5.

Jack took the A train downtown and emerged into the bustling Third World bazaar that was Fourteenth Street. He threaded his way among dreadlocked Dominicans, turbaned Sikhs, sailed Indians, suited Koreans, Pakistanis, Puerto Ricans, Jamaicans, and an occasional European mixing in the chill air on sidewalks flanked with signs in half a dozen languages.

He arrived early at the Seventh Avenue address Gia had given him. A little placard on the door was the only indication that this nondescript storefront had anything to do with AIDS.

He probably could have started hunting the stolen Christmas gifts without coming down here, but he figured a quick look at the scene wouldn't hurt. Might even give him a handle on the thieves.

"I have a four o'clock with Dr. Clayton, I believe?" he told the slim, attractive black woman at the reception desk. The nameplate read simply, Tiffany.

"Name, sir?"

"Jack."

"Jack what?"

He wanted to tell her, Just Jack, but that inevitably led to more questions, and further refusal tended to brand his identity in a person's mind. He preferred to slide off the memory without a trace.

He smiled and fished for a name beginning with "N." He'd used Meyers last time he'd been asked, and since he liked to proceed in alphabetical order…

"Niedermeyer. Jack Niedermeyer."

"Fine, Mr. Niedermeyer. Dr. Clayton is still in another meeting right now. A reporter. We had a robbery here last night, you know."

"Really? What did they take?"

"All the donated Christmas toys."

"Get out!"

"It's true. The police are on it right now. I think they should—oh, there's Dr. Clayton now. Looks like she's finishing up."

Jack saw a slim brunette in a white coat walking his way with a guy who looked more like a deliveryman than a reporter. She escorted him to the door, then scanned the street outside as if looking for something. Whatever it was, when she turned back Jack's way, she didn't look as if she'd found it. Or maybe she had. Either way, she didn't seem happy.

"Dr. Clayton, this is your four o'clock: Mr. Niedermeyer."

Dr. Alicia Clayton was better-looking close up, but still kind of… plain. She had fine, angular features—a thin, sharp nose, sharply etched lips—neither too fine nor too full—and blue-gray eyes. Her hair was fine too, bobbed to chin length, and a deep, deep black—not black-dye black like the Goth kids did their hair, but a genuine, rich, glossy black.

And no makeup. Someone who took such good care of their hair, you'd think they'd want to enhance their other assets. But not, apparently, Dr. Clayton.

Well, if nothing else, the lack of makeup gave her a clean, scrubbed look, which Jack supposed was a good thing for a doctor.

But her eyes… something hiding there. Fear? Anger? A little of both, maybe?

She thrust out her hand. "Welcome, Mr. Niedermeyer."

She had a good grip.

"Just call me Jack."

"You'll want to see the scene of the crime, I imagine."

"I was going to suggest that."

No wasting time. All business. Jack liked that.

The Center wasn't at all what he'd expected. The halls were bright, painted cheery shades of yellow and orange.

"You're a pediatrician?" he said as they walked along.

She nodded. "Subspecialty in infectious diseases."

"My sister's a pediatrician."

"Really? Where's she practice?"

Jack mentally kicked himself. Why the hell had he said that? He never thought about his sister the doctor. Or his brother the judge. Must be those calls from Dad.

"I'm really not sure," he said. "We don't keep in touch."

Dr. Clayton gave him a strange look.

Yeah, he thought. Sounds pretty lame, I know, but my sister's far better off not being linked to me.

As they passed open doorways he peeked through and saw rooms filled with toddlers laughing and playing and running around. They didn't look sick.

"That's the day-care area," Dr. Clayton said. "Where HIV-positive kids can play with other HIV-positive kids, and no one has to worry about passing on the infection."

A little boy ran out of one of the rooms and skidded to a stop before them.

"Dr. Alith!" he cried. "Look at my hair! I got a buth cut!"

"Very nice, Hector. But you know you're supposed to stay in the playroom."

Hector was all of four years old and maybe thirty pounds. His ultra short light brown hair was about the same shade as his skin. He looked pale under his pigment, but his grin was a winner.

"Feel my head!" he said. "It'th a buth cut."

A heavyset woman in a flowered smock appeared at the door of the playroom, filling it. "C'mon back, Hector," she said. "It's you're turn at the light box."

"No. I want Dr. Alith to feel my buth cut!"

The woman said, "He just got that haircut and he's been driving us all nuts about it."

Dr. Clayton smiled and brushed her hand over Hector's stubbled head. "Okay, Hector, I'll check out your buzz cut, but then—"

Her smile faded and she pressed her hand to his forehead. "I think you feel a little warm."

"He's been running around like a little madman—'Feel my buzz cut! Feel my buzz cut!' I'm sure he's just overheated."

"Could be, Gladys, but bring him by. my office before he goes home, okay?"

Hector jumped in front of Jack and angled the top of his head toward him. "Feel my buth cut, mithter!"

Jack hesitated. Hector was a cute little guy, but he was a cute little guy with HIV.

"C'mon, mithter!"

Jack gave the bristly top of Hector's head a quick rub. He didn't like himself for how quickly he pulled his hand away.

"Ithn't it mad?" Hector said.

"The maddest," Jack told him.

Gladys scooted Hector back to his playroom and they moved on to the next area, which wasn't so pleasant. Jack peeked through a window in a door and saw a room full of kids hooked up to IV's.

"This is the clinic area. Kids come in here for outpatient therapy—we infuse them, monitor their progress, then send them home."

And then they came to a huge plate-glass window that stretched from waist level to the ceiling.

"We board the homeless or abandoned infants in there," Alicia said. "We have volunteers to hold them and comfort them. The crack babies need a lot of comforting."

Jack spotted Gia cradling a baby in her arms on the far side of the glass, but he didn't pause. He didn't want her to see him.

"You do a lot here," he said as they moved on.

"Yeah, we've had to become a clinic, a nursery, a day-care center, and a foster home."

"And all because of a single virus."

"But we have to deal with more than the virus," Alicia said. "So many of these kids aren't born merely HTV positive—as if 'merely' can somehow be used with HIV—but addicted to crack or heroin as well. They hit the world screaming like any other baby at the insult of being ejected from that warm cozy womb, but then they keep on screaming as the agonies of cold-turkey withdrawal set in."

"A double whammy," Jack said. Poor kids.

"Yes. Some parents leave their kinds an inheritance, some leave hidden scars; these kids were left a virtual death sentence."

Jack sensed something very personal in that last sentence but couldn't latch onto what it might have been.

"Perhaps 'death sentence' is overstating it. We can do a lot for these kids now. The survival rate is way up, but still… once they get through withdrawal, they still have the aftereffects of addiction. Crack and heroin burn out parts of the nervous system. I won't bore you with a lecture about dopamine receptors, but the result is fried circuits in the pleasure centers. Which leaves our little crack babies edgy and irritable, unable to take solace in the simple things that comfort normal infants. So they cry. Endlessly. Until the strung-out junkie mothers who made them this way beat them to shut them up."