Another shrug. “I guess some would call her a free spirit, some just plain weird. Sort of a hippy. She belonged to the original Dormentalist commune before—”
“Whoa! Dormentalist? When?”
“Not sure. She quit when, as she put it, ‘they went all corporate.’”
The Otherness again. The Dormentalist Church…Otherness connected…like oDNA?
“Did she keep in contact with any Dormentalists?”
Christy shook her head. “Not that I know of.”
Now for the all-important question.
“You say you never knew your father, but did your mother ever mention his name?”
“Where’s all this going? The only member of my family I want you interested in is Dawn.”
“I’m looking for connections. Now, about your father?”
“Can’t tell you much. Whenever I asked my mother what he was like she’d call him her ‘pirate man.’”
“He had a criminal record?”
“No, because he wore an eye patch.”
Jack felt a tingle of anticipation. Jonah Stevens had had a blind eye that he’d told young Jeremy Bolton could see the future.
“Did she ever say anything else about him?”
She shrugged. “Whenever I’d ask why he wasn’t around she’d tell me he’d been swallowed by a whale.” She gave him a crooked smile. “Told you she was weird.”
Jack leaned back. Not weird at all if she was referring to someone named Jonah.
That pretty much clinched it: Jonah Stevens had fathered Christy as well. What was he? Some sort of walking sperm bank?
She glanced at her watch and rose.
“I’ve got to go. The last thing in the world I feel like doing is rehearsing a musical, but a lot of people are depending on me. Call me tomorrow to let me know how this surveillance turned out. I need results, and soon.”
“Talk to you then.”
When she was gone, he looked up at Julio. “Ay caramba?”
The little man shrugged as he slid into Christy’s seat. “What was I gonna say to the blanquita? ‘Fuck’? I figure she watch Simpsons.”
“You look more like Poncho than Bart.”
“Poncho who?”
“Don’t recall his last name. Cisco’s pal. It was his expression.”
“Cisco Kid? Like the song?”
“Yeah, but—never mind.”
The TV show had been popular before either of them had taken a breath. Jack had caught some reruns on a cable channel. Leo Carillo used to say it all the time. Heard it from Ricky Ricardo a couple of times too.
Julio opened the towel and showed Jack the strands of hair trapped in the folds.
“This what you wanted, meng?”
Jack didn’t want to tell Julio his efforts had been for nothing. That they’d only confirm what he already knew.
“Exactly. Nice job. Now, if you can get me a baggy and a pair of latex gloves, I’ll be on my way.”
Julio frowned. “Latex gloves…I don’t know, meng.”
“You’ve got to have them. Doesn’t the health code say you need to wear them when you handle food?”
“We microwave. You know that. But I think we gotta box aroun’ somewhere. We put it out for the health inspector.”
He went into the back and returned a few minutes later with the baggy and a couple gloves. As Jack pulled them on, Julio sat and picked up the remains of the cosmo.
“She don’ like my drink?”
Jack used his knife to slit the envelope.
“She loved it. She had appointments and had to go.”
Julio took a sip. “Hey, not bad. Maybe I make these regular.”
Jack removed the cash, then slipped the envelope into the baggy. The strands of Christy’s hair followed.
“You can serve them by the pitcher.”
“Yeah. But no martini glasses.”
Jack tried to picture Julio’s regulars with their pinkies raised as they sipped cosmos from long-stemmed glasses.
Oh, the humanity.
He sealed the baggy and stuck it in his jacket pocket.
“You being real careful, huh.”
Jack nodded as he removed the gloves. “Any prints on that envelope are going to be run through the feds. I don’t think I’m in any of their computers and I want to keep it that way.”
He pulled out his phone to call Levy.
7
Levy picked Jack up on the corner of 72nd near the entrance to the Dakota.
“Isn’t this where John Lennon was shot?” he said as Jack got in.
“Yeah. And where Rosemary had her baby, though they didn’t identify it by name.”
“Creepy-looking place.”
Not creepy. Gothic. Jack would have loved to live in the Dakota. But even if he could afford it, the vetting process for all prospective tenants would keep him out. He’d never pass.
He pointed to his jacket pocket. “Everything you need is in here. Go on. Take it out.”
Levy gingerly reached over and removed the baggy. He held it up to the light and smiled.
“Hair. Oh, perfect.”
“It’ll show that she’s got the same father as Bolton and Thompson.”
“She told you?”
“She doesn’t know her father’s name, but she told me enough to make book on it. But she’s not telling me everything. She’s holding something back. It may have nothing to do with anything else we’re interested in, or it may. Maybe her fingerprints will tell.”
Levy studied the baggy again.
“She handled the envelope?”
Jack nodded. “It’ll carry her prints—and only hers. So don’t waste your time looking for mine.”
Levy gave him a sidelong glance as he stuffed the baggy inside his coat.
“You don’t trust me, do you.”
Jack smiled. “When did that occur to you? When I wiped down all the door handles and window buttons before I got out?”
“We should have at least a modicum of trust between us, don’t you think?”
Sounded like what he’d said to Christy.
“At the moment, doc, we happen to have parallel agendas. That allows us to cooperate. But as soon as we come to cross purposes—and we might—you’ll hang me out to dry. And you can count on me doing the same unto you before you can do unto me.”
“Mutual mistrust…hardly an ideal working relationship.”
“Works for me.”
Jack pulled a paper towel from his pocket as he opened the car door. He wiped off the inner handle, then gave Levy a little wave.
“Call me with the results.”
Before Levy rolled away, Jack wiped off the outer handle.
Mutual distrust…nothing wrong with that.
As he watched Levy turn uptown on Central Park West, he wondered how on Earth he was going to break the news to Christy that the man she knew as Jerry Bethlehem was her half brother.
The question was—did he know he was dating his niece? Had to. Couldn’t be a coincidence. So the next question was Why?
Looked like he was going to have to pay a visit to Casa Bethlehem after all.
8
Whap!
Hank pictured again the face of that phony fuck John Tyleski on the leather of the heavy bag, and bashed it with a left and a right. The impacts rattled his arms all the way up to his shoulders. Then he pounded it again. And again. Good thing he was wearing gloves, otherwise his fists would be raw meat by now.
Earlier he’d attracted a lot of attention chasing after Tyleski or whoever he was—unwanted attention. Some plainclothes cop—a detective named Augustino or something like that—had pulled him off the street and ID’d him, asking him all sorts of pointed questions about his state of mind. Probably thought he was mentally disturbed.
Whap!
Yeah, well, he’d been pretty goddamned disturbed at the time. Still was. And worst of all, he hadn’t been able to tell the cop the real reason why. Couldn’t report the theft of a book h
e didn’t own, so he’d had to make up some bullshit story about a package being stolen and then describe the wrong kind of car. Promised he’d come over to Midtown North and fill out a report. Fat fucking chance of that.
Whap!
Took everything he had to keep from tearing into the cop and the gawkers who’d gathered around. Couldn’t risk letting go. Any bad publicity from him would attach to the book and the whole Kicker movement. So he’d walked away as cool as could be.
Whap!
But that had been on the outside. Inside he’d been boiling, building a pressure that had nowhere to go.
Whap!
He’d needed a drink but knew if he went to a bar he’d only pick a fight with someone. So he’d joined this health club and got on the heavy bag. Didn’t know shit about boxing but it just felt good to hit something.
Whap!
Hit the bag, don’t hit people. Right. Except for John Tyleski. If Hank ever saw him again he didn’t care where or when it was, he was gonna open a big can of whup-ass on the bastard. Wouldn’t know what hit him.
Whap!
The book—the damn book had been put in his hands for a reason. It had come to him because of the Kicker Man. So weird to see that same figure inside. He thought he’d dreamed it up on his own, but there it was. He hadn’t understood what the book had said about it. But that wasn’t why the book was important.
It had answers—answers to questions he hadn’t even thought of yet. He’d had only a short, short time with it but he sensed—no, somehow he knew— it contained knowledge important to the future, to his and Jeremy’s, but most of all to the Plan.
If only he’d taken the time to go through it. But he’d been so busy, and he’d thought he’d have all the time in the world for it after this damn book tour was done.
And he needed that knowledge now more than ever. Because Jeremy had called this morning, so excited he could hardly speak because he thought Dawn was pregnant. All part of the Plan as their daddy had described it.
Whap!
But he hadn’t described it enough. Not nearly enough. He’d got only so far and then he stopped coming around. Hank had looked for him and never found him. Dead and gone. Had to be. But had he left anything behind that would tell the rest of the story? Hank had found no trace.
Then the book had fallen into his hands and he’d known someone—Daddy, maybe?—was watching over him.
Now the book was gone.
Whap!
But he was gonna get it back. Oh, yes. One way or another he was gonna get it back.
9
Jack pulled to a double-parked stop outside the Tower Diner, wondering how he was going to check out Bolton’s presence or absence.
He’d already been to Work. Not that he’d expected him there after last night’s performance, but you never knew. He’d walked in, looked around, walked out. No Bolton.
He couldn’t help but smile when he looked at one of the front windows of the diner and saw the man himself, sitting and sipping water.
Thank you, Jeremy Bolton.
Jack gunned the car and headed for Bolton’s home. Christy’s directions led him on a winding course but eventually he arrived in a brand-new upscale development of attached three-story townhouses in Rego Park. He cruised around, getting the lay of the land, and not liking the well-lit streets.
Bolton’s house was number 119. It sat third from the end and Jack noticed that his row backed up to some woods.
That had potential.
He exited the development and explored some more. The woods weren’t really woods. They proved to be little more than a hundred-foot-deep strip of wild oaks, elms, and underbrush that formed a buffer between the townhouses and a Woodhaven Boulevard strip mall on the far side.
Potential had become possibility.
He parked in front of a dojo and wandered over to the Italian restaurant/pizza joint that occupied the end unit. He pretended to read the posted menu while he scanned the vicinity. Assured that no one was about, he slipped around the side to the rear. No one there either, so he hopped the low retaining wall and made his way toward the townhouses.
10
Jeremy repressed a gag as he looked down at the plate before him. On a normal night he’d have his face all but buried in the pair of gravy-slathered country-fried steaks. They didn’t serve anything like this in Creighton and he’d been sort of bingeing since he got out.
But tonight…
He swallowed hard against a wave of nausea. He’d been feeling a tad queasy all afternoon. It had started a little while after his lunch of extra spicy Buffalo wings at Work. The day shift there had heard about the fight and how one of the bouncers was pissed at him, but they didn’t seem to care much. Could that be it? The wings? Or just some virus?
Who cared? All he knew was he was feeling crummy. It hadn’t been too bad before, but the smell of the chicken-fried steaks seemed to crank up the nausea about ten notches.
He signaled to Dawn who came right over.
“Everything okay? You don’t look so hot.”
“I don’t feel so hot, darlin. In fact, I’m feeling right poorly.”
Dawn had started feeling better later this morning, but he’d been going downhill for a couple of hours now.
She frowned. “It’s not the food, is it?”
“Naw. It kinda started before I came in.” He pushed the plate away. “Why don’t you give that to one of the Mexicans in the kitchen and bring me the check.”
“You don’t need to pay. I can say it was the food made you sick.”
He smiled up at her. “Well, first off, I ain’t touched it.” You had to pay attention to details if you were going to lie. “And second, that ain’t exactly honest now, is it.”
“No, I guess not.”
“Right. So you write me up the check and I’ll call it an early night.”
“Now I feel bad that I’m still working. If I’d just walked off I could take care of you.”
“I don’t need takin care of, darlin. When I get sick I’m like a dog—I just crawl under the porch or curl up in a dark corner till I get well. Now bring me that check. I need to be home.”
Dawn made a face as she took the platter and headed back toward the kitchen.
Jeremy felt his gut cramp as it gurgled. Oh, no. Was he gonna have trouble on that end too?
He was gonna have to make pretty quick tracks back to his place.
11
Breaking in had been easy. Almost too easy. The place was wired with an alarm system, but Bolton hadn’t activated it. Not only that, he’d left some windows open. Granted, they were on the top floor, but climbing atop a chair placed on the table on the deck outside the kitchen had put one of them within reach.
The only rough spot had come when Jack popped the screen and began to crawl in. The chair had toppled off the table as he’d levered himself up, creating a monster racket. He’d waited inside the window to see if any of the neighbors reacted. None had.
He couldn’t go out the way he’d come in, but no biggie. He’d let himself out through a door. He replaced the screen and went to work.
With three floors to check, and a limited time to search, he had to make every minute count. The ground-floor garage was probably not the place to store anything personal; same for the kitchen and family room on the middle floor. Best to start with the three bedrooms up here.
The biggest bedroom was the only one with a bed—an unmade king—and so that was where he started. Holding a penlight in his mouth, he checked all the drawers, then pulled out the bottom drawers and checked in the space beneath. Next came the two closets—the one on the left held male clothing, the one on the right, male and female. He checked them high and low, going so far as to pat down the men’s clothing.
So far, no good.
He moved to the other rooms. One was dedicated to video games. The furnishings consisted of a lounge chair, an LCD TV on a stand, a Wii, an Xbox, a PlayStation, and a GameCube, plus stacks of video
games. The one closet was empty.
The bathroom was a melange of male and female toiletries.
The third bedroom at the front of the house looked like a storage locker. Bolton hadn’t bothered to throw away any of his appliance boxes. Why not? Saving them for a move someplace else? Levy might find that interesting.
Using quick flicks of his penlight, Jack checked through the boxes. Most were empty, and the ones that weren’t contained nothing but stray wires and Styrofoam packing. He moved to the closet and found it empty except for a backpack and a cheap tin lockbox stowed in the far right corner of the shelf. The backpack was empty so he moved to the box. The tip of the blade on his Spyderco made short work of the crude lock. He popped the top and looked inside. There he found an old composition notebook with the traditional black-and-white marbled cover and nothing else.
The first entry was about ten years old. He flipped to the last and found it dated just yesterday.
Just a single line: The bird is in the hand.
Something ominous about the vaguely smug satisfaction implicit in that simple sentence. Yesterday was when Dawn had moved in. Was she the “bird” in question?
Jack needed to read this. He’d have loved to take it home to pore over, but Bolton would know he’d been invaded when he found it missing. Or worse, he’d blame Dawn, and might get violent. Had to read it here.
He shut himself in the closet to hide his light from the street and began paging backward. Most of the more recent entries concerned his relationship with Dawn—pursuing her and winning her—but then they got strange. He came upon an entry where Bolton told of his plan to become a regular at the Tower Diner with the express purpose of meeting her.
How had he known?
Jack had an uneasy feeling as he paged back through his entries about the clinical trial and creating his new identity. Then Jack came to a page that stopped him cold. Nothing but the word “Dawn” written a hundred or more times, filling the page from edge to edge, top to bottom. It wasn’t dated, but the neighboring entry was six months ago.