CHAPTER 11. Wrong Turn

New York City May 10, 1948

"IT'S SO DARK…"

"There's a good reason for that, baby. We're under the East River."

"What?"

I opened my eyes. My black-framed glasses were gone again, but I could see just fine. Around me was a mass of metal. In front of me stretched a dashboard with big, clunky gauges that looked like something out of the Smithsonian. Above it, a windshield framed a dim roadway, and on the driver's side of the front seat was Jack Shepard-only not in spirit.

The PI's sandy brown hair was neatly trimmed, his iron jaw was freshly shaved, and his broad-shouldered form was draped in what looked like a brand-new, deep blue, double-breasted suit. He even had a matching blue fedora, which rested between us on the seat.

"Where are we again?" I asked Jack's granite profile.

"We're in the new tunnel," he said. "Well, kinda new. They opened it about ten years back. It's the tube that connects Manhattan with Long Island City."

"We're driving through the Queens Midtown Tunnel?"

"Bingo."

I studied the roadway in front of us. The car's headlights were on-and they needed to be. The weak yellow light bulbs that ran along this concrete tube's ceiling gave less illumination than a mausoleum.

"Jack, I don't understand. Why did you bring me down here?"

"Well, gee, for a dime, I could've gotten us both across the river by subway, but where we're going isn't exactly the safest part of town for a dame to hoof it, so I scared up some wheels for us instead."

Slumping back in the monster car's big front seat, I put a hand to my head. "Why do I feel like a truck hit me?"

"Because you should have listened to me, doll, and jumped sooner."

"When?"

"On that wooded trail, which you shouldn't have been on in the first place." Jack's jaw worked a moment. "Dames like you make me crazy. Always trying to be good girls and get along and accommodate and make everybody happy. Then the one time you decide to grow a backbone and dig your heels in, you nearly get yourself run over."

"I don't have the foggiest notion what you're talking about."

Jack's slate gray eyes glanced at me. "I just don't like worrying about you."

"You worry about me?"

"In life, I never worried about anybody's hide but my own. I figured that's the way it'd be for me in death, too." "Guess you figured wrong then." "Guess so."

The tunnel was coming to an end and Jack's gaze returned to the road ahead. He pulled up to a toll booth and paid. Then we were off again, backtracking toward the other side of the East River, only this time above ground. As we drove along, I watched the sun sinking below the Manhattan skyline. Blue twilight was settling over New York 's five boroughs.

"Welcome to Queens, baby. Home of the 1939 World's Fair, the Steinway piano, and Harry Houdini's final resting place."

I'd been to Queens only a few times when I lived in New York City, mainly to travel back and forth to LaGuardia Airport. I'd never been to this part of the borough, so I wasn't altogether sure what Long Island City looked like in my time. In Jack's time, it was obviously a major manufacturing zone. Hundreds of factories were jammed together along the streets. I read the signs as we passed them: machinery parts, paint, shoes, bread, sugar, even spaghetti.

As we drove closer to the river, smokestacks rose up like sooty tree trunks. Between their dirty silhouettes, I spotted tugboats, container ships, and barges full of coal moving along the water, beyond a collection of busy docks.

Traffic on the road was pretty heavy, too. Delivery trucks roared by as Jack did his best to circumvent the gridiron of elevated subway lines, railroad yards, and bridge approaches. He signaled a lane change but someone behind him didn't notice because a horn blasted and a bakery truck suddenly swerved, narrowly cutting us off. Jack cursed as his hands jerked the wheel. I slid across the seat, slamming into him.

He straightened the car out again. "You okay, doll?"

"Whoa, don't you have any seatbelts in this tank?"

"Seat what?"

"Seatbelt, Jack. It locks around your waist to keep you from sliding all over the place, or worse slamming your head into the-" I frowned at the dashboard. "That thing's solid metal, isn't it?"

"What thing? The dashboard? This is a 1939 Packard, honey. What else would it be?"

I shuddered at the idea of cracking my forehead open against that thing. In fact, my head felt like it already had.

"Good lord, Jack. No seatbelts, no shoulder harnesses, no airbags, and a dashboard of solid metal! How did your generation stay alive on the road?"

"Well, let's see now, baby…when my generation wasn't struggling to survive a nationwide Depression, we were trying to keep from dying in a world war. Vehicular safety wasn't high on our list of concerns. But if you're that worried about smash-ups, I have an idea how to keep you from bouncing around in my car-"

He dropped one hand off the steering wheel, snaked a muscular arm around my waist, and pulled me playfully against him. "How's that, doll? Nicer than a crummy old seatbelt, isn't

it?"

"That's all right, Jack," I said, fighting a warm flush of embarrassment. "I don't need a seatbelt. I'll just make do."

As I extricated myself from his grip and slid to the other side of the car, Jack laughed. It was an amused, highly infuriating sound, as if he knew exactly how I'd react to his pass. That's when I noticed his smashed fedora sitting on the seat between us. I picked up the mangled hat and waved it in front of his nose.

"See what you get for teasing me. Your headgear's as flat as a pancake."

He snatched it from my fingers and tossed it into the backseat. "It's okay, baby. Feeling your heart skip a beat over me was worth it."

He laughed again, and I attempted to regain my dignity by roughly straightening my outfit. That's when I realized I was no longer wearing my own clothes. Once again, Jack had chosen an outfit for me, only this time I wasn't decked out in a slit-skirted gown with four-inch heels. My current forties costume consisted of a tweed suit with a cinched waist, a knee-l ength skirt, and brown shoes with a nice low, sane amount of heel.

I was about to thank Jack for the wardrobe improvements when I caught my reflection in the sideview mirror. My auburn hair was curled into a lovely, sleek pageboy, but my face was displaying quite a lot of makeup. The colors looked strange.

"What's on my lips?" I murmured.

"Lipstick," he said. "Hokey-Pokey Pink."

"You've got to be kidding."

"What's your beef?" Jack said defensively. "I saw it in a magazine. It's the most expensive brand on the market: one whole dollar, plus tax."

"Redheads don't wear bright pink lipstick."

"Why not?"

"They just don't."

"Well if you're worried about how you look, baby, it's a waste of brain cells. You're cute as the lace panties you're wearing under that getup. I picked them out of a magazine, too, along with your bra, stockings, and garter belts."

My cheeks now matched the Hokey-Pokey Pink lipstick. "Can we please get off the subject of my underwear?"

Jack snorted. "Forget getting off the subject. I'd rather just get off your-"

"Jack!" I interrupted, "I'm sure you didn't bring me back here just to talk about my panties. So I'd appreciate it if you'd-"

"Okay, okay," he said. "I'll get down to business."

And he did, promptly filling me in on what I'd missed since our night at the Porterhouse Restaurant. Irving Vreen, the Gotham Studio head, had expired from his stab wound (no surprise), and Hedda Geist's actor boyfriend, Pierce Armstrong, had been taken into custody.