“But with Mike—”
“Not with Mike,” Scully said. “I’ve got to do something about him, too.”
My heart was racing and my head pounding. “Together, though, right? He and I will be together?”
“For tonight, yes.”
“Look, Commissioner,” I said. “I’ll do anything you want me to do, as long as you don’t cut me off from the people I need.”
“The first thing you’re going to do for me is call your parents,” he said. “They’re in the Caribbean?”
“Yes.” They had retired there several years ago, and now I was especially glad they were on an island at a distant remove from my work.
“Reassure them that you’re fine and that I just need to send you underground for a few days.”
“I don’t have a phone,” I said, pointing at the nurse with the needle. “I need Mike.”
“Use mine,” Scully said, pulling it out of the breast pocket of his suit.
“They’ll freak out if that’s the message,” I said, trying to think of something else to say to my family.
“Suit yourself. I’ll get on the phone with them myself if that helps.”
“It won’t. It might even make matters worse.”
Once a marine, always a marine. Scully’s armor didn’t crack. “Then you’ll call Catherine Dashfer. Tell her the same thing,” he said. “Need-to-know basis only, among your office buddies, but assure her that you’re fine. Tell her the explosions scared you.”
This was going in a dark direction. Whatever the newly improvised plan was, I knew I wasn’t going to like it.
Mike was walking toward us, rolling down his sleeve and buttoning his shirt at the wrist. He stopped three feet away and just stared at Scully and me.
“Where are we going, Commissioner?” I asked.
I’d known Keith Scully for so long, before he had rocketed to the top of the department, that I usually called him by his first name. When he went into full commando mode, I used his title.
He reached for my arm again, but I pulled back.
“Three Sisters Hospital, in Westchester,” he said. “Just for a night or two.”
“A psych ward? A psych ward run by nuns?” I said, putting my finger between my teeth to stop myself from screaming at the police commissioner. “It’s not me who’s crazy this time.”
“It’s not about crazy, Alex. It’s about safe.”
“I’ve been there, Commissioner,” I said, practically foaming at the mouth. “We had to put one of my witnesses in Three Sisters when she had a breakdown. It’s a nuthouse, with padded walls and wrist restraints.”
“I’m not committing you, Alex,” Scully said, laughing at me. “I should have made that clear.”
“Make it clear to my family and friends, then, will you?” I asked. “When people find out about this—when some rag reporter figures out that’s where you’ve warehoused me for the weekend and the story goes viral—the lede in the papers will be that I’ve lost it.”
“If you calm down and let me finish, Alex—”
“Finish what?” I asked, motioning to Mike. “You’ve got to hear this, Mike. The commissioner thinks I should be at Three Sisters. He thinks—”
Scully lifted his hand like it was a stop sign and Mike didn’t move.
“The plan is, Alex, that an hour from now—after you’ve settled down and had a chance to make your calls—you’ll leave this hospital.”
“With Mike, right?” I said, my eyes darting back and forth between Scully’s face and Mike’s.
“Yes, with Mike.”
I inhaled and exhaled slowly. “Okay. What else?”
“There’ll be a van waiting outside the hospital, by the driveway on Seventieth Street.”
“The rear door,” I said.
“Yes,” Scully said. “You’ll be wheeled out on a gurney and—”
“I’m fine, Keith. I really am.” He was my friend at this moment, not the commissioner. I knew he’d respond to me if I leaned on our old relationship. “No gurney.”
“I know you’re fine, Alex. I counted on that,” he said.
This time he took hold of me by both arms and stopped my fidgeting with his tight grip.
“What then?”
“You’ll be on a gurney, wheeled out to the van,” Scully said. “It’s the medical examiner’s morgue van, Alex.”
I shuddered and twitched, but Scully kept his hands on me.
“I don’t want people to think you’re crazy, Alex. I want them to think you’re dead.”
THIRTY-ONE
“What does one wear to one’s own autopsy?” I asked. “Are they letting me keep my clothes on for the ride downtown?”
Mike and I were sitting in an empty hospital administration office about one hundred yards down the hallway from the ER.
“You’re doing well, kid. You took it like a champ.”
“Remind me what choice I had,” I said.
We had made the calls to my parents, both brothers, Catherine—and I threw in my two best friends, Joan and Nina, as well. No details offered.
“Vickee’s meeting Mercer at your apartment,” Mike said. “She’ll pack up what you need for the next few days.”
“How about your stuff?”
“They’ll get that, too.”
“I’m not going out in a body bag,” I said. “I can’t cope with that.”
“Scully knows. You’ll be under a sheet.”
“Is there press outside?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, but with the commissioner’s car here, I’m guessing he wants someone to notice.”
It was almost one in the morning when Scully came inside to tell me that an unidentified woman had expired just minutes earlier.
“That’s me? Unidentified?”
“For the time being,” Scully said. “The story we’re giving out is that an unidentified woman—burned beyond recognition—was collateral damage in the Upper East Side explosion. Possibly homeless, because she was in the middle of the street. Not inside the car.”
“A bag lady, Coop. Suits you to a tee.”
“That way,” Scully said, “we can vamp about how long it’s going to take to get a match to her DNA if she’s not known to us.”
“But the bad guys,” I said. “What will they think?”
The police commissioner hesitated. “They might hope you’re the dead woman, or they might think the bikers screwed up. If it keeps them from looking for you for a few days, I’ll breathe more easily.”
“So will I.”
“Take off your shoes, Alex,” Scully said. “I’ll have the nurses put them in a bag. The shoe shapes would be obvious under the sheet. And when I leave the room, strip down to your underwear, okay?”
“But there’s a sheet,” I said. “Isn’t that enough?”
“There’ll be two sheets, in fact, just to be safe. You’ll just need to hold your breath for thirty seconds while they roll the gurney out to the van.”
“Promise me one thing,” I said. “Tell me it’s not the van they transported the district attorney in, is it?”
“Get real, Coop,” Mike said. “What’s the difference?”
“It spooks me.”
“I’ll be with you,” he said.
“That spooks me, too.”