I sipped the coffee. “Something’s off about it.”

“About the hit-and-run?”

“Yeah.”

“The News says young Colby narrowly escaped death. Do you have any reason to think somebody targeted him for a kill? Are you thinking you may have a well-heeled client on the hook? You’re not usually one for ambulance chasing.”

“Maybe I’m Ferrari chasing.”

The big brown eyes narrowed. “You know, Mike—Mr. Wall Street Hotshot’s reputation is pretty darn stellar. Colby is generally thought, around town, to be a good guy. Attends, and even occasionally throws, charity events. That AIDS benefit on Broadway last month? That was him.”

I sighed. Shook my head. “Truth, kitten? Something about that accident stinks. It had a staged look, a phony feel.”

She turned her head and looked at me sideways. “You mean faked?”

“I don’t know what I mean, frankly. He got hit all right, and his two Wall Street cronies hauled him off to the hospital. Maybe staged in the sense that it was no hit-and-run accident, but a murder attempt. I told you Casey Shannon mentioned two suspicious deaths Colby was at least on the fringes of.”

“And you think Shannon may’ve been investigating him, related to one or more of those deaths? Fine. So talk to Shannon.”

I shook my head. “If he’s working under deep cover for somebody over Pat’s head, Casey won’t give me a glimmer. Or if it’s personal, he’ll keep that close to his vest. No, I think the one to talk to is Vincent Colby.”

That widened her eyes. “If he’s up to having visitors.”

“If he isn’t,” I said, getting to my feet, “I’ll talk to his doctors. If he’s suffered some injuries, then maybe I’m all wet about that thing being staged. And he may need help at that.”

I was in my hat and coat at the door when she called out to me, still at her desk.

“Thanks for dropping by,” she said.

* * *

I had been to Bellevue Hospital many times, but never—as some might imagine—so I could be admitted to the mental ward. Still, you could go mad in certain quarters of the place. You could get spit on by prisoners in cuffs and orange jammies as you passed by, and you could pause to watch a dope addict slug a doc and make a break for it while nurses and guards hustled after him to save their jobs. You could glance through doors into featureless rooms where the homeless had finally found a place to die, or others where addicts were shrieking and writhing. Down the hall, an undocumented Haitian might be dying of AIDS, looking like something out of a zombie flick. Yes, you could drive yourself stark staring nuts without trying at all in the lower reaches of the city’s flagship hospital.

But I was not in a circle of hospital hell on this visit. I was headed to an upper floor in a wing funded by the likes of Vincent Colby’s family. I’d stopped in the First Avenue lobby at the information desk to pick up a visitor’s pass. I described myself as a friend and that’s all it took. Visiting hours were eight to eight, and it was just after nine a.m. now.