The ER waiting room had become a triage center; dozens of people not injured enough to require an ambulance were being sorted through by doctors too hurried to spare a second glance at me. Stretcher after stretcher careened past me, headed toward the operating suites. As I pressed toward the entrance, two more ambulances arrived, and were then abandoned as their crews wheeled their respective payloads inside. In his hurry, one of the drivers left his ambulance running. I swear I could have kissed him.
Though the sky was gray overhead, and the air was thick with exhaust, the cool morning breeze was like a balm to my frayed nerves. The sidewalk was cold and rough beneath my feet. The wheels of the stretcher folded upward as I shoved it into the empty, waiting ambulance.
I slammed shut the rear door and headed for the cab. A hand grabbed my shoulder — not gently. I turned to find the cop, dark eyes glowering at me from beneath a furrowed brow.
"Where you think you're going?" he asked. Skeptical, but not yet hostile. That was OK. Skeptical I could work with.
"Patient transfer."
"Where you taking her?" he asked.
"Him," I replied. "Got a suite waiting at Beth Israel."
"Where's your badge?"
"Sorry?"
"Your badge? You know staff's supposed to display it at all times."
"Of course," I replied. I patted the pockets of my lab coat, a smile of contrition pasted on my face. My left hand dipped into a pocket, and his eyes followed. He never saw my right hand coming.
The punch connected with the bridge of his nose. A crunch of bone, a spray of blood, and he went down. Not dead, just sleepy. Parlor tricks like the one I'd pulled on the guard upstairs are all well and good, but sometimes, you just gotta go the direct route. Besides, subtle's never been my strong suit.
I climbed into the cab and threw the ambulance into gear. I gave it a little gas, and it lurched forward. Through the side mirror, I saw a kid of maybe ten staring slack-jawed back at me. He was tugging at his mother's arm and pointing toward the cop sprawled across the pavement, but she ignored him. The show outside the ER was still going strong, and she wasn't about to miss it.
I gave the kid a wink and a lazy mock-salute, and then pulled out of the hospital drive, disappearing into the early morning traffic.
5
"City and state?"
Between the din of the nearby traffic and the work crew drilling through the sidewalk just a half a block away, I couldn't hear a word she said. I pressed the handset tighter to my ear and huddled closer to the payphone. "I'm sorry?"
"City and state?" the woman repeated.
"Uh, Manhattan," I replied. "Manhattan, New York."
"What listing?"
"Jonah Friedlander."
The line hissed and clicked, and the woman was replaced by an automated voice that spat out the requested address. I was hard-pressed to tell the two apart.
I dropped the handset back onto its cradle and hunched across the lot to the waiting ambulance. Across the intersection from where I stood, a police cruiser sat idling at a light. I watched him from the corner of my eye, thinking inconspicuous thoughts. The gas station was packed three deep with cabs waiting for a crack at the pumps, and droves of pedestrians filtered through for a paper or a cup of morning coffee — no way the cop had made me. Of course, the meatsuit didn't want to hear it. His heart was pounding a mile a minute; his palms were sweating; his mouth was dry as dust. Just once, I'd like to possess me a Mob enforcer or something. These peaceful, law-abiding sorts make this job of mine a bitch.
Inside the ambulance, Kate was still unconscious. The question was, for how long? My stomach roiled as I recalled the bitter tang of blood and alcohol that clung to her mother's mangled corpse, and I gave her restraints a tug to ensure they were secure. Then I thumbed the ignition, and the ambulance sprang to life. I pulled out of the station and onto the crowded city street, disappearing into the swell of traffic.
Friedlander's apartment was a third-floor walk-up in Chelsea, the kind of place a realtor might charitably call a quaint Manhattan brownstone. It was brown, true enough, but its facade was faded and crumbling, and the paint on the sills had blistered and peeled, revealing rotten wood beneath. The whole building had the look of a musty old sweater — one well-placed tug and the whole thing might come tumbling down.
The front door was propped open with a rolled-up newspaper, and thick bacon-scented smoke poured skyward from the hallway beyond. From somewhere inside, a smoke alarm cried. I nudged the door open with my foot and carried Kate's sleeping form across the threshold. The ambulance I'd left in an alley a block north. They'd find it soon enough, but I didn't much mind — Penn Station lay just a couple blocks to the east, and they'd be expecting us to run. Either I was too smart to run, or too stupid, but either way, we'd be safe here a while.
I was huffing pretty good by the time I got her up the stairs. My muscles burned in protest, and my eyes stung from sweat and smoke. Friedlander's door was cordoned off with police tape. I ran a fingernail along the jamb, breaking the seal, and then I tried the knob. Locked. I set Kate down and looked around, to be sure I didn't have an audience, and then I shouldered the door, hard.
White-hot pain radiated outward from the point of impact, but nothing happened. I tried again. More of the same. Just my luck, I thought: the building is a fucking dump, but the one thing the landlord didn't cheap out on was the locks.
Again, I slammed into the door. There was a sickening crunch as the doorjamb splintered, and then I spilled into the apartment, tumbling gracelessly to the floor. I lay there a moment, waiting for the pounding of my pulse to subside. Then I dragged my ass up off the floor and carried Kate inside. I dropped her into a threadbare old armchair, and then went back and closed the door, throwing the bolt and setting the chain.
I stifled a yawn. My shoulder ached like hell, and I felt like I'd just run a fucking marathon. Some collection this was turning out to be. I'd botched the job, snatched the girl, and in all likelihood become the target of a city-wide manhunt. All of which paled in comparison to the world of shit I'd be in when word got out I'd disobeyed an order. Failure was bad enough; insubordination was… I didn't even know what. Far as I knew, I was the first.
So the clock was ticking. I had to sort this shit out fast — the last thing I needed was to be made an example of. I shook my head as I recalled Lily's parting words: Do try to enjoy yourself, won't you?
Enjoy myself. Right. Well, I thought, no time like the present.
After all, there's gotta be something to drink in this place.
"Hey!"
The voice drifted toward me from someplace far away. It seemed faint and unimportant, and whatever it was, it could wait.
"Hey! Wake up!"
The voice was louder now, more insistent. I did my best to ignore it.
"Wake up, you sick son of a bitch!"
I opened my eyes. I wished I hadn't. Sunlight streamed in through the windows like an ice pick to my brain. I raised a hand to shade my eyes. It didn't help.
Kate was awake in the armchair, struggling against her makeshift restraints. They were just a couple of bed sheets, really, twisted into ropes and tied behind the chair back, but it was the best I could do on short notice. I was happy to see the knots had held — I was pretty drunk when I tied them. I'd found a half a handle of Maker's Mark by the bathtub, along with a smattering of multicolored pills scattered across the linoleum. I'd taken a couple at random, in the hopes they'd help the throbbing in my shoulder. The results were mixed — the shoulder was doing pretty good, really, but the throbbing in my head made it a lateral move at best.