Текст книги "Lost"

Автор книги: Chris Jordan

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“Don’t you need to sleep, too?”

“No,” he says, as if taken aback. “Oddly enough, I don’t. Not when a case is active.”

I stare at the guy, forcing him to look at me with his pale blue eyes. And notice, for the first time, evidence of something he’s hiding. Something he keeps dark and deep and does not want to share.

“It’s a form of stress-induced insomnia,” he explains, studying the saltshaker. “I’ve been the subject of at least two papers on sleep disorder.”

“You’re serious,” I say, astonished.

He shrugs his big shoulders, trying to make light of it. “I’ve learned to live with it. To use it to my advantage.”

By way of ending the conversation, obviously very uncomfortable for him, he waves the waitress over. She’s been hovering at a polite range, waiting for him to beckon.

“Yes?” she asks brightly, basking in his presence. “Anything else? More coffee?”

“Ice cream,” he says. “Vanilla, one scoop.”

“Apple pie under that? It’s good here.”

“I’ll try it next time,” he promises. “Dessert for you, miss?”

I shake my head, staring at him. “At this hour? Ice cream?” “We all scream for ice cream,” Shane says without a trace of irony.

22. Her Own Personal Black Hole

A liter water bottle, a bucket, a lamp. These items have become the center of her universe. The bottle for hoarding and drinking. The bucket for bathroom business. And most precious, a small, battery-operated lamp that she also hoards, not wanting to run it down. That’s the only power she has now, the ability to click the little switch, push the darkness back for a few moments. Not that there’s much to see. Four walls, floor, ceiling, all made of thick sheet metal. She’s being held in some sort of walk-in cooler, she surmises, although the cooler part is clearly not functioning. The air is hot as hell, syrupy thick, getting staler with every breath.

Using the lamp, Kelly has located an air vent. Unlike in the movies, this particular vent can’t be utilized as an escape hatch. It measures no more than four inches by twelve inches—too small for a human, although there are signs of a rodent infestation. She’s hoping squirrel or chipmunk, but it’s not like mice or even rats would really freak her out. Kelly’s personal gross factor is more attuned to slimy creatures like worms or snakes. Her friends think Snakes on a Plane is a laugh riot, especially the scrotum-chomping vipers, but Kelly has to avert her eyes whenever they crank up the DVD.

Funny how fear works. Until what, yesterday—has it been that long?—she’d thought of herself as basically fearless. Death defying. She’d faced down the black monster when she was a little girl, so aside from shrieky-fun things like wiggly worms or stupid movies, there was nothing in real life that truly frightened her.

Until now. The hot steel box changed everything. Now she’s really and truly terrified. Having to deal with the adrenaline shakes, an unfamiliar weakness that seems to spread from her knees into her guts, making it hard to hold her pee. Hard to hold the lamp without her hands shaking. Hard to resist screaming. Hard to think coherently.

Thinking clear, that’s something to cling to, something to strive for. All she has to do, be as brave as her nine-year-old self. Back then she actually visualized herself in a coffin, and the hot steel box is not a coffin, not yet. Has to be a way out. There’s always a way out, right?

“Right? Right? Right?”

Kelly’s not too sure, but she may actually have said that out loud. Shout or a whisper, she can’t tell—the darkness makes it hard to distinguish words from thoughts, and her volume control is totally whacked.

Let there be light, she thinks, switching on the lamp. Holding it up to the grate, she can see where the narrow vent takes a ninety-degree turn. There are no fans blowing or circulating air, but to Kelly it feels as if the air is fresher at the vent, and she decides to linger in the vicinity.

If the air is fresher it must be coming from the outside, right?

“Right! Right! Right!”

Weird, but it’s like she can see herself screaming into the vent. Only she’s not screaming help! she’s screaming, “Right!” Which is pretty mental, when you think about it. What would someone think? They’re walking down the street, minding their own business, and a voice shouting “right!” comes out of a vent? They’ll think crazy person, mind your own business.

Kelly gets a grip, puts a different word in her mouth.

“Help! Help! Help!” she screams, shouting into the vent. Shouting into her own personal black hole. Black hole sucking in her fear, making it part of the darkness. Black hole where the little girl inside her still lives, visualizing coffins, facing the monster.

23. Snow Bunnies In Heaven

Randall Shane stands in the doorway, watching her sleep. Keenly aware that not all sleep is quiet or restful. Example: Mrs. Garner moaning softly, fingertips quivering against the pillow. Her large and lovely eyes move fitfully beneath her eyelids, indicating an active dream state—they won’t be good dreams, either, not with a daughter missing, presumed kidnapped.

Interesting woman, Jane Garner. Interesting not only because she’s strong willed and self-reliant, traits he admires, but because she’s an accomplished liar. Deftly pulling the curtain to hide a significant portion of her life, a crucial something having to do with the identity of her daughter’s biological father.

Rape? Shame? Some dark variation on family tragedy? What, exactly, makes her hold tight the secret, even at a time like this?

Shane backs away, closes the door, walks to the daughter’s bedroom in his stocking feet, holding his Top-Siders lightly in his left hand. Moving as quietly and purposefully as a big jungle cat, with the athletic balance and grace of a much younger man. Grateful as always that he had the sense to quit football after a single high school season, while his knees were still uninjured. Lots of big men his age, early forties, were already limping from joints damaged long ago, when size and agility and adolescent adrenaline had put them into violent collisions with young men of similar size and agility. The human knee is a marvelous feat of biological engineering, but it is not meant to endure the sideways force applied suddenly by a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound tackler running at full speed, leverage enhanced by cleats. As Shane had determined on his own, at age fifteen, disappointing every coach who’d ever seen him move. Guy your size and speed, they’d say, what a waste. I’m fine, his shyly proud, teenage self would respond. Coaches would come back with promises of athletic scholarships, unaware that the big, rangy kid was an actual scholar, top of his class academically, that he’d read and understood medical research papers on sport-damaged joints and made a rational decision not to participate. Not because he was afraid of pain or injury—as an adolescent he had been totally fearless—but because he liked the feel of his large strong body, what it was becoming, and wanted to keep it that way.

He’d had plans, big plans. All of which changed one remarkably cold day in Rochester, New York. Enrolled in the tough-as-nails engineering school at R.I.T., Shane maintains a perfect 4.0 average, despite working several part-time jobs. His job as a library assistant includes returning books to the higher shelves—they call him the human ladder—and keeping the pathways leading to the library clear of snow. That’s where it happens, outside in the wickedly crispy cold. One minute he’s leaning on his shovel, daydreaming about the Nobel Prize he will one day be given for his work in chemical engineering—astonishing discoveries that will change the world—the next minute Jean Dealy walks by in her arctic survival suit, armored and padded and insulated against the fierce winter wind roaring in from the Genesee River. This on a campus where students routinely go hatless at ten below, and the truly foxy coeds wear thin little miniskirts, or less, no matter how cold it gets. And yet this young woman has chosen a genderless arctic survival suit that covers her from toes to nose, obscuring every feature but her marvelous eyes, peeking out of the padded suit. Eyes that floor Randall, stopping his heart as she passes by, the snow squeaking merrily under her fur-lined boots. The squeak of his big plans grinding to a halt because in that moment Jean Dealy becomes his new big plan, even before he knows her name or sees himself reflected in her amazing eyes.

Twenty-some odd years later, the thought still makes him smile. Strange how the physical act of smiling sets off a pang of loss that closes his throat, as powerful as a fist to the larynx. Mother and daughter connections, that’s what does it, that’s what gets him in the secret place where he tends his memories. Because, like his new client, Randall Shane has secrets of his own.

Snow bunnies in heaven, that’s just one of his many secrets.

He sits sideways at Kelly Garner’s computer because his knees are too big to fit under the desk. He scans the teenager’s files, makes a few notes and then carries the notebook to the front door, where he dons his Top-Siders. Out in the driveway he manually unlocks the Lincoln Town Car because the woop-woop of the remote key might awaken his sleeping beauty.

In the hush of the big sedan he picks up the clunky car phone, presses a key for an oft-called number, leaves a message.

“It’s me. Any and all information regarding the following individuals—Jane S. Garner, her daughter Kelly Garner, no middle initial.” He gives the address, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, then concludes, “Particular attention to any information regarding Kelly’s birth father. Soonest. Thanks.”

Shane hangs up, glances at his wristwatch—too soon for the next call, the crucial call. The call that just might find the missing girl, or at least point him in the right direction. He powers the seat, lays it back as far as it will go. Closes his eyes, tries to rest, willing his mind to blankness. He thinks: Superman has his Fortress of Solitude, Randall Shane his Lincoln Town Car.

The self-comparison to a comic-book character makes him smile again, and this time the smile does not hurt.

24. Janet Reno’s Dance Party

In the dream my bed lies on a train, a swaying commuter train, and a giant peers in an open door, watching me sleep. Part of me knows I should wake up, search the train for Kelly, but I can’t keep my eyes open. It’s the train’s fault, because trains make me sleepy.

“Mrs. Garner? There’s someone to see you.”

Shane in the hallway, making his voice big enough to be heard through the solid panel of the bedroom door.

One moment I’m asleep, dreaming, the next I’m up, a cold thrill in my blood. Stepping into linen Capri pants, shrugging on a top and calling out, “What? What happened? Is it Kelly? What do you mean ‘someone to see me’?”

Shane waits until I open the door. Hands me a mug of hot tea. His cheerful smile has to be a good sign. “My friend from the agency,” he says. “She was kind enough to drop by.”

There’s a stranger in my kitchen, talking on her cell as I enter, bleary-eyed and clutching my mug of tea.

Remember the famous Saturday Night Live routine where Will Ferrell impersonates Janet Reno, the former Attorney General? Which was all the more convincing because Reno was such a tall, big-boned woman that at certain angles, under bad TV lights, she really did look like a man in drag. The FBI agent waiting in my kitchen has Reno’s masculine build—big swimmer’s shoulders—but a much more feminine face. A quite pretty face, with a delicate mouth, big, thick-lashed brown eyes, and a narrow, slightly freckled nose. The combo of large but delicately beautiful is unusual, and I find myself staring, a form of rudeness the agent is apparently used to, because she smiles a greeting and offers her hand.

“This is Monica Bevins,” says Shane by way of introduction.

“Good morning, Mrs. Garner,” she says. “Sorry to wake you so early, but I’m on my way back from the Long Island field office, so it was now or never. Hope you were able to get some sleep.”

“No problem.”

“Back in the day Monica and I were in the same class at Quantico,” Shane adds. “Difference is, I eventually resigned and she eventually got promoted. And promoted. And promoted. Monica is now an assistant director. Affectionately known as an ‘A-Dick.’ And duly expected to rise to the D.D. That’s deputy director. As high as you can go without a presidential appointment.”

“Randall, stop gushing.”

“Sorry, ma’am.”

The big woman rolls her pretty eyes, but the irritation is feigned. She’s basking in his admiration. Truth is, given her size and forthright personality, she and Shane look like they could be brother and sister. And that’s the vibe between them—old, trusted friends who have endured bad times and good.

“I understand this big galoot is going to help locate your daughter,” she says. “Mrs. Garner, are you okay?”

My legs are still wobbly and I feel weirdly on the verge of tears and don’t want to unleash that particular fountain. So I nod and sit down, clutching at the counter.

“You took a pill,” Shane reminds me.

A sleeping pill, right. No wonder my brain feels muffled in cotton.

“Randall has requested a shadow investigation,” the big woman says. “Are you in agreement?”

“Shadow investigation?” I ask, puzzled. “What’s that?”

“It’s what we sometimes do in a situation like this, when we haven’t been officially brought in. Despite what you see on TV, the agency almost never imposes on a local investigation if the parents are uncooperative. We follow very specific guidelines governing abduction or kidnapping cases. Bottom line, without a request from the parents or the Nassau County Police, we can’t take an active role.”

“What about me?” I ask. “I’m a parent.”

“Indeed. And we’ll put your daughter on our missing persons list, and alert all of our local offices. If evidence develops that your daughter has been abducted—a ransom call or note, or some other indicator—this will automatically become a full-on, agents-in-place investigation. Meanwhile, we’ll very quietly take a look at Edwin Manning, see what we can determine. As I say, what we call a shadow investigation.”

“Okay, I get it.”

“You understand we are constrained from an active role, unless and until you get a ransom demand?”

“Yes,” I say.

“I wouldn’t authorize this if Randall hadn’t assured me that your daughter is not a typical teen runaway, in which case you’d have to rely on local police efforts to locate her.”

A sudden flush warms my cheeks. “Kelly’s in trouble and it has something to do with Manning’s son. We know that. We were there.”

The big woman nods. “So Randall said. He’s almost always right about these situations. His track record is nothing short of amazing. That’s why I’m responding, and why the agency will take a look. I’m leaving the legal paperwork that will enable us to pen register your telephone lines, have it on the record if a kidnapper calls. You okay with that?”

“Yes, of course. Whatever it takes.”

“Let’s hope Randall got it wrong this time and your daughter is just acting out. Believe me, hard as that is to deal with—I have two grown daughters, so I know—hard as that is, any sort of abduction scenario is much, much worse.” She hands Shane a legal-size envelope, the paperwork for the phone tap. “Sign and fax to the Melville office, they’ll get the ball rolling. Are we clear?”

“Yes, ma’am, all clear,” says Shane.

She ignores the taunt, turns to me. “Mrs. Garner?”

“Find my daughter. That’s my only concern.”

“We’ll do everything we can. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to be in Washington by noon.” She shakes my hand again, gives Shane a sisterly peck on the cheek.

“Don’t worry,” she assures me on her way out. “You’re in capable hands.”

The capable hands come through an hour or so later. I’m drinking too much tea and trying to clear my head. Checking my cell for messages that haven’t been left, generally working my anxiety up to higher and higher levels. Desperately wanting something, anything to happen, to convince me we’re going forward, making progress.

The phone rings. My office phone.

I enter at a run, find Shane with the phone already up to his ear, saying, “Yes. Yes. Got it. Thank you very much.” He hangs up.

With my permission, Shane has cleared a space on my worktable for his laptop, one of those sleek, turbocharged things, with a wide screen and a titanium case. A spiral notebook lies open, filled with neat, legible handwriting, some of it emphatically underlined. The phone has been repositioned nearby. He’s been busy, obviously, and I feel a little twinge of guilt for getting much-needed sleep while he worked the phones and the Web, set up the meeting with his high-ranking friend.

“Anything I should know?” I ask, indicating the phone.

“Seth Manning’s car has just been located.”

“His car?” I say, excited. “What about Kelly?”

“Let’s take a break, I’ll bring you up to speed.”

He grabs his notebooks and I follow him back into the kitchen. Shane takes a stool at the far end of the counter, helps himself to coffee. I cling to the mug of tea like it’s a grenade that might go off if released.

“Couple of interesting things,” he begins. “Background on Edwin Manning. The name was vaguely familiar and now I know why. He started a very successful, very private hedge fund, Manning Capital. Big money. Listed assets of five billion dollars, over which he has more or less total control. Which makes him a juicy target.”

“I’m not even sure what a hedge fund really does.”

“It makes money for people with money. Or that’s the idea.”

“What about the car? You said they found his car?”

Shane nods. “Correct. Seth’s vehicle has been located in the long-term parking lot at Island Executive Airport in Farmingdale. Just the vehicle, locked. The police have impounded it. We’ve agreed it will be given a full forensic search.”

“We?”

Flashing a quick, almost furtive smile, he strokes his trim little beard, as if embarrassed to have been caught doing something naughty. “Um, Detective Berg and I. That’s the ‘we.’ The way it played out I, ah, happened to suggest a full search and he agreed it made sense. The idea being that the case may fall under the 2252 statute.”

Takes a moment for my brain to slip into gear and put together airport and car in the long-term parking lot.

“Are you saying they flew somewhere? Kelly and this man? Where did they go? Does this mean they really did run away, they weren’t kidnapped?”

Shane consults his notes. “This doesn’t contradict our abduction theory. A car registered to Seth Manning entered the lot at 5:13 a.m., almost six hours before your last contact with Kelly. The I.E. is not a major commercial facility—it’s a small, private airport—but it has charter flights to all the metropolitan airports. LaGuardia, Kennedy, Newark and, by helicopter, to Manhattan. There are regular flights to Atlantic City. So theoretically your daughter could have been almost anywhere when she called you.”

Despite all the caffeine, my head is still thick with Ambien-induced sleep, so I’m having trouble processing. Can it only be yesterday that Kelly vanished? Doesn’t seem possible. Seems like weeks.

“Theoretically?” I ask, seizing on the word. “What does that mean?”

“Means her name was not listed on the manifest of any charter flight leaving yesterday morning,” he explains. “Nor was it listed on any private flight plan filed with the tower.”

“The FBI told you that? Your friend Monica?”

“Not Monica personally. People who work the Long Island office.”

“So Kelly didn’t fly? She and this man were kidnapped in the airport parking lot? Is that what you’re saying?”

“No,” he says. “My apologies. I’m not making myself clear. I’m not saying she and Seth Manning didn’t fly out of Island Executive, just that they didn’t leave on a chartered flight. It’s a very busy airfield, lots of private and corporate aircraft use it. Hundreds. Civilian pilots are encouraged to file a flight plan, but not all do so.”

“Somebody must know what happened to them.”

“Somebody does,” he agrees. “We just have to find out who.”

25. Surprise, Surprise

The Lincoln Town Car is starting to feel like a sturdy old friend. Keeping just below the speed limit, we cruise into Island Executive Airport in less than forty minutes door to door. More like door to long-term parking lot. Out over the runways, small planes teeter like fragile kites, looking much too slow to stay aloft. The same trick of the eye that makes you think a 757 is barely moving, and these little jobs are way smaller. And yes, I’m one of those who’ve never really understood how a squat little box with stubby wings can make itself fly. My ninth-grade science teacher, Mr. Polanski, tried his best, but it still doesn’t make sense.

Only one of the reasons that the idea of Kelly and small planes freaks me out. Parachutes? Skydiving? Forget about it.

Safely parked on the outer rim of the lot—Shane likes an open space on either side—we head for a blocky-looking building near the lone tower that overlooks the runways. The building is divided into bays with separate entrances. There are signs for Flight Instruction, Maintenance, and Flight Operations. Shane heads for door number three.

It’s all I can do to keep up without breaking into a run. He notices, apologizes and shortens his stride.

“Long legs,” I say.

“And big feet,” he points out.

A blast of cold air greets us inside Flight Operations. Temperature control is low enough to keep polar bears frisky, and I find myself hugging my bare arms.

“Sorry, miss,” says the man behind the counter. Older guy in his sixties with the hanging jowls and the soulful eyes of a faithful bulldog. “Thermostat is out of whack. Grab a jacket.”

He points to a row of hooks inside the door and a selection of bright orange jackets, all with Ground Crew stenciled on the back. The jacket is big enough for three of me, but it helps.

“Now,” says the man behind the counter, rubbing his hands together. “Bob Cody, what can I do ya?”

Bob has a thinning white flat-top, radar-scoop ears, and the kind of deeply creased, leathery skin that’s seen way too much sunlight over the years. But his smile is friendly enough and he seems genuinely interested in helping.

“This is Jane Garner,” Shane begins, laying his business card down on the counter. “Her daughter is missing.”

“Oh my God,” Bob says, glancing at the card. “That’s terrible.”

“You were on duty when the police tow truck snagged the Boxster this morning?”

Bob nods eagerly. “Seth’s Porsche. Yeah, I saw that. The old man’ll be pissed. Excuse me, miss. I mean missus.”

Shane looks pleased. He sort of relaxes his big frame on the counter, leaning on his elbows to make himself appear smaller, less imposing. It’s a conversation between equals now, two men of the world helping out a lady.

“This is going to be our lucky day, Mrs. Garner,” Shane says to me. “Bob knows the Mannings. I’ll bet he’s seen Kelly with Seth, right, Bob? Pretty girl, slender and athletic. Dark hair. Taking lessons?”

On cue I produce Kelly’s photo, the one that shows her in the cockpit of the little airplane. Bob studies the photograph, shakes his head. “I’m sorry, no. But Seth has quite a number of students, I do know that, because he’s always careful with the flight plans. Not all the pilots are, but he is. That’s mostly when I see him nowadays, when he hands in the paperwork.”

While Bob studies the photo, Shane studies Bob. Nods to himself, as if satisfied that the jug-eared gent is being truthful. “Recognize the aircraft?”

Bob nods eagerly, which makes his jowls jiggle slightly. “Yep. Cessna Skylane. That’s the plane Seth uses for flight instruction. Took delivery just last year. Beautiful piece of machinery, just beautiful.” He pauses, looks from me to Shane. “Is Seth in some sort of trouble?”

“No trouble,” Shane says firmly. “Kelly is the one in trouble, because she neglected to tell her mom where she and Seth were headed.”

No trouble. First time I’ve heard Randall Shane lie, and it’s a more than a little unsettling to know how good he is at it.

“Yeah, well, kids do that sometimes,” Bob says, sounding a little uneasy.

“Detective Berg called earlier,” Shane says. “Apparently Seth forgot to file a flight plan.”

Bob is shaking his head. “I don’t know who the detective talked to, but Seth Manning, he’s like clockwork. He’s been flying out of this facility since he was sixteen, and he never misses.”

“You seem very certain.”

Bob nods emphatically. “I was his original flight instructor. Seth was one of my best students. Not just because he had a feel for it—lots of students have that—but because he’s meticulous and organized. A good pilot is always prepared, always checking, that’s as important as any of the physical skills. Some students I had to drum that in, but not Seth. I kid you not, he enjoys working through the checklists. Which is part of what makes him an excellent flight instructor.”

“Uh-huh,” says Shane. “So you passed the torch.”

“You could say that.”

“Mind if I ask why?”

Bob gives him a wary look. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I developed cardiac problems a couple years ago. Persistent episodic tachycardia, which is doc talk for bum ticker. Flunked the physical.”

Shane nods. “Some guys cheat on that, find a friendly doctor.”

“Not me. It was time to retire, before I killed some kid.”

“So you’re absolutely sure that Seth didn’t fly out of here yesterday?”

“Positive,” Bob says, getting a bit huffy. “You know why I’m positive? Because that’s his Skylane right there. Got a prime tie-down right by the flight school.”

Shane looks out the window, spots the plane, seems satisfied. “Any aircraft missing or stolen in the last few days?”

Friendly Bob has had about enough of us. I can tell because his big ears have reddened. He backs away from the counter, putting space between himself and Shane. “What kind of crap are you talking, mister? Why would Seth Manning steal a plane when he has one of his own?”

“For thrills? To impress a pretty girl?”

“That’s bull. The kid is no thief. What is this really about? Who sent you here?”

Shane drums his fingers lightly on the Formica, rat-a-tat-tat. “It’s like I said, Mrs. Garner is trying to locate her daughter.”

Bob looks sick, puts his hand to his chest.

“Seth must have friends at this airfield,” Shane persists. “Maybe he borrowed a plane.”

Bob sits down, massaging his chest. His face has drained, leaving him pale as a paper napkin. I’m worried he’s going to keel over, but Shane isn’t backing off.

“Same answer,” says Bob, sounding faint. “He’d file a flight plan.”

“Charter flights?” Shane says. “Could Seth have chartered a plane?”

Bob sounds pissed. “You don’t give up, do you? Anybody can charter a flight, but why would he? His father’s company has a King Air 350. Take you anywhere in North America, at altitude and in style.”

Shane smiles, winks at me, as if we’ve just won something special. “A King, huh? Pricey.”

Bob snorts. “Not compared with a Lear, it ain’t.”

“Couple of million though, right?”

“More.”

“And you know it’s out there in the hangar because there’s no flight plan on file.”

Bob looks like he wants to spit. His color has improved and he’s stopped rubbing his chest. Maybe the bad spell has passed.

“Exactly right,” he says, jutting out his chin.

Shane nods, satisfied. “Mr. Cody, here’s the deal. Show us the King, we’ll get out of your hair.”

“I’m not showing you anything, mister.”

“Fine. Then give me the tail number, I’ll check it out myself.”

Shane doesn’t say anything, but something tells me he wants me to chime in, make myself heard.

“Please?” I ask him. “It could be really important.”

Five minutes later we’re approaching the hangar, one of three in this particular row. Condos for airplanes. Sort of like really wide storage units, with big roll-down doors. In the end poor Mr. Cody more or less surrendered, handed Shane the keys to the lockup. According to Cody, each unit can hold two aircraft, with openings on either side of the corrugated steel buildings, but Edwin Manning’s corporate airplane has a hangar all to itself.

“You think they took off in daddy’s plane, got in trouble somewhere else?” I ask.

“Working theory,” Shane says, fitting the key in the appropriately numbered door. “Subject to change.”

Inside the hangar our footsteps echo against the metal sides of the building. It’s so dim and darkly shadowed that I can’t see much of anything until Shane finds a switch and trips the overhead lights.

“Surprise, surprise,” he says.

The hangar is empty.

“What do we do now?” I ask.

Behind us the door swings open, shifting the light. Before I can turn, a ragged, high-pitched voice says, “Keep your hands where I can see ‘em.”

Standing behind us is a hefty, big-bellied man in a baggy black tracksuit. He has a shaved head, a boxer’s flattened nose, puffy eyelids and scar-thickened lips. In his hand is a shiny black gun.

26. The Man From Wonderbra

My first mugging was in Manhattan. On Fifth Avenue, to be exact. About four months after Kelly was born, my mother decided I needed a day off. A chance, she said, to be a grown-up for a little while, on my own. Bless her, she gave me a hundred dollars and told me to take the train into the city, have lunch at the Museum of Modern Art—they had a great little Italian café she loved—and buy myself something pretty.

“Window-shop on Fifth Avenue,” she said. “I mean really look. There might be something there for you.”

A hundred dollars was a lot for my mother, but I thought it would go further at, say, Macy’s, than some upscale boutique, and since part of me was still a bratty seventeen-year-old, I said so.

“I don’t mean to buy,” she told me, squeezing my hands. “To learn from. Look and learn.”

Look and learn.

Truer words and all that. The only class I’d ever really excelled in was home ec, and that was because of sewing. Having watched my mother stitch my little dresses together, and most of her own clothing, as well, I knew how the machine worked, wasn’t afraid of the flashing needle, and that put me ahead of the other girls. Plus I was interested in how clothes were designed and cut out and assembled.