Three pairs of eyes switch from the unmoving jam to the dashboard clock: 8:40…8:50…9:00…
“We’re so dead,” moans Gecko. “Poor Rox!”
“She’ll be fine,” says Terence bitterly. “We’re the ones who’ll be taking the fall.”
“Maybe not,” breathes Arjay. “Look!”
The traffic is suddenly moving again, as if nothing ever happened.
“Floor it!” orders Terence.
Gecko is already weaving the panel truck through the gaps that are opening between cars. They pass a wrecker with a stalled SUV on its hoist, and Terence awards it an obscene gesture.
“Spleenless fool!”
“Can we make it?” asks Arjay.
In answer, Gecko wheels down avenues and side streets, running stoplights, and using the sidewalk as a passing lane.
The dashboard clock reads 9:17 as they pull up to the access lane behind Bronx County Psychiatric Hospital. The guardhouse is empty, the entrance padlocked, just as Roxanne said.
Terence heads for the rear doors, cracking his knuckles as he goes. “One open gate, coming up.”
And then a bent figure appears out of the shadows.
“Freeze!” hisses Arjay.
Barely daring to breathe, they watch as the man shuffles across the access way, shining a flashlight at the gate and the alley behind it.
“Rox didn’t say anything about a night watchman,” Gecko whispers.
The clock: 9:18.
Their heartbeats seem to reverberate inside the truck. The figure ambles to the corner and disappears around the front of the building.
“Now!” Arjay rasps.
Terence is out and on the gate in a flash, his hand just a blur as he works on the lock.
9:19.
The barrier swings wide.
The linen truck enters the lane. Terence shuts the gate and jumps back inside. The three pan the rear of the building, but see nothing other than barred windows and thick stone walls.
Sweating, Gecko halts at a row of Dumpsters, and there it is—a heavy steel door with no knob on the outside.
9:20. Zero hour.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The paper is titled “Introduction to Physics—Wave/Particle Duality.” Due date—
“That’s tomorrow!” exclaims Margaret Browning Fitzner.
August Fitzner looks up from his Wall Street Journal. “What’s tomorrow?”
“This homework. Roxie needs it if she’s going to school straight from Brittany’s tomorrow.”
She picks up the phone, checks a list, and speed-dials. “Hello, Brittany. It’s Mrs. Fitzner. Can I speak to Roxanne for a minute, please?…She isn’t? But—”
Her husband is out of his chair and pacing. “She’s not there?”
“Sorry to bother you, Brittany. I must have the wrong friend.” She hangs up and turns to her husband in alarm.
“Don’t worry,” he says grimly. “I have a pretty good idea where she is.”
Deputy Chief Mike Delancey is still in the office. He normally works fairly late. But when the chief is out of town, he practically lives at One Police Plaza.
He’s finally heading for the door when the call comes through from August Fitzner.
“Braxton,” Delancey calls to the sergeant, “what did I do with the file on that Gecko kid—the one who’s mixed up with Augie Fitzner’s daughter?”
A few minutes later, he’s back at his desk, riffling through the folder. Graham Fosse. Street name—Gecko. There’s his mug shot. Delancey remembers their meeting in the school, scaring the kid off—obviously not well enough.
Reaching for yet another pear from the basket on the cabinet, he scans the description of the halfway house. The kid caught a real break to get picked for something like that. Stupid of him to risk it all for a girl, even a cute one like Roxie. Too bad.
His eyes fall on the picture of Douglas Healy, who runs the home situation for Social Services. He frowns. Why does this guy look so familiar? Do I know him?
He catches sight of the bulletin board just outside his office door. The John Doe Wall of Fame, they call it. At any given time, the city has between fifty and a hundred people, living and dead, that it can’t identify.
He takes a bite of the pear, and, painfully, the side of his mouth. He barely notices the taste of blood.
For there, hidden in the middle of the John Doe Wall of Fame, is Douglas Healy.
He rushes over to read the details: John Doe #1453Y. Turned up at Yorkville Medical Center in a comatose state; acute retrograde amnesia; no measurable improvement; transferred 10/23 to Bronx County Psychiatric Hospital.
Delancey is thunderstruck. Three days ago, he was instrumental in getting Roxanne Fitzner assigned there as a volunteer.
Oh, Roxie, what have you gotten yourself into?
He reaches for the phone.
The cafeteria is open around the clock for twenty-four-hour shift workers. Besides Healy and Roxanne, the only other customer is a tired-looking nurse having a late sandwich in the far corner.
As 9:20 approaches, Roxanne’s stomach churns like the rapids of the Colorado River.
Even Healy notices. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine,” she says faintly, taking a sip of her very cold hot chocolate. Her system is so upset that it’s all she can do to keep it down.
“You push yourself too hard,” Healy chides her. “Between that high-powered private school and so many hours volunteering—at Yorkville they used to joke about setting up a cot for you behind the nurses’ station.”
She glances at her watch. Not quite yet. They can’t be seen standing around the kitchen. The timing has to be perfect.
“I mean, it’s great that you care so much,” Healy continues, “but if you let yourself get so run down…”
Come on, come on, come on! she exhorts the second hand as it creeps lazily around the dial.
“…then the next group of volunteers will have to visit you—are you even listening to me?”
She leaps to her feet so suddenly that her chair overturns with a clatter. “Let’s go!”
“Go? Where?”
She grabs his wrist and hauls him across the cafeteria to the kitchen.
“What’s going on?” he demands.
She regards him helplessly. “You’ll have to trust me.”
“Trust you for what?”
She leads him into the kitchen, moving past dishwashers and cooks, who look up in surprise. The exit is dead ahead, at the end of a line of stainless steel refrigerators. Roxanne heads for it, dragging along a bewildered Healy. The second hand of her watch is coming around again.
9:20 on the nose.
It’s now obvious to Healy that she’s taking him outside. “This is crazy!”
“Whatever happens,” she quavers, “always remember that I’m your friend.” She hip-checks the security bar, and the heavy door swings wide. Arjay stands there, his hulking frame filling the opening.
“How’s it going, Mr. Healy?”
With a gasp of shock, Healy pulls back, poised for flight. But Arjay is ready. He reaches out and grabs the group leader’s arm before he can escape. In an instant, Terence is there, and Healy is immobilized.
A loud buzzer sounds within the building. Roxanne and the boys are startled. The kitchen staff is staring at them, but how could they have sounded the alarm so soon?
“Let’s go!” hisses Arjay.
They hustle Healy out into the lane and stuff him in the back of the truck. Roxanne jumps up after him, with Arjay and Terence bringing up the rear.
Behind the wheel, Gecko looks over his shoulder. “Is that an alarm I hear?”
Healy stares at him. “Gecko?”
Arjay slams the double doors shut. “Go! Go!”
Gecko throws the truck into reverse and begins retreating up the alley. In the side mirror he sees the night watchman hustle to the gate and begin fiddling with the padlock.
Gecko leans on the horn and speed
s up, but the watchman is determined to get the padlock back in place.
Swallowing hard, Gecko presses down on the accelerator. “Come on, mister, don’t be a hero!”
Frantically, the man snaps the lock shut and dives clear. A split second later, the truck blasts backward out of the alley, tearing the gate clean off its moorings, and tossing it in a shower of sparks into the middle of the street.
Gecko throws the gearshift into drive and burns rubber. A new sound reaches their ears, mingling with the Klaxon from Bronx County Psychiatric—police sirens.
Three squad cars scream around the corner. The lead cruiser drives up onto the broken gate, razor wire slashing into the front tires. It spins out and stalls, front end deflated. The second swerves to avoid it and jumps the curb. The undercarriage comes down on a concrete flower box, and the vehicle is hung up there, front wheels spinning.
The third car howls past, barreling after the linen truck.
“Gecko, why aren’t you stopping?” Roxanne shrills. “That’s a policeman back there!”
“Hang on,” Gecko orders grimly. He wrenches the wheel, and the truck jounces across the sidewalk, plows over the muddy leaves of a vacant lot, and shudders onto the pavement of the next street over. The cop hesitates, then goes the long way around, screeching through two right turns.
For a moment, Gecko thinks he’s in the clear. Then the cruiser reappears in the mirror, far back, but gaining. Gecko presses the pedal as far as it will go, coaxing a little more speed, but not much. A panel truck is not built for racing. The cruiser grows larger in the mirror. The wail of the siren swirls all around them, filling the van.
“Lose him!” Terence pleads.
Gecko looks around wildly. He doesn’t know the Bronx. How is he supposed to elude a cop on his home turf, driving a faster vehicle?
The truck bounces over a rise, and he sees it. Just ahead, the road follows a small bridge over a shadowed gully. If he can get down into the hollow before his pursuer reaches the rise, he just might be able to disappear, tricking the cop into “following” him across the bridge.
He steers for the span, but at the last second he cuts the lights and threads the needle between the barrier at the side of the road and the bridge rail.
In the back, Arjay, Terence, Roxanne, and Healy are tossed around like Ping-Pong balls as the truck lurches down the embankment. Wildly, Gecko pumps at the brake in an attempt to slow their descent. Nothing helps. He has made this move with no idea of where they’re going, or how they can ever get out.
Desperately, he squints into the gloom, grappling for the tiniest bit of night sight. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a concentrated beam of light shines directly in front of him, illuminating the bottom of the gully, lined with a double row of shiny tracks.
The realization almost knocks him off his seat. This isn’t a ditch! It’s a railway line! And that light is—
CHAPTER THIRTY
Fueled by pure panic, Gecko yanks on the wheel just as the locomotive explodes out of the darkness. The steering mechanism screeches its protest as they skid toward a collision with the speeding train. At the last second, the tires bite into the earth, and the truck makes the sharp turn, moving along beside the rattling freight cars, avoiding disaster by no more than a few inches.
Arjay peels himself off the wall of the payload and peers over Gecko’s shoulder. “What was that? Where are we?”
“We’re driving beside a train,” Gecko says faintly. “I’m pretty sure we lost that cop.”
“And I’m pretty sure I need to change my underwear!” Terence seethes. “You trying to kill us, dog?”
Roxanne’s voice is barely a whisper. “What do we do now?”
Gecko has absolutely no idea. He’s not even certain the truck has enough guts to get them back up the embankment to the street.
They parallel the train for a few minutes until it passes. Then they continue on slowly, looking for a spot that’s a little less steep.
The ascent is slow and messy. The spinning tires kick up so much mud that Gecko has to run the windshield wipers just to see. At long last, the white van that descended into the hollow emerges a filthy brown one.
Gecko leans out the window. The Ajax Linen Service logo is completely obliterated by grime. “The cops’ll never recognize us now.”
“Not unless we get pulled over for Driving While Disgusting,” Terence agrees.
“Even so, stay off the main roads,” Arjay advises. “By now, the whole police force must know about us.”
Healy speaks up. “Would somebody mind telling me what’s going on?”
As they start off, moving cautiously south toward Manhattan, Arjay begins the long story.
“Your name is Douglas Healy, and you’re the founder of an alternative halfway house.…”
Gecko concentrates on the road and their surroundings, but keeps an ear open for any sign that the group leader’s memory is coming back.
The initial indicators are all bad. “I don’t recognize you,” he tells them. “I remember Gecko from Yorkville, but the rest is a blank. I’ve never even heard of Douglas Healy, and that’s me!”
“Keep an open mind,” Roxanne pleads. “Sooner or later something has to ring a bell.”
On the slow serpentine trip, Gecko sees a number of police cars and makes a point of veering down side streets to avoid a close encounter. Their vehicle may look different covered in mud, but it’s still a panel truck. Surely by now, Bronx County Psychiatric has taken a head count and realized that they’re short one John Doe.
Behind him, Arjay is feeding Healy his own life story from the personal file on his computer. Gecko recites along mentally as he drives—Healy’s childhood in New York; his arrest for assault at the age of fifteen—a fight that broke out while he was selling fireworks across state lines with an older cousin: thirty-two months in juvie, followed by a comeback in which he put himself through college and returned to Manhattan to work as an accountant. Next, the death of his parents just a few months apart, leaving him with no living relatives. And most important of all, his decision to pool his modest inheritance with a Garfield grant to found a program to help juvenile offenders get their lives back on track—just as young Douglas Healy had.
The group leader listens with a look on his face like he’s watching a movie of the week—it’s an interesting story, but that’s all. No recognition.
“I want to believe you—I do believe you. But I don’t remember it. Not one word.”
“Come on, Mr. Healy,” urges Terence. “Please think harder!”
The truck rattles over the bridge to Manhattan, and Gecko heads downtown along Second Avenue. “Where should we let you off?” he calls over his shoulder to Roxanne.
“I’m staying with you.”
“No way,” Arjay tells her. “Who knows what they’ll stick on our rap sheet after tonight.”
“I’m not leaving until this gets settled one way or the other,” she says stoutly. “I want to see what happens to you—all of you.”
“We can’t let you get mixed up in this!” Gecko interjects.
“You want to throw her out of a moving truck?” asks Terence. “Let her be.”
Second Avenue is slow and plodding, but not for Gecko, who weaves in and out, slipping through improbably narrow spaces. Buildings and storefronts gradually become familiar as they approach their own neighborhood. They’ve done it—Healy is out; their escape is complete. Another brilliant getaway for Gecko Fosse. But this time there’s little to celebrate.
With a skillful tap on the accelerator, he twists the linen truck out of the traffic flow and backs into a line of parked vehicles. “We’re here.”
Arjay peers out the front. The sign reads AJAX LINEN SERVICE. “This is where we boosted the truck!”
Gecko shifts into park and separates the “hot” wires. The engine dies.
The five of them—Gecko, Arjay, Terence, Roxanne, and Healy—climb out and bustle down the avenue. The group leader has no co
at, and hugs himself against the biting wind.
Gecko sneaks a glance at him, searching for even the slightest sign of recognition in his any-color eyes. No, Healy is rubbernecking like a tourist—even when they turn down Ninety-seventh Street toward their building.
“Hey, Mr. Healy,” Terence ventures, “this is where we chucked that rye bread and pegged Ms. Vaughn.”
Healy’s dismay multiplies when Gecko ushers him up the cement steps. “This is—home?”
Arjay tries to insert his key, and the front door swings wide. “Open sesame,” he says sarcastically. “Lock’s busted for a change. Lucky we’ve got nothing worth stealing.”
They start up the dingy stairs.
“Yeah, people really do live like this,” Terence informs Roxanne. “It’s not just on America’s Most Wanted.”
“I’ve been in walk-ups before,” she defends herself.
“We’re busy, man,” Arjay hisses to Terence. “Lose the sociology lecture.”
The truth is they’ve run out of planning. Not one of them honestly expected to make it this far. Now what? When do they give up on Healy’s memory and ask him to flat-out lie for them?
Arjay opens the door, ushering the others in ahead of him. Gecko reaches for the light switch.
And then all hell breaks loose.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Something hard swings past Gecko’s face. He hears the crash of impact, breaking glass, but the cry of pain comes from Arjay. Before Gecko can react, he is shoved from behind. His face collides with the wall, and he tastes blood.
The scream that follows is unmistakable. Roxanne.
“Rox!” He tries to leap at the unseen attacker, but a punch slams into his stomach, doubling him over.
The lights flash on to reveal a terrifying scene in the apartment. Two intruders restrain the struggling Arjay, who is bleeding badly from his cheek. Another grapples with Healy in the galley kitchen. Still another stands threateningly over Gecko, while keeping an eye on Roxanne, who is sprawled on the living room floor.
Gecko is about to make another run at his opponent when he catches sight of the fifth and final intruder. DeAndre has Terence in a headlock, the blade of a large knife pressed against his captive’s throat.