Again, no sign of Rico. Because he wasn’t able to get around?
Couldn’t think about that now. Had to do something—and quick, because he was running out of train. Only two and a half more cars to go. He heard the doors below slide shut so he dropped to his knees and braced himself for the lurching start. Looking back he saw Ramon still on his feet and closing fast. He was trotting atop the car behind, grinning and brandishing his garden-variety black-steel machete. He hopped the gap between his car and Jack’s—
—just as the train bucked forward. The sudden move made his leap fall short. His sneaker made toe contact with the car roof’s rear edge, then slipped off. His expression turned from fierce grin to shock and fear as he dropped out of sight.
But not for long. Seconds later, as the train entered the tunnel, he was up again and coming Jack’s way, though this time in a crawl instead of a run. The train picked up speed and the wind carried Ramon’s trucker’s cap away, but he didn’t seem to mind. Jack continued his own crawl to the forwardmost vent duct on the roof and clung to it. He was counting on Ramon to keep coming. And he did.
Ramon and Rico and the rest of Giovanni’s DR crew had been living in Brooklyn. Probably never rode the Eighth Avenue line down here. Didn’t know that it made a sharp left turn to the east toward Sixth Avenue. Jack remembered many times needing a near-death grip on one of the poles inside to keep from bouncing off other passengers as it made that turn … just … about …
Now.
The train lurched left and Ramon began to slide right. Jack had his arms tight around the vent and stayed put. He could see Ramon’s wide, terrified eyes as he dropped his machete—two down, one to go—and scratched at the filthy, sloping surface in a frantic search for purchase.
Fat chance, pal.
Jack watched his kicking legs go over the side, heard his terrified wail as his body followed, saw his clawed hands rake the roof all the way to the edge where they caught the lip, leaving Ramon clinging to the side of the train by his fingertips.
Jack fought the wild urge to slide over and kick at those fingertips, dumping Ramon off the train. He’d bang off the side wall, bounce against the train, get spun around and around until he either fell to the tracks where he’d end up ground meat, or get caught on the outside and be dragged into West 4th. Either way, he’d be eliminated as a threat.
But he held back, remembering how he’d let his rage take over with Rico. Look where that had put him.
Instead he imagined the view from inside the car: Ramon’s panicked face pressed against the outside of a window, his prolonged scream drowned in the train noise. Would anyone look up and see? Maybe, maybe not. Would anyone pull the emergency stop cord? Again, maybe, maybe not, but leaning toward not. New Yorkers resented anyone or anything that slowed their subway ride. They might write him off as just another jerk working a variation on subway surfing. Might even want him to fall off.
The train straightened out, but Jack knew it wouldn’t be long before it angled right to enter the West 4th Street station, a big nexus point at Sixth Avenue where a half dozen or more subway lines crossed.
The train pulled into the low-ceilinged station and Jack had to stay down if he wanted to keep his head. As it stopped and the doors opened, he peeked over the right edge of the roof and saw the two DDPers rush out and peel a shaken, weak-kneed Ramon off the side of the car.
Okay, no getting out that way.
To the left, over the wall, he heard a train approaching. The uptown tracks were over there.
He rose to standing between a pair of crossbeams and looked over. Another A train was pulling into the station. The beams ran above the wall. If he could get over there …
Ignoring the oily grime and rat turds, Jack took hold of the beam before him. His left hand, slick with blood dripping down his arm from his shoulder, slipped. He wiped it dry on his jacket, then hopped up onto the beam and began to crawl along on his hands and knees. He couldn’t help but think of gymnasts he’d seen doing cartwheels and flips on something just about this wide. How the hell did they manage?
When he reached the wall he came to a vertical support that ran up into the dark. He had to rise to his feet and swing around it. A hairy maneuver, especially here. Falling off the far side would be a disaster—at best he’d lie crippled on the tracks; at worst he’d land on the third rail and get fried by six zillion volts.
He heard a shout behind him and a machine-gun rattle of Spanish. A look back showed one of the matóns on the car roof he’d just left. This guy still had his head scarf and machete. He hopped up on the same crossbeam and started crawling Jack’s way.
Okay, no time for caution. That uptown A would be pulling out in seconds. Jack did a Wallenda along the next beam, arms out, one foot in front of the other. The train’s brakes hissed as they released. It started rolling.
“No, dammit!”
Another vertical beam. Almost there. Jack swung recklessly around it and stepped on the horizontal on the far side. His sneaker landed on something squishy—a fresh rat turd?—and his foot slipped out from under him.
Oh, shit, he was falling.
At the last second he kicked out against the upright with his other foot, allowing him to belly-flop onto the slowly moving roof of the uptown A. The air whooshed out of him on impact.
He gasped, struggling for a breath. Christ, that hurt.
Still fighting for air, he managed to turn onto his side and watch the DDPer go into a half crouch, ready to jump, then change his mind. As the train picked up speed, Jack waved, then rolled onto his back, temporarily wiped out.
2
After a brief rest to catch his breath and settle his nerves, Jack slid down between the cars before the train reached 14th. He’d planned to go inside and sit but, after looking down at himself—filthy, bloody, bedraggled, like a homeless guy who’d just ended a weeklong bender with a knife fight—he decided to ride the space between. He entered the car only after it pulled out of the 72nd Street station and avoided eye contact with anyone for the rest of his trip.
During the week the A train ran as an express most of the time, skipping from 59th Street all the way to 125th. But on weekends it ran as a local, allowing him to get off at 81st Street.
Back up on street level, he found a phone and called Abe.
“Isher Sports.”
“Hey, Abe, it’s Jack.”
“You don’t sound like Jack. Blechedich, you sound.”
Jack didn’t know what blechedich meant, but if it started with “blech,” it probably meant something close to how he felt—which was pretty blech.
“Got a bit of a cut.”
“Oy vey. Stab cut or slice cut?”
“A slice cut—upper arm.”
“A stitches-needing cut?”
“You better believe it.”
“Okay, I know someone who can help. But cash only he takes.”
Jack smiled. He’d figured he wouldn’t have to tell Abe that he couldn’t go to a hospital because of the identity issues and because the hospital might feel a need to report it.
“Yeah, well, I forgot to renew my Blue Cross anyway. He’s a doctor?”
“Sort of.”
“What kind of ‘sort of’? You’re not sending me to a vet, are you?”
“No-no-no. A regular MD he’s got. It’s a license he lacks.”
“Swell.”
“I’ll give you the address and call ahead to let him know you’re coming.”
“What’s his name?”
“Hargus.”
3
The guy who opened the door to the small, third-floor walk-up apartment had a wrinkled face despite his portly physique. Didn’t seem old enough for all those wrinkles. The Wilford Brimley mustache was impressive, though.
He looked Jack up and down through wire-rim glasses, his gaze lingering on the bloody shoulder. “Jee-zus!” he said in a deep voice with a faint southern or southwest accent. “What in tarnation did Abe send me?”
“You’re Doc Hargus?”
“One and the same.”
“Sorry for the dirt. Didn’t have time to shower.”
“Well, that’s a shame, ’cause you can’t come in here like that. Get undressed.”
“Where?”
“Right here.”
Jack looked up and down the hall. “But—”
“You got skivvies on?”
“What?”
“You goin’ commando?”
“No.”
He was wearing boxers under the jeans.
“Well, then, strip down to your shorts and leave everything else here.”
“But—”
The guy gave him a look. “Don’t tell me you’re worried about anyone stealing that mess.”
Jack sighed. “Guess not.”
As Hargus disappeared inside, Jack stripped and got his first look at the wound—a good two-and-a-half-inch gash across the belly of his deltoid. Removing the flannel shirt dislodged a clot and the blood flow graduated from an ooze to a steady trickle. Hargus reappeared with a wad of gauze squares.
“Slap these over it and come on in.”
He closed the door behind them. He had a roll of tape spindled on his index finger and he used that to fix the gauze in place.
“Bathroom’s over there. Wash up those hands real good before we do anything. Face too.”
Jack complied—took three scrubs before they were presentable. When he stepped back into the narrow hall, he heard a voice call from the other end.
“Down here.”
He followed it to an examination room where the doc had a suturing set laid out next to an open bottle of Pilsner Urquel. He lifted the bottle with a latex-gloved hand and took a swig as he gestured for Jack to sit next to him.
“Let’s take a look at that.”
He peeled off the blood-soaked gauze and peered at the wound. He took a pair of tweezers and probed around. Jack couldn’t see what he was doing, but he could feel it—a creepy sensation but not terribly painful.
“What sort of blade did this?”
“Machete.”
Doc’s eyebrows lifted. “I’d’ve said something sharper, like a bowie knife or a box cutter.”
“This wasn’t your mother’s machete. This was chromed and seriously honed.”
“Well, you’re lucky. It cut through the full thickness of your skin, through the subcutaneous fat—what little you’ve got—and just grazed the muscle.”
“‘Lucky’ would be if he’d missed.”
“The good news is, I won’t have to do any subcutaneous suturing.”
Jack wasn’t sure why that was good, but good was good.
“And the bad news?”
“The bad news will be my bill.”
“What’s that gonna run?”
“Figure five hundred, give or take.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, I don’t have a great call for my services, but people who need me tend to need me real bad, so I charge up the wazoo. You good for it?”
Jack nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t have much more than lunch money on me at the moment.”
“Well, since Abe sent you, I’ll assume you’re good for it.”
“You said ‘give or take.’ Give or take what?”
“I’ll tell you the exact bill after I see how many sutures I have to put in to hold this thing together. Oh, and you’ll need a tetanus booster too.”
“Fire away.”
He opened a small fridge stocked with vials of injectables and bottles of beer.
“Can you spare one of those?” Jack said, pointing to the green bottles. “You can add it to my bill.”
Doc looked at him. “You old enough to drink?”
This again.
“Twenty-two last month.”
“You don’t look it.”
“Can’t help that.”
“Nah, guess you can’t. Probably pisses you off, doesn’t it.”
“Gotta say it does.”
“Well, hang in there, because years from now you’ll love it when the younger women make passes at you.” He snorted. “A problem I never had.”
He used a church key to pop the top and handed him the bottle.
“After all that dirt you were rolling around in—where the hell were you, anyway?”
Jack took a sip—good Pilsner—and tried to sound casual. “Top of an A train.”
Doc stared at him. “No, really.”
“Really. Long story.”
“Well, with that kind of filth, I should put you on some antibiotic as well.”
“You’re the doc.”
“That’s the spirit. Defer to them’s what knows whereof they speak.” He hefted a syringe filled with clear fluid. “This is lidocaine to numb you up. Gonna burn like hellfire at first, but after that you won’t feel a thing.”
Jack tensed as the needle went in—not so bad—then the doc began injecting. He hadn’t been kidding. Hellfire times two.
“It’s okay to say ‘ow’ or wince,” the doc said.
“No, it’s not.”
“Why not?”
“Because…” Why wasn’t it? “Because it’s just … not.”
A smile lifted his mustache as he refilled the syringe for another dose. “Not manly?”
“Maybe that. But also pointless.”
“Oh?”
“Do I want the pain to stop? Yes. Do I want you to stop injecting? No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I want this gash closed and it will hurt more without the injections, right?”
“Right.”
“There you go: Pointless.”
“You always put that much thought into everything you do?”
“Try not to think. It’s mostly automatic.”
“Thinking’s not bad.”
“But overthinking’s not good. I guess I’m an underthinker. You know many overthinkers?”
“Plenty.”
“Well, I’m making up for them.”
“You’ve got an attitude, I’ll hand you that.”
“Not the first time I’ve heard that.”
“I’ll bet.”
The pain faded. The doc clamped a curved needle trailing shiny blue thread between the jaws of some fancy, stainless steel mini-pliers.
“Looks like fishing line,” Jack said.
“In a way, it is—just like nylon line, except it’s sterile.”
“Thanks for that. But your gloves aren’t.”
“How so?”
“Well, you’ve been holding that beer bottle.”
“Not a problem. These aren’t to protect you from me, they’re to protect me from whatever’s crawling around in your bloodstream.”
“Nothing but blood.”
“So you say, but I’ll wear the gloves just the same.”
Jack watched as he got to work, deftly piercing the skin and tying a knot to draw the edges together. Cutting the thread, then starting again. That injection had worked—didn’t feel a thing.
“I figured you’d be putting in just one long thread.”
“A continuous suture?” He shook his head. “Not good for what you’ve got here. Needs a mattress suture—individual ties. This is going to take a while. So why don’t you tell me about how you wound up on the roof of a subway car.”
“Okay, if you’ll tell me something.”
“Shoot.”
“Abe said you don’t have a license. How come?”
“Don’t you think you should have asked me that before you let me shoot you up and start sewing?”
“I trust Abe.”
Doc glanced up over his glasses. “Don’t we all.” He paused for a sip of his beer. “Opiates did me in. I started taking them for a herniated lumbar disk, then I started taking them because I liked the way they made me feel, then I was taking them because I couldn’t imagine life without them. Stopped caring about my patients, stopped caring about my family. My marriage died and my practice dwindled. My
only patients were fellow addicts. The dopers have an excellent grapevine and it got around real quick that I was an easy touch for oxycodone. Soon my practice was thriving again—as a prescription mill. Guy’d come in saying he has terrible back pain, I wouldn’t examine him or anything, just scribble an Rx for whatever he wanted. He’d pay the fee and walk out with his precious little slip of paper.”
“So basically you were selling prescriptions.”
“Selling? I was flat-out pimping them. Some of those patients turned out to be DEA types who established a pattern and hauled me in. I got my license suspended a couple of times, made sham attempts to clean up. Finally the board rescinded it permanently. That was when I hit bottom. I finally cleaned up but they wouldn’t let me back in. I’d fooled them a couple of times before and they weren’t buying. So I’m reduced to this.”
“You seem okay with it.”
He shrugged. “I don’t need a Mercedes or a big house. I’d prefer a better class of patients—no offense.”
“None taken.”
“I limit myself to a few beers a day, watch a lot of TV and videotapes. It ain’t the high life, but it’s my life.”
Jeez, he thought. Sounds like me lately. Except the beer limit.
The doc said, “Now tell me the story of this wound here. And make it a good one.”
Jack took another sip. “Well, it all started last fall…”
4
Tony and Vinny both got to their feet when Mama Amalia stopped by their table. Tony got a hug, then introduced Vinny, who got a gnarled handshake. Vinny had been here before—who hadn’t?—but had never met her.
She wore widow’s black and shuffled along. God knew how old she was. She’d been running her tiny Little Italy restaurant on Hester Street forever. The tourists visiting what was left of Little Italy and the few locals who weren’t chinks ate in the main room at long tables covered with red-and-white checkered cloths. But she’d known Tony almost as long as she’d had the restaurant—called Amalia’s, what else?—and so when he showed up, even for a late lunch like this, he got to eat in the little private room in back.
Vinny listened politely as they gabbed in Italian, then the mussels marinara arrived and she moved on.
Reseating himself, Tony “the Cannon” Campisi tucked his napkin into his collar and stubbed out his cigarette. He was wire thin except for his deep barrel chest.