But the Manhattan situation was slightly different. They didn't have all the details yet, since it had just occurred and the authorities in Manhattan moved painfully slow, but the victim, an eight-year-old apple-cheeked girl with a mind like a steel trap, had insisted that it was two men who kidnapped her from the playground at the church and two men who dumped her in the drainage ditch after trying to rape her. She had discouraged them by urinating all over one man's hand. She was an investigator's dream: smart, precocious, willing to talk at the drop of a hat, excellent memory. No, she told them again and again, the woman had not been working with the men or involved in any way. She was a guardian angel sent from heaven to rescue her.
But the NYPD and the FBI were not as convinced as the child. Although they were not actively seeking the mystery woman as a suspect, as they were in Kansas, they had not ruled it out. The premise was the woman wanted a child, hired the men to kidnap the little girl, and then instructed them to leave her in the drainage ditch, where she would later retrieve her. When the child suffered the asthma attack and almost stopped breathing, the woman had panicked and decided to get rid of her, handing her off to the first person she saw and then fleeing the scene.
Jeff leaned back in his chair and sighed. It made sense. Childless woman wants baby but can't have one. Sees a beautiful little girl one day in a playground and decides she has to have her. Hires a few
goons to snatch her, thinking she can take the kid away somewhere and make her forget her old life. It wasn't as if it had never happened before.
Did he have a hero, a saint, a Good Samaritan? Or did he have a dangerous baby snatcher? He looked down at the still photo of the woman taken from the film clip. He just didn't know. It was the same woman. He was almost certain of it. In both cases children had been involved. The arsonist in Kansas may have fully planned to snatch a child after setting the fire, knowing that there would be chaos. When she saw the banks of reporters and cameras, she realized her plan had failed. Then she got on a flight to New York and somehow put plan two into effect.
Jeff brought his chair to an upright position and rubbed his eyes. He was supposed to get out of here by midnight. But he had a serious problem. Trying to track down the woman he had sold the copy of the tape to, he had learned that there was no WKRP in New York. One of the programmers had even laughed at him. "Have you ever heard of WKRP in Cincinnati?" they taunted. "It was a television series not long ago, you fool. It isn't real. Someone's playing a joke on you." Not only that, in the show, the fictitious station was radio not television. Jeff had sold the tape that could change his entire career to an entity that did not exist.
He fingered a piece of paper on his desk: the Emerson Air Freight shipping order to Toy Johnson at the Montrose Hotel, Manhattan. Then he reached under his desk blotter and pulled out the check. He had yet to deposit it in his bank. If there was anything else to feel good about tonight, it was the fact that he had not got around to cashing it. Right in the left-hand corner was all he needed to get the tape back: Dr. and Mrs. Stephen Johnson, their address, and their phone number. It went even further than that. Evidently not wanting to produce their ID each time they wrote a check, the couple's driver's license numbers were printed right on the check.
"How convenient," he said, picking up the phone to call the FBI.
"Look," he told Stan Fielder about thirty minutes later, "this mystery hero story is getting bigger and better by the minute. I need to do some fieldwork, however, if we want to get this aired in a timely fashion. We sit around on our behinds too long and the woman will step forward or be apprehended and the story shifts to the mundane." McDonald was standing in front of Fielder's cluttered desk.
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Behind the glass, the entire newsroom was visible, a whirl of frantic activity. ''Worse yet is the fact that someone could scoop us."
"I see," Fielder said thoughtfully. "How much time you need?"
"Only a few days, and I think I can set up a production schedule. I need to fly to New York and make a plea for some related footage so we'll have enough to stretch to a half-hour slot."
Fielder narrowed his eyes. "What footage?"
Fielder had street smarts, McDonald thought. The man could smell a lie from five miles away. But McDonald had grown up not far from South Central Los Angeles. He was ready. He wanted to make sure that CNN paid for his expenses when he went on his house-cleaning mission. "See, I have it all mapped out in my mind. We'll glorify this whole thing like you won't believe. Get interviews with the kids she saved, interviews with the grateful family, the senator and his driver. Then I thought we could interject other similar stories of heroism, sort of make the whole program a story about remarkable heroes in history. I even thought if I got enough, we could shoot for a full hour slot, prime time. I've been thinking of titles like Reluctant Hero, or something along those lines. You know, the angel of mercy approach."
Fielder had his chin down almost on his chest and was staring up at the younger man. McDonald always favored brevity when making his pitches. Fielder had never seen him so loose-lipped. "I thought you wanted to play this the opposite direction. Isn't that what you told me the other day?"
"Oh," McDonald said, "if you want to play her as a suspect, some deranged diabolical baby snatcher, you've certainly got the muscle to do it. Kansas state police and the NYPD would be more than willing to give us the goods. They're hurting for leads right now. Taking this public . . ."
"No," Fielder said thoughtfully, "we've got enough bad actors out there to populate a continent. Don't you think people need something to make them feel good now and then? Not only that, but I think the media has an obligation to provide it."
McDonald smiled. He'd pegged Fielder right: an aging news jockey who'd somehow lost his taste for blood. "Glad we agree," McDonald said, nodding. "So, what do you say? Do I get my travel papers'?'"
Fielder stared over his head, gazing at the newsroom through the glass. After several moments he looked Jeff in the eye. "You got
three days. Bring it in, kid. And watch that expense account. No three-hundred-dollar hotel suites."
"Thanks," McDonald gushed. "You won't be sorry, Stan. This is going to be big. We're talking Emmy time."
Fielder laughed, a big, booming sound that came from somewhere in his gut. McDonald leaned over the desk and pumped his hand. Then he did a fancy pivot turn and left.
What Fielder didn't know wouldn't hurt him. As soon as McDonald had the tape back in his hands and verified that it had never been aired, he was going to paint this mystery hero as the most heinous criminal on the block. Fielder might have lost his taste for blood, but Jeff McDonald sure hadn't. When you were in the business of news and you developed a soft spot, you might as well pack your bags and move on.
Walking fast through the newsroom to his desk, McDonald looked around him and smiled. Someday he might be the one sitting behind the glass at a big desk, in a comfortable chair, with an actual door, all this bustling activity his own little empire. "Yes," he said, shoving a fist in the air as he flopped down in his chair. Jeff McDonald was sitting on top of the very vehicle he needed to take him straight to the top.
There was just one little problem, but nothing he couldn't handle. Grabbing his phone, he called the airlines. "What you got going to New York in the next hour? I'll take anything you got. Prop jet, cargo plane, you name it. Just get me there and get me there fast."
Toy was walking back to the hotel from Roosevelt Hospital. She was tired and confused, more confused than she had ever been. Having been fueled by religious zeal for days, she felt like someone had forgotten to charge her battery. Her body ached all over and she missed her home, her rosebushes, her little car. She missed the ocean, the sound of the waves, the smell of salt water. She missed her students. But of everyone she missed Margie Roberts. In the past two years she had become like a mother to the girl, even though her own mother adored her and did everything she possibly could. But when a child was terrib
ly ill, Toy knew there could never be enough love, enough encouragement. It also worked in reverse, as Margie had become the daughter Toy had always wanted.
But she couldn't think of that now, she told herself. She couldn't help Margie without her health.
Science had once again triumphed over the spirit, she thought
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bitterly. Dr. Esteban and his colleagues had managed to turn a handful of miracles into a hodgepodge of awful diseases. They'd slice her open, pop in a pacemaker, and Toy Johnson's heart would keep on beating like a Timex watch. Right now she wasn't certain she wanted her heart to keep beating. It was only a spare part. There was no such thing as a real heart, not the heart of poets, lovers, hopeless romantics. Just as that thought crossed her mind, Toy reached up to touch her necklace, the one Stephen had given her with the little locket shaped like a heart. It was one of Toy's prized possessions, and she had placed both hers and Stephen's pictures in it, taken on their wedding day. At first she thought it was inside her shirt, and then she realized it was no longer on her neck. She knew she didn't take it off. She never took it off. She decided to call the hospital and see if they had taken it off when she was brought into the emergency room.
Reaching her hotel, the doorman nodded at her. Toy nodded back, dropping her head and hurrying into the lobby. Just as she passed the reception counter, one of the clerks called her over.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Johnson," the man said politely, "but the manager requested that you take care of your bill."
"I gave you my credit card," Toy said. "Just put it on my credit card."
"Your credit card isn't any good. We ran it yesterday and it's been canceled. The manager would like you to clear up your balance and then give us a cash deposit if you'll be continuing your stay here."
Toy's face blanched. She'd been right about Stephen. "How . . . how much do I owe?"
"Let me check," he said, punching her account up on the computer terminal. "Did you order room service this morning or remove anything from your mini bar?"
"No," Toy said, shaking her head.
"Then your current balance is five hundred and fifty-three dollars."
"How could that be?" Toy protested. "I've only had the room two nights."
"Well," he said, "the room rate is one hundred and fifty dollars per day, and your husband charged a room with us as well. Of course, with the cancellation of your credit card, we can't collect that amount either." He studied the bill before handing it to Toy. "There's also a number of room-service charges."
She felt like an idiot. She had sized up the situation from the beginning, knowing Stephen would cancel the credit cards, clean out
the bank accounts, but then she had failed to follow through. In her purse, she had maybe twenty or thirty dollars and no more. "I can give you a check," she said, opening her purse to retrieve her checkbook.
"Under the circumstances," the clerk said apologetically, "I'm afraid the manager insists on cash."
Toy dropped the checkbook in the bottom of her purse and pulled out her wallet instead, plucking all the mangled and twisted bills out of the small change pocket and placing them on the counter. Then she dumped the wallet upside down and counted out all the change. "I have almost forty dollars. I promise this is all a mistake," Toy said quickly. "Keep the forty, and first thing in the morning, I'll get some money wired from my bank."
Before the clerk could say anything else, Toy spun around and headed for the bank of elevators. Would they lock her out of her room tomorrow? she wondered. But at the moment her financial straits seemed to pale in light of more serious concerns. Stephen was probably on a plane right now heading to the city to force her to undergo the surgery. Toy was face to face with reality, and the supernatural seemed far removed. She had run out of money, was about to go through a divorce, and had suddenly found herself staring down an operation.
Her New York adventure was about to come to a screeching halt, along with her brief career as a purveyor of miracles.
Seeing the door to her room, she stepped inside and just stood there, lost in her thoughts. At only twenty-nine, she needed a machine to make her heart beat, keep her from dying. If she let them perform the operation, an alien object would take up permanent residence in her body. They might as well give her an artificial heart, an artificial soul. Then they could connect her to a computer and she could spill out data using artificial intelligence.
Touching her neck again, she took a seat at the small writing desk and called the emergency room. After identifying herself, she said, "Do you have my necklace?"
"No," the nurse said. "We gave you back all your property when you left."
"But I had a gold heart locket on," Toy persisted. "You have to have it."
"I'm sorry, but we're very careful about things like that. Perhaps you're mistaken and you weren't wearing it."
Toy thanked the woman and hung up. Normally she didn't care
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about her possessions, but this was the one thing that meant something to her. Stephen had given her the locket as an engagement gift. They had been so happy then. Going through her cosmetic case and her luggage without finding it, Toy suddenly had a mental image of the little girl in the park reaching for her neck just before she blacked out. All she could figure out was the child had managed to get her hand on the necklace and accidentally pulled it off. Well, she thought, so much for Stephen and so much for the locket. She couldn't seem to hold onto anything anymore—not her jewelry, her husband, even her sanity. Collapsing on the bed, she prayed for it all to be over. She would remain this way, never leaving the hotel. Eventually her heart would stop again and there would be no one to revive her. She heard the phone ringing and tried to ignore it, pushing the pillow up on both sides over her ears. No one else would be calling but Stephen or possibly Sylvia, and she had nothing to say to either of them. Sylvia would only try to talk her into the operation.
Finally Toy couldn't stand it anymore and picked up the phone and listened.
"Hey, this Toy Johnson?" a man's voice said. "This is Joey. You know, your pal, Joey Kramer?"
"Oh," Toy said, "how are you?"
"I'm great," he said. "What's up?"
"Nothing," Toy said, not knowing what else to say.
"Well, then, why don't you'se come down to the lobby? You got yourself a visitor."
"You're here?" she said, surprised. It was late, after twelve o'clock.
"Yeah," he said. "You coming down or what?"
"I don't know," Toy said. "Maybe I shouldn't."
"Why not? You ain't got nothing else to do."
"It's too late," Toy said. "And I wasn't feeling well earlier. I guess I should stay in bed, but thanks anyway." She started to hang up the phone when she heard him say something else.
"Ah, come on," he urged, "you ain't sick. You just been hanging out with the wrong people. Joey's gonna buy you a nice cup of coffee, maybe get you some chicken soup or something. Then you'se gonna feel great."
Toy laughed in spite of herself. "You're on," she said. "But it'll take me a few minutes to put my clothes back on. I was already in bed."
"Heck," he said, "just put on that T-shirt I like so much."
Joey disconnected and Toy did as he said, pulling on her baseball T-shirt and a pair of Levis, then heading to the lobby to meet him.
Joey Kramer was wearing jeans, a plaid short-sleeve shirt, and a brightly colored nylon parka. He wasn't a tall man, but to Toy he looked as cuddly and appealing as any man she had ever seen. He was telling some kind of story to the night clerks and had them all in stitches. As soon as he spotted Toy, he walked over and threw his arm around her shoulder, pulling her close to his body. "This is my angel," he said to the clerks, smiling with pride. "Ain't she something?"
"I don't know if the hotel restaurant is still open," Toy said once they had stepped away from the counter. "But we can go into the bar. It's right over there."
Joey looked behind
him and then shook his head. "I know a joint down the street," he said. "This joint's gonna charge us five bucks for a glass of water."
"Oh," Toy said, "it's awfully late. I thought we were just going to have our coffee here."
"Whadya worried about?" Joey said, tilting his head to the side and grinning at her. "Getting mugged or something? When you hang with Joey here, you don't gotta worry about nothing."
They stepped out into the evening air, Joey linking his arm through Toy's. The temperature had dropped to the low fifties and it was very brisk, but Toy didn't find it unpleasant. She found it invigorating. Lights were twinkling in all the buildings, and the city was still bustling with activity. From a nearby club they could hear the smooth, clear notes of a tenor saxophone filtering into the atmosphere.
"This is it," Joey said, opening the door to a dimly lit bar and standing back while Toy stepped inside.
Making their way to the back was like passing through a receiving line at a wedding. Joey knew almost everyone perched on the bar stools, but then Joey knew almost everyone in the bar. "Hey, Joey" rang out again and again, and each time he stopped, smiled, engaged in a round of back slapping, hand pumping, and "How's the wife and kids?" always adding his new line, "Meet my pretty angel. Ain't she something?"
Picking up their two mugs of coffee from the bartender, Joey carried them to a back table. "Is it too loud in here?" he asked Toy. "We
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could go somewhere else. Didn't figure it would be so crowded tonight. Lotta guys from the job."
Toy was intrigued. "Are you saying all of those men are police officers or transit officers? ,, To her, they looked so ordinary, so common. They reminded her of relatives on her father's side of the family. Most of them were many years older than Joey, had bulging bellies, cigarettes dangling from their lips, and looked like they might have a heart attack if they ever tried to wrestle anyone to the ground. But they smiled at her and shook her hand, making her feel welcome. In Los Angeles, she thought the police officers looked like Roman gladiators, their muscles barely contained inside the fabric of their uniforms, their tanned skin glistening in the ever present sunlight. And they never smiled, absolutely never. Here in New York things were evidently a little different.
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