Sophie did her time in the psycho ward. She didn't start out there, but they told her what a ticket cost and she bought one. Bit off one of her own nipples and spit it out the cell bars. Doc ran a bunch of brain scans on her, figured her for some kind of seizure disorder. Started her on the medication, and Sophie was coming back to the world. But she terrorized the joint— when she went off, she didn't feel pain. But she sure handed it out. Doc found out she'd had a daughter. Kid would be about fourteen, wherever she was. Asked me to find her. Bring her to the joint, let her mother see her.
Took me almost a month, but I found the kid. On her knees in an alley, waiting for the next trick, not even bothering to get up while her pimp negotiated price with me. I paid the pimp what he was due, brought the kid to Lily. After a while, I took her up to see Sophie, like Doc wanted.
At first, Sophie didn't seem to know her. Then her eyes snapped open. She lunged at me, screaming. Doc had the hypo ready.
'It was worth a try,' he said, later.
The little girl's okay now. Maybe she'll see her mother again. On Visiting Day.
Some of the little girls don't make it. Louisa looked up at me from her hospital bed. Sixteen, she was. Huge eyes in what was left of her face. The lost child had turned one too many car tricks. Bad skin and weak bones, held together with scabs and scores. Dying now, and she knew it.
'Anything I can do?' I asked her. 'Anything you want?'
She turned her skeleton's face to me, no-soul eyes on the medical chart clipped to her bed. Where her death sentence was spelled out. AIDS. 'I'd like my father to fuck me. Just one more time.'
She died before she could say his name.
64
The train came in, only about ten minutes late. I took Luke's hand. If he bolted in that place, I'd never catch him. I wished Michelle was with us.
Doc had a dark blue Lands' End canvas bag slung over one shoulder, nothing else. He wasn't planning to stay. We shook hands.
'Doc, this is my friend Luke. Luke, this is Doc.'
The boy stuck out his hand, clasped his left hand over Doc's right as they shook. The way I'd done.
The Bronx Zoo is nice and quiet during the weekday. Luke loved it all: the bears, the monorail that ran through a replica of an Asian forest, the jungle cats. I filled Doc in while the kid happily took a camel ride.
'Luke's video-phobic, went rigid when he saw a camera. Don't know much about his parents— a black-market adoption. He killed his baby brother, stabbed him to death. His eyes roll up sometimes. He loses time. In a foster home, he strangled a baby. Doesn't know anything about it. Or the stabbing, either. Genius IQ. Yesterday, he was a baby girl for a while. Doesn't remember that either. The DA knows, wants him to come in. We've only got a little time.'
'Who's the DA? Maybe I can talk to him.'
'Wolfe. From City-Wide.'
'Forget it. Her crew accounts for half the rapist population in my joints.'
'I know. I'm not looking for a play from her.'
'What do you need me for? You know what's wrong with the kid as well as I do.'
'I told you, Doc. The girasol.'
Luke climbed off the camel, beaming. We took him to the reptile house. 'Think he'll like the chameleons?' Doc asked.
'He doesn't know,' I said.
'Don't be so sure,' Doc said, watching the boy.
65
The Plymouth poked its way through Hunts Point, heading for the Mole's junkyard.
'Remember Elroy?' I asked Doc.
'Sure. Who could forget him? A rich fantasy life don't make you crazy, but Elroy flirted with it pretty good.'
'He's writing a book.'
'Why not, hoss? Probably make him rich.'
Luke sat between us on the front seat, his hands on the padded dashboard. 'You like dogs?' I asked him.
'Some dogs,' he said, wary.
'These are wonderful dogs,' I promised him. 'You'll see.'
I stopped the Plymouth at the gate. Waited while Terry came to open it. Pulled inside. The pack swirled around the car. Simba leaped lightly onto the hood, peering in at us through the windshield.
'Is he a wolf?' Luke asked.
'I don't know what he is. But he's the best at it.'
Terry came around to the window. He'd been pulled loose from a kiddie pimp in Times Square by Michelle. A war-zone adoption, and Terry was her child. Hers and the Mole's.
'The Mole says to take you back in the shuttle,' he said, pointing to an old Jeep, cut down so it had a flatbed
