The light was dim and it took a moment to adjust but the face looking down at him with a half-smile was not Charlie's. But it was a familiar face…from a dream or the here and now?
"Tran?" he said.
Tran Do Vinh, a former schoolteacher, Vietcong leader, and current head of a Vietnamese tong, or crime syndicate, smiled more broadly. "Em vui ve gap lai," he said.
"It is good to see you, too," Jojola said, then winced as someone on his other side stuck him with a needle.
"Penicillin," Tran explained quietly. "Dr. Bao Le, who sometimes accompanies me and my men on these little excursions, believes your fever is due to an infected bite wound on your shoulder. You apparently ignored the Do Not Feed the Animals signs." He laughed, as did the two armed Vietnamese men-one young, one middle-aged-standing guard at the entrance to the alcove.
"You should feel better quickly," the doctor added.
Jojola looked at the young man's face. "Aren't you…," he began to ask.
"Yes, the son of my cousin, Thien, who you may remember from the restaurant-supply store beneath the Karps' residence," Tran answered. "Alas, after our last little adventure together, we felt it necessary to remove our 'operations' so as not to compromise Mr. Karp's duty to uphold the law. But we are still watching out for them, which is how Lucy contacted me."
"Lucy?"
"Yes, the indomitable Lucy Karp became worried when you did not return-apparently with good reason, though she waited almost too long-and she sent me to find you. Fortunately that is not as difficult as it might have been. In the past, we have had dealings with the Mole People; they need such things as medical supplies and clothing, and we find them to be useful for spying on our 'competitors,' as well as the police. We've lost contact since Grale was killed-"
"He's alive," Jojola interrupted.
"What?"
"Yes, he's giving Mass in the big tunnel."
Tran made a motion with his head to one of his men standing guard in the opening to the alcove. The man ran off.
"Hmmm…well, then, I guess more accurately since Grale was wounded, they've grown more secretive. We haven't been welcome down-world, as they like to call this place, but at least we had a good idea where to look."
Tran's man came back and nodded. "He's giving communion but it may not last much longer."
"Yes," Tran said. "We should be going if you're up for it."
"I'm ready," Jojola said. His head felt light and the wound still throbbed, but just the idea of escaping the dark invigorated him. And there was the little matter of…
"There's a bomb set to go off below Times Square tonight," Jojola said.
Tran furrowed his brow as Jojola explained. Helping Jojola to his feet, the bandit chief said, "I don't have the men with me to take on these terrorists, just these two. All the more reason for us to leave this place."
They started to leave when Jojola turned back. "My knife," he said and retrieved the blade from a box in the corner along with his night-vision goggles. He'd turned back around and was looking at Tran's back when one of the other men returned and said, "Cop, the ceremony is over. We must hurry."
Both Jojola and Tran had frozen at the use of the nickname. "Cop…," Jojola repeated it as if he'd just been informed of the death of a child. "I thought I recognized your face last summer…I just couldn't place it. You killed those Hmong villagers and my best friend." He slid the knife from its sheath. "I am sworn to kill you."
Tran didn't turn around. "You are wrong, but this isn't the time or place to debate with you. Kill me, my men will kill you, and this bomb will kill many thousands more. Or leave it until another day. Which will it be?"
Jojola felt the weight of the heavy knife in his hand. He imagined sinking the long blade into the kidney of his old enemy and cutting through his spine to the other kidney. "We leave it for another day."
Tran nodded and headed out of the entrance. Jojola followed, stepping over the body of Roger, who he supposed had been left to guard him. He hoped the Vietnamese had not killed him-his guide had not been a bad man-and took it as a good sign that there was no evidence of blood.
They fled down the tunnel until they reached a ladder that led down into a sewer. There they splashed on for a block before reaching another ladder down which light streamed. Another Vietnamese man waited for them at the bottom of the ladder. He quickly handed them all workman's coveralls and orange hard hats with New York Street Department stenciled on the side.
"Can you climb?" Tran asked after they got into the clothes.
"I could fly if it meant reaching the sun," Jojola said.
They emerged from a manhole in the middle of a street around which a crew of Vietnamese "workmen" had erected a traffic barrier. A white van roared up and its side door slid open. They scrambled in and the van took off, only to screech to a halt again, having very nearly struck a young black man crossing the street.
"What the fuck, dawg! I'm walking here," the young man yelled, then continued on his way without looking back.
Jojola looked at the street signs on the corner. West Forty-fourth Street and Sixth Avenue. The van then lurched forward; at Fifth Avenue it turned south.
A block away, Khalif carefully moved down the sidewalk, ready to duck into a store entrance or behind some other pedestrian in case Rashad turned around. He'd just about given himself away shouting out a warning as his friend stepped out in front of the white van. But the screeching of the car's tires and the honk of an irritated cabbie who'd also had to pull up short covered his voice.
A half hour earlier, he'd been at the basketball courts, playing H-O-R-S-E with the Karp twins when Rashad entered the gate and said he wanted to talk. "Away from these two," he'd said, indicating the boys.
When they were out of earshot, Rashad hugged his friend. It was a long hug, accented by strong slaps to Khalif's back.
"What was that for?" Khalif said with a grin. It had been a while since they'd talked much. Rashad was always off with his new friends-Khalif assumed that meant the Arabs-and his anti-American rhetoric had grown until Khalif wasn't comfortable around him anymore. But he still loved Rashad like a brother and was hoping the hug was a sign of a thaw in their relationship.
"Just…just that I'm going away for a while," Rashad said, his voice hitching a little. "And I just wanted to say I love you, man. Whatever happens, I wanted you to know that."
"Now hold on, dawg, you're scaring me," Khalif said. "What do you mean you're going away? And what's this shit about whatever happens? Are you in trouble?"
Rashad shook his head. "No, not anymore," he said. "My trouble, our trouble, is behind us. There ain't nothin' I can do to change the past, but there is something I can do to change the future."
"What in the hell are you talking about, homes?"
"I can't talk about it. At least not now, maybe someday. I got to go, but I just wanted to say…later, my man."
Rashad left the court and began walking north up Sixth Avenue. As Khalif watched him go, the twins came up.
"Is everything all right?" Giancarlo asked.
At first Khalif didn't answer. Then he shook his head. "I don't think so, G-man," he said. "I know that man better than I know myself. He just told me good-bye-like a forever good-bye-and I don't know why but it scares me." He was quiet again, then turned to the boys.
"Sorry, homies, I got to find out what he's up to. I'll catch you on the flip-flop."
Khalif had followed Rashad all the way up Sixth Avenue to Forty-fifth Street and then west across Seventh Avenue at Times Square.