Gecko throws the Toyota into drive, and they catch up with the flow of vehicles. He checks the mirror for signs of pursuit. So far so good.
Terence pulls a leather wallet from his pocket and rifles through it listlessly, plucking out cash and credit cards. He unfolds a crumpled slip of paper and examines it in dismay. “Figuresâthe alarm code. If we'd had this an hour ago, nobody would have set foot on that fire escape.”
Gecko is appalled. “That's Healy's wallet? We're racing to save his life, and you're
robbing
the guy?”
Terence looks disgusted. “Fine, we'll just max his plastic with cash advances.”
“It's not enough to toss him off a building!” Gecko seethes.
“Credit card fraud, man! He won't have to pay! And we need the dollars to get out of town!”
“Who said anything about leaving?” Arjay puts in.
“Think I'm thrilled about it?” Terence retorts sourly. “I'm the only one who appreciates this place! But it's nuts to hang around the jurisdiction now.”
“We're federal prisoners,” Arjay reminds him. “The whole country is our jurisdiction. If we try to run, they'll find us. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but sooner or later.”
“You talk like we've got a choice,” Terence says bitterly.
“Healy was trying to help us,” Arjay points out. “Maybe he still will.”
“Doesn't matter!” Terence explodes. “Whatever Healy was doing, it's busted. What's the first thing he's going to say when he wakes up? âWhere are the guys?'And then a whole lot of men in blue will come knocking on our door.”
“Yeah, but Healy knows that too,” Arjay reasons. “Sure he's mad, but if he spills the beans, everything he worked for is gone. So he phones the apartment. We answer. We apologize like crazy and promise not to move a muscle until he gets home. Tomorrow morning, he gets released, and life goes on.”
Gecko stops the car in a yowl of burning rubber. The three of them stare at one another for a long moment.
Terence is the first to find his voice. “You're no murderer,” he tells Arjay. “Only an innocent man could dream up a plan like that.”
“Do you think it could work?” Gecko asks anxiously.
“Only if we all stick together,” Arjay tells him. “If one of us disappears, there'll be an investigation. Then we'll never keep tonight a secret.” He looks pointedly at the backseat passenger.
Terence sighs. “I'm in. God, I'll try anything once.”
The Camry's original parking space has already been taken, so they ditch the car in the nearest open spot. Gecko works at some of the bloodstains using a package of Wet Ones from the glove compartment, with limited success. The wreckage of the Infiniti is on his mind as he scrubs. Caught in the firestorm unleashed by that accident, there was never time to apologize for messing up a really nice car.
There's always so much to be sorry forâ¦
“We should go,” Arjay urges. “Healy could be calling any minute.”
Their building is blessedly quiet. No squad cars cordon off the block. No police line tape surrounds the upended trash cans where Healy fell. They go in the same way they went outâvia the fire escape. Arjay hauls the heavy access ladder back into place. They are covering their tracks, setting everything right again. Yet one of their number is missing in action.
The apartment is just as they've left it, yet it feels as alien as a biosphere on Mars. In their New York life, Healy was everything. Nothing can be the same without him.
The phone sits silent atop the TV cabinet next to the repaired bowling trophy. The message light is not flashing.
The waiting begins. An hour. Two hours. Three.
Arjay gets up to go to the bathroom, and his heavy footsteps jar loose the glued-on figure of the bowler, which clatters to the floor. In the four a.m. quiet, the noise is a bomb blast.
Terence jumps to his feet. “That pizza place on Third is twenty-four hours. Who's hungry?” He plucks a few bills out of Healy's wallet on the table.
“That's not your money!” Gecko tells him.
“Why do you think Healy gets those government checks?” Terence argues. “To feed us.”
The front-door alarm is the next hurdle. Arjay punches the code into the keypad. There's a beep, and the system disarms. Finally, something has gone right. It's hard to remember the last time.
“I'll be back,” Terence promises.
Gecko is not convinced, and says so.
Arjay shrugs. “He's got nowhere to go.”
Still, when the boy from Chicago returns forty minutes later, the relief in the apartment is palpable.
Terence picks up on the vibe. “You thought I was going to blow.” He sets the pizza box on the kitchen table. “Thought so myself for a while.”
The steaming pie sits untouched. Everyone is starving; no one has an appetite.
Five a.m. Gecko asks the question that's on everyone's mind. “What if Healy doesn't call?” He doesn't say what his brain won't stop screaming:
What if he's dead?
There are other possibilities. He could still be unconscious. He could have no access to a phone.
Or he could be dead. Please, God, don't let him be dead!
Arjay thinks it over. “Our plan was to act like everything's normal. That's still on.”
“You mean go to school?” Gecko asks.
Terence makes a face. “I hardly ever went to school when my old man chased me down the street with a shovel. You expect me to go
voluntarily
?”
“If we ditch, it gets reported to Ms. Vaughn,” Arjay points out. “She may be the least of our problems now, but she can still put us behind bars.”
“What about garbage picking and therapy?” Terence stares at the big boy. “Not those too?”
Arjay sucks in a deep breath. “Let's hope it doesn't come to that. For all we know, Healy's on his way home right now. But until he's back, we're obedient little robots, doing everything we're programmed to.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The students of freshman chemistry gradually get used to Gecko. Even Diego advances to the point where he can talk to his lab partner without having to physically hold down his breakfast. Gecko doesn't blame him for his meek personality. The poor kid seems to have a reputation as a target among some of the older jocks at school. He lives in constant fear of being used as a punching bag by a gaggle of Neanderthals. Small wonder he didn't jump for joy at the prospect of working alongside a Social Services case. For all he knew, Gecko would be even worse.
Gecko is sympathetic, but he's got problems of his own to worry about. Starting today, he's technically a fugitive. No Healy, no custody. From a legal standpoint, he's an escaped convict, and that changes everything. The familiar halls of Walker High suddenly seem alien. The whole city does. New York is the same, but everything is different about Gecko's place there.
“Diego,” calls the teacher. “Do me a favor? I need you to run down and ask the custodian for more paradichlorobenzene.”
Diego turns pale, and Gecko understands why. The custodian's office is by the gym, right smack in the middle of the phys ed wing. For Diego, that's like a walk through hostile territory with a bull's-eye on his forehead.
“I'll go,” Gecko volunteers. It's not as if he's learning anything today. So far, his fevered brain hasn't conjured up a single thought that isn't of Douglas Healy.
Diego regards him gratefully.
“Thanks,” the teacher tells him. “Ask for mothballs.”
“Mothballs?” Gecko repeats. “I thought you wanted paraâ” His tongue twists.
“Mothballs
are
paradichlorobenzene,” she explains.
“Typical,” Diego grumbles, making notes. “They pretend we're learning high-level science, andâ” He looks up to see his lab partner dashing out the classroom door.
Gecko has made a split-second decision. Freshman chemistry will have to wait for its paradichlorobenzene.
He's on his way to Yorkville Medical Center.
“I'm here to see my uncle,” he tells the receptionist. “Douglas Healy.”
“HealyâH-E-A?” Long fingernails click at a keyboard. “I don't see anything. Are you sure you've got the right hospital? Metropolitan and Mount Sinai aren't too far away.”
“No, definitely here.” Gecko struggles to appear calm. “Heâuhâarrived at Emergency around one a.m.”
The nails are just a blur. “It's unlikely he'd still be in the ER. What was the nature of the complaint?”
Gecko hesitates. “He wasâbleeding.”
She tries to be kind. “You're going to have to be a little more specific than that, honey.”
“His head was bleeding. He fell.”
The clicking accelerates. “Our head trauma unit is on Seven East. I don't see your uncle listed, but they could have entered his name wrongâor not at all, if he just transferred up there.”
“Thanks.”
Gecko's imagination runs wild all the way to the seventh floor. Does this mean Healy's dead? Is that why he isn't in the computer?
Nightmare scenarios roil his thoughts as he stands in a crowded waiting area between the two banks of elevators. Hospital personnel in scrubs bustle by, waving ID badges in front of door scanners. There are intercoms for visitors, but Gecko doesn't feel much like explaining his reason for being there. What can he tell themâthat he's come to see a nonexistent patient?
He ponders his options for a few precious minutes. Back at school, study hall has already begun. He's due in English in half an hour, and he still owes freshman chemistry a box of mothballs.
If I'm going to do this, it has to be nowâ¦.
An entire extended family pours out of the elevator, jabbering excitedly in a language Gecko doesn't recognize. The mom gets on the intercom, struggling to communicate in broken English.
“Slow down, ma'am,” comes the voice of the duty nurse. “Who exactly are you trying to see?”
The question only stokes the woman's agitation, accelerating her speech pattern.
“Slower, ma'am, I can't understand youâma'am?” Finally, the door buzzes open.
Gecko knows he'll never get a better chance than this. He darts over and joins the swarming family members. The door closes behind him.
I'm in!
He sticks close to the family partway down the corridor and then breaks away, peering into patient rooms.
He rushes from door to door along the hall, taking a quick inventory of the occupants.
Twenty-five minutes to English.
Even sprinting, school is a good ten minutes away.
Come on, Mr. Healy, where are you?
Dozens of rooms, four beds a pop. No sign of the group leader. There's a parallel hall on the opposite end, but the only way to get there crosses right in front of the nurses' station. Locking his eyes straight ahead, he marches past the desk and starts his reconnaissance on the other side. These rooms are smaller, with two beds in each. All are occupied, none by Healy. He works his way methodically onward, avoiding the eyes of an orderly picking up laundry.
Only four more doors. What if Healy isn't here?
Room 706. One guy is at least eighty. His roommate is Chinese.
Come onâ¦
704. At first glance, Gecko almost doesn't recognize Douglas Healy's unfeatures. His mane of sandy reddish hair is entirely concealed under thick bandages, and his face is pale gray, the pallor of death.
He's not dead, though. He's wearing an oxygen mask, there's an IV running into his arm, and a heart monitor measures his vital signs.
Dead people don't
have vital signs.
Yet he's still deeply unconscious.
Gecko slips into the room, noting that the other bed is empty. Good. That makes it easier to sneak a peek at the chart that hangs on a clipboard at the footboard. Maybe that will supply a clue about when the patient might wake up and return home.
He never gets that far. The name on the folder catches his attention and erases every other thought from his head.
Doe, John.
Healy's real name is Doe?
Then it hits him. John Doe is the name hospitals use for someone who can't be identified.
Healy had no wallet when we brought him in! They have no way to learn who he is!
He's startled by a soft voice from behind. “Do you know him?”
Gecko wheels. Standing there, bathed in sunlight from the window, is a slender blond-haired figure in a white lab coat.
A nurse?
Noâhe regards the girl in the doorway. Too young to be a nurse. She's around Gecko's age. His eyes travel to her badge:
ROXANNE FITZNER, VOLUNTEER
.
“Uhâno. I don't know him. Iâuhâjustâ” For once, Gecko wishes he had the natural dishonesty of Terence, who can always come up with a lie to suit any situation.
Luckily, Roxanne feeds him the excuse he's looking for. “Are you with the school volunteer program? You know, you're not supposed to be on a patient floor without a badge.”
“RightâuhâI wasn't sure where to check in.”
She reaches into her pocket and produces an ID tag matching her own. “Bart Cranston wimped out, gutless wonder. He says he has a cold, but the truth is he doesn't want his lacrosse buddies calling him ânursie.' The plastic opens up so you can write your name.”
Gecko takes the tag and clips it to his shirt. “Thanks.” He glances over at Healy. “What happened to this guy?”
Roxanne shakes her head sadly. “Mugged, probably. He was half naked when he turned up here. No wallet, no driver's license, deep concussion. They're not even sure he's ever going to wake up.”
Gecko feels his core body temperature drop twenty degrees. Never wake up? So they're not murderers, but this is just as bad, maybe even worse!
Roxanne picks up on his agitation. “A word of advice,” she says kindly. “Get a grip. None of these people are in the hospital because they feel great. If every sad case upsets you this much, maybe the volunteer gig isn't for you.”