I was trying to think of a way to avoid involving Sally Cowles. "Did you find the box of cash he has?"
H.J. swung his gun at Gabriel suspiciously. "Answer the man."
"No, no, we didn't find a box of cash."
"He had cash there. You were inside."
"What?" said H.J., studying Gabriel. "What's the man talking about?"
"I helped Rainey with a deal," I said quickly, "there was cash. Two hundred and something thousand. He put it in a box and took it home. I know that. I was there a few days ago and the box was empty. Your guys just admitted they were inside. I guess they didn't tell you they found the cash-"
"That's a fucking lie, Mr. Wyeth, and I'll gladly shoot your face off to prove it," said Gabriel.
H.J. was inclined to believe Gabriel, I could see, but with a margin of doubt. Which was good, because I was lying. If I'd really led Denny and Gabriel to Jay's apartment, then they couldn't have been the cause of the empty cashbox I'd found. "You ever go in that building downtown, that place my aunt talked with him?" he asked his men.
"We did once," answered Denny.
H.J., I could see, was plainly worried. The crazed aggressor who'd confronted me in the hip-hop club was absent; this H.J. was taciturn and analytical, watching each of us, then studying his cell phone on the table before him, then watching us again. Was he expecting a call from someone? Did he need to make a call? Why he was forcing this game toward whatever conclusion awaited us was not clear to me. "No, get his daughter," he ordered, looking at his watch. "We got her, then we got him. Then he has to deal with me. He has to talk to me, he gots to give me my money. And if he don't have it, then you boys got a problem."
A minute later they had bundled me into the white limousine waiting outside. It was the same one as before, late model, spotless, smoked glass. Denny and Gabriel sat across from me, each with a gun drawn. The car rolled smoothly through traffic. The heater was on, the row of little floor lights elegant. I was worried about Ha and Allison, despite her betrayal of Sally Cowles.
"Stop thinking," Gabriel said.
"I'll try," I answered.
"If it was up to me," he announced, "I'd put a wee fucking bullet in your head right now."
I didn't doubt him. "You guys are insane for doing this," I said. "Just in case you didn't know that."
They didn't listen. The driver turned on a smooth jazz station. We glided up Sixth Avenue, past Bryant Park, past Forty-second Street, past the dense corporate cliff-dwellings, offices piled into the sky, every third person on the sidewalk talking into a phone, past Radio City Music Hall, then east at Central Park, past the Plaza Hotel, and on up toward the Upper East Side.
Where could Jay be, I wondered, dreading our arrival at Sally Cowles's school. If we could go to Jay directly, then we could bypass Sally Cowles. There was still time to turn around. Where would he be? Not in his sad apartment. What interested him most? Sally Cowles. But when she was in school what did he do? He didn't work. Did he hang around outside the school? Looking in the windows? That was not a good idea and probably didn't satisfy his needs. He needed to be near oxygen, of course, needed to have access to it. Yet he was secretive about this, too. There had to be an answer, but I didn't have it.
We slid up Park Avenue, drawing closer. I wondered if I could somehow jump to the door, scramble out. Not likely. Gabriel and Denny remembered the school from the basketball game and told the driver to pull over across from the main gate.
"She'll be coming out right here," Gabriel said.
So we waited. Several mothers congregated to one side, each dressed for the occasion, if not every occasion, their lipstick perfect, sunglasses darkly aloof, hair fabuloso. I was reminded of Judith, picking up Timothy from school.
"Couple of these yummy-mummies look insufficiently serviced," noted Gabriel.
Denny looked. "Think so?"
Gabriel nodded. "You can tell by the shoes. Women needing service tend to obsess about their shoes."
Denny smiled. "You're a sick fucker, Gabriel."
"Indeed."
Now a gaggle of girls in school uniforms left the school. Boys, too, in their coats and ties. Timothy could've been among them.
"How we going to tell which one?"
"Mr. Wyeth will advise us."
"No way," I said.
More girls were coming out of the school.
"Mr. Wyeth, recognize any?"
"Go fuck yourself."
"Well, if you don't look out of the window, then will you look at this?"
I looked. And was surprised. Gabriel was holding a picture of Sally Cowles, the one that had been on Jay's wall.
"Where did you-" I stopped myself.
"Thank you very much," said Gabriel. "That's excellent. Thank you. Yes, this is her," he said. "Figured."
He looked from the photo to the school to the photo. "No one is going to think twice about a limo pulled up outside of this school." And indeed there were other limos pulled up outside, and not a few of them.
"That's her," said Gabriel suddenly. He checked the picture, looked up again.
It was Sally, walking along Eighty-sixth Street with a friend.
"Ease along behind," Gabriel told the driver. "Stay back." The car pulled along slowly. "Say goodbye to your little friend, Sally," he narrated.
The two girls came to the corner.
"Don't turn, go straight," ordered Gabriel. "Make the light, make the light!" The limo jumped across the intersection. "Now slow, slow! We're ahead of her." He looked back through the rear window. "That's it. They're saying goodbye, very good, yes, see you tomorrow, pimples and all, that's it, right along here. She's coming-" He turned to me and stuck his gun in my face. "You say one word and I'll blow your nose off, right here, in the car."
"I know where to find Rainey," I told him. "I just figured it out. We can go there. He's in his building, he's-"
"Bullshit."
"No it's not. He's at 162 Reade Street."
"We looked there, do you think we're idiots?"
"You didn't look in the right place."
"We went through the boiler room."
"Did you go upstairs?"
"We knocked on a few doors."
"I know where he is, right now! You don't have to grab her!"
"Yes we do. That's our instruction," Denny said.
"You ready?" asked Gabriel.
"Yes."
Gabriel showed me his gun. "One word from you and you'll never play catch with your boy again-"
"My boy?"
"— and his lovely mother. In Italy now, right?"
I fell backward, cursing Jay Rainey, and myself. The car stopped. Gabriel threw open his door just as Sally Cowles passed by.
"Excuse me, miss," he called with theatrical friendliness, "we're rather lost."
"Oh," she said, with a bit of an English inflection.
"I'm looking for Sixth Avenue."
She came close to the car, reassured that it was a limousine. "Well, Sixth Avenue isn't nearby, really."
Gabriel stepped out of the car, leaving the door barely cracked open. I could see part of Sally's back. He showed her a New York City street map. "We're from out of town," he said apologetically.
"It's okay," came Sally's voice, cool and sophisticated for a fourteen-year-old, "it's sort of a complicated city."
I was about to yell. But Denny shoved his gun into my armpit, then reached around and rammed three fingers into my mouth.
"See, Fifth Avenue is here," explained Sally. "And Sixth- hey!"
Suddenly she was inside the car, backpack falling in front of her, Gabriel shoveling her forward, jumping in and slamming the door behind him. "Go!" he said to the driver, locking the door. "But easily. Roll forward."
"Hey! What is this!" cried Sally, her eyes angrily studying the men, then the windows and door locks, her distance from escape. "What're you doing?"