Dead and Gone

them on. But so what? There’s no bodies up there in the Bronx—nothing to want me for. And nobody followed me here.…”

That last was a question, and they all knew it. I’d done my best to check for tags, but I wasn’t sharp when I made my break. And part of me knew I’d done wrong—if I brought the law to where Max kept his family, it was something that couldn’t be fixed with a moving van.

Nobody said anything. I took their quiet the wrong way. “I couldn’t have made it to my place,” I told them. “Not without a car. The buses don’t run enough at that hour … and people watch too close on them, anyway. I had to stay underground. This was the closest place I could …”

“You came alone, homes,” the Prof assured me. “They knew you was here, they’d have made their move. Been three days. No way.”

“I’ve been here three days?”

“Four, counting today, bro.”

“I don’t …” I cut myself off before I could say the word “remember.” It was all an act, goddamn it. You fucking “remember” that, don’t you? I kept my bitter sarcasm inside my thoughts, wondering if my face was flat to match.

Max came close to me. Tapped his heart. Used his finger to draw a circle around it. Then he spun his hands into that same circle, the fingertips touching, an impregnable barrier. He closed his two hands into fists, watching my eyes.

I nodded. Got it. Nobody had come close since I’d shown up. Max’s temple was never unwatched. Even Mama never understood the Mongol warrior’s relationship with the mixed-Asian street gang that poached off the more established shock troops of the Tongs. But everybody knew about the vacant-eyed boys in their fingertip-length black leather jackets and silk shirts buttoned to the throat. And that they would kill for Max as casually as a suburban kid would click the mouse on his computer.

“I have to—”

“You don’t have to do anything for a while, baby,” Michelle said, patting my forearm. “You’re going to need some serious rehab. And some medication.”

“What medication? I don’t remember which—”

“Oh, pul-leeze,” she mock-pouted. “How long do you think it took my man to get into their little computer?”

“You mean the Mole—?”

“What other man would I be calling mine?”

“Michelle, give me a break, okay? You’re saying the Mole hacked into the hospital computer, right?”

“Right. And we know every single medication you’ve been taking, every single little report they logged.”

“What’s my name on their machines?”

“Well, they don’t have a name. You’re a John Doe to them. But we still put it together in two minutes. We had the physical description, time of admission, nature of … injuries. You know.”

“Sure,” is all I said, wondering why the cops hadn’t put something into the computer themselves. Maybe the insurance companies wouldn’t let them. This is New York. Money doesn’t just talk here, it’s Dictator-for-Life.

“Do you need …?”

“What?” I asked her, too sharply, put off by something in her voice.

“The … drugs, honey.”

“If you mean antibiotics or whatever other kind of crap they were giving me in those pills … I guess so. But if you’re dancing around the morphine, don’t. I haven’t had any for weeks.”

I told them how I’d done that. The Mole nodded like it made sense. The Prof chuckled. Michelle just watched me.

“I’ll be fine,” I told my family. “But there’s something I’ve got to know first. And only Mama will know the answer.”

“I’ll roll on by and say hi,” the Prof volunteered.

“Thanks, brother,” I said, closing my eyes.

“No, bro,” is all the Prof came back with.

“No what?”

“No show, no go. Man hasn’t said word one.”

“Dmitri thinks I’m … what, then?”

“No way to tell. Depends on where he stood at the beginning.”

“These Russians—the parents—they didn’t get their kid back.”

“Right.”

“And they didn’t get their money back, either.”

“True.”

“And it was real money, Prof. Remember, I went through it myself. Told Dmitri I wasn’t handing over some Chicago bankroll for the kid, take a chance on the wheels coming off.”

“Sure. All true, I’m with you.”