Gia slammed the receiver down. What was she going to do? She was frantic. What was wrong at Jack’s? Had he left the phone off the hook or had it been knocked off?

She ran back to the bedroom and jammed her legs into a pair of jeans and pulled on a blouse without removing her pajamas. She had to find Jack. If he wasn’t at his apartment, maybe he was at Abe’s store—she was pretty sure she remembered where that was. She hoped she could remember. Her thoughts were so jumbled. All she could think of was Vicky.

Vicky, Vicky, where are you?

But how to get to Jack’s… that was the problem. Finding a cab would be virtually impossible at this hour, and the subway, even if she could find a stop nearby, could be deadly to a woman alone.

The Honda keys she had seen earlier! Where had they been? She had been cleaning in the kitchen…

She ran over to the flatware drawer and pulled it open. There they were. She snatched them up and ran out into the hall. She checked the apartment number on the door: 1203. Now if only the car was here. The elevator took her straight down to the first floor and she hurried out into the parking lot. On the way in this afternoon she had seen numbers on the asphalt by each parking space.

Please let it be here! she said to God, to fate, to whatever was in charge of human events. Is anybody in charge? asked a small voice in the back of her mind.

She followed the numbers from the 800’s up to the 1100’s, and there up ahead, crouched like a laboratory mouse waiting timidly for the next injection, sat a white Honda Civic.

Please be 1203! Please!

It had to be.

It was.

Almost giddy with relief, she unlocked the door and slid into the driver’s seat. The standard shift on the floor gave her a moment’s pause, but she had driven her father’s old Ford pickup enough miles in Iowa as a teenager. She hoped it was something you never forgot, like riding a bike.

The engine refused to start until she found the manual choke, then it sputtered to life. She stalled twice backing out of the parking space, but once she got it rolling forward, she had little trouble.

She didn’t know Queens but knew the general direction she wanted to go. She worked her way toward the East River until she saw a “To Manhattan” sign and followed the arrow. When the Queensboro Bridge loomed into view, she slammed the gas pedal to the floor. She had been driving tentatively until now, reining her emotions, clutching the wheel with white-knuckled intensity, wary of missing a crucial turn. But with her destination in sight, she began to cry.

24

Abe’s dark blue panel truck was parked outside the Isher Sports Shop. The iron gate had been rolled back. At Jack’s knock, the door opened immediately. Abe’s white shirt was wrinkled and his jowls were stubbly. For the first time in Jack’s memory, he wasn’t wearing his black tie.