Blood of My Blood (13 page)

As soon as Jazz released Hughes, his hearing returned to normal and the timpani of pain in his leg jumped a degree. He took a deep breath and denied himself the weakness, the pleasure, of worrying about his leg.

Sometimes
, Billy said,
you’ll be hurt. And that’s when you gotta make a decision: Is it a big pain, the kind that’ll kill you? In that case, deal with it. Otherwise, shut it away. Lock it in the closet. Stuff it in a bag and throw it in the river ’cause if it ain’t gonna kill you, you don’t need it
.

Meskovich had told Jazz the leg would eventually be fine. So he gagged it, bound it, and rolled it into a mental trunk, then slammed the lid.

Gagging. Binding. Right. Back to work.

Hughes wouldn’t be out for long. Jazz had been prepared for this moment, though he’d thought he would be choking out a doctor or nurse, not Hughes. Under his pillow, he’d stashed some things he needed. Like torn strips of sheet, which he stuffed into Hughes’s mouth and then taped down with some medical tape he’d found in a drawer. Not as good as duct tape, but he couldn’t afford to be picky.

Just as Hughes began to rouse, Jazz snapped the handcuffs on him, threading the chain through the bed’s far railing first. Hughes was helpless, and he knew it. His grunts through the gag were pathetic.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” Jazz said. “This is going to suck. You’re gonna be a laughingstock around the precinct for a century or two.” He couldn’t really crouch down with his leg the way it was, but he was able to bend at the waist and look right into Hughes’s eyes. “I want you to remember something for me, Detective. I actually sort of like you. I guess I have a thing for people who break the rules. I want you to remember that I could have killed you very, very easily, but I didn’t. When it comes to my trial—assuming I live that long—you better tell the jury that.”

He pulled the chair away from Hughes, forcing the man into the uncomfortable and maximally helpless position of half leaning over the railing, half crouching on the floor. A quick frisk turned up Hughes’s wallet, badge, phone, and
gun. The gun tempted him. It seemed to communicate with him telepathically.
Take me with you, Jazz
, it said, speaking in a sexy female voice for some reason.
You know you want to. You’re afraid you’ll use me, but that’s what makes me so much fun, Jazz. All the possibilities
.

He settled for releasing the magazine and tossing the bullets in the toilet. The gun itself he left on the bed. Everything else he would take.

“Don’t worry.” He cast one look back at Hughes, who was trying to thrash violently, trying to make some noise. But the angle of his bent body over the railing made it impossible—every move punched him in the gut.

Angles.

You done well
, Billy said, and for the first time in his life, Jazz didn’t mind it. He thought he felt something bordering on pride.

“Someone will come along soon enough,” Jazz said. “This is gonna hurt your reputation more than anything else.”

He took Hughes’s overcoat from the peg. Unfortunately, Jazz’s clothes were long gone, vanished into an NYPD evidence lockup somewhere, no doubt. All he had right now were a couple of hospital gowns. The overcoat was better than nothing. He filled its pockets with his phone, Hughes’s phone and wallet, and the cop’s badge. Anyone looking at his bare feet would realize he didn’t belong, so he paused a moment to steal Hughes’s shoes, too. They were too big, but when he stuffed some gauze in them, they worked.

With a deep breath, he cracked the door. The original plan had been to knock out the next nurse or doctor in his room
and create a commotion to draw in the guard at his door. Then overpower the guard, too, and escape. When he’d heard Hughes dismiss the cop outside, though, he’d known that this plan was even better.

He slipped into the corridor and quickly checked left and right. There was some activity to his right, but only empty hallway and a bank of elevators to his left. Bingo.

Forcing himself to walk calmly, he strode to the left. He found that as long as he took careful, deliberate steps, his left leg didn’t bother him so much and his limp was barely noticeable. He grudgingly admitted that the surgical tag team of Billy Dent and Dr. Meskovich had done a good job.

At the end of the corridor, he paused. Elevator, or the emergency stairs off to one side? Elevator was faster, but there would be a camera in there, and if something happened, he’d be trapped in a box. Stairs were slower, but probably empty, probably not monitored, and he could exit on different floors in an emergency.

Fate or chance—he had no opinion on which—took the choice out of his hands. With a
BING!
that seemed unnecessarily loud, the doors in front of him slid open.

And Jazz found himself staring right at Officer Natalie Finley.

Finley had a cup of coffee in one hand, a bag of food in the other. She was alone in the elevator, and the instant she saw Jazz standing there, a spurt of recognition widened her eyes and parted her lips. She froze for just a second.

One second too long.

She wore a bulletproof vest, he could tell. Made sense. Most of them did these days. So he went for the coffee cup, knocking the lid off as he smacked it toward her exposed face. No matter how good her training, her basic instincts took over and all her attention went to the hot coffee spattering into the air for just a moment. She dropped the bag of food, but she should have dropped the coffee, too. Jazz reached into the elevator, grabbed her by her collar, and yanked her into the hall, spinning her around as he did so.

She yelped in total surprise and finally let go of the coffee. Hot droplets pebbled Jazz’s cheek and neck, but he ignored them, focused only on the woman before him.

Bet she’s got somethin’ special under that vest
, Billy
teased, and Jazz shouted back,
Shut up! I’m working!
with a ferocity he’d never have dared face-to-face.

The bank of elevators was centered on the short branch where two hallways met in a T. Jazz kept his momentum and spun Finley around, careful to pivot on his right leg. She dizzily clawed at her holster, but at the last moment, he released her and she staggered backward with violent speed, stumbling and tripping against an abandoned cart of electronic equipment. With a cry of shock, she lost her balance and went down, banging her head against the cart along the way.

She clunked to the floor like a dropped sack of flour, hitting her head a second time on the floor. She lay very, very still.

No one seemed to have seen or heard. The elevator bank was empty, and they were now shielded from the folks down on the long stem of the T by the corner where the two hallways met. Jazz checked Finley’s pulse and breathing. She seemed okay. Just unconscious.

That wouldn’t last long.

A buzzing in his ears deafened him. His heart raced. He’d barely walked ten yards and already he’d had to fight two armed cops, with a healthy dollop of sheer dumb luck partially responsible for his continued freedom. Luck, though, as Billy had said so many times, was like lightning—it struck sinners and saints in equal measure, and it did so on its timetable, not yours. At some point, someone would get the drop on him.

Have to get out of here. Have to get moving. Mom needs me
.

And Billy. Where Mom was, Billy would be, too.

Next time you see me, you go right ahead and kill me
.

That was the plan. For Connie. For Mom. For everyone else. For the one hundred and twenty-three and counting.

And Sam? What about her?

He shook if off. Finley wouldn’t stay unconscious forever, and he couldn’t just stand over her out in the open like this. He swiped her handcuffs and tossed her service revolver into a nearby trash can. One less gun coming after him later.

After a moment of thought—a plan beginning to form—he took her shoulder mic and radio. There was a schematic of the hospital layout mounted on the wall opposite the elevators. Jazz studied it for a moment. Yes. Yes, this might work.

It was crazy, but then again, so was Billy. And look at how long
he’d
managed to stay one step ahead.

Jazz ducked into the stairwell. It was freezing in there. The hospital’s heating system could not penetrate the concrete box that ran between floors; he shivered, nearly naked under the overcoat.

Ascending the stairs proved difficult with his leg. Walking on a level floor was one thing, but bending his leg and putting pressure on it to go up was quite another. By the time he’d made it up one floor, he was drenched with sweat. But he also understood why people in horror movies always ran upstairs, even though everyone in the audience screamed at them to go down.

Because people
expect
you to go down. They assume you’re trying to get out, so they’re waiting for you downstairs. Upstairs gives you some breathing room
.

He went up only one floor. That was all he needed, fortunately, as he didn’t think his leg could take him up another flight. Pressed against the wall next to the stairwell door, he risked a glance through the glass slit that revealed the elevator bank on this floor. There were some doctors and nurses milling about. No cops or security that he could tell.

Am I really going to do this?

Well, yeah. What other choice do you have? Are you gonna take hostages? That never works
.

He switched on Finley’s radio and raised the mic to his lips. Thumbed the Send button.

“Attention, all units,” he announced. “Attention! Attention! We have sighted suspect Billy Dent! He is converging on the back entrance to the hospital! Repeat: back entrance to the hospital! All units, please respond!”

The radio immediately exploded into a flurry of calls and countercalls. One voice demanded—repeatedly—“Who is this? What’s your call sign?” But it was swiftly drowned out by an overlapping cacophony of calls and responses from a multitude of officers. There were rules and procedures and protocols, but Jazz knew the NYPD was on edge right now. Morales was dead. Hat-Dog was dead, by mysterious means. No one was thinking straight. Everyone was on hyperalert.

And then Jazz had tossed Billy like a grenade.

He exited the stairwell and with a smooth, unhurried action, produced Hughes’s badge, holding it aloft. “NYPD!” he shouted in his most authoritative tone. “EVERYONE, PLEASE CONFINE YOURSELVES TO THE NEAREST
ROOM! CLOSE THE DOOR, AND DO NOT OPEN IT UNLESS TOLD TO BY A MEMBER OF THE NYPD!”

He marched straight into the cluster of doctors and nurses, the badge before him like a torch. His left leg throbbed, but his slow, confident stride ameliorated the pain.

“What’s going on?” a doctor asked.

Jazz didn’t speed up and he didn’t slow down. He knew he looked just barely old enough to pass for an adult, but he didn’t want anyone taking the time to notice how young an adult. “Sir,” he snapped, “please get into a room and close the door. Billy Dent has been seen in the area.”

Kablam!
Another Dear Old Dad grenade. The doctors and nurses obediently scattered. Jazz made his way down the hall, the badge his standard, barking out instructions.

See how they run?
Billy whispered.
See how they obey? That’s ’cause they’re not real, Jasper. They hew to you; they hearken. Because you are one of the only things in the world that matter
.

People are real
, Jazz told himself.
People matter
.

No, they aren’t. No, they don’t
.

“Back in the room!” Jazz barked to a nurse who was just emerging through a door. “Now! Do it now!” She scampered back comically, and if he could have afforded to, Jazz would have laughed.

He made his way across to the other side of the hospital. His radio still squawked and bleated with pandemonium. He imagined the panic throughout the hospital itself, on the streets outside, as cops told one another to stand down or to
move into position or whatever. Occasionally, he chimed in on the radio, contributing something garbled or cut off, something easily interpreted ten different ways. Even a well-trained force like the NYPD could be thrown into disarray. Who, after all, would expect Jazz to do this?

From the hospital map, he’d memorized a side exit on the opposite end of the building. There was a bank of elevators here, too, but he eschewed them for the stairs after donning a cloak of panic over his voice and shouting into the mic: “Oh, crap! Trip wire in north stairs! Repeat, trip wire in north stairs! Keep
out
of the stairwells! This son of a bitch is playing with us!”

Someone commed back: “Bomb squad is en route. Stay frosty.” Jazz shook his head and chuckled. For the first time in his life, Billy’s reputation as a superhuman murder machine was working for him, not against him.

Going down the stairs was easier than going up. He could lean on the railing and take most of the weight off his bad leg. He hop-ran down the stairs, taking the corners at dangerous speeds. He couldn’t afford to linger. Eventually, someone would realize that there was no Billy Dent, no trip wires. Or someone would find Finley or Hughes. He had to get out of the hospital as quickly as possible. Disappear into the jungle of New York. He’d hated New York almost from the moment he’d landed at JFK—days ago, years ago, lifetimes ago—for its crowds, its unconscionably cramped streets, its temptingly expendable population. But now he could use that to his advantage, vanish against the backdrop of humanity. Gather his wits. Figure out Billy’s next move.

He’s probably already out of the city. He wouldn’t stick around after Connie escaped. He would know the heat would come down. Fast. So he’d get the hell out
.

The police probably thought they could blockade Billy, keep him contained in the city. What they didn’t understand was that Billy always had an exit plan. More than one, usually.

You never go into a place, Jasper
, Billy had said so many times,
without knowing how you’ll get out. And don’t never assume you can come out the same way you went in. You make that assumption, you’ll end up pig-stuck in the weight room at Wammaket or bleedin’ out of your ass in some local jail somewhere
.

Billy himself had ended up in Wammaket and had managed to get stuck nowhere. Billy always survived. Like a cockroach.

The world’s smartest, meanest, craziest cockroach.

He’ll scurry away. But this time he’s not alone. He’ll take Mom with him. She escaped, and he’ll want to punish her for that. And me
.

He paused at the stairwell door. He’d made his way down to the first floor. If the map he’d memorized was right, there was a side entrance not ten yards from here. Ten yards and he would be outside, with all the cops in the world at the
back
of the building, looking for Billy.

I’m coming, Mom. As fast as I can
.

Before he could open the door, it opened for him. A hospital security guard—young, vaguely Middle Eastern, pudgy—gawked at him for a moment before fumbling for his radio.
There was no time to finesse it; it was the guard or Mom, and that particular coin came up in Mom’s favor every single time Jazz flipped it.

He punched the guard in the face. Pretty sure nothing broke, but the guard staggered back, his nose gushing blood. Jazz grabbed him by the lapels and jerked him into the stairwell. No gun, but the guy had a Taser holstered at his hip, so Jazz yanked it free and gave him a good jolt right in the neck. There was a sizzling sound, and the man danced comically for a moment before collapsing to the floor.

Jazz ripped loose the radio and stuffed it in his pocket along with the Taser. Out in the corridor, he spied two cops—not security, actual NYPD—standing by the exit he needed.

He ducked back into the stairwell. Damn it! He’d thought this plan couldn’t fail. Draw the cops to one door, then leave through the other. Simple, right? But the NYPD wasn’t so easily fooled. They were probably focused on “Billy’s” location, but they clearly were willing to divert a portion of their forces to guard the other entrances, just in case.

Bastard cops ain’t all that smart
, Billy said,
but they’re smart enough, you hear? And for the times when their brains aren’t working, they got all kinds of protocols and procedures and rules and guidelines that substitute for their thinking. Keeps ’em dangerous
.

But predictable
, Jazz realized. And no matter how well trained, no matter how smart, cops were still human beings. Human beings with emotions.

Which meant vulnerabilities.

Jazz raised his stolen mic to his lips. He spared a second to prepare himself, and then hit the Send button and screamed into the mic.

“Officer down! Officer down! North side! Oh, Jesus!”

Then, into the security guard’s radio, he raised his voice an octave and shouted, “Copy that! Copy that! Officer down! Repeat: officer down!”

Quite involuntarily, he grinned at his ruse. Both Billy
and
Connie would have been proud of his performance.

As expected, the two cops at the door dashed down the corridor, weapons drawn, barking into their shoulder mics. Jazz gave them a moment to round a corner, then slipped into the hallway and out the door, into the frigid, free Brooklyn night air.

Billy Dent’s face was on every channel in Connie’s hospital room. She vacillated between CNN and a local station. Both covered Billy’s presence in New York with breathless excitement. She could almost see the ratings charts reflected in the eyes of the reporters.

One corner of the screen was given over to a photo of Billy from his days at Wammaket. Next to it was a police-artist sketch of Billy as he appeared now. The NYPD had sent in an artist to get a description of Billy’s disguise from Connie. The words
ARMED & EXTREMELY DANGEROUS
scrolled over and over again.

“If you see this man,” the reporter said, “do not approach him or otherwise engage him. Contact NYPD immediately.…”