And now the ronin, shabbily dressed and with a bucket in his hand, was walking toward the Clayton house.
Very curious.
Yoshio wondered what he had in mind. He decided to follow him on foot and find out. He'd been so bored with the recent lull in events, but things had become interesting since this man arrived on the scene. Yoshio had a feeling something very interesting might happen tonight.
But even if it didn't, this was still more to his liking than sitting and watching Kemel's apartment.
3
When Jack reached the corner he untied his sneakers and pulled them open, leaving the tongues sticking up. He buttoned his coat wrong, and then started up the sidewalk opposite the security car.
About halfway there, he shambled across the street, approaching the car from the front. He didn't want to startle these two by appearing out of nowhere—somebody might do something stupid.
Jack stopped about ten feet from the front bumper and pointed at the car, grinning. He pulled his window-cleaning squeegee from the bucket and held it high as he approached.
Squeegeeman had spotted a customer.
Through the windshield he could see the two beef jerkies inside waving him off, but Squeegeeman is never deterred by a reluctant driver. Drivers so rarely seem to appreciate how much more efficiently and safely they will be able to perform the task at hand, namely driving, after their windshield has been smeared with soapy water and then wiped clean.
The driver's window slid down and a head leaned out. The few features Jack could make out in the dim light suggested that evolution sometimes worked in reverse.
"Keep moving, asshole," said the head.
Jack leaned over the fender and quickly lathered up the windshield.
The front door started to open. "Fuck!" said the voice. "Didn't you hear me—?"
"I heard you, man," Jack said, launching into his patter, "but Squeegeeman's offering a Try-Before-You-Buy special tonight. Here's how it works: I do your window, just like I'm doin' now, and when I'm through, if you don't think it's the cleanest window you ever seen, then you don't pay. I mean, you can't beat that, can you? I mean, I'm out here in the cold doin' all the work while you're in there nice and warm and cozy. You tell me what could be better than that. Go ahead—you tell me."
The beef jerky hesitated and stared at him, both of his brain cells obviously working overtime as he considered Squeegeeman's offer. Then the guy in the passenger seat said something, and the driver door, pulled closed.
Jack smiled. He'd been counting on their reluctance to cause a scene and risk someone calling the police. But if worse came to worst, he had a Tokarev 9mm automatic in his shoulder holster.
"That's right," he said. "Roll up your window, sit back, and watch how beautiful the world looks when I'm finished with your glass."
The window slid closed. Jack added a little more lather to the windshield. When he had it satisfactorily opaque, he pulled a small vial of T-72 from the bucket and poured its contents into the heater's air intake at the base of the windshield wipers.
Then he began wiping the glass dry. He took his time on the windshield, moving slowly, dabbing at the corners, playing the role to the hilt. And doing a damn fine job, by the way.
When he was done, he stepped up to the driver window, grinned, and held out his hand.
The driver returned the grin—and gave him the finger.
Jack looked hurt and pressed his hands together as if praying.
The driver's grin broadened as he brought up his other hand to add a second bird to the window display.
"Keep smiling," Jack said softly.
And then the guy in the passenger seat slumped against the driver's back. The driver jerked around, pushed him off, and shook him, but the guy was limp as overcooked linguine. Then the driver turned back to the window and Jack could all but see the light go on in his head.
"That's right, guy," Jack said. "You got trouble."
The driver fumbled for the inner handle and started to open the door, but Jack slammed against it and held it closed. The driver struggled and might have got out—he was bigger than Jack—if the T-72 hadn't been working on him. He made a couple of weak shoulder butts against the door, then slumped against the steering wheel and joined his friend in slumber land.
Jack waited to make sure he was out, then he opened the door and quickly ran through the driver's pockets. He found two sets of keys and took both. He closed the door and left the motor running.
He glanced around—no one in sight. Good.
After pocketing the T-72 vial, he placed his bucket and squeegee by the curb and settled back to wait for Alicia.
4
Alicia forced her feet to keep moving, placing one shoe in front of the other as she turned the corner and trod the sidewalk toward that house.
She tried to think about anything but the house, pushing her thoughts toward Hector in PICU. The little guy was fading away. No question about it now—a resistant strain of C. albicans. His white blood cells, one of the body's main defenses against infection, were disappearing from his bloodstream. The WBC count had been down to 3,200 this morning and had dropped to 2,600 this afternoon. The infection was running rampant, overwhelming his bone marrow's ability to crank out the white cells.
And there was nothing more she could do for him.
Which allowed her thoughts to escape Hector and return to the house.
The house…
Why am I making such an ordeal of this? she wondered. It's only a building, a collection of bricks and lumber. What's the big deal?
But cold reason wasn't working. The closer she got to the house, the faster her heart raced. She wouldn't look at it. She kept her eyes straight ahead on the figure in the baggy coat leaning against the security car.
She tried to think of something else, to focus on the events of the day, but all that came to mind was the series of phone calls from Will, asking if she was all right, calls she'd been too embarrassed to return.
The hurt and confusion in his recorded voice still echoed in her brain, making her want to hide. How could she explain last night to him? It was all her fault. She shouldn't have let him get that close. When would she learn? She had to resign herself to the reality that she couldn't have a completely honest relationship with any man. Really… once the truth was out, what man wouldn't head for the door? And frankly, Alicia wasn't sure she'd want to have much to do with any man who didn't.
Alone was better. Alone was easier. Alone was less painful—for everyone concerned.
She was closer now, still keeping her eyes on Jack. She heard him whistling and recognized the tune as the theme from "The Bridge Over the River Kwai."
"Ready?" he said as she reached him.
She bent and peered into the car, then stepped back when she saw the two bulky forms slumped in the front seat. Her already racing heart kicked its tempo up another notch.
"They're not… you didn't… are they…?"
"Dead?" He smiled. "Nah. Just napping." He looked around. "Okay. Let's get moving. I don't know how much longer they'll be out."
Here it was—the moment she'd been dreading. Alicia didn't move. Couldn't move.
"Alicia?" Jack said. "You okay?"
But she had to move. She wasn't going to let this get the best of her.
Just a house… just bricks and lumber…
And she was going to conquer it.
She took a breath and turned to face it.
The wrought-iron gate, the tiny front yard, the trellised alley to the back… just as they'd always been. But the rest of the front had been altered enough to make it look like a different house… somebody else's house.
And with its windows boarded up like patched eyes, it looked like a blind house. It couldn't see her.
Not so bad, she thought. I can handle this.
"I'm fine," she said. "Let's go."
"Let's try the back door," Jack said, leading her toward the trellis. "I've got a bunch of keys
here and don't want to spend too much time out front looking for the right one. Someone might remember us."
She followed him into the dark and held his penlight for him as he tried a succession of keys. The fifth one fit. The solid clack of the retracting dead bolt hit her like a punch.
Alicia began to shake. She felt the tremor begin in the pit of her stomach and spread outward to her limbs. She wanted to turn and bolt for the street.
No! she told herself. You will not run.
Bricks and lumber… bricks and lumber…
Jack pulled out a larger flashlight and stepped through the door. Bathed in a cold sweat, Alicia clenched her jaw and followed him. She had a bad moment—a trapped, clawing, let-me-out moment—when the door clicked closed behind her, but she fought it off.
Then Jack's flashlight beam found a wall switch, and he flicked it. Light flooded the room.
"Well, isn't that considerate," he said. "They left the power on."
Alicia stood blinking in the unexpected light. The carnage came into focus as her eyes adjusted.
"Oh, my God. Look what they've done."
When she'd lived here, the rear door had led into a narrow utility room that housed the washer and dryer, and a pantry. The washer and dryer were still here, but in pieces—they'd been thoroughly dismantled, and their components lay in piles on the floor. The pantry shelves had been emptied, and their contents scattered among the appliance parts.
"Now this," Jack said, "is what I call tossing a room. And they didn't have to hurry. With the power on, they had plenty of light. And with the windows boarded up, no one would know they were here."
He stepped through the debris and headed for the adjoining room.
"Let's see what's in here."
"Should be the kitchen," Alicia said as Jack turned on the light.
It was… in a way.
The kitchen had been as thoroughly "tossed"—to use Jack's term—as the utility room. Not only had the cabinets been emptied, they'd been ripped off the walls and broken apart. The dishwasher had suffered the same fate as the washer and dryer. The sink had been removed, leaving its pipes jutting from the wall like copper carotids. All the pieces had been piled in the center of the floor.
In shock, Alicia stumbled after Jack, who was still on the move, skirting the debris and moving into the dining room. Same story there, except that the rug had been torn up and the strips of its remains were in the pile with the remnants of the furniture and china.
In a way she was glad. All this destruction made it easier for her to be here. It turned the house into a different place, nothing like she remembered. But still, the degree of devastation was astonishing.
"I knew Thomas didn't want me to have the place," Alicia said softly, "but I never realized he was this angry."
"This isn't anger," Jack said, nudging the pile with the toe of his sneaker. "This is methodical as hell. They started in the center of the room, then worked outward, dumping everything in the center after they'd checked it. These guys know what they're doing."
"But how could they expect to get away with it?"
Jack shrugged. "I guess they figured you didn't have a chance of ever taking possession of the place. So what did it matter what they did to it? And I suspect that once they find what they're looking for, they'll just disappear."
"But what—what could they be looking for?"
"Something metal, I'd say."
Jack had moved to a corner where a contraption that looked like a vacuum cleaner handle attached to a frying pan leaned against the wall.
"How do you know?"
He lifted the contraption. "Metal detector."
"A key," Alicia said, remembering the Greenpeace line from the will: " 'This house holds the key that points the way to all you wish to achieve.' They're looking for a key."
Jack nodded. "Got to be. Your half brother's Arab friend quoted the same line yesterday. Obviously they haven't found it yet." He looked around. "Did your father have a workshop?"
It was cold in here—Alicia could see her breath misting in the air—but now she felt a deeper chill. "Workshop?"
"Yeah. You know, where he puttered around with his hobbies or whatever."
Jagged shards of ice needled the lining of her arteries. She forced the words past her teeth. "The basement… if anywhere."
"How do we find it?"
"Through the kitchen."
"All right," he said, moving past her. "Let's go."
"No. You go. I can't."
"Come on, Alicia. This is no time to—"
"No," she said, and once again heard her voice climbing the scale. "Didn't you hear me? I CAN'T!"
He stared at her a moment, then turned away. "Okay. You can't. I'll check it out alone. Don't go away."
"I'm sorry," she said softly after he was gone. "But I just can't go there."
5
As Jack reached the bottom of the steps, he wondered if whatever abuse Alicia had suffered had been committed in the basement. Good chance, judging from her reaction.
He found the light switch and checked out the place.
Maybe Ronald Clayton once had a basement workshop. Sure as hell couldn't tell from the look of the place now. The Arab's wrecking crew had done their thing down here too—maybe they'd started here. They'd torn out the dropped ceiling, ripped the paneling from the walls, dismantled the furniture, and sliced up the cushions. He saw what looked like a disemboweled mattress and box spring, so he guessed there must have been a bed down here too.
Jack kicked through the debris and found miscellaneous electronic equipment—circuit boards, memory chips, and the like—but if they'd found a working computer, he was sure they'd carried it off to where they could inspect its hard drive down to the last byte.
He also came across some old, rusted-looking track lighting fixtures and noticed the oversize bulb holders. Doc Clayton must have liked it bright down here.
Jack poked around a little longer, then went back upstairs. He found Alicia in the dining room where he'd left her, standing by the pile of debris, her hands clenched into fists at her sides, looking ready to jump out of her skin.
"Find anything?" she said.
"Just another pile like this."
"I… I'm sorry I couldn't go down with you," she said, not looking at him. "It's just…"
"You don't have to explain."
"I wasn't going to. I'm just telling you that this is the way I am right now, and there's not a lot I can do about it."
"Okay." Just as well, he thought. This wasn't the time or place for an explanation. "Then we'll have to work around it."
She spread her hands toward the carnage. "Are we wasting our time?"
"Maybe," Jack said. "But I know some things about hiding stuff, maybe a thing or two they don't. One thing I do know is that you tend to hide your most valuable stuff close to you, where you can keep an eye on the hiding place, and get to it quick if you need it." He looked at her. "Where was your father's bedroom?"
"Upstairs."
"Any problem with going upstairs?"
"No. My room used to be up there."
Jack led the way, with Alicia directing him. A left at the top of the stairs took them to the master bedroom.
Maybe it had been masculine-looking, maybe it had still retained feminine touches from the days when Alicia's mother had lived here. All guesswork now. The room had been stripped to the walls; whatever once might have lent it character or personality now lay in a heap in the center of the floor.
He spotted a sledgehammer and a couple of crowbars leaning near a particularly damaged area of the wall in the far corner. He crossed the room for a closer look.
"Look at this," he said as he fingered the shattered edges of the wallboard. "They opened up the wall here."
Beyond the ragged opening was a tiny room—a converted closet, really—lined with shelves—empty shelves.
"Looks like some sort of secret library. Did you know about this?"
Al
icia, stiff and pale, was standing at the other end of the room, near the door, just over the threshold.
She shook her head. "No."
What had Clayton kept here? Jack wondered. Research journals and papers? His notes on whatever it is the others are after?
He turned and kicked through the pile of debris. No paper.
"Well, whatever was stored here is gone—either gone when they got here, or they took it with them." He moved toward Alicia. "Let's try your room."
"My room? Why?"
"Well, he left the whole place to you, didn't he? Maybe he left you something else. Which way?"
Alicia pointed down the hall to a dark doorway. Jack stepped through and found another example of methodical destruction. He pointed to the central pile of debris.
"Recognize anything?"
"No." Alicia had entered behind him and was stepping gingerly through the room. "Why should I? I left when I was eighteen and haven't been back."
"Not once?"
"Not once."
Something round and shiny black caught Jack's eye, and he bent to pick it up. A tiny rubber tire.
"Were you into toy cars?" he said, holding it out to Alicia.
She took it from him and stared at it.
"No. Never."
"Maybe your brother, then."
"No… Thomas was a couch potato… books, movies, video games. I doubt his interest in cars went beyond the fact that they allowed him to ride instead of walk." She held the tire up to the light, rolling it over in her fingers. "Where's the rest of it?"
"Somewhere in there, I'd guess," he said, indicating the pile. "I'm going to check out the bathrooms."
"Why?"
"Because they've got pipes." At her quizzical look, he added, "I'll explain as I go."
"That's okay," she said. "I'll stay here."
He left Alicia on her knees, picking through the rubble pile.
Jack returned to Clayton's bedroom, grabbed one of the crowbars, and headed for the master bathroom. One thing you could pretty much count on in these older buildings—unless someone had done a wall-to-wall renovation—was copper plumbing. He'd noticed copper pipes in the kitchen, and metal pipes offered unique opportunities if you wanted to hide something metallic.