Nightworld

Okay, Jack thought as he drove his black-on-white Corvair convertible toward the East Side. Walt's on the job. Now all I've got to do is convince Gia that she's got to leave town.

Walt had been glad for the work. Ecstatic, actually. He'd been reduced to living in a tiny tenement studio in Hell's Kitchen. Jack had shown him the drawings, told him he wanted two copies on a one-to-one scale, and given him a down payment so he could go out and get the raw materials. Delivery time was a problem, though. Walt had said no way could he get it done by Monday morning. But when Jack promised a ten-thousand-dollar bonus, Walt reconsidered. Maybe he could have them by then.

Jack drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he cruised along. Getting those necklaces out of Walt by Monday morning would be a breeze compared to getting Gia into Abe's van tomorrow. And he didn't have all that much time to persuade her. The afternoon was already on the wane. But if Glaeken was right about tonight being worse that last night, maybe he wouldn't have to convince her. He could let the things from the hole do it.

He swung up toward the Park to see how the clean-up was going. Jack was amazed at the transformation. The barricades were still up to keep cars off Central Park South, but the corpses were gone, the wrecked vehicles had been cleared, the pavements were washed clean. Car were restricted, but not pedestrians. A lot of people were about on the sidewalks and the fringe of the Park, the curious of all ages, come to see the notorious Sheep Meadow hole and check out the stories of bloody carnage they'd heard on the news.

Jack checked his watch. He had a little time to spare so he double-parked and jogged toward the Sheep Meadow to get another look at the hole.

The crowd was thick there. Everyone seemed to be watching something going on down by the hole. Over their heads he could see cranes dipping up and down. He wove through the press until he got to a decent-sized tree. He shimmied up the trunk to where he could see the Sheep Meadow.

The southern half of the hole was covered with some sort of steel mesh. Work crews were in the process of screening over the rest of the opening. Jack watched for a moment, then slid back to the ground.

"How's it going?" someone said.

Jack turned and saw a well-dressed young couple standing nearby with a baby carriage. The guy was smiling warily.

"Better than half done," Jack said.

The woman sighed and squeezed her husband's biceps with both hands and looked at Jack with uneasy doe eyes.

"Do you think those things will come back?"

"You can count on it," Jack said.

"Will the net work?"

Jack shrugged. "Maybe. But this isn't the only hole."

"I know," the guy said, nodding. "But this is the one that counts for us." He put an arm around his wife's shoulders. "I'm sure we'll be all right," he told her.

Jack looked down at the baby in the stroller. Eighteen months at the most, all in pink, sandy-haired, grinning up at him.

"You got a cellar where you live?" Jack said, staring into those two innocent blue eyes. "Someplace with no windows?"

"Uh, yes we do. There's a storage area down by the boiler room where—"

"Move in there before sunset. Bring everything you'll need until morning. Don't go upstairs until sunrise."

He tore his eyes away from the child and hurried off.

Gia and Vicky. Dammit, even if he had to sling Gia over his shoulder and dump her in the back of Abe's van, he'd see to it that they were on their way out of town tomorrow morning.