Hosts

by F. Paul Wilson

  Looked like he'd been stood up. What now? He'd threatened the Savior with the drawing, told him he hadn't got rid of them. Not true. He'd torn them up and flushed them down a toilet in one of The Light's men's rooms. But he could print out another from the computer in minutes if he wanted to. But did he want to?

  He remembered what Beth had said about To Kill a Mockingbird. Did he have a right to drag Boo Radley into the spotlight just for a story?

  But the analogy didn't hold. He was here to do the Savior a favor—the biggest favor of his life.

  Sandy checked his watch again. He'd give him another fifteen minutes, then—

  "Hey!"

  Sandy jumped, looked up, looked around—the Savior stood by a tree twenty feet away. He cocked his head down the slope toward the highway.

  "Wait a minute or two," he said, "then meet me in the underpass."

  Sandy watched him walk off, waited the requisite time, then followed. He found him waiting in the shadows of a concrete arch that supported a short span of the West Side Highway. Noise from the traffic above rumbled through the space.

  "Look," Sandy said, approaching him, "before we go any further I just want to say—"

  The Savior held up his hand for silence and scanned the park behind Sandy.

  "If you're worried about my being followed, I wasn't."

  "Probably right," he said. "Didn't see anyone tail you into the park, but you can never be sure about these things."

  After a moment of narrow-lidded surveillance, he turned to Sandy. "What's the story, Palmer? We gonna play games, is that it? I thought we had an understanding: you get your interview, I never hear from you again."

  He sounded pissed, and had a right to be, but Sandy had figured the best way to play this was not to allow himself to be put on the defensive.

  "No games," he said. "I just don't think you were playing straight with me. I don't think you're working for the government, and I'm not so sure you were ever a Navy SEAL, either."

  "True or not, what's the difference? You got your story, the paper's selling out—"

  "How do you know that?"

  His mouth twisted. "Had to go to three newsstands before I found a copy. Which means your bosses must be happy. You're a big shot now. Where's your gripe?"

  Sandy resisted the urge to wipe his moist palms on his pants. This was a dangerous man and he had to be careful how he spun this. He'd mentally rehearsed his spiel for the last hour. Now it was show time.

  "No gripe at all. It's just that I figured out the real reason you don't want your face in the papers, why you don't want anyone to know your name: you're a wanted man."

  Bingo. The Savior had been scanning the park again, but when he blinked and stared at Sandy, he knew he'd struck pay dirt.

  "You're nuts."

  "Hear me out. I figure it had to be a felony. A misdemeanor wouldn't put you into hiding. So you're either wanted for a crime or you've jumped bail or escaped prison."

  "Got it all figured out, don't you."

  Sandy shrugged. "What else can it be?"

  "Should have known I couldn't fool you." The Savior shook his head and looked away. "The orphan part is true, but I made up the part about the cop telling me to join the army or go to jail. I've been in and out of trouble most of my life. Got picked up after knocking over a liquor store."

  "A liquor store…" Sandy was afraid to ask the next question. "No one was shot, were they?"

  "Nah. I just flashed a starter pistol. But that didn't matter; got charged with armed robbery. Couldn't plea down. I was only nineteen at the time. I wasn't going up for that, so I jumped bail and I've been on the run ever since."

  "Are you wanted for anything else?"

  The Savior didn't answer immediately. He was staring past Sandy again. Finally he pursed his lips and said, "Shit. Move back."

  "What?"

  He shoved him against the sloping concrete wall of the underpass.

  "Back!"

  Sandy turned to see this guy about his own age in cut-offs and a T-shirt and a scraggly attempt at a beard racing a crummy looking bike full tilt down the slope toward the underpass. He clutched a gray handbag and kept looking over his shoulder.

  His eyes widened as he entered the underpass and saw that it was occupied, but the Savior gave him a friendly, reassuring wave and said, "Hey, how's it goin'?"

  "Not bad," the guy panted.

  Then a lot of things happened quickly, too quickly for Sandy to process fully. Suddenly the Savior was moving, taking a quick step forward and kicking the bike's rear wheel. The guy lost control, hit the curb, and went flying over the handle bars. Sandy watched in shock as the Savior kept moving, following the man as he sailed toward the pavement, leaping as he landed chest first, and landing with his heels driving into the guy's upper back. The muffled crunch of breaking bones turned Sandy's stomach, as did the man's scream of pain.

  What the fuck? Sandy thought.

  "That was my mother back there!" the Savior shouted. He crouched beside the writhing man who was trying to rise but couldn't seem to get his arms to work. "You just rolled my mother!"

  "Aw, shit!" the guy said, his voice a faint wheeze.

  "My mother!" he screamed, his face reddening.

  "Didn't know, man!" he groaned, every syllable wrapped in pain. "Didn't mean nothin'!"

  The Savior turned to Sandy, his eyes wild. "Your turn to be a hero," he said, pointing to the gray handbag beside the man. "Take that back to the old lady he knocked down back near the top of the slope. Tell her you found it on the grass."

  Sandy could only stare, stunned.

  "Come on, Palmer. Move! I'll meet you over by the basketball courts." He bent again over the fallen man and screamed, "My mother!"

  "I know, man," the purse snatcher grunted. "I'm sorry… like really… sorry."

  He gave Sandy another look, then trotted out the opposite end of the underpass, leaving Sandy alone with the stranger. Gingerly he stepped closer, picked up the handbag, then beat it back to the sunlight and the park.

  The Savior's mother? Was she in the park? Was this her bag?

  He spotted a cluster of people near the top of the slope and jogged toward them. An old woman sat on a bench in the center of the cluster, sobbing. Her knees and hands were scraped, her stockings torn.

  "… just pushed me," she was saying. "I don't know where he went. I never saw him."

  The Savior's mother… Sandy shook his head. Not likely. The old woman was black.

  "Did you lose this?" Sandy said, edging into the circle around her.

  She looked up and her tear-filled eyes widened. "My bag!"

  "Where'd you get that?" said a beefy guy, eyeing Sandy suspiciously.

  Sandy handed the bag to the woman, then jerked a thumb over his shoulder and stuck to the story.

  "I was walking down by the highway and found it."

  "Everything's here!" the woman said, opening her wallet. "Oh, thank you, young man! Thank you ever so much!" She pulled out a couple of twenties. "Let me reward you."

  Sandy waved her off. "Absolutely not. No way."

  The beefy guy slapped him on the back. "Good man."

  Sandy made a show of checking his watch. "Look, I've got a meeting," he said to the man. "Will she be all right?"

  "We called the cops. EMTs are on their way."

  "Great." To the old woman he said, "Good luck to you, ma'am. I'm sorry this happened."

  She thanked him again and then he was on his way down the sloping path toward the basketball courts, trying to process the events of the past few minutes. He'd led a sheltered life, he knew. His exposure to violence while growing up had been limited to a few schoolyard shoving matches. But all that had changed with the bloodbath on the train. His baptism of fire.

  But in some strange way he found this new incident even more disturbing. The Savior had acted so quickly, with such decisiveness—one moment the purse snatcher had been cycling by, Sandy had blinked, and next thing he knew the man
was flat on his face with two broken or dislocated shoulders and the Savior screaming at him about his mother.

  What was that all about?

  And more frightening had been the terrible dark joy in the Savior's eyes as he'd hovered over the downed man. He'd enjoyed hurting him. And he'd done it without the slightest hesitation. That was very, very scary. And even scarier was the thought now of dealing with him one on one.

  Sandy began to sense that he might be in over his head, but he brushed it off. He wasn't here to threaten this man; he wanted to do him a favor.

  But would that matter if he was dealing with a psycho? In an instant the Savior had changed from regular guy to mad dog. And why had he even bothered with the purse snatcher? If the Savior was a wanted felon, why would he interfere with a fellow criminal?

  None of this made any sense.

  He found the man leaning against the high chain link fence bordering the asphalt basketball courts. He started moving away as Sandy approached, motioning him to follow. Sandy caught up with him in a small grove of trees.

  "Why here?"' he said, looking around and noticing that they were partially hidden from the rest of the park. He was uneasy now being alone with this man.

  "Because your picture's been in the paper twice this week. Who knows when someone will recognize you?"

  "Yeah?" Sandy said, suddenly aglow. Someone recognizing him on the street. How totally cool would that be. "I mean, yeah, sure, I see what you mean."

  Sandy sensed that Mr. Hyde had disappeared. The Savior seemed to have returned to Dr. Jekyll mode.

  "So tell me," the Savior said. "How are you going to change my lowly criminal life?"

  Sandy held up a hand. "Wait. You tell me something first: What was all that business about your mother? She wasn't your mother."

  "She could have been. My mother would be about her age if she'd survived."

  "Survived what?"

  "Death."

  Sandy sensed a big sign saying PROCEED NO FURTHER, so he switched to the other question that was bothering him.

  "All right then, tell me this: why did you, someone who supposedly wants to avoid the spotlight, get involved in that?"

  He gave him a puzzled look. "How could I not? If he'd taken off the other way I wouldn't have run after him, but he was passing right in front of us. To let him sail by would be… like…" He seemed to be searching for the words. "It would make me into an accomplice—an accomplice in rolling a little old lady. Uh-uh."

  Sandy stared at him and experienced a flash of insight that seemed to point the way toward getting a handle on this man.

  "I think I understand you now," he said, nodding. "You can't tolerate disorder yet you're trapped in a world where everything is spinning out of control."

  "I'm not trapped anywhere."

  "We all are. But you're doing something about it."

  "Are you crazy?"

  "Not at all. Look what just happened. A robbery. That's wrong. A prime example of the random disorder afflicting our lives."

  "That is life. Been happening every minute of every day since some cave man decided he didn't feel like hunting and tried to steal his neighbor's brontoburger."

  "But you made sure this one didn't happen. You reordered the disorder."

  "Are you on drugs or did you run out of your medication? You make it sound like I'm out patrolling the streets trolling for wrongdoers. I'm not. This went down right in front of me. And he passed right by me. And I knew what I could do at no cost to myself. Period. End of story. End of discussion."

  "But—"

  "End. Of. Discussion."

  "You ever heard of Nietzsche?"

  "Sure. The music guy, right?"

  "I doubt it. He was a philosopher."

  "Jack Nitzsche? Nah. Used to play piano for the Stones."

  "Friederich Nietzsche. Friederich."

  "Fred Nitzsche? Who's he? Jack's brother? Never heard of him."

  He's putting me on, Sandy thought. He's got to be. But his expression was deadpan.

  "He's been dead about a hundred years," Sandy said. "I studied him in college. You really must read him. The Will to Power will crystallize so much of who you are."

  "Crystallize… just what I need right now. To get crystallized. Look, forget philosophers and get down to you and me. What do I have to do to get you out of my life?"

  Sandy felt as if he'd been slapped. "Hey, look, I'm trying to help you here."

  "I think we both know who you're trying to help."

  "Damn it, I can bring you in from the cold."

  The Savior laughed. "You can what?"

  "Are you wanted for anything besides that liquor store robbery?"

  He stared at him. "Where's this going?"

  "Just tell me."

  "No."

  "You're sure?"

  "I haven't exactly been trying to draw attention to myself."

  Sandy's mind raced, barely keeping up with his thumping heart. This was exactly what he'd hoped for. One crime—a felony, yes, but years ago when he was a teenager. Now he's grown, living on the fringe, but keeping his nose clean. A fugitive, an outcast, but when law-abiding citizens were under the gun, when their lives were in deadly peril, who stepped into the breach and saved them? This man, this criminal.

  Oh, dear sweet Jesus, this has major motion picture written all over it. Got to secure the rights.

  "I can get you amnesty!" Sandy blurted.

  The Savior squatted and dropped his face into his hands. He rubbed his eyes. "I don't believe this."

  He's overcome with emotion, Sandy thought.

  "I can!" Sandy said. "I can start a campaign. Look at the lives you saved that night. How can they not grant you amnesty?"

  "Very easy," he said, looking up at him now. "They just say no."

  "They won't be able to say no. You don't know the power of the press. I'll make them bring you in from the cold."

  The Savior rose to his feet again. "How do you know I don't like the cold? Maybe I'm a goddamn polar bear!"

  "I don't believe that. Because nobody wants to be a nobody when they can be a somebody—a really big somebody!"

  "You're wasting your time. And mine too." He turned and started moving off.

  "Wait! You can't walk out on this! It's the chance of a lifetime!"

  "For you, maybe." He didn't even look back. "I'm out of it."

  Alarmed, Sandy started after him. He had to talk to him, had to change his mind. And then he stopped as he realized he didn't need his cooperation to do this. He could singlehandedly create a ground-swell of sympathy for the Savior… and he wouldn't have to stretch the truth in the slightest.

  First, a piece telling how he'd spoken again to the Savior, and how the man had confessed that his real reason for not coming forward was that he's a wanted felon. Sandy would say nothing of the crime—didn't want the cops to scoop him by using police records to identify the Savior before he did—but would portray him as a decent man guilty of a single youthful mistake, who'd escaped prosecution years ago, but last week had repaid his debt to society in spades, repaid it in a manner far more fruitful than incarceration, repaid it with saved lives instead of lost years. Next he'd get testimonials from other survivors—starting with Beth. Then he'd interview the mayor and the police commissioner and the DA and put them on the spot: what about amnesty for this hero? Will the one bad deed he committed as a teenager live on while the enormous good he did wind up interred with his bones?

  The words weren't just flowing, man, they were gushing!

  The whole campaign was taking beautiful shape in his mind. He could see the other major papers being forced to take up the issue—whether pro or con, who cared?—and from there the debate would spread to the national news magazines like Time and Newsweek. If he could get this ball rolling it could carry him into People Magazine.

  And once he achieved amnesty for the Savior, it would be up to the man himself to accept it or reject it. Either way, Sandy's debt to him would be paid
.

  He headed back to the subway, excitement spurring him to a trot. He couldn't wait to get started.

  9

  "Are you okay, Jack?" Kate asked.

  He'd returned to Jeanette's apartment straight from the park and hadn't been able to sit still.

  "A little edgy, that's all," he told her.

  Not a little edgy—a lot edgy. Even maximum edgy didn't quite cover it. He felt like a pin cushion. All the while in the park he'd had this feeling of being watched but had never been able to spot anyone who seemed interested in him. The feeling had followed him back to Jeanette's.

  He stood at the window now, watching the street, scanning for anyone who looked like he didn't belong. Saw a couple of guys having a smoke outside the print shop, another pair unloading rolls of fabric and lugging them into the wholesaler shop. But no lurkers.

  He chalked up the feel to Palmer's crazy plan.

  The kid had no idea what was involved here. An amnesty for him would mean coaxing the IRS, the BATF, and the FBI to sing harmony with the New York State Attorney General and the DAs of most of the five boroughs. Right. And the Jets are going to win the next six Super Bowls.

  And Nietzsche? And "in from the cold"? Where did he come up with this stuff? That kid had to get out more.

  Jack turned away from the window. "What did you hear from NIH?" he asked, anxious to move the talk away from his mood.

  Kate shook her head. "Nothing good. Everyone I talked to was very closed mouthed."

  "Meaning?"

  "I couldn't find anyone who would admit that they'd heard from Dr. Fielding, and couldn't find anyone who'd admit that they hadn't."

  "Typical bureausaurus run-around."

  "That's what I figured but…"

  "But it just doesn't feel right."

  She nodded. "Exactly."

  "You think Fielding might not be telling us everything?"

  "Not sure. But that's the vibe I'm getting."

  Jack had to smile. " 'Vibe.' How seventies."

  She shrugged. "That's where I spent my teens." She reached for the phone. "I've had enough of this tiptoeing around. I'm going to call Fielding and ask him point blank—"