By the time Hector was finished and ready to release Gregor into the wider world, it was after one o’clock. Hector called the waitress over and asked her to call Gregor a car. “A car” seemed to be the neighborhood euphemism for a gypsy cab.
“Gypsy cabs are supposed to be illegal,” Hector explained, “but without them, half the people in this town couldn’t get where they were going. Never mind the prices.”
“I take it gypsy cabs are cheaper,” Gregor said.
“They run to about half the cost. We’re looking for a Black Dragon Enterprises car. They used to have these great streaks of red fire across their hoods, but it made them too conspicuous. They kept getting picked up. They’ll be here, though. Just give it a minute.”
Gregor gave it a minute. This street was still an interesting place to be. Now it was full of people, by no means all African-American or other minorities. Farther west, Central Park North was 110th Street and 110th Street was Morningside Heights, which meant Columbia University. Gregor saw dozens of young white college students in jeans and T-shirts. He saw dozens of everybody. The young man with the ties who had called out to him when he first got up here had put out a sign. The sign said,
SHOP HERE FOR ALL YOUR FATHER’S DAY NEEDS.
The gypsy cab turned out to be a nondescript Plymouth in gunmetal gray. It looked at least half a century old. Gregor got into it and thanked Hector Sheed for his help.
“Don’t mention it. I’ll see you later. I want to go down to the center this afternoon anyway. I got some things I want to check. You be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
“That’s not what they say about you in People magazine.”
Gregor didn’t pursue a discussion about People magazine. The gypsy cab driver was eager to go. Gypsy cabs didn’t have meters. Payment was what had been agreed on up front. That meant there was no incentive to let the customer sit at the curb talking to his friends. The only way to make any real money was to drop this fare as quickly as possible and get on to the next one.
“As quickly as possible” was the watchword here. Gregor had heard stories about lunatic New York cabbies, careening through the traffic at ninety miles an hour while reciting involved epics on their troubles with the city government, but he had never been the customer of such a cabbie until now. Lunatic was putting it mildly, and ninety miles an hour was an underestimate. They shot onto a main thoroughfare Gregor couldn’t put a name to and went straight uptown. They kept doing crazy loops around lumbering buses and tailgating cyclists. The only good thing about the trip was that it was short. In no time at all, they had reentered the landscape Gregor now associated in his mind with Harlem. They were surrounded by abandoned buildings, empty lots full of rubble, blank windows that looked out on nothing and kept nothing in. The South Bronx was supposed to be worse, but Gregor didn’t see how it could be. The only thing worse would be a neighborhood that had been reduced to stone and ash.
Gregor got out in front of the Sojourner Truth Health Center’s front doors and looked around. The doors were open, but the sidewalk was deserted. Robbie Yagger, who could usually be found pacing up and down with his sign, was nowhere to be seen. Gregor paid the cabbie and added a nice large tip—it was a kind of blood offering, a prayer to the gods that the man would not come back to drive him again—and decided to go inside. Maybe Robbie was in the cafeteria, nursing along a cup of coffee. That would be ideal for Gregor’s purposes.
Gregor went up the steps and in through the doors. The young woman at the admitting desk looked up when she heard someone come in, saw who it was, and nodded hello. In the past days, almost everybody at the center had learned to recognize Gregor on sight. He went down the hall to the back, looking around as he walked. The nurses’ station was unmanned. The open examining rooms were empty. On a bulletin board on a wall next to a room marked “PEDIATRIC EMERGENCY” there was a poster with a picture of a cloud on it with sharp-edged rays of light coming from its center. Under the cloud were the words: “ON FATHER’S DAY, REMEMBER YOUR FATHER IN HEAVEN.” Gregor shook his head. What he remembered were the Sisters of Divine Grace back in Philadelphia and the way they had celebrated Mother’s Day. Nuns. Nuns never changed.
Gregor went down the back stairs and across the open space to the double doors of the cafeteria. He looked inside and frowned. Robbie Yagger was not there. Not much of anybody was there. He wondered where everyone had gone. Sister Kenna was sitting by herself at a table in the corner of the room, reading intently in what Gregor thought was her Divine Office. At this distance, it was difficult to tell. The largest round table in the room, near the rail for the cafeteria line, was taken up by a crowd of very young women wearing blue smocks and volunteer staff pins. They were alternately whispering and laughing hysterically.