"Why board it up?"
"Apparently it's been broken into since it's been empty. Thomas says he wants to protect what he expects to be his property once his challenge to the will is upheld. He's even hired a security firm to guard the property."
Jack smiled. "All this from a guy with no income. Your half brother is very resourceful."
"That's not the word I'd use for Thomas."
"Still, you don't need me—you need a lawyer." Alicia bit her lip. No, she needed Jack for what she wanted. But how would he react when she asked?
Sometimes it's good to deviate from routine, Jack thought, trying to look interested. And sometimes it isn't.
This meeting, never would have happened if he'd followed his usual MO. He always talked to prospective customers before setting up a face-to-face. That way he avoided the Dr. Claytons of the city—people with problems that could be remedied by more orthodox methods.
But because he'd already met Alicia, he'd set up the meeting without the usual preliminaries.
Not a complete waste of time, he thought, but pretty damn close. The only thing that saved it was the good doctor herself.
Something about Alicia Clayton intrigued him. He met lots of people with secrets. Virtually all of his customers were hiding something. He was used to not hearing the whole story on the first pass. And he'd become adept at spotting the holes. He couldn't tell what they'd skipped, but he knew when they were holding back.
Alicia Clayton was different. He couldn't get a read on her. Either she was hiding nothing, or she was so good at hiding that she could hide everything, even the fact that she was hiding something.
Jack chose the latter. Because looking at her sitting here across the table from him, he sensed that she had a good figure under that coat and bulky cable-knit sweater, but she was hiding it. In fact, she could have been a striking woman with those fine features and dark, dark hair. Attractive in a steely way. But she chose not to be. She chose to downplay her looks. Hide them.
Well, how he looked was her call. And she wasn't exactly in the glamour business.
Didn't pay to read too much into these things, he supposed.
But she was so utterly composed. Too composed. Almost… wooden.
What else was she hiding? This woman wasn't just locked down tight, she was hermetically sealed. And that took practice. Many years of practice.
All of which intrigued him. Who was this woman who seemed to want to hide everything!
But he knew he was unlikely to pop any of her seals this morning. So he was looking for a way to bring this little tête à tête to a close when she leaned forward.
"I had a lawyer," Alicia said. "Until Friday when he was murdered."
Jack smiled. Lawyers who did wills and such didn't get murdered. "You mean 'killed,' don't you?"
"No. I mean murdered. Can you think of a circumstance when a car bomb is anything but murder?"
Jack straightened in his seat. The story had been all over the radio and TV.
"That car explosion in Midtown?" he said. "He was your lawyer?"
Alicia nodded. "We were supposed to meet that morning. I guess someone didn't want him to make it."
Uh-oh. Did he detect a little paranoia here?
"What makes you think you're the reason he was killed? I read they found some cocaine in what was left of his glove compartment."
"I see lots of coke users," she said. Her face remained a mask, but Jack noticed her right hand clenching into a fist. "Most of the parents of my babies are drug abusers. Drugs are how they got the virus that they passed on to their kids. I didn't see any signs of that in Leo Weinstein."
She leaned back and seemed to relax—with an effort, Jack thought.
"Of, course, I could be wrong. But Leo's isn't the first violent death connected with this will."
Jack found himself leaning forward. "Another lawyer?"
Alicia shook her head. "No. When I came to the obvious conclusion that someone was bankrolling Thomas, I wanted to find out who. I hired a private investigator—you know, to follow him, find out who he meets with, the TV detective kind of stuff. I didn't know what I was going to do with the information, but all this mystery and subterfuge was bugging me. I mean, if someone wants that man's house so badly, why not approach me directly? Why go through Thomas?"
"And what did you learn?"
"Nothing." Her steel-gray eyes bore into him. "One night, about two weeks after I hired him, the investigator was killed while crossing East Seventy-fifth Street. Hit-and-run."
Jack drummed his fingers on the table's ringed surface. Okay, so maybe she's not paranoid. Could be coincidence, but if you hire two people to look into a problem and both of them wind up dead, who can blame you if you suspect a connection?
Obviously someone who wished to be anonymous wanted the Clayton house. Wanted it bad. They'd made a "name-your-price" offer, and when that was turned down, they went to court.
But it was one hell of a leap from there to say that they were killing anyone who stood in their way. Besides…
"Okay. Two people you hired to help you are dead. Maybe there's a connection. But think about it: If someone is eliminating people who get between them and this house, why haven't they removed the biggest stumbling block—you?"
"Don't think that hasn't kept me up nights since Friday. I don't know anything about the will. I didn't attend the reading. And when I hired Leo—the attorney who was murdered—I simply had a copy sent from the executor's office to his. So I've never seen the damn thing. But that's going to change. I'm going to get a copy for myself and see what the terms are. I do remember Leo saying something about the will being 'rather unusual.'"
A question hit him. "Did you ever live there? In the house?"
She didn't move, but Jack had a feeling that Alicia had receded to the other side of Julio's.
"Till I was eighteen. Why?"
He shrugged. "Just curious. I still don't know what you want me to do. I don't do bodyguard work, so—"
"I want you to burn the place down."
Jack stared at her, trying to hide his shock. Not at the request itself—lots of people had come to him over the years looking for a torch job—but at the unexpectedness of it. He hadn't seen this one coming.
He made a show of cleaning out one of his ears. "I'm sorry. I thought you just said you wanted to burn down a house for which you've already been offered four million dollars."
"I did."
"Can I ask you why?"
"No."
"You're going to have to give me some kind of explanation."
Alicia shifted in her seat. "Why should you care?"
"It's the way I work."
She sighed. "All right. Maybe I'm just tired. I may be a doctor, but I don't make a lot of money. I could be making more in private practice, but the Center is what I want to do. Whatever I've managed to save after living expenses and paying back my education loans,—and believe me, I've got six figures worth of those—went to retainers for the investigator and the lawyer. I'm just about tapped out, Jack. I don't want to start all over again with a new lawyer. And frankly, I'm a little scared. I just want this over with."
Scared? Jack had a hard time buying this woman as scared. He had a feeling she didn't run from anything.
"But the solution to all your financial problems can be solved by a simple telephone call to your brother."
"Half brother. But I don't want to sell to Thomas. And he's preventing me from selling to anyone else."
Jack was baffled. "But if, as you say, you don't want the house and don't care about it, why not sell it to him?"
Alicia's eyes were suddenly ablaze as she spoke through her teeth.
"Because… he … wants it!"
And just as suddenly the fire was gone.
"And you don't get any explanation for that," she said evenly.
Jack leaned back and studied her. Where did he go from here? His instincts told him that here was a lady with a few buttons
missing from her remote control, that he should make a beeline for the door and not look back.
Good advice. She'd already told him she was almost tapped out, so no way she could pay his fee. That meant there was nothing in this for him but trouble.
Easy to get out of it. Just tell her arson wasn't his thing—the truth—and that would be that.
So why wasn't he saying it? Why hadn't he said it when she'd first mentioned torching her dead father's house?
Because…
Truth was, he didn't have a good because, other than the fact that he was intrigued by Alicia and fascinated with the scenario she'd laid out. This lady was turning down a fortune to keep a house that had belonged to a man she wouldn't call "father" out of the hands of a half brother she hated. What was it with the place? Had something happened to her there?
Things were slow and Jack's curiosity was piqued.
"Okay. Here's what I can do. I can't promise you anything now. The best I can do is tell you I'll think about it. I'll have to check out a few things before I decide."
"What's to decide?" she said, a note of irritation creeping into her voice. "Either you will or you won't. You didn't have to check out anything with the toys."
"That was a different story. Getting something back is a little bit different from burning something to the ground, don't you think? You're talking about a major fire in midtown Manhattan."
Jack watched her face as she paused. Obviously she thought he'd simply negotiate a fee and go do the job. But her face gave nothing away… until she sort of smiled. Sort of because it didn't quite make it to her eyes.
"Oh, I get it," she said finally. "You need to check me out."
"That's part of it. My gut says to believe you, but I've had some truly excellent storytellers try to hire me from time to time in the past."
She nodded. "For all you know, the house belongs to an ex-lover who two-timed me and I'm looking to get even."
"Wouldn't be the first time."
She gathered up her bag and rose. "Well, I can tell you this, Mr. Just Jack," she said coolly, "I don't have a lover. And I don't lie. You do what 'research' you feel you must and get back to me if and when you're satisfied. In the meantime, I'll be researching other options." Another sort of smile as she turned. "Thanks for meeting with me."
Jack whistled softly through his teeth as he watched her go. That lady was all steel inside.
2
Alicia walked toward Columbus Avenue, hunting a cab. Rush hour was over, lunchtime was still an hour or so off, and if Upper West Side traffic had a lull, this was it. A few shoppers were out, but they were walking. Not much business for cabs here right now.
She saw one speed by, but it was occupied. She jumped as it screeched to a halt behind a white car that had stopped in the middle of the street. The cabbie sat on his horn until the white car pulled away.
She smiled: the music of the city…
But the smile faded as she thought about what Jack had said.
I'll have to check out a few things before I decide…
She had a bad feeling Jack had already made up his mind, and he wasn't interested.
Damn. She'd been counting on him.
She'd have to look elsewhere for an arsonist. The Yellow Pages wouldn't do. Maybe she could get a line on one through the progenitors of her little charges at the Center—not exactly paragons of society—but she would have preferred Jack. He'd proved that he could deliver. And even if he was stringing her along a little now so he could let her down easy later, she trusted him.
She scanned the streets. No gray sedan. Good. As she reached Columbus Avenue, she saw a taxi round the next corner and start toward her. She raised her hand to flag it, then noticed its off duty sign was lit.
Come on! She wanted to make a quick stop at the hospital and take another look at Hector before she became mired in the Center.
She pulled her coat closer around her against the chill. Maybe she should try calling for a cab. She opened her shoulder bag and hunted through its jumbled contents. Half her life seemed to be in here. Not much money, but her stethoscope, diagnostic kit, beeper, keys, and somewhere among the old charge card receipts in the bottom, her cell phone.
As she rummaged, she glanced back the way she had come—still looking for that damn gray sedan—and noticed three men huddled around the door of a shiny red sports car parked on Julio's block about fifty feet from where she stood. A motley crew—a pierced-up white guy, a black, and a Hispanic—the two darker ones were shielding the white from view as he shoved a thin flat piece of metal into the car's window slot and worked it up and down.
Alicia didn't know much about cars but had no doubt these three were up to no good: looking to steal either the radio or the air bag, or maybe the whole car. She glanced around to see if anyone was coming, but at the moment the sidewalk was deserted.
Maybe it would be safer to wait for a cab farther down the street. She'd call 911 on her cell phone once she was safely on her way.
But as she turned to slip away, she spotted Jack leaving Julio's. He was ambling in her direction, but if he'd noticed her, he gave no sign. His eyes were fixed on the men trying to break into the car. Alicia noticed a change in his gait as he approached them… he was moving like a cat now.
He's not really going to get involved in this, is he? she thought. He's smarter than that, I hope.
But sure enough, Jack sidled up to the three men and stood before the two shielders, hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels as if watching them change a tire.
She thought she heard him say, "Hey, guys, whatcha doin'?"
Curiosity got the better of Alicia's common sense. Fascinated, she edged closer for a better look.
The black guy—he had a fade haircut and looked like he worked out a lot—looked at Jack as if he couldn't believe somebody was stupid enough to ask him that.
"What's it look like we're doin'?" He pointed to the white guy. "Our friend here locked himself out of his car and we're helpin' him out, okay? That all right wichoo?"
"Can I watch?" Jack said. His posture was loose and slouched; his voice sounded high and nerdy.
"No. Move on."
"Why not?"
"Because like I'm gettin' my period and I'm real cranky, and you hangin' aroun' is disturbin' our concentration. So just haul your nosy white ass on outta here."
"But I've never seen anybody use a Slim Jim before," Jack said. "I mean, it's really convenient that one of you happened to have one. You know, so you could help him out and all. I didn't think they were legal."
Christ, Alicia thought as she saw the three car thieves freeze. Is he out of his mind?
"Hey, yo," said the white guy, straightening and taking a step toward Jack. He wore a studded black leather jacket and ultra-short blond hair. He sported rings in both ears, his upper lip, and his right eyebrow. "You some sorta fuckin' cop or somethin'?"
"Who me?" Jack said, smiling timidly. "Oh, no! Not me. I'm no cop. But that just happens to be my friend Julio's car. And none of you guys is Julio. So why don't you find yourselves another car to boost."
Now it was the Hispanic's turn. He whipped the Slim Jim out of the window well and waved it in Jack's face.
"Ay, you crazy, meng? This is my man's car, and we're helping him. Now you get outta here 'fore I shove this down your t'roat and pull your asshole outta your mouth!"
They all seemed to think that was pretty funny. As they laughed and low-fived each other, Alicia noticed Jack's left hand ease from his pocket.
Don't do it, she wanted to shout. It's three against one. You haven't got a chance.
But as she watched Jack, she wondered about that. She sensed something primal and electric radiating from him. He'd been so laid back, so low-key in her office and back at the bar a moment ago, but now… now he was a different man. He seemed to vibrate with intensity, with fire, as if his daily existence was merely a series of interludes he had to endure until he was allowed a moment like this.
/> "And after he's finished," the white guy said, taking the metal piece from the Hispanic and holding it under Jack's nose, "I'm gonna come in the back door and yank out your tonsils!"
Tension coiled through the air, tightening. Alicia had heard that people who survived lightning strikes spoke of a strange, hair-raising—literally—sensation just before the strike. Alicia felt that now, as if the air molecules were ionizing and polarizing in anticipation…
"You have such nice blue eyes," Jack said over the new burst of laughter. "Can I have one?"
Before anyone could react or reply, Jack's hand darted up to the white's face. The move was so fast, so unexpected, that Alicia couldn't follow it. All she knew was that one second Jack's hand was darting through the air, and an instant later the white guy was staggering back, screaming.
He dropped the Slim Jim and clawed at his face, almost knocking over his black buddy as he turned in a wild circle.
Alicia gasped and backed away as she caught a glimpse of bright crimson flowing down his left cheek before his hands covered it.
Christ in heaven, what did he do?
"What the fuck—?" said the black guy, his head pivoting between Jack and his buddy who had dropped to his knees now and was pawing at his eye with bright red fingers and screaming, screaming.
The Hispanic crouched to look at his buddy. "Joey! What he do?"
"My eye! Oh, shit, my eye!"
"I like eyes," Jack said in a strange, garbled tone. His own eyes had a strange, unfocused look, and Alicia noticed with a start that his mouth was smeared with red. "Blue eyes are especially delicious."
And then he opened his mouth to reveal a bloody eye clenched between his front teeth.
Alicia's stomach lurched. She'd seen traumatic horrors beyond most people's wildest nightmares on her ER moonlighting stints during her residencies, but never anything like this. She was sure the gaping shock on the faces of the black and the Hispanic mirrored her own. She wanted to turn away but couldn't. She had to keep watching.
As a child, she'd once had the misfortune of being in a pet shop when it was feeding time for the snakes. She'd been passing the cage of a large garter snake swallowing a frog headfirst. She'd been repulsed, especially since the frog's legs were still kicking, but she'd stood rooted to the spot until the poor frog was gone from view.