by Barry Lyga
He switched around the channels until he found one not in talking-heads mode, this one with a live feed from the hospital where Jazz and Connie had been admitted. A very pissed-off cop was giving what looked like an impromptu press conference.
“—including assault, robbery, battery, impersonating a police officer. And that’s just to start—”
Jazz was in big-time trouble. No question about it. Which could mean only one thing.
Howie sat up in bed and grabbed his phone from the nightstand. 3… 2… 1…
The phone rang. Caller ID said MARK CULPEPPER, but Howie wasn’t surprised at all to hear Jazz say, “We don’t have much time, Howie.”
“Mark Culpepper? Nice alias, Rambo.”
“Am I all over the news still?”
“You could say that.”
“Have they shut down the city yet?”
“Not so far as I can tell. Looks like mostly Brooklyn is on high alert.” As if on demand, a list of bullet points appeared on the TV, among them: DENT WOUNDED, ON FOOT and BELIEVED TO BE CONFINED TO BROOKLYN.
“Okay, that’s good. I managed to get to Manhattan. Let them look in Brooklyn all they want.”
“Do you even know the difference? What if they’re the same place?”
“We drove over a bridge. I recognized it from when Hughes took me to Manhattan.”
“Who’s we?” Howie was beginning to worry now—had Jazz gotten mixed up with Billy? Was he on the run with his dad for some reason?
“Gypsy cab. I think that’s what they call them. He was on duty all night. Hadn’t seen the news. I paid the guy a hundred bucks to get me to Manhattan, hidden under a blanket in the backseat. Told him it was a fraternity prank. Nice guy. Chatted with him. Passed the time. Got out right before the blockades went up.”
“So, now what?”
“Can’t tell you.”
“You wound me.”
“Well, you wound easily.”
“This is true. But come on—give me a clue. Let me help.”
“No. The cops will come to you eventually. It’s better if you can’t tell them anything.”
“I wouldn’t squeal on you.” Howie pouted, even though Jazz couldn’t see him.
“Yes, you would.”
“I totally would,” Howie admitted. “I’m weak. I lack character, Jazz. That’s my problem. That’s always been my problem. I blame my mother. For coddling me.” He thought for a second. “And I guess for carrying the hemophilia gene in the first place, too.”
“Save it for your shrink. I need you to do something for me. I’m going to call you later from a different phone.”
“So I am part of the plan?”
“Of course, you idiot. Do I ever do anything crazy or illegal without you?”
“I feel so much better now.”
“And Howie—whatever you do, you can’t tell Connie anything. Got it?”
“Scout’s honor.”
“You better not have your fingers crossed.”
Howie stared down at his free hand. He did, indeed, have his fingers crossed.
“Totally don’t,” he promised.
Now Jazz needed a woman.
Preferably, one old enough to have kids of her own. That meant the optimum level of maternal pity.
He watched several walk by from his position in a graffiti-stained doorway. Most were close to his age, college girls, traveling in clusters and pairs. Smart and safe. Good for them. He wasn’t interested in them, but maybe someone else was. Someone like his father. Safety in numbers was never a bad idea.
Even at this late hour, he spied one or two with children. Heading home after a late dinner with family, maybe. They were no good to him. He wanted someone old enough to have kids, but not actually with them. Women in the presence of their children were the deadliest of the species.
He knew he would need to compensate for his appearance. He was a male (bad), young (even worse), and tall and fit (worst of all). He needed to look as helpless and pathetic as possible.
And hope that anyone on the street at this hour hadn’t seen the news yet.
He spotted her at the end of the block, headed his way. Midthirties, from the look of her. Well dressed. A professional, coming home from a late night at the office. Perfect.
Jazz took a deep breath, reran his plan in his mind—Measure twice—and then dashed out into the street as though in a panic, looking behind him. Certain to emphasize his limp, he ran toward her, always checking over his shoulder. He made sure to “accidentally” trip and fall long before he got to her.
Sprawled on the sidewalk, he panted and heaved, then pushed himself up on his good knee and both hands, scanning around himself, a fox desperate to elude the hounds.
He was wondering if he would need to amp up the melodrama when he heard her:
“Are you all right?” she asked. She stood a good ways off, well out of his reach. Best possible decision on her part. She had one hand in her purse already. Cell phone? Maybe. Pepper spray? Possibly. Was pepper spray legal in New York? Jazz didn’t know, but he did know that he wanted to avoid a face full of the stuff. His day sucked enough already.
With a great show of agony, Jazz dragged his bad leg around and managed to sit up against a trash can. He scrubbed his face with both hands, as if wiping away tears.
“I need help,” he said as plaintively as he knew how. Still, she didn’t approach. Which was fine. He didn’t actually need her close to him.
“I’ll call an ambulance—”
“No!” Jazz said. He wanted to shout it but was afraid his raised voice would frighten her away. “Please. No ambulance. No cops. I just need to get away from him.”
Him. The magic word. Jazz and the woman were now bound together by their mutual terror of an amorphous, unidentified, but very real male threat.
“Who?” she asked.
“It’s my father.” And that was the last true thing Jazz said to the woman.
CHAPTER 20
With the press reporting rumors that Hat-Dog was dead or in custody, the already-cramped street around Brooklyn’s 76th Precinct was jammed with news vans, reporters, and citizens just desperate to know what the hell was going on. Even though it was nearly midnight by the time he returned to the precinct—having been interrogated and examined at the hospital like a victim—Hughes still discovered a sizable crowd on the street.
I’m with you, Hughes thought as he pushed through. I want to know what’s going on, too.
Hat-Dog was dead. Hughes was certain of that, but proving it would be the work of many weeks. Knowing that Belsamo and Hershey had conspired to execute Hat-Dog’s victims was one thing; proving it to the satisfaction of the law was another. Because Jasper Dent says so wasn’t valid evidence in a court of law.
He finally bulled his way through the crowd to the door of the precinct, which was guarded by a uniform who nodded and let him in. The din of the crowd abated only slightly once he was inside. He headed for the captain’s office.
Niles Montgomery wasn’t the sort to lose his temper—very calmly and with no bombast, he handed out orders to his lieutenants: Ramp up the bridge and tunnel patrols, widen the Billy Dent search parameters, stay alert. Hughes waited until the lieutenants had scampered off to do their captain’s bidding before clearing his throat.
“Don’t say a word.” Montgomery slid into his chair and sighed for what seemed to be an entire minute. “Just tell me you’re ready to announce the Hat-Dog stuff is over. It’ll take a little of the heat off.”
“I’m not ready to announce that yet.”
“Come on!” Montgomery slapped his desk blotter, the first sign of the toll the past couple of days had taken on him. “The kid predicted two killers, right? You’ve got two dead suspects, both of whom had access to the storage unit. Done deal.”
“Right. So I announce Hat-Dog is dead, and then another body shows up, and we look like we can’t take a dump without a map to the crapper.”
Montgomery chuckled,
but it was hollow and grim. “Lou, do you honestly believe the Hat-Dog Killer is still alive and active?”
Hughes had to admit that he didn’t.
“Then put together a statement, and let’s turn down the heat the tiniest bit, okay? We have enough on our plates now with the Dents.”
“We’ve already missed the boat on that,” Hughes said with all the confidence he could muster. “Trust me on that. I’m telling you, Jasper’s already out of the borough. We need to shut down Port Authority and the bridges out of Manhattan—”
“You think he has magic powers or something? He’s wounded. I thought this kid was a bumpkin from the sticks. What makes you think he even knows how to get to the city, much less get out?”
“He’s a bumpkin with the smarts of his dad. We need to use the Patriot Act to get access to the kid’s phone and e-mails, as well as the phones and e-mails of everyone he knows. The girlfriend. The people back in Lobo’s Nod. Maybe something leads us to a safe house.”
“Lou, this kid isn’t Osama bin Laden. He’s seventeen years old, and he’s injured and alone.”
“The Patriot Act is for terrorism. This kid’s got people terrified. We don’t know if he’s in cahoots with his dad or not, but it sure looks like it to me. I shouldn’t have to remind you that Morales is dead. We have multiple crime scenes and all kinds of craziness going on, and we can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys. Hell, maybe Belsamo and Hershey were innocent in all this. Maybe the Dents framed them.” He held up a hand to keep Montgomery from interrupting him again. “I don’t really believe that. But someone will put it out there. All I’m saying is this: We don’t know enough to feel confident that the Dent kid is innocent. I’m not saying we put him down like a dog, Cap. I’m saying we get him and hold him and sweat him for information. Meanwhile, CSI and the labs do what they do. And when we have some actual information, then we can start seeing who we kick loose. Anything else is irresponsible. And dangerous.”
Montgomery sighed heavily and steepled his fingers before him, elbows on the desk.
Hughes pressed on: “At the very least, start tracking my phone. He took it with him. I’m giving you permission; you don’t need a warrant or anything.”
“Okay, yeah, let’s do that.” Montgomery picked up the phone on his desk, and just then a uniform barged in, breathless.
“Captain!” she shouted, completely unnecessarily. “We have a lead on Dent!”
The lead was on Jasper Dent, not Billy, but Hughes would take it.
The guy’s name was Mark Culpepper, and he’d been found unconscious, bound, gagged, and in his birthday suit plus skivvies in a bar bathroom in Boerum Hill. Jasper’s cell phone, nearly dead, had been found on him. Stunned and still slightly drunk, Culpepper sipped bad precinct coffee in one of the interrogation rooms as Hughes and Montgomery watched through the one-way mirror. He’d had little to say, but a canvass of the bar turned up a bartender who claimed to have seen Dent.
The bar was pretty far from the hospital where Jasper had escaped. He’d made it much farther on foot than anyone could have anticipated.
“Well?” Hughes said.
Montgomery’s eyes narrowed as he looked through the glass. “I can’t say we need to shut down the whole city, but I can say this: It’s time to start talking about it.”
CHAPTER 21
“Thanks, Miranda!” Jazz said, climbing out of the cab. The sight of Port Authority thrilled and terrified him all at once, but he managed to keep his voice nervous and tentative, as he had during the cab ride uptown from the place Miranda had called SoHo.
“Be careful, Mark,” she told him. “And reconsider calling the police, okay?”
He’d told her a lie. Several of them, actually, layered on top of one another and configured to maximize her pity. A physically abusive father. A mother addicted to drugs. A final straw, drawn when Dad “nearly broke my leg.” A kid trying to get away, to leave the city for the safety of a friend’s house in New Jersey.
Playing the abused, terrified kid to perfection, Jazz had hoped for nothing more than instructions on how to get the hell out of New York. The city was a bewildering array of streets, alleys, avenues, subways, tunnels, bridges.… He felt as though he could wander its byways for a century and keep doubling back on himself, never breaking free of its confines. But while the police thought he was in Brooklyn, he’d made it to Manhattan. Now, before they realized where he actually was, he had to get out of New York entirely. Once beyond its endless concrete and glass chasms and canyons, he could disappear into the relative wilderness. They could cordon off bridges and stop subways, but they couldn’t blockade every road in the world.
So, still slumped against that trash can, he’d asked the woman he soon knew as Miranda for the best, cheapest way to get out of town, and she’d told him a bus from Port Authority. And then, after a few more pathetic moments, she’d offered to go there with him in a cab.
It was more than he could have hoped for. In a cab they wouldn’t be alone, so she felt safe and didn’t mind accompanying him. And a couple in a cab wouldn’t draw the same scrutiny from a police force and citizenry looking for a single man.
There was a little TV screen in the cab, but fortunately, it was running sports scores when they got in. Jazz couldn’t figure out how to turn it off entirely, but he muted it and positioned his “nearly broken” leg so that Miranda couldn’t see the screen.
And now she dropped him off at Port Authority. He waved to her as her cab pulled away. On the trip from downtown, he hadn’t been able to devise a way to persuade her to walk him into the building and to his bus, so he had to do this alone.
He’d never been to Port Authority before, so he had no idea if the cops milling about represented the usual force or an amped-up, “looking for Jasper Dent” force. In any event, he had to avoid their notice at all costs.
If you’re on the run, you got two choices, Billy had said. You can go balls out and hope to outrun whatever’s behind you, or you can go nice and slow, easy as you please. Let whatever’s chasing you start to wonder if you’re the thing it’s really after. Don’t work like that in the wild. A gazelle can’t try reverse psychology on a lion. But it works a treat on humans, Jasper. It truly does.
Fortunately, Jazz’s limp was much less pronounced when he walked slowly. He ambled along the sidewalk, surreptitiously glancing at the doors into Port Authority, taking in the police presence, looking for patterns in their patrols. A food cart was parked against the sidewalk on the corner, and even though Jazz wasn’t hungry, he paused to buy some kind of kebab. Fugitives on the run didn’t stop at food carts.
See? See how normal and unthreatening and totally not fleeing the jurisdiction I am?
He meandered up the steps to the phalanx of glass doors, stuffing his face with the kebab as he went. He chewed with obnoxiously huge bites, stretching out his face as much as he could. Anything to look even a tiny bit different.
No one approached him as he reached out for the door handle, and a moment later he was inside, though no less worried. One hurdle leapt, but there were many more to go.
More cops inside. Again, he couldn’t tell if this was the usual complement or a beefed-up patrol. He had to assume the worst-case scenario.
He risked kleptoing a Yankees cap from a nearby stall. He didn’t want to stand still long enough to buy it and give the vendor a good look at his face. His shoplifting skills were rusty but good enough for this. He didn’t pull the cap down low over his face; that would be as good as screaming, Come and get me, coppers! at the top of his lungs. Instead, he swept back his hair and trapped it under the cap, tilting the brim up high. The result made his forehead seem several inches higher, changing the look of his face just slightly. It also concealed his hair, giving the cops one less marker to identify.
Port Authority was as bewildering and as complex as the city itself; New York in miniature. Jazz had expected something like the bus station in the Nod, only bigger. What he had gotten was
a mini shopping mall choked with cops and no buses in sight.
At an information kiosk, he grabbed a handful of touristy brochures, a map of the city, and a bunch of bus schedules. He merged with a cluster of college-age kids who were laughing and giggling at one another in a way Jazz knew he would never experience. He didn’t even try to mimic them, just fell into step behind them and buried his nose in the map, the geeky outcast who had insisted on joining the cool kids in New York.
When his “friends” passed a men’s room, Jazz peeled off and slipped inside. His heart thudded nearly to a stop in his chest, though, when he saw a sign mounted above the sink:
RESTROOMS ARE PATROLLED BY PLAINCLOTHES OFFICERS
There was a man at one sink. Jazz froze for the first time since his escape from the hospital, paralyzed. Of course the police would patrol the restrooms. This was a big city. People went into restrooms and did all kinds of nasty things. To themselves, to one another.
Maybe I can use that, he thought.
The sign continued, offering numbers to call from the pay phones or house phones in the building. Before the man at the sink could finish and turn around, Jazz locked himself in a stall that smelled as though hoboes had been living in it for a month. For all he knew, they had. He was one of them now, in a way. Homeless, helpless, friendless.
That’s not true. None of it. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
He gnawed at his bottom lip as he shuffled through the bus schedules. With Mark Culpepper’s phone, he went online to fill in the gaps of his plan.
Yes.
Yes, this would work.
I’m coming, Mom. Intentionally or not, Billy gave me the clues, and I’m following them. Hold tight. I’m coming to get you.
He spied the house phone as soon as he left the bathroom. Hoping that no one would take notice, he went straight to it, picked it up, and dialed the code from the bathroom sign.