Jack slid the ten into the fare box, cursing. He now officially had one dollar to his name, no credit cards, and was stuck in a strange city where a strange woman had both poisoned him and infected him with killer nanomachines…. Oh, and where his only friend in the world was a waitress who worked in an Italian restaurant and frequented kinky clubs where off-duty cops paid to watch her mount a saddle with a dildo attached to it.
“Don’t forget your transfer,” the driver said, handing Jack a flimsy strip of off-white paper.
The bus pulled forward.
4:45 a.m.
Kowalski thanked the cabbie, slid him a ten, grabbed his gym bag from the seat—oh, the hilarity that would have ensued if he’d forgotten Ed’s head in the back of the cab. He could imagine the headlines in the local tabloid, OOPS, FORGET SOMETHING? Or maybe HOW TO GET A HEAD IN THE TAXI BUSINESS. They lived for crap like this. Ed deserved better than a bad pun in a runny egg-and-coffee tabloid.
The brown plastic intercom at the side door asked him for a password. Sylvester, his Goth snitch, had given him one that should work: “eyeball skeleton.” (Hey, he’d used worse.) Kowalski tried it. The door buzzed, then clicked open. Sylvester was a big pain in the ass, but he did come through most times. Kowalski had to kick him a bonus. Let the guy buy himself a pair of vampire-teeth implants.
Now the tricky part: scouring a secret sex club for one white guy who probably didn’t want to be found.
But after ten seconds in the place, Kowalski saw only close-cropped haircut after haircut, and weekend muscles, and that bored Catholic schoolboy look; he knew he was home free.
This was a cop sex club.
“Hey, buddy,” he said, wrapping his arm around the nearest thickneck he could find. He flashed his Homeland Security badge, saw the guy’s eyes light up. Oh yeah. He could see the embossed foil with the holographic eagles.
Hot shit, right?
“I’m looking for a guy who probably stopped in here a short while ago.”
“Oh, I know the guy,” the cop said, trying to stifle a huge smile. “You want his wallet?”
4:52 a.m.
The security guard was giving him shit. Actually giving him
Yeah, he was laying it on thick. All the heavy-lidded, jaundiced-looking guy asked was, “What kind of ID is that?” Probably out of curiosity more than anything else.
The guard opened the doors, and the Operator gave him another once-over, thought about taking the poor guy’s ID badge, snapping it right off his leather guard belt and everything, but he had shit to do.
Down the off-white corridor, which needed a paint job, stat. Around the welcome desk kiosk. Moved the mouse, got the patient-search program up.
Probably looking for Jane Does, right? Unless she was using that stupid Kelly White alias up until the end.
Ah, she was. Nice, Vanessa. Real nice.
Room 803.
4:55 a.m.
By the time Jack made his way to the back of the bus, counting seconds all along the way—he’d had enough headaches courtesy of the Mary Kates, thank you—his savior, Angela, was standing up and pulling the dirty white cord that ran along the tops of the windows. A dud bell sound. The blue light at the front of the bus read STOP REQUESTED.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“No,” Angela said, and brushed past him.
“Just one minute.”
“Fucking hell,” she said, and not to Jack. She grasped the steel rail near the back exit. The 43 bus pulled off to the side of Spring Garden Street, beneath an overpass. Everywhere Jack looked, there was sidewalk and concrete walls, splattered with years of pigeon shit. What was she doing getting off here?
The bus stopped. Another pneumatic hiss. A pause. Then the double doors wobbled to life, swung open. Angela stepped down fast, exited the bus.
It was Angela or the bus driver. No real choice at all, really. For all Jack knew, this was the end of the line.
He hardly had time to consider the fact that he’d spent ten dollars for a bus ride that lasted all of two blocks. Angela was entering a station of some kind, built into the support columns of the highway above. Even at this early hour, with the sun barely making itself known on the East Coast, Jack could feel and hear the vibe and hum and speeding cars above. He caught a sign: MARKET-FRANKFORD EL. Okay, El like in Chicago. Philly’s own Loop.
The transfer came in handy. It gave him admission to the platform.
A hip slide through the turnstile. Jack saw a rack of brochures along the wall—schedules. Maybe there would be a map inside. Would it be too much to ask, O Higher Power, for there to be map that identified the local FBI headquarters on it? Was it a tourist attraction? Maybe this elevated train would take him close enough. He could tag along behind somebody, a member of the early-morning commuter rush, follow him or her to the building, then scoot off into the front doors, find a receptionist, and tell her, “I need help now.”
But if there was a commuter rush, it was scheduled for a little later in the morning.
There were only two other people on the platform: Angela and an older guy in a striped shirt. One of those striped shirts that had gone out of vogue at least fifteen years ago: different-colored stripes in various quadrants. The guy’s one shoulder was red; his lower left torso was blue. There was some yellow and orange in there, too. A guy Jack knew from college had had one of these shirts. It was stylish for about five or six weeks, as he recalled.
The striped guy stood on the edge of the platform, facing toward Center City. Angela was on the other side, the one for Frankford-bound trains.
Jack hurriedly made his way next to the striped guy. No need to panic Angela until he figured this out. He flipped open the schedule. No map, but it showed that the first elevated train of the morning, the very first, would arrive at about 5:07, a few minutes from now.
But no. Look. Angela edging even farther away. He couldn’t let her wander too far away. He needed to be able to make up the distance within a few seconds, before the pain grew too great. What could he say to make her believe his story? Now he understood Kelly’s sales pitch. The whole poisoning thing, designed to get him alone in a room. Ready to listen.
Thing was, he hadn’t believed her. Not until it was far too late.
What chance did he have of convincing Angela?
The sun, a red circle at the end of a fat cigar, came rising over the horizon. Out on the riverfront, the half-
