The Juvie Three (19 page)

The elevator door opens, and there he is in the common area, listlessly watching television. The man beside him is carrying on a whispered conversation with the characters on the screen, but Healy doesn't seem to notice. Nor does he particularly seem to be paying attention to the program. His mind is exactly where his life is—in limbo. He's obviously depressed, and no wonder.

She's almost flattened by an attack of conscience. How could she be conspiring with the people who let this wonderful man rot in his confused solitude for
weeks
? She takes Gecko and his friends at their word when they say that Healy's injury was an accident. But how could they wait until now before taking action to save him?

Why am I helping these guys? Is it just because I like Gecko? Am I that shallow?

Yet, all the evidence to the contrary, she's positive that, at his core, Gecko is a good person.

Surely I can't be wrong about something that important, that basic!

Besides, how can a spoiled rich girl judge kids like Gecko, Arjay, and Terence? They've known nothing but hardship, while she's known only private schools, private clubs, private yachts, and doors that are always open because of who her father is.

“Hi, John.”

Healy looks up and beams at her. His smile seems all the brighter for how rarely it appears these days. “Hey, stranger. How's the orientation coming along?”

“Done. I'm chief psychiatrist now.”

“Don't I wish!” he exclaims. “Then you could check me out of here.”

“Well, maybe not all the way out,” she says lightly. “But how about I drag you down to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee?”

He makes a face. “The inmates are only allowed decaf here. It tastes like raw sewage.”

“Hot chocolate, then,” she coaxes. “And I'll throw in my brilliant conversation.”

He stands. “You're a lifesaver. I need to get off the planet Krypton for a while.”

The cafeteria is on the main floor at the rear of the building. Its walls are painted a deep pink.

“Research shows that this is the most restful color,” she says, plunking two steaming cups onto the table in front of them. “At least, that's what the head nurse said at orientation.”

“It looks like someone blew up a flamingo farm,” he comments cheerfully.

Roxanne notes the difference in Healy when he's removed from the atmosphere of the ward. His mood is lighter—he's almost relaxed. You can actually see his shoulders descending from up around his ears as his tension eases.

She's tense enough for the two of them. But she can't let Healy notice that. Everything has to seem normal. She sips at her drink and tries not to stare at the doorway leading into the kitchen. Behind that wall, she knows, lies another door, the one that leads to the alley—where Gecko and his friends will be waiting very soon now.

The sign on the small panel truck reads:
AJAX LINEN SERVICE
.

“It's a tight ride,” Gecko confirms as he tools the vehicle onto the uptown FDR. All rides are tight when the opportunity to drive is as rare as a Fourth of July blizzard.

“I still say we should have jacked something with a little more style,” Terence grumbles.

“We've got all the style we need,” Arjay insists. “If anybody spots us behind the hospital, we look like we're making a delivery. Let's keep our heads in the game. This is for all the marbles.”

“And for Mr. Healy,” Gecko adds, his knuckles white on the wheel.

Terence grunts, but he can't deny the truth of it. Up until now, his life has been mostly about image—acting tough, looking cool, coming off gangster. But tonight he sees that image is worth squat. When you're playing for stakes this high, only results count. If they can't make this happen, nothing else matters.

They fly up the FDR and hit the Willis Avenue Bridge doing seventy. The red brake lights come out of nowhere. Gecko stomps on the pedal and pumps the truck to a lurching stop.

Arjay is alarmed. “What's all this traffic?”

Gecko throws the gears into reverse in an attempt to back them out. Too late. A crush of vehicles has filled in the roadway behind them. They're locked into the snarl.

Crouched in the payload behind the front seat, Terence straightens up and peers over the stopped cars. Lights flash in the distance. “Accident up ahead. How long till we get through?”

“How should I know?” snaps Gecko.

“Calm down,” soothes Arjay.

But there's nothing to be calm about. They have scripted every minute detail of this operation. Except one: what if they're late for their own breakout?

“Rox!” Gecko moans in agony. According to their timetable, at exactly 9:20 she's going to bring Healy to the kitchen exit. “If she opens that door and we're not there—”

“You're the hotshot driver,” Terence exclaims. “Get us there!”

“We'll get there! We'll get there!” Arjay insists, trying to convince himself as much as the others.

“What if we can't?” Gecko demands, his voice rising.

Fifteen minutes go by. They have not moved a single inch.

“This better not be some little fender bender!” Terence seethes. “If we're going back to jail over this, I want somebody's spleen lying on the road!”

Three pairs of eyes switch from the unmoving jam to the dashboard clock: 8:40…8:50…9:00…

“We're so dead,” moans Gecko. “Poor Rox!”

“She'll be fine,” says Terence bitterly. “We're the ones who'll be taking the fall.”

“Maybe not,” breathes Arjay. “Look!”

The traffic is suddenly moving again, as if nothing ever happened.

“Floor it!” orders Terence.

Gecko is already weaving the panel truck through the gaps that are opening between cars. They pass a wrecker with a stalled SUV on its hoist, and Terence awards it an obscene gesture.

“Spleenless fool!”

“Can we make it?” asks Arjay.

In answer, Gecko wheels down avenues and side streets, running stoplights, and using the sidewalk as a passing lane.

The dashboard clock reads 9:17 as they pull up to the access lane behind Bronx County Psychiatric Hospital. The guardhouse is empty, the entrance padlocked, just as Roxanne said.

Terence heads for the rear doors, cracking his knuckles as he goes. “One open gate, coming up.”

And then a bent figure appears out of the shadows.

“Freeze!” hisses Arjay.

Barely daring to breathe, they watch as the man shuffles across the access way, shining a flashlight at the gate and the alley behind it.

“Rox didn't say anything about a night watchman,” Gecko whispers.

The clock: 9:18.

Their heartbeats seem to reverberate inside the truck. The figure ambles to the corner and disappears around the front of the building.

“Now!” Arjay rasps.

Terence is out and on the gate in a flash, his hand just a blur as he works on the lock.

9:19.

The barrier swings wide.

The linen truck enters the lane. Terence shuts the gate and jumps back inside. The three pan the rear of the building, but see nothing other than barred windows and thick stone walls.

Sweating, Gecko halts at a row of Dumpsters, and there it is—a heavy steel door with no knob on the outside.

9:20. Zero hour.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The paper is titled “Introduction to Physics—Wave/Particle Duality.” Due date—

“That's tomorrow!” exclaims Margaret Browning Fitzner.

August Fitzner looks up from his
Wall Street Journal.
“What's tomorrow?”

“This homework. Roxie needs it if she's going to school straight from Brittany's tomorrow.”

She picks up the phone, checks a list, and speed-dials. “Hello, Brittany. It's Mrs. Fitzner. Can I speak to Roxanne for a minute, please?…She
isn't
? But—”

Her husband is out of his chair and pacing. “She's not there?”

“Sorry to bother you, Brittany. I must have the wrong friend.” She hangs up and turns to her husband in alarm.

“Don't worry,” he says grimly. “I have a pretty good idea where she is.”

Deputy Chief Mike Delancey is still in the office. He normally works fairly late. But when the chief is out of town, he practically lives at One Police Plaza.

He's finally heading for the door when the call comes through from August Fitzner.

“Braxton,” Delancey calls to the sergeant, “what did I do with the file on that Gecko kid—the one who's mixed up with Augie Fitzner's daughter?”

A few minutes later, he's back at his desk, riffling through the folder. Graham Fosse. Street name—Gecko. There's his mug shot. Delancey remembers their meeting in the school, scaring the kid off—obviously not well enough.

Reaching for yet another pear from the basket on the cabinet, he scans the description of the halfway house. The kid caught a real break to get picked for something like that. Stupid of him to risk it all for a girl, even a cute one like Roxie. Too bad.

His eyes fall on the picture of Douglas Healy, who runs the home situation for Social Services. He frowns. Why does this guy look so familiar? Do I know him?

He catches sight of the bulletin board just outside his office door. The John Doe Wall of Fame, they call it. At any given time, the city has between fifty and a hundred people, living and dead, that it can't identify.

He takes a bite of the pear, and, painfully, the side of his mouth. He barely notices the taste of blood.

For there, hidden in the middle of the John Doe Wall of Fame, is Douglas Healy.

He rushes over to read the details:
John Doe #1453Y. Turned up at Yorkville Medical Center in a comatose state; acute retrograde amnesia; no measurable improvement; transferred 10/23 to Bronx County Psychiatric Hospital.

Delancey is thunderstruck. Three days ago, he was instrumental in getting Roxanne Fitzner assigned there as a volunteer.

Oh, Roxie, what have you gotten yourself into?

He reaches for the phone.

The cafeteria is open around the clock for twenty-four-hour shift workers. Besides Healy and Roxanne, the only other customer is a tired-looking nurse having a late sandwich in the far corner.

As 9:20 approaches, Roxanne's stomach churns like the rapids of the Colorado River.

Even Healy notices. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I'm fine,” she says faintly, taking a sip of her very cold hot chocolate. Her system is so upset that it's all she can do to keep it down.

“You push yourself too hard,” Healy chides her. “Between that high-powered private school and so many hours volunteering—at Yorkville they used to joke about setting up a cot for you behind the nurses' station.”

She glances at her watch. Not quite yet. They can't be seen standing around the kitchen. The timing has to be perfect.

“I mean, it's great that you care so much,” Healy continues, “but if you let yourself get so run down…”

Come on, come on, come on!
she exhorts the second hand as it creeps lazily around the dial.

“…then the next group of volunteers will have to visit
you
—are you even listening to me?”

She leaps to her feet so suddenly that her chair overturns with a clatter. “Let's go!”

“Go? Where?”

She grabs his wrist and hauls him across the cafeteria to the kitchen.

“What's going on?” he demands.

She regards him helplessly. “You'll have to trust me.”

“Trust you for
what
?”

She leads him into the kitchen, moving past dishwashers and cooks, who look up in surprise. The exit is dead ahead, at the end of a line of stainless steel refrigerators. Roxanne heads for it, dragging along a bewildered Healy. The second hand of her watch is coming around again.

9:20 on the nose.

It's now obvious to Healy that she's taking him outside. “This is crazy!”

“Whatever happens,” she quavers, “always remember that I'm your friend.” She hip-checks the security bar, and the heavy door swings wide. Arjay stands there, his hulking frame filling the opening.

“How's it going, Mr. Healy?”

With a gasp of shock, Healy pulls back, poised for flight. But Arjay is ready. He reaches out and grabs the group leader's arm before he can escape. In an instant, Terence is there, and Healy is immobilized.

A loud buzzer sounds within the building. Roxanne and the boys are startled. The kitchen staff is staring at them, but how could they have sounded the alarm so soon?

“Let's go!” hisses Arjay.

They hustle Healy out into the lane and stuff him in the back of the truck. Roxanne jumps up after him, with Arjay and Terence bringing up the rear.

Behind the wheel, Gecko looks over his shoulder. “Is that an alarm I hear?”

Healy stares at him. “Gecko?”

Arjay slams the double doors shut. “Go! Go!”

Gecko throws the truck into reverse and begins retreating up the alley. In the side mirror he sees the night watchman hustle to the gate and begin fiddling with the padlock.

Gecko leans on the horn and speeds up, but the watchman is determined to get the padlock back in place.

Swallowing hard, Gecko presses down on the accelerator. “Come on, mister, don't be a hero!”

Frantically, the man snaps the lock shut and dives clear. A split second later, the truck blasts backward out of the alley, tearing the gate clean off its moorings, and tossing it in a shower of sparks into the middle of the street.

Gecko throws the gearshift into drive and burns rubber. A new sound reaches their ears, mingling with the Klaxon from Bronx County Psychiatric—police sirens.

Three squad cars scream around the corner. The lead cruiser drives up onto the broken gate, razor wire slashing into the front tires. It spins out and stalls, front end deflated. The second swerves to avoid it and jumps the curb. The undercarriage comes down on a concrete flower box, and the vehicle is hung up there, front wheels spinning.