The Manhattan Hunt Club Read online

  “Stand up and turn around, back to the door, hands behind your back,” she ordered.

  Jagger’s eyes flicked toward JoAnna’s backup, Ruiz, who was standing a few yards away, silently using a video camera to capture every second of the prisoner’s transfer. Saying not a word, Jagger obeyed. As he unfolded himself from the bunk, his six-foot-five-inch frame—bulked up to nearly 250 pounds of heavily tattooed muscles—loomed over JoAnna, and once again she had to resist the urge to back away from him.

  Only when Jagger’s hands were shackled behind him did JoAnna open the door. He started to turn around, but JoAnna reached out and grasped the chain between the manacles on his wrists, lifting his arms just enough to let him know how much it would hurt if she raised them any higher. “Let’s just take this nice and slow,” she told him.

  With Ruiz keeping the camera trained on them, she steered Jagger out of the cell and down the steps to the main floor.

  They paused at the pen just inside the entrance to the CPU while two more officers fitted Jagger with leg irons and waist chains and moved his hands to the front of his body, where they were locked to the waist chains. Then they began the slow progress toward the main entrance, waiting for each barred door to close behind them before the one in front opened.

  It was twenty past midnight when they emerged from the building. A black van was already waiting, with a captain and an officer from the Emergency Services Unit ready to receive the prisoner.

  Twenty minutes later the van pulled into a hospital emergency entrance. Four men in orderlies’ uniforms were waiting with a gurney. Both officers got out, one glancing up and down the deserted sidewalk while the other unlocked the padlock on the back door of the van.

  A minute later Jagger was out of the truck.

  “Get on the gurney,” one of the orderlies said.

  When Jagger made no move to obey, one of the officers nudged him with the butt of the MP-5 cradled in his arms. “You heard the man.”

  His eyes smoldering, Jagger lay down on the gurney.

  The orderlies strapped him tight.

  With two of the orderlies at the front of the gurney and the other two at its rear, they moved Jagger quickly through the doors, down a hall, and into a waiting elevator.

  The doors slid closed, but instead of pressing a button that would take the elevator up to the floors housing the patients, one of the orderlies slipped a key into a lock, turned it, and punched a button that sent the elevator down.

  In the second subbasement, they emerged into a long hallway. The orderlies quickly pushed the gurney to the far end, through two dark rooms, and finally into a third, lit only by a single bulb hanging in a metal cage in the center of the ceiling.

  At its far end was another door, covered in metal.

  One of the orderlies produced a key and opened the door.

  Beyond lay only darkness.

  CHAPTER 5

  If Jeff had slept at all, neither his body nor his mind had benefited from it. The thin pallet that separated him from the cold metal of the bunk felt no softer than the steel itself; his left hip was numb, his whole back felt sore, and his left shoulder ached from the weight it had borne through the long hours of the night. Every muscle in his body felt weaker now than when he’d lain down last night, as if he’d been running for hours instead of sleeping. His mind felt no better than his body, for as the endless minutes crept by, the terrible reality of what had happened to him only tightened its grip on his consciousness. At first his mind had refused to accept the truth, still clinging to some frayed shred of hope that even now that the trial and the sentencing were over, something would happen to free him from the surreal world in which he was trapped. But as the sounds of the night—the shouts and curses of angry prisoners, the clanging of barred doors as the night watch plodded through its routine—kept sleep at bay, hope had finally ebbed away, and the truth at last began to twist his mind as surely as the cold cell and hard bunk had wracked his body.

  Maybe I should’ve just killed her, he told himself. At least then it would have been his word against a dead body’s. Wouldn’t that be something? Walk away from a murder instead of going to jail just for trying to help. Well, fuck it—the guys he’d met in jail were right: once they busted you, it was over. It didn’t make any difference whether you’d done something or not—it was the cops against you, and the cops always won.

  So he’d get through it. He’d do his time, and stay out of trouble, and get out as soon as he could. And then—

  But he couldn’t even think about it. All he could think about now was the yawning chasm that lay ahead. A chasm he was about to be thrown into, empty except for cell blocks, boredom, and constant fear.

  As the clamor of voices and clanging cell doors rose around him, he sat up and pulled on his clothes—the same clothes he’d been wearing for a week, which Heather had brought him when she took the other clothes home.

  The clothes she’d have been picking up today, except that today he was being moved to Rikers.

  Numbly, his body functioning more by rote than by conscious decision, he began following the morning routine, until an hour later he was standing in front of one more in an endless series of locked doors. Two C.O.’s flanked him, but no other prisoners were in sight. Then the door opened and he stepped outside.

  He was in the sally port between the Detention Center and the Criminal Courts Building. Though dawn hadn’t yet quite begun to break, the darkness in the heavily gated courtyard was washed away by floodlights, and he could see the bridge connecting the two buildings spanning the courtyard two flights up. A bus sat near the door to the Courts Building, from which the last of this morning’s first batch of prisoners from Rikers Island were being unloaded for their day in court. For the next several hours they would wait in the holding areas or the feeder pens, exactly as he had waited during the endless days of his trial. Just before going into the building, the last of the prisoners turned and stared at Jeff. Understanding exactly where Jeff was being taken this morning, he smiled and ran his tongue suggestively over his lips. With a wink at Jeff, the prisoner finally responded to the officer’s nudge and disappeared through the door to the courthouse.

  Sitting a few yards from the bus, with two more C.O.’s flanking it, was a windowless black Ford van. “Pretty fancy,” one of the officers next to Jeff remarked, his lips twisting into a sarcastic smile. “Your very own limousine.”

  Jeff kept his mouth shut; he’d learned by now that when the guards made jokes, he wasn’t included.

  As the two guards from Detention escorted him toward the van, the other two opened its back door. Ducking his head, Jeff climbed inside, sliding onto the first bench he came to. Ahead of him was a heavy black-painted metal grille separating him from the next bench, which could only be accessed from the side door. Ahead of that was another grille, another bench, yet a third grille, and then the driver’s compartment. As Jeff sat on the bench, his wrists still cuffed, the door slammed behind him and he heard a padlock drop against the back panel.

  A minute later, one of the officers slid behind the wheel and the other climbed into the passenger seat.

  Though it was barely visible through the three sets of thick mesh grilles and the windshield, Jeff saw the big gate ahead of the van swing open, and a moment later the truck passed through and turned right. A block later it turned left, then went straight ahead for three blocks. As it made another left turn, Jeff caught a glimpse of a sign.

  Elizabeth Street.

  In the last few minutes before dawn, the street was all but deserted of any traffic except a few lumbering trucks, and as the lights ahead turned green, the van began to accelerate. But several blocks later it began to slow again.

  The driver turned right, and finally Jeff knew where they were going—straight ahead he could see the Williamsburg Bridge.

  The light at Bowery turned green, and the van surged ahead as the officer behind the wheel once more hit the gas pedal.

  As they
were crossing Bowery, however, something crashed against the van, smashing into the sliding door on the passenger side. As the door caved in, the van itself skidded sideways and spun around. It sheared off a fire hydrant, then slammed into the front of a building on the west side of Bowery. Knocked off his seat by the first impact, Jeff bounced off the grille in front of him. A moment later his shoulder slammed into the side of the van, and as his back twisted a sharp pain shot from the injured shoulder down his arm.

  Now a cacophony of shouting voices rose over the sound of water pouring down onto the wrecked van from the geyser of the broken hydrant, and then the back door was jerked open. “Out, fuckhead!” a rough voice commanded as the cage door opened.

  His head spinning, and half blinded by the blood streaming from a cut on his forehead, Jeff stumbled out of the van.

  He stood unsteadily on the street. Water from the hydrant was spraying everywhere, and a crowd of shabbily dressed people seemed to have materialized from out of nowhere. As people milled around, someone grabbed Jeff’s arm and whispered urgently in his ear, “Don’t talk—don’t think—don’t do nothin’! Just follow me, and maybe we can get you out of here!”

  His brain as fogged with pain as his eyes were with blood from the still-streaming wound, Jeff didn’t hesitate. Knowing only that for the first time in months he was free from the claustrophobic confines of barred cells, locked holding pens, and sealed transport vans, he sucked the cold predawn air into his lungs and shambled across the intersection toward the subway entrance that lay only a few yards away.

  Only at the top of the stairs leading to the subterranean station below did he pause. Around him lay the shadows of the fading night. The geyser of water still shot into the air from the sheared-off hydrant. Below him lay the brilliantly lit, windowless crypt of the subway station.

  If he ran, he could vanish into the darkness and quiet.

  He could be alone, for the first time in months.

  The darkness, the quiet, and, most of all, the air pulled at him, but just as he was about to take the first step, everything changed.

  A siren, then another, shattered the silence. An instant later a third one wailed to life.

  All of them were coming toward him, closing on the surrealistic scene before him.

  Then it happened.

  The van exploded, and as the fireball rose into the air, instinct took over. The mass of the subway entrance protecting him from flying debris, Jeff stumbled down the stairs into the station.

  It all occurred in only a few seconds. The man who had pulled him from the van was already leaping over the turnstiles of the deserted station. Jeff followed, running down the next two flights of stairs and hitting the platform just as a downtown train ground to a stop. The doors opened and Jeff started toward it.

  “You fuckin’ crazy, man? Transit cops’ll get you in five minutes flat!” the man he’d been following said. Pulling on Jeff’s arm, he hurried toward the far end of the platform. “Come on,” he yelled. “Quick, before another train comes!”

  Jeff staggered after him, his mind still too numb to think clearly, but when they came to the end of the platform, he stopped short. There was nothing ahead except a blank wall.

  He turned and looked back the other way. The train was just pulling away, its taillights quickly disappearing. There was only one other person on the platform: a derelict sitting on the floor, leaning against a pillar. He heard something next to him, and when he turned, the man he’d been following seemed to have disappeared. But then came the voice again:

  “Move, damn it!”

  At the same time, Jeff heard footsteps pounding down the stairs at the far end.

  As they grew louder, he leaped down onto the tracks and raced into the tunnel.

  The darkness swallowed him in an instant.

  CHAPTER 6

  Keith Converse was just getting out of the shower when the phone rang. Certain it was the foreman on the Leverette remodel—which was looking like it would run well over two million, easily making it the biggest job he’d ever done—he didn’t even pause to grab a towel before dashing into the bedroom to snatch up the receiver before the machine downstairs picked up the call. “Yeah?”

  “Mr. Converse? Mr. Keith Converse?”

  The voice had a note of calculated calm that instantly put Keith on his guard, and as he equally carefully enunciated his reply, a chill of apprehension fell over him. “This is Keith Converse. Who is this?”

  “My name is Mark Ralston. I’m a captain with Manhattan Detention Center. I’m sorry to have to tell you that there’s been an accident . . .”

  Still soaking wet, and now shivering, Keith sank onto the bed as Ralston told him about what had befallen the van carrying his son from the Tombs to Rikers Island.

  “Are you telling me he’s dead?” Keith interrupted, before Ralston had spoken the words. “You’re telling me my son is dead?”

  “There was an accident, Mr. Converse—” Captain Ralston began again, still intent on breaking the news as gently as possible. But once again Keith cut in.

  “I’m coming down there. I want to know what happened, and somebody damn well better have some answers.” He slammed the receiver down before Ralston could say anything more.

  Dead? How could Jeff be dead? It wasn’t possible!

  Keith was still sitting numbly on the bed, his mind refusing to accept what he’d been told, when the phone rang again. This time he ignored it, and after the fourth ring it fell silent as the machine downstairs in the kitchen picked up.

  Mary.

  He had to tell Mary.

  He reached for the phone, then hesitated. How could he tell her what had happened when he didn’t even know himself? But he had to talk to her, had to tell her something. His hand closed on the receiver and his finger shook as he punched in the number. He was still trying to figure out what to say when her machine picked up and he heard her voice, its cheerful tone as false and forced as the note of hope he tried to leave in his message. “It’s me, Babe,” he began, unconsciously reverting to the endearment he’d used through all the years when he thought their marriage had a chance of survival, but had carefully avoided since the day she walked out on him. “Something’s happened, and I have to go into the city to find out what’s going on. . . .” His voice trailed off as he searched for something else to say. “There was some kind of accident, and Jeff—well—” Suddenly, the flood of emotions he’d held in check since hanging up on Captain Ralston overwhelmed him. His voice cracked and his eyes blurred with tears. “Look, I gotta get going—I gotta find out what happened. I’ll call you later.”

  He went back to the bathroom, toweled himself off, and got dressed. He was out of the house five minutes later, into the Ford pickup that served not only as transportation, but as his mobile office as well, and out the driveway. Halfway to the expressway he swung into a McDonald’s, ordered a McMuffin and coffee, then called his foreman while he inched the truck toward the pickup window. “I’m gonna be gone for the day. Anything you can’t take care of?”

  “What’s going on?” Vic DiMarco asked. “You don’t sound right.”

  “Not now,” Keith said. “Just take care of things, okay? And if Mary calls you, just tell her I’ll talk to her as soon as I know something.”

  “Why wouldn’t she just call you?” DiMarco countered.

  “Because I’m shutting this fucker off,” Keith growled. “No one’s going to be able to get hold of me for a while, so I just need you to take over for me.” His voice took on a harsh edge. “You can do that, can’t you? Isn’t that why I hired you?”

  DiMarco ignored Keith’s angry tone. “You wanna tell me what’s going on?”

  “I’ll tell you when I know,” Keith snapped. Shutting the phone off as he finally came up to the window, he shoved some money at the gray-haired woman behind the counter and pulled the bag into the truck. Steering with one hand, he took the greasy sandwich out of the bag with the other. He was already chewing b
efore he realized there was no way he could swallow even the first bite, let alone eat the whole thing. Dropping the sandwich back in the bag, he took a sip of the not quite hot enough coffee, washed down the bite of egg, sausage, and muffin, and had drained the cup by the time he steered the truck onto the expressway.

  A now-familiar chill fell over Keith as he walked through the doors of Manhattan House. Manhattan House, he said silently to himself. What were they trying to do, make people think it was a hotel instead of a jail?

  The first time he’d come to the building nearly half a year ago—and the first time he’d felt the strange chill to which he’d never become inured—it seemed part of a world he could barely comprehend. Except for a smattering of well-dressed people he assumed were lawyers, the people milling in the lobby were the kind that he’d seen only on television.

  People who would have been arrested in Bridgehampton for no other reason than the way they were dressed—if they’d ever appeared there at all.

  The young ones all looked angry. Angry, and poor. The eyes that weren’t glazed with drugs smoldered with fury, and when they glanced at him—which they rarely did—Keith knew that he looked as foreign to them as they did to him.

  The older people—those his own age who were coming to see their children, just as he was coming to see his—looked only defeated. Most of them seemed as familiar with the jail and its procedures as he was with the building permit process in Suffolk County.

  By his third visit, Keith had paid as little attention to the people in the lobby as they paid to him.

  Today he didn’t even have to think about the procedures—like any other habitué of the building, he automatically emptied his pockets, stepped through the metal detectors, and exchanged his driver’s license for a visitor’s badge. The officer who escorted him to Captain Mark Ralston’s tiny office wore an expression as studiedly calm as Ralston’s voice had been on the phone three hours ago. The office was painted the same sickly shade of greenish yellow that covered most of the walls in the building.