Never Fear (68 page)

She scanned Seventh Avenue outside,
half expecting to see it roll by. Across the street and slightly
downtown, she checked the curb in front of the O’Toole Building,
squatting at the corner of Twelfth. Its white-tiled, windowless,
monolithic facade did not fit here in Greenwich Village. It looked
as if a clumsy giant had accidentally dropped the modernistic
monstrosity on his way to someplace like Minneapolis.

No gray car, though. But with all the
gray cars in Manhattan, how could she be sure?

Her nerves were getting to her. She
was becoming paranoid.

But who could blame her after what had
been happening?

She headed back to her office. Raymond
picked her up in the hall.

“
Now
can we talk?”

“
Sorry I snapped at
you.”

“
Don’t be silly, honey.
Nobody snaps at me. Nobody
dares
.”

Alicia managed a smile.

Raymond—never “Ray,” always
“Raymond”—Denson, NP, had been one of the original caregivers at
the Center for Children with AIDS. The Center had MD’s who were
called “director” and “assistant director,” but it was this
particular nurse practitioner who ran the place. Alicia doubted the
Center would survive if he left. Raymond knew all the ins and outs
of the day-to-day functions, all the soft touches for requisitions,
knew where all the bodies were buried, so to speak. He clocked in
at around fifty, she was sure—God help you if you asked his age—but
he kept himself young looking: close-cropped hair, neat mustache,
trim, athletic body.

“
And about my beeper,” she
said, “I turned it off. Doctor Collings was covering for me. You
knew that.”

He paced her down the narrow hallway
to her office. All the walls in the Center had been hurriedly
erected, and the haste showed. Slapdash taping and spackling, and a
quick coat of bright yellow paint that was already wearing though
in places. Well, the decor was the least important thing
here.

“
I know, but this wasn’t
medical. This wasn’t even administrative. This was fucking
criminal.”

Something in Raymond’s voice… his
eyes. He was furious. But not at her. But then what?

A premonition chilled her. Were her
personal troubles going to spill over into the Center
now?

As she continued walking she noted
knots of staff—nurses, secretaries, volunteers—all with their heads
together, all talking animatedly.

All furious.

An icy gale blew through
her.

“
All right, Raymond. Lay
it on me.”

“
The toys. Some rat
bastard motherfucker stole the toys.”

Astonished, disbelieving, Alicia
stopped and stared at him. No way. This had to be some cruel, nasty
joke. But Raymond was anything but cruel.

And were those tears in the corners of
his eyes?

“
The donations? Don’t tell
me–”

But he was nodding and biting his
upper lip.

“
Aw, no.”

“
Every last
one.”

Alicia felt her throat tighten. The
toys… she and Raymond—especially Raymond—had been collecting them
for months, sending staff and volunteers to forage all through the
city for donors—companies, stores, individuals, anybody. The
response had been slow at first—who was thinking about Christmas
gifts in October? But once Thanksgiving was past, the giving had
picked up. Last night they’d had a storeroom full of dolls, trucks,
rockets, coloring books, action figures… the works.

“
How?”

“
Pried open the outer door
and took them away through the alley. Must have had some sort of
truck to hold everything.”

The ground floor of this building had
been a business supply store before being converted to the Center
for Children with AIDS. The former owners probably had loaded their
delivery trucks the same way the thieves had stolen the
gifts.

“
Isn’t that door alarmed?
Aren’t
all
the
doors alarmed?”

Raymond nodded. “Supposed to be. But
the alarm didn’t go off.”

Poor Raymond. He’d put his whole heart
into this effort.

Alicia reached her office, tossed her
bag onto her desk, and dropped into her chair. Her feet were
killing her. She closed her eyes. The day had hardly begun and she
felt exhausted. She looked up at Raymond.

“
Did anything like this
ever happen to Doctor Landis?”

He shook his head. “Never.”

“
Great. They wait until
she’s gone,
then
they strike.”

“
I think that’s all for
the best, don’t you think? I mean, considering her
condition.”

Alicia had to agree. “Yeah, I guess
you’re right.”

Dr. Rebecca Landis was the director of
the Center—at least she had the title. But she was in her third
trimester and developing pre-eclamptic symptoms. Her OB had ordered
her to stay home in bed.

This only a week after the assistant
director had left to take a position at Beth Israel, leaving the
place to be “directed” by Alicia and the other pediatric infectious
disease specialist, Ted Collings. Ted had begged off any directing
duties, claiming a wife and a new baby. And so the burden of
administrative duties had fallen on the Center’s newbie: Alicia
Clayton, MD.

“
Any chance it was an
inside job?”

“
The police are looking
into it.”

“
The police?”

“
Yes. Been here and gone.
I made out the report.”

“
Thank you, Raymond.” Good
old Raymond. She couldn’t imagine how he could be more efficient.
“What do they think about our chances of getting those toys
back?”

“
They’re going to ‘work on
it.’ But just to make sure they do, I want to call the papers. You
okay with that?”

“
Yeah, good idea. Make
this a high-profile crime. Maybe that’ll put extra pressure on the
cops.”

“
Great. I’ve already
spoken to the
Post
. The
News
and the
Times
will have people here later this morning.”

“
Oh. Well… good. You’ll
see them, okay?”

“
If you wish.”

“
I wish. Tell them it’s
not just stealing, and it’s not just stealing from little kids—it’s
stealing from kids who’ve already got less than nothing, who’re
carrying a death sentence in their bloodstreams and may not
even
be
here next
Christmas.”

“
That’s beautiful. Maybe
you should–”

“
No, please, Raymond. I
can’t.”

Feeling utterly miserable, she tuned
out for a moment.

“
What else can happen
today?” she muttered. “Bad news always comes in threes, doesn’t
it?

Raymond still hovered beyond her desk.
“Something with that ‘family matter’ you’ve been dealing with?” he
said, then added—pointedly: “All by yourself?”

He knew she’d been seeing lawyers and
been preoccupied lately, and he seemed to take it personally that
she wouldn’t discuss it with him. She felt sorry for him. He freely
discussed his personal life with her—more than a few times she’d
wanted to block her ears and say “Too much information!”—but she
couldn’t reciprocate. Her own personal life was pretty much a void,
and the disaster area that posed as her family was not something
Alicia wanted to share, even with someone as sympathetic and
non-judgmental as Raymond.

“
Yes. That ‘family
matter.’ But that’s not as important as getting those toys back. We
had a super Christmas set up for these kids and I don’t want it
going down the tubes. I want those toys back, Raymond, and
dammit—get me the Police Commissioner’s number. I’m going to call
him myself. I’m going to call him every day until those toys are
back.”

“
I’ll look it up right
now,” he said, and was gone, closing the door behind
him.

Alicia folded her arms on
the scarred top of her beat-up old desk and dropped her forehead
onto them. Everything seemed to be spinning out of control. She
felt so helpless, so damn
impotent
. Systems…always these huge,
complex, lumbering systems to deal with.

The Center’s toys were gone. She’d
have to depend on the police to get them back. But they had their
own agenda, their own higher priorities, and so she’d have to wait
until they got around to hers, if they ever did. She could call the
Commissioner until she wore out the buttons on her phone, but he’d
probably never take the call.

She pounded her fist on
the desk.
Damn
it!

“
Excuse me.”

Alicia looked up. One of the
volunteers, a pretty blonde in her early thirties, stood halfway
through the doorway, looking at her.

“
I knocked but I guess you
didn’t hear me.”

Alicia straightened and shook back her
hair. She put on her professional face.

“
Sorry. I was a million
miles away, dreaming about chasing down the rats who stole those
presents.”

The woman slipped her svelte body the
rest of the way through and shut the door behind her. Alicia wished
she had a body like that.

She’d seen her around a lot. Sometimes
she brought her daughter with her—cute little girl, maybe seven or
eight. What were their names?

“
You won’t have to go a
million miles to find them,” the woman said. “One or two should
cover it.”

“
You’re probably right,”
Alicia said.

Her name… her name… what was her
name?

Got it
. “Gia, isn’t it?”

She smiled. “Gia DiLauro.”

A dazzling smile. Alicia
wished she had a smile like that. And
Gia
… what a great name. Alicia
wished–

Enough.

“
Yes, you and your
daughter…”

“
Vicky.”

“
Right. Vicky. You donate
a lot of time here.”

Gia shrugged. “Can’t think of a place
that needs it more.”

“
You’ve got that
right.”

The Center was a black hole of
need.

“
Can I talk to you a
minute?”

She looked at Gia more closely and saw
that her eyes were red. Had she been crying?

“
Sure.” She had no time,
but this woman donated so much of hers to the Center, the least
Alicia could do was give her a few minutes. “Sit down. Are you
okay?”

“
No,” she said, gliding
into the chair. Her eyes got redder. “I’m so angry I could…I don’t
like thinking about what I’d like to do to the scum that stole
those toys.”

“
It’s okay. The police are
working on it.”

“
But you’re not holding
your breath, right?”

Alicia shrugged and sighed. “No. I
guess not. But they’re all we’ve got.”

“
Not
necessarily.”

Alicia looked at her. “What do you
mean?”

She leaned forward and lowered her
voice. “I know someone…”

Chapter 2

As Jack scrolled through the messages
left on the Repairman Jack website, he kept an eye on the TV
screen, looking for Dwight Frye.

He was celebrating his
discovery of the 1931 version of the
Maltese Falcon
with a Dwight Frye
film festival. He had the film running in the front room of his
apartment now. Frye played the role of Wilmer Cook in this one, and
for Jack’s money, he out-psychoed Elisha Cook’s portrayal in the
later John Huston version. But Ricardo Cortez was onscreen now, and
he wasn’t such a hot Sam Spade.

Back to the internet.

Most of the questions on Jack’s home
page were about refrigerators and microwaves, which he didn’t mind.
Surfers who stumbled onto his page thought he was some sort of
appliance answerman. Fine. After no replies to their questions,
they’d delete his URL from their bookmarks.

But this one…from a guy named
“Jorge.”

I BEEN RIPPED OFF. CAN’T
GET MONEY OWED TO ME FOR WORK I DO. CAN’T GO ANYWHERE ELSE. CAN YOU
FIX?

Yeah. That sounded like
business.

Jack typed in a reply to Jorge’s email
address:

Send me your phone #. I’ll
be in touch—RJ

He’d call the guy and see what this
was about. If he was having trouble with his bookie, tough. But
he’d said it was money he’d “earned.” So maybe Jorge was a
potential customer.

The phone rang but Jack
let the machine pick up. He heard his outgoing message…
“Pinocchio Productions—I’m out at the moment.
Leave a message after the beep”
…
then:

“
Jack, this is Dad. Are
you there?”