Maybe if I hide here long enough, I thought, standing still and straight behind this big support beam, Aunt Doobie will think I’m gone-or that I never chased after him in the first place. Maybe he’ll emerge from his own hiding place and head for home, or back to the Mayflower Hotel, or someplace else significant. Then I can follow him, see where he goes, try to pick up some clues to his identity.

Good plan, wouldn’t you say?

Well, that’s what I thought, too, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Because the next loud explosion I heard was the bang on the back of my head, and after that came nothing but silence.

Chapter 22

HAVE YOU EVER COME AWAKE WITH A start in the middle of the night, so addled and confused you don’t know who, what, or where you are? Well, that’s how I felt that night when my lost consciousness began swooping back into my skull. At first I thought I was a crocodile, lying long and flat against the riverbank, but on my back instead of my belly. Then I thought I was a wounded soldier, bleeding to death in a trench in North Korea, while an unknown enemy warrior was raising his sword to strike again. For a few crazy seconds, I actually believed I was an old, gray-haired woman named Aunt Doobie lying on a slab at the city morgue.

“Wake up, Mrs. Turner,” a male voice shouted in my ear. “Can you hear me?”

Turner? Turner who?

“Paige Turner!” the voice shouted again. “Are you conscious? Open your eyes!”

Paige Turner? Who’s that? What a ridiculous name!

I tried to sit up, but couldn’t make it all the way. My aching head was so dizzy I felt nauseous; I couldn’t see anything but stars. Quickly lowering myself back to a prone position, I lay still for a couple of seconds, blindly attempting to make sense of my physical situation, trying to imagine where I was. I was lying on something hard, I knew, and from the rough, gritty feel under my fingers, I was pretty sure it was cement. Horns were honking overhead. I could hear loud booms and blasts in the near distance, and the steamy air smelled like gunsmoke.

Oh, goody. I’m not in the hospital…

“Hey, move back, boys! Give her some air. She’s starting to come around.” The same man was talking, but he obviously wasn’t alone. “Mrs. Turner!” he shouted again. “Open your damn eyes!”

They popped open on command. And my sight was now fully restored. But what I saw made me want to black out again. There, looming right above me-lowering his boyish face toward mine and baring his teeth like a vampire preparing to enjoy a midnight snack-was the last man in the world I wanted to see: Detective Sergeant Nick Flannagan.

Egads! I screamed the word out loud in my head but somehow managed to keep it off my tongue. (Yes, my self-control actually does work sometimes. Not often, but every once in a while.)

Flannagan must have seen the shock and horror on my face, though, because he quickly pulled away and reared back to a squatting position. “How’s tricks, Mrs. Turner?” he asked, smirking, gazing down at me like a gargoyle. “How do you feel? Do you know what day it is?”

“I feel like ca-ca,” I said. “And as for the day, I’m assuming it’s still Monday, the fourth of July. But that depends on what time it is. Is it past midnight yet? How long was I out?”

“Just a few minutes we think.” He looked at his watch. “It’s ten forty-five now. What time did you come down here?”

“Down where?” I wasn’t being coy. I still wasn’t sure where I was.

“Down to the river,” he grunted. “West Street and Barrow. Sit up. It’ll clear your head. Need a hand?”

“No, I can make it,” I said, pushing myself up to my elbows, then all the way to a sitting position. The effort made me dizzy again, but just for a second. And when my head stopped spinning, it actually

was a lot clearer. Gently touching the painful but thankfully not bloody bump on the back of my noggin, I straightened up and surveyed my surroundings.

Two cop cars were parked close by on West Street. One had a cop in it (I’m guessing he was monitoring the radio calls); the other was empty. Two uniformed police were standing to my left and Flannagan was squatting on my right, just a couple of feet away from the steel highway support beam I’d been hiding behind when I was hit. From where I was sitting, I could see the red-lettered HOTEL sign suspended from the corner of the Keller building.

“You look lousy,” Flannagan said. “I’m going to call for an ambulance.”

“No!” I screeched. “Please don’t! I’m fine. Really I am!” I was lying, of course. My head felt like somebody had hammered a nail into it. But if Flannagan sent for an ambulance, I knew darn well what would happen. They’d take me straight to St. Vincent’s hospital-and then, even if nothing was wrong, they’d keep me there overnight for observation. Maybe all day tomorrow, too.

And I really couldn’t handle that. I had to go to work in the morning! I had places to go and people to see! (Binky was supposed to take me to the Actors Studio, in case you’ve forgotten… Okay, so we hadn’t made a definite date for that excursion yet, but I was supposed to call him at noon, and we would be going there tomorrow. I was certain of it.)

“You gotta be checked out by a doctor,” Flannagan said. “You could have a concussion. Or a hematoma.”

Hema-what? “Don’t be silly,” I said. “I don’t have a concussion or a hemathingy. I just had a little too much to drink earlier and I guess I passed out. Must’ve bumped my head when I fell. But I’m just fine now. There’s nothing wrong with me that a few hours of sleep can’t fix.” I actually wanted to tell Flannagan the truth at that point-try to convince him to launch a citywide search for Aunt Doobie-but I was too wary to open that box. Who knew what else would come flying out?

Flannagan rose to full height and glared down at me suspiciously. Very suspiciously. Did he know more about my, er, situation than I thought he did? “Okay, then, get up,” he growled, stepping back and crossing his arms over his narrow chest. I’ve got a few questions to ask you. We’ll go sit in the car.”

I did

not want to go sit in the car with him. And I certainly didn’t want to answer any of his questions. But I didn’t want to stay plopped on the pavement either. So, taking the only path that seemed open to me (besides the hospital, I mean), I reached my hands up to Flannagan, asked for his assistance, and allowed him to pull me to my feet. Then I sucked in a chestful of air, squared my shoulders, surrendered my elbows to the two uniformed officers, and let them guide me-as they would a handcuffed criminal-to the flashing patrol car.

FORTY FIVE MINUTES LATER, I WAS STILL sitting in the back of that car. And Flannagan was still sitting next to me, asking one question after another, grilling me like a hamburger, giving me an even bigger headache than I’d had before. I had told him as much of the truth as I could without getting myself, or Willy, into too much trouble, and now we were going over everything again, for the third or fourth time, and I was on the verge of losing consciousness again.

As headaches and hamburgers go, I felt both raw and overcooked.

But at least the fireworks had stopped. The waterfront was dark and silent now. The ominous presence of the two police cars had put a damper on the frenzied fun, causing the fire-bugs to pack up all their bombs and rockets and move upriver. The area around the Keller Hotel was dead as a doornail, too. Having been alerted that the cops were in the vicinity, the partygoers had-very slowly and systematically-exited the bar in small groups and slunk away in the opposite direction, back toward the heart of the Village. (I know this for a fact because I sat there in the car and watched them go. Willy and Farley left together, by the way, looking quite animated and gay. And by that I mean