Conspiracies

Conspiracies

F. Paul Wilson

for

Ethan Paul Bateman (E-Man!)

Special thanks to

Tom Valesky (again) and

Gerald Molnar for their marksmen's eyes for weapons errors.

TUESDAY

1

Jack looked around the front room of his apartment and figured he was either going to have to move to a bigger place, or stop buying stuff. He had nowhere to put his new Daddy Warbucks lamp.

Well, not new exactly. It had been made sometime in the 1940s, but it was in great shape. The base was a glazed plaster cast of Daddy from the waist up, his hand gripping a lapel of his tuxedo, a tiny rhinestone in place of his diamond stick pin. He was grinning, and his pupilless eyes showed not the slightest trace of concern about the lamp stem and socket shell emerging from his bald pate.

Jack had found it in a Soho nostalgia shop, and talked the owner down to eighty-five dollars for it. He would have paid twice that. The apartment didn't need another lamp, but Jack needed this one. Warbucks was such a stand-up guy. No way Jack could pass it up. No bulb or lampshade, but that was easily remedied. Problem was, where to put it?

He did a slow turn. His home was the third floor of a brownstone in the West Eighties, and smelled of old wood. Not surprising since the place was crammed with Victorian golden oak furniture. The walls and shelves were cluttered with memorabilia and tchotchkes from the thirties and forties. Everything in sight except for the computer monitor existed before he was born. Even the Cartoon Network—he could see the large-screen TV in the extra bedroom—was playing a toon from the thirties with a big-eyed owlet crooning how he loved "to sing-a, about the moon-a anna June-a anna spring-a ... " And here in the front room, not a single empty horizontal surface left ...

Except for the computer monitor.

Jack placed the Daddy Warbucks lamp on top of the monitor, which sat atop Jack's antique oak rolltop desk. The processor sat on the floor in the kneehole, and the keyboard hid under the rolltop. The monitor didn't look comfortable perched up there, but then, the computer didn't really fit anywhere in the room—a plastic iceberg adrift in a sea of wavy-grained oak.

But you couldn't be in business these days without one. Jack didn't understand all that much about computers, but he loved the anonymity they afforded in communications.

He hadn't checked his email since this morning, so he lit up the monitor and rolled up the tambour top to reveal his keyboard. He logged on through one of his ISPs—Jack had multiple accounts under various names with a number of Internet service providers, and maintained a Web site through one of them. Everything he'd read said that people were increasingly looking to the Internet to solve all sorts of problems, so Jack figured he might as well make himself available to folks searching there for his kind of solution.

Half a dozen emails from the Web site waited, but only one seemed worth answering, and that barely:

Jack—

I need your help. It's about my wife. Please call me or email me back, but—please—get back to me.

It was signed "Lewis Ehler" and he'd left two numbers, one in Brooklyn, the other on Long Island.

It's about my wife ... not some guy who wanted to know if she was cheating, he hoped. Marital problems weren't in Jack's line.

He had another job just starting up, but that promised to be mostly night work. Which meant his days would be free.

He wrote down the numbers, then headed out to make the call.

2

Jack walked east toward Central Park, looking for a phone he hadn't used recently, while the little toon owl's song echoed in his head.

I love to sing-a, about the moon-a anna June-a anna spring-a

Spring had sprung and NYC was lurching out of hibernation. The air smelled fresh and clean, bright flowers peeked from window boxes on the upper floors of the brownstone regiments, and tiny leaf buds bedizened the branches of the widely spaced trees set in the sidewalks. The late morning sun sat high and bright, keeping Jack comfortable in a work shirt and jeans. Winter coats were gone, leaving short skirts and long legs on display again. A good day to be alive and heterosexual.

Not that the women paid much attention to him. They barely seemed to notice the guy with the so-so build, average-length brown hair, and mild brown eyes. Which was just fine with Jack. He'd be disappointed if they did, considering the effort he put into being a walking trompe l'oeil.

Jack cultivated anti-presence. The anonymous look took effort—not too trendy, not too retro. He kept an eye on what the average guy on the street was wearing. Jeans and flannel shirts never went out of style, even here on the Upper West Side; neither did sneakers and work boots—real work boots. Twill work pants were another safe bet—never stylish, but they never attracted attention either.

He found a pay phone on Central Park West. The apartment buildings stopped dead here, as if sliced off with a knife for dozens of blocks in either direction to leave room for the park across the street. Through the still-naked trees he could see the Lake, a blue lozenge in the greening grass. No boats on it yet, but it wouldn't be long.

He tapped in the access number on his prepaid calling card. He loved these things. As anonymous as cash and a hell of a lot lighter than the pocketful of change he used to have to carry.

Everybody seemed so frightened of the potential threat new electronics posed to security. And maybe it was a genuine peril for citizens. But from Jack's perspective, electronics offered an anonymity bonanza. He used to keep an answering machine in an empty office on Tenth Avenue, but a few months ago he unplugged it and had all calls to that number forwarded to a voice-mail service.

Email, voice mail, calling cards ... he could almost hear Louis Armstrong singing, "What a wonderful world."

Jack punched in the Brooklyn number Ehler had left. He found himself talking to the Keystone Paper Cylinder Company and asked to speak to Lewis Ehler.

"Whom shall I say is calling?" said the receptionist.

"Just tell him it's Jack, calling about his email."

Ehler came on right away. He spoke in a wheezy, high-pitched voice accelerating steadily in an urgent whisper.

"Thank you so much for calling. I've been half out of my mind not knowing what to do. I mean, since Mel's been gone I've—"

"Whoa, whoa," Jack said. "Gone? Your wife's missing?"

"Yes! Three days now and—"

"Wait. Stop right there. We can save me time and you a lot of breath: I don't do missing wives."

His voice rose in pitch and volume. "But you must!"

"That's a police thing. They've got the manpower and resources to do missing persons a lot better than I ever will."

"No-no! She said no police! Absolutely no police."

"She told you? When did she tell you?"

"Just last night. I ... I heard from her last night."

"Then she's not really missing."

"She is. Please believe me, she is. And she told me to call you, only you. 'Repairman Jack is the only one who will understand' is what she said."

"Yeah? How does she know about me?"

"I don't know. I'd never heard of you until Mel told me."

"Mel?"

"Melanie."

"Okay, but if Melanie can call you, why can't she tell you where she is?"

"It's very complicated—too complicated to get into over the phone. Can't we just meet? It'll be so much easier to explain this in person."

Jack thought about that. He stared at the hulking mass of the Museum of Natural History a few blocks away and watched a yellow caravan of school buses pull into the parking lot. This gig sounded a little wacky. Hell, it sounded way wacky. A missing wife who calls and tells her husband don't go to the police, call Repairman Jack instead. Kidnapped, maybe? But then ...

"No ransom demand?"

"No. I doubt whoever's behind Mel's disappearance is interested in money."

"Everybody's interested in money."

"Not in this case. If we could just meet ... "

Wackier and wackier, but Jack had nothing doing the rest of the day ... and Ehler had said no cops involved——

"Okay. Let's meet."

Ehler's relief flooded through the receiver. "Oh, thank you, thank you—"

"But I'm not going to Brooklyn."

"Anywhere you say, just as long as it's soon."

Julio's was close. Jack gave Ehler the address and told him to be there in an hour. After Ehler hung up, Jack pressed the # key and an electronic voice told him how much credit he had left on his calling card.

God, he loved these things.

He hung up and walked away from the park, thinking about what Ehler's wife had said.

Repairman Jack is the only one who will understand ...

Really.

3

Jack sat at his table near Julio's rear door. He was halfway through his second Rolling Rock when Lewis Ehler showed up. Jack tagged him as soon as he saw the gangly, brown-suited frame step through the door. Julio's crowd didn't wear suits, except for occasional adventuresome yupsters looking for something different, and yuppie suits were never wrinkled like this guy's.

Julio spotted him too, and ducked out from behind the bar. Julio had a brief conversation with the guy, acted real friendly, standing close, clapping him on the back in welcome. Finally satisfied the stranger wasn't carrying, Julio pointed Jack's way.

Jack watched Ehler stumble toward him—the darkness at the rear here took some adjusting to after stepping in from daylight—but he seemed to be having extra trouble because of a pronounced limp.

Jack waved. "Over here."

Ehler veered his way but remained standing when he reached the table. He looked fortyish, starvation lean, with a big jutting nose and a droopy lower lip. Close up, Jack saw that the brown suit was shiny and worn as well as wrinkled. He noticed how the sole of his right shoe was built up two inches. That explained the limp.

"You're him?" Ehler said in that high-pitched voice from the phone. His prominent Adam's apple bounced with each word. "Repairman Jack?"

"Just Jack'll do," Jack said, offering his hand.

"Lew." His shake was squishy and moist. "You don't look like what I expected."

Jack used to ask the next question, the obvious one, but had stopped long ago after hearing the same answer time after time: they always expected a glowering Charles Bronson type, someone bigger, meaner, tougher-looking than this ordinary Joe before them who could step up to the bar in front and virtually vanish into the regulars hanging there.

Jack took the You-don't-look-like-what-I-expected remark as a compliment.

"Want a beer?" he asked.

Lew shook his head. "I don't drink much."

"Coffee, then?"

"I'm too nervous for coffee." He rubbed his palms on the front of his jacket, then pulled out a chair and folded his Ichabod Crane body into it. "Maybe decaf."

Jack waved to Julio and mimed pouring a coffee pot.

"I thought we'd meet in a more private place," Lew said.

"This is private." Jack glanced at the empty booths and tables around them. The faint murmur of conversation drifted over from the bar area on the far side of the six-foot divider topped with dead plants. "Long as we don't shout."

Julio came strutting around the partition carrying a coffee pot and a white mug. His short, forty-year-old frame was grotesquely muscled under his tight, sleeveless shirt. He was freshly shaven, his mustache trimmed to a line, drafting-pencil thin, his wavy hair slicked back. This was the closest Jack had got to him this afternoon, and he coughed as he caught a whiff of a new cologne, more cloying than usual.

"God, Julio. What is that?"

"Like it?" he said as he filled Lew's mug. "It's brand-new. Called Midnight."

"Maybe that's the only time you're supposed to wear it."

He grinned. "Naw. Chicks love it, man."

Only if they've spent the day in a chicken coop, Jack thought but kept it to himself.

"Say," Lew said, pointing to all the dead vegetation around the room, "did you ever think of watering your plants?"

"Wha' for?" Julio said. "They're all dead."

Lew's eyes widened. "Oh. Right. Of course." He looked at the mug Julio was pouring. "Is that decaf? I only drink decaf."

"Don't serve that shit," Julio said tersely as he turned and strutted back to the bar.

"I can see why the place is half deserted," Lew said, glancing at Julio's retreating form. "That fellow is downright rude."

"It doesn't come naturally to him. He's been practicing lately."

"Yeah? Well somebody ought to see that the owner gets wise to him."

"He is the owner."

"Really?" Lew leaned over the table and spoke in a low voice. "Is there some religious significance to all these dead plants?"

"Nah. It's just that Julio isn't happy with the caliber of his clientele lately."

"Well he's not going to raise it with these dead plants."

"No. You don't understand. He wants to lower it. The yuppies have discovered this place and they've started showing up here. He's been trying to get rid of them. This has always been a working man's bar and eatery.

The Beamer crowd is scaring off the old regulars. Julio and his help are rude as hell to them but they just lap it up. They like being insulted. He let all the window plants die, and the yups think it's great. It's driving the poor guy nuts."

Lew seemed to be only half listening. He stood and stared toward the grimy front window for a few seconds, then sat again.

"Looking for someone?"

"I think I was followed here," Lew said, looking uncomfortable. "I know that sounds crazy but—"

"Who'd want to follow you?"

"I don't know. It might have something to do with Melanie."

"Your wife? Why would—?"

"I wish I knew." Lew suddenly became fidgety. "I'm not so sure about this anymore."

"It's okay. You can change your mind. No hard feelings." A certain small percentage of customers who got this far developed cold feet when the moment came to tell Jack exactly what they wanted him to fix for them. "But don't back out because you're being followed."

"I'm not even sure I am." He sighed. "The thing is, I don't know why I'm here, or what I'm supposed to do. I'm so upset I can't think straight."

"Easy, Lew," Jack said. "This is just a conversation."

"Okay, fine. But who are you? Why did my wife say to call you and only you? I don't understand any of this."

Jack had to feel sorry for the guy. Lewis Ehler was no doubt a one-hundred-percent solid, taxpaying citizen; he had a problem and felt he should be dealing with one of the institutions his sweat-procured taxes paid for, instead of this stranger in a bar. This wasn't the way his world was supposed to be.

"And why do you call yourself Repairman Jack?" Ehler added.

"I don't, really. It's a name that sort of became attached to me." Abe Grossman had started calling him that years ago. Jack had used it for awhile as a lark, but it had stuck. "Because I'm in a sort of fix-it business. But we'll get to me later. First tell me about you. What do you do for the Keystone Paper Cylinder Company?"

"Do? I own it."

"Really." This guy barely looked middle management. "Just what does a Keystone Paper Cylinder Company make?"

And don't tell me paper cylinders.

"Cardboard mailing tubes. The 'paper cylinder' bit was my father's idea. Thought it sounded classier than cardboard mailing tubes. He retired, left the place to me. And yeah, I know I don't look it, but I own it, run it, and make a decent living at it. But I'm not here to talk about me. I want to find my wife. She's been gone three days and I don't know how to get her back."

His features screwed up and for a moment Jack was afraid he was going to cry. But Lew held on, sniffed twice, then got control.

"You okay?" Jack said.

Ehler nodded. "Yeah."

"Okay. Let's start at the beginning. When did you last see your wife—Melanie, right?"

Another nod. "Yes. Melanie. She left Sunday morning for some last-minute research and—"

"Research on what?"

"I'll get to that in a minute. The thing is, she said something that didn't sound so strange then, but sounds kind of creepy in retrospect. She told me if I didn't hear from her for a few days, not to get worried, not to report her missing or anything. She'd be all right, just out of touch for a while. 'Give me a few days to get back,' she said."

"Get back from where?"

"She didn't say."

"Don't know about you," Jack said, "but that sounds pretty strange from the git-go."

"Not if you knew Mel."

"Got a picture?"

Lew Ehler fished out his wallet. His long bony fingers were surprisingly agile as he whipped a creased photo from one of the slots and handed it across the talkie.

Jack saw a slim, serious-looking brunette in her mid-thirties wearing a red turtleneck sweater and tan slacks, pictured from the hips up. Her hands were behind her back and her expression said she wasn't crazy about having her picture taken. She had pale skin, thick black hair and eyebrows, and dark penetrating eyes. Not a raving beauty, but not bad looking.

"How recent is this?"

"Just last year."

Jack suddenly had a bad feeling where this was going: younger pretty wife leaves older, limping scarecrow husband to run off with younger man ... and maybe tries to run a game on him in the process.

"No," Lew said, smiling thinly. "She's not having an affair. Mel's probably the most direct person you'll ever meet. If she were leaving me, she'd simply say so and go." He shook his head and looked again like he was going to cry. "Something's happened to her."

"But you know she's alive, right?" Jack said quickly. "I mean, you heard from her last night."

He bit his upper lip and shrugged.

Jack said, "What did she say?"

"She told me she was okay, but needed help, and that she wasn't where I could find her. 'Only Repairman Jack can find me,' she said. 'Only he will understand.'"

But Jack did not understand. He was baffled. "She gave no hint where she was calling from?"

Lew licked his lips. He seemed uncomfortable. "Let me explain a few things about Melanie first."

Jack leaned back with the beer bottle between his fingertips. "Be my guest."

"All right," Lew ran his fingers through his thinning hair. "I met her through my accountant. He had a heart attack and his firm sent her over to do Keystone's quarterly tax estimate. Melanie Rubin ... " Lew's lips curved into a smile as he said the name. "I've never met anyone before or since so full of energy, so determined, so focused. And yet so pretty. It was love at first sight for me. And best of all, she liked me. We went out for a while, and five and a half years ago we were married."

"Any kids?"

He shook his head. "No. Mel doesn't want any."

"Ever?"

"Never."

Sounded like Melanie Ehler ruled the roost. Jack hesitated, mulling his phrasing ... the next question was a bit delicate.

"I couldn't help but notice that you said it was love at first sight on your part, but she 'liked' you. Is that ... ?"

Lew's smile was shy, his shrug a little embarrassed. "We have a good relationship. We live a quiet life, with very few close friends. Melanie loves me as much as she can love anyone. But she's too driven to really, truly love anyone."

"Driven by what?"

A deep sigh. "Let's see ... how do I put this? Okay ... Melanie might be considered a kook by some standards. She's been involved in fringe groups since she was a teenager."

"Fringe groups? How fringey? Objectivism, the Church of the Sub-Genius, Scientology?"

"More like SITPRCA, MCF, CAUS, ICAAR, LIU-FON, ORTK, the New York Fortean Society, and others."

"Wow." Jack hadn't heard of any of those. "Alphabet city."

Lew smiled. "Yeah, they love their acronyms almost as much as the government. But they're all concerned with one sort of conspiracy or another."

"You mean like who really killed JFK and RFK and MLK, and who's covering it up and why?"

"Yeah, some of them are like that. Others are really far out."

Swell, Jack thought. A missing conspiracy nut. He could feel the rear exit door beckoning from behind him. If he jumped up and ran now, he could be out before Lew Ehler could say another word about his lost wife.

But the missing Melanie had said that only Repairman Jack would understand, hadn't she. He wondered what she'd meant.

Something must have showed on his face because Lew started waving his hands in front of him.

"Don't get me wrong. She wasn't really into all that stuff—she was more of an interested observer than a serious participant in those groups. She was looking for something—she's been looking for something most of her life—and didn't know what it was. She once told me she wasn't looking for answers from these groups, just enough information to know what questions to ask."

Could have been a Bob Dylan lyric.

"And did she find it?"

"No. And she was very frustrated until last year when SESOUP was formed."

"Sea soup?" Sounded like an appetizer.

"The Society for the Exposure of Secret Organizations and Unacknowledged Phenomena."

"SESOUP ... " Jack had heard that name, but couldn't remember where. "For some reason, that sounds familiar."

"It's an exclusive organization, started by—" Lew froze as he glanced toward the front. "There!" he said, pointing at the window. "Tell me that guy isn't watching us!"

Jack looked—and damn if Lew wasn't right. A figure was silhouetted against Julio's front window, nose pressed against the glass, hands cupped on either side of his face. He sure as hell seemed to be staring their way.

Jack jumped up and headed for the door. "Come on. Let's go see."

The figure ducked away to the left, and by the time Jack reached the door, he'd vanished into the rest of the foot traffic on the sidewalk.

"See anybody who looks familiar?" Jack said as Lew joined him in the doorway.

Lew eyed the stream of shoppers and workers and mothers with strollers, then shook his head.

"Could have been a thirsty guy just checking the place out," Jack said as they returned to the table.

Of course that didn't explain why he'd hurried off when Jack started moving.

"Could have been," Lew said, but no way he believed it.

"All right. You were telling me about this soup society or something."

"SESOUP." Lew looked spooked, and kept glancing at the window as he spoke. "It was put together by a fellow named Salvatore Roma. Membership is by invitation only, which has caused a lot of bad feeling in the conspiracy subculture—some well-known names were excluded. It's designed as a clearing house for most of the major conspiracy theories. Roma's idea is to sort through them all for the purpose of finding common elements among them. Melanie loved the idea. She's sure that's the path to the truth."

"The truth? About what?"

"About what's really going on in the world. Something that would help identify the powers, the planners, the string-pullers behind the mysteries and mayhem and secret organizations that plague the world." He held up his hands again. "Not my words—Roma's."

That rear door was calling like a siren.

"And who's this Roma?"

"Salvatore Roma came out of nowhere—actually he's a professor at some university in Kentucky—and got everybody fired up. He's been very helpful to Melanie in her research."

"I take it then that you're not into that stuff."

"Not like Melanie. I got involved out of pure curiosity—plus, attending the various gatherings and conventions around the country gave us an excuse to travel—but I've got to tell you, mister, after spending time with these people, I'm not so sure they're half as crazy as they're painted. And in some regards, I don't think they're crazy at all."

"It's called brainwashing," Jack said.

"Maybe. I don't say I'm immune to that. But Mel ... Mel is so tough minded, it's hard to imagine her being brainwashed by anything or anybody."

"Does any of this have anything to do with Mel's disappearance?"

"I'm sure of it. You see, over the years Mel became convinced that none of the conflicting theories about secret societies and UFOs and the Antichrist and world domination conspiracies was completely right."

"I'm glad for that," Jack said.

"But she also thought that none of them was completely wrong. She figured each formed around a kernel of truth, a tiny piece of the big picture. She spent years analyzing them all, trying to come up with what she called her Grand Unification Theory."

"And?"

"And a couple of months ago she told me she believed she'd found it."

"And you're going to share it, right?"

"I wish I could. All she told me was that she'd identified a single heretofore unsuspected power behind all the world's mysteries and unexplained phenomena, something totally unrelated to current theories. She refused to say any more until she had absolute proof. That was the 'research' I mentioned before. She thought she'd found a way to prove her Grand Unification Theory."

"Let me guess: You think that she maybe did find this proof, and whoever's behind it all has abducted her."

More like a job for Mulder and Scully, Jack thought.

"That's a possibility, of course," Lew said, "but I'm afraid it might be something more mundane. And part of it might be Mel's fault. You see, she's been so excited about finally pulling her Grand Unification Theory together, that she's been sort of bragging."

"To whom?"

"To anyone who'll listen."

"But didn't you tell me you two have very few friends?"

"She's been bragging in the Usenet groups she participates in."

"Isn't that part of the Internet?"

Lew looked at him strangely. "You have a Web site and you don't know about Usenet groups?"

Jack shrugged. "I had a guy at my ISP throw it together. You didn't see many bells and whistles, right?" Christ, the designer had wanted to festoon the site with animated tools—bouncing screwdrivers, pirouetting pliers, slithering tool belts. Remembering the demo still made Jack shudder. "It's not there to impress anyone. It's just another way for customers to get in touch with me. And as for the rest of the Internet, I don't do much surfing. It's a black hole for time, and I've got other things to do. So ... what's a Usenet group?"

"It's a kind of bulletin board divided into interest topics where people post messages, news, facts, theories, opinions. The Internet is loaded with conspiracy topics, and Mel visited them all regularly, mostly lurking. But recently she began posting and, uncharacteristically, bragging, saying how her Grand Unification Theory was going to 'blow all other theories out of the water.' She said she was going to reveal her findings at the first annual SESOUP conference."

"And that's bad?"

"Well, yes. I think someone in one of those Usenet groups is trying to silence her."

"That doesn't make sense. I thought these conspiracy nuts—sorry, no offense—were supposed to be looking for the truth that's presumably been hidden from them."

"That's what you'd think, of course. But once you've gotten to know these folks ... well, you can see how some of them would feel threatened by a theory that proved theirs wrong, or worse yet, made theirs look foolish. You've got many people out there who've blamed all the problems in their lives on a certain conspiracy; some of them have built reputations in the conspiracy community by becoming experts on their section of the conspiracy landscape. Jack, these people live in that landscape, and the conspiracy community is all the social contact they've got. Someone like that wouldn't want to be proved wrong."

"Badly enough to move against your wife?"

"Loss of face, belief, support structure, status—think about it. That could be utterly devastating."

Jack nodded. Damn right. Take a guy who's not too tightly wrapped to start with, and a threat like that could completely unravel him.

Now we're getting somewhere, he thought.

If Lew had started insisting that his wife had been abducted by aliens, or fallen victim to a faceless bogeyman or agents of some all-powerful shadow government, Jack would be waving bye-bye now. He wasn't into chasing phantoms. But a bad guy who was a fellow conspiracy nut, maybe working alone or with one or two of his brother kooks—that sounded real. Jack could handle real.

"This Roma you mentioned—could he be a player in this?"

Lew shook his head. "I can't see how. He's been very supportive of Mel's research, and she's often credited him publicly for his help."

That still doesn't rule him out, Jack thought.

"Okay, then," Jack said. "If someone's got her, how did she call you?"

Lew looked away. "She didn't exactly call."

The guy looked positively embarrassed.

"Well then, how did she 'exactly' contact you?"

"Through the TV."

"Oh, hell."

"Listen to me," Lew said hurriedly, looking at Jack now. "Please, I'm not crazy. She spoke to me from my TV—I swear!"

"Right. And what were you watching—The X-Files?

"No. The Weather Channel."

Jack laughed. "Okay, who put you up to this? Abe? Julio? Whoever it is, you're good. You're very good."

"No, listen to me," he said, sounding frantic now. "I know how it sounds, but this is no joke and I am completely sane. I was sitting there with The Weather Channel on, not paying it much attention—when I'm alone I use it like Muzak, you know? Just to have something on. And I'm sitting there having my after-dinner coffee when suddenly I hear Melanie's voice. I jump up and look around but she's not there. Then I realize it's coming from the TV. The weather maps are running but the sound is gone and Melanie is talking to me, but she's talking like she's on a one-way line and only has a short time to speak."

"What did she say? Exactly."

Lew put his head back and squeezed his eyes shut. "Let me see if I can get this right. She said, 'Lew? Lew? Can you hear me? Listen carefully. I'm okay now, but I need help. I'm not where you can find me. Only Repairman Jack can find me. Only he will understand. You can find him on the Internet. Remember: only Repairman Jack and no one else. Hurry, Lew. Please hurry.' And then the weatherman's voice came back on and Mel was gone."

Jack hesitated. Every so often he ran into a potential customer who was missing a few buttons on his remote. The best thing was to let them down easy and not return any future calls.

"Well, Lew, I wish I could help you but—"

"Look, I'm not crazy. For a while I had my doubts, and I'm sure I was staring at that TV screen just the way you're staring at me now. I waited for the voice to return but it never came. So I did what she'd told me: I looked for you on the Internet. I've never heard of you, yet when I did a search for your name in Yahoo, 'repairmanjack.com' popped right up. That got me thinking that maybe I didn't imagine her voice."

"Well, you could have—" Jack began, but suddenly Lew was leaning over the table, reaching across it with pleading hands, his Adam's apple bobbing like a piston.

"Please—she says you're the only one who can do it. Don't turn me away. If you want to think I'm crazy, fine, but humor me, okay? Something has happened to Melanie and I'll pay you anything you want to get her back."

Tears rimmed Lew's eyes as he finished.

Jack didn't know what to say. The guy didn't seem crazy, and didn't strike him as a put-on artist, and he did appear to be genuinely hurting. And if his wife was truly missing, whether through her own doing or taken against her will ... well, maybe Jack could fix it for him.

And beyond that was the nagging question: If Lew's wife had indeed contacted him—though Jack would never buy the through-the-TV story—why had she stipulated Repairman Jack and no one else?

Jack knew the question would go on biting at his ankles indefinitely if he didn't look into this.

"Okay, Lew," he said. "I'll probably regret this, but I'll see what I can do for you. I'll—"

"Oh, thank you! Thank you!"

"Just hear me out first. I'll give it a week, max. Five thousand cash up front, non-negotiable, non-returnable. If I find her, it's another five thou, cash, on the spot."

Jack was hoping the price might put him off, but Lew didn't bat an eye.

"Okay," he said without an instant's hesitation. "Fine. Done. When do you want it?"

Must be good money in the paper cylinder business.

"Today. And I also want to go through any papers Melanie might have left around your place. Where do you live?"

"Out on the Island. Shoreham."

Jeez, that was a haul—almost out to the fork—but Jack didn't have much else on the slate for the day, so ...

"All right. Give me the address and I'll see you out there in a couple of hours. Have the down payment with you."

Lew glanced at his watch. "Okay. I've got to move if I'm going to make it to the bank." He pulled out a card and wrote on the back. "There's my home address. Take the LIE—"

"I'll find it. Let's make it five o'clock. I want to beat the rush."

"Fine. Five o'clock." He reached across the table and grabbed Jack's right hand in both of his. "And thank you—thanks a million. You don't know what this means to me."

I'm sure I don't, Jack thought. But I got a feeling I'm going to find out.

Only Repairman Jack can find me. Only he will understand.

Why me?

4

"So why should you call them nuts?" Abe said. "We are surrounded by conspiracies."

Jack had swung by the Isher Sports Shop to say hello to Abe Grossman, a graying Humpty Dumpty of a man in his late fifties with a forehead that went on almost forever, and Jack's oldest friend in the city. In the world. They sat in their usual positions: Jack leaning on the customer side of the scarred wooden counter, Abe perched on his stool behind it, and around them, a gallimaufry of sporting goods tossed carelessly onto sagging shelves lining narrow aisles or hung from ceiling hooks, all in perpetual, undusted disarray. A Sports Authority outlet designed and maintained by Oscar Madison. One of the reasons Jack liked coming here was that it made his apartment look neat and roomy.

"You know the root of the word?" Abe said. "Conspire: it means to breathe together. The world is rife with all sorts of people and institutions breathing together. Just take a look—" He broke off and cocked his head toward the pale blue parakeet perched on his stained left shoulder. "What's that, Parabellum? No, we can't do that. Jack is a friend."

Parabellum tilted his beak toward Abe's ear and looked as if he were whispering into it.

"Well, most of the time he is," Abe said, then straightened his head and looked at Jack. "See? Conspiracies everywhere. Just now, right in front of you, Parabellum tried to engage me in a conspiracy against you for not bringing him a snack. I should be worried if I were you."

Usually Jack brought something edible, but he'd neglected to this time.

"You mean I can't drop in without bringing an offering?" Jack said. "This was a spur of the moment thing."

Abe looked offended. "For me—feh!—I shouldn't care. It's for Parabellum. He gets hungry this time of the day."

Jack pointed to the Technicolor droppings that festooned the shoulders of Abe's half-sleeve white shirt.

"Looks like Parabellum's had plenty to eat already. You sure he doesn't have colitis or something?"

"He's a fine healthy bird. It's just that he gets upset by strangers—and by so-called friends who don't bring him an afternoon snack."

Jack glanced pointedly at Abe's bulging shirt front. "I've seen where the bird's snacks usually end up."

"If you're going to start on my weight again, you should save your breath."

"Wasn't going to say a word."

But he wanted to. Jack was getting worried about Abe. An overweight, sedentary, Type-A personality, he was a heart attack waiting to happen. Jack couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to Abe. He loved this man. The decades that separated their birthdays hadn't kept them from becoming the closest of friends. Abe was the only human being besides Gia Jack could talk to—really talk to. Together they had solved the world's problems many times over. He could not imagine day-to-day life without Abe Grossman.

So Jack had cut back on the goodies he traditionally brought whenever he stopped by, or now if he did bring something, he'd sworn it would be low cal or low fat—preferably both.

"Anyway, I should be worried about weight? If I want to lose some, I can do it anytime. When I'm ready, I'll go to Egypt and eat from street carts for two weeks. You'll see. Dysentery does wonders for the waistline. Richard Simmons should be so effective."

"Im-Ho-Tep's revenge, ay?" Jack said, keeping it light. He didn't want to be a complete pain in the ass. "When do you leave?"

"I have a call in to my travel agent now. I'm not sure when she'll get back to me. Maybe next year. But what about you? Why are you so careful with your foods? A guy in your line of work should worry about cholesterol?"

"I'm an optimist."

"You're too healthy is what's wrong with you. If you don't get shot or stabbed or clubbed to death by one of the many people you've royally pissed off in your life, what can you die from?"

"I'm doing research. I'll find something interesting, I hope."

"Nothing you'll die of! And how will that look on your death certificate? 'Cause of death: Nothing.' Won't you feel foolish? Such an embarrassment. It will have to be a closed-coffin service to hide your red face. And really, how could I come to your funeral knowing you died of nothing?"

"Maybe I'll just die of shame."

"At least it's something. But before you pass on, let me tell you a little something about conspiracies."

"Figured you have something to say on the subject."

"Indeed I do. Remember that global economic holocaust I used to warn you about?"

For years Abe had gone on and on about the impending collapse of the global economy. He still maintained a mountain retreat upstate, stocked with gold coins and freeze-dried food.

"The one that didn't happen?"

"The reason it didn't happen is that they didn't want it to happen."

"Who's 'they'?"

"The cabal of international bankers that manipulates the global currency markets, of course."

"Of course."

Here we go, Jack thought. This ought to be good.

"'Of course," he says," Abe said, speaking to Parabellum. "Skepticalman Jack thinks his old friend is meshugge." He turned back to Jack. "Remember when the Asian and Russian markets went into free fall awhile back?"

"Vaguely."

"'Vaguely," he says."

"You know I don't follow the markets." Since he didn't own stocks, Jack pretty much ignored Wall Street.

"Then I'll refresh your memory. The fall of 1997: the bottoms fell out of all the Asian markets. Less than a year later, the same thing in Russia, making rubles good only for toilet paper. People were losing their shirts and their pants, banks and brokerage houses were failing, Asian brokers were hanging themselves or jumping out windows. Do you think that just happened? No. It was planned, It was orchestrated, and certain people made money that should be measured in cosmological terms."

"What people?"

"The members of the cabal. They're drawn from the old royal families and international banking families of Europe along with descendants of our own robber barons. Most of their influence is concentrated in the West, and they were probably miffed at being left out of all the emerging economies booming in Asia. So they invited themselves in. They manipulated Asian currencies, inflated the markets, then pulled the plug."

Jack had to ask: "How does that help them?"

"Simple: They sell short before the crash. When prices have bottomed out—and they know when that is because they and their buddies are pulling the strings—they cover their short positions. But that's only half of the equation. They don't stop there. They use their stupendous short profits to buy up damaged properties and companies at fire sale prices."

"So now they've got a piece of the action."

"And no small piece. After the crash, enormous amounts of Thai and Indonesian stock and property were bought up at five cents on the dollar by shadow corporations. And since the lion's share of profits from those upstart countries will now be flowing into the cabal's coffers, those economies will be allowed to improve."

"Okay," Jack said. "But who are they? What are their names? Where do they live?"

"Names? You want I should give you names? How about their addresses too? What's Repairman Jack going to do? Pay them a little visit?"

"Well, no. I just—"

"If I knew their names, I'd probably be dead. I don't want to know their names. Someone else should know their names and stop them. They've been pulling the world's economic strings for centuries but no one ever does anything. No one hunts them down and calls them to account. Why is that, Jack? Tell me: Is it ignorance or apathy?"

"I don't know and couldn't care less," Jack said with a shrug.

Abe opened his mouth, then closed it and stared at him.

Jack fought the grin that threatened to break free. Goading Abe was precious fun.

Finally Abe turned to Parabellum. "You see what I put up with from this man? I try to enlighten him as to the true nature of things, and what does he do? Wise he cracks."

"As if you really believe all that," Jack said, grinning.

Abe stared at him, saying nothing.

Jack felt his smile fading. "You don't really believe in an international financial cabal, do you?"

"I should tell you? But one thing you should know is that a good conspiracy theory is a mechaieh. And also great fun. But this group you mentioned, this Bouillabaisse—"

"SESOUP."

"Whatever. I'll bet it's not fun for them. I'll bet it's very serious business for them: UFOs and other stuff far from the mainstream."

"UFOs are mainstream?"

"They've been mainstreamed. That's why sightings are up: believing is seeing, if you should get my drift. But when you start talking with members of Zuppa De Peche—"

"SESOUP."

"Whatever—I bet you'll run into meshuggeners so far from the mainstream they're not even wet."

"I can hardly wait." Jack glanced at his watch. "Look, I've got to be heading out to the Island. Can I borrow your truck?"

"What's the matter with Ralph?"

"Sold him."

"No!" Abe seemed genuinely shocked. "But you loved that car."

"I know." Jack had hated parting with his 1963 white Corvair convertible. "But I didn't have much choice. Ralph's become a real collector's item. Everywhere I took him people stopped and asked me about him, wanted to buy him. Don't need that kind of attention."

"Too bad. All right, since you're in mourning, take the truck, but remember: she only likes high test."

"That old V6?"

Abe shrugged. "I shouldn't spoil my women?" He extracted the truck keys from his pocket and handed them to Jack as the bell on the shop's front jangled. A customer entered: a tanned, muscular guy with short blond hair.

"Looks like a weekend warrior," Jack said.

Abe returned Parabellum to his cage. "I'll get rid of him."

"Don't bother. I've got to go."

With obvious reluctance, Abe slid off the stool and left his sanctum behind the counter. He sounded bored as he approached the customer.

"What overpriced recreational nonsense can I sell you today?"

Jack headed for the door, holding up the truck keys as he passed Abe.

Abe waved, then turned back to his customer. "Water skis? You want to spend your free time sliding on top of water? What on earth for? It's dangerous. And besides, you could hit a fish. Imagine the headache you'd cause the poor thing. A migraine should be half so bad ... "

5

The Incorporated Village of Shoreham sits on the north shore of Long Island a bit west of Rocky Point. All Jack knew about Shoreham was that it was the home of a multibillion-dollar nuclear power plant that had never ignited its reactor—one of the greatest boondoggles in the state's long history of boondoggles.

And no doubt the subject of a number of conspiracy theories, Jack figured.

After asking at a 7-Eleven along 25A, he found Lewis Ehler's street. Briarwood Road led north, twisting and turning into the hills bordering the Long Island Sound. Poorly paved and bouncy, but he guessed the residents liked it that way because the houses were big and well kept. All the lots were wooded, and the homes to his right perched on a rise overlooking the water. Between the houses and through the trees, Jack caught glimpses of the Sound. Connecticut was a darker line atop the horizon.

He found the Ehler place and pulled into the gravel drive of an oversized ranch. The dark cedar shake siding and white trim and shutters blended with the budding oaks, maples, and birches surrounding the house. The landscaper had gone for a low-maintenance yard, substituting mulch and wood chips for grass. Perfectly trimmed rhodos and azaleas hugged the foundation; nothing ostentatious, but Jack knew from his teenage days as a landscaper's helper that everything here was first quality. A lot of money had been invested into this yard's "natural" look.

Lew met him at the door and scanned the road running past the house.

"Did you see anyone following you?"

"No." Jack hadn't been looking, but he hadn't noticed anyone. "How about you?"

"I thought I saw a black sedan a few times but ... " He shrugged and ushered Jack inside where he gave him an envelope stuffed with cash. Jack didn't count it.

The interior had a lot of nautical touches—hurricane lamps, a big brass compass, fishnets and floats on the walls, all looking very staged.

"I didn't particularly want to live way out here," Lew said as he showed Jack through the house. "It means a longer commute for me, but Mel said this was the place she really wanted to live, so ... this is where we live."

The only non-decorator touches about the house were the paintings—dark, brooding abstractions on all the walls.

"Really something, aren't they," Lew said.

Jack nodded. "Who's the artist?"

"Mel. She did them when she was a teenager."

She must have been a real fun date, he thought, but said: "Impressive."

"Aren't they? She's been getting back into it again, when she can steal time from her research."

"And where does she do that?"

"In her study. I'll show you," he said, leading Jack toward a spiral staircase. "She used the second bedroom for a while but all her reference materials pretty quickly outgrew that, so we converted the attic for her."

Lew's short leg made for slow progress on the narrow treads, but finally they reached the top. Jack found himself in a long, low-ceilinged room running the length of the house; a beige computer desk near the staircase, a window at each end—an easel by the far window—four filing cabinets clustered in the center, and all the rest an enormous collection of paper—a Strandesque array of books, magazines, pamphlets, article excerpts and reprints, tear sheets, and flyers. The shelves lining every spare inch of wall space were crammed full; the tops of the filing cabinets were stacked at least a foot deep, and the rest was scattered in piles on the carpeted floor.

"Her reference materials," Jack said softly, awed.

He sniffed the air, heavy with the scent of aging paper. He loved that smell.

"Yeah." Lew walked past one of the shelves, running a finger along the book spines. "Everything you could ever want to know about UFOs, alien abductions, the Bermuda Triangle, Satanism, telepathy, remote viewing, mind control, the CIA, the NSA, HAARP, the Illuminati, astral projection, channeling, levitation, clairvoyance, seances, tarot, reincarnation, astrology, the Loch Ness monster, the Bible, Kaballah, Velikovsky, crop circles, Tunguska—"

"I get the picture," Jack said when Lew stopped for a breath. "All for her Grand Unification Theory."

"Yes. You might say she's obsessed."

Jack noted Lew's use of the present tense when he referred to his wife. A good sign.

"I guess so. I was going to ask you what else she did with her time, but I guess we can skip that."

"She was also into real estate for a while. Not that we needed the money, but she got her license and did a few deals."

"I doubt that has anything to do with her disappearance."

"Well, it might. She didn't do real estate the way most people do. She never gave me the details, but she did tell me her activities were related to her research."

"Such as?"

"Well, she'd buy a place herself—always in the developments along Randall Road on the south side of the highway. Then she'd hire some men to dig here and there around the yard, then resell it."

"Did she tell you what she was looking for?"

"She just said it was part of her research. And I couldn't complain much, because she usually resold the properties at a profit."

One weird lady, Jack thought, looking around. And part pack rat, to boot. I'm supposed to find a clue to her whereabouts in this Library of Congress of the weird? Fat chance.

Jack wandered down toward the far window. The Sound was visible through the bare branches of the trees. As he turned he caught a glimpse of the canvas on the easel, and it stopped him cold. This one made the grim paintings downstairs seem bright and cheery. He couldn't say why the seemingly random swirls of black and deep purple bothered him. The longer he stared at it, the more heightened the feeling that things were watching him from within the turbulent shadows. He gave into a sudden urge to touch its glistening surface. Cold and ...

He pulled back. "It feels wet."

"Yes," Lew said. "Some new paint Mel started using. Supposedly it never dries."

"Never?" He checked his fingertips—no pigment on them, even though they still felt wet. "Never's an awful long time."

He touched the surface again, in a different spot. Yes ... cold, wet, and—

"Damn!" he said, jerking his hand away.

"What's wrong?"

"Must be something sharp in there," Jack said as he stared at the tips of his index and middle fingers.

He didn't want to say that he'd felt sharp little points digging into them, like tiny teeth snapping at his flesh. But the skin was unbroken. Still felt wet, though.

"Let me show you something on her computer," Lew said, heading for the desk.

With a final glance into the hungry depths of the painting, Jack shook off a chill and followed Lew, still rubbing his moist fingertips.

At the deck, Jack noticed a green and blue image of the earth spinning on the monitor screen; and as it spun, chunks began disappearing from its surface, as if some invisible being were gnawing at it. After the globe was completely devoured, the sequence looped back to the beginning.

"Cheerful screen saver," Jack said.

Mel programmed that herself."

"Imagine that."

"But here's what I wanted to show you," Lew said, fiddling with the mouse. The apple-core shaped remnant of the earth disappeared, replaced by a word processor directory. Lew opened a directory labeled GUT.

"Gut?" Jack said.

"G-U-T. That's how Mel refers to her Grand Unification Theory. And look," he said, pointing to the blank white screen. "It's empty. She had years of notes and analysis stored in that folder, and someone's erased it."

"The same people who have her, you think?"

"Who else?"

"Maybe the lady herself. She knew she was going away; maybe she copied the contents onto floppies and"—he resisted saying gutted—"cleared the contents herself to keep them secret. Is she the type to do something like that?"

"Possibly," he said, nodding slowly. "It never occurred to me but, yes, that's definitely something she might do. She was pretty jealous about her research—never gave anybody but Salvatore Roma so much as a peek at what she was up to."

Roma ... that name again. "Why him?"

"As I said, he was helping her. They were in almost daily contact before Mel ... left."

Mr. Roma was looking better and better as the possible bad guy here.

"Did you contact him?"

"No. Actually, he contacted me, looking for Mel. She was supposed to call him but hadn't. He was worried about her."

"And he had no idea where she might be."

"Not a clue."

Why don't I believe that?

Jack looked around the cluttered study and the missing Mel's words came back to him: Only Repairman Jack can find me. Only he will understand.

Sorry to disappoint you, lady, he thought, but Jack doesn't have a clue.

"How about friends? Who'd she hang with?"

"Me, mostly. We're both pretty much homebodies, but Mel has acquaintances all over the world via the Internet. Spent a lot of time on her computer."

"How about her car? What does she drive?"

"An Audi. But I haven't gotten a call that it's been found anywhere."

"No other contacts?" Jack said. He felt his frustration mounting. "What about family?"

"Both her folks are dead. Her father died before we met, her mother died just last year. Mel was an only child so she inherited the house and everything in it. I keep telling her to sell it but—"

"She has another house? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think it was important. Besides, I searched the place just yesterday. She wasn't there. I've been there before, but never actually searched through it. I found something odd in the cellar, but—"

"Odd? Odd how?"

"In the cellar floor." He shrugged. "Nothing that would relate to Mel's disappearance."

We're talking a very odd woman here, Jack thought. Two odds sometimes attract.

"Can't hurt to look," he said, desperate for something to give him direction. "Where is it?"

"It's a ways from here. A little town named Monroe."

"Never heard of it."

"It's near Glen Cove."

"Great," Jack said. "Let's take a look."

Not that he had much hope of finding anything useful, but this Monroe was back toward the city, and he had to head in that direction anyway.

But if the Monroe house yielded as much as this place, he'd have to return Lew's down payment. This was going nowhere.

Jack cast a final look at the painting at the far end of the study as he followed Lew down the stairway. His fingertips didn't hurt any longer—must have been something sharp within the paint; it simply had felt like a bite—but damn if they didn't still feel wet. Weird.

6

Monroe turned out to be a Gold Coast town, smaller and prettier than Shoreham. It had a picturesque harbor, for one thing, and no room for a nuclear plant. Jack guessed from the faux whaling-village facades on the harbor area shops and buildings that the town must do a fair amount of tourist trade in the summer. A little early for that now. Traffic was minimal as he followed Lew's Lexus through the downtown area, then uphill past the brick-fronted town hall and library, the white steepled church—a real postcard of a town. He trailed him past rows of neat colonials, then came to a development of mostly two- and three-bedroom postwar ranch houses.

Lew pulled into the driveway of a house that wasn't so well-kept. Its clapboard siding needed a fresh coat of paint; last fall's leaves clogged the gutters; dark green onion grass sprouted in the weedy, anemic, threadbare lawn. A detached garage sat to the right. A huge oak dominated a front yard that was unusually large for the neighborhood—looked like half an acre or better.

Jack parked Abe's truck at the curb and met Lew at the front door.

"Why does she keep this place?" Jack asked.

"Sentimental reasons, I guess," Lew said, searching through his key ring. "I've wanted her to sell it, or maybe even subdivide the lot. Be worth a pretty penny, but she keeps putting it off. She grew up here. Spent most of her life in this house."

Jack felt a chill as they paused on the front stoop. He looked around uneasily. They were standing in the deep shadow cast by the massive oak's trunk as it hid the late afternoon sun. That had to be it.

Lew opened the door and they stepped into the dark, slightly mildewy interior. He turned on a light and together they wandered through the two-bedroom ranch.

Jack noted that the place was filled with pictures of Melanie at various ages—birthdays and graduations, mostly; no sports or dancing school shots—and always that Must-you-take-my-picture? expression. The walls of her old bedroom were still hung with framed academic achievement certificates. A bright child, and obviously cherished by her folks.

"Where's this 'odd' something you mentioned?" Jack said.

"Down in the basement. This way."

Through the tiny kitchen, down a narrow set of stairs to an unfinished basement. Lew stopped at the bottom of the steps and pointed at the floor.

"There. Don't you think that's odd?"

All Jack saw was a rope ladder lying on the floor. A typical fire safety type with nylon rope and cylindrical wooden treads, sold in any hardware store. Other than the fact that it was kind of short and in the basement of a ranch house, he couldn't see anything odd about—

Wait. Were his eyes playing tricks on him, or did the end of the ladder disappear into the floor?

Jack stepped closer for a better look.

"I'll be damned."

The bottom end of the rope ladder was imbedded in the concrete of the floor slab. Jack squatted and tugged on the last visible tread—no give at all. He looked back along the ladder and saw that the top end was tied to a steel support column.

"What's this all about?"

"Beats me," Lew said, stepping closer and standing beside him. "I've never been down here before yesterday, so I can't say how long that's been there."

Jack scratched the front of his shirt. He chest had begun to itch.

"Can't be long," he said, touching the nylon cord. "This ladder is new."

"But the concrete isn't," Lew said. "These houses were built shortly after World War Two. This slab's got to be at least fifty years old."

"Can't be. Look at this. It's obvious the concrete was poured around the ladder."

"Look at the concrete, Jack. This is old."

Jack had to admit he was right. The concrete was cracked, chipped, obviously old. And Jack could find no telltale seam that would indicate a recent patch.

"What we have here," Jack said, "is what you call a mystery."

As he was straightening, Jack noticed a small dark splotch on the concrete. He leaned closer. Half-dollar sized, black, irregular, flared on its edges, it looked like some sort of scorch mark. He scanned the rest of the nearby floor and found seven more, evenly spaced in a three-foot area around where the ladder disappeared into the concrete.

"Any idea what might have made these?"

"Not the slightest," Lew said.

Jack rose and looked around. Two steel columns supported the central beam; the foot of the staircase was attached to one of them. Not much else: a washer and dryer, a sump pump in the corner, a sagging couch against the rear wall, a rickety old desk, a folded card table and some chairs. Jack went to the desk. An electric screwdriver, a wrench, a dozen or so nuts and bolts sat on the top, along with three large, oblong, amber quartz crystals. The drawers were empty.

Still scratching at his chest, he turned and stared at the rope ladder. Something about this really bothered him, but did it have anything to do with Melanie Ehler's disappearance? Jack couldn't see how.

"All right," he said. "Let's go back upstairs."

"I told you there was nothing here," Lew said, once they reached the kitchen.

"That you did."

Lew's cell phone rang. While he spoke to someone in California about a late shipment, Jack wandered back to Melanie's bedroom, looking at the photos, trying to get a feel for her. No pics with other kids, only adults, undoubtedly family members. Not a lot of smiles in those pictures. A serious child.

He opened a closet and pulled a box off the shelf. A bunch of old dolls, Barbie and the like, some dressed, some not. He was about to put it back when he noticed that one of the dolls was missing its left hand. Not broken off or cut off ... more like whittled off, ending in a point.

Odd ...

He pulled out another and found its left hand whittled away as well. And the others—each missing its left hand. Some forearms had concentric grooves near the end, as if they'd been stuck in a pencil sharpener. ' Beyond odd into very weird.

Jack returned the box and stared at the ten- or twelve-year-old girl in one of the larger photos. Dark hair and dark, piercing eyes, and somewhat pretty. Why aren't you happy, kid? Can someone make you smile? Where are you now? And why do you want only me to look for you?

Jack was hooked now. He was going to have to find this strange lady and ask her face to face.

He wandered back to the kitchen as Lew was finishing his call.

"Sorry," Lew said. "That call couldn't wait."

"Speaking of calls," Jack said, "is there anybody we can call that Melanie might have called? A friend? A relative?"

"No relatives, but she did have one childhood friend in Monroe she kept in touch with. His name's Frayne Canfield. He's in SESOUP too."

"All right. Let's get in touch with him."

Lew shrugged and called information on his cell phone, punched in a number, listened for a moment, then broke the connection.

"His answering machine says he'll be out of town for a few days but he'll be checking his messages."

Interesting, Jack thought. Mel's away ... her old friend's away ...

"What are you thinking?" Lew said.

As he spoke, Jack stared out the kitchen window at the backyard where an old swing set rusted under another big oak. The itching on his chest seemed to have eased.

"I'm thinking that people disappear for two reasons: they run away or are abducted. Either way, in almost every case, someone they know is involved. Yet all the people Melanie 'knows' except for you and this Frayne Canfield are spread all over the globe."

"Not this week, they're not. Most of them, including Frayne Canfield, I'm sure, will be in Manhattan for the first annual SESOUP conference."

Lew started toward the front door. Jack followed.

"Is that where she promised to 'blow all other theories out of the water' with her Grand Unification Theory?"

"The very same."

"And Roma will be there too, I assume?"

"Of course. He put it all together."

Jack felt as if a weight suddenly had been lifted from his shoulders. All the possible suspects in one place—perfect.

"When's it start and how do I get into this conference?"

"Day after tomorrow, but you can't get in. Members only—and only one guest each."

"Then I'll be yours."

"I'm not a member. I'm Mel's guest."

"Why so restrictive?"

"I told you—it's very exclusive. This is serious business for them."

"I want you to get me in."

"Why? Mel won't be there."

"Yeah, but I bet the person who knows where she is will be."

"Yes," Lew said, his Adam's apple moving in and out as he nodded. "I can see that. I'll see what I can work out. But you'll need a cover story."

As they stepped out the front door, movement on the street caught Jack's eye. At the far corner of the property to his right, a black sedan began pulling away from the curb. He watched its rear end coast away.

He wondered about that. Had they been followed? He didn't remember seeing any cars parked on the street when he arrived.

"Why do I need a cover story?" he asked Lew.

"I assume you're not planning to go up to people and ask them if they've seen Melanie Ehler lately."

"Well, no. I figure you'll introduce me around—"

"But you need a reason to be there and a connection to Mel. I'll think on it. The conference is in the Clinton Regent—you know the place?"

"Vaguely. Not exactly the Waldorf."

Far from it. If Jack remembered correctly, the Clinton Regent was in Hell's Kitchen.

"Well, SESOUP's membership isn't exactly poor, but the typical midtown room rate is over two hundred dollars a night, plus twenty-five percent additional in taxes. That would strain a lot of budgets. Roma got the Regent to give us a more affordable rate if we could fill the whole hotel, which we will."

"Okay. I'll see you there Thursday morning. What time?"

"Registration opens at noon. Meet me in the lobby around eleven-thirty. I'll have something cooked up for you by then."

They parted—Lew heading back to Shoreham, Jack to Manhattan.

He rubbed his fingers against his pants leg. Why couldn't he get them to feel dry?

7

He awakens feeling wet. He turns on the light and sees that his sheets are red. He leaps from the bed with a cry of alarm. The sheets, top and bottom, are soaked with red, so are his shorts and T-shirt.

Blood. But whose?

Then he notices that his right palm is full of thick red liquid ... trickling from his index and middle fingertips—the ones that touched Melanie Ehler's painting earlier. Squeezing the fingers to stanch the flow, he hurries to the bathroom, but stops halfway when he spots the easel and canvas set up in the center of his front room.

He stares in cold shock. Where the hell did that come from? This is his home, his fortress. Who could have—?

As Jack steps warily into the front room, he recognizes the painting. He saw it earlier at Lew Ehler's house, the disturbing one in Melanie's study, only now the glistening impasto swirls are alive on the canvas, twisting and contorting into Gordian tangles of black and purple pigment, and from deep within the kinetic madness of those tortured coils, meteoric crescents of yellow glare briefly, then disappear.

Jack rotates slowly, searching for the intruder, and when he completes the turn, he sees that the canvas has changed—no, is changing as he watches. The color is leaking away, draining like a tainted transfusion from a befouled IV bottle into a pool on the rug before the easel. The stain spreads quickly, too quickly for Jack to step back and avoid it. But instead of feeling pigment ooze against his bare toes, he feels nothing—nothing against his skin, nothing but air beneath his soles.

Jack windmills his arms wildly, reaching for something, anything to stop his fall. Somehow the paint has eaten through his floor and he's plunging into the apartment below. He twists, clutches at the edge of the hole, but his fingers slip on the slick pigment and he plummets into the waiting darkness.

He lands catlike, in a crouch, and knows immediately that he's not in the second floor apartment. Neil the anarchist may not be a personal hygiene poster boy, but he's never smelled this bad. Jeez, what is it? Choice strips of three-day-old roadkill folded into rotten eggs and left out in the sun to warm might come close.

And worse ... Jack recognizes it.

But it can't be.

And then he realizes that he's not crouching on wood flooring or carpet, but metal grating—cold, and slick with a sheen of engine oil. Some sort of catwalk. He looks up—a tangle of ducts and wiring, but no sign of the hole that dropped him here. And from far below ... light—faint, flickering off the steel plates of the inner walls of a ship's hull ...

"Shit!" Jack whispers.

He knows where he is—the Ajit-Ruprobati. But it can't be. Not possible. He sank this rustbucket and everyone aboard it—human and non-human—last summer. This old freighter rests and rusts now in the silt of lower New York Harbor. No way he can be aboard it ...

Which means this must be a dream. But it sure as hell doesn't feel like one. He had nightmares about this place and the creatures it harbored for months after he damn near died sinking it, but never this real.

The creatures ... the rakoshi ... Jack feels every muscle in his body recoil at the thought of them. If the ship is back and awash with their stink, then they too must have returned from the Land of the Dead.

Movement below catches his eye. Jack freezes as a massively muscled, shark-snouted creature glides along another catwalk directly below his. It stands six or seven feet tall and the flickering light plays over its glistening cobalt skin as it moves with sinuous grace.

A rakosh.

Jack wants to scream. This isn't happening. He killed these creatures, incinerated every damn one of them in this very hold last summer. But Jack doesn't dare even to breathe. Hold statue-still until it passes, then find a way out—fast.

But as the creature moves beneath him, it slows, then stops. In a strobe-flash of motion it whirls into a hissing crouch, its head darting back and forth as it sniffs the fetid air.

Does it sense me? Jack wonders as his heart races even faster. Or does it simply sense something different?

The rakosh tips back its shark-like head and looks up. As Jack gazes into the glowing yellow slits of its eyes, he fights a primal urge to jump up and run screaming from this abomination.

I'm in the dark up here, he tells himself, forcing calm. I'm on the far side of this steel mesh. If I don't breathe, don't blink, it won't see me. It'll move on.

Finally, it happens, just as he hoped. The creature lowers its head and looks around, indecisive. It turns, but as it starts to move away, Jack sees something falling through the mesh of his perch. Something small ... globular ... red.

A drop of his blood.

He watches in horror as the ruby bead drifts like a snowflake toward the rakosh's head, splatters against its snout. He cannot move as a dark tongue snakes from a lipless mouth and licks the smear, leaving no trace.

What happens next is blurred: a hiss, the flash of bared teeth, a three-taloned hand thrusting up, bursting through the steel mesh as if it were window screen, grabbing Jack's bloody hand and yanking it down through the opening. Jack cries out in terror and pain as his right shoulder slams against the mesh. He tries to wrench his hand free but the rakosh's grip is like a steel band.

And then he feels something writhe against his hand, something cool and wet, with the texture of raw liver.

Jack looks down and sees the rakosh licking the blood off his hand. Flooded with revulsion, he tries to grab the slimy tongue, to rip the damn thing out of the creature's head, but it's too slippery.

And then he sees other forms emerging from the shadows, converging from both ends of the catwalk below. More rakoshi. They begin to fight over his hand, baring their fangs and snapping at each other. The tugging on his arm grows increasingly fierce until Jack begins to fear they'll rip his arm out of its socket.

Then one of the creatures rears up and bites into Jack's forearm. He screams with the blinding agony of razor teeth slicing through skin and muscle, crunching through bone, and then it's gone—the lower half of his forearm, his hand, his wrist, all gone—and the rakoshi are lifting their heads and opening their cavernous maws to lap the crimson rain spewing from the stump.

Helpless, his consciousness fading, Jack watches his life draining away ...

No!"

Jack sat up in bed, gripping his right arm. He fumbled for the switch on the bedside lamp and turned it. Relief washed through him as he checked his hand—still there, with all five fingers.

And the fingertips—no bleeding. Same with the sheets—no bloodstains.

He flopped back, gasping. God, what a nightmare. So real. He hadn't dreamed about those demons since ... must have been sometime late last year that he'd stopped having rakoshi-mares. What had brought one on tonight? Melanie's painting had been in the dream. Had that triggered it? Why? How? He didn't remember seeing anything in it to remind him of those creatures.

He rolled out of bed and padded to the front room. Everything was as he'd left it. He took some comfort from the familiarity of the crowded shelves, but he knew he wasn't going to have an easy time getting back to sleep.

He held up his hand and wiggled the fingers, just to be sure. He could almost feel a phantom ache in the bones above the wrist where they'd been bitten off in the dream. That shouldn't be. And then he remembered other mangled limbs, plastic limbs—the left arms of little Melanie's Ehler's dolls. Had seeing them been the trigger for losing his hand in the dream?

Sure. Jack could buy that. But why the rakoshi? Why should they return to haunt him now?

He headed for the kitchen. He needed a beer.

WEDNESDAY

1

Still frazzled from last night's dream and his fragmented sleep, Jack struggled out of bed late and checked his voice mail while he nuked a pint of water for coffee. He found two messages waiting: the first was from his father. He groaned when he heard it: "Jack? Jack? Are you there? You're never home. This is Dad. Please give me a call back. I want to discuss some travel plans."

Travel plans ... he knew what that was about. Last fall Jack had promised to visit his father in Florida. Here it was spring and he still hadn't made the trip. Not that he had anything against seeing Dad, it was just that he knew his father's ultimate goal was to set up Jack in business down there, "something more stable" than the appliance repair trade he thought his younger son was involved in now.

The second message was also from his father.

"Jack, this is Dad. I don't know if you got my last message—I mean, you never called back—so let me tell you about the trip I'm planning."

Jack listened with a steadily sinking feeling as Dad described his itinerary: He had his reservations all set to leave his retirement development in Florida to visit Jack's sister and her two kids in Philadelphia next week, then hop over and visit Jack's brother in Trenton. Then he dropped the bomb, the dreaded words that struck pure terror into Jack's heart.

" ... and since I'll be back in the Northeast, I thought I'd swing by New York and spend a couple of days with you."

Stay here! He's got to be kidding.

Jack saved the message as a reminder. He'd call back later. Much later. Right now he had to get himself together in time to meet Gia and Vicky for lunch.

He shaved, showered, and left early, figuring a good brisk walk would clear the fuzzies from his head.

Rakoshi-mares ... he hoped this wasn't the start of a trend.

On the way out he grabbed the book he'd picked up for Vicky. In the downstairs foyer he checked his mailbox and found the annual circular from the local Little League, asking for donations. That time already? He always gave them a generous anonymous donation. Which meant he'd have to start his Little League collection drive soon—the Annual Repairman Jack Park-a-thon.

Jack cut through Central Park, heading for Midtown. He ambled past a pond where two mallards and a drake were nuzzling around a floating "I NY" bag and a latex surgical glove in search of a snack.

Cooler today; not too many people parking it. A guy sitting on one of the pond bridges breaking up a hot dog roll and splitting it between the ducks on the water below and the sparrows and pigeons on the pavement; a woman walking four tiny Italian greyhounds with fleece-lined collars; a couple of hand-holding Rollerbladers flashing by. The path wound between a procession of giant granite domes, weeds sprouting anew from their cracked surfaces; a young woman sat on her raincoat atop one of them, eyes closed, feet tucked into the lotus position, meditating.

In a few weeks the park would be fully awake and people would be sunning themselves on those rocks. The willows, oaks, and maples, along with the ubiquitous tree-sized urban weed, the ailanthus, would be in full leaf. Lovers would be walking hand in hand, guys would be tossing Frisbees, parents would be pushing baby carriages; there'd be jugglers and ice cream parts along the paths, couples making out on the benches next to old folks enjoying the shade.

Jack spotted a knot of people near the Shakespeare statue. At first he thought it might be one of the hawkers who specialized in thirty-five-dollar Louis Vuitton bags and twenty-buck Rolexes; they'd been pretty much chased off Fifth Avenue in the past few years, but they hadn't gone away. Then he spotted the two sliders on the cub, grimly eyeing the paths.

Jack smiled. A monte game. He loved to watch these.

He was still fifty feet away but one of the sliders had locked onto him as a possible incoming "d." The guy and his partner a dozen feet further down looked barely eighteen and sported the big-puffy-jacket, losing-my-pants, and I-forgot-how-to-tie-my-sneakers look. The nearer slide's hair was faded and his Yankee cap was facing the wrong way; his black face gave away nothing, but Jack knew his quick dark eyes were doing a laser-sharp read of his clothes, gait, his entire demeanor.

I'll be highly insulted if you think I'm a plainclothes dick, Jack thought.

He slowed his pace and put on a curious expression. If this was a typical monte set up, there'd be five guys in the team. Two "slides," or lookouts; a pair of "sticks" acting as shills, and a "shaker" working the caps and ball at the cardboard table.

If the slide thought Jack was trouble, that was the word he'd shout: "Slide!" And then the team would fold up its boxes and melt away.

But Jack must have passed muster because no alarm was raised as he approached. He slowed to a crawl as he passed, craning his neck for a peek at the action. Then he stopped but hung back as if uncertain about whether he'd be welcome.

A tall thin black guy in a dark blue knit cap glanced at him, then started yelling at the shaker.

"Hey, I wanna turn. You lettin' this guy have all the fun. Gimme my turn now. You got forty dollah mine. Lemme get it back." He turned to Jack. "Hey, bro. C'mere and watch this. Gonna break the bank, yo."

Jack glanced around with a he-isn't-talking-to-me-is-he? expression, then turned back to Knitcap. He pointed his finger at his own chest.

"Yeah, you," Knitcap said. A large gold bulldog hung on a heavy braided gold chain around his neck. "I want you to watch and make sure this guy ain't cheatin' me."

Jack took a hesitant step forward, then stopped.

Another tall black, bareheaded and grinning, moved aside to make room for Jack. "Right here, man."

Okay. Jack knew the sticks now. And from the size and number of the gold rings on their hands, business must be good lately.

"Winnin' ain't sinnin'," said the shaker at the center of the semicircle, a black ferret in a dark blue hoodie, hunched behind the makeshift cardboard table. In his mid-twenties, he was the old man of the crew, and its leader. "I repeat, I never cheat, I'm just the one you gotta beat."

Jack shrugged. Might as well join the crowd. This would be a good dose of reality to help banish the rakoshi remnants from last night.

He moved into the opening, bringing the number of marks up to three. To his right stood a Hispanic couple looking about thirty; the guy had a mullet haircut and wore a diamond earring; the woman had a round face and shiny black hair pulled back into a tight bun.

"Awright!" said Knitcap with a welcoming grin. "Keep your eyes open now, yo."

Jack smiled, accepting the welcome. Sure, they were glad to see him: fresh meat. Knitcap didn't want him as an extra pair of eyes watching the shaker; he wanted another sucker at the table. Jack slipped Vicky's book inside his shirt and watched the action.

He figured monte had to be five thousand years old, much older than its more common cousin, three-card monte. Somebody using three walnut shells and a dried pea probably had ripped off the pharaoh's workers during breaks between hauling stone blocks to the pyramids. The modern day version substituted white plastic Evian caps and a little handmade ball of rouge, but the object was the same: find a sucker and fleece him.

The shaker leaned over a piece of cardboard supported on two cardboard boxes. He clutched a thin stack of tens and twenties in his left hand, secured by his middle, ring and little fingers, leaving his thumb and index finger free to manipulate the caps and ball. His hands flew back and forth, crisscrossing over and under as his nimble fingers lifted and dropped the caps, skedaddling the little ball back and forth, a flash of red appearing and vanishing, but not so quickly you couldn't see where it came to rest.

That was the whole point, of course. Let the marks think they had a lock on the ball's location.

Jack ignored the ball and listened to the shaker's patter. That was where the real action was. That was how he communicated with his sticks.

"Watch till you're blind, no tricks will you find. I pay forty if you put down twenny. Forty down earns a hunnert, and believe me that's plenty. The ball goes around, it hides and it shows. It goes in, it goes out, till nobody knows. Forty's come to play, now cop me the money. You cry when I win, I laugh 'cause it's funny."

Hidden in the chatter was a set of precise instructions to Knitcap.

Jack never played monte, but out of curiosity he'd made a practice of eavesdropping on shaker patter whenever he had the chance. They all used a similar code, and by careful watching and listening he'd managed to break it.

"Cop" told the stick to win, "blow" to lose. "Money" signaled the cap near his left hand where the shaker held his money, although Jack had heard other shakers call it "rich."

"See" was the middle cap, "switch" was the one on the other end from the money hand.

By loading his riff with "forty's come to play, now cop me the money," the shaker was telling Knitcap to bet forty bucks and win by picking the cap near the shaker's left hand.

Sure enough, Knitcap bet forty bucks, found the rouge ball under the cap next to the money hand, and collected a hundred dollars.

"I'm no sinner," the shaker announced. "We have a winner!"

Knitcap was all smiles. "I'm up!" He pointed his money at Jack. "You my good luck, yo. You wanna play, I'll watch for you."

Before Jack could decline, the Hispanic guy jumped in. "Hey, no. It's me this time. I'm down."

"Santo, you've lost enough," said his wife. At least Jack assumed it was his wife. Both wore wedding rings.

"Hey, how about me?" said Nocap, close on Jack's left.

"Let's not fight, I'll make things right," said the shaker as he started the skedaddle again. "Everybody gets a turn, I'm a man with time to burn."

Santo dropped two twenties onto the cardboard. The shaker kept up his chatter but no instructions now since neither stick was in the game. He shuffled the caps, skittering the ball between them, demonstrating absolute control. But just before he stopped he let the rouge ball slow so that everyone could see it come to rest under the middle cap.

"Didja see it?" whispered Nocap.

"Yep," Jack said.

Doing your damnedest to lure me in, aren't you.

Jack watched closely as the shaker slid the three caps forward and arranged them along the front of the cardboard. Jack knew that was when the ball would be moved from under the cap to the web between the shaker's thumb and forefinger. He was expecting the transfer, looking for it, but still didn't spot it. This guy was slick.

The shaker said, "There they are, lined up tight. Forty pay a hunnert if you pick it right."

Santo didn't hesitate. He pointed to the center cap.

The shaker lifted it—nothing. He lifted the other two and ... out rolled the little red ball from under the one in his right hand.

Santo pounded his fist against his thigh and cursed in Spanish.

"Okay," said his wife, tugging on his arm. "That's it. That's a hundred twenty dollars you lost now."

Knitcap stepped around, blocking their retreat, and started yelling at the shaker. "Hey, yo, you gotta give this guy another chance!"

Nocap chimed in. "Yeah, man. Give him a double or nothing so he can get even at least!"

Knitcap added. "What he said. Help this guy out or I'm walking!"

Let the sucker go, Jack thought. You've soaked him enough.

Apparently they didn't think so.

The shaker shrugged. "Awright, awright. He puts down fifty he can win back his one-twenty."

What, no rhymes? Jack thought.

"No, Santo," said the wife.

But Santo had the fever. He popped his diamond earring into his hand and held it out.

"I got no more cash. How 'bout this?"

"No!" his wife gasped. "I bought you that!"

The shaker took the earring, held the tiny diamond up, twisting it this way and that in the light.

Say no, Jack thought, sending the shaker a mental message. Let him go.

The shaker shrugged. "Awright," he said with almost believable reluctance. "I'll make an exception this once."

"Mah man!" Knitcap said, slapping Santo on the back. "You gonna win! I can smell winnin' in the air!"

Jack ground his teeth. Sons of bitches.

The woman wailed. "Santo!"

"Don't worry," Santo told her. "I won't lose it."

Oh, yes you will, Jack thought, but could say nothing.

He fumed as he watched the shaker put the earring on the cardboard and begin the skedaddle. One thing to fleece a sucker. Rules of the street were, someone stupid enough to bet on a game like this deserved to lose, and Jack had no quarrel with that. Sort of a tax on the street impaired. But there were limits. You collected the tax and moved the guy along. It was stone cold to suck him dry, especially in front of his woman.

Jack usually ran his Annual Park-a-thon for the Little League at night, but he was incensed enough now to make an exception for this monte crew.

He studied the sticks, then turned and checked out the slides. Most likely they were all carrying knives; none of them looked to be packing heat, but damn near impossible to tell under those bulky coats.

He made a decision as he turned back to the game: He would accept a donation from these generous fellows, allowing them the honor of being the first contributors to this year's Little League fund.

He felt his pulse quicken a little. He hadn't come prepared for this. Usually he avoided spur-of-the-moment gigs, but the opportunity was here, so why not grab it?

Jack watched the shaker and his flying hands. Same routine as before, then the caps were pushed forward.

"Didja see it?" Nocap whispered again.

"Sure did," Jack said, nodding and smiling, looking like a guy taking the bait and waiting to be reeled in.

Santo picked the money cap, but the ball rolled out from under the center cap.

"Shit!"

His wife wailed again as the earring disappeared into the shaker's pocket.

"Hang on a sec," Jack said, grabbing the stricken Santo's arm as he turned to go.

"No!" the wife shouted, her voice rising in pitch. "No more!"

"Please," Jack said. "I think I've got this figured and I want witnesses. I'll make it worth your while when I win."

Jack was telling the truth. He didn't want to be alone at the table when he played.

The possibility of salvaging something from their disaster changed their minds, and Santo and his wife nodded. He looked sullen, chastened; she stood teary eyed with her arms folded across her chest.

"Great," Jack said. He turned to Nocap and said, "You were next, I believe."

"Hey, no, that's okay," Nocap said, grinning. "Be my guest. Wanna see if you really do got this thing scoped, yo. 'Cause then you can tell me."

"Thanks." Jack pulled two fifties from his wallet. "What does this get me?"

"Two-fifty," the shaker said.

"Come on," Jack said. "A hundred bucks on one play—that should get me at least three hundred."

"Sorry, man. Two-fifty's the limit."

"Hey, yo, c'mon," said Knitcap, playing his advocate's role to the hilt. "Pay the guy three!"

Jack said, "How about two-fifty and the earring?"

"Yeah!" said Nocap. "That's fair!"

"Awright," said the shaker with another of his put-upon shrugs, making a show of reluctantly bowing to pressure.

Truth was, Jack could have been asking for five hundred and it wouldn't have mattered—no way, no how was the sucker going to win—but he didn't want to push it too far.

"But I need to know if you've got two-fifty," Jack said.

"I got it," the shaker said, holding up the stack in his left hand.

Jack shook his head. "If my money's on the table, so's yours. And the earring with it."

Another shrug, but wary this time. "Awright. If that's the way you wants to play, what else is there for me to say?"

Jack laid his money down. The shaker counted out two-fifty in tens and twenties next to Jack's bills, then dropped the earring on top.

"If everything's okay with you, now I got my work to do."

"Just one more thing," Jack said. He turned to Santo and his wife. "I want you two on either side of me, watching, okay?"

He centered himself on the makeshift table, then positioned Santo on his right and the wife on his left.

"All right," he told the couple. "Don't let that ball out of your sight."

"Now are we ready?" the shaker said.

Jack nodded. "Okay. Do it."

Jack felt his muscles coil as the shaker started his yammer and went into the skedaddle. Finally he stopped, pushed the caps forward.

"The ball is hidden in its groove. Time for you to make your move."

Jack took a deep, tension-easing breath, then squared himself in front of the table. He pointed at the caps with both index fingers, moving them in circles as if they were fleshy divining rods.

"I choose ... I choose ... "

He moved his hands closer to the caps.

" ... I choose ... "

Closer ... quick glances at the positions of the sticks ...

Then he struck.

" ... the middle!"

With one lightning move he overturned the two end caps, shouted, "I win!" when no ball showed, then snatched up the two piles of bills and the earring.

"What the fuck?" said Nocap.

Jack was already moving as he shoved the earring into Santo's hand.

"Bye."

"Hey!" yelled the shaker.

"That's okay," Jack said, backpedaling away down the path. "I don't need to see the ball. I trust you."

He turned and broke into a jog. Behind him he heard Santo laugh. He glanced back and saw his wife hugging him. He also saw Knitcap and one of the slides starting after him.

He quickened his pace. He knew he wasn't going to lose them. Fifth Avenue was less than a hundred yards away, but even if he got there ahead of them, that wouldn't stop them. They'd jump him on the sidewalk and take back the money. Or try to. Jack didn't want to deal with them in public; witnesses could describe him, a camera-toting tourist might even snap a photo. Or worst case—a cop might come to his rescue.

No, he'd have to deal with both of them here. He needed a spot where they'd think they had him all to themselves. And up ahead he saw just the place.

He hopped over a low fence onto the grass and half ran, half slid down a steep slope to a lower walkway that ran into a short tunnel beneath the path he'd been on. He stopped midway in the brick-lined underpass and ducked into one of the shallow arched recesses that lined the walls. He pulled his Semmerling LM-4 from its ankle holster and stuck it in the side pocket of his jeans for easier access.

He was hoping he wouldn't have to use it—that simply showing it would be enough. Trouble with the world's smallest .45 automatic was its size. People saw it and thought it was a toy. But it packed a wallop, especially loaded as it was the MagSafe Defenders.

The frangible loads gave Jack the option of inflicting a disabling wound—say, to the thigh—or an almost guaranteed kill with a shot anywhere into the chest. And he didn't have to worry about the bullet coming out the other side and hitting an innocent passerby—frangibles did devastating damage to their target, but stayed put.

He was making a show of counting his money when they found him.

"Awright, mothahfuckah," Knitcap said. He held a six-inch blade point down by his right thigh.

Jack slid his hand toward the Semmerling pocket but stopped it halfway there. He'd been expecting knives; he hadn't expected the pearl-handled .38 revolver in the young slide's hand.

"Yeah," said the slide, pointing the pistol at Jack's head. "Yeah!"

For one frozen, heart-stopping, bladder-squeezing second as the barrel lined up with his face, Jack thought he was going to die. He saw murder in the slide's face. The kid was all of seventeen, but his cold dark eyes said he hadn't been a real kid for a long time.

But Jack calmed somewhat when he saw how the kid was holding it. Maybe he'd been watching too many gangsta videos, or bad shoot-'em-up flicks. Whatever the reason, the slide was holding his pistol sideways ... beyond sideways—he'd rotated it a good 150 degrees so that the heel of the grip was higher than the barrel. And he had his ring and pinky fingers sticking up in the air like he was having afternoon tea.

When he was ready to pull the trigger he'd need to get a firmer grip or risk having the pistol jump out of his hand.

So Jack figured he was safe for the moment—the kid was stylin' now, showing off for the older stick—but as soon as those waving fingers wrapped themselves around the grip ...

What now? Look scared, then attack? The one thing he could not afford to do was the expected.

"You lunched?" the kid said. "That what wrong with you? That what make you think you get away with this shit?"

Jack's mind raced as his eyes fixed on the snub-nose revolver—looked like a custom job, nickel plated with curlicue engravings all over it. A pretty piece, despite the fact that its muzzle was pointed at Jack's face.

"Hey-hey-hey," Jack said in a frantic voice that wasn't completely put on. He thrust his hands out in front of him, money and all, as if to hold them off. "No need for violence!"

"Yeah?" said Knitcap through his teeth. He stepped closer and Jack raised his hands over his head. "You think I like chasin' you 'bama ass around?"

"I won fair and square!"

"That ain't the way we play." He stuck the point of his knife against Jack's throat. "Maybe we just cut your thumbs off so this never be a problem again."

"Or maybe I just one-eighty-seven you," the slide said, pushing the pistol closer to Jack's face. "Bust one in you face so you don't even think about trying this shit again!"

The revolver was so close now that Jack could see the tips of the bullets in its cylinder. His stomach gave a twist when he recognized the little posts in the center of the jacketed hollow points: Hydra-Shoks. He had a nightmare flash of what would happen if he took one of those in the face as threatened—he watched the rim of the hollow nose peel back from that central post into a wide-winged lead butterfly, saw it flutter though his brain, bouncing off the inner walls of his skull, pureeing the contents.

Think-think-think! Where's the hammer? Down. Good. If and when the kid fired, the trigger would need a double-action pull ... just a teeny bit more pressure to get off the shot. Wasn't much, but every little bit helped.

A little closer ... Jack had to bring that pistol just a little closer ...

Very aware of the blade point just to the left of his voice box, he nodded carefully at the sideways pistol. "Uh, I assume you know that's not the recommended way to hold a pistol."

"What?" the slide said, his eyes widening. "What?"

"I said—"

"I know what you said. And now I know you fuckin' lunched! I hold a gun in you face and you tell me I'm holding it wrong?" He glanced at Knitcap. "Ay yo trip—he miss his medication today or somethin'?"

"No," Jack said. "It's just that it's not a secure grip."

The slide stepped closer, rage lighting in his eyes as he yanked back the hammer. But he didn't change his grip—he wasn't going to let anyone tell him how to hold his gun. Stylin' to the end.

"Don't you be tellin' me—"

"Here!" Jack cried in a high, terrified voice, releasing the bills he held over his head and scattering them into the air. "Take the money!"

In the instant their attention shifted to the money, Jack batted Knitcap's knife away with his left hand while whipping his right hand down at the slide's pistol. He caught the stubby barrel and the trigger guard, ramming the pistol back and down as he twisted. The weapon tore free and Jack switched it to his left hand.

And pointed it—right side up—at Knitcap just in time to abort a backhand slash at Jack's face with the knife.

"Uh-uh."

Knitcap froze. The slide looked down at his empty hand, then back at his pistol in Jack's, his expression a study in shock and confusion.

"Oh, fuck!" said Knitcap and turned to run.

"Don't want to shoot you in the back," Jack said, flipping the pistol to his right hand, "but I will." He touched a wet, stinging spot on his throat ... His fingers came away bloody. "Especially after you cut me. Dammit!"

Knitcap mustered a sick sounding, "Shit!" as he dropped his knife. He looked at Jack's throat. "It's only a scratch, man."

Jack stepped out of the recess to where he could better cover both men.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a jogger approach the underpass, realize what was going down, make a quick U-turn, and sprint away.

Knitcap glanced angrily at the slide. "How the fuck you let that happen?"

The slide said nothing.

"You fuckin' b-g!" Knitcap went on. "You had the gun in his face and let it go?"

"As I was saying," Jack told the former gun owner, "that's a stupid way to hold a pistol. Not secure at all." He gestured to the ground. "Okay, guys. Have a seat."

The slide finally spoke. "Fuck you!"

Jack lowered the pistol and shot him in the foot. The report echoed like a cannon blast in the tunnel as the slide cried out and fell to the ground, moaning, rolling, and clutching his abruptly four-toed foot.

Knitcap was down in a sitting position before the sound of the shot had completely faded away. He held his hands in the air.

"I'm down! I'm sittin'!"

Jack knew the appearance of the jogger had set a timer in motion, and the sound of the shot would only accelerate that. The underpass would funnel the report right toward Fifth Avenue. He had to figure someone in that direction had heard it, and was probably dialing 911 right now. Times like this, Jack hated cell phones.

Had to move fast.

"All right. Both of you—empty your pockets. I want to see everything you've got, even the lint. Put it all in Mr. Smith and Wesson's Yankee hat."

Slowly, grudgingly, Knitcap complied, but the slide wouldn't let go of his bloody foot.

"I can't, man!" he moaned. "My foot!"

"Weren't you the tough guy gonna bust one in my face a minute ago?" Jack said. "You can get along fine with nine toes, but let's see how far you'll get with one knee, because that's where I bust the next one if you don't start emptying pockets now!"

The slide got to it. Another knife appeared, extra rounds for the pistol, some change, and about a hundred in small bills between them.

"Don't forget the rings and necklaces," Jack said.

"Aw, not my dog, man," said Knitcap.

"You're obviously a betting man," Jack said, pointing the pistol at his neck. "How much you wanna bet I can shoot that big fat chain holding the dog without hitting your neck?"

With a sullen look he tugged off the rings and tossed them into the cap. Then with a look of utter misery, he grabbed the gold bulldog, broke the chain, and dropped it into the cap with the rest. He punched the back of the slide's shoulder—hard.

"Told you to let me handle it, but no, you gotta bring out the fuckin' chrome."

The slide just clutched his bloody sneaker and said nothing.

Jack bent, retrieved the cash he'd dropped, then picked up the hat.

"Nice doing business with you guys," he said, then trotted off, leaving them sitting in the shadows.

He didn't expect them to come after him again. After all, they were unarmed now and one of them wasn't walking too well. And at the moment they were probably lots more interested in getting out of the park before the cops came, then coming up with a good story for the shaker as to why they were returning bloody footed and empty handed.

Jack shoved the take into his pockets, then pressed the cap against his bleeding throat as he slowed to an energetic walk. Not a lot of blood there, but enough to attract attention.

He felt a little shaky from the adrenaline aftereffects. Too close back there. He'd been lucky. It could have come out a lot worse—the slide could have simply shot him on sight and Jack would have been done.

Why had he given in to a spur-of-the-moment gig? It went against all his rules. These things had to be planned. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He passed the statue of Balto the sled dog, then angled past the zoo. By the time he'd climbed the steps to Fifth at Sixty-fourth Street, he'd calculated that his little haul probably would add up to over a thousand after he hocked the gun, knives, and jewelry. The Little Leaguers ought to be able to buy lots of uniforms and equipment with that.

He doubted they'd want the bloodstained Yankee cap, though.

2

"A couple of days and then he'll be on his way back to Florida," Gia said. "You survived this food ... you can survive your father."

She glanced up at him with her azure eyes, then returned to flipping through the Little Orphan Annie book. Jack had picked up the Fantagraphics collection of all the strips from 1935 along with the Daddy Warbucks lamp. He'd bought it for Vicky but Gia immediately had taken possession of it.

Blond and beautiful, she sat across from him at a tiny table far from the big street-front windows. The remains of three lunches lay scattered and mostly eaten before them. Vicky, Gia's daughter, had had a hamburger; Gia, complaining that all the salads had meat, had finally settled for some vegetarian chili. Jack had ordered the Harley Hog Special—a mass of pulled pork stuffed into a roll.

"What is pulled pork, anyway?" Gia said, looking askance at the scraps left on his plate.

"It's the other white meat."

"Cooking a pig sounds nasty enough, but why pull it?"

"I think they cook it on the bone, then grab handfuls and—"

"Stop right there. Please. Oh, and look," she said, folding her paper napkin and reaching across the table, "your Band-Aid is oozing a little."

He let her dab at his throat.

"That must have been some shaving cut. What were you using—a machete?"

"Just careless."

Jack was still unsettled and annoyed at himself for getting hurt. He'd picked up some Band-Aids at a drugstore on Seventh Avenue, and cleaned the wound in the bathroom of a McDonald's. It wasn't deep, but it had needed two Band-Aids to cover it.

He hadn't actually said it was a shaving cut—he hated lying to Gia—but he hadn't corrected her when she arrived at that conclusion. She tended to overreact when he got hurt, going on about how easily it could have been so much worse, how he could have been killed. Sometimes that led to an argument.

A shaving cut was good.

"There!" she said, balling up the napkin. "All cleaned up."

"I had a rakoshi dream last night," he told her.

They usually avoided talking about the horrific episode last summer that had ended in the deaths of Vicky's two aunts and damn near Vicky herself. But he needed to share this, and Gia was one of the four other people who knew about the creatures.

She looked up at him. "Did you? I'm sorry. I think I've finally stopped having them. But every once in a while Vicky wakes up with the horrors. Was I in it?"

"No."

"Good." She shuddered. "I don't ever want to see one of those things again, not even in someone else's dream."

"Don't worry. You won't. That I can promise you."

Gia smiled and went back to flipping through the Annie book; Jack looked around for Vicky. The pig-tailed eight-year-old reason they were in this particular place was over by the window, gyrating on a coin-fueled motorcycle ride. A delicate warmth suffused Jack as he watched her pretend she was racing it down some imaginary road. Vicky was the closest he might ever come to having a daughter, and he loved her like his own. Eight years old and no secrets to keep from her mom, just the moment and learning something new every day. That was the life.

"Think she'll grow up to be a biker chick?"

"That's always been my dream for her," Gia said without looking up from the book.

Jack had promised Vicky a lunch out during her grammar school's spring vacation week, and she'd chosen the Harley Davidson Cafe. Vicky liked all the wheels and chrome; Jack loved the fact that only tourists came here, reducing to near zip his chances of running into someone he knew. Gia had come along as chaperone, to make sure the two of them didn't get into trouble. None of them was here for the food, which was mostly suitable for staving off hunger until the next meal. But as far as Jack was concerned, having the two ladies in his life along transformed any place into Cirque 2000.

"These are really good," Gia said, spending about two seconds per page on the Little Orphan Annie book.

"You can't be reading that fast," Jack said.

"No, I mean the art."

"The art? They're drawings."

"Yes, but what he does with just black ink in those little white boxes." She was nodding admiringly. "His composition is superb." She closed the book and looked at its cover. "Who is this guy?"

"Name's Harold Gray. He created her."

"Really? I know Annie from the play and the movie, but why haven't I ever heard of him, or seen his strips before?"

"Because your Iowa paper probably didn't carry Annie when you were growing up. She'd become passe by the late sixties, and hardly worth reading after Gray died."

"How many strips are there?"

"Well, let's see ... Annie started in the twenties ... "

"Wow. He kept this up for forty years?"

"The thirties and forties contain his best stuff. Punjab gets introduced in that book you've got there."

"Punjab?"

"Yeah. The big Indian guy. Geoffrey Holder played him in the film. I've always loved Little Orphan Annie, mostly for characters like Punjab and the Asp—you didn't mess with the Asp. This guy Gray is the American Dickens."

"I didn't know you were into Dickens."

"Well ... I liked him in high school."

"But I can see what you mean," Gia said, flipping again. "He seems to deal with all classes."

"Never thought much of his art, though."

"Think again. This guy is good."

Jack would take her word for it. Gia was an artist, doing commercial stuff like paperback covers and magazine illustrations to pay the bills, but she kept working on paintings on the side, always trying to interest a gallery in showing them.

"I can see Thomas Nast in him," she said. "And I know I've seen some of him in Crumb."

"The underground guy?"

"Definitely."

"You know underground comics?" Jack said.

Gia looked up at him. "If it involves any kind of drawing, I want to know about it. And as for you, I've got to start dragging you to some art shows again."

Jack groaned. She was always after him to go to openings and museums. He gave in now and then, but usually hated most of what he saw.

"If you think it'll help," he said. "But no urinals stuck to the wall or piles of bricks on the floor, okay?"

She smiled. "Okay."

Jack gazed into the wild blue yonder of Gia's eyes. The very sight of her gave him a buzz. She shone like a jewel here. A couple of guys seated near the windows kept looking at her. Jack didn't blame them. He could stare at her all day. She wore little make-up—didn't need any, really—so what he was seeing was really her. Humidity tended to make her blond hair wavy. Because she wore it short, the waves created feathery little wings along the sides around her ears. Gia hated those wings. Jack loved them, and she had a whole bunch of them today. He reached out and stroked a few of the feathers.

"Why did you do that?" she said.

"Just wanted to touch you. Have to keep reassuring myself that you're real."

She smiled that smile, took his hand, and gently bit his index finger.

"Convinced?"

"For now." He held up his tooth-marked finger and wiggled it at her. "Meat, you know. And you a brand-new vegetarian."

He snatched his finger back before she could bite it again.

"I am not a vegetarian," she said. "I'm just off meat."

"Not some sort of religious thing? Or a plot against plants?"

"No ... it's just that lately I've found myself with less of an appetite for things that were walking around under their own power not too long before they landed on my plate. Especially if they resemble what they looked like alive."

"Like a turkey?"

She made a face. "Stop."

"Or better yet, a squab."

"Must you? And by the way, anybody who eats squab in this city should know that they're eating Manhattan pigeon."

"Come on."

"Oh, yes." She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "You order squab, they send some guy up to the roof with a net. A few minutes later ... 'squab.'"

Jack laughed. "Is this sort of like the fur coat thing?"

"Please—let's not discuss fur coats today. Spring is here at last and their vacuous owners will be stuffing them into vaults for the rest of the year."

"Jeez. Can't talk about fur, squab, pulled pork—none of the fun subjects."

"I can think of a fun subject," she said. "How about your father?"

"My turn to say 'Stop.'"

"Come on, now. I've never met him, but he can't be as bad as you make him out."

"He's not bad, he's just relentless. And he cannot stay with me. You know what my place is like."

Gia nodded. "Like the 168th Street Armory."

"Right. I can't move all that stuff out. No place to stash it. And if he finds any of it—"

"You mean like I did?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah. And you know what happened."

Gia and Jack hadn't been together that long then. He'd told her he was a security consultant. She'd been doing him a favor, a little spring cleaning, when she stumbled onto one of his caches—the one in the false rear of the antique secretary. It almost had broken them up. Even though they were back together now, tighter than ever, Jack still shuddered at how close he had come to losing Gia and Vicky. They were his anchors, his reality checks, the two most important people in the world.

"He's an uptight middle class guy who already thinks his younger son is something of a loser; don't want him thinking he's a gun nut too. Or worse yet, figure out he's been lying to him all these years about being in the appliance repair business."

Gia shook her head and smiled. "You're unbelievable, Jack. Here you've spent your whole adult life cutting yourself free from just about every string society attaches, and yet you still crave your father's approval."

"I don't crave it," he said, perhaps, a tad too defensively, he realized. "It's just that he's a good man, a genuinely concerned parent, and it bugs me that he thinks I'm some sort of loser. Anybody else—present company excepted, of course—I wouldn't care. But dammit, he's my father. And I can't have him crashing with me."

"Then you should simply say your place is too small and offer to put him up in a hotel for his stay."

"I don't know if that's going to fly." Frustrated, he groaned and stared at the ceiling. "I'll think of something. I've got to."

"Speaking of thinking," Gia said softly, "you might want to think about making some time in your busy schedule to stop by sometime late Friday morning."

"I don't know, Gi. No telling what's going to be happening. What's up?"

A tiny shrug. "Nothing much. It's just that Vicky's got a play date and she's being picked up at eleven—"

"And we'll have the place to ourselves?"

Those blue eyes locked onto his. "Completely."

Jack grinned. Ooh, yes. "Something just opened up. See you one minute after eleven."

He glanced over to the motorcycle and realized with a start that Vicky was no longer on it. He stiffened and scanned the dining area.

"Relax," Gia said. "She's over there talking to those kids."

Jack looked to where she was pointing and saw Vicky talking to a crowd of children about her age. They all had backpacks and were under the wings of a couple of matronly chaperones. As Jack watched, Vicky led one of the boys over.

"Hey, Jack," she said, grinning. "His name's Jack too!"

"Jacques," the boy said.

"That's what I said. He's from France." She gestured to the group behind her. "They're all from France. They're visiting."

"And where else would they come for fine American cuisine," Jack said. He extended his hand to the little boy and repeated his entire French vocabulary. "Bon-jour, Jacques."

The kid beamed. "Bonjour, Monsieur!" and then went into overdrive Francais, incomprehensible to Jack.

Gia answered him in kind and the two of them babbled back and forth for a couple of minutes until his chaperone called him back.

Jack was amazed. "I didn't know you spoke French."

"President of the French club in college."

"It's so ... sexy. Will you speak French to me on Friday?"

She smiled and patted his hand. "Easy, Gomez."

"I had no idea."

"Well, it's not like I have much chance to use it. French isn't a very useful language in Manhattan."

"Jack;" Vicky said, "will you teach me to play baseball?"

"Sure," Jack said. "But I've got to tell you, I wasn't a great player."

"I just want to hit a home run."

"That I can probably help you with."

"Swell!" she said and kissed him on the cheek. Then she ran back to the motorcycle.

"Why the sudden interest in baseball?" Jack said to Gia.

"Not exactly baseball—T-ball. Some of her friends are going out for the local team and she wants to be part of it." She looked at him. "Not a great player? I'd have guessed you for an ace player."

"Nah. Too boring. I could hit it a mile, and that's the only reason I ever made a team. I was a disaster on defense. Coaches moved me all over, infield and outfield, didn't matter—a minute out there and my eyes would glaze over and I'd be daydreaming, asleep on my feet. Or watching the bees and wasps in the clover—I was terrified of being stung."

He smiled at the memory of being literally and figuratively out in left field and hearing the crack of a bat against the ball, waking up to see everybody staring at him, the pure terror of realizing the ball was coming his way and not having the faintest clue as to where it was. Stomach-clenching panic as he looked up, searching the bright summer sky for a dark round speck, praying he'd see it, praying even harder he'd catch it, praying hardest it wouldn't land on his head and leave him in a coma.

Ah, the joy of being one of the boys of summer.

"Which reminds me," Gia said, "I hope you're not going out collecting for the West Side Little League again this year."

Uh-oh. "Well ... it's for a good cause."

She made a face. "Do they know how you collect for them?"

"Of course not. They just know I'm their top fundraiser."

"Can't you just go door to door like most people? You could get hurt your way."

He loved the concern in her eyes. "Tell you what. I'll give them whatever I already have put aside for them, and that'll be it for this year. How's that sound?"

"Great," she said. "And what other kind of trouble have you got planned for yourself?"

"Well, there's that guy I told you about."

"With the missing wife?"

"Right. Shouldn't be any rough stuff with that. More like a Sherlock Holmes thing."

"But you're not a detective. Why did she specify you rather than a private eye?"

"She thinks I'm the only one who will 'understand.'"

Gia raised her shoulders. "Don't ask me why, but that gives me the creeps."

Jack reached across and squeezed her hand. "Hey, don't worry. This has all the makings of a Gandhi job—strictly non-violent."

"I've heard that before—and you almost wound up dead."

"Not this time. This one's going to be smooth as glass."

He didn't mention the other customer he'd be meeting with late tonight, however. That might be a different story.

3

"A beauty," Abe said, examining the gleaming Smith and Wesson 649. "Checkered rosewood stocks, even. Very nice. But as you know, my clientele tends to prefer functional over flashy."

Jack had brought the pistol he'd confiscated from the slide to Abe for an appraisal.

"Get the most you can for it," Jack said. "It's for the Little League."

"Will do, but no promises. You should keep it, maybe."

"And what?" Jack slapped a hand over his heart in shock. "Replace my Semmerling?"

"I should suggest you abandon your favorite little baby gun? Never. But maybe consider replacing that Glock 19 you're using lately. After all, the Smitty's a revolver."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Not this again."

"It's a thought."

Abe never had trusted automatics. And he never stopped trying to convert Jack, who leaned toward them.

Jack said, "That thing's heavy and holds only six rounds—five if you keep it down on empty like I tend to do with revolvers. My glock's small, about as light as they come, and gives me a helluva lot more shots."

"With the kind of close situations you get yourself into, even a lousy shot like you shouldn't need more than three or four rounds. And a revolver will never jam."

"Call it a security blanket. And I've never had a cycling problem. Mainly because you sell me only the best ammo."

"Well, yes," Abe said, thrown off by the compliment. "Quality makes a difference. Speaking of which, how are you fixed for ammo?"

"Pretty good. Why?"

"Just got in some new stock." He pulled a box from under the counter. "Look. Those Magsafe Defenders you're using."

"Great. I'm running low on the .45s."

Jack had been using frangibles like Glaser Silvers and MagSafe Defenders for a while now—hollow point rounds packed with birdshot that released after impact.

"Forty-fives and nines, ready to go."

Jack shook his head, remembering how naive he'd been when he'd first started in the fix-it business. He'd thought all you had to do was buy a gun and some bullets and that was it.

Not by a long shot. Accuracy, chambering, weight, concealability, number of rounds in the magazine or cylinder, the safety mechanism, the weight of the single-action pull, the weight of the double-action pull, ease of maintenance—all had to be weighed and considered. Then came the ammunition: different situations required different loads. Did he want full metal jackets, jacketed hollowpoints, or frangibles? What size load? Choose from ninety-five to 230 grains. Medium compression or high compression? And don't forget, recoil is directly proportional to the compression of the load and inversely proportional to the weight of the pistol. A lightweight model with +P+ loads will want to fly out of your hand every time you fire.

Jack was still feeling his way.

"Frangibles are nice," Abe said. "But you should be carrying something with more penetration maybe?"

Jack shook his head. He felt safer with the frangibles. "Penetration doesn't equal stopping power in my book."

"Stopping power," Abe said, holding up one of the Defender rounds. "That they've got."

"I'll pick some up tomorrow. I don't want to be carrying them around with me the rest of the day."

"Big wounds," Abe said, speaking to the gleaming bullet in his hand. "Deep as a well and wide as a church door."

"They're good," Jack said, "but I think that's overstating it a little, don't you?"

"That was Shakespeare, sort of."

"Shakespeare? No kidding. I didn't know he used frangibles."

Jack backed toward the door as Abe cocked his arm to throw the bullet at him. "Got to go. By the way—Ernie's still in business, isn't he?"

"Sure. You need new ID?"

"I'm feeling the need for a new SSN."

"Another Social Security number?" Abe said. "You're trying to corner the market, maybe?"

"Just being careful."

"Always with the careful. I've used the same phony number forever. Do you see me getting a new one every couple of years?"

"I need a wider comfort zone than you," Jack said. "Besides, you've got a real one you can use. I don't."

"You're crazy, you know. What's it for?"

"A new credit card."

"Another card!" He slapped his hands to the sides of his face and rocked dramatically. "Oy! I never should have got you started. You've become an addict!"

Jack laughed. "And can I borrow the truck again? I've got to meet a customer in Elmhurst tonight."

"No one's going to be shooting at you, I hope. I don't want holes in my lady."

"No. This is just a reconnoiter. I'll rent something for the rest of the gig."

He wouldn't want Abe's plate reported near the scene of a felony.

4

"That him?" Jack said.

He crouched in the bushes behind a two-story, center-hall colonial in a middle-class neighborhood in Elmhurst. A guy named Oscar Schaffer hunkered next to him. This was their second meeting. They'd agreed to preliminary terms earlier in the week; now they were ironing out details.

"Yeah," said Schaffer, glaring through the French doors into the house's family room. The man of the house was a big guy, easily six-four, two-fifty; crew-cut red hair, round face, and narrow blue eyes. A bulging gut rode side-saddle on his belt buckle. "That's Gus Castleman, the no-good slimy rotten bastard who's beating up on my sister."

"Seems like there's a lot of that going around."

This wouldn't be the first wife-beater Jack had been asked to handle. He thought of Julio's sister. Her husband had been pounding on her. That was how Jack had met Julio. They'd been friends ever since.

"Yeah? Well it never went around in my family. At least until now."

A thin, mousy, brittle-looking woman whose hair was a few shades too blonde to be a natural human color entered the family room.

"And that, I take it, is your sister."

"That's Ceil, poor kid."

"Okay," Jack said. "Now that I know what they look like, let's get out of here."

They crept along the six-foot stockade cedar fence that separated the Castlemans' yard from their neighbors—one of the good things about this set-up. Also on the plus side: they had no kids, no dog, and their yard was rimmed with trees and high shrubs. Perfect for surveillance.

After checking to make sure the street was empty, Jack and Schaffer stepped back onto the sidewalk and walked the two blocks to the darkened gas station lot where they'd left their respective rides. They chose the front seat of Schaffer's dark green Jaguar XJS convertible.

"Not a great venue for a meeting, but it'll do."

The Jag smelled new inside. The leather upholstery was buttery soft. Bright, bleaching light from a nearby mercury vapor street lamp poured through the windshield and illuminated their laps.

Oscar Schaffer was some sort of big-time developer, but he didn't look like Donald Trump. He was older, for one thing—late fifties, at least—and fat. A round face with dark thinning hair above, and a second chin under construction below. One of the biggest land developers on Long Island, as he was overly fond of saying. Rich, but not Trump-rich.

And he was sweating. Jack wondered if Donald Trump sweated. The Donald might perspire, but Jack couldn't imagine him sweating.

Jack watched Schaffer pull a white handkerchief from his pocket and blot the moisture. Supposedly he'd started out as a construction worker who'd got into contracting and then had gone on to make a mint in custom homes. His speech still carried echoes of the streets, despite occasional words like "venue." And he carried a handkerchief. Jack couldn't think of anyone he knew who carried a handkerchief—who owned a handkerchief.

"I never thought it would happen to Ceilia. She's so ... "

His voice trailed off.

Jack said nothing. This was the time to keep quiet and listen. This was when he tended to learn the real deal about the customer. He still didn't have a handle on Schaffer. He did know he didn't particularly care for the guy. Maybe it was the Mr. Bigtime Success Story attitude.

"I just don't understand it. Gus seemed like such a good guy when they were dating and engaged. I liked him. An accountant, white collar, good job, clean hands, everything I wanted for Ceil. I helped him get his job. He's done well. But he beats her." Schaffer's lips thinned as they stew back over his teeth. "Dammit, he beats the shit out of her. And you know what's worse? She takes it! She's put up with it for ten years! I'm to the point where I'm thinking the best thing that could happen to Ceil was Gus meeting with some sort of fatal accident."

Jack knew all this. They'd covered this ground during their first meeting.

"You're probably right," he said before Schaffer could go on.

Schaffer stared at him. "You mean you'll ... ?"

"Kill him?" Jack shook his head. "Forget it."

"But I thought—"

"Forget it. Sometimes I make a mistake. If that happens, I like to be able to go back and fix it."

Schaffer's expression flickered between disappointment and relief, finally settling on relief.

"You know," he said with a small smile, "as much as I'd like Gus dead, I'm glad you said that. I mean, if you'd said okay, I think I'd have set you to it." He shook his head and looked away. "Kind of scary what you can come to."

"She's your sister. Someone's hurting her. You want him stopped but you can't do it yourself. Not hard to understand how you feel. Anyway, why do you need me? Lots of laws against this stuff, you know."

"Right. Sure there are. But you've got to sign a complaint. Ceil won't do that."

"She's probably afraid."

"Afraid, hell! She defends him, says he's under a lot of pressure and sometimes he just loses control. She says most of the time it's her fault because she gets him mad, and she shouldn't get him mad. Can you believe that shit? She came over to my place one night, two black eyes, a swollen jaw, red marks around her throat from where he was choking her. I lost it. I charged over to their place ready to kill him with my bare hands. He's a big guy, but I'm tough. And I'm sure he's never been in a fight with someone who punches back. When I arrived screaming like a madman, he was ready for me. He had a couple of neighbors there and he was standing inside his front door with a baseball bat. Told me if I tried anything he'd defend himself, then call the cops and press charges for assault and battery. I told him if he came anywhere near my sister again, he wouldn't have an unbroken bone left in his body to dial the phone with!"

"Sounds like he knew you were coming."

"He did! That's the really crazy part! He knew because Ceil had called from my place to warn him! And the next day he sends her roses, says how much he loves her, swears it'll never happen again, and she rushes back to him like he's done her a big favor. Can you beat that?"

Jack had felt himself going through a slow burn as Schaffer was speaking. Now he turned in his seat to face him.

"Now you decide to tell me this?" He wasn't quite shouting, but Schaffer could have no doubt he was pissed.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Don't give me that! You knew nobody'd get involved in this once they learned your sister's some sort of masochist!"

"She's not! She—"

"Tell you what," Jack said, reaching for the door handle, "you go get a bat of your own and wait for this guy in an alley or a parking lot. Take care of it yourself."

"Wait! Please! Don't think I haven't thought of it. But I've already threatened him—in front of witnesses. Anything happens to him, I'll be number one suspect. And I can't get involved in anything like that, in a felony. I mean I've got my own family to consider, my business. I want to leave something for my kids. I do Gus, I'll end up in jail, Gus'll sue me for everything I'm worth, my wife and kids will wind up in a shelter somewhere while Gus moves into my house. Some legal system!"

Jack waited through a long pause. Here was the familiar Catch-22 that kept him in business.

Schaffer finally said, "I guess I figured if I got you out here and you saw how big he is and how small and frail Ceil is, you'd ... "

"I'd what? Go all mushy? Forget it. Busting up this slug isn't going to change things. Sounds like your sister's got as big a problem as he does."

"She does. I've talked to a couple of doctors about it. It's called co-dependency or something like that. I don't pretend to understand it." He looked at Jack. "Can you help?"

"I don't see how. Domestic stuff is complicated to begin with, and this situation sounds like it's gone way past complicated. Not the sort of thing my kind of services can help."

"I know what you're saying. I know they need shrinks—at least Ceil does. Gus ... I don't know. I think he's beyond therapy. I got the feeling Gus likes beating up on Ceil. Likes it too much to quit, no matter what. But I want to give it a try."

"If that's true, I can't see him getting chummy with a shrink just because you or anyone else says he should."

"Yeah. But if he was hospitalized ... " Schaffer raised his eyebrows, inviting Jack to finish the thought.

"You really think if your brother-in-law was laid up in a hospital bed for a while, a victim of violence himself, he'd have some kind of burst of insight and ask for help?"

"It's worth a try."

"No, it isn't. Save your money."

"Well, then, if he doesn't see the light, I could clue his doctor in and maybe arrange to have one of the hospital shrinks see him while he's in traction."

"You really think that'll change anything?"

"I don't know. I've got to try something short of killing him."

"And what if those somethings don't work?"

His eyes took on a bleak look. "Then I'll have find a way to take him out of the picture. Permanently. Even if I have to do it myself."

"I thought you were worried about your family and your business."

"She's my sister, dammit!"

Jack thought about his own sister, the pediatrician. He couldn't imagine anyone beating up on her. At least not more than once. She'd had a brown belt in karate at seventeen and had never taken guff from anyone. She'd either kick the crap out of you herself or call big brother, the judge, and submerge you to your lower lip in an endless stream of legal hot water. Or both.

But if she were a different sort, and somebody was beating up on her, repeatedly ...

"All right," Jack said. "I'll look into it. I'm not promising anything, but I'll see if there's anything I can do."

"Hey, thanks. Thanks a—"

"That's half down just for looking into it—no refund. Even if I decide not to do anything. The rest is due when I' ve done the job."

Schaffer's eyes narrowed. "Wait a sec. Lemme get this straight. You get five large with no commitment?"

"Might take me weeks to learn what I need to know just to make that decision."

"What do you need to know? How about—?"

"We're not practicing 'the Art of the Deal' here. You've already held out on me about this co-dependency thing; how do I know you're not hiding something else?"

"I'm not. I swear!"

"Those are the terms. Take it or leave it."

For a moment it looked as if Schaffer might leave it. Then he shook his head.

"You're asking me to bet on a crap shoot—blindfolded. You hold all the aces."

"You're mixing metaphors, but you've got the picture."

"Aw, what the hell." Schaffer sighed and reached into his breast pocket. He handed an envelope across to Jack. "It's only money. Here. Take it."

Without hiding his reluctance, Jack tucked the envelope inside his shirt.

"When do you start?" Schaffer said.

Jack opened the door and stepped out of the Jag.

"Tomorrow night."

5

Jack started back to Manhattan, then remembered he was due to pick up his mail. And since he was already in Queens, why not?

He rented boxes in five mail drops—two in Manhattan, one in Hoboken, one in Brooklyn, and a large box in Astoria on Steinway Street. But he used that drop as a collection point only. Every two weeks his other drops bundled up his mail and sent it to Astoria. Every two weeks Jack hopped the R train and collected all his mail. An easy trip—the drop was only a couple of blocks from the subway stop.

He double-parked in front of the big, brightly-lit window of Carsman's Mail and Packaging Services and trotted inside. He'd chosen Carsman's because it was open twenty-four hours a day. The clerk behind the barred window at the rear barely looked up as he entered, but Jack kept his head turned anyway. He unlocked the box, scooped out the four manila envelopes inside, and was out the door and tooling down Steinway Street in Abe's truck in less than a minute.

In and out, showing up at all odd hours of the night, seeing no one, speaking to no one—the only way to fly.

As he drove he emptied the envelopes onto the seat beside him. At successive stop lights he sifted through the letters. Most were bills for the credit cards he carried under various identities. But one envelope addressed to John L. Tyleski caught his eye. Tyleski was one of his more recent noms de guerre. Jack didn't remember any mail for him before. He tore open the envelope.

Jack smiled. Because of John L. Tyleski's excellent credit record, a Maryland bank had preapproved him for a Visa card.

Damn nice of you people.

Credit cards ... Jack hated them. Plastic money left a trail of electronic footprints, a detailed record of every purchase—books, theater tickets, clothing, plane tickets—a diagram of your lifestyle, a map of your existence. The very things he wanted most to avoid.

He'd held out as long as he could, but with each passing year it had become increasingly difficult to get by without them. A man with no credit cards raised eyebrows, and the last thing Jack wanted to attract was a second look. He'd found himself in an odd position: in order to remain invisible, he'd have to become a part of the national credit databases.

So he jumped into Plastic Moneyland with both feet. He now kept four credit card accounts running at once, each under a different name, each attached to a different mail drop. He paid his monthly bills promptly with USPS money orders. He could have used another money order service with equal anonymity, but the idea of using a wing of the very government he was hiding from appealed to him.

Early last year he'd added John L. Tyleski as an additional cardholder to the Amex account of John J. O'Mara.

Tyleski's record of payment since then had been so sterling that a competitor was offering him his own account.

"On behalf of Mr. Tyleski," Jack said, "I wish to thank you very much. We will sign him up first thing tomorrow."

Something deeply satisfying in the predictability of large financial organizations.

And in a few months, John J. O'Mara would request that John L. Tyleski's name be removed from his Amex account, leaving Tyleski as a free and independent entity in the Visa databank.

The timing was perfect. He'd been planning to visit Ernie tomorrow and start legitimizing a new identity anyway. He'd eventually attach that to the Tyleski Visa account.

He smiled as he paid the toll at the Midtown Tunnel. This was shaping up to be a busy week.

Salvatore Roma stood at the window of his suite on the top floor of the Clinton Regent Hotel and gazed at the blazing skyline.

6

He had been staying at the hotel since Monday, preparing for the SESOUP conference. A few of the attendees had arrived today to get in some sightseeing before the conference began. Tomorrow the rest would arrive, filling the hotel. Every room was booked by an attendee, just as he'd planned.

Anticipation bubbled through him, making him almost giddy. All the pieces were falling together perfectly. By this time tomorrow night, the building would be packed with those special, chosen people.

And then it would begin.

After endless waiting, after repeated reverses at the hands of lesser beings, his time had come at last. He'd earned his reward, paid for it with blood and lives—his own—and now he was due to collect. Past due.

All he needed were the proper tools. The people packing this building over the next few days would help provide those. After that, nothing could stop him. And he would grind to pulp anyone who got in his way.

Mine, he thought, gazing at the city and beyond. Mine at last.

1

Jack had time, so he walked down to Midtown. It had rained last night as a front pushed through, and the temperature had dropped a good ten or twelve degrees below yesterday's. The breeze had a raw edge to it. Coats were back on, legs were hidden again. Spring seemed an empty dream—

He'd decided to dress like a Midtown tourist today, so he was wearing Nikes and a black-and-purple nylon warm-up over a Planet Hollywood T-shirt. The indispensable fanny pack completed the look. The nylon made an annoying rhythmic swishing sound as he quick-walked down Columbus, which magically became Ninth Avenue once he crossed Fifty-ninth Street. He paused to check out the trays of used paperbacks in the concrete plaza on the southeast corner of Fifty-seventh, then moved on. From there the avenue began its downward slope toward Hell's Kitchen.

At least that was what they used to call it. The presence of the Intrepid Museum and the Javits Convention Center had somewhat revitalized the area, but even so, real estate folks had found a neighborhood called Hell's Kitchen a tough sell. So they'd started calling it "Clinton"—not after the president, but the former governor whose carriage house was still around here somewhere, a leftover from the old, old days when the area was a summer retreat for Manhattan's wealthier folk.

Then the Irish moved in. When the tenements rose, people started calling it Hell's Kitchen. Italians and Greeks and Puerto Ricans followed, successive immigrant waves moving through the same apartments.

The buildings tended to average about five stories in height with brick fronts, some decorative, most just plain red clay, thinly veiled with a steel lace of fire escapes clinging to their faces. Most of the streets, sloping upward on his left and down to the Hudson on his right, were lined with budding trees—Jack had forgotten how many trees grew in Hell's Kitchen. Reminded him in some ways of his own neighborhood before the great gentrification of the eighties.

Many of the doorways he passed were occupied, either by sleeping men or smoking women.

Ahead of Jack a guy was peeking in the windows of all the parked cars he passed. He was trying to be coy about it, but no question: an hour from now, one of those cars would be missing.

Jack remembered the Clinton Regent as being somewhere in the lower Fifties or upper Forties. He should have looked up the address before starting out. No matter. He'd find it.

He thought about swinging down by the docks and grabbing a cup of coffee at the Highwater Diner. He'd done a job for the owner, George Kuropolis, a while ago, and had been impressed with how clean he kept the place. He glanced at his watch. No time. Maybe later.

No shortage of restaurants in the area, and just about every ethnic group that had passed through the neighborhood was represented—lots of bodegas, a Greek bakery, Italian delis, Irish pubs, an Afghan kabob place, Caribbean, Thai, Chinese, Senegalese, even an Ethiopian restaurant.

What do they serve in an Ethiopian restaurant?

He'd have to check it out. If nothing else, meals would not be boring on this gig.

The overcast sky threatened rain, but that didn't seem to faze the tourists. The West Side was full of foreigners. He was stopped by a group of Japanese women who seemed to know only one word.

"Gucci? Gucci?" they said.

He pointed them toward Fifth Avenue. "Gucci."

Then a dapper elderly gent with a British accent stopped him at a corner and wanted to know which way to Grand Central. Jack pointed him toward Forty-second and told him to walk left—couldn't miss it.

"But now let me ask you something," Jack said as the man thanked him and began to walk away.

He was bothered by the fact that, despite his best efforts to dress like an out-of-towner, two foreigners had chosen him to ask directions.

"How did you know I wasn't a tourist myself?"

"That nylon thingie you're wearing, for one," the Brit said, smoothing his neat little white mustache. "Whenever we see one in London, we know there's an American inside. The same goes for that miniature rucksack on your hip."

"Okay, but how did you know I wasn't from Des Moines or someplace?"

"By the way you crossed the street. If you'll notice, native New Yorkers completely ignore the don't walk signals, and rarely break stride as they cross the street."

Have to remember that, Jack thought.

He moved on, stopping at all the don't walks, and found the Clinton Regent Hotel in the upper Forties between Ninth and Tenth. A whopping eight stories tall, it towered over its neighbors.

A low marquee overhung a small paved plaza shaded by half a dozen slim elms in planters. Through the windows to the left of the revolving doors he could see a half-filled coffee shop; to the right, the crowded lobby. He stepped inside and stuttered to a stop as a deep uneasiness wrapped around him like a tentacle.

He looked around the low-ceilinged lobby, wondering what it was about this place that made him so uncomfortable. Just people, standing, sitting, wandering about. No one particularly sinister looking or threatening. They were all so ordinary he wondered if he was in the right place. Then he spotted a backpacking girl wearing a T-shirt decorated with the familiar black-eyed ET-ish alien and he knew this had to be the place.

As he stood there the sensation eased away, but did not leave entirely.

Jack spotted a tall, lanky figure waving from an alcove: Lew Ehler, and he was motioning to Jack to join him.

"Good," Lew said as they shook hands. He wore gray slacks and a green plaid shirt under a blue V-neck sweater; he looked more relaxed out of a suit. "You're right on time." He was staring at Jack's throat. "What—?"

"Cut myself shaving."

"Oh. We should go over your cover story before we try to register you."

"Try?"

"Yes. I think I have a way to get you in, and if we pass that hurdle, you'll need a cover story."

"Maybe we should see about registering first."

"No. Trust me, you should have the story set in your mind before you get involved here."

"Okay. Who am I?"

He glanced around. "Too crowded in here. Let's step outside."

They stood near an elm in a concrete planter. Lew gave the street and sidewalk a careful once-over before turning to Jack.

"I've given this a lot of thought and I think you should be an experiencer."

"What's an experiencer?"

"Someone who's had a UFO experience."

"You mean abducted?" Jack didn't know if he could pull that off without laughing.

"No. Too many phony abductees around—either delusional crazies or publicity hounds. You've got to be more subtle. You'll simply say you experienced an incident that left you with unaccounted-for hours in your life. Where are you from?"

Jack didn't want to answer that. "Why?"

"Because you should be familiar with where this event supposedly happened. It should be a fairly unpopulated area."

Jack knew Jersey—he grew up there—and the pine woods that filled the belly of the state were about as deserted as you could get.

"How about the Jersey pine barrens?"

"Perfect! Mel always talked about a 'nexus point' out there."

"What's that?"

"I'm not sure. It was part of her research. We drove through last year, looking for one of these nexus points but got lost. Okay, so that's where you were ... driving through the pine barrens, when you saw a light moving along the tree tops."

"I've heard of lights like that—the Pineys call them 'pine lights'—but I never saw one."

"Yes, you did: you saw this light ... and as you slowed to watch it, you spotted this glowing figure off to the side. You stopped for a closer look ... and the next thing you knew, it was dawn. You'd lost five-six hours."

"That's it?"

Lew nodded. "That's all you need. It's perfect because it's so vague. No one can trip you up on details because there aren't any. Anybody starts questioning you too closely, you just act confused ... you wish like crazy you could remember ... you'd give anything to remember."

"What about reporting it? That can be checked, so I'll have to say I didn't report it. Why not?"

"No problem. You never told anybody because you were too embarrassed—you don't want people to think you're some sort of nut. It's a common story. Most people who are into this stuff believe that only a small fraction of sightings and contacts are on record; the rest remain unreported due to the very real fear of being labeled a kook."

"Okay. I can handle that. But what's my connection to Melanie?"

Lew grinned. "Here's the beauty part: you never reported the incident to anyone, not even your own family, but then, out of the blue, Melanie Ehler called you and asked him to come to New York to talk to her about it."

"But how did she know?"

Lew's grin broadened. "That's what everyone will be asking. That will make you a very interesting experiencer. Everyone will want to talk to you about it. And the thing is, you've never met Mel, never even heard of her, so you're free to ask all sorts of questions about her."

Jack looked around. "But here I am, sitting with you for all to see. How come I know you?"

"You showed up at the house, looking for Mel. But she's gone. So I brought you along to help me look for her." He beamed with pride. "Isn't that great? All bases covered." His smile faltered and his Adam's apple made a single convulsive bob. "Mel would be so proud."

It was great. Brilliant, in fact. But Jack saw a way to improve it.

"I'm sure she would. And I'm impressed too. But let's ratchet it up one more notch. Let's say that I heard from Melanie Tuesday."

"Tuesday? But that was after ... "

"Right. She called me after she was abducted." If she was abducted, he mentally added. "That ought to shake up the guilty party and bring them sniffing around, don't you think?"

"I guess it would."

"And as for you—play it straight."

"What do you mean?"

"I want you to pretty much tell it like it is: Melanie took off Sunday on some last minute research and you haven't seen her since. Despite the fact that she told you she'd be gone for a while, you're worried about her—you even suspect foul play. The only thing you hold back on is who I really am and the, er, TV message you got from her Monday night. Got that?"

"Yeah, sure. I guess so. But what—?"

"Lew?" said a woman's voice.

Jack turned and saw a matronly woman, maybe fifty or so, approaching them from the hotel entrance.

"Oh, hi, Olive," Lew called, then spoke hurriedly in a low voice from the corner of his mouth. "Olive Farina, one of the cornerstones of SESOUP. A born-again everything."

"Lew, it's so good to see you again!" she said, smiling warmly and opening her arms.

Lew stooped for a brief embrace. "Good to see you too, Olive." He turned to Jack. "I'd like you to meet ... "

Jack saw Lew's face go blank, no doubt mirroring his mind. They hadn't settled on a name.

"Jack Shelby," Jack said, extending his hand. "Lew and I met only Tuesday. Nice to meet you."

Olive Farina had a sweet face and short graying hair. She wore a white turtleneck with flower-embroidered collar, a brocade vest that looked like it had been cut from a wall hanging, maroon polyester slacks and matching stockings with flat black shoes. Jack figured this was how nuns must dress when they resign from their convent. Her jewelry reinforced the ex-nun image: silver crosses as earrings, a gold crucifix as a ring, and a big silver crucifix suspended on a long chain necklace.

"Bless you, and nice to meet you as well." She turned to Lew. "Where's Melanie? I'm so anxious to speak to her." She grinned and lowered her voice to a stage whisper. "I'm hoping she'll give me a preview of her address on Sunday."

"I'm sorry, Olive," Lew said, "but Mel's not here. Frankly, I don't know where she is, and I'm getting worried."

He launched into his story, then worked Jack's "experience" into it. Jack watched Olive's expression carefully during the whole exchange, but saw nothing suspicious.

"I'm sure Mel's just fine," Olive said. "You know how she is. She's like a bird dog once she gets on the trail of something. She's probably lost all track of time. Don't worry, Lew. Melanie will be here as scheduled on Sunday to tell us what she's discovered, and I know in my heart she'll prove that Satan is the master manipulator. He has to be—the devil is the source of all evil. Why just last night as I was praying I—"

Her voice cut off as two long-haired heavy metal types strolled by on the sidewalk. Her head almost managed an Exorcist swivel as she fixed on the one with the Black Sabbath T-shirt. Her expression grew furious.

"Excuse me," she said and hurried after them.

Jack watched as she grabbed the Black Sabbath guy by the arm and got into his face.

"Are you a Satanist?"

"Sod off," the guy said in a British accent and kept walking.

"Even if you're not a follower, you're doing the devil's work!" she said, following him. "You're spreading the Evil One's message with that shirt!"

The voices faded as the trio moved off:

"As you can see, Olive is a bit, um, intense," Lew said. "She represents the thinking of a fairly large segment of the membership—fundamentalist Christian types who believe the End Days are near and that Satan is preparing the way for the Antichrist."

"Keep thinking those happy thoughts."

"She's a nice lady, really," Lew said. "Just don't push any of her hot buttons. The one you really have to be careful with is Jim Zaleski—a real hot-head, and a diehard ufologist."

"You—follow what?"

"Ufologist—an expert on UFOs. He's a spokesman for the alien contact faction of SESOUP."

"So SESOUP's not a united group."

"About as united as the United Nations. Each subgroup pushes its own theory as the Real Truth. The other bigwig is Miles Kenway. He's ex-military and ... well, a little scary. He speaks for those who believe in the New World Order conspiracy. If I had to pick one of them as most likely to be behind Mel's disappearance, I'd pick Kenway."

I love this, Jack thought. It's like an alternate reality.

"Have you seen either of those two around?" he said, wanting a look at them.

"No. But I'm sure they'll be at the cocktail reception later. And Roma's giving the welcoming address. You can meet them all tonight—if we can get you in." Lew glanced at his watch. "Registration should be opening soon. Let's get up there early. Let me do the talking."

Back inside, they took the escalator up one level to the meeting floors and found the registration desks in a corridor. Lew was pre-registered so he simply had to sign in. Jack stood back while the thin, middle-aged brunette behind the desk assembled Lew's badge and program. Movement to his right startled him—something small and brown with a long curved tail scurried along the floor. It disappeared behind the registration table.

Jack was bending into a squat to check it out when the thing jumped up onto the table.

A monkey. One of those cute little organ-grinder types with the pale face and the dark fur on the head—a capuchin, or something like that. It sat on the far end of the table and stared at him.

Jack heard Lew say, "I'm also going to pick up my wife's registration packet."

"Sure, Lew," the woman said, digging into an accordion file folder. Her badge read Barbara.

Still staring at Jack, the monkey moved closer. Barbara glanced at it but said nothing. Jack didn't understand why it was staring at him like that. Didn't much like it, either.

What's your problem, little guy?

He pointed to the monkey. "Is he a member too?"

Barbara smiled. "No. He belongs to Sal. Isn't he cute?"

"Sal?" Lew said.

"Professor Roma. He tells everyone to call him Sal."

She handed Lew an envelope. "Ask Melanie to stop by and say hello later."

"I'm not sure when Mel's arriving," Lew said. "In the meantime, I'm going to let Mr. Shelby use her badge and pass."

Jack noticed that the monkey shot upright onto its hind legs, almost as if it were alarmed at something.

"Are you a member?" she said to Jack.

"Nope. But I'd sure like to be."

"Oh, dear," Barbara said. "I don't think we can allow that."

"I don't see why not. Melanie's going to be delayed so she wants Mr. Shelby to take her place until she arrives."

"But Lew," Barbara was saying, "he's not a member—"

"But Melanie is, and I'm her husband, and this is what she told me: Jack is to take her place until she arrives."

"But you can't just give him—"

"Yes, he can," Jack said, noticing other registrants backing up behind them. Enough jawing. "Watch." He took Melanie's registration from Lew and held it before him. "There. It's done."

Before Barbara could reply, the monkey screeched and leaped at Jack. It grabbed the envelope and tried to tear it from his grasp. Startled, Jack stumbled back a step. A few of the people behind him cried out in alarm.

"What the—!"

He snatched the envelope from the monkey's paws, grabbed the creature around its chest, and gently dropped it back onto the registration desk. As if bounding off a trampoline, the monkey sprang at him again, screeching shrilly all the while. This time Jack was ready. He caught it around the chest again and held it up at arms length. He stared at it.

"Hey, pal, what's with you? Cool it."

The monkey stopped its screeching and glared at him. Then it tried to bite his wrist.

"Damn!" Jack said and tossed it—none too gently this time—back onto the table. He looked at his wrist. The skin was scraped but unbroken.

Undaunted, the creature looked ready to spring again when a voice rang out.

"Mauricio!"

The monkey froze. It and everyone else turned to look at the man approaching from the far end of the corridor.

"Oh, Professor Roma!" Barbara said. "I'm so glad you're here. I don't know what got into him."

Jack took in Professor Salvatore Roma, founder of SESOUP: a lot younger than Jack had expected, with close-cropped black hair, just this side of a buzz cut, slim nose, dark eyes, and full lips; maybe five-ten with a lean body. He wore a white shirt—one of those collarless jobs—and dark gray pleated slacks. Looked like he'd just come from a GQ shoot.

For some reason he couldn't explain, Jack hated him on sight.

Roma snapped his fingers at the monkey and, after a heartbeat of hesitation, it scampered along the table and hopped up on his shoulder. Roma approached Lew and Jack.

"Hello," he said, extending his hand to Lew. "I'm Sal Roma."

"Lew Ehler. We've spoken on the phone."

Roma smiled brightly. "Melanie's husband! So good to finally meet you in person! I've been looking forward to meeting her in the flesh as well. Where is she?"

Roma was handsome and graceful, warm and friendly—why did Jack have such an urge to punch him in the face?

Lew said, "She's not here at the moment."

Roma turned to Barbara. "What was all the commotion?"

"Lew wants this non-member"—she nodded toward Jack—"to use his wife's conference pass."

Lew launched into their cover story, and did a great job—Jack detected a few murmured oohs and aahs from the people around them. Roma listened patiently while the monkey on his shoulder continued to glare at Jack. In the end, Roma wasn't moved.

"I'm sorry," he said, smiling sympathetically at Jack and Lew. "As much as I'd like to include you, Mr. Shelby, the conference is for members only." He extended his hand toward Jack. "Please return the envelope."

Jack shook his head. "I don't think so. I'm here. I'm staying."

"I must insist, Mr. Shelby," Roma said. Sudden fury darkened his smooth features.

Surprisingly, Jack heard support from the other SESOUPers—people saying, "Let him stay" ... "Give him a break" ... "One more person isn't going to hurt" ... and the like.

Roma glanced around, opened his mouth, apparently thought better of it, and closed it again. The monkey looked ready to hurl itself at Jack's throat.

"Very well," Roma said finally, with a tiny shrug as he looked around at the SESOUPers. "If you wish him to stay, so be it."

Roma's quick about-face surprised Jack; something about it bothered him. The monkey seemed to agree: It began jumping up and down and screeching as if protesting Roma's capitulation.

"Easy, Mauricio," Roma purred, stroking its fur. His lips smiled as his eyes bored into Jack's. "I could have security eject you, but it is not worth the disruption. Enjoy your stay at the conference, Mr. Shelby. But if you interfere at all with these proceedings, I shall remove you. Is that clear?"

Jack grinned into the combined glares of Roma and his monkey. "Does this mean I don't get to call you Sal?"

Roma turned away, but the monkey kept watching Jack from his shoulder, hissing at him as they walked off. Finally the monkey jumped to the floor and ran the other way, as if disgusted with all of them.

"What happened between you and that monkey?" Lew said.

"Don't know. I get along pretty well with dogs and cats. Maybe monkeys don't like me. His master wasn't exactly crazy about me either."

And vice versa, Jack thought. He couldn't remember experiencing such instant unprovoked animosity toward another human being.

"But you're in," Lew said, slapping him on the back. "That's the important thing."

"Yeah." Jack shuffled through his—Melanie's—registration envelope, and pulled out the program. He thumbed the pages. "What now?"

"Not much doing yet. It's too early for me to check into my room. We could have lunch."

"I'll have to take a rain check. I've got some errands. And I need to see about a room of my own."

"That might be a problem. The place is booked solid. If necessary, you could stay with me."

"Thanks," Jack said, but hoped it wouldn't come to that. He wanted to stay here because this was where the action—such as it was—would be. But being a roommate went against his nature, unless of course the other occupant was Gia.

"Maybe I can go on a wait list, in case there's a cancel or a no-show." He checked today's schedule in his program. "How about we meet at this Welcome Address at five?"

That was fine with Lew. They split, and Jack headed back uptown to see a guy named Ernie.

2

Roma watched the stranger leave and fought and urge to follow him and wring his neck. It wouldn't do to have him turn up dead. That might upset the attendees, might even send some of them scurrying back home—the last thing he wanted.

But who was he? And why had Melanie Ehler's husband lied about him, saying that Melanie wanted this newcomer to use her conference pass until she arrived? Nothing, could be further from the truth.

He calmed himself. It didn't matter, really, who he was. The hotel was full, so Mr. Jack Shelby would have to find himself some other place to stay. That was the important matter—that he not replace one of the attendees. If he did that, something would have to be done about him. Roma needed them all here tonight.

Yes. He closed his eyes. Tonight.

3

The sign in the dirty window read:

ERNIE'S I-D

ALL KINDS

PASSPORT

TAXI

DRIVERS LICENSE

Jack pulled open the door and stepped inside.

"Hey, Jack," said the skinny, basset-faced man behind the counter. "How y' doin'. How y' doin'." Not a question, just Ernie's habitual rapid-fire greeting. "Lock the door and flip the sign to 'closed' there, will ya?"

Jack did just that, then approached the counter, passing racks of sunglasses, customizable T-shirts, sports caps, and bootleg videos. Ernie developed film and made legitimate photo IDs, and generally sold anything that had a fat mark-up, but his main income came from people who wanted to be someone else, or at least be known as someone else.

Over the years Ernie had made dozens of driver's licenses and photo IDs for Jack.

"You said you need another high school ID, right?" Ernie said, lifting an accordion file from the floor and removing the elastic band that encircled it. "Here in the city?"

"No. Hoboken."

Ernie flipped through the pockets in the file, an extensive collection of ID cards and badges for most of the schools, factories, and offices within a ten-mile radius.

"Hoboken ... Hoboken ... what's the kid's name?"

Jack unfolded a photocopy of a certified birth certificate and placed it on the counter.

"Here he is. And I'll need you to notarize this copy for me, too."

Ernie had a Notary Public seal, the duplicate of a legitimate Notary down in the financial district.

"Sure thing." He squinted at the birth certificate. "D'Attilio, huh? D'Attilio the Hun, maybe?" He flashed Jack a quick, Charlie Callas grin. "For a D'Attilio we should probably enroll him in St. Aloysius." More searching. "Here it is."

He removed a high school ID from the file and clipped it to a yellow legal pad.

"Okay," he said, scribbling on the pad. "We've got John D'Attilio. D-O-B?"

Jack pointed to the birth date on the certificate. "Right there."

"Got it. Address?"

Jack gave him the address of his Hoboken mail drop.

Ernie nodded. "Yog?"

"What's that?"

Ernie raised his eyebrows and gave Jack a Do-I-have-to-spell-it-out? look. "Y-OG?"

Of course—year of graduation. It was on all school IDs.

"Let see ... he's just turning sixteen, so he'll graduate two years from now."

"Got it. And I've got a nice photo to go with that name. Okay. When do you need it?"

"No hurry. Next week's okay."

"Good. Cause I'm a little backed up."

"Usual price?"

"Yeah."

"See you Monday."

Jack turned the sign, unlocked the door, and stepped back onto Tenth Avenue. He glanced at his watch. Time to check back with the hotel. He hoped the reservation desk had scrounged up a room for him. He found himself looking forward to mingling with the Society for the Exposure of Secret Organizations and Unexplained Phenomena. He'd never been an "experiencer" before.

4

Jack lucked out with a room: One of the SESOUPers had to cancel because of some family emergency, and Jack took her place.

He wound up in a fifth floor room overlooking the street. The decor was typical hotel blah: stucco ceiling, heavy duty beige wall paper, TV, dresser, and a pair of double beds, double drapes on the window, and framed nondescript prints of ponds and tree branches on the walls. But the bland surroundings didn't allay the strange uneasiness he felt every time he stepped into this building, as if the air were charged with some sort of cold energy.

He was unpacking the gym bag that held the change of clothes he'd brought from home, when he heard a knock on his door. He eyeballed the peephole, expecting to see Lew. Instead he found Olive Farina standing in the hall.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you, Mr. Shelby?" she said as Jack pulled open the door. "May I come in? I have a question or two I'd like to ask you."

Jack hesitated, puzzled. What did she want here?

But she looked harmless enough, and he was curious to hear her question or two.

"Sure."

He stepped aside and Olive entered uncertainly, peering into the bathroom as she passed, as if expecting someone to be hiding in there.

"You're alone?"

"Last time I looked."

When she reached the center of the room, she stopped in front of the TV cabinet and turned to him. "Before we speak, will you do something for me?"

"Depends on what it is."

She lifted the silver crucifix that hung from her neck. "Will you hold this for me?"

"Hold it?"

"That's right. Just wrap your fingers around it for the count of ten."

Uh-oh, Jack thought. Loony Tunes times.

But he said okay and gripped the crucifix in his fist, firmly resisting the manic urge to scream in agony and fall writhing to the floor. Very doubtful this audience would find much humor in that.

"Good," she said after a few heartbeats. "You can let go now." She inspected Jack's open palm.

"Looking for scorch marks?" he said.

She gave him a tolerant smile. "Laugh if you will, but at least now I feel I can trust you."

Jack shrugged, thinking, if that's all it takes, you're already way too trusting. He gestured to one of the upholstered chairs by the big plate glass window.

"Have a seat." Jack turned the chair from the writing desk to face her and dropped into it. "What did you want to ask me?"

"Well," she said, adjusting her wide frame into the narrow seat, "if I understand correctly, you were the last one to speak to Melanie Ehler."

"I don't know that for sure. She could have called lots of other people."

"Yes, of course. But I want to know ... when she spoke to you, did she mention anything else ... did she mention the End Times?"

"No," Jack said. "I'm not familiar—"

"That must be what Melanie learned," Olive said, her voice revving up. "Because everything that's going wrong in the world is evidence of the End Times." She pointed to the night stand between the beds. "There's a Holy Bible in that drawer, and it's all recorded right there in the Book of Revelations."

"Really."

"That glowing figure you saw in the woods? That could have been an angel—the Book of Revelations mentions angels appearing to the Righteous near the End Times. Are you righteous?"

"I sure hope so."

"And that light you saw? Some will claim it was a UFO peopled with aliens. Don't believe them. UFOs are not from outer space—they're the chariots of Satan."

She was working herself up. It was almost as if she were talking to herself. Jack could only watch and listen, fascinated.

"Yes! Satan! For isn't the Dark One, after all, referred to as 'Prince of the Air?' The lights in the skies are proof that Satan is here. He and his forces are at this very moment working to hurl America into anarchy by destroying religious freedoms. That's why there's been so many church burnings recently—and don't forget Waco! But he'll also try to undermine from within by striking at us through our children! Even now his minions are teaching those innocent minds about evolution and life on other planets, trying to convince them that science proves the Bible wrong! And it's working, trust me, it's working. And what is Satan's purpose? Just before the End Times, he is going to join the USA and Canada into a single government and install the Antichrist as overall leader."

Jack listened raptly. He loved this stuff.

"Any idea who this Antichrist is?" he said when she took a breath. He could think of a few politicians who fit the description.

"No. Not yet. We'll know soon enough, though. But not all of us are going to sit around and just let this happen. The Righteous Faithful will resist to the end. The Devil is going to mark his billions of followers with a special microchip. It will run at six hundred and sixty-six megahertz—six-six-six is the Number of the Beast, you know. His followers, those who have the chip, will be able to buy food and roam free; the Righteous who refuse the chip and stay faithful to God will starve or be rounded up and put into camps."

Got to make sure I get me one of those chips, Jack thought.

"It will be a terrible time," she said, shaking her head as she wound down and her voice softened. "A terrible, terrible time."

"How did you learn all this?" Jack said.

"I told you: it's right here in the Bible, and in the papers every day!"

"Right. Of course." He knew she hadn't been born like this. He wondered when she'd gone off the deep end. And he wanted to know if she was far enough gone to make a move against Melanie Ehler. "But when did you first begin putting it all together?"

Olive leaned forward. "I can tell you the exact date I became aware of Satan's evil hand in world affairs. Up till that time I was just like everybody else, blithely going about my business, thinking everything was fine—well, I had a bad weight problem and couldn't seem to do anything about it. But I had no idea my obesity was related to Satan."

Jack couldn't resist. "The Devil made you eat?"

"Are you mocking me, Mr. Shelby? Because if—"

"Call me Jack, and no, I wasn't mocking you." Had to tread softly here. "Go on."

"All right. As I was saying, I was getting nowhere with my weight until I went to this wonderful therapist. She took one look at me and said, 'You were abused as a child—that's why you're overweight. Your mind has forced you to build up that layer of fat as symbolic insulation against further abuse.'"

"She made the diagnosis first, before she started interviewing you? Isn't it usually the other way around?"

"She's an exceptional woman. At first, of course, I thought she was crazy, but she convinced me to go through memory recovery therapy. And, to my everlasting horror, I found she was right. I recovered memories of Satanic ritual abuse when I was a child."

Jack said nothing. He'd read an article in the Times about memory recovery therapy and how it tended to create more memories than it supposedly recovered.

Olive pulled a tissue from the pocket of her flowered vest and dabbed at her eyes. "My parents denied it all till their dying days, so I couldn't find out if they'd implanted one of those 666 chips in me."

"What makes you think—?"

"Because they hurt me!" she said, her eyes puddling up again. "I remember that! I can see those black robed figures standing over me—you hear about men in black, and there was that so-called comedy movie about them, but these were the real men in black, and believe me, there was nothing funny about them!"

"Easy, Olive," Jack said, fearing she was about to lose it. "It's all right."

"It's not all right! These Satanic cults sacrifice most of their victims, and so for a while I thought I was lucky because I'd survived. And then I started thinking maybe I was allowed to live for a reason. Maybe I'd been implanted with the 666 chip. If that's true, it will control me during the End Times. I'll be marked as unfaithful. I'll miss the Rapture and suffer the Tribulation."

"A simple X ray ought to—"

"They don't show up on X rays! I've had countless pelvic exams, plus CAT scans and ultrasounds and MRIs, but they all supposedly come back negative."

"Supposedly?"

"I'm beginning to suspect that the medical profession is in league with the CIA and Satan, implanting these chips in everyone they can. That's why I've got to know when the End Times are coming ... so I can prepare myself ... purify myself. If you hear from Melanie again, ask her about the End Times, will you? Please? I've got to know."

Jack's sense of derisive amusement with Olive melted away in the face of her genuine anguish. Her fears were whacked out, but the deeply troubled woman before him was real, and she was hurting. He would have liked a few minutes with the so-called therapist who got her started down this road.

"Sure, Olive," he said softly. "If I hear from her again, that's the first thing I'll ask her."

"Thank you," she said, brightening. "Oh, thank you. And tell her I've still got the disks." Her eyes widened and her hand darted to her mouth.

"What disks?" Jack asked.

"Nothing," she said quickly. "It was nothing. Forget I said that."

Jack remembered the empty "GUT" folder in Melanie's computer.

"Computer disks, Olive?" he said, improvising. "Melanie told me she had large computer files on her Grand Unification Theory. She said she made copies for safekeeping and that she was giving them to someone she trusted." He was stabbing in the dark here. "Was that someone you?"

"Her theory? All her work?" Olive sat frozen, staring at Jack. "She told you?"

Jack nodded. "You've got them in a safe place, I hope."

"Yes, but I don't know anything about computers, so I have no idea what's on them. And I was wondering why she didn't give them to Lew. Do you think she doesn't trust him?"

Good question. Why hadn't she given them to her husband?

"I can't say, Olive. I never met her, and I've only known Lew since Tuesday."

"Melanie and I are very close. She's such a good, warm person. She'll always listen to me, always comfort me. She never has a bad word to say about anyone. She's been like a sister to me."

That didn't jibe with Lew's description of a woman with few friends or social contacts.

"If something's happened to her ... " Olive sniffed and blinked back tears.

"You know," Jack said slowly, cautiously, "I know a little about computers. Maybe I could help you get into those disks and—"

Olive was shaking her head. "No." Her eyes narrowed. "Why should you care about what's on those disks?"

"Well," Jack said, improvising again—this was one suspicious lady. "Melanie seemed to know about my, um, experience. I want to know how. Those disks might give us a clue as to—"

"No-no!" she said, her voice rising. "No one can see them! I promised!"

"Okay," Jack said, raising his hands in a conciliatory gesture. He didn't want her getting worked up again. "Good for you. You have to honor Melanie's trust. Does anyone else know about the disks?"

She shook her head. "Not another soul ... until now."

"Good. We'll keep it that way. I won't mention it to anyone, not even Lew."

She wiped her eyes and composed herself, then rose to her feet.

"Thank you. You're a good man. And I'm sorry I made such a scene. I didn't mean for this to happen. It's just that I seem to cry so easily lately. Maybe it's because something inside me senses the End Times coming. Do you think that could be it?"

"I couldn't say, Olive. But I'll bet they're still a long ways off."

"Let's hope so—for both our sakes."

"What do you mean?"

She stepped closer and lowered her voice. "Get yourself a check-up, Mr. Shelby."

"Me? Why?"

"Those missing hours after you saw the light and the figure—they might have planted one of the 666 chips in you. Get a thorough examination by a doctor you trust. Soon."

Jack led her toward the door. "Yeah. That's probably a good idea. Thanks for the advice."

"And watch out for Jim Zaleski."

"Who?"

"One of our more prominent members."

Jack remembered the name now—Lew had called him a "ufologist."

"I don't know why he was ever allowed in this organization. He's so foul mouthed. He cannot seem to speak a single sentence without blaspheming or taking the name of the Lord in vain."

"I don't see how—"

"And he has a temper nearly as terrible as his tongue. I'm just hoping that Melanie didn't come to him with some information that upset him, because there's no telling what he might do."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"And the other one to watch out for is Professor Roma himself."

"I've already had a run-in with him."

"I heard. That's why I thought I could trust you ... because I don't trust him. At least not yet. He could be an ally, or he could be in league with the devil."

"Why do you say that?" Jack remembered his instant dislike of the man.

"That monkey ... I've seen him talking to it."

"Well, everybody talks to their pets now and again."

"Yes, but I've seen it answering him, whispering in his ear. I even overheard it once."

A chill shot through Jack. The way that monkey had glared at him earlier, with almost human hatred ...

"What did it say?"

"I don't know ... it was speaking a language unlike any I've ever heard, almost like ... " She glanced at him. "Have you ever heard anyone speaking in tongues?"

"Can't say I've had the pleasure."

"Well, I have. And many times the Spirit has taken me over and I've spoken myself. That's what it sounded like to me—Speaking in Tongues."

"You could be mistaken."

She nodded slowly. "Yes, I could be. But what if that monkey is some sort of familiar? That would tell us which side he's on, wouldn't it." Her eyes narrowed again. "That's why I'm watching him ... watching him whenever I can. I'll find out the truth about Professor Salvatore Roma."

Jack opened the door and ushered her into the hall. Movement to his left caught his eye and he turned in time to see a man in a hat and a dark suit moving quickly down the hall and ducking out of sight into the elevator alcove. He had a sense that he'd been standing outside the door a few seconds ago.

Listening? he wondered. Somebody watching me? Or watching Olive? Or just somebody heading for the elevator?

He considered heading down to the alcove to get a better look at the guy, but dropped the idea when he heard the elevator bell ring. He'd never make it in time.

He turned back to Olive. "If you learn anything about You-know-who, be sure to let me know."

"I will. And remember," she said, a fearful need growing in her eyes. "If Melanie calls again—"

"I'll ask her. I promise I'll ask her."

"Bless you. I'm in 812. Call me as soon as you have any news, no matter how late the hour."

Jack closed the door and sighed with a mixture of relief and pity. One very disturbed woman. At least he hoped she was. None of that could possibly be true, could it?

Nah. Jack figured he didn't know much about the End Times, but he did know a lady who should probably be on some heavy-duty medication while she was waiting for them.

5

Jack sat with Lew during Professor Roma's welcoming address. He was less interested in the words—some mishmash about "confluence of ideas" and "spreading the Truth" and "ripping the cover off' and so on—than, in the man.

Roma—sans monkey—wore a very dapper light gray Armani suit with a black collarless shirt buttoned to the top, giving him the appearance of a very rich and hip minister. Much as Jack hated to admit it, the guy was a mesmerizing speaker. He prowled the little stage with a cordless mike, gesturing dramatically, speaking without notes. Sincerity and dedication fired his every word. Here was a man with a mission.

The biographical sketch in the rear of the program book said he was a native of South Carolina and now a professor of anthropology at Northern Kentucky University.

Jack wondered how a college professor afforded Armani suits. Maybe he did a lot of public speaking, because he seemed to have a gift. He'd seized this audience of about three hundred. They listened in rapt attention, breaking into applause every time he paused. The crowd itself surprised Jack. The SESOUPers were older than he'd expected. The average age had to be forty-plus. Lots of gray heads in the audience, which was pretty evenly divided between the sexes, but almost exclusively white—he'd seen only one black face since he'd entered.

He'd been anticipating more picturesque types, and indeed he'd spotted a few ethereal, long-haired New Agers, and the inevitable bearded fat guy doing the Michelin Man thing in a stretched-to-the-limit "Abductees Do It In Space" T-shirt, but mostly he saw lots of old guys wearing white shoes and string ties with a flying saucer cinch, matrons in warm-ups and polyester pants suits, nerdy engineer types with pocket protectors and suspenders. The home towns on their badges were in states like Colorado and Missouri and Indiana.

On the whole, what was so striking about SESOUP's members was their very ordinariness. Middle America seemed to be heavily into conspiracies.

Jack didn't know whether to be heartened or dismayed.

After the standing ovation for Roma's address, everyone streamed into a large adjoining room for the cocktail reception. Jack watched singles, couples, groups greeting each other with smiles and hugs.

"Looks like a pretty friendly group," he said.

Lew nodded. "They're good people. A lot of us know each other from other similar organizations. Most are like Melanie and me—no close living relatives, not much in common with their neighbors. For many of us, these conferences are almost like family gatherings." He held, up a couple of drink tickets. "Thirsty? I'm buying."

"I thought you didn't drink."

"I'm making an exception tonight."

"Okay. I'll take a beer. Anything as long as it's not made by Anheuser-Busch."

As Lew threaded his way through the crowd toward the bar, two middle-aged women stopped before Jack.

The taller of the pair introduced herself as Evelyn Something-or-other, a big, chunky blonde wearing a bright red dress, little white socks, and shiny Mary Janes on her tiny feet—all Jack could think of was an old comic book character ... Little Dot's voracious friend ...

Little Lotta.

"I'm the program chairwoman?" Evelyn said. It sounded like a question. In fact, just about everything out of her mouth sounded like a question. "Lew told me about your experience? We're planning on holding panels? You know, with experiencers? Would you care to participate?"

"No, thanks," Jack said. "I'd rather not."

Evelyn smiled sympathetically. "I know there's some controversy? I mean, about your being here? But that shouldn't put you off? It's good to share? And the audience? It will be totally nonjudgmental?"

"I really don't have all that much to tell," Jack said. "I hardly remember a thing about it." How true, how true.

"I can fix that," said the other, a hawk-faced, anorectic-looking woman.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Evelyn. "This is Selma Jones? A memory-recovery therapist?"

Selma fixed him with an intent share. "I've helped many, many experiencers regain 'lost' hours. I can help you."

And maybe turn me into an Olive Farina? Jack thought.

"Maybe some other time."

"Well, if you, you know, change your mind?" Evelyn said, laying a gentle hand on his arm. "About the panel? You'll let me know?"

"Sure. Thanks for asking. You're very kind to care."

He meant that. She seemed sincere. And it couldn't hurt to have an ally or two among the membership.

The pair moved off, and Jack looked around for Lew.

He spotted him limping toward him with a Bass Ale in each hand. He had a trim, middle-aged man in tow.

"Jack," Lew said, handing him a bottle. "I want you to meet one of SESOUP's more prominent members, Jim Zaleski."

Jack had read about Zaleski in the program book which described him as "the world's foremost ufologist who has devoted his entire life to unexplained aerial phenomena and alien manifestations." In person he appeared to be in his late forties with thin lips, hornrimmed glasses, and longish dark hair that he repeatedly brushed off his forehead.

"Lew says you're the last one to hear from Mel," Zaleski said, giving Jack a quick handshake while his voice did light speed. "Want to talk to you about that. Got plans for breakfast tomorrow?"

"Nothing firm: a couple eggs, maybe bacon, but I could go the pancake route."

Zaleski didn't even blink. "Great. Meet me down in the coffee shop about eight. We'll talk." He clapped Lew on the shoulder. "Gotta run, Lew. Gotta work the goddamn room."

As Zaleski melted into the throng, Jack told him about turning down Evelyn's offer to be on the experiencers panel.

"Did I do the right thing?"

Lew nodded. "I'd say so. Keep things as vague as you can. The more you tell, the less interesting you'll be."

"Well, thank you very much."

Just then Lew reached out and grabbed the shoulder of someone passing by, a stocky older man with short gray hair.

"Miles! Miles, I want you to meet someone." The man stopped and turned their way. "Miles," Lew said. "This is Jack Shelby. I told you about him earlier. Jack, this is Miles Kenway."

Kenway's handshake was firm and lingering. He had a lined face and a military bearing. He wore a snug herringbone sport jacket, and appeared to be in good shape.

His icy blue eyes bored into Jack. "Good to meet you, Shelby. We must talk in depth of your experience sometime, but first let me ask you: Do you remember seeing any black helicopters at the time?"

"Uh, no," Jack said slowly, hesitating. Was this a trick question? "It was night."

Kenway's brow furrowed. "Yes. Yes, of course. Well, carry on then," he said and marched off.

"Warm fellow," Jack said to Lew as he watched Kenway work his way into the crowd.

"And now you've met all the SESOUP big shots—except Melanie, of course. Miles is the one that worries me. He's a former Army Intelligence staff sergeant who was attached to NATO where he says he came across secret UN plans to take over the country. He now heads a militia unit outside Billings, Montana."

"You mean one of those white supremacist groups?"

"He's not a racist as far as I can tell. Just staying prepared for when the shock troops of the New World Order invade the United States." Lew raised an eyebrow.

"Whatever gets you through the night," Jack said.

He watched Kenway's broad retreating back and thought he noticed a slight bulge in his sport coat at the small of his back. Was he carrying?

Both military and intelligence training, most likely armed, and probably a few Fruit Loops shy of a full bowl. Dangerous combination. This was a guy to watch.

He glanced at Lew and found him staring at the carpet, a million miles away, and lost there.

"Thinking of Melanie?" Jack said.

He nodding, blinking and biting his upper lip.

"We'll find her."

"But will she be okay when we do?" Lew said.

Jack couldn't answer that with any authority, so he said nothing.

"I really miss her," Lew said. "Especially now. This kind of gathering was always the best time for us." He took a deep shuddering breath. "I think I'll go back to my room and leave the TV on ... maybe Melanie will contact me again. You'll be okay?"

"Sure," Jack said. The poor guy looked truly miserable ... like a hound dog who'd lost his master. Jack felt for him. "Go ahead. I'll just hang out and ... mingle."

Mingle? Jack thought as Lew moved off. I haven't the faintest idea how to mingle.

He never went to cocktail parties and had no skills at small talk. He felt like a stranger at a family reunion. But at least it seemed like a friendly, open family. He started weaving among the small groups clustered throughout the crowded room—

And came face to face with Professor Salvatore Roma. Jack swallowed another surge of distaste and forced a smile. He'd have to build bridges here if he was going to learn anything about Melanie Ehler's whereabouts.

"Good speech, professor," he said.

Roma blinked in surprise; his expression remained guarded, as if waiting for a zinger. When it didn't come, he smiled cautiously. "Why ... thank you, Mr. Shelby. Very kind of you to say so. It seems we got off on the wrong foot earlier."

"Just a misunderstanding." Jack imagined himself extracting a few of Roma's too-white teeth. "I've forgotten it already."

"So have I." But Roma's eyes said otherwise.

"By the way, where's your better half?"

"My better—?"

Jack tapped his own shoulder. "Your affectionate little pet."

"Oh, you mean Mauricio." He chuckled mirthlessly. '"My better half,' indeed. Mauricio is back in my room. He doesn't do well in crowds."

"Not too cool in the one-on-one department, either. He tried to bite me before you showed up earlier."

Roma's grin broadened. "Over the years I've found Mauricio to be an excellent judge of character."

As much as he hated to, Jack had to smile. Score one for you, Sal.

"Later," Jack said, and began to turn away.

"Oh, one more thing," Roma said.

As Jack faced him again, Roma raised his right hand with his three middle fingers raised and curved. He moved it slowly downward on a diagonal in front of Jack's body.

"What's that?" Jack said. "The secret SESOUP salute?"

Roma sighed. "Hardly," he said softly. He shook his head. "How easily we forget."

Jack stared at him, baffled. "Forget what?"

But Roma only smiled and moved off into the crowd.

6

Miles Kenway swirled his scotch on the rocks and watched Roma and the newcomer talking. Something not right between those two. Everybody knew about the showdown between them this morning—almost came to blows from what Miles had heard—and now they were smiling at each other. How do you figure that?