The lid was quickly yanked open again. Jack could see that the man was holding a machine pistol in his free hand. On his head was a black knit cap.
Jack and the black man locked eyes for a moment, then the man looked toward his partner.
“It’s the doc all right,” he called out. “He’s here in a box.”
Jack was afraid to move. He heard footsteps approaching. He tried to prepare himself for Twin’s mocking smile. But Jack’s expectations weren’t met. When he looked up, it wasn’t Twin’s face he saw; it was Warren’s!
“Shit, Doc,” Warren said. “You look like you fought the Vietnam War all by yourself.”
Jack swallowed. He looked at the other man and now recognized him as one of the basketball regulars. Jack’s eyes darted back to Warren. Jack was confused, afraid this was all a hallucination.
“Come on, Doc,” Warren said, reaching a hand toward Jack. “Get the hell out of the box so we can see if the rest of you looks as bad as your face.”
Jack allowed himself to be helped to stand up. He stepped out onto the floor. He was soaking wet from the broken water pipes.
“Well, everything else looks like it’s in working order,” Warren said. “But you don’t smell great. And we’ve got to get these cuffs off.”
“How did you get here?” Jack asked, finally finding his voice.
“We drove,” Warren said. “How’d you think we got here? The subway?”
“But I expected the Black Kings,” Jack said. “A guy by the name of Twin.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, man,” Warren said. “You’ve got to settle for me.”
“I don’t understand,” Jack said.
“Twin and I made a deal,” Warren said. “We called a truce so there’d be no more brothers shooting brothers. Part of the terms were that they wouldn’t ice you. Then Twin called me and told me you were being held up here and that if I wanted to save your ass, I’d better get mine up to the mountains. So here we are: the cavalry.”
“Good Lord!” Jack said, shaking his head. It was unsettling to learn how much one’s fate was in the hands of others.
“Hey, those people back in the house don’t look so good,” Warren said. “And they smell worse than you. How’d they happen to die?”
“Influenza,” Jack said.
“No shit!” Warren said. “So it’s up here too. I heard about it on the news last night. There’s a lot of people down in the city all revved up about it.”
“And for good reason,” Jack said. “I think you’d better tell me what you’ve heard.”
EPILOGUE
NEW YORK CITY
The game to eleven was tied at ten apiece. The rules dictated a win by two, so a one-point layup wouldn’t clinch it but a long two-pointer would. This was in the back of Jack’s mind as he dribbled upcourt. He was being mercilessly hounded by an aggressive player by the name of Flash whom Jack knew was faster than he.
The competition was fierce. Players on the sidelines waiting to play were loudly supporting the other team, a sharp contrast to their typical studied indifference. The reason for the change was the fact that Jack’s team had been winning all night, mainly because Jack was teamed up with a particularly good mix of players that included Warren and Spit.
Jack normally didn’t bring the ball downcourt. That was Warren’s job. But on the previous play, to Jack’s chagrin, Flash had made a driving layup to tie the game, and after the ball had passed through the basket it had ended up in Jack’s hands. In order to get the ball downcourt as fast as possible, Spit had stepped out. When Jack gave him the ball, Spit gave it right back.
As Jack pulled up at the top of the key, Warren faked one direction and then made a rush for the basket. Jack saw this maneuver out of the corner of his eye and cocked his arm with the intent of passing the ball to Warren.
Flash anticipated the pass and dropped back in hopes of intercepting it. All at once Jack was in the clear, and he changed his mind about passing. Instead he let fly one of his normally reliable jumpers. Unfortunately the ball hit the back of the rim and bounced directly into Flash’s waiting hands.
The tide then swept back in the other direction, to the glee of the onlookers.
Flash brought the ball rapidly downcourt. Jack was intent on denying him the opportunity of repeating his driving layup, but inadvertently gave him too much room. To Jack’s surprise, since Flash was not an outside shooter, Flash pulled up and from “downtown” let fly his own jumper.
To Jack’s horror it was “nothing-but-net” as the shot passed through the basket. A cheer rose up from the sidelines. The game had been won by the underdogs.
Flash high-stepped around the court holding his arms straight and stiffly to his sides with his palms out. All his teammates slapped his palms in a congratulatory ritual, as did some of the onlookers.
Warren drifted over to Jack with a disgusted look on his face.
“You should have passed the friggin’ ball,” Warren said.
“My bad,” Jack said. He was embarrassed. He’d made three mistakes in a row.
“Shit,” Warren said. “With these new kicks of mine I didn’t think I could lose.”
Jack looked down at the spanking-new pair of Nikes Warren was referring to and then at his own scuffed and scarred Filas. “Maybe I need some new kicks myself.”
“Jack! Hey, Jack!” a female voice called out. “Hello!”
Jack looked through the chain-link fence separating the playground from the sidewalk. It was Laurie.
“Hey, kid!” Warren said to Jack. “Looks like your shortie has decided to pay the courts a visit.”
The game-winning celebration stopped. All eyes turned to Laurie. Girlfriends and wives didn’t come to the courts. Whether they weren’t inclined or whether they were actively excluded, Jack didn’t know. But the infraction of Laurie’s unexpected arrival made him feel uncomfortable. He’d always tried to play by the playground’s mostly unspoken rules.
“I think she wants to rap,” Warren said. Laurie was waving Jack over.
“I didn’t invite her,” Jack said. “We were supposed to meet later.”
“No problem,” Warren said. “She’s a looker. You must be a better lover than you are a b-ball player.”
Jack laughed in spite of himself, then walked over to Laurie. Behind him he heard the celebration recommence, and he relaxed a degree.
“Now I know the stories are all true,” Laurie said. “You really do play basketball.”
“I hope you didn’t see the last three plays,” Jack said. “You wouldn’t have guessed I played much if you had.”
“I know we weren’t supposed to meet until nine, but I couldn’t wait to talk to you,” Laurie said.
“What’s happened?” Jack asked.
“You got a call from a Nicole Marquette from the CDC,” Laurie said. “Apparently she was so disappointed not to get you that Marjorie, the operator, put her through to me. Nicole asked me to relay a message to you.”
“Well?” Jack questioned.
“The CDC is officially putting the crash vaccine program on hold,” Laurie said. “There hasn’t been a new case of the Alaska-strain influenza for two weeks. The quarantine efforts have worked. Apparently the outbreak has been contained just the way the seventy-six swine flu was.”
“That’s great news!” Jack said. Over the past week he’d been praying that this would happen, and Laurie knew it. After fifty-two cases with thirty-four deaths there had been a lull. Everyone involved was holding his breath.
“Did she offer any explanations as to why they think this has occurred?” Jack asked.
“She did,” Laurie said. “Their studies have shown that the virus is unusually unstable outside of a host. They believe that the temperature must have varied in the buried Eskimo hut and might have even approached thawing on occasion. That’s a far cry from the usual minus fifty degrees at which viruses are typically stored.”