The door swung open and the nun peered out. “Yes? Didn’t you want to go in the front door?”
“There’s a medical emergency going on at the front door, Sister,” John Jackman said politely. “We couldn’t get through.”
Sister made a face. “Stabbings. Always with the stabbings. Two or three times a week.”
“Right at the hospital doors?” Gregor asked.
“Father McCormack came and talked to us about it. It has something to do with where we are. The neighborhood to the north is controlled by one gang, and the neighborhood to the east is controlled by another, so—”
“Never mind,” John Jackman said. “We get the idea.”
“It causes everybody no end of problems when they do this,” the nun said. “And they get terribly hurt and somebody always dies. How do you talk people out of behaving like that?”
“If I knew the answer to that, ma’am, I could retire to Miami.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go to Miami,” the nun said. “Miami is worse. I know. The Sisters always watch the reruns of that show on television.”
“Nuns who watch Miami Vice,” John Jackman said into Gregor’s ear. “I think that makes my week complete.”
Gregor ignored him. The hall was not only dimly lit but much too well heated. It was so hot, Gregor thought steam was going to rise from the floor beneath his feet.
“You come right this way,” the nun told them, padding off down the hall into the dark. “The elevators are right over here. Just push the button for lobby and get off when the elevator stops. Unless you’re looking for a room on the south side. Are you looking for a room on the south side?”
“North side,” Gregor told her.
“Oh. Well, then. You get off at the lobby and use the other set of elevators. They’ll take you right up. And there’ll be a Sister on duty at the desk to give you any other directions you need.”
“Thank you,” John Jackman said.
They were at the elevators now. They had passed into a lightless place. Then the Sister had flicked a switch and an entire ceilingful of overhead fluorescents had come on.
“Saving on electricity, you know,” she said. “Looking out for the environment.”
Gregor punched the call button and looked at the whitewashed concrete walls. Somebody had gone to the trouble of putting up candles cut out of construction paper and a bright silver tin foil star.
“Take a little advice from me, Sister,” Gregor said. “Stop worrying about the electric bill. And leave the environment to somebody else. Keep the lights on.”
“But—”
“Sister, you’re in a very bad place in the middle of a very tough part of Philadelphia, and in the dark the way you are you’re asking to get hurt.”
The elevator bounded down to them. The doors slid open. Gregor and Jackman stepped into the car.
“But,” Sister said again.
“Trust me,” Gregor told her.
Then he pushed the button marked “L” and the doors slid closed.
2
THE LOBBY WAS ALMOST as deserted as the hall downstairs had been. There was one Sister at the reception desk. She recognized them and nodded them past. There was a policeman on duty in front of the north side elevator bank. He was sitting in a chair reading The Body Lovers by Mickey Spillane. It was an old paperback falling apart at the spine. Its cover was a 1950s hard-boiled cliché, complete with shapely high-heel-clad leg coming out of nowhere and snaking up into the cover. It was the kind of cover Tibor disguised by pasting it over with brown paper cut out of grocery bags. Tibor loved Mickey Spillane.
When they came up to the cop, he put down his book. When the cop saw who he had in front of him, he stood up.
“Hello,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I didn’t expect to be here,” John Jackman said. “Anybody go up?”
“Not for over an hour. There was a big rush between seven and eight. That was because of visiting. Since then it’s been dead. You could ask Shecker upstairs.”
“Shecker’s on duty on Five North?”
“That’s right. But I don’t think anything’s happened up there, either. I mean, except for what you would expect.”
“What would you expect?” Gregor asked.
“People from the show,” the cop said. Then he looked a little worried. “That was what I was told. They could come and go as they liked. I wasn’t supposed to stop them—”
“No, no,” Jackman said. “That’s absolutely right. We don’t have anything to stop them for. I just want to keep an eye on them. Which of that crowd has been up?”