Someone told you when to get up.

Someone told you when to eat.

Someone told you where to go, and made sure you got there.

Someone even told you when to go to sleep, assuming you could sleep in jail at all.

But since he'd been locked in this windowless, featureless room, there was nothing to mark the passage of time except the occasional appearance of the man he'd made the mistake of following into the subway tunnel-a man whose name seemed to be Scratch. Even with the light on, as it had been recently, every real indicator of time had vanished.

Food appeared every now and then, always in the form of the same stewlike gruel he and Jagger had first been given. Usually there were two men with Scratch when he delivered the food, and the last time they'd appeared, Jeff had asked one of them what time it was.

"Animals don't care what time it is," the man retorted.

"I'm not an animal," Jeff shot back, "I'm a human being."

The man chuckled-a dark, hollow sound that carried far more menace than humor. "That's what you think."

The door had closed again, the bolt was thrown, and he and Jagger squatted down to share the bowl of the same gamy-tasting stew that was all they'd been given.

After he'd eaten-maybe an hour later, maybe two-he'd fallen asleep.

Now he was awake again, and his entire body ached, and his mind felt foggy.

And someone was watching him.

Jagger.

The first time it had happened, he'd woken up to find the big man hunkered down on the floor next to him, rocking slowly back and forth as he stared into his eyes.

Rocking, and humming something that sounded almost like a lullaby.

Jeff had rolled away and quickly sat up, automatically pulling his legs up against his chest.

Jagger's eyes had narrowed. "What the matter?" he asked. "You afraid of me?"

Jeff had hesitated, then shook his head, even though it was true. In fact, as Jagger's cold blue eyes continued to bore into him, it was all he could do not to draw still farther away.

Jagger had glanced toward the far corner and said, "There was a rat sniffin‘ around-figured you wouldn't want him climbin' all over you."

Jeff's skin crawled just thinking about it, and the fear induced by the man's intense gaze eased slightly. "Thanks," he said. "I guess I'm just jumpy."

Now Jeff could hear that lullaby again, and even with his eyes closed, he could feel Jagger watching him.

Then, before he could roll away, he heard the bolt on the door slide back with a clunk. Jagger's odd melody silenced.

A moment later the door opened.

Scratch came into the room, followed by two other men, both dressed in the same kind of clothes Scratch himself wore: frayed and filthy pants, ragged shirts, and jackets so stained and greasy they could have been almost any color at all. One of the men had a tattered woolen scarf wrapped around his neck. The other wore a stocking cap with so many holes in it that great clumps of his unkempt hair were poking through.

"Well, I guess it's time," Scratch drawled. "You ready?"

Jeff and Jagger glanced at each other, then both of them peered suspiciously at Scratch. "Ready for what?" Jeff finally asked.

Scratch's lips curled into a twisted smile. "Ready to play." When neither Jeff nor Jagger spoke, Scratch snapped his fingers and one of the other men tossed a bundle toward the mattress.

Jagger's hands snatched it out of the air before it landed.

"Nice reflexes," Scratch observed. "They'll like that."

As Jagger began ripping the bundle open, Scratch said, "That's all you get. And remember the rules-get to the surface, you win. Otherwise, you lose."

Jeff's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "How do I win? The police are going to be looking for me."

Scratch shook his head. "No they're not-as far as they're concerned, you're dead." His eyes flicked toward Jagger. "Both of you are. So if you get out, nobody's going to be looking for either one of you." His cold smile gave way to a mocking grin. "If you get out." He jerked a thumb at the third man, who stepped forward, pulling his right hand from his jacket pocket.

The hand held a heavy pistol.

"It's a.45," Scratch explained. "And Billy here's a really good shot. So think of it as hide-and-go-seek, okay? After we leave, you count to a hundred real slow. If you do, you're on your own. But if you come through that door too soon, Billy'll have a good time blowin‘ a couple'a holes in you."

A few seconds later they were gone, but though the door closed behind them, they didn't hear the familiar clunk of the bar. As Jeff went to the door and pressed his ear against it, Jagger finished tearing open the bundle. All he found inside were two flashlights and two sets of clothes as ragged as the ones Scratch and the others had been wearing, and even filthier. The smell that rose from them nauseated Jeff, but Jagger was already ripping off his orange coveralls. He tossed them in a corner and started pulling on the largest of the pants from the bundle, kicking the second set toward Jeff. "Don't matter how bad they stink," he said. "They ain't orange, and they don't say Rikers Island on ‘em." He finished pulling on the filthy clothes, then picked up one of the flashlights and started toward the door.

"How do you know they won't shoot you as soon as you go out there?"

"Can't be any worse than sittin‘ here wondering what's going to happen," Jagger replied. He pulled the door open, hesitated a second, then stepped out into the darkness beyond.

Nothing happened.

"You coming?" he asked. "Because I ain't waiting."

Ripping off his own clothes, Jeff pulled on the ill-fitting pants and shirt that still lay on the floor, then picked up the second flashlight. He was about to turn it on, then thought better of it. If the batteries ran out in one, they'd need the other.

Moving through the door, he peered into the darkness that stretched away in both directions. "Which way?" he asked.

"Up," Jagger replied. "Except we haven't got a ladder."

From somewhere far off in the darkness to the right, they heard something.

It sounded like a shot, followed by a scream.

"Let's get the fuck out of here," Jagger said. Without waiting for a reply, he moved quickly into the blackness to the left.

A second later, before Jagger would disappear completely, Jeff followed.

CHAPTER 14

Keith and Eve Harris were sitting in a tavern- Mike's, or Jimmy's, or something like that-at a tiny table covered with a red-checkered tablecloth. A real linen tablecloth with the stains to prove it. Every table in the place was filled, and people were three deep at the bar that ran the full length of the far wall. Curtains partially blocked the view of the sidewalk outside, giving the illusion that a steady stream of bodiless heads were drifting by. The buzz of conversation was loud enough that Keith had to strain to hear Eve Harris, but that same buzz gave them a degree of privacy they might not have had at a quieter restaurant.

Keith's gaze had flipped back and forth between the woman and her business card at least half a dozen times in the five minutes since she'd led him into the tavern, ordered a glass of merlot to his scotch on the rocks, and handed him her card. "This is real?" he'd asked as he read the title beneath her name.

"It's real," the waiter had said. "Nice to see you again, Ms. Harris."

"Nice to see you, too, Justin. Everything going all right?"

"I'm still working, aren't I?" the waiter countered, then turned to Keith. "If it weren't for Ms. Harris, I'd probably be dead by now. You don't even want to know how I was living before I met her. Be back in a minute with the drinks."

A minute was exactly what it had been, and in that minute Eve Harris told him that she hadn't done much for the waiter-she'd just gotten to know him when he was panhandling in Foley Square, and after talking to him almost every day for a month, asked him what he wanted to do with his life. "He said he just wanted to get himself cleaned up enough to get a real job. So all I did was take him shopping. We got him new clothes and a haircut, and I rented him a room. Then I sent him in here to talk to Jimmy, and he's been working ever since." Then Justin reappeared with their drinks, and Eve Harris glared at him mischievously. "Of course, if he screws up, he'll be the best bartender living in a box on Foley Square."