Legacies

10.

Jack didn't have to tell the cabbie to take it slow past the house. Thirty-eighth Street was barely crawling.

"Thar she blows," he said.

The security car with the two guards was still parked out front.

He noticed that Alicia didn't even glance out the window. She sat with her arms laced tightly across her chest.

"When do you figure you'll make your first search?" she whispered.

The cabdriver's English had seemed pretty shaky, and Jack doubted he could hear much on the other side of his Plexiglas partition, but whispering wasn't a bad idea.

"For what?"

"For whatever they think is so valuable."

"Which is…?"

"That's the zillion-dollar question."

"Exactly. I'm sure your brother has tossed the place but good behind those boarded-up windows. Obviously he didn't find it. So how am I supposed to find what he couldn't find when I don't even know what I'm looking for?"

She mulled that a moment. "Maybe it isn't something in the house—maybe it's the house itself."

"Very possible. But when it's time to search, it won't be just me, it'll be we."

"Oh, no. I'm not setting foot in that house ever again."

"Yes, you are. You grew up there. You know every nook and cranny of the place. Be crazy for me to stumble around in there alone when you could be my guide."

Alicia seemed to shrink inside her coat as she tightened her crisscrossed arms.

What happened to you? he wondered. What went on in that house that you won't even look at it?

He decided not to push her any further now.

"But search talk is a little premature now anyway," he said. "We need lots more information before we do anything like that."

She visibly relaxed. "Like what?"

"Like who's backing Thomas. Finding out what they're into may move us a long way toward figuring out what this is all about. You said this is a big expensive law firm?"

She nodded. "Hinchberger, Rainey and Guran. Leo—my dead lawyer—told me HRG is mainly into international business law. He was flabbergasted that they were handling a will dispute. Said it was like having F. Lee Bailey handle a traffic ticket. And I believe him. You should see their offices."

"You been there?"

She nodded. "Leo and I had a meeting with Thomas's lawyer in his office early on. It didn't go well."

"Where are they?"

"West Forty-fourth, just off Fifth."

Jack had an idea. "Then that's the place to start." He tapped on the cab's Plexiglas barrier. "West Forty-fourth."

"Nobody's going to be there now."

"I know. But I want to get a look at the place. And I want to start work on getting a list of their clients."

"You mean, besides Thomas?"

"I don't think your brother is a client—at least in the usual sense. It doesn't sound like you can approach—what did you call them?"

"Leo called them HRG. It's easier."

"Okay. HRG. They don't sound like the kind of firm that lets you pop in off the street with a will problem. So I'm willing to bet that one of their existing clients—an important one—told HRG to handle this 'minor matter' for them. We connect Thomas to one of those clients and we may answer some questions."

She shook her head. "So obvious. But how do we connect—?"

"I follow him. But that's all later. Right now, I need you to fill me in on some details."

"Like what?"

"Like how your father died."

"He was on Flight 27."

The words jolted Jack. "Flight 27? When you said he was killed in a plane crash, I thought you meant some little Piper Cub or Cessna. But Flight 27… jeez."

JAL Flight 27 from LA to Tokyo had crashed into the Pacific with no survivors, and not too many of the 247 bodies recovered either. The TV and papers had talked of nothing else for weeks. Still no clue as to why. It went down in one of the deepest parts of the Pacific. The black box was never found.

"Did they recover his body?"

Alicia shook her head. "No. They say sharks got most of them."

"I'm sorry," Jack said without thinking.

"Me too," she said matter-of-factly, looking straight ahead. "For the shark that ate him, that is. Probably died of food poisoning."

You are a cold one, Jack thought. I hope you've got a good reason.

"How about your brother? You said he quit his job. What did he do before he began devoting his life to getting that house?"

"What I know I learned from that private eye before he was killed. He said Thomas had been stuck for years in a mid-level electrical engineering job at AT&T."

"Not the genius his father was, then?"

Another shrug. "Hard to say with Thomas. As a teen he always tended to take the path of least resistance. Under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a cage, he could do work. But give him any slack…"

New York cabs will be signaling whenever they change lanes before Thomas gets any slack from his sister, Jack thought.

Not that he deserved any after kidnapping her tonight.

"Here we are," she said, pointing through the side window as the cab swung into the curb.

Jack stepped out, paid the driver, then checked out the building.

The Hand Building was chiseled into the stone along the apex of the high-arched entrance. Impressive carving wound around the supporting columns. And inside…

"Look at that ceiling," Alicia said as the revolving door deposited them in the long, bright marble-walled lobby.

High above them, gods of some sort hovered among fluffy white clouds in a pale blue sky painted on the arched ceiling.

"Do you think they're Greek or Roman?" Alicia said.

"I think some folks are taking themselves just a bit too seriously. And do you really care?"

"Come to think of it… no."

"What floor are they on?" Jack said as he led her to the directory that took up a large section of one of the west walls.

"Twenty-something."

He found it. Looked like they called the whole twenty-third floor home.

Out of the corner of his eye he watched the guard at the security desk watching them. It was after hours and they didn't look all that presentable, what with Jack in jeans and Alicia wrinkled from being taped up.

"We shouldn't risk trying to go upstairs tonight. Don't want to arouse any suspicions or put anyone on alert. But I wish I could get a look at their office layout."

"Not much to see," Alicia said. "You step out of the elevator and face a glass wall with a receptionist on the other side. I'm sure she's gone now, but even when she's there, you don't get past that wall until she hits a button to release the door."

Damn, Jack thought. Getting a client list was going to be tough. Maybe impossible.

"Why all the security, you think?"

Alicia shrugged. "Well, you never know what kind of riffraff will be sneaking around after hours."

"Oh-ho!" he said. "The doctor makes a funny."

"Mark the date and time," she said. "It doesn't happen very often."

"Can I help you folks?"

The security guard had walked over. He was big and black, and acting friendly, but Jack could tell he was all business. If they didn't have any business in the Hand Building, he was going to ask them to please move themselves back to the street. No monkey business on his shift.

"Fascinating architecture," Jack said. "When did this building go up?"

"I'm not sure," the guard said. "I think there's some sort of plaque in the corner behind that tree by the door. Take a look at it on your way out."

Jack gave him a nod and a smile. "Heard and understood. We're on our way."

The guard returned the smile. "Thanks."

Just to keep up appearances, Jack peeked behind the ficus tree sitting in front of the brass plaque, but he never got to read the inscription. Something else snatched his attention.

"I'll be damned!"

"What?" Alicia said. "What is it?"

"See that little mark there on the corner molding above the plaque? The black circle with the dot inside?"

"That magic marker thing?"

"That's it. I know the guy who made that. His name's Milkdud… Milkdud Swigart."

This was good. Better than good. This was great.

"And…?"

"It means this building's been hacked."

"I don't get it."

"I'll explain later. But it means we may have a way to find out who's backing Thomas."