Hosts

WEDNESDAY

1

Sandy was up and out at the ungodly hour of 6:03 A.M., but the sun was ahead of him, peeking around the granite Gothic spires of St. John the Divine as he bounded along the sidewalk. He skidded to a stop before the newsstand and there it was: The Light. The headline took up the top half of the page:

SIX-GUN

SAVIOR!

A blurry photo of the dead killer occupied the bottom half. His photo! They'd found something usable on his roll.

And below that, the ba

"Yes!" he shouted and pumped his fist.

He snatched up an issue and opened it to page three and there he was: his first-person account boxed with his picture. Oh, no! They'd used the geeky photo from his HR file! But he forgot about that as soon as he started reading.

Butterflies fluttered up from his stomach and into his chest. This was his first Ferris wheel ride, his first look at the Magic Kingdom, his first kiss all rolled into one. He felt as if his head were about to float away.

"That is one dahlah," said an accented voice.

"Hmmm?"

Sandy looked up and saw the swarthy newsstand owner holding out his hand.

"You must buy to read. One dahlah."

"Oh, yeah." He fished singles out of his pocket. "I'll take four."

He'd have access to virtually unlimited free copies at work but that wasn't the same. The ones in his hand came from a newsstand, from the street, and somehow that made them more real.

"Oh yeah, and I'll take a copy of that subway map too."

He checked out the front pages of the competition. The Post headline was okay—"SUBWAY SLAUGHTER!"—but he liked the News headline better: "NIGHTMARE ON THE NINE!" As expected, the Times was more sedate with "SIX DEAD IN SUBWAY MASSACRE." But both ran photos from above ground, mostly of the survivors as they emerged from the subway station. He looked at The Light again with his photo and its ba

"That's me, my man! Me!"

"Yes," the man said. "Very nice."

Sandy got the feeling the guy thought he might be scaring away his customers and wanted him to move on. So Sandy moved on, feeling lighter than air. Nobody could bring him down this morning. Nobody.

2

"Yo, Stan."

Stan Kozlowski lowered his copy of the Times and looked across the table. His shorter, heavier younger brother Joe had a copy of The Light folded in half and was pi

They occupied their usual table near the front window of Moishe's kosher deli on Second Avenue. The kosher part didn't matter—they'd been raised Catholic—but Moishe's was convenient, the coffee free-flowing, and the bagels unbeatable.

"What?"

"You been reading about this guy on the train last night?"

"Some."

He'd skimmed the stories to see if the Times knew more than last night's TV news. It didn't. And the mystery about this "Savior" guy had the whole city buzzing. Moishe's was no exception: Didja hear? The Savior this, the savior that. Whatta y'think? Blah-blah-blah. The story wasn't a day old and already Stan was sick of it.

"Yours say anything about his gun?"

"No. Not that I recall. I—"

"You guys figured out who he is yet?" said a squeaky voice with a Brooklyn accent sharp enough to cut steel.

Sally, their usual waitress at this, their usual table, had returned with her usual pot of coffee. Seventy if she was a day and built like a hunchbacked bird, she dyed her hair flame orange and applied eye make-up with a trowel.

Stan noticed how Joe slipped his scarred hand off the table and onto his lap. An automatic move. Seeing it caused something to twist inside Stan. Joe shouldn't have to hide any part of himself.

Two years now since the accident…

Accident, hell. He and Joe had called the fire an accident and stuck to the story so well that Stan caught himself every now and then believing it really was an accident. But the fire that had ruined their reputations and put them both out of business and scarred Joe for life had been no accident.

Joe hadn't been the same since then. Before the fire he'd been Joe Koz, top torch in the Northeast, maybe the whole coast, and no slouch with C-4 either. Now… well, he was damaged goods, and his ruined hand was only the visible part; he'd been damaged inside as well. He'd stopped caring. He never worked out anymore. Must have put on forty pounds while Stan had maintained his fighting weight. He was four years younger but now looked a good ten years older.

Stan looked up at Sally. "Who? This Savior guy? Why should we carer

"We might," Joe said. "We might care a lot."

Something in his voice made Stan give his brother a closer look; he noticed that Joe's face was set in grimmer lines than usual.

"Sure you do," Sally said, refilling their cups. "Especially if they offer a reward."

"If the city doesn't," Joe said, "I just might offer one myself."

Sally laughed. "You do that, Joe. You do that."

As she moved on, Stan stared at his brother. "What's up, Joe?"

"It doesn't say nothin' in the Times there about the kind of gun he used to whack the crazy?"

"No."

Joe smirked. "I guess bein' a college boy has its drawbacks. Even us lowbrow dropouts hit pay dirt once in a while."

They'd had a long ru

"Get to the point."

"One of The Light's reporters was on that train last night—right in the car where it all went down—and he says here this Savior guy used a tiny little .45 that he pulled out of an ankle holster."

Stan went cold. The Times articles had said the killer had used 9mm pistols with homemade silencers but hadn't mentioned a thing about the caliber of the Savior's gun or his holster.

"That doesn't mean it's him," Stan said.

"Yeah. I bet there's fucking thousands of guys ru

For the first time in two years Stan saw that old spark in his brother's eyes. He didn't want to douse it.

"You've got a point. It could be him. But don't get your hopes up."

"Get them up?" Joe gri

"Easy, Joe," Stan said. "You're getting loud."

"Like I give a steaming wet brown cruller! Damn fuck right I'm getting loud!"

He held up his left hand and waved it in Stan's face. Mottled shiny pink scar tissue gleamed under the ceiling fluorescents; it enveloped his index and middle fingers, fusing them into a single digit, and it swathed his ring and pinky fingers, joining them as well. The thumb too was scarred but remained separate.

"We've got issues with this guy, Stan. Serious business issues. But for me it's personal too." He began pounding the table with his good hand. "I've been lookin' for him two years, and if this is him, he's go