Repairman Jack [05]-Hosts (11 page)

Kate looked at her stinging hand and found a small drop of blood leaking from a puncture wound in her palm.

WEDNESDAY

1

Sandy was up and out at the ungodly hour of 6:03 A.M., but the sun was ahead of him, peeking around the granite Gothic spires of St. John the Divine as he bounded along the sidewalk. He skidded to a stop before the newsstand and there it was:
The Light
. The headline took up the top half of the page:

SIX-GUN

SAVIOR!

A blurry photo of the dead killer occupied the bottom half. His photo! They'd found something usable on his roll.

And below that, the banner:
EXCLUSIVE EYEWITNESS REPORT INSIDE! (see pg. 3)

"Yes!" he shouted and pumped his fist.

He snatched up an issue and opened it to page three and there he was: his first-person account boxed with his picture. Oh, no! They'd used the geeky photo from his HR file! But he forgot about that as soon as he started reading.

Butterflies fluttered up from his stomach and into his chest. This was his first Ferris wheel ride, his first look at the Magic Kingdom, his first kiss all rolled into one. He felt as if his head were about to float away.

"That is one dahlah," said an accented voice.

"Hmmm?"

Sandy looked up and saw the swarthy newsstand owner holding out his hand.

"You must buy to read. One dahlah."

"Oh, yeah." He fished singles out of his pocket. "I'll take four."

He'd have access to virtually unlimited free copies at work but that wasn't the same. The ones in his hand came from a newsstand, from the street, and somehow that made them more real.

"Oh yeah, and I'll take a copy of that subway map too."

He checked out the front pages of the competition. The
Post
headline was okay—"SUBWAY SLAUGHTER!"—but he liked the
News
headline better: "NIGHTMARE ON THE NINE!" As expected, the
Times
was more sedate with "SIX DEAD IN SUBWAY MASSACRE." But both ran photos from above ground, mostly of the survivors as they emerged from the subway station. He looked at
The Light
again with his photo and its banner about his story. His story. A laugh bubbled up inside and he let it loose. When the newsstand owner gave him a strange look Sandy pulled open one of his copies and pointed to his picture.

"That's me, my man! Me!"

"Yes," the man said. "Very nice."

Sandy got the feeling the guy thought he might be scaring away his customers and wanted him to move on. So Sandy moved on, feeling lighter than air. Nobody could bring him down this morning. Nobody.

2

"Yo, Stan."

Stan Kozlowski lowered his copy of the
Times
and looked across the table. His shorter, heavier younger brother Joe had a copy of
The Light
folded in half and was pinning it to the table with the index finger of his good hand. Usually he bought the
Post
but
The Light's
front page photo of the dead gunner must have caught his eye this morning.

They occupied their usual table near the front window of Moishe's kosher deli on Second Avenue. The kosher part didn't matter—they'd been raised Catholic—but Moishe's was convenient, the coffee free-flowing, and the bagels unbeatable.

"What?"

"You been reading about this guy on the train last night?"

"Some."

He'd skimmed the stories to see if the
Times
knew more than last night's TV news. It didn't. And the mystery about this "Savior" guy had the whole city buzzing. Moishe's was no exception: Didja hear? The Savior this, the savior that. Whatta y'think? Blah-blah-blah. The story wasn't a day old and already Stan was sick of it.

"Yours say anything about his gun?"

"No. Not that I recall. I—"

"You guys figured out who he is yet?" said a squeaky voice with a Brooklyn accent sharp enough to cut steel.

Sally, their usual waitress at this, their usual table, had returned with her usual pot of coffee. Seventy if she was a day and built like a hunchbacked bird, she dyed her hair flame orange and applied eye make-up with a trowel.

Stan noticed how Joe slipped his scarred hand off the table and onto his lap. An automatic move. Seeing it caused something to twist inside Stan. Joe shouldn't have to hide any part of himself.

Two years now since the accident…

Accident, hell. He and Joe had called the fire an accident and stuck to the story so well that Stan caught himself every now and then believing it really was an accident. But the fire that had ruined their reputations and put them both out of business and scarred Joe for life had been no accident.

Joe hadn't been the same since then. Before the fire he'd been Joe Koz, top torch in the Northeast, maybe the whole coast, and no slouch with C-4 either. Now… well, he was damaged goods, and his ruined hand was only the visible part; he'd been damaged inside as well. He'd stopped caring. He never worked out anymore. Must have put on forty pounds while Stan had maintained his fighting weight. He was four years younger but now looked a good ten years older.

Stan looked up at Sally. "Who? This Savior guy? Why should we care?"

"We might," Joe said. "We might care a lot."

Something in his voice made Stan give his brother a closer look; he noticed that Joe's face was set in grimmer lines than usual.

"Sure you do," Sally said, refilling their cups. "Especially if they offer a reward."

"If the city doesn't," Joe said, "I just might offer one myself."

Sally laughed. "You do that, Joe. You do that."

As she moved on, Stan stared at his brother. "What's up, Joe?"

"It doesn't say nothin' in the
Times
there about the kind of gun he used to whack the crazy?"

"No."

Joe smirked. "I guess bein' a college boy has its drawbacks. Even us lowbrow dropouts hit pay dirt once in a while."

They'd had a long running rivalry about who read the better paper. Joe had never finished high school. Stan had gone to college after Nam, earned a B.A. in English from Pace, not that he ever used it. All he'd ever needed to know he'd learned in Nam.

"Get to the point."

"One of
The Light's
reporters was on that train last night—right in the car where it all went down—and he says here this Savior guy used a tiny little .45 that he pulled out of an ankle holster."

Stan went cold. The
Times
articles had said the killer had used 9mm pistols with homemade silencers but hadn't mentioned a thing about the caliber of the Savior's gun or his holster.

"That doesn't mean it's him," Stan said.

"Yeah. I bet there's fucking thousands of guys running around with teeny-tiny .45s strapped to their ankles."

For the first time in two years Stan saw that old spark in his brother's eyes. He didn't want to douse it.

"You've got a point. It could be him. But don't get your hopes up."

"
Get
them up?" Joe grinned, showing yellow teeth. He'd never been much for dentists. "They're already up—
way
up. I hope to God it's him, Stan. And I hope if he doesn't show himself they track him down and drag him into the spotlight. Because then we'll see him, and then we'll know if he's our guy, and if he is he's gonna die!"

"Easy, Joe," Stan said. "You're getting loud."

"Like I give a steaming wet brown cruller! Damn fuck right I'm getting loud!"

He held up his left hand and waved it in Stan's face. Mottled shiny pink scar tissue gleamed under the ceiling fluorescents; it enveloped his index and middle fingers, fusing them into a single digit, and it swathed his ring and pinky fingers, joining them as well. The thumb too was scarred but remained separate.

"We've got issues with this guy, Stan. Serious business issues. But for me it's personal too." He began pounding the table with his good hand. "I've been lookin' for him two years, and if this is him, he's gonna die! I'm gonna blow him off the face of the fucking earth!"

Joe's final words echoed off the hammered tin ceiling of Moishe's kosher deli where patrons and staff alike stared at him in stunned silence.

3

I'm going to have to make some assumptions here, Sandy Palmer thought as he leaned over his subway map. He sat at his cluttered desk in the front room of his apartment and traced the Broadway line through the Upper West Side.

One indisputable fact: the Savior had taken off at Seventy-second Street. But had that been his intended stop or had he been forced by the circumstances? Had he been heading home or heading to work or on his way to his girlfriend's? Trouble was, the Nine went all the way to Van Cortlandt Park up in the Bronx.

Sandy stared at the face on the Identi-Kit printout propped up against the computer screen before him. Who are you, my man? Where do you live? Where do you hang? Where do I find you?

He couldn't see much choice in where to search. He'd have to assume that the mystery man either lived on or frequented the West Side around Seventy-second Street or somewhere above that.

He leaned back and rubbed his eyes. A
lot
of territory. Millions of people.

Well, no one said fame and fortune would come easy. Good journalism sometimes required a lot of legwork. He was up for it. He just had to hope he got lucky and—

The phone rang. Oh, no. Not his mother again. He'd called his folks last night to tell them about the shooting and his story in the morning edition. Bad move. Mom had lost it, crying for him to come back home where he'd be safe; Dad had kept his composure but agreed that Sandy should come home, at least for a few days. No way. He wasn't a college kid anymore. He was twenty-six and this was where he lived and worked. The conversation hadn't ended on a happy note.

He debated letting the answering machine pick up but decided against it. He got out half a hello when a gruff voice cut him off.

"That you, Palmer?"

Sandy recognized McCann's voice. And he didn't sound happy. Oh, shit, he was going to come down on him for sneaking that photo.

"Detective," he said. "Good to hear from you."

"I thought we had an understanding about that gun, Palmer."

"What gun?"

"The second shooter's. We were gonna keep certain things out of the press."

"I haven't breathed a word about it being a Semmerling."

"Yeah but your piece mentions that he used 'a miniature .45.' That kind of narrows the field, don't it?"

Shit. He hadn't spilled that on purpose. Sandy felt like saying, I thought you didn't read
The Light
, but he wanted to keep McCann on his side. He could be a valuable resource.

"I'm sorry, Detective. I didn't know. I don't know anything about guns."

"Well, you should start learning."

"Look, I'm sorry. I'll be more careful in the future."

"See that you are."

And then he hung up, but Sandy thought he'd detected the slightest softening of the detective's tone before the connection broke. Good. He couldn't afford to burn any bridges. And McCann hadn't even mentioned the photo.

The intercom buzzed. Someone calling from the foyer. What now?

"Yeah," he said, depressing the button.

"Is this Sandy Palmer?" said a woman's voice. Young, Tentative.

"That's me. Who's this?"

"Beth Abrams. From the… the train last night?"

Oh, wow!

"Beth! Come on up!"

He buzzed her in, then surveyed his apartment. What a sty! He scrambled around picking up the dirty clothes and junk mail that littered the place. He tossed everything into the bedroom and closed the door on it. The place still looked a shambles.

Should've showered, he thought. He gave each armpit a quick sniff. Not great, but not offensive.

The printouts! Shit, he didn't want her seeing those. He slipped them into a manila envelope just as she knocked. He pulled the door open and she looked awful as she stood on the threshold, her pale face tear-streaked and shadowy half moons under her big dark eyes.

"Beth," he said. "How in the world—?"

And then she was tight against him, her arms locked around his back, sobbing her heart out. Oh, man, did that feel good. When had any woman, let alone an attractive one like Beth, thrown her arms around him? He closed the door and held her as she cried, absorbing her shaking sobs.

It took her a good ten minutes to regain control. He wished she'd taken more time. He could have stood there all day.