“No bushes around here.”

Patch flinched. “Are too! Two blocks down!”

Jack yanked him to his feet. “Show me.”

Patch was right. Between West End and Twelfth Avenues, where Fifty-eighth Street slopes down toward the Hudson River, was a small clump of privet hedge, the kind Jack had spent many a Saturday morning as a kid trimming in front of his parents’ home in Jersey. With Patch lying face down on the pavement by his feet, Jack reached into the bushes. A little rummaging around among the gum wrappers, used tissues, decaying leaves, and other less easily identifiable refuse produced the necklace.

Jack looked at it as it gleamed dully in the glow from a nearby streetlight. I’ve done it! Goddammit, I’ve done it!

He hefted it in his palm. Heavy. Had to be uncomfortable to wear. Why did Kusum want it back so badly? As he held it in his hand he began to understand what Patch had said to him about it not feeling right. It didn’t feel right. He found it hard to describe the sensation more clearly than that.

Crazy! he thought. This thing’s nothing more than sculpted iron and a couple of topaz-like stones.

Yet he could barely resist the primitive urge to hurl the necklace across the street and run the other way.

“You gonna let me go now?” Patch said, rising to his feet. His left hand was a dusky, mottled blue now, swollen to nearly twice its normal size. He cradled it gingerly against his chest.

Jack held up the necklace. “This is what you beat up an old lady for,” he said in a low voice, feeling the rage pushing toward the surface. “She’s all busted up in a hospital bed now because you wanted to rip this off, and then you threw it away.”

“Look, man!” Patch said, pointing his good hand at Jack. “You’ve got it wrong—”

Jack saw the hand gesturing in the air two feet in front of him and the rage within him suddenly exploded outward. Without warning, he swung the sap hard against Patch’s right hand. As before, there was a crunch and a howl of pain.

As Patch sank to his knees, moaning, Jack walked past him back toward West End Avenue.

“Let’s see you roll an old lady now, tough guy.”

The darkness within him began to retreat. Without looking back, he began walking toward the more populated sections of town. The necklace tingled uncomfortably against the inside of his palm.

He wasn’t far from the hospital. He broke into a run. He wanted to be rid of the necklace as soon as possible.

20

The end was near.

Kusum had sent the private duty nurse out into the hall and now stood alone at the head of the bed holding the withered hand in his. Anger had receded, as had frustration and bitterness. Not gone, simply tucked away out of sight until they would be needed. They had been moved aside to leave a void within him.