Step On A Crack

Three

THE PALE, blond autograph seeker from L’Arène told the pathetic wog of a cabdriver to pull over on Ninth Avenue, a block north of St. Vincent’s Hospital. He stuffed a ten into the grimy divider slot and elbowed open the greasy door latch to avoid touching it. There were good reasons he was known as the Neat Man.

A Channel 12 EyeScene news van screeched to a halt beside him as he made it to the corner. He stopped on his heels when he saw uniformed NYPD holding back a growing crowd of reporters and cameramen at the entrance to the hospital’s emergency room.

No, he thought. It couldn’t be! Were the fun and games already over?

He was crossing 52nd Street when he spotted a distraught-looking female EMT slumping out of the crowd.

“Miss?” he said, stepping up to her. “Could you tell me? Is this where they’ve brought First Lady Caroline?”

The full-figured Hispanic woman nodded her head, and then she suddenly moaned. Tears began to stream down her cheeks. A quivering hand went to her mouth.

“She just died,” she said. “Caroline Hopkins just died.”

The Neat Man felt dizzy for a second. Like the wind had been knocked right out of him. He blinked rapidly as he shook his head, stunned and elated.

“No,” he said. “Are you sure?”

The overwrought paramedic sobbed as she suddenly embraced him. “Ay Dios mío! She was a saint. All the work she did for poor people and AIDS. One time, she came to my mother’s project in the Bronx, and we shook her hand like she was the queen of England. Her Service America campaign was one of the reasons I became a paramedic. How could she be dead?”

“Lord knows,” the Neat Man said soothingly. “But she’s in His hands now, isn’t she?”

He could practically feel the billions of germs the woman was carrying. He shuddered, thinking of the indescribable filth a New York City paramedic came into contact with every day of her pitiful existence. A Hell’s Kitchen hospital worker for that matter!

“God, what am I doing?” the medic said, releasing him. “The news. The shock of it. I guess it tore me up. I was thinking about going to get some candles or flowers or something. It’s just so unreal. I… I’m Yolanda, by the way.”

“Yolanda? Yeah. I’m… uh… leaving,” the Neat Man said, brushing past her into the street.

He had his cell phone in his hand by the time he made it to the east side of Ninth Avenue. He could hear loudly clattering plates and chefs yelling in French when his call was picked up at L’Arène.

“It’s done, Julio,” he said. “She’s dead. Now get the hell out of there. You killed Caroline Hopkins. Congratulations.”

The Neat Man was about to shake his head in wonder at his good luck, but then stopped himself. Luck had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Three years to plan, he thought wistfully as he rounded the corner of 49th Street and headed east. Now they had just three days to pull off the rest of this job.

Minutes later, he was in the back of another taxi, heading north up Eighth. He took a couple of alcohol wipes out of his wallet and scoured his hands and face. He smoothed his lapels and crossed his hands in his lap as he sped through the bright lights, escaping the unclean city.

I’ll tell you what’s really so unreal, Yolanda baby, the Neat Man thought as the cab swerved around Columbus Circle and made its way up Broadway.

First Lady Caroline’s death is just the beginning!