He walked over to them and engaged them in conversation with his practiced reporter's banter, until one of them who had been staring most trenchantly asked him if he was a detective. Interesting question, that. Why would anyone possibly suppose that?
"No, not at all. I'm a reporter for the Mirror. Why did you think I was a detective?"
The answer threw Jude for a loop, and it also constituted the only genuine break that he had had all day. When the worker delivered the information, his face assumed that self-satisfied, anticipatory look people get when they are about to impart shocking news.
"Well, this place had been crawling with cops for days. Ever since that body was found, you know, the one that turned up in the landfill. They said he was wearing a red shirt. We seen a guy wearing a red shirt hanging around here days before. He looked like he was trying to get into the judge's house, just like you were."
Crossing the Willis Avenue Bridge, Jude moved over to the right lane to reach the approach to the FDR, and the car behind with the glaring light did the same. Other cars were converging in the lanes to either side, but the company did not make Jude feel less nervous. The car followed him down the FDR.
Get a grip on yourself. What makes you so sure he's following you?
Jude calmed himself with the thought that he was, after all, on a major approach to the city. The shortcut he had taken was hardly a secret. You think you've got a monopoly on it?
Earlier, he had stopped at a rest area on the Thruway and called his own number to check on Skyler. He had been about to hang up after the third ring when Tizzie had answered. He hadn't foreseen that — what the hell was she doing there?
She'd sounded upset, confused, unable to take it all in. But what did he expect? How would he feel if he suddenly dropped by her apartment one day and found another woman there who was her exact double? It sounded like a scenario from The Twilight Zone. He hadn't been able to be much of a comfort to Tizzie — his mind had been all over the lot, on the day he had spent and the judge's reaction to him and the worker's bombshell. He'd tried to explain as best he could that Skyler had turned up out of the blue, that he needed help, that they were going to try to "get to the bottom of this." He'd mumbled something about trying to clarify everything, insofar as he could clarify anything, when he got home in a few minutes. He had hung up feeling he had botched it.
He came to the sign for the Seventy-first Street exit with the car still on his rear end and flicked on his turn signal and looked reflexively into the rearview mirror. His heart skipped a beat — the car was signaling, too. He slowed down. His palm on the steering wheel suddenly felt sweaty, and he checked the mirror again. The car was hanging back about twenty feet, and its front turn signal was flashing yellow in the darkness. The exit was approaching — Jude had only a few seconds to make his decision. Abruptly, at the last moment, he swerved the wheel to the left, and the right front tire rode over the exit lane divider, so that his car shuddered back onto the highway. In the mirror, the car behind swerved gracefully back on track, directly behind. Its turn signal went out. Still on my tail.
Now Jude was truly spooked. There was no question that he was being followed. He floored the accelerator, felt the sudden speed thrust him back against the seat and drove so fast that he didn't dare take his eyes off the road to check his pursuer. Ahead were two cars, one in each lane; he passed one, slipped in next to the other and gunned it, leaving them both in the dust. He checked the mirror briefly, but couldn't make out the cockeyed headlight in the blur of lights and movement behind.
In no time, he came to the next exit, Sixty-third Street, and he swung the car violently to the right, fishtailing around the turn, and hit the gas again. At the end of the block, he turned on a red light to go up First. The lights were running with him, so he kept his speed at forty-five until he came to Seventy-fifth Street, where he hung a left and went two blocks until he found a space across the street from his building. He pulled in and doused the lights and waited. Nothing. He waited some more. There were no cars moving on the side street, only the lights of vehicles moving at right angles, up Third and down Second. On the sidewalk a man and a young boy passed, talking earnestly.
Jude locked the car and crossed the street with one hand in his pocket, holding ready the key to the front door. When he reached it, he opened it quickly, looked up and down the street, and darted inside. With the door behind him, he felt a wave of relief, the illusion that home provided sanctuary.
Standing in the entryway, he took stock. Again, he had precious few hard facts at his disposal. He didn't know who was following him or even how many people were following him, not to mention why. And he didn't know if he had really shaken them off or if they had merely dropped away, already knowing where he lived. His name was still in the book — regrettably. If they knew his name, they knew where he was. Even Skyler, for Christ's sake, had been able to track him down. Funny how he was beginning to date the start of his misfortunes to Skyler's appearance on the scene.
He opened his mailbox and pulled out a small penknife, extracting the blade and using it to pry out a thin piece of plastic with his name embossed upon it. He closed the mailbox.
It's not paranoia, he thought as he began the long climb up the stairs. It's not paranoia to think someone's after you if you're actually being followed. Under the circumstances, removing his name from the mailbox was a sensible precaution — but not, he realized, a very effective one.
Jude found Tizzie and Skyler sitting far apart in the living room. Tizzie was a mess. Her hair was uncombed, her dress looked as if it had just been tossed on, and she leaned upon a table, cradling her chin in both hands. Skyler was dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a black T-shirt — both belonging to Jude, naturally — and he sat grimly on the couch. The atmosphere seemed charged with emotional tension, as if a storm had passed through Jude's tiny apartment. The two looked up at Jude as if he could rescue them.
Jude tried to start off on a positive note.
"I'm glad at least to see you two are all right."
Tizzie stared at him. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Why shouldn't we be?"
"I don't know, exactly. But a lot of crazy stuff has been going on."
Jude looked at Skyler, who sat motionless in some sort of shock, and then walked over to sit down next to Tizzie. He took her hand, but she seemed barely to notice that he was holding it.
"Look," he said. "I wanted to reach you to tell you about all this, but I didn't know where you were. I know it seems crazy — and maybe it is. I can't make any sense of it myself. I've been trying to figure it out all day, and all I come up with is dead ends."
She looked at him quizzically, and he continued.
"All I know is that this guy" — he made a vague motion toward Skyler with his free hand—"turned up on my doorstep. Literally on my doorstep. I couldn't get much out of him at first. His name's Skyler, and he says he was raised on some kind of weird place that sounds like something from The Island of Dr. Moreau."
"What's that?" asked Skyler.
"Nothing. It's a book. It doesn't matter," Jude replied irritably.
At the sound of Skyler's voice, Tizzie stirred. She turned and looked at him, and he looked back, his eyes blazing.