Dank subterranean wind, rushing up the tunnel, chilled her hands. She stuffed them in the pockets of her silk blazer and climbed on the near-empty train.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Zoe dressed in an Anna Sui for work, floaty and fragile, a perfect dress for injured innocence. She went into her office and found Nosy sitting in her chair. Act as if nothing has changed, Mendlen had told her. Fine. Nosy couldn't see her clenched fists, or the marks her nails were leaving in her palms. "I'm going over to the Flatbush plant," Zoe said. Then she turned on her heel and left.
She spent the day arranging to put the Chelsea place on the market. Mendlen said that would be okay, if she handled the transaction discreetly. She didn't tell him she planned to use the money to send her mother to Jerusalem. Zoe packed some clothes in Chelsea and went back to Jokertown.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
"It's cancer. In three of the breasts." Three of the breasts, Zoe's mom said, not three of my breasts. "I'll get to get rid of them, after all these years."
"When is the surgery?" Zoe asked.
"As soon as they can schedule the OR, Zoe. The Jokertown clinic is always so busy. Two or three days, Dr. Finn said. They're going to take six off then, and later another six. Too much trauma for one surgery, they said. Then I'll be on chemotherapy."
"I'll start dinner," Zoe said.
"Nonsense. I don't feel any different than I ever did." Anne got up from the kitchen table and began to bustle, but Bjorn padded around and set out knives and forks and plates, not typical behavior for him at all, while Zoe chopped the vegetables Anne pulled out of the fridge. "How did your meeting with your lawyer go?" Anne asked.
"The grand jury hearing is scheduled in three weeks," Zoe said. "Nothing to worry about until then." Except you need to have your surgery in Jerusalem, momma, not in Jokertown. If the "Biological Research Units" start accepting "patients," you might be forced to go there, and that cannot happen. Zoe reached for an onion and sliced it. "Damned onion juice," she said, and Bjorn and Anne pretended to ignore her tears.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
At four in the morning, she gave up on sleep. She tiptoed into the hall and stood at her parent's doorway, as if she were a three-year-old with a nightmare. She wasn't three years old anymore. She was thirty-four, and she couldn't climb in bed with them and say she was scared. They slept. Bjorn snored, with vigor and industry. Anne shifted and rolled over, but she sighed and didn't wake. Cancer. Biological Research Units. Rumors of a conspiracy determined to cleanse the world of the wild card. She remembered Hartmann's utter conviction, his intent, pleading gaze. She remembered old textbook photos, Jewish prisoners after the war, the ones still alive, who looked into the cameras with terrifying, terrible eyes.
Never again.
Not here. Not to those kids who live in the street, not to my family.
It's time to change things. It's time to do something, even if it's wrong.
Zoe tiptoed back to her room. She changed into jeans and scuffed high-tops and a nylon windbreaker. She pulled on a knit cap, stuffed her tawny curls underneath it, and went out into Jokertown, into the dark and the noise.
"Lookin' chill, Zoe lady. Think you fool us?"
Needles carried his camcorder in the front of his jacket as if it were an infant.
"Had to try, didn't I?" Zoe asked. "I thought you guys watched everything around here. Where were you when I came in this afternoon, Escorts?"
Jellyhead danced a quick end-zone dance and slipped her hand into Zoe's. "Sleepin'," Needles said. "Bad night last night. Can't take you home, though. You already there."
"I had to get loose for a while. Where's Jube?"
"Where's our twenty?" one of the Jimmies asked.
"Oh. I almost forgot." She handed it to him. He looked like a gangly nat adolescent, pretty much. His eyebrows were downy. So were his ears, she saw as he moved in to spirit away the twenty; faint peachfuzz feathers, still colorless, were just growing in. He was going to look very like an owl.
"No Jube. Can't touch that dude, for a time. Maybe you stay home. Best place. Best place in Jokertown tonight, you got a door to lock."
This Jimmy had stripes on his skin. Pale, but they looked like some sort of tropical fish. An angelfish.
"Oh." She'd been counting on Jube, his rotund stability. She wanted a buffer to guard her from the wall of deceit and decency at home. "I really wanted to talk to him."
"Talk to us." Jellyhead had nuzzled up close to Zoe's side.
"Ah, shut it, Jellyhead. We got the bucks, and I'm hungry." That was the tiniest one, Jan.
They hadn't stopped moving. They danced their circle around her, and she saw they had herded her down a street where a neon sign jittered and blinked out the word Diner.
"So am I," Zoe said. It was another fib.
The countertop was orange formica, the stools were covered in cracked yellow vinyl, the general effect was gloomy, and the man behind the counter looked like Humphrey Bogart.
"The usual?" he asked.
"Sack full," Needles said. "Extra catsup?"
"Don't got any." Moby's eyes were on Zoe.
"She's ours," Needles said. "She's ours."
"Looks like a fucking social worker," the man said, but he turned to his grill and laid out burgers.
"We don't sit down?" Zoe asked.
"Can't watch from in here," Needles said. "We got to cover our territory, you know?"
Zoe nodded. Needles and Jellyhead were beside her. The other three had vanished again. And Needles didn't have the camcorder; he must have passed it to one of the others on his way in. Damn, these kids were quick.
Needles took the grease-stained bag and the man gave back some change. And then the kids were herding her down the street again, twisting and zigzagging, until they turned into an alley. Concrete blocks stacked in triangles supported a lean-to of steel roofing. The interior space was a dark maze of nests of wadded clothing and smelled of old grease and sad child. The huddle was four feet high. Zoe crawled in beside the Escorts, sat down, and pulled up her knees to give Jellyhead, who shoved at her gently, room to get out again.
Jan sat down next to Zoe. Needles portioned out the burgers and fries. "No," Zoe said when he tried to hand her one. "No, I can't."
Jan gulped down half a burger at a bite.
"Hey, bitch. Too good for our food, are you? No way we shoulda brought you here. Maybe you best get out, now." Needles sliced at the air in front of her nose. "Go on! Get clear, fancy lady! We move this place, when we need to. You won't find it again, hear?"
"Needles! Don't, please. Not you, too."
This was too much. Even this pathetic refuge was closing to her. Zoe rested her forehead on her knees, utterly defeated.
"Got troubles, lady?" Jan asked.
"Not like yours," Zoe whispered.
"Whatsa matter?" Needles asked. "You lose your rich-bitch job or something?"
"Yeah." She snapped at him, too angry to hide the pain in her voice. She had no reason to hide pain from such as these. "An old buddy of mine decided he hated my wild card ass. And he's framed me with embezzlement."
"Whoa!" Needles said. "You like a fugitive or something?" His claws flashed in the air, moving around his face as if to guard it.
"The cops don't have a warrant, if that's what you mean."
"She hurting, Needles. You let her talk." Jan patted her knee. Jan looked like a normal, though thin, little sparrow of a girl, except for her eyes. Her irises rearranged themselves, constantly, like miniature kaleidoscopes.
"The job is nothing. My mom's got cancer. She's so good! Good people shouldn't get cancer."