Nightworld

LONG ISLAND

It took Jack longer than he'd planned to get to Monroe. A lot of traffic outbound on the Long Island Expressway. Maybe they thought it would be better out on the Island. He'd talked to Doc Bulmer on the phone this morning, and from what he'd said, things didn't seem a whole hell of a lot quieter out here.

So he did the best speed he could as the wind fluttered and whistled through the rips in the top. Nick sat in the back seat, his zombie stare fixed straight ahead. Bill wasn't much better as company. He sat in the passenger seat and said nothing, just gazed out the window, lost in a world of his own. Jack wondered what was going on between him and that Mrs. Treece. Her husband had run off and left her. Was Bill moving in? He'd been a priest for most of his life. He had a lot of lost time to make up for. Jack couldn't blame him. She was attractive, even if she had a good ten or fifteen years on Jack. But he sensed there was more to it than opportunity knocking. Those two seemed to go back a long way.

So Jack played the radio. A number of stations were gone, nothing but static in their slots on the band, but a few DJs and newsfolk were hanging in there, still playing music, still broadcasting the news, keeping their listeners informed to the best of their ability as to what was fact and what was merely rumor. He had to hand it to them. They had more guts than he would have given them credit for.

He clicked it off. He wasn't in the mood for music.

"So, Bill," he said, jerking his thumb toward the back seat. "How are you going to handle Edgar Cayce back there?"

Bill turned from the window and fixed Jack with a stare.

"Don't make fun of him. He's an old friend of mine and he's a victim, just like a lot of other people these days."

Jack instinctively bristled at the sound of someone telling him what to do, then realized that Bill was right.

"Sorry. I didn't know him before he…before he went down into the hole."

"He was brilliant. Hopefully he'll be brilliant again. A mind like a computer, but a good heart too."

"Bit of a spread in age between the two of you. How'd you meet?"

"I was his father for a few years."

When Jack shot him a questioning look, Bill went on and explained about his years as director of a Jesuit orphanage in Queens, and how a certain little boy had died and how he'd spent five years on the run as a result. The story fascinated Jack. He'd been seeing this guy every day lately and never guessed what kind of a man he was, or the hell he'd been through. How could he? Bill seemed to have built a wall around himself, as if he was practicing being a nobody.

But now that Jack had got a peek over that wall, he decided he liked Bill Ryan.

And besides that, the story made the trip pass faster. Here they were already, in Monroe, on Shore Drive.

Ba must have been watching from one of the windows. He stepped out the front door as they pulled in the driveway. He approached the car with only a Macy's shopping bag dangling from his hand. The Nash lady, Doc Buhner, and the kid, Jeffy, were all clustered at the front door to see him off, like the Cleavers sending an Oriental Wally off to war.

"I'd better get in the back," Bill said. "He'll never fit."

As he shifted to the rear, Jack got out, waved to Ba, then trotted to the front door.

"Glaeken wants me to 'urge' you folks—his word—to come stay with him in the city. He says it's going to get a lot worse out here."

"We'll be okay," the doc said. "We've got our own protection."

Jack glanced around at all the steel storm shades. The place looked like a fortress.

"Maybe you do," he said, nodding. "But I promised him I'd ask."

"You've kept your promise to Glaeken," the Nash lady said softly, and Jack thought he saw tears in her eyes. "Now keep one to me: You bring Ba back, okay?" Her voice sounded like it was going to break. "You bring him back just the way he left, you hear?"

"I hear you, Mrs. Nash," he said.

Jack was touched by her show of emotion. No doubt about it, she genuinely cared about Ba. Had real feeling for the guy. Maybe he'd misjudged her. Maybe she wasn't quite the hardcase she pretended to be.

"Either we both come back," he added, "or neither of us comes back. You've got my word on that."

"I'll hold you to it," she said, her eyes steely blue.

As Jack hurried back to the car he figured he'd damn well better get Ba back safe and sound.