Crazy Jane

I turned around, looking for the woman. She was gone as well. I figured she'd run off while I was dealing with the drunk. So here I was alone on the street again and still with no idea where to go, or what to do next.

I bent down and picked up the knife the drunk had dropped. I looked at it. It was a crummy old thing, a switchblade, good for nothing but stabbing people. I drew back my arm and hurled it into the night. I heard it give a distant chuck as it hit the gravel on the train tracks.

I started walking again along the line of warehouses. I got about ten steps before a hand shot out of the darkness and grabbed my arm.

I turned. It was the woman, the woman who'd been attacked. She was hiding in a recessed doorway. As she took hold of me, she stepped out, peering up at me intently.

I looked down at her. She was small. Her torn gray overcoat dwarfed her. She had a large, round face with a strangely innocent, even childlike expression. Her cheeks and forehead were covered in grime and red sores. Her brown hair was so filthy it was matted into dreadlocks. She was so dirty I couldn't tell how old she wasa"not very old, I thought, maybe thirty or something. She had large, almond-shaped green eyes that moved over me quickly and nervously.

Her voice was a low murmur. "I know you," she said. She said it dreamily, in this kind of distant, eerie tone.

I felt my arm go tense in her hand. "Oh yeah?"

She nodded, a quick, squirrel-like motion. Then, glancing this way and that, she said, "Come with me."

She took me to the corner and down a street, then to another corner and down another street. The whole time she was talking to herselfa"or maybe she was talking to me, I couldn't be sure. She was talking very fast in that dreamy, low murmur, saying stuff like, "Jane knows . . . they sent the knife-man to keep her quiet . . . about the impulses . . . they're electric, you understand . . . mind control . . . but they can't get Jane . . ." She kept hold of my arm, moving along beside me with small, swift steps. She kept her eyes moving, too, scanning this way and that. Once, suddenly, she drew me into the alcove of a warehouse bay and we hid there. "They're coming. They're coming. Jane knows . . . " she murmured. I figured she was crazy. There was nothing to hide from. I didn't hear or see anything to be afraid of, anyway. But the woman said again: "They're coming. Jane knows." And it turned out she was right: a few moments later, some hulking thugs went by, a small gang of them. We waited in the alcove till they were gone.

We walked on, Jane holding my elbow, murmuring the whole way. Finally, we came to an old brick apartment building, its walls practically black with graffiti. Some of the windows were broken, but there were lights on in some of the others. I caught glimpses of shadows moving inside, so I knew the place wasn't deserted.

"They haven't found this . . . my hideaway . . . my secret place . . . they don't know about it . . . the impulses can't come here . . ."

She pushed the front door open. There was no lock. Murmuring crazily, holding on to my arm, she drew me up the stairway. The second floor was destroyed, abandoned, the same as the building I'd hidden in before. But on the third floor there were walls and doors. Some of the doors were shut, and light came out from underneath them. I heard some low music coming from behind one of the others.

We climbed the stairs to the fifth floor. Then she drew me down the hallway to her door. It was locked with a padlock. The womana"Janea"finally let go of my arm in order to fish the key out of her huge overcoat.

"It's the door, that's why," she murmured. "It's special. The electricity can't get through. It's blocked."

She unlocked the padlock and pushed inside. I followed her.

The air in the apartment was dense and gnarly. It smelled bad, like a litter box that hadn't been emptied in a long time. Sure enough, as soon as I stepped over the threshold, I heard cats mewing. Jane pressed a switch. A dim yellow light came on in the ceiling. And there they were: three catsa"one black, one orange, one gray. The gray one took an exploratory pa.s.s through my legs, then all three of them cl.u.s.tered around Jane's feet. Jane went on murmuring, but she was murmuring to the cats now, her tone more tender than before. She rigged an iron bar across the door as a makeshift lock. She was talking to the cats the whole time. "There they are, safe and sound, my darlings . . . the impulses can't touch them here . . . none of that nasty mind control for my beautiful darlings . . . Jane will protect you . . ."

The cats, meanwhile, wove in and out between her feet, tumbling over one another and meowing. She had to step carefully not to fall over them as she moved away from the door. The cats continued to follow her as she stooped down and turned on a small electric s.p.a.ce heater sitting in one corner. Then she moved on into the kitchenette, murmuring to the cats as the cats mewed back at her.

I looked around. The apartment was one room, and it was an unholy mess. The walls were all cracked and chipped. Some of them even had holes broken through the plaster so you could see the beams and wires underneath. There were great big black plastic bags everywherea"in the corners, against the wall, up on a counter in the kitchenette. The bags were stuffed full of what looked like junk as far as I could see: old clothes and broken appliances and cans and bottles and stuff like that.

There was an old dirty mattress lying on the floor and a lamp standing next to it with no lampshade. There was a chair, too, a dirty old canvas chair, set low to the ground like a beach chair.

And then there were the newspapers. They were all over the place. They were everywhere. They were taped to the wall like wallpaper. They covered the floor like a carpet. They were stacked between the plastic bags. They lay littering the bed and the chair. Newspapers on top of newspapers. The place was practically stuffed with them.

I looked over to the kitchenette. There was a microwave oven on the counter in there, and some stacks of food cans and some spotty bowls and gla.s.ses. There were no kitchen cabinets, but you could see the marks on the wall where they'd been torn down. There were more newspapers there tooa"on the wall, on the counter, and on the floor.

Jane stood in the kitchenette with the cats twining around her ankles. She was cranking a can opener around a can of cat food.

"Have to eat to keep your strength . . . for the big fight when they come . . . they sent a knife-man after Jane tonight, my babies . . . but then he came . . . mm-hmm . . .

because he knows . . . because they're after him, too, just like Jane . . ."

The cats fell over one another as she spooned some cat food out into a bowl for them and set it on the floor. They took their places around the bowl and ate hungrily.

"Just like Jane . . . mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You hungry?"

It took me a moment to realize she was talking to me. "Oh," I said. "No. Thank you, ma'am. I'm fine. I ate a little while ago." Even before I finished, she had gone off muttering again, chattering softly in that same dreamy, eerie tone.

She had gone to work opening another can now, a can of soup. She poured it into a bowl and set the bowl in the microwave, chattering softly all the while it cooked. Finally, she brought it out and carried the bowl over to the mattress. Newspapers on the mattress crumpled as she sat down on them. She huddled there, blowing on the soup, still talking softly.

"If they think so, they don't know Jane . . . not me, not Jane . . . electric rays, impulses, connections . . . that's what they know, that's what they think . . . but not Jane . . . Take a seat, Charlie . . . I'm not afraid of them . . . I'm not going to let them in . . . we know, don't we?"

I stood staring at her. She had called me by my name. Take a seat, Charlie. Out in the street, when she said, "I know you," she was telling the truth. She had recognized me. She knew who I was.

"Go on, go on," she said. "Take a seat."

I hesitated another moment, unsure what to do. Should I run away? Would she turn me in? Then I just said, "Thank you, ma'am." And I moved to the canvas chair and lowered myself into it. I watched as she lifted the bowl of soup to her lips. She sipped at it noisily, her dreadlocks falling around her face.

"You know my name," I said.

She came out of the soup and murmured, "Charlie West. Mm-hmm. Jane knows. It's in the papers."

She patted the s.p.a.ce around herself on the mattress. She found the page she wanted and handed it to me. I took it. Fugitive Killer Caught, said the headline. There was my picture underneath it, right on the front page. I was staring into the camera with wide, frightened eyes. It was a mug shot. They must've taken it when I was arrested for Alex's murder.

"They got ahold of you, didn't they?" the lady said. "They got hold of you and put out the word, oh yes. Electricity, that's how they do it. Impulses. Mind control. Oh, they can make you believe anything. They put it in the papers and everyone goes along. Jane knows how it works."

I actually smiled a little at that. It felt like I hadn't smiled in a long time, not really. But it was funny: it was obvious that Jane was crazy, but at the same time, what she was saying made a certain amount of sense too.

"You're not afraid of me, then?" I asked her. "You don't think I'm a killer, like the paper says."

"Oh." She gave a laugh and blew on her soup, leaning into it for warmth. "Oh no, Jane knows you're not a killer. Jane knows. It doesn't make sense, does it? If you were a killer, you wouldn't have saved Jane from the knife-man, would you? It doesn't make any sense at all."

I scratched my head at that, wondering. Because again, she was right, wasn't she? It didn't make sense. Maybe I was just as crazy as she was, but, strange as it may sound, the thought kind of touched me. Here I'd been worrying about whether maybe I really was a bad guya"maybe I was a killer like Detective Rose said. But Janea"Crazy Janea"had come up with the answer. If I was a bad guy, I wouldn't have helped her. If I was a killer, I wouldn't be the person I was. I was grateful to Jane for understanding that and for explaining it to me. I was grateful to her for believing in mea"even if she was crazy.

Unfortunately, the next thing I knew she was babbling pure nonsense again. "They try to put those things in my head, you know, make me believe them. With electricity. Impulses. But not Jane. They can't get Jane. That's why they sent the knife-man. Because I won't believe the voices. The impulses don't work on me. I know what they're up to. I know." She lifted the bowl and slurped some more soup from it.

I was confused now. If some of what she said was true, how did I know the rest wasn't? "Uh . . . who sent the knife-man?" I asked her. "Who sends the impulses?"

She looked this way and that, as if she was afraid someone was listening in. Then she leaned toward me and whispered, "The people from the hospital. They're the ones. It's mind control, that's what it is. They say, no, no, no, no, no, no, but . . ." She shook her finger in the air and laughed at that idea. "Jane knows."

I shivered, but I don't think it was because of the cold. In fact, the little s.p.a.ce heater was beginning to warm the place up pretty nicely. It was just kind of spooky being here with her, listening to her weaving between craziness and good sense. So many insane things had happened to me in the last couple of days, it was getting hard to tell which was which.

"They're all around, you know," she said.

I licked my dry lips. "Oh yeah?"

"Mm-hmm. The ones from the hospital. Trying to take me back. The ones who are trying to get you. They're everywhere."

I nodded. Again, it was sort of crazy and sort of true at the same time.

"You can't know who to trust," she said.

"That's right. I don't," I told her.

"You don't know how to escape."

"I don't. They're everywhere, looking for me."

"Mm-hmm. Jane knows. Every time you think you've figured out what's what, they change the whole face of things, don't they?"

"Yes!"

"Pretty soon you're not even sure who you are anymore. You're not even sure if their lies are really lies and your truth is really true."

I shook my head. "I just wish I could remember."

"Mm-hmm. Jane knows." She looked at me hard with her big, quick, almond eyes. Her round, innocent face was very serious and intense beneath all the grime. It was as if she felt we had connected with each other, that we were on the same wavelength. It gave me a weird feeling, to understand her, to be in sympathy with her, and to know she was completely mad.

"They want to take away your freedom," she said.

"They do," I said. "They do."

"They want to kill you."

"I know it."

She looked back and forth, this way and that, as if they might burst in on us any minute. "They have plans. Big plans."

"I know! They want to kill Richard Yarrow!"

I don't know why I told her that. It just sort of came out of me. I mean, we were talking and she was describing things so exactly. I just sort of fell into the conversation as if I were chatting with a sane person. Well, why not, you know? I was all alone, after all. I had no one else to share things with. There was just me and Crazy Jane.

"Richard Yarrow," Jane answered in a hushed, awestruck voice. Her green eyes darted back and forth.

I nodded. "He's coming to visit the president tomorrow. They're planning to kill him somehow, and I don't know what to do. Everyone wants to arrest me and no one will believe me."

"They'll never believe you," Jane echoed.

"I know. And I can't just sit by and let Yarrow die."

"Yarrow," she echoed. Then her mouth formed a circle. Her big eyes got bigger still. "O-o-o-oh," she said on a great long breath. "I know Yarrow."

As I sat in the canvas chair, watching, she set her soup bowl aside and came off the mattress. She started to crawl along the floor on her hands and knees, her eyes searching the newspapers lying under her. The newspapers crinkled and crunched as she moved over them. Soon, comically enough, the cats finished eating and came over and joined her. They rubbed up against her flanks. The four of thema"the lady and the catsa"crawled around the floor on all fours, Jane's eyes scouring the newspapers the whole time. It was one of the strangest things I think I'd ever seen.

Finally, she repeated, "Yarrow." She picked another newspaper page up off the floor. Carrying the page, she crawled back to the mattress with the mewing cats crawling after her. When she'd sat down again, the cats climbed up on her and gathered in her lap. She handed the newspaper page over to me.

153 Closed for Yarrow Visit, the headline read. There on the paper was a map very similar to the map I'd seen on TV earlier. It showed Richard Yarrow's route from the airport to the president's vacation home in the Green Hills. Underneath that was a photograph. It showed a whole bunch of state troopers in their khaki uniforms talking to four men in dark suits. The photograph's caption said: "Secret Service agents brief state troopers on security arrangements for Yarrow's 11 a.m. arrival."

I glanced over the news story. The lady sat on the mattress, watching me over the cats and murmuring to herself. The three cats stretched their faces up to her face and rubbed their bodies up against her.

There was nothing much in the newspaper story that I didn't know already. Yarrow had worked out a new plan to root out terrorism in the United States, and he was coming to present the plan to the president. In a recent speech, Yarrow had said that he felt the threat of terrorism here at home was increasing and had to be dealt with harshly.

I was about to hand the newspaper back to the lady when something in it caught my eye. I wasn't sure at first what it was. Something in that photograph of the Secret Service men with the troopers. I kept looking it over and it kept bothering me, but I couldn't tell why.

Then, all at once, I got it. It was the face of one of the agentsa"one of the men in the dark suits. I had seen it before. But where?

I stared at the face, trying to remember. It came to me. It was back in Centerville. Back when they were taking me out of the jail to the cruiser. Just before the man came up behind me and whispered to me and broke my handcuffs, I had seen someone, someone in the crowd. I remembered now. I had had a strange feeling, as if I recognized this person, as if I knew him from somewhere.

Now there he was again: one of the Secret Service agents in the photograph. It was the same man, the same handsome face with the same floppy blond hair. Looking at him gave me the same feeling too. I knew him from somewhere. I couldn't quite remember where it was. It was as if his name was right on the edge of my mind and I just couldn't bring it out. The harder I tried to remember, the more it seemed to slip away from me.

They always tell you when you can't remember something, the best thing to do is stop thinking about it. But I couldn't stop thinking about this. It didn't make any sense. Why would I know a Secret Service agent?

It was no good. I couldn't figure it out. I gave up. Once again, I was about to hand the newspaper back to Jane.

Then, just like that, the name came out of me. "Orton," I said aloud.

For once, the lady stopped her murmuring. She went very still. She stared at me as if I had said something bizarre or amazing. "Orton," she repeated.

"The guy in the newspaper," I said. I don't know if I was talking to her or to myself, but it helped me to say it out loud somehow. "The guy in the picture. I think I know him. I think his name is Orton."

Again, she spoke the name back at me, drawing out the syllables in her weird, dreamy way. "Orrrrtoooon."

And with that, those other voices came back to me, my memory of those voices outside the torture room door: Homelander One.

We'll never get another shot at Yarrow.

Two more days. We can send Orton. He knows the bridge as well as West.

"Orton," I whispered. "That's right. They're sending him to the bridge."

"To the bridge," whispered Crazy Jane, slapping her forehead.

"That's where they're going to do it."

"That's where they're going to kill Yarrow," she said.

"Yes!"

My eyes moved from the photograph back to the mapa"the map that showed the route of Secretary Yarrow's trip from Centerville to the president's home. Sure enough, there it was, marked clearly on the page: the Indian Canyon Bridge.

"There it is," I said. I handed the page to her, pointing at the map. "There." She took it, looked at it. "Orton is going to kill Yarrow tomorrow right there on that bridge," I told her.

Crazy Jane stared at the paper. Then she let out a little gasp and lifted her eyes to me. The cats mewed and rubbed against her.

"Oh, Charlie," she whispered. "You have to stop him."