“That’s lunch. It’ll be a while before we get to the unit.” Ted opened his own pack of cheese and crackers, placed two complete cracker sandwiches together into his mouth and bit down. After a couple of chews, he opened his own Diet Coke and took a slurp.
She looked across at the two men sitting on the bench seat facing the one upon which she and Ted sat. “Where are you taking me?”
“Old Overcoat Unit,” said the tall dark one. He was rugged looking with an easy smile and wearing black denims, white Air Jordans, and a Mets cap. His name tag identified him as Luther James.
“I didn’t know anything about any move. No one told me. My attorney didn’t say anything about moving me elsewhere.”
“Nobody knew, ‘cept the unit,” answered Luther. “In a few minutes somebody from the rehab will announce your treatment won’t be taking place at New Beginnings.”
“Where?” she demanded.
“At an undisclosed location,” said Ted. “No media, no visitors, no interviews, no calls, no complications.”
“You get to concentrate on your recovery,” added Luther.
“I have to be able to talk with my attorney,” said Kimberli. “There are legal matters, court, business—”
“Frito?” said Luther to the fellow sitting next to him.
Dark brown complexioned, black hair, dead black eyes, the man called Frito had a thick ropy scar on his left cheek that went from his eye almost to his chin. He wore a black knit cap down to his eyebrows that covered his ears and he had a simple gold ring dangling from the left corner of his mouth. His nametag said his name was Alfred Tomas.
Slowly Frito reached to his side and picked up a red backpack. Taking a manila folder from the bag, he held it up and wiggled it. “You signed the papers, Kimberli. We got you for three weeks—”
“I’m paying for this,” she snapped. “I can leave—”
“No, you’re not paying for this,” Ted interrupted quietly. He held up another pack of crackers. “Want some more?”
“What do you mean I’m not paying for this?”
“We are.” Ted nodded toward Luther and Frito. “All of us. The members of the Old Overcoat Unit. We’re paying for your treatment. You only have to pay if you don’t complete treatment.”
“In any case,” said Frito leaning forward, his elbows resting on his thighs, “We got you for three weeks. You going to detox and maybe get a new start.”
“This is not what I agreed to,” she protested angrily.
Frito grinned widely and tapped the file folder. “Want to read your copy?”
Luther leaned forward and handed Kimberli a couple pieces of facial tissue. After a chilly stare, she took them. The muscles in her cheeks flexed. “I’m a prisoner?” she said at last. “Is that it?” She looked at Luther. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his denims and slouched back against the wall of the ambulance.
“You are definitely a prisoner, Kimberli. And the first step in escaping from a prison is—” He arched his brows and looked at his two companions.
“—To accept that one is in a prison,” they replied in unison.
“Why ... that’s just stupid,” said Kimberli. “That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“Give it time,” said Frito. “It’s going to sound real smart in a few days.”
An icy night wind came up Sixth Avenue driving tiny sharp particles of snow before it. Cheri Trace waited for the light to change, one hand making certain the wind left her cute white beret on her head. She was wearing a white coat over a wine-colored top and dark slacks as she stood looking across the street at the naked trees in Bryant Park. Once the light changed she crossed almost at a run, her cheeks burning from the cold. Hardly anyone in the park. Cuff was doing business beneath Luther’s old tree and not looking well. Very thin. Two diehard joggers in sweats with towels over their heads rounded the corner from Sixth and continued down West Forty-second. Cheri got on the path that put the trees between the street and her, the rows of chairs getting just a dusting of white.
A fellow collecting newspapers to pack in his clothes for insulation, the sharp laugh of a working girl as she pulled at her john’s arm. There was a well-dressed man in a blue pin-striped suit sitting in a loveseat, his overcoat wrapped around what looked to be a child of about seven or eight. Cheri tried to feel fear or wonder at the man’s manifestation. It was, without a doubt, Jack Fallon. She looked at the child wrapped in the Monopoly Man’s overcoat. A girl. Cheri smiled, thinking of what Luther must have looked like at seven, lost in that overcoat.
“How are you doing, Jack?” Cheri asked.
“Hello, Cheri,” he said without looking up from the girl’s dark innocent face. “You’re looking well.”
“I am well.” Cheri sat in the chair to the man’s right. “We’ve got her in treatment, Jack. Kimberli’s in the middle of detox. The media thinks it’s a big laugh and the paparazzi are going crazy trying to find out where she is.”
His eyes closed for a moment, then they opened. “How is she doing?”
“She’s having a rough time. She’s out of stuff, thinks she has all the answers, wants her own way, and right now that means getting some heavy medication and getting the hell out of treatment.” Cheri smiled sadly. “She’s refused medication for withdrawal because, in her opinion, she doesn’t have a drug problem.”
“Is she in a lot of pain?”
“Yes and getting worse by the minute. You got a tough girl there, Jack. It’s going to take her a while to realize her pain is self-inflicted. We have her at least for two and a half more weeks.”
“Cheri, is that going to be long enough?”
“Maybe. Pain is the teacher we listen to. Maybe not.” Cheri smiled and bundled herself more deeply into her coat. “Kim’s in a good group, Jack. Luther’s assistant counselor, Ted and Frito are interns, and the rest of the group are made out of return visitors and new patients you know.” She looked down at the sleeping girl. “Everyone in the group slept where she’s sleeping.”
“And you’re the group counselor.”
Cheri nodded. “Jack, I came here to tell you something. You’ve done all you can do for Kimberli. It’s up to her now. Even if she completes treatment and makes a good try at staying clean, it won’t be easy. The media will never leave her alone, they’ll never regard anything she says or does to aid her sobriety as sincere, and any Twelve Step meetings that she attends are going to have anonymity tested like nobody’s business. If she wants it, though, she can have it.”
“And?” he prompted.
She glanced at him. “Jack, if you want, you can rest now.”
The apparition stared into the distance for a moment, then smiled at Cheri. “I don’t need rest. Besides, I’ve got to watch over my fortune.” He nodded toward the girl wrapped in his overcoat. “My daughter’s name is Sabrina. She’s had a remarkably tiring day and she wanted to rest for a bit. I don’t have the heart to wake her.”
Cheri stared at Jack Fallon and the charge he had taken on. Everyone knows you get to pick your own Hell. What only a few lucky ones get to find out is that you get to pick your own Heaven, too. “Then you have a good visit in the city, sir,” said Cheri.
“Thank you officer,” answered Jack with a grin.
They sat that way on the chairs in the falling snow for several moments when a sleepy voice asked quietly from the depths of the overcoat, “Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine,” answered Jack.
“Is your fortune safe?”
“For now.” He patted the girl’s shoulder. “For now.”
Cheri placed her hand on the ghost’s arm and was not surprised to find it warm.