HIV had always given Jack the creeps. He wasn't generally given to looking for or finding conspiracies, but HIV was so damned efficient. An infection that attacks the very weapons the body uses against infections… the concept had such an engineered feel about it.

Jack felt he could protect those two people in there against just about anything. But not a virus. And they were putting themselves right in its way.

If either one of them should catch it… he didn't know what he'd do.

HIV was something he could not fix.

Jack pulled himself away and walked back the way he had come.

He saw the heavyset Gladys leading a line of preschoolers down the hall. She smiled and nodded as she passed, a huge goose with her goslings. He spotted Hector bringing up the rear.

"Hey," he said, pointing. "Who's that kid with the mad buzz cut?"

Jack had expected another offer to "feel my buth cut," or a smile at least. But Hector's eyes were dull when he looked up at Jack. And then he staggered against the wall and dropped to his knees. Before Jack could react, Hector vomited.

"Whoa!" Jack yelled. "Trouble here!"

Gladys was there in a second. "Stay back," she told Jack as she pulled on latex gloves that seemed to appear from nowhere.

She picked up a hall phone, spoke a few words, then knelt beside Hector. Jack couldn't hear what she said, but he saw Hector shake his head.

And then Raymond appeared—he too was wearing latex gloves. He gathered Hector up in his arms and carried him back down the hall. As Gladys directed the other children back into their playroom, a janitor appeared and began mopping up the mess with a solution that reeked of antiseptic.

Jack moved on. He'd been a frozen observer, not knowing what to do. The staff here had its own set of rules and protocols that Jack was not privy to. He felt like a stranger in a foreign country, with no knowledge of the language or the culture.

He quickened his pace. Hector had been smiling and bubbling less than an hour ago, and just now he'd looked like a little rag doll with all its stuffing vacuumed out.

The happy sounds of the children in the day-care rooms attacked Jack as he moved. Each shout felt like a shot, each laugh a knife thrust. Death hovered over every one of them, a fatal infection lurked around every corner, but they didn't know about that. And just as well. They were kids, and they should be happy while they could.

Especially the crack babies. Their short lives had been full of pain from day one, while a virus chewed away at their immune systems.

And now someone had stolen their toys!

Jack felt his jaw muscles bunch. Don't worry, kids… Uncle Jack may not know what to do when you're sick, but he's not quite as useless as he looked a few minutes ago. He's going to get your toys back. And in the process he sincerely intends to have a heart-to-heart chat with the oxygen waster who took them.

Life really sucked sometimes.

But it didn't have to suck all the time. Sometimes things could be fixed.

SATURDAY

The Nail sat behind the wheel of his truck and rubbed his hands together for warmth. Cold as shit out tonight, man. Cold as shit!

But not for long. An hour from now, maybe less if the buyer didn't try to jew him down too much, he'd be flush and warm in his crib, sucking on some rock instead of this piss poor excuse for a joint.

The Nail took a deep toke and held it. He wiped the condensation off his windshield and wished the heater in this damn truck worked. He flicked his Bic to check his watch. The buyer had said like eleven-thirty. Just about that now.

He'd floated the word that if anyone wanted a deep discount on a bunch of new Xmas toys, wrapped and ready to go, The Nail was the man. Word had floated back that a fence who was a friend of a friend of a friend wanted the whole truckload. Yes!

He exhaled and peered down the alley, looking for headlights. Lots of wheels rolling by out there, heading for the nearby Manhattan Bridge. He wished the right set would roll in here so he could get this deal done.

His contact hadn't said so, but The Nail figured the fence was bringing his own truck. Had to be. How else was he going to cart the stuff out of here?

Better not have any ideas about taking this truck, man. He patted the little .32 automatic in his belt. Better not be thinking of anything beyond passing the cash and offloading the stash.

Hey, that rhymes.

Passin' the green and splittin' the scene.

The Nail smiled and took another toke. Too bad he wasn't with the band anymore. Maybe him and the drummer could've like worked that up into a song or something. That'd be cool.

He missed Polio. Best damn punk thrasher band in the world, man, and he'd played bass for them. Well, for a few months, anyway. Until they kicked him out for not showing up.

But it'd been a good few months. That was when he'd picked up the name The Nail. Well, not picked up, actually. That was when he'd started calling himself The Nail. You needed a name like The Nail if you was playing for Polio. Like who'd want a bass player named Joey DeCiglia?

And The Nail was such a cool name, having like a double meaning and all.

But even with a handle like The Nail and having gigged with Polio, there wasn't no work out there. Least not for him. Shit, yeah, he got auditions just by name-dropping Polio, and everybody was real interested in hearing him… until they heard him.

Then it was like, don't call us, man…

Yeah, well, fuck you too.

He sucked the joint down to his fingertips and tossed the roach out the window. Not worth saving, man.

After a bunch of wasted auditions, The Nail said goodbye to the music scene. He had his pride, man. As a lark, he started boosting stuff and selling it off. Wound up making more that way than any of the nowhere, no-name thrasher bands who never called him were gonna pay him.

But then Tina goes and gets herself knocked up and tries to tell him the kid's his. Sure. Right. Like with the way she jumps on anything upright and hard, he's gonna believe that shit? No fucking way.

Then she gets all fucked up in the head and won't have an abortion. Nah. She's gonna have the kid and be a mommy.

Right. Mommy Tina. Sure.

But surprise, surprise. She's goes through with it. And of course the kid's born like totally wasted. And then the word comes down that it's got fucking AIDS, man. AIDS!

That meant Tina had the bug, and that blew The Nail's mind. Fuck, he could have it too, what with screwing Tina all the time and sharing needles. He should've gotten tested right then, but he was too scared, man. Like he didn't want to know.

But for Tina, it was like she wasn't even sick and like the kid wasn't sick either. Her head was royally fucked. So she was all broke up when they took the baby away from her.

And she kept telling him it was his kid. Kept saying how it looked just like him. So one day last week she finally hounded him into going over to this place where they keep the kid and look after it. The Nail didn't know what had gotten into him—maybe that Ceylonese brown they'd been using had got him over-mellowed—but he was glad he'd given in. Because as he was hanging around the place, he saw people carrying a bunch of Christmas gifts through this doorway. He took a peek, figuring he might be able to make off with something small, but he saw a whole room filled with toys. Whoa.

Merry Christmas to me.

He did the place two nights later.

And the coolest part of the whole thing was the news coverage. Shit, man, last night you couldn't turn a radio or TV without hearing about "the AIDS baby Christmas toy theft." He'd spent hours hopping from channel to channel, one news show after the other, grinning like a total asshole.