He passed the first of the bridge’s two support towers and walked underneath its enormous arch. Far overhead, small spotlights were carefully situated to illuminate the stone gargoyles leering down at him. He numbly shook his head and kept going.
Off to his left, there was no Manhattan Bridge to be seen. To his right, he could see the contours of Governor’s Island—better, in fact, than he should have been able to see them at night. The whole island was brilliantly lit, and Harris could only stare at the island’s giant wooden roller coaster and Ferris wheel, which had never been there before. Both were in motion, as were other amusement-park rides too distant to make out in detail. Beyond should be the glinting golden point of the Statue of Liberty’s torch, but there was no such beacon.
As he reached the center of the bridge, exhaustion finally caught up with him. He sagged against the rail, shutting his eyes against the parade of lights lining the river, and tried to keep his legs from shaking.
And still the cars roared by, each one carrying someone who wasn’t hurt, wasn’t confused, wasn’t totally out of place. Harris felt resentment stir in him. They’d probably enjoy seeing him slip and fall, like the crowd earlier tonight.
He concentrated on taking long, deep breaths; he tried to slip into a calmer, meditative state, the kind he once enjoyed while performing the exercise forms of tae kwon do.
A faint squeal of brakes—Harris heard one of the outbound cars slow to stop just behind him. A cop, had to be a cop; but when he sneaked a glance over his shoulder, it was nothing he could recognize as a police car. It was a beautiful, massive two-tone thing gleaming black and gold in the bridge lights; its passenger compartment was a four-door box, the engine compartment a lower rectangle just as long, its front grille capped by a hood ornament shaped like a dragon in flight.
The far door opened and the driver emerged. Tall for one of these Neckerdam people, he was Harris’ height, though he had to weigh forty or fifty pounds less; he was thin-boned and lean-muscled. He was paler in the overhead lights than Harris; this contrasted starkly with his trim, black mustache and beard. His eyes were bright and alert, his features so mobile and full of sympathy that Harris decided he looked like a stand-up comedian who did psychotherapy on the side.
And his clothes—a full tuxedo in the brightest red imaginable, black shirt and white cummerbund, a combination that was eye-hurting even in the dim bridge lights. Harris felt a laugh bubble up inside of him, but managed to choke it before it emerged.
The newcomer walked around the car and up onto the walkway. His voice was a musical, melodious treat: “Son, don’t do it.”
“Don’t do what?”
The tuxedoed man shook his head gravely. “Don’t jump. I know things may seem hopeless now, but—”
The laugh Harris had restrained finally emerged, a high-pitched cackle that sounded crazy even to Harris’ ears. “Don’t jump? Mister, you’ve come to the wrong place. I wasn’t going to jump.”
The man took a cautious step forward. “You might not have known that you were. But the moon’s full and there’s a storm in your heart. You could have hit the water before you knew what you were doing. Come away with me.”
Ah, so that was it. This guy wanted something. Was he a smooth-talking mugger or a stubborn homosexual who wouldn’t take no for an answer? Harris didn’t care; he waved the intruder away. “Scram.”
“Is that your name? Scram? I am Jean-Pierre.” The man took another careful step forward; he was now within half a dozen feet of Harris. “But if you’re not going to jump, you can come away with me. I’ll take you somewhere safe. Warm food. We can talk.”
Harris gave the man his most knowing smile. “Yeah. Sure. I don’t know what you want, man, but you’re not getting it from me. And if you don’t get in that freak show of a car and get out of my face, I’m going to have to break your head. You got that?”
The man with the French name paused and frowned over that. Then: “Yes. Yes, I do.” He started to turn—and then made a sudden lunge for Harris, both hands outstretched.
A bad, clumsy move. Harris stepped sideways and fell into a back stance, keeping his weight mostly off his bad leg; he was surprised to feel himself go off balance from dizziness and he nearly fell over. But he still managed to use his left hand to sweep the man’s arms out of line, a hard knifehand block, and brought his right up in a fast uppercut that cracked into Jean-Pierre’s jaw. The man in the red tuxedo looked dazed and surprised, as though some six-year-old had walked up and broken a shovel across his face, and took an involuntary step backward.
Which set him up for a follow-through kick. Harris brought his injured leg up in a front straight kick that ended with the ball of his foot cracking into the man’s jaw. Harris’ extended leg seemed to scream as the move stretched his wound taut, but Jean-Pierre stiffened, spun partway around, and slammed down to the boards of the walkway.
Weakness washed over Harris again; he swayed and heard a roaring in his ears. The exertion had come close to taking him out, too. But, tired and hurt as he was, he’d won.
He’d better leave before Mr. Fashion Disaster woke up, though.
He turned, and there she was.
Not Gaby. This woman was short, beautiful, and Asian. All he had time to register was her face, the somber expression it wore, and the stick she held.
The stick she rapped against his temple.
Suddenly the pain in his leg was gone.
Along with his eyesight. His hearing.
He never even felt the impact when he hit the walkway beside Jean-Pierre.
Sound returned first. Indistinct murmurings that became words: “ . . . said he wasn’t . . . off-guard . . . stop laughing . . . ”
Then, sensation. Warmth. Uncomfortable, lumpy softness under his back. A little pain in his leg. The pain was actually comforting. It meant that the events he was starting to remember had actually occurred.
Light through his eyelids.
He opened his eyes, and for the second time in hours saw a face hovering over his.
It wasn’t the beautiful blond man again. This was a large pug nose surrounded by a merry round face and eyes as green as jade; this man’s skin and hair were nearly as brown as a pecan shell. He wore a stiff white shirt, undecorated and short-sleeved, and a large, bulky stethoscope around his neck. He glanced back over his shoulder, revealing his ear to be sharply pointed, and called, “Your rescuee is awake, my prince.” His voice was surprisingly light, his accent cultivated and not quite American.
“You’ll be healing yourself if you keep at me.” The voice was Jean-Pierre’s, and angry. Harris groggily turned his head to look.
He was in a big room, the size of a low-ceilinged gymnasium, crowded with dozens of large work tables. Some tables were piled high with books, others with burners and glass tubes and complicated glass-and-wood arrays Harris didn’t recognize, still others with what looked like mason jars filled with jams and jellies. The walls were paneled in dark, rich wood, and the floor was wooden planking of a lighter tone.
Bright light, the color and warmth of noonday sunlight, glowed from banks of overhead lights that resembled fluorescent light fixtures. Along the far wall, a bank of tall windows looked out over a glittering vista of skyscrapers at night.
Harris found that he was lying on a long paisley sofa in a corner of the room; there was other living-room furniture arranged nearby, including a very large version of the round-screen TVs he’d seen earlier.