quick, people," Jack said as he caught up to Kate on the sidewalk. "One look, then back to the car to discuss our next move."

"I'll bet they're having that ceremony or séance or whatever it was I saw last night," Kate said.

When they reached the house Kate didn't break stride. She trucked right across the lawn toward the lighted window on the side. Jack slowed, letting Fielding go ahead of him. He brought up the rear, doing a three-sixty scan of the area. A few neighboring windows facing this way but no sign of anybody at them. All probably watching TV. Okay.

Kate reached the window, went up on tiptoe, and stared inside.

Jack heard her excited whisper: "There she is."

As Jack approached, Fielding came up behind Kate and peered over her shoulder. Jack saw him lean closer, then jerk back as if he'd received a shock.

"Oh, no!" he cried. Jack winced at the volume. "Oh, dear God, this is worse than I thought!"

He lurched away from the window just as Jack got there. Through the glass—thankfully it was down—Jack saw eight people sitting in a circle holding hands. And that was it. No one appeared to be speaking. The eight of them just sitting there with these goofy smiles on their faces. He was about to ask Kate which one was Jeanette but she'd slipped away.

"Dr. Fielding!" he heard her say. "Where are you going?"

Jack looked and spotted Fielding heading around the front of the house.

"Inside! I'm not leaving here until I find out what this is about!"

Kate followed Fielding and Jack followed Kate and the three of them wound up on the front steps. Jack went to grab Fielding to try to calm him down and find out what had set him off, but too late; he began pounding on the front door.

Kate looked at Jack and he jerked a thumb toward Fielding with a questioning look. She shrugged her shoulders, obviously as baffled as he.

"Take it easy, Doc," Jack said. "We don't need to wake up the whole borough."

Fielding looked as if he was about to speak when the door opened. A heavyset man with thinning blond hair and eyes too little for his face—his looks fit Kate's description of Terrence Holdstock—stood gaping at his three visitors.

"Why, Dr. Fielding. What a surprise!"

"What's going on here, Terrence?" Fielding said.

"Just a meeting. A support group, you might say."

"Support for what?"

"For the ordeal we've been through, and for the wonderful future that awaits us. All thanks to you, Dr. Fielding."

"Yes, well, I'm glad you feel that way, but how did you all meet? I have strict confidentiality procedures. If someone in my office—"

"Nothing like that, I assure you. We met quite by accident."

''''All of you?" Fielding took a step forward. "Look, may I come in? I'd like to—"

Holdstock didn't budge. "I'm afraid not, doctor. We're right in the middle of our meeting. Perhaps some other time."