right way- their bodies pressed against the one they had to keep safe. One of them got into the back. Train next. Then the last man.
I buckled my seat belt. Pulled away from the curb. Drove past the House of Detention. Took the Brooklyn Bridge to the FDR, heading north.
I glanced at the rearview mirror. Train was sitting quietly in the middle, hands on his knees, staring straight ahead at nothing. The two guys on either side of him were in their early twenties. Looked enough alike to be brothers. Close-cropped hair, flat faces, hooded eyes. The first generation of the breeding program? As I hooked onto Wards Island, I heard the sound of a round being chambered. Felt the pistol nestle into the back of my neck.
'You know what that is, Mr. Burke?'
'Yes.'
'No matter what happens, Tommy can do his job. The pistol has a hair trigger.'
'Tell him to be calm. We're almost there.'
I lit a cigarette, leaning back, pressing my head into the gun. Amateurs.
I pulled over under the girders. 'Okay,' I said, turning sideways to speak to Train, voice low and conversational. 'We'll have to walk from here. I'm rolling down my window. Why don't you have Tommy get out and hold the gun while…' I pushed the switch in the middle of the last word, ducking my head. The train hit the wall.
The gun never went off. My breath was gone. The windshield was splattered with flesh and fluid. I let air seep in through my nose until my lungs started to work. I didn't look in the back seat.
Unbuckled my seat belt. Stepped outside. My legs wouldn't work. I sat down outside the Ford, waiting. It would come back.
In a few minutes I started walking. By myself. Fingering the little transmitter in my pocket.
The Plymouth growled alongside me, running without lights. The passenger door opened. I climbed inside. Hit the switch. The window went down. Max drove slowly. The Ford was in sight. I held the transmitter out the window, as high as I could. The Mole said it had a quarter-mile range. We were much closer than that. I pushed the button. The Ford exploded. Flames filled the rearview mirror as Max hit the gas.
He dropped me off where I'd left Morehouse's car.
I CALLED MOREHOUSE from a phone on the West Side. 'You know the Yacht Basin?'
'Sure, man. Where you think I keep
'Fifteen minutes.'
'I'm rolling.'
141
HE PULLED IN. Seemed relieved to see his car still in one piece.
'What's on?'
I handed him his keys. 'There's gonna be an explosion tonight. Somewhere on Wards Island. Off the approach road to Kirby. The cops'll find bodies inside. They won't make a connect. You know McGowan and Morales?'
'The Runaway Squad? Sure.'
'You call them. You got a tip, right? The connect is to a man named Train. He's running the baby-breeding operation.' I gave him the address.
'They'll need more than that for a search warrant.'
'Save the bullshit for your column, pal. Let them get a warrant the way they always do. You know that Anonymous Informant? The one they use on every search warrant since the Supreme Court told them they needed one? Time for another guest appearance. Tell them to run it through Wolfe at City-Wide. She'll know what to do. Besides, the joint'll be full of victims, not perps.'
'Right on, man. When do I know?'
'You got nothing else to do tonight, right? Maybe you're working on that movie script you're always bullshitting about writing someday. So you're monitoring the police band- I know you got a scanner. You get a call a few minutes after they get theirs.'
'I'm off.'
'Hold up. There's one more thing. A little girl inside the joint. Her name's Elvira. Or Juice- I don't know which name she'll use. Don't let SSC put her in a shelter or a foster home- she'll run. She knows how to do it. She needs a psychiatric hospital. And she's pregnant.'
'Okay. Anything else I should know about her?'
'Yeah. She knows my name.'
'Crazy people say all kinds of things. 'Specially on the psycho ward.'
'Your car sucks,' I told the West Indian, not saying the rest- that his word was good.
We shook hands.
142
IT DIDN'T hit me till later. Alone in my office. No lights. Pansy's dark shape on the couch. When Flood had killed the sadist Goldor in his fancy house…killed him to save me…she almost came unglued. Got off the track. Shaking so bad. Throwing away the clothes she'd worn like they were diseased. I'd held her to me. Rosie and the Originals on the cassette. Angel Baby. 'Remember reform school?' I'd asked her, dancing so slow we weren't moving our feet. Until she came back to herself.
She couldn't come back to me that night.
Not Strega's fire, not Wesley's ice.
I found my way.
Survive.
143
I WOKE UP the next morning by myself. The way I always do. Belle was still gone. The pain in my chest was still there. But now I recognized it for what it was- a tourniquet around my heart, not a stranglehold.
The Plymouth found its way over to Mama's. Judy Henske on the cassette. Singing just to me. An old gut- bucket blues number came through next. I didn't remember the man's name but I know he died young. And hard.
And then a sweet girl singer, fronting off some doo-wop group that never had a hit record.
