She came from somewhere in Eastern Europe but Dawn had totally forgotten where. Thick-bodied, graying, bunned-up hair, dark eyes, and a gaptoothy smile.
“I was just beginning to. I could stay here for hours.”
“Tut-tut-tut. You know the rules, you can read the signs: Twenty minutes is all you are allowed.”
“But another five minutes—”
“Any longer might hurt your baby.”
“It’s not a baby—it’s a thing inside me and I want it out. Can’t anybody here get that through their heads?”
“The Master said—”
“It’s not his body, it’s mine, and I want it back. Totally.”
Gilda held up the robe by the collar and jiggled it. “Come-come. I bring your nice soft robe. I will help you.” Another jiggle. “Come.”
Pissed, Dawn rose and stepped over the edge of the tub. She noticed Gilda giving her wet body a careful up-and-down. Looking for signs of pregnancy? Or just…looking. As a housekeeper, Gilda seemed totally efficient and not a bad cook either. Totally no-nonsense but always cheerful. Seemed devoted to her job, but every so often Dawn would catch her looking at her in a way that she found just plain creepy.
She slipped her arms into the robe—God, it had to be an inch thick—and folded it around her. As she knotted the belt she stepped to the glass wall and stared down at Jackie-O Lake.
“Why do you call him Master?”
“Because he is the Master of the house.”
“Yes, but—”
“And because he wishes us to.”
That didn’t surprise Dawn. Mr. Osala had a commanding air, like he was totally used to being in charge. But hearing him called “the Master” all the time made her feel like she was in Dracula’s castle or something. All he needed was a red-lined cape.
The Master this, the Master that…
Screw the Master.
Who was he, anyway? He said he’d been hired by her mom before she died—hired to protect her from Jerry—or Jerome, as Mr. Osala had called him on the night he’d interrupted her planned dive off the Queensboro Bridge.
That had been a bad time—the low point of her life. Mom dead, killed by Jerry who’d tried to make it look like a suicide.
A lump rose in her throat as she thought about it. Her fault. If she hadn’t got involved with that creep, whatever his real name was.
Nowadays Mr. Osala just called him Bethlehem.
Mr. Osala didn’t seem to have a first name, at least not one that he used, but he was rich, no doubt about that. A Fifth Avenue duplex with its own penthouse health club. No way Dawn could complain about her treatment here. She had a bedroom with a breathtaking view of Central Park. She could order totally anything she wanted to eat, and if Gilda couldn’t make it, they’d have it delivered. Anything she wanted she got. She’d asked for a swimsuit for the pool and hot tub, and a few hours later this Shan bikini arrived—just her size. Yeah, she could have anything she wanted.
Except an abortion.
And a walk outside.
She so wanted to get out of here, even if only for an hour or so, but Mr. Osala—the fucking Master—said no. Too risky.
Who was he anyway to tell her what to do? Just because Mom hired him as some sort of bodyguard didn’t mean Dawn had to listen to him. Trouble was, she had no choice. He had key-only deadbolts on the doors and wouldn’t let her out. Too dangerous, he said.
Like being in prison. Okay, maybe that was pushing it. More like a birdcage—velvet lined, with solid gold bars, but a cage just the same.
“I need to get out of here,” she said to no one in particular.
“Oh, but miss, you can’t. That man might see you.”
That man…
Jerry Bethlehem, or whatever his real name was. Yeah, Jerry was out there looking for her. Looking real hard, she’d bet. Totally. Because he wanted his kid—wanted it like crazy. Insanely.
The Key to the Future, he’d called it.
Mr. Osala’s reasoning was that as long as she remained pregnant, she’d be safe from harm by Jerry, because hurting her could hurt his child. But if he ever caught up to her and learned she’d had an abortion, her life wouldn’t be worth two cents.
Last month she’d wanted to die, had been ready to jump off a bridge. That had passed. Now she wanted to live, but this wasn’t the kind of living she had in mind.
Mr. Osala didn’t seem to want anything from her beyond cooperation in keeping safe. She wound up with proof of that when she told him she’d left her Jeep parked in a garage near the 59th Street Bridge. He’d taken her ticket and “relocated it to a safer place.”
And then he’d handed her an envelope containing a quarter of a million dollars.
Her quarter mil. Or rather her mom’s.
Either Mr. Osala was so honest that he wasn’t tempted by any amount of money, or so totally rich that a quarter mil was pocket change. Or both.
Fine. But what good was any amount of money if she wasn’t allowed to spend it?
“Jerry’s one man and there’s a zillion people in this city. What are the chances of the two of us running into each other? Like almost totally zero.”
“But you have everything here.” Gilda pointed through the glass at the rooftop garden. “You have trees and flowers right outside.”
“How about shopping? I want to go shopping.”
“Why? Anything you want, you have only to ask and it is brought to you.”
She turned and faced Gilda. Didn’t she get it?
“I’m talking about shopping—s-h-o-p-p-i-n-g. You know: walking up and down aisles, looking at things, touching things, trying stuff on. Shopping.”
Gilda looked genuinely puzzled. “I do not understand. Why should you want to go out when everything can be brought in?”
A scream rose in Dawn’s throat. She started to suppress it, then figured, what the hell, let it all out.
And she did—a formless screech that echoed off the glass walls.
Gilda paled and backed up a step.
“Miss—?”
Dawn kept the volume cranked up. “I’m going crazy here! Can’t you see that? If I don’t get out for a while I’m going to climb that fence out there and jump off!”
Gilda backed up another step. “I’ll get Henry.”
“Get your fucking Master!”
“He’s away, searching for your Mister Bethlehem. Henry will know what to do.”
As Dawn watched her bustle off, she thought, Probably thinks I’m a spoiled brat.
But she wasn’t. Mom had seen to that. Even went so far as to make her get a job waiting tables in the Tower Diner. Not a bad job, and the tips had been decent. Mom never would have stood for a tantrum like the one she’d just thrown.
Her throat tightened, her eyes filled. Aw, Mom. Why didn’t I listen to you? Why didn’t I appreciate you while you were here? I miss you.
She swallowed and blinked back the tears. Had to stay tough. Spoiled brats didn’t whimper, they screamed and threw tantrums. And if that was what it took to get somebody to listen around here, then this place was about to become Tantrum City.
Totally.
7
“Gilda tells me there’s a problem, miss?”
Dawn looked up and saw Henry standing in the entry to the great room. As usual, he wore his chauffeur’s black livery. Reed thin with a tall frame—six-four if an inch—that made him look even thinner. His angular, dark-eyed, thin-lipped face never smiled, at least not when Dawn was looking. Mr. Osala didn’t seem to have a first name; Henry didn’t seem to have a last.
She hadn’t changed out of her bikini and robe, electing to sit in the glass-and-chrome great room and wait for Henry to show his face. She’d turned on the gigonda plasma-screen TV and pretended to be watching.
She rose and faced him. Normally she’d never have the guts to confront someone like this, but she was playing a part now—the bitch brat.
“I want out of here.”
“I’m
afraid that is out of the question.” His stiff posture and faint British accent gave him a snooty air, but she heard no hesitation in his voice. “The Master won’t allow it.”
“He can’t keep me prisoner!”
“His promise to your mother was to keep you safe, and he is doing so.”
“I’m sure she didn’t want me totally isolated like I am.”
“You have the television, you have a computer—”
“Yeah, one that’s fixed so I can’t IM or send e-mail.”
She still couldn’t believe that AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, and all the rest were blocked to her. She could surf anywhere, even MySpace, but couldn’t message anyone.
“That was done for the same reason the telephone is coded: to prevent you from accidentally revealing your location. We are sure your friends are being watched, and one or two of them might even have had their computers hacked and monitored.”
“That’s crazy. How could Jerry do that?”
He wagged a finger at her. “You can’t be too careful these days.”
“This is crazy.” She felt herself filling up. She would not cry. But she felt so totally helpless. “I’m a prisoner.”
To her amazement, Henry’s features softened—just a bit.
“I know it seems that way, miss, but you must resign yourself to the fact that you cannot risk showing your face. He might see you.”
“And then what? Grab me and drag me kicking and screaming down the street?” She felt a spark of rage begin to glow. “You ever think maybe he should be worried about me? Like maybe if I saw him first I’d be on him like a cat, scratching his eyes out of his head?”
“Now, miss, I know how you feel—”
“No, you don’t!” The rage flared. “You haven’t a clue how I feel! You can’t begin to know how I feel!”
“Allow me to rephrase: I cannot imagine how you must feel, but you must not reveal yourself. Not yet.”
She felt herself cooling. Would she really have the nerve to attack that bastard? She wanted him hurt, but she didn’t know if she had it in her to do it. Maybe some day she’d find out.
“What if I wore a disguise—like a brown wig and big sunglasses?”
He shook his head. “Still too dodgy, I fear.”
That hadn’t been a flat no. Was he softening?
And then it hit her—the perfect solution to the whole problem.
8
Jack let himself into his third-floor apartment but didn’t turn on the lights. He didn’t need light. He emptied tonight’s proceeds from the Park-a-Thon onto the round oak table in the front room. He knew a fence who’d turn the gold chains and rings and medallions into cash tomorrow morning, then he’d give everything to Gia who’d make the official donation to the Little League.
He dropped into a chair and stared out at the night. Not much to see, just other brownstones like his across the street. No famous Manhattan skyline visible from here, just an occasional tree.
No need to keep an eye out for the mysterious watcher tonight. He’d just had a beer with him and he was home with his sick wife.
Or so he said.
Jack didn’t know what to believe anymore. Everything he’d believed about himself and his family and the world around them all had been shot to hell in the last couple of years. Nothing was what it seemed.
And to top it off, his relationship with Gia was starting to feel a little strained.
His fault.
He’d withdrawn from her and Vicky. Not completely, but after moving in and living with them during the months they’d needed to recuperate from the accident, returning to his own apartment must have seemed like a form of abandonment.
But he hadn’t abandoned them. He still saw them on a daily basis, but it wasn’t the same. Things had changed—not them, nor his feelings for them. But his feelings about himself…those had changed when he’d learned about the measure of Otherness he carried in his blood.
The Taint.
What a perfect name for the perfectly awful.
Knowing the truth had, well, tainted his relationship with them. He felt the need for some distance. Rationally he knew he couldn’t contaminate them any more than they already were—he’d been assured everybody carried a little oDNA—but something deep in his subconscious wasn’t so sure. Sex with Gia, so sweet and sweaty and wonderful…he couldn’t escape a hazy image of him injecting her with bits of Otherness.
Crazy, yes. They’d been together almost two years. But knowing…knowing colored everything.
He shook himself. Had to get over this. And he would. Just going to take some time, was all.
But he felt so alone. He’d always been able to be alone without being lonely, but this was different. He felt like a Stylite monk standing on an infinitely tall pinnacle. Everyone he cared about waited far below, forever out of reach as he faced the swirling cosmos alone.
He smiled and shook his head. Look at me: drama queen.
Buck up and shut up.
He rose and stepped over to his computer. Needed a distraction.
He logged onto repairmanjack.com and checked the Web mail there, deleting the predictable inquiries about appliance repairs until he came to one with “Stolen—help please” in the subject line.
He knew what that meant: Something indeed had been stolen, but the victim could not report the theft to the cops because the item was either illegal or ill-gotten. That was where private eyes came in. But if it was very, very illegal or major-felony ill-gotten…that was where Jack came in.
This sounded promising. He opened the file.
Dear Mr. Repairman Jack—
I was given your name and told you might help me find a lost object. The authorities cannot help. I am praying you can help.
—N
Concise and to the point—Jack liked that. The authorities cannot help—liked that too. Implied he couldn’t go to them. But “authorities”…who still called them “authorities”?
He pulled one of his TracFones from a drawer and punched in the number. After two rings he heard a male voice say, “Hai,” and rattle off a string of syllables that sounded Japanese.
Surprised, Jack hesitated, then said, “Um, did you recently leave a message at a certain Web site?”
The voice switched to accented English. “Repairman Jack? You are Repairman Jack?”
Jack hated admitting it—never fond of that name. Abe had stuck him with it and now it followed him around like a bad debt.
“Yeah, that’s me. What’s up?”
“A family heirloom was stolen last month from my home. Please, I must have it back.”
“Where’s home?”
“Maui.”
Well, that put an end to this job-to-be.
“Maui as in Hawaii? Sorry. No Maui. It’s got to be within an easy drive. Better luck—”
“No-no! You do not understand. It was stolen in Maui and brought here to New York City.”
“You know that for sure?”
“Reasonably sure.”
Reasonably was close enough.
“Just what is this heirloom?”
“I would rather not say right now. I have pictures I can show.”
“Is it big?”
“It is not small, but can easily be carried with one hand.”
Good. Liked to hear that. One more, then he’d quit the twenty questions. Jack liked to know how a customer found him.
“Where did you hear about me?”
“From friend of friend on Maui.”
Jack frowned. Did he know anyone out there? Didn’t think so.
“Name?”
“I prefer not to speak names on phone. Where can we meet? I will tell you everything then.”
Jack couldn’t argue about keeping mum but the meeting place was a good question. He’d been overusing Julio’s lately and couldn’t risk becoming a creature of too much habit. Someplace public…far from Julio’s…that served beer, of course.
“Okay. We’ll meet tomorrow
at—”
“Can we not meet tonight?”
“Tomorrow. Three P.M. at the Ear. It’s on Spring between Washington and Greenwich.”
“The Ear? This is a true name?”
“Believe it. It’s a pub.”
“It does not sound appetizing.”
“You eat sushi?”
“Of course.”
“Well, don’t expect to find any there. See you at three. If you’re late, I’m gone.”
MONDAY
1
Hank Thompson lay blinking in the dark, just awakened from a dream.
But not the usual dream. Not the dream of the Kicker Man protectively cradling a baby—Dawn’s baby, Hank was sure—in his four arms. This one involved the Kicker Man, yes, but instead of holding a baby he was swinging a Japanese sword—one of those long, curved samurai numbers—whipping it back and forth. And then he dropped it and faded away.
But the sword remained, allowing Hank a closer look.
A real piece of crap—no handle and its blade eaten away in spots up and down its length.
But maybe it only looked like a piece of crap. Its appearance with the Kicker Man meant it was important. Somehow it figured into the future of the movement—or “Kicker evolution,” as he was calling it.
A few months ago Hank would have been asking, How? Why? Now he knew better. Somewhere along the way he’d become a sort of antenna for signals from…where? Out there was all he could say, although where that was and what was out there he had no idea. His daddy had told him about “Others” on the outside that wanted to be on the inside, and that Daddy and Hank and his sibs had special blood that would put them in great favor if they helped the Others cross over.
Daddy’s talk had sounded crazy at times, but he had a way of saying things that made you believe. That dead eye of his could see places and things no one else could. Or so he said.
But a couple years ago Hank had started having dreams of the Kicker Man, and the man had shown him things…things he’d put into a book that had sold like crazy, making him famous—or maybe notorious was a better word—and attracting a following from all levels of society, especially people living on the fringe.