The subway.
The man had said "Scratch" had taken someone from the van-someone who might have been Jeff?-to the subway.
At the corner he saw the sign, and the flight of stairs leading down into the subterranean station.
He started toward it.
Al Kelly glanced back over his shoulder. The man who'd given him the five dollars was headed the other way, but across the street, Louise and Harry were still coming. Al didn't know the guy with them, but it didn't matter-he looked like trouble. Looked like he didn't belong on the surface at all, in fact. Al shuddered, just thinking about the way some people lived. Okay, so he curled up in a doorway every now and then, or slept in the park over on Chrystie Street, at least when the weather was nice. But when it was bad, he slept indoors- went to one of the shelters, even if he did have to listen to some preaching or say he was going to try to clean up and find a job. But at least he still lived like a human being instead of some kind of rodent sneaking around in the sewers.
Of course, Louise had told him it wasn't that bad, not if you knew where to go, but he didn't have any desire at all to find out if she was telling the truth. No matter what happened- no matter how bad things got-he was going to stay on the surface.
He glanced over his shoulder again. Louise and Harry and the other guy had crossed the street now, and he was pretty sure he knew exactly what they wanted.
The five bucks the tourist had given him.
Shit!
He should've been more careful, should've palmed the bill, or at least made sure no one was looking when he took it-the last thing you wanted was money in your pocket.
He turned onto Rivington Street, cut diagonally across, then ducked into Freeman Alley and headed toward the jog halfway up it. Maybe Louise and Harry wouldn't spot him, but even if they did, he might find a place to stash the money, at least until he could lose them and their friend. He quickened his pace, but the blister on the sore on his right foot was hurting real bad today, and he couldn't move quite fast enough. He was just coming up to the jog when Harry's hand closed on his shoulder and turned him around.
"Hey, Al-whatcha doin‘?"
Al's eyes darted from Harry to the other man, then back to Harry. "Nothin‘. Just lookin' for something to eat."
"Why don't ya buy something?" the other man asked. "You got the money, don't you?"
"I ain't got nothing," Al protested, but Harry's hand tightened on his shoulder.
"We saw you, Al," Harry said. "We saw you talkin‘ to that guy, and we saw him give you the money. So what were you talkin' about, Al?"
Al Kelly sighed heavily-no point trying to pretend he didn't have the money. They'd just go through his pockets, and probably beat him up for making them look for it. Pulling the five out, he handed it to Harry. "Okay, so you got it." He started to pull away, but the second man blocked his way.
"Harry asked you a question, Al. Ain't you gonna answer it?"
Al shrugged. "He was just askin‘ about somethin' I saw yesterday, that's all."
The man's eyes narrowed. "So what did you tell him?"
Al shrugged. "Nothin‘ much. Just about the guy goin' into the subway."
Harry's grip on Al's shoulder tightened, and the other man reached into his pocket. When his hand emerged a moment later, Al saw the blade of a knife.
"What did you want to do that for, Al?" Harry asked, sounding almost sad.
"What's the big deal?" Al protested. "He wasn't a cop-he was just some guy lookin‘ for his kid. I-"
But before he could say anything else, he felt a strange sensation in his belly, like somebody had punched him. He looked down, and sure enough-the other guy's fist was right up against his belly. But where was the knife?
The man jerked his arm and fist upward then, and Al Kelly knew where the knife was. It was deep in his gut, and now the blade was moving up, slashing through his flesh and organs.
A guttural sound bubbling up from his throat, Al tried to pull away, but it was far too late.
Harry held him upright as the knife slashed through his lungs and its point pierced his heart. Then, as the other man pulled the knife free of Al Kelly's lifeless body, Harry lowered it gently to the ground and propped it against a door.
A door that was painted a shade of red that almost matched the blood oozing from the wounds in Al Kelly's body.
Slipping the five-dollar bill into his own pocket, Harry and the other man quickly went back to the street where Louise was waiting for them.
Anyone looking into the alley would see nothing more than Al Kelly's feet, and assume he was just another drunk sleeping it off in solitude.
That's what they would have thought, unless they noticed he was sitting in a pool of his own blood.
Keith took the stairs down to the subway station two at a time, fishing in his pocket for money. He had no idea how much a subway token cost now-it had been twenty years since the last time he'd ridden one. He glanced around for the token booth but saw instead several machines that looked like some kind of ATM. Frowning, he went over to a machine, read the directions, pressed some buttons, then put five dollars in the slot. A few seconds later a plastic card popped out.
With the card in hand, he moved toward the turnstiles, then stopped.
What did he think he might find, out on the platform?
Did he believe Jeff might be down there waiting for him?
If it had even been Jeff that the old drunk on the sidewalk had seen. Chances are the man just made up the story, wanting the five dollars he'd been waving in front of him like a fly above a trout.
But the bum had seen someone getting out of the back of the van. And not just getting out, either-the drunk had said: "The guy Scratch took outta the van."
Not "got" out, or "let" out. "Took" out.
But after the fire, there'd been someone in the van- someone who burned to death.
Someone they'd told him was Jeff.
Or he was wrong, and the drunk was either confused or making up a story to get the money.
It all came back to the body in the Medical Examiner's office. If he was right, and the body wasn't Jeff's, then maybe the drunk was right, too. Maybe someone had let Jeff out of the van before it burned. But he had to know-had to know with absolute certainty whether the body was Jeff's or not. And now he realized there was a way-it had been staring him in the face all the time.
If they said the body was Jeff's, they would have to release it to him. He was Jeff's father, wasn't he? So when they were done with the autopsy, done with whatever examinations they were performing, they would release the body to him.
And then he could have his own tests done.
DNA tests.
Wheeling around, he went back up the stairs almost as fast as he'd gone down them, yelled at a cab that had stopped for the light at Bowery, and five minutes later was once more in the Medical Examiner's office.
"I want to claim a body," he told the woman at the reception counter. "My son's body."
Not so much as a flicker of sympathy-or even concern- passed over the woman's face. Instead she simply pulled out a form and pushed it across the counter to him.
Keith filled it out, turned it around, and pushed it back.
The woman glanced down at it, then looked up again, frowning. "You here for the Converse case?" she asked. "Jeffrey Converse?"
Keith nodded. "Is there a problem? I just want to arrange to have his body transferred to a funeral home whenever your office is done."
The woman turned to a computer terminal, tapped a few keys, and her frown deepened. "I'm afraid he's not here anymore."
"Not here?" Keith repeated, his head suddenly swimming. What was going on? How could the body not be here? But the woman on the other side of the counter was already telling him.
"It was released yesterday afternoon," she said.
"Released?" Keith echoed. "What are you talking about, released?"