Hosts

"No, please, I must talk to you, all of you."

Holdstock shook his head. "We're fine, doctor. And getting better every day, thanks to you."

"I want to see Jeanette!" Kate said.

"She will be home later. As for now, please let us be."

So saying, Holdstock stepped back and closed the door.

"No!" Fielding cried.

He raised his hand to hammer the door again but Jack caught his wrist before he could land the first blow.

"I don't think that's going to get us anywhere."

Fielding resisted for a second, then dropped his arm. "I guess you're right."

"That's it?" Kate said. "We're giving up? Just like that?"

"We're regrouping," Jack said. "Holdstock has the law on his side at the moment. This is his house and he's invited a bunch of guests over to hold hands. He can have the local boys in blue haul us off for disturbing the peace here. So I say we go back to the car and settle down and let Dr. Fielding here tell us why he hasn't been straight with us."

Fielding stiffened.

Kate looked at Jack as if he were crazy.

"Look at him," Jack told her. "Look at his expression. And that conversation with Holdstock. Could you make sense of that?"

She turned back to Fielding and her eyes narrowed. "What aren't you telling us?"

Fielding's eyes were haunted. "I know those people in there. They're all my patients. Every single one of them!"

10

"Jeanette is not the first in my clinical trial to exhibit personality changes," Fielding said.

Kate bit back her anger. She sat half turned in the passenger seat as Jack slowly cruised the empty, tree-lined streets. Fielding was a dark blob in the rear, lit occasionally by a passing street lamp.

"What do you mean?"

She could feel her emotions running wild, tugging her in all directions. She wanted to charge back and drag Jeanette from that house; but she also wanted to hear what Fielding had to say. That might be more important right now.

"Over the past month or so I've had calls from the families of a number of patients in the study. They all complained of personality changes or strange behavior."

"Why didn't you say that when I called you this morning?"

"Because I didn't want you jumping to conclusions. And I couldn't handle a barrage of questions for which I had no answers."

"That's why the house call," Jack said, and Kate picked up on his tone… disdain or disappointment, or perhaps a little of both. "It wasn't for Jeanette's sake. It was for yours. There's been a screw-up somewhere and you're trying to cover your ass."

"I did it for many reasons," Fielding said. "I needed a first-hand look at this strange behavior that was being reported. I figured I'd start with Jeanette, then see if I could observe others. I never dreamed I'd find everyone in the trial in one room."

"Everyone?" Kate said. The night was warm but she drew her legs up under her to ward off a sudden chill.

Fielding was nodding. "All eight."

"What's the big deal about that?" Jack said. "They all went through the same thing, so—"

"They shouldn't know each other," Kate told him. "It's standard procedure in clinical trials to keep the patients anonymous. So, if they've never met during treatment and don't know each other's names, how did they get together?" She turned back to Fielding. "Any ideas?"

"Holdstock said by accident, but that's impossible. And how all eight recipients of the same vector strain managed to—"

"Same strain?" Kate exclaimed. "You mean they all were treated with the same virus?"

Fielding didn't reply.

Jack said, "I believe she asked you a question, doc."

"All right, yes," Fielding sighed. "Terrence Holdstock was the first, Jeanette the most recent."

Kate swallowed. She had an uneasy sense about where this was going. "What's different about that strain?"

"I have no idea."

"He's lying," Jack said.

"I am not!" Fielding sputtered.

"Trust me," Jack said, his eyes on the road, his voice flat. "He's lying."

How can he be so sure? Kate wondered. Or is he just guessing and trying to goad Fielding? Kate decided to weigh in with her own prod.

"One way to find out," she said. "Go to your medical center's practices and standards committee and ask for a full review."

"That won't be necessary," Fielding said quickly. "I've already reported it to the hospital board and to NIH."

"NIH?" Kate felt a wave of nausea. He wouldn't contact NIH unless it was something major. "Why?"

"That's the National Institutes of Health?" Jack said. "Down in DC?"

"Bethesda, actually," Fielding replied. "You see…" His voice shook and his words seemed to dry up. He wet his lips.

This is going to be bad, Kate thought. She gripped the edge of her seat, squeezing it. Oh, Lord, this is going to be terrible.

"You see," Fielding went on, "after connecting the complaints to the same vector strain, I took out the cultures and ran an analysis on the virus. It… it has mutated into two separate strains."

"Mutated?" Jack said. "Does that happen a lot?"

"No," Fielding replied. "That is, some viruses mutate frequently, but not adenoviruses. This was totally unexpected."

Kate closed her eyes. "Mutated how?"

"The original strain remained but the mutation had altered the thymidine kinase gene."

Kate groaned.

"That's bad?" Jack said.

She said, "It means the mutated strain was injected into the tumor along with the original vector virus. But without the thymidine kinase gene the mutation is immune to ganciclovir. The drug killed off the vector virus and the infected tumor cells—"

"But not the mutation," Jack said. "Oh, hell."

"Right. That means that Jeanette and the others have a mutant adenovirus running through their brains."

"Is it contagious?" Jack said.

"Yes and no," Fielding said. "Adenoviruses usually cause mild infections—pinkeye is a common one—but are caught only from people shedding the virus. These people are not shedding the virus."

Kate turned to Fielding. "We've got to do something!"

"I told you: I've contacted NIH and they in turn should be contacting Jeanette within a day or two."

"I mean now!"

"What do you suggest?"

"Find a way to kill the mutation!"

"I've already begun testing various virucidal agents against it. I'm confident we can find an effective cure."

"But in the meantime," Kate said, "what about other complications?" She envisioned the viral particles invading Jeanette's neurons, multiplying inside, then rupturing the cell membranes and moving onto other cells, their numbers growing exponentially. "What about meningitis? Encephalitis? What about an abscess eroding into an artery and hemorrhaging? She could die, Dr. Fielding!"

"I'm working as fast as I can," he said. "But even if I had a cure in my pocket right now, it might not help us."

"What are you talking about?"

"Consider: why am I here instead of home? Because Jeanette refused to come in to be checked. How do we cure a patient who refuses treatment?"

Kate's stomach knotted as she remembered Jeanette's words this morning: Why would I want to see Dr. Fielding? I'm fine. Never felt better…

"It's a gray zone," Fielding was saying. "If the patients aren't complaining, if they deny anything's wrong and don't want treatment… you can see the problem, can't you."

Yes, she could.

A wave of fatigue swept over her, leaving her chilled and achy.

Fielding said, "I'll keep testing the mutation while we wait to hear from NIH. I'm sure a call from them will convince Jeanette and the others how serious this is and that they all need help."

But as far as Kate was concerned, Jeanette already did want help—she'd told Kate so this morning. Pleaded with her for help. And Kate was darn well going to see that she got it.

THURSDAY

1

"Easy, Joe."

Stan Kozlowski had watched his brother becoming more and more agitated as he tore though the morning papers at their tiny kitchen table. By unspoken agreement they'd decided to eat breakfast at their pad this morning. Joe's outburst at Moishe's yesterday had drawn too much attention. They'd been just two of the regulars, Stan and Joe, no last names. Now Joe had no doubt become the regular with the scarred hand who'd gone into a screaming rage about blowing somebody off the face of the earth. With outstanding federal and state arrest warrants on each of them, discretion said to lay low.

"Nothing!" Joe said, tossing the News onto the floor where it landed in a heap next to the similarly discarded Post and Newsday. "You'd think one of the assholes on that subway car would have gotten a good enough look at their fucking Savior to give some kind of description. What about your Times there? Anything?"

"Lots of psychobabble about the personality types of the two shooters." With one man dead and the other missing, Stan was amazed at the bull these "experts" could sling without speaking word one to either man. "But if you mean anything like a police artist sketch, no."

"Shit!" He leaped up from his chair and gave the papers on the floor a vicious kick, sending them into fluttering flight against the far wall. Which wasn't very far at all. "It's him, I tell you. This Savior is our guy!"

Stan wasn't going to say, Easy, Joe, again. He'd already said it too often since yesterday morning.

"I know you want it to be him, Joe, but—"

"Oh, it's not just want, Stan. I can taste him. I can smell his stinkl My palm started to itch the minute I read about that tiny .45. He's our guy, Stan. He's the reason we're living in this shit hole. He's our fuckin' guy!"

Shit hole is right, Stan thought as he surveyed their crummy one-bedroom apartment.

How the mighty had fallen: from Upper East Side condo owners to fugitive Alphabet City renters—literally overnight.

All because of "our guy."

Whoever he was he'd come out of nowhere. And he came smart and tough. Whether he had a personal grudge or was hired for the job, who knew? Stan figured he was hired. A pro. Just like the two of them.

Fires and explosions—the Kozlowski brothers' specialties. All thanks to the U.S. Army and a tour in Nam.

Stan hadn't wanted to go to Nam, and if he'd stayed in college the war would have been over by graduation day. But when he'd flunked out in year one the draft board wasted no time scooping him up. Over in the provinces Stan learned all about C-4, became a gonzo expert at blowing up Charlie's booby-traps with the white clay-like substance. And he brought all that training home with him. He finished college after the war but the economy sucked then, so he'd gone into a business of his own, taking in Joe in as a partner, teaching him all he knew.

Together they'd made a good living. It was never personal. Somebody not making payments, somebody skimming too much, somebody talking too much, somebody at a point where he figured he'd been paying into his fire insurance policy long enough and decided it was time to make a withdrawal, they called Stan and Joe Koz.

They'd been a perfect team: Stan planned, Joe planted, and they took turns fashioning the bombs or mixing the accelerant.

Then "our guy" came along, interfered with their latest job—which turned out to be their last—causing a major botch that made them look worse than no-talent amateurs.

But that hadn't been the worst. Somehow he'd followed them back to their farm up in Ulster County and torched the house and the barn where they stored their C-4 and accelerants. And most of their cash.

Joe had ruined his hand and almost got killed trying to save that. And he'd failed.

But things got even worse. An investigation showed that the barn had housed a bomb-making operation; BATF was brought in and that was when the warrants started. Stan and joe had owned the place in another guy's name but he'd rolled over in a heartbeat when the feds came knocking. RICO statutes got invoked and everything they'd owned wound up impounded.

Plus Joe couldn't get his hand fixed because that kind of plastic surgery wasn't exactly done in back rooms, and hospitals asked too many questions.

Finally, now, no one would hire them. Like they were dead. Worse than dead. Like they'd never existed. Like, the Kozlowski brothers? Who they? Never heard of them.

All because of one guy. Our guy.

But Stan was not convinced that he and this so-called Savior were the same.

"I want him too, Joe. And if this Savior guy turns out to be him, fine. We'll get him. Together. But not in a way that's going to point a finger at us. We'll do him the way he did us: mess him up and then disappear without a trace."

"You're worried about attention? I want attention. I want everyone to know who did him and why. Because he took everything from us, Stan. Remember how we used to be? We was hot. We was Tiffany. We wore Armani to the fucking gym! We used to watch our ankles through our socks. Remember that?"

Stan remembered, but why dwell on it. "At least we're not doing time."

"Time? We are doing time! A jolt in the joint would be better'n this. This isn't living, it's fucking hell. No, wait. If hell was a shit-filled toilet with a broken flusher in the dysentery capital of India, I'd take it over this. You got that?"

"Joe—"

"A guy with a combo of AIDS, brain cancer, and a colostomy's got it better'n us. No, Stan. I call the shots on this one. This gives me first dibs."

He held up his maimed left hand, thumb extended, the scar-fused fingers forming a shiny pink V. Someone seeing him do that on the street once had called out, "Live long and prosper," and Stan had had to pull Joe off the guy before he killed him.

"When I find the fucker I'm gonna tie him in a chair and get me a blow torch and make his whole face look like this."

2

Kate stood in the bedroom doorway and blinked at the sight of Jeanette smiling at her from the rocker in the sunny front room.

"Look who's a sleepyhead," Jeanette said pleasantly.

"Jeanette… you're…"

"Sitting and having coffee. Want some?"

Which Jeanette was this? Friendly though she seemed, it wasn't Jeanette number one, the one she loved; and it wasn't the silent and sullen number two. Could some third personality be emerging?

"No thanks. My stomach doesn't feel so hot."

In fact Kate's entire body didn't feel so hot. Chilled, rather. And achy. She'd been exhausted when she returned last night and had fallen into bed almost immediately. She still felt tired. She blamed that on the weird dreams that had haunted her all night. She couldn't recall any details beyond the fact that she'd awakened several times sweaty and unsettled.

"I thought you'd be upset about last night. I didn't mean to pry, but I'm concerned. I'm more than concerned, Jeanette. I'm worried sick."

"I know you are," Jeanette said. "I was pretty angry the other night, but now I realize you're doing it out of love. But don't worry yourself, Kate. I'm fine, really I am. And I've never been happier."

"But Jeanette, you're not… you."

Jeanette smiled warmly. "Who else could I be? I know it seems confusing now, Kate, but soon you'll understand. Soon everything will be made clear."

"By whom?" Kate said, wandering over to the kitchen area.

"It will come from within." She began to laugh—a good-natured laugh without a hint of derision.

"What's so funny?"

"I just made a joke."

"I don't get it."

A beatific smile. "You will, Kate. You will."

Kate noticed a jar of Sanka on the kitchen counter.

"Decaf?" she said. "Since when?"

"Since today. I think I might be drinking too much caffeine. Maybe that's what happened to me yesterday. I got a little wired."

The Jeanette Kate knew could barely move until she'd had her morning coffee.

"That was a lot more than caffeine overload."

"Kate, how many times do I have to tell you I'm fine?"

"But you're not fine. Dr. Fielding told me the vector virus mutated and you and the others may be infected with it."

She went on to explain the details of Fielding's story.

Jeanette seemed blithely indifferent. "A mutation? Is that what he thinks? How interesting."

"It's not interesting, Jeanette," Kate said, restraining herself from screaming the words. "It's potentially catastrophic! How can you just sit there? If someone told me I had a mutant virus crawling around my brain I'd be on the next plane to Atlanta and the CDC!"

"Has it occurred to you that Dr. Fielding might be wrong?"

That brought Kate up short, but only for a second. "A mutation in a recombinant vector virus is so unusual, I'm certain he wouldn't have told us if he weren't one hundred percent sure."

"But wouldn't I be sick?"

You are sick, Kate thought.

"Poor Kate." Jeanette smiled sympathetically. "Getting yourself all worked up. Why not just calm down and let Dr. Fielding worry about it?"

"Well, at least he won't be worrying alone. He's called NIH; you should be hearing from them soon. And he's already working on a way to treat the new infection."

"Kill the virus?" Jeanette said. She lost her smile.

"Of course."

"Even if I'm suffering no ill effects?"

"He infected you with the virus, so he's got to eradicate it. He can't very well leave you infected."

Jeanette sat silent, staring at the wall.

Is it finally sinking in? Kate thought. She prayed Jeanette was appreciating at last how serious this was.

Finally she looked at Kate again. "Who was that other man with Dr. Fielding last night?"

The abrupt shift of subject left Kate a little dizzy. "Man? Oh, that was my younger brother Jack."

Jeanette smiled. "Your brother… not much of a family resemblance."

How would Jeanette know? She hadn't come to the door with Hold-stock. Had she been peeking through a window?

"Will he be working with Dr. Fielding?" Jeanette said.

"I don't think so."

She don't know much about Jack's talents, but she doubted they lay in virology. He might wind up helping in other ways, though. She could see now how she might need him to come between Jeanette and Holdstock.

"I'd like to meet him," Jeanette said. "Does he know about you and me?"

Kate shook her head and felt that familiar tightening in her chest whenever she considered the prospect of coming out to anyone, especially a member of her family. She'd felt it last night when Jack had said that he thought it was about time he met this Jeanette. Kate had agreed but ducked setting a time and place.

"No. And I'd rather he didn't."

"Okay. We'll just be friends then."

More proof that Jeanette was not herself. The real Jeanette would have launched into a mini-lecture. She'd been out since her teens and fervently believed the closet should be a thing of the past. Not that Jeanette didn't appreciate the risks for someone in Kate's position, especially where child custody might be an issue. But here in this big city far away from Trenton, she'd have wanted Kate to come out to her brother, or at the very least consider it.

Okay. We'll just befriends. Uh-uh. That wasn't Jeanette. Not even close.

Jeanette added, "Why not invite him over for dinner tonight?"

"You're sure you don't have to go out?"

To another séance with your cult?

"I'd much rather meet your brother."

This third Jeanette was certainly easier to deal with than the second… but she still wasn't the real one, and Lord how Kate missed her.

"Jack's seeing a woman," Kate said. "He might want to bring her."

"Sure. I love to meet new people."

This could make for one strange evening, Kate thought. But on the positive side, she'd get to meet—what was her name? Gia. Such a warm light in her brother's eyes when he'd mentioned her. Kate wanted to meet the woman who had captured his heart.

3

Sandy felt good as he walked the West Eighties. No, check that, he felt totally fabulous. Life was da bomb. His ship was coming in. He could sense it just over the horizon, steaming his way.

Yesterday he'd been trudging door to door, store to store, dogged by a cloud of futility and a subvocal dirge droning on and on through his head about how he was attempting the impossible. Today he was bouncing along past the brownstones on the side streets and the endless variety of restaurants and shops along the avenues, grinning like an idiot.

"Beth," he whispered. He loved her name, the sound of it, the feel of it on his lips and tongue. "Beth-Beth-Beth-Beth-Beth."

They'd made love last night. Not just sex—love. Sweet and tender.

Not just two bodies, but two people with a connection. This morning they'd made love again, and it was even better.

After sitting in a coffee shop where they'd talked and talked, they'd split: Beth to a workshop and Sandy to the streets—he was still on sick leave; he just had to hope he didn't run into anyone from The Light while he was pounding the pavement.

He hated to leave her but all play and no work would very definitely make Sandy a dull boy. Very dull. But he and Beth would reunite tonight for dinner… and more.

As for the last forty-eight hours, Sandy could draw only one conclusion: anything was possible. And all things do come to those who wait.

That didn't make the task of finding the Savior any less daunting, but today he felt sure he'd succeed. He didn't know how long it would take but if he kept plugging he'd win the respect and renown he'd dreamed of. All he had to do was be patient. Rome wasn't built in a day.

He stopped before a bar named Julio's that sported a bunch of dead plants hanging in the window. The door stood open so Sandy stepped through. The dim interior, redolent of tobacco smoke and spilled beer, was bigger than he'd expected. The short bar curved around on his left; a sign hung over the stacked rows of liquor bottles: FREE BEER TOMORROW… He smiled; he liked that. But what was with all the dead plants?

Despite the early hour nearly half a dozen men stood at the bar smoking and sipping drafts. Sandy hesitated, then stepped up and placed his Identi-Kit printout before the nearest drinker.

"I'm looking for this man."

The fellow glanced at Sandy, then down at the printout, then back at Sandy. He had a worn middle-aged face, wore dusty work pants and a faded T-shirt that might have once sported a logo of some sort. A shot and most of an eight-ounce draft sat before him on the bar.

"Who the hell are you?"

Sandy was used to suspicious reactions. He went into his patter.

"I've been hired by the executor of his uncle's estate to find him. He's come into some money."

The man's eye's narrowed. "What's in it for me?"

Sandy couldn't count how many times he'd been asked that since he started searching. He'd finally come up with a reply that worked.

"Nothing from me, I'm afraid. I'm paid by the day. But that doesn't mean you can't work something out with this guy if you know him."

The man leaned toward Sandy. "You came to the right place," he whispered, his eyes shifting back and forth, his breath so sour Sandy had to grip the bar to keep from recoiling. "He's here right now."

Sandy jerked up straight and looked around. Oh, Christ! He's here? Right here?

But he saw no one who even vaguely resembled the man on the train.

"Where?"

"Right next to me!" the man said, then burst into a raucous laugh as he grabbed the printout and turned to his neighbor. "Ain't this you, Barney? Tell this fella here it's you and we'll both be rich!"

"Yeah that's me!" Barney cried. " 'Cept I'm better lookin'!"

Bastards, Sandy thought as they passed the sheet down the bar and back. Some of the others laughed, others just stared at him.

He held out his hand. "Very funny. Can I have it back now?"

"Naw," said the first drinker. "We're gonna keep this. Maybe start doin' our own search. Got any more?"

"That's my only one." Sandy had four more folded in his pocket but he wasn't about to let them know. "Please. I need it."

Barney said, "Hey, Lou, you know what I think? I think we should put my phone number on this, take it over to Staples, and get a hundred copies made. We plaster them all over the place and collect the reward."

No! Sandy thought, feeling a surge of panic. He couldn't lose control of that picture. It was his key!

"There is no reward! Now give it to me!"

He tried to grab the printout, reaching for it, but Lou roughly shoved his arm away.

"Watch it, kid. You spill my beer and I drink the next one out of your empty skull!"

"That's mine and I want it back!" Sandy said, his voice rising of its own accord. If he had to fight these old bastards he would. No one was going to screw up his future.

"Hey-hey!" said a new voice. '"What's going on, meng?"

Sandy looked around and saw a short muscular Hispanic in a sleeveless sweatshirt.

"Hey, Julio," Lou said, handing him the printout. "Fella here's lookin' for this guy. You ever seen him?"

Julio—Sandy assumed he was the Julio this dive was named after—said nothing for a long time, slowly smoothing his pencil-line mustache with his free hand as he stared at the paper. Then, without looking up, he began peppering Sandy with questions about who and why and what reward. Sandy gave his standard replies but they didn't seem to be flying.

"Yeah, I seen him," Julio said, finally looking at Sandy. His eyes were piercingly dark.

Sandy saw truth in those eyes and felt his heart pick up tempo.

"Where?"

"Not sure. Around. Tell you what, meng. I do you a favor. I hang this up by the bar and if anybody knows him, they call you. What your number?"

Sandy was about to give it to him when he noticed that Barney and Lou had somehow managed to position themselves between him and the door. And the three other men at the bar had all stopped talk and were staring his way.

Menace writhed through the air… something going on here…

"I…" Think. Think! "This is kind of embarrassing… I've been a little short lately and so my service was canceled."

"Too bad. You got more of these?"

"Not on me."

"Where you live?"

Sandy was alarmed at where these questions were going… they all seemed aimed at pinning down his location when they should have been about locating the man on the printout. What had he stumbled into here?

"I'm staying with a friend. She… she wouldn't like me giving out her address."

Oh, shit! he thought, wishing he could take that back. That didn't go with his story about his phone being turned off.

"I thinking now," Julio said. "I think I remember seeing this guy a lot in the park."

"What park? Central?'* That wasn't much help.

"No. Riverside."

That was even worse. Riverside Park ran along the Hudson for miles, from the Seventies up past the GW Bridge.

"Any particular area of the park?"

"Yeah. I think I seen him playing basketball a couple time. Right down here."

"This end of the park? Great."

"Yeah. You look there. Maybe you run into him."

"Thanks a lot." Sandy reached out a tentative hand. "Can I have my drawing back?"

"No," Julio said, folding it and sticking it in his back pocket. "I think I keep this one."

Sandy was about to protest but something in the little man's face told him that would be futile.

"I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't show that around until I find that man and talk to him."

"If that is your wish."

The reply startled Sandy. Why so agreeable all of a sudden?

Julio made a tight, almost imperceptible sweeping motion with his right hand and Sandy heard Lou and Barney move back to the bar.

Julio grinned. "And when you find this guy, you tell him Julio sent you and he wants ten percent, you hear?"

"You got it," Sandy said.

He turned and practically leaped through the door to the safety of the sidewalk. He headed west without a look back.

Glad to be out of that place. All sorts of undercurrents flowing through it. Probably something illegal going on and he'd riled their suspicions.

But no matter. He'd got the break he'd been praying for. And Riverside Park was only a few blocks ahead.

Anticipation spurred him into an easy trot.

4

"Your sister?" Gia said, her blue eyes wide.

"The one and only."

Jack tapped the Crown Vic's steering wheel in mild frustration; they'd zipped out of the airport parking area but now the Grand Central Parkway was moving at a geriatric pace.

He'd picked up Gia and Vicky at LaGuardia after their flight in from Des Moines. Jack was stirred at how much these two meant to him. The anxiety he'd felt before the plane landed, his impatience when they weren't the first off, and then the throat-tightening burst of pleasure when they appeared: Gia, trim and leggy in jeans and a pink T-shirt, and eight-year-old Vicky running to him, dark brown braids bouncing behind her; picking her up, swinging her around, then hugs and kisses from both of his ladies. He still carried the glow.

"You've got a sister, Jack?" Vicky said from the back seat. "I didn't know you had a sister. Can I play with her?"

"Sure. She's my big sister, you know."

"Oh." Vicky's voice fell. "You mean she's old."

Jack drew in his lips, covering his teeth, and hoarsened his voice to sound like an old codger. "Yesh, she'sh sho old she'sh got no teeth, jusht like me."

Vicky laughed and said, "Is that a joke, Mom?"

Gia said, "Very loosely defined, yes."

"Goody! That means I can give you the present I brought you from Iowa."

"A present?" Jack said, exaggerating his surprise. "For me? Oh, you shouldn't have."

While Vicky was fumbling in her backpack, Jack's beeper chirped.

Only three people had the number, and one of them was sitting next to him. Had to be Abe or Julio. Checked the display: it read simply, J.

That bothered him. Julio usually left messages on Jack's voice mail. This was the first time he'd ever used the beeper. Something must be wrong.

"Got to call Julio."

"Want to use my cell phone?"

He shook his head. "Never know who else is on the line. I'll find a gas station."

Until recently Gia might have made a remark about his being paranoid. But a few weeks ago someone had traced the tags on her car thinking it belonged to Jack and she'd wound up with a couple of Bosnian goons hanging around outside her door.

"Where's my present?" he cried out, raising his right hand over his shoulder and thrusting it backward, palm up. "Gimme, gimme. I can't wait!"

A fusiform shape in a papery sheath landed in his palm. He glanced at it.

"Corn? You brought me an ear of corn? I'm at a loss for words, Vicks. No one's ever, ever given me a gift like this."

"Mom thought of it. She said to give it to you next time you told one of your jokes."

"Oh, she did, did she?"

He glanced at Gia who was staring straight ahead, wind fingers from the open window running through her short blond hair as a barely perceptible smile played about her lips.

Jack had been teaching Vicky to tell jokes. One of the many wonderful things about an eight-year-old was that even the hoariest, lamest one-liners got a laugh. She loved puns, and a joke the caliber of What's the difference between a fish and a piano? You can't tuna fish! was the absolute funniest thing she'd ever heard. Trouble was, Vicky practiced her act on her mother who had to listen to the same joke again and again and be expected to laugh every time.

"I think this calls for a new knock-knock, Vicks," Jack said. He had a really bad one he hadn't told her yet.

Gia groaned softly. "No. Please, God, no."

"Knock-knock," Jack said.

Vicky replied, "Who's there?"

"Banana."

"Banana who?"

"Knock-knock."

"Who's there?" she repeated with a giggle.

"Banana."

"Banana who?"

"Knock-knock."

Vicky was laughing now. "Who's there?"

"Banana."

"Not again! Banana who?"

"Knock-knock."

"Who's there?" She made "there" a two-syllable word this time.

"Orange."

"Orange who?"

"Orange you glad I didn't say banana again?"

Vicky dissolved into belly laughs. A child laughing—Jack couldn't think of a more wonderful sound. She went on so long that he began laughing himself. Only Gia seemed to miss the humor. She'd closed her eyes and thrown her head back against the headrest.

"The only good thing about knock-knocks," she said in a low voice, "the only thing, is that they're short. But now you've gone and taught her one that's triple length. Thank you, my love."

Jack pressed the ear of corn against the side of his head. "What's that? Your voice sounds husky. I can't ear you."

Vicky burst into another laugh so loud and hard that even Gia had to smile—though she hid it behind her hand.

"I got a million of 'em, Vicks. Want to hear another?"

"Let's talk about your sister instead," Gia said quickly. "How on earth did she find you?"

Jack took a moment to allow himself to switch gears. "It's complicated but in the end it comes down to this: this friend she's babysitting after brain tumor therapy has been acting weird and got herself involved with some sort of cult. A stranger gave her my number."

Gia frowned. "A stranger just happens to give your sister your number. Do you buy that?"

"I know it's one hell of a coincidence, but it happened. What else could it be? I know 1 was the last person on earth Kate was expecting to meet. You should have seen the look on her lace when she saw me. Looked like she'd been poleaxed."

"Still," Gia said, shaking her head. "Very strange. What does she look like?"

"Not too much like me. She takes after my father's side. But you can see her in person tonight if you want. She called this morning and invited us over for dinner."

"Us?"

"Yeah, well, I told her about you. Are you up for it?"

"Are you kidding? Pass up an opportunity to get first-hand dirt about you when you were in knickers?"

"I never wore knickers."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world!"

"Swell."

He spotted an Exxon sign and pulled off. Called Julio and heard what he had to say. When he returned to the car he must have looked as ill as he felt.

Gia took one look at him and said, "What's wrong?"

Time to tell her. "We had an incident on one of the subways while you were gone," he said, trying to be oblique.

"The bang-bangs," Gia said, catching on that he wanted to keep Little Miss Big Ears in the back seat out of the loop. With practice they'd managed to raise vagueness to an art. "That made the news even in Ottumwa."

"Then you've heard about the man they're looking for."

"The one they're calling the Savior?"

Jack looked at her and nodded. "Uh-huh."

Gia met his eyes, then she paled and jammed her hand against her mouth. "Oh, God, Jack, no!"

"What is it?" Vicky said from the rear. "What happened?"

"A car came too close, honey," Gia said.

"Oh." She went back to her Harry Potter book.

Gia stared at him. "I heard about it on the news. I worried about you, if you were one of the victims, but that lasted only an instant because then they were talking about someone who'd stopped the, um"—her eyes flashed toward the rear seat—"carnage and then taken off, and the first person I thought of was you, because you wouldn't let something like that happen, and you certainly wouldn't hang around afterward." She took a breath. "But I never really believed it was you. It must have been awful!"

"It was. But it's getting worse. Julio says someone was flashing what looks like a police artist's sketch of me around his place this morning. And from Julio's description it sounds like this kid from The Light who was sitting near me when it went down."

"The Light!" Gia made a face. "What are you going to do?"

"Not sure yet. But I've got to do something."

Jack drove on with a cold weight in his stomach. Couldn't let this kid go on flashing his picture around the Upper West Side. Sooner or later—sooner, Jack bet—someone would recognize the kid as the eyewitness reporter from The Light and two and two would add up to him.

5

The good thing about the lower end of Riverside Park, Sandy had decided, was that it was narrow enough to allow him to see from one side to the other. Luxury midrise apartment houses climbed to the east, and the Hudson sparkled in the late morning sun to the west beyond the trees and the highway. The bad part was that the man he was looking for was nowhere to be seen.

He'd wandered from the Eleanor Roosevelt statue all the way to the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial and back. The mild weather was drawing more and more people outdoors. He checked out the basketball courts, the sunbathers, the readers, the snoozers, the frisbee tossers, the dog walkers, even the baby carriage pushers, showing his printout to anyone he could collar.

No luck. Zero. Zilch.

A beautiful day but he wasn't in the mood to appreciate it as he stood near the bronze statue of a very young-looking Eleanor and wondered, Have I been had?

Could this Julio guy have sent him on this wild goose chase just to get rid of him so he could start his own search?

Sandy looked around, trying to decide whether to leave or hang in a little longer. He'd shown the printout to everyone in sight…

… except the man on the bench downslope from where he stood. When had he arrived? He slouched on the seat, chin on chest with his arms folded and a baseball cap pulled low over his face, catching forty winks.

Sandy walked toward him. He felt a brief flutter of apprehension about disturbing a sleeping man but he was determined to leave no stone unturned.

"Excuse me, sir," he said as he reached him. "Can I ask you a question?"

What happened next was a blur: the man did not look up but his hand darted out to grab the collar of Sandy's T-shirt, twisting it tight about his throat as he yanked him nearly off his feet to land in a half sprawl next to him on the bench.

Now the head turned and Sandy knew this face, the face he'd been showing people for two days, but he didn't know the eyes because the mild brown seemed so much darker now and so full of fury. He opened his mouth to cry out but the index finger of the man's free hand was in his face, an inch from his left eye, and he was talking through his teeth.

"Not a word! Not a sound!"

Sandy nodded four, five, six times. Sure, sure, he'd say nothing. That was easy. Couldn't speak if he wanted to with his tongue glued to the dry roof of his mouth.

Sandy's brain screamed: What did I do wrong? Why's he so mad? He's not going to hurt me, is he?

The man, the Savior, transferred his grip from the front of Sandy's shirt to the back, jerking him upright on the bench. He snatched the printout from Sandy's grasp and stared at it.

Maybe he's unbalanced, Sandy thought, feeling his body begin to quake. His thoughts flew in wild directions. Maybe he's as psycho as the killer on the train. Maybe he was going to start killing the passengers himself but the other guy started first and that's why he killed him because he'd wanted to do it.

Sandy struggled to calm himself. Stop being an idiot. The Savior had had that tiny little pistol. Hadn't been equipped for mass murder.

But sure as hell there was murder in his eyes now.

Sandy looked around. He was in a public place, people all around. Nothing was going to happen to him here.

But then anyone on the last car of the Nine the other night might have said that too.

"Where'd you get this?" the Savior said.

Sandy's attempt at a reply came out a croak.

The Savior shook him roughly. "Tell me!"

"I-I made it."

"You drew this?"

"Computer."

"Who else knows about it?"

"Just me. Look, I don't know what you're so mad—"

"How many copies?"

Sandy figured he'd better tell the truth. "A couple more on me. A bunch more at home."

"And where's that?"

He saw where this was going and didn't like it. He realized he was in the grip of a very dangerous man who was royally pissed. Detective McCann's words from that fateful night rushed back at him.

… fucking executed him… he's a pro…

Sandy's bladder squeezed. What had he got himself into? He needed some insurance, and fast.

"I left one in an envelope in my desk!" he blurted. "To be opened in case something happens to me."

Now he wished to hell he had.

The Savior stared at him for what seemed like an eternity, then released him with a shove. "Yeah, right." He held out his hand. "Give me the rest of them."

Sandy fished out the printouts and handed them over. The Savior folded them, then stared out toward the Hudson.

"Go home, shred those other copies, and mind your own business."

"But this is my business!"

"Dogging my ass is your business?"

"I'm a journalist. I'm not out to hurt you—"

"That's a relief."

"I just want an exclusive."

The Savior looked at him again. "A what?"

"When you come in, I want an exclusive on your story."

"You've heard the expression 'when hell freezes over'? Satan will be figure skating when I come in."

Sandy was stunned. Could he believe this? He'd figured the Savior was consulting with a lawyer and waiting for the media buzz to build to a howling frenzy before coming forward. That he might have no intention of coming in at all had never occurred to him.

"You can't be serious! You're a hero! You'll be on the cover of every newspaper and magazine in the world. Instant celebrity"—he snapped his fingers—"like that! Any restaurant, any club in town—zip—you go right to the head of the line."

"Yeah? Is that how Bernie Goetz is being treated these days?"

The Goetz case—was that why the Savior was hiding? It did make sense. Goetz had wound up bankrupt with his life turned upside down and inside out by the trials and suits. But that wasn't going to happen here.

"Look, I'm no lawyer, but there's no parallel. Goetz's attackers hadn't killed anybody and they had no guns when he opened up on them. The guy you shot had two guns, had just murdered six people, and was only getting started. Goetz saved himself from getting mugged and maybe cut up, you saved other people's lives—lots of them."

"Including yours."

"Yeah. Including mine. For which I'll be eternally grateful."

"Well, in return, you forget you ever saw me and we'll call it even."

Low-grade terror still crawled through Sandy's gut, but something in him refused to let him cave.

"Look, I can't. I've got a higher calling: the people's right to know."

"And your exclusive right to tell them? Cut me a break, kid. If I show up, I face a gang of charges: owning an unregistered weapon and carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, just for starters. You and those others are alive today because of multiple criminal acts on my part."

Criminal acts… what a great hook.

"Hey, don't worry about that. You'll be such a hero, what DA would dare bring you to trial? Instant celebrity! Think of it! Every door will be open to you. People dream about an opportunity like this!"

"Some people don't."

Didn't this guy realize what he was throwing away?

The Savior rose. "Like I said before: shred the drawings and forget about this."

He turned and started to move away.

"I can't forget it!" Sandy heard himself cry out. "This is my life! My future! I can make you come in! I can have that drawing in tomorrow morning's paper!"

The Savior stopped, turned, and Sandy quailed when he saw the look in his eyes. Maybe he'd overdone it; maybe he'd pushed this man just a little too far… pushed a man who shouldn't be pushed.

"You know… you make me wish I'd waited just a little bit longer before taking that guy out."

The realization of how much he owed this man slammed into Sandy now with the force of a runaway train.

He saved my life.

Talk about cliches. How many times had he heard people say that about saving just about everything but a life? Somebody finds a lost set of keys, helps finish a paper or report, provides a breath mint before an important meeting: You saved my life.

Not even close.

But with this man, it was a fact. Sandy knew he should be saying, You saved my everything. Sandy owed him his boxed byline in the paper yesterday, owed him last night with Beth, owed him the big fat hairy future he envisioned, a future he'd been planning to ride to on this man's back.

The Savior said, "Do your damnedest," and started to turn away again.

"Wait! Please! I'm being a shit."

"No argument here."

"Can't we work something out?"

"I doubt it."

"But there's got to be a way I can get my exclusive and you stay out of the spotlight."

Out of the spotlight… Sandy was still baffled by the man's reluctance to take credit for his heroism, but he owed him too much not to try and honor his wishes, no matter how shortsighted.

"I don't see how," the Savior said. "If you get your exclusive it means you've seen me. Then the pressure for a description is on, not just from your bosses, but from the cops—especially the cops."

"I could claim I'm protecting the confidentiality of my source."

"And then you're slapped with obstruction of justice. How many nights you think you'll last in Rikers before you cave?"

Sandy hated to admit it, but he doubted he'd hang on through an hour at Rikers. And then an idea struck.

"Not if I say you called me and I got the story over the phone!"

The Savior seemed to be considering this as he stood silent and stared at Sandy.

Finally he nodded. "That'll work. You go ahead and make up something—whatever you want. Say I said it and that'll be that."

"No-no. That won't cut it. I want this to be real. The truth."

They were talking about his future here. He couldn't base it on a fabricated story.

"The truth? Since when does anyone care about that?"

"I do. Pretty much."

The Savior stared at him. "You're not going away, are you."

Sandy mustered all his courage and shook his head. Would the man who'd saved his life, take it? He thought not.

"Sorry. I can't drop this. I just can't."

A long silence with the two of them standing statue still, facing each other, while growing moisture soaked Sandy's armpits.

Finally, "What do you want, kid?"

"I'll need some background, but I'm sure people will be mainly interested in how you learned to shoot and why you were carrying a pistol that night, and most important, what was going through your mind before and after you killed the killer."

Another pause, then, "Jeez, this is stupid, but if it'll make you go away—and I mean that: you go away and forget you ever saw me." He held up the printouts he'd taken. "And you get rid of the rest of these."

"Deal," Sandy said. Easy promise to make—the Savior had no way of checking.

"And I don't mean burn them. Burning causes suspicion and you'd be amazed what can be reconstructed from ashes these days. Tear them up into one-inch squares and flush them. Nothing more anonymous than a sewer system with eight million contributors."

"But there's one I can't get back. It's at a place called Julio's and—"

"I'll take care of that one."

And then it was suddenly clear what had happened this morning. Of course! The men in Julio's had recognized the man in the printout. Julio had sent Sandy here to the park, then called the Savior and told him where he'd be.

His excitement building, Sandy pulled the tape recorder from his knapsack. "Let's get started."

"Put that away. No recording. And we're not sitting out in the open here either. I've got a car nearby. I'll drive and talk, you take notes."

"Fair enough," Sandy said.

This is it! he thought as he followed the Savior out of the park. His blood tingled like champagne through his arteries. It's happening! It's all coming together! I'm on my way!

6

"You're retiring the Semmerling?" Abe said. "This I don't believe." Jack didn't want to believe it himself. He'd kept the tiny .45

strapped to his ankle for so long it felt part of him. This was like carving out a piece of his flesh. But in light of what he'd learned from Sandy

Palmer, he knew it had to go. So after ditching Palmer he'd come straight to Abe's and told him about his "interview."

"The kid knew all about it from listening to the cops on the scene.

One of them identified it from its description."

Bad enough to be caught with any weapon in this town, but to be caught carrying a gun the cops had issued a BOLO for…

Abe raised his. "A gun maven cop. Such luck you have."

"Yeah. Mostly bad lately."

He worried about this cub reporter or whatever Sandy Palmer was. Not that he was a bad kid, but too damn ambitious. He might make the wrong kind of compromises to get ahead—the kind that could land Jack in a lava pit.

And he lacked simple common sense. He'd got into Jack's car without an instant's hesitation. If Jack were more impulsive, or maybe had enough screws loose that he didn't care if Palmer had one of those drawings tucked away with a note, he easily could have killed him in the car and dumped him in any one of a dozen spots he knew around the city where he wouldn't be discovered for days, maybe weeks.

But he hadn't. The only thing he'd done to Sandy Palmer was lie.

Jack had led him to his car—making sure they approached from the side so he didn't get a look at the tags—and driven him around for nearly an hour while he filled the car with pure bullshit. Pretty good bullshit, he thought, considering it was created on the fly.

Palmer had taken copious notes, stopping Jack along the way for questions and clarifications. Finally Jack managed to scrape him off at a subway station, but not before the human remora had extracted his voicemail number just in case he had some "follow-up questions." Jack figured the number was safe—billed to a credit card registered to a nonexistent person.

"So what did you tell this crusading reporter?"

"I told him that the Savior was an orphan, in and out of foster homes and trouble until a cop gave him a choice of either getting booked on a B and E or joining the army."

"I see a movie already."

"I think it's been done. And Pat O'Brien probably played the cop. Anyway, Young Savior joined the U.S. Navy instead of the army and qualified for SEAL training. He received a medical discharge due to a back injury."

"And now he's a Jarbissener who—"

"Whoa. You lost me on that one. A farbiss-what?"

"A bitter, cranky person—you know how you get sometimes. The way I see it, such hatred this Savior has for society he's a recluse."

"Do you mind?" Jack said. "This is my life story I'm telling here. Let me tell it."

"So I can't add a little flavor, a little color?"

"An ex-Navy SEAL isn't colorful?"

"You a SEAL?" Abe laughed. "Obeying a drill sergeant? That I'd like to see."

"I wasn't a SEAL, but the Savior was."

"Do you even know what SEAL stands for?"

"Haven't a clue. But I'm sure an ex-SEAL like the Savior does. And although he has no official status with the government, he still freelances for certain government agencies."

"Is one known by three letters, the first of which is a C and the last an A, maybe?"

"He's not free to tell. But because of the nature of his government work he's always armed. Always. As a result he was able to save lives the other night. Also because of the nature of his work, he cannot allow his face to be made public."

"This is good. Such a screenwriter you would have made. A derivative hack, maybe, but that shouldn't disqualify you."

"But here's the icing: The Savior is baffled as to why he should be called a savior or a hero or anything of the sort. He only did what any other decent citizen would have done, had they been equipped to do so."

"That'll stir some talk."

"Right. Talk about something other than the Savior, I hope. Boy Reporter has his exclusive, making him happy so he goes away and leaves me alone. The cops try in vain to match the background described by El Savior to a real person, making them unhappy. They go back to watching and waiting, time passes, people forget about the Savior dude, and life gets back to normal."

Abe's eyebrows rose again, higher this time. "You're smoking something that potent and not offering any to your old friend Abe?"

Jack sighed. "Yeah, I know." No way this was going to fade away that smoothly. "But I can dream, can't I?"

"Dream away, but in the meantime I can offer you a true autoloader, better than your Semmerling."

"In .45?"

"No. But you load an AMT Backup .380 with a half dozen MagSafe sixty-grain Defenders—keeping one in the chamber, please—and you'll have almost as much stopping power as you had with the Semmerling.

A new ankle holster you won't need because this will fit in the one you have, and best of all you'll need only one hand to keep firing because you won't have to work that farkuckt slide for every shot."

Life without his Semmerling… Jack supposed he was going to have to get used it. Wouldn't be easy.

He sighed. "Okay. Get me one."

7

Sandy sat in his cubicle at The Light and looked around. Finally he was alone and nobody close enough to see what he was doing.

He'd shown up early and received an astoundingly warm welcome that took him totally by surprise. People he barely knew had shaken his hand and clapped him on the back, asking him how he was doing, what it had been like, how he'd felt, how he was handling it, and on and on. Any other day he would have basked in their attention, but not now when he had a pad full of notes from the interview of his life burning a hole in his knapsack. It took a good half hour before he was left on his own.

And now, just when he was ready…

"Hey, Palmer," said a voice on his left. "When do you expect to be kicked upstairs?"

Sandy looked up to see Pokorny gazing over the top of the divider that separated their cubicles. With his long thin nose and thinning hair he looked like one of those old time Kilroy Was Here doodles.

"Funny, Jay."

"Seriously," he said, ambling around the divider to slouch his beanpole bod against Sandy's desk, "your story's all anybody's talking about around here."

Sandy shrugged, tried to be humble. "Yeah, well, I thought that night on the train was the worst of my life. Now it looks like it might turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to me."

"You spun some gold, man." His envy was tangible.

"I don't know about gold. Someone handed me a lemon and I've been making lemonade."

He saw Pokorny wince and wanted to kick himself. I don't believe I just said that.

"What are you going to do for your second act?"

The question took Sandy by surprise. "Second act?"

"Sure. Now that you've got everyone's attention, how are you going to keep it?"

"I… don't know," Sandy said, playing dumb. "I never thought about it."

"You'd better think of something, my friend." He straightened from his slouch and patted Sandy on the shoulder. "You don't want to be a flash in the pan."

Condescending bastard, he thought as Pokorny slithered from sight. Flash in the pan was probably his fondest wish for Sandy.

But Pokorny didn't know that Sandy already had his second act scripted. All he needed was a little privacy to put it into production.

It took Sandy another half hour before he dared to pull out his cell phone and begin. He dialed The Light's main number and punched his way through the options tree until he got to an operator. Then he cupped his hand over the receiver and lowered his voice.

"I need to speak to Sandy Palmer."

"Do you know his extension?"

"No. But I must speak to him now."

"Here it is. I'll connect you."

The Savior was supposed to have gone though this same routine from three different pay phones during the first thirty minutes after he'd dropped Sandy off. It was his idea. He thought Sandy's walking in after two days off just in time to get a phone call from the city's number one mystery man was a little too pat. Sandy had to agree. So the Savior was to make sure he talked to a live operator each time and then leave hang-ups on Sandy's voicemail to show that someone had been trying to get in touch with him for a while.

Sandy jumped as his desk phone rang. He picked up the receiver, turned off his cell phone and began the charade of pretending to be talking and taking notes.

The Savior… Sandy wished he knew his name so he could call him something else. But what a cool guy. And what a life he'd led. This would make a great piece even if he weren't the Savior.

And that might be a problem. How to convince the editors that this was the real deal and not just some kook? The only way he could see to verify the caller's bona fides was the pistol. Sandy would say that the man on the phone named the make and model and explained how he'd used it. Only Sandy and the cops knew about the Semmerling.

Then the next question would be: Why you, Palmer? Why a nobody like you instead of some network anchorman or nationally syndicated columnist?

Easy.

The Savior and I were on the death train together. There's kinship there. We're blood brothers.

That should work, Sandy thought. Sounds reasonable.

The editors would check with McCann about the Semmerling. Once that was verified, they'd believe. Because they'll want to believe. They'll be dying to run the story.

Of course that would mean another call, or maybe even a visit from McCann.

Sandy felt his sweat begin to run. That was when the going would get rough. McCann would want all the details. Sandy had only one lie to worry about. Just one. But it was a whopper.

He prayed he wouldn't slip up.

8

So this is Jeanette Vega, Jack thought, glancing at the slim brunette in fitted shorts and pale blue tank top as he stood in her kitchen and opened the second of the two bottles of merlot he and Gia had brought. Her hair was her striking feature—glossy black, parted on the left and severely pulled back into a single tight braid that reached below the nape of her neck; warm brown eyes, no make-up, a fading tan. Not the prettiest woman Jack had ever seen, but not bad looking. Kind of quiet, but nothing so abnormal about that.

Although he usually drank beer—and he'd had a couple at Gia's before cabbing over here—Jack was determined to do the wine thing tonight. And do it with gusto. Because after the day he'd had he felt he deserved an ambitious blood alcohol level, even if it meant reading tomorrow's Light with a hangover.

Maybe a hangover was the only way to go, because God knew what that kid was going to write.

But that would have to wait till morning. At the moment he meant to concentrate on Jeanette. And Kate too, of course. But Kate and Gia had their heads together in the living room, discussing Jack's boyhood he was sure. He hoped Kate wouldn't spill anything embarrassing like his bed-wetting problem.

Jack had filled Gia in as best he could on Jeanette's brain tumor treatment and subsequent personality change. That hadn't deterred her; she still wanted to meet Kate. Sitting at Gia's and sipping beer as he watched her work on a painting commissioned for a paperback cover had eased his Sandy Palmer-jangled nerves.

He glanced at Kate now and sensed that her nerves could do with a little easing. She wore a sleeveless cotton jumper and the humidity had made her honey blond hair curlier than usual, but she didn't look well tonight. Tired and worn. And jumpy. Something was eating her.

Jeanette on the other hand was cool and serene. She leaned against the kitchen side of the counter, physically three feet away, mentally somewhere at sea off Bora Bora. Seemed to be watching him open the wine, but her gaze was unfocused.

Jack rated his small-talk skills with those of the average geranium, and usually counted on others to carry the conversation load. But Jeanette was barely here. Had he bored her into a trance?

He glanced longingly at the couch. He'd much rather be over there where he could try and censor whatever Kate was telling Gia…

***

Kate said, "Our folks worried about him sometimes."

"Imagine that," Gia said with a wry smile. She wore a long summer dress that brought out the intense blue of her eyes.

Kate had taken an instant liking to Gia. She'd sensed that here was someone not only very pretty and very bright, but also very much her own person.

"He was something of a loner."

Gia sipped her wine. "He's still not much of a team player."

"He was on the track team but he ran cross-country. Not a lot of friends, either. But it was the movies that most concerned our folks. He couldn't get enough of those junky old horror and sci-fi movies."

"That hasn't changed."

"It would be a sunny Saturday afternoon and Jackie would—"

Gia grinned. '''Jackie? Oh, I love it!"

"That's what our mother called him and we all sort of picked it up. Anyway, on a beautiful Saturday he would say he was going to the park but if you drove by the local theater you'd see his bike chained to a post nearby. Every Saturday the Lenape would show two old horror-sci-fi movies in a double feature and he'd rather sit there alone in the dark than play with the other kids."

"That child was definitely father to that man." Gia said, pointing to Jack.

Jack and movies… Kate remembered when he was nine she heard Jack's alarm go off at two in the morning, then heard him pad down-stairs in the dark. When ten minutes passed and he hadn't returned, she went down to see what he was up to. She found him wrapped in his bedspread cross-legged on the floor before the TV with the sound very low, entranced by some cheap black-and-white movie. She told him to get back up to bed but he pleaded with her, saying he'd been trying to catch Invasion of the Saucer Men forever but it never played in the movies or on TV or anywhere anymore until tonight. He had to see it. He might never get another chance. Pleeeeease?

So she'd sat next to him under the spread, her arm protectively around his shoulders, and watched with him. She soon knew why no one showed it any more: Invasion of the Saucer Men was awful. But to Jack it was some sort of grail he'd finally found and he loved it. Looking back now it was a special shared moment, a closeness fated for extinction with the advent of the VCR.

Kate glanced over to where Jack stood with Jeanette. Would that life were still so sweet and simple.

And then she remembered: "The dip. I forgot to heat the dip."

***

The extended silence was getting awkward. Jack noticed that Jeanette's tank top revealed lean, muscular arms. Good deltoids, the kind that come only with weight training.

That looked like a conversation opener.

"You work out, Jeanette?"

"Hmmm?" She blinked and returned to North America.

Jack cocked his arm in a bodybuilder's pose. "Do you work out?"

She smiled. "I used to, back when I thought that sort of thing was important." A shrug. "Now it seems kind of silly. So many things seem silly now."

Jack could see how being told you were going to die long before your time could change your perspective on just about everything. Especially working out. Not much point to a well-toned body if the next stop was a casket.

"You were at the house last night," she said, staring at him. "Why?"

Pretty damn direct question. How much could he say and not contradict anything Kate might have told her?

"I was just tagging along. Kate was worried about you and doesn't know the city, so I ferried her around."

"Everything's fine now," Jeanette said with a smile. "And getting better every day."

"Great," he said, holding up the open wine bottle. "Can I pour you some?"

Jeanette shook her head. "No, thank you. I don't need that anymore."

Good, he thought. That leaves more for me. And I do need it.

"Do I take it that means you've found a replacement?"

Another smile. "In a way."

Jack hoped this might provide a segue into this cult of hers, but his sister bustled into the kitchen before he could move on it.

"The dip," Kate said, pulling open the refrigerator door. "Hot avocado. Forgot all about it. And yes, Jack, I'll have another glass of that. So will Gia, I'm sure." She shoved a covered dish into the microwave and began jabbing buttons. "Just let me nuke this on reheat for a few minutes to warm it up. There. Now, where's that—?"

"Kate!" Jeanette wailed, her voice a terror-laden plea. "Oh God, Kate, why haven't you done anything?"

Her cry was so abrupt, so heartrending, that Jack nearly dropped the wine bottle. He stared at her agonized features and saw that her earlier remoteness was gone. The woman on the far side of the counter now was reaching out with her eyes, with her hands and arms, panic radiating from every pore.

"Jeanette!" Kate cried, turning Jeanette to face her. "What is it? What's happening!"

"I'm losing, Kate! I can't hold out much longer. Pretty soon there'll be nothing left of me! You've got to help me, Kate!" Her voice rose to a scream. "For God's sake help meV

And then her knees buckled. As she fell against Kate, Jack started around the counter to help but Gia was already there.

"Get her over to the couch!" Gia said.

The three of them helped the barely conscious Jeanette across the room where they stretched her out. Kate placed Jeanette's ankles on the arm rest, positioning them above the level of her head, then took her pulse. Gia ran back to the kitchen and started running water over a dish towel. Jack stood back and watched, a little shaken.

"This is what happened yesterday morning," Kate said. "Jeanette, are you—?"

"What's going on?" Jeanette said, shuddering and starting to sit up.

Kate tried to hold her down. "You had another one of those spells. Just rest for a moment."

"No." She struggled to a sitting position. "That can't be. How did I get over here?"

Jeanette was back to the remote woman Jack had met when he'd arrived; she seemed concerned but not as much as Jack thought she should be.

"We helped you," Gia said. Her face was pale, she looked shaken. "You almost passed out."

"This is the second time now, Jeanette," Kate said. "You can't go on like this. You've got to let Dr. Fielding check you over."

"He's an idiot."

"Then let's see someone else."

"What for? I'm fine." She shook off Kate's hand and rose to her feet. "Everybody just give me some space."

Kate and Gia stepped back.

"Jeanette—"

"Please, Kate, would you ask Jack and Gia to go. I'd like to be alone."

Kate blinked. "Do… do you want me to leave too?"

"No, of course not. This is your home too." She turned to Jack. "I'm sorry. It was nice meeting you both. I know we'll meet again soon."

She turned and headed for a doorway at the far end of the room.

"I don't know what to say," Kate said when the door closed behind Jeanette. "She did this yesterday morning, and now again…"

"For a few moments there," Gia said, "she seemed like another person."

"A terrified one," Jack added.

Kate nodded. "I know. A true multiple personality disorder is so rare it's almost nonexistent… but I don't know how else to explain this."

"And why does she refuse to see a doctor?" Jack said. "If I'd just become another person for a few minutes and didn't remember it, I'd be on the phone demanding an appointment yesterday."

"Look," Kate said. "Why don't you two go on. I'm really sorry about this but—"

"Not your fault, Kate. Why don't you come out and catch a bite with us?"

"No. I should stay here in case she needs me. You two go ahead." She hugged Gia and kissed her cheek. "It was wonderful meeting you." Then she turned to Jack and hugged him.

He wrapped his arms around his sister and held her close. Had he ever done this? He couldn't remember. If not, he shouldn't have waited this long. It felt good, and would have felt better if not for a nagging fear for her.

"You're sure you don't want to come along?"

She stepped back and nodded. "I'll be fine. Call me tomorrow."

Jack didn't feel right about leaving her but didn't see any options. He opened the door.

"Okay. I will. First thing. And you have my home phone number. If you need me, you call, no matter what the hour."

In the kitchen the microwave oven dinged. The avocado dip was ready.

9

Jack and Gia took the stairs down.

"Did you see how Jeanette changed?" Gia said. "Isn't that the strangest thing you've ever seen?"

He knew they'd both seen stranger things, but…

"Yeah. Pretty damn strange. Creepy."

"I'll say," she said as they reached street level. She laid a hand on his arm. "And by the way, how come you never told me your sister was gay?"

"What?" He was stunned. His big sister, the pediatrician mother of two, a lesbian? Was Gia nuts? "How can you even think that?"

"Well, there may not be Melissa Etheridge posters on the wall, but there's a whole collection of Cris Williamson CDs in the rack, and if she and Jeanette aren't a couple, I'll remarry Richard when he returns."

They both knew her ex was gone for good—as in dead and digested. But Gia was way off here.

As they pushed through the front door into the night air Jack said, "Kate's not—"

And then it all came together. Of course she was. Kate was a giving person, but Jack suddenly realized she'd never take a leave from her practice and her kids to nursemaid some old sorority sister. When she'd said she was seeing someone special but foresaw no wedding bells, it wasn't a married man, it was a woman.

Jack turned and stared through the glass doors into the vestibule of the apartment building. "I didn't see it. How could I miss it?"

"With any other pair of women I'm sure you would have, right off. But your brain wasn't offering you options for your big sister's sexual orientation. So unless Kate showed up on a motorcycle with a shaved head and 'Bitch On Wheels' tattooed on her arm, you weren't going to see it. Her being a lipstick lesbian just made it harder."

"No wonder she seems to be walking on eggs when I'm around. Kate… I can't get over it."

"Does it bother you?" Gia said. "Come on, Jack, talk. You keep things in and stew about them. Don't do that here. Talk to me."

"Okay. Am I bothered? No. Anything Kate wants to be is fine with me. But am I shocked? Yes. Because I never saw it coming. I grew up with her, Gia. Never a sign, never a hint."

"At least not that you saw."

"Granted. I was a kid and I wasn't looking. But she always had boyfriends and… Gia, it's like the direction I always thought was north has suddenly become south. Should I go back and talk to her? Tell her I know and it's all right? Maybe that way she can relax around me."

Jack was used to knowing what to do in most situations, but here he was foundering.

"Since you asked," Gia said, "yes. Otherwise the two of you will go on dodging each other: she'll be hiding who she is and you'll be hiding that you know what she's hiding. But it's not my decision. And whatever you do, save it for tomorrow. Kate's got enough on her plate tonight, don't you think?"

Jack slipped his hand around the back of Gia's neck and kissed her lips. What would he do without her?

"Thanks."

She brushed her fingers against his hair. "Not a good day for Repairman Jack, hmmm?"

"Lousy."

"Well, Vicky's sitter is good till midnight. We could go back to your place and maybe, just maybe, if we think real hard, we might come up with a way to help you forget your troubles."

It had been a whole week. Jack felt more than ready.

"I think that's a perfectly wonderful—"

He noticed a woman standing across the street, staring. Not at them. Above them. She seemed to be in a trance. Something familiar about her face.

"What's wrong?" Gia said.

"Check out that blond woman over there. Do we know her?"

"Never seen her before."

Jack followed the line of the woman's stare and felt a stab of uneasiness when he realized she'd drawn a bead on the west corner of the third floor.

Gia whispered, "She's staring at Jeanette's apartment."

He looked at the woman again and now he recognized her. From the séance or whatever it was in the Bronx last night.

"I don't like this," Jack said. Not with Kate in that apartment.

"Look over there," Gia said, cocking her head to the left. "Down on the corner."

Jack spotted the man immediately. Although Jack didn't recognize him—a number of people at the séance had had their backs to him when he'd peeked in—he felt sure he was with the cult. Because he too was staring up at Jeanette's apartment.

How many more weirdos out tonight? he wondered as he scanned the block. He spotted none beyond these two.

Jack stepped to the curb for his own look at Jeanette's windows and spotted a human silhouette standing in one of them. A Bates Motel chill rippled across his shoulders. The open-mouthed terra cotta head glaring down at him from atop the window arch frieze only added to his unease.

Then the shadow disappeared from the window. Jack did a quick review of the apartment layout and decided it had to be Jeanette's study. Was she coming out to join the others?

"Let's move over here," Jack said, guiding Gia away from the vestibule's light wash and into the shadows.

Sure enough, minutes later Jeanette emerged. She crossed the street and joined the other two. The trio glided off toward Seventh Avenue.

"This is creepy," Gia said. Jack could feel her shiver as she clutched his arm and leaned against him. "Like some of those movies you make me watch. Where do you think they're going?"

"Looking for a cab to take them to the Bronx, I'll bet." But he didn't care about them. It was his sister who concerned him. "I've got to check on Kate."

He stepped back to the apartment house door and pressed the button labeled J. VEGA. Three times. Finally Kate answered.

"Yes?"

"Kate, it's Jack. I just saw Jeanette leave. Are you all right?"

"Of course." Even through the tinny little speaker Jack thought her voice sounded thick with emotion. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Can I come up, Kate?" He glanced at Gia for approval and she gave him a combination shrug-nod. "I'd like to talk to you."

"Not tonight, Jack. Maybe tomorrow. It's been a long day and I'm not feeling that great."

"You're sure you're all right, Kate?"

"I'm fine, Jack. Fine."

That last word, couched in a sob, tore his heart.

"Kate…"

But she'd broken the connection.

Jack turned to Gia and slipped his arms around her. "I can't stand this," he said, pulling her close and resting his cheek against hers.

She caressed his back and whispered, "I know. You're the fix-it man and you can't fix this."

"I don't even know where to start."

"Let's go home. Things may look different in the morning."

"Yeah."

But he doubted it.

FRIDAY

1

Sandy found Beth in the kitchen making fresh coffee when he burst into the apartment with the morning edition.

"Ta-daaaa!" he cried as he held up the front page.

Beth shrieked and ran to him. She'd moved some of her clothes into his apartment yesterday; she was barefoot in tight little shorts and a T-shirt and she looked so good Sandy wanted to grab her and hug her, but she snatched the paper from him and held the tabloid at arms length, staring at the three-word headline large enough to read from a block away.

THE

SAVIOR

SPEAKS!

"'An exclusive interview for The Light by Sandy Palmer'!" she said, reading the italic refer running along the bottom. "Sandy! Your name's on the front page!"

"I know, I know! Isn't it awesome!"

"Totally! I've so got to read this!" She opened to page three. "'"Call me anything you want," the man known as The Savior said. "The one thing I'm not telling you is my name."'" She looked up at him and smiled. "What a great opening line!"

While Beth stood there reading, Sandy wandered about the front room, unable to sit or even stand still. Every giddy nerve in his body was singing a joyful tune and his stomach tingled, almost to the point of nausea. Today was without a doubt the best day of his life, and the best moment of this day was when he'd stopped in front of the newsstand and gaped at that front page. For a full minute at least he'd stood frozen, couldn't even reach into his pocket for the change to buy a copy. And during that minute he'd seen one person after another pass up the Times and the News and the Post and go for The Light.

Mine. My Light.

He'd sure as hell earned it. Yesterday he'd thought he was home free after weathering an intense grilling by George Meschke and the other editors; then McCann showed up and put Sandy in the hot seat, firing questions from all angles, obviously hoping he'd contradict himself. He pushed Sandy almost to the breaking point.

"Am I on trial here?" he'd finally shouted. "All I did was answer the goddamn phone! Since when is that a crime?"

And that had brought Meschke to his rescue. He'd told McCann they were satisfied with the story's authenticity and were running it in the morning. McCann reluctantly backed off.

"Well, at least we know he was a SEAL," the big detective had said. "Or at least he says he was. That's a boost. Only so many guys make it all the way through SEAL training. We'll get the Navy on this."

He'd extracted a promise that the make and model of the Savior's pistol would not be mentioned, then stormed off.

But beyond the front page, beyond the interview, was the fact that The Light, for the first time in its fifty-year history, was putting out a second issue in the same week. They'd contacted their advertisers, pulled out all the backlogged restaurant and book and theater reviews and packed them into the back pages to fill out the count. Then they'd contacted their distributor for delivery of a Special Edition that would be four times their usual run.

All because of moi, he thought. I'm making this paper go.

"Awesome!" Beth said, lowering the paper and fixing those big brown eyes on him. " 'We're all alive today because of a criminal act.' Totally, totally awesome!"

"You like it? You think it was well written?"

Sandy hung on her answer. Beth admired him, she made love to him, but he wanted her respect, too.

"Absolutely! But it must have been so weird talking to him on the phone. I mean, he saved our lives. I wish 1 could remember what he looked like, don't you?"

The question put Sandy on alert, blunting his high. He'd been dying to tell Beth about his meeting with the Savior, and a couple of times last night he'd caught himself just as he'd been ready to blurt it out. He was afraid he'd explode if he didn't tell someone soon.

But he couldn't risk it. Not even with Beth. If she let it slip, he would come under relentless pressure. Maybe he could tell her later, after things cooled down a bit. Or maybe he'd save it for his book on the Savior; what a great hook to be able to reveal that he'd actually sat and talked face to face with the mystery man.

"What would you do if you could remember?" Sandy asked.

"You mean, like if someone hypnotized me and suddenly I could see his face?" Her eyes lit. "Hey! That might be something I could use in my film!"

She jumped to the cluttered table he used as a home desk and jotted a few lines on a pad.

"But if you could remember," he repeated, "what would you do?"

She looked at him. "Tell you the truth, I'm not sure. Yesterday I would have told the world. But just a few minutes ago, while you were out, I was channel surfing and came across To Kill A Mockingbird. I love black-and-white films and I've seen it at least two dozen times. It was the scene where Scout and Jem are attacked in the woods, and then someone they don't see kills their attacker. Turns out it's Boo Radley, but Atticus decides not to tell anyone because it would ruin Boo's life. And it hit me: maybe the Savior is like Boo Radley—an otherwise harmless recluse who jumped in when he was needed, but whose life would be ruined by publicity."

"This guy's not harmless," Sandy said. "And no way anybody's going to mistake him for a mockingbird."

"Maybe not, but…" Beth shrugged. "What's he sound like?"

"Like a regular guy. No real accent I could identify." No lie there. He glanced at his watch. "I'm expected at the office."

Sandy had decided to get down to The Light so he could bask in the buzz. He expected some of the other reporters, especially the older ones, to be jealous, but he hoped most everybody else would be happy for him. Another round of handshaking and backslapping would be in order. And this time, without an interview to write up, he could relax and enjoy it.

And leaving now also meant he wouldn't have to tell Beth more lies.

"Okay," Beth said. She gestured to his desk. "Do you mind if I use your computer to start the treatment for my film?"

"Sure." Sandy considered the chaos of notes, newspaper clippings, envelopes, folders, and CD cases that littered the surface. "If you can find the keyboard."

Beth giggled as she started to sift through the mess. "I'm sure it's in here somewhere." She lifted a manila envelope and peered inside. "This anything important?"

"Yes!" Sandy said, louder and quicker than he wished. He knew that folder: the remaining Savior printouts. He tried to laugh it off as he reached out with forced casualness and eased it from her hand. "Notes for an article I'm planning. My editor'll kill me if anything happens to them."

Beth looked mildly offended. "I wouldn't let anything happen to them."

"Only kidding." He crossed his arms, trapping the envelope against his thudding heart. "The place is yours. Really. Rearrange that stuff any way you want."

The Savior had been right. These printouts were a liability. Sandy's session with McCann yesterday had driven home how badly the detective wanted the Savior. If he got him, bye-bye exclusive.

No question—the printouts had to go. He couldn't see any further use for them anyway. If he ever needed another copy all he had to do was call up the Identi-Kit file from The Light's system and print it out.

Beth picked up the newspaper from the desk and stared again at the headline.

"I still can't believe how lucky we were that a man with his training was on that train and in that car with us. I used to think I'd love to meet him—you know, give him a hug and say thanks—but after reading this I'm not so sure."

"Why not?"

"Well, he doesn't exactly come across as the warm cuddly type."

"He's not." Sandy remembered the murderous look in the man's eyes. "In fact…" A vague impression had just congealed into a suspicion. He stood silent, trying to get a grip on it.

"What?" Beth said.

"I wonder how much of what he told me I should believe."

"You think he was lying?"

"Not completely. I'm pretty sure the part about being a Navy SEAL is true. I remember one of the cops on the scene saying things about the second shooter being well trained, but I don't know about doing secret work for government agencies. He hinted that he's involved in black ops and showing his face will blow his cover. But what if he's not undercover? What if he's hiding for another reason?"

"Such as?"

"Like he's a wanted man."

"If that's true, I hope they never catch him."

"Even if they did catch him I bet I could get him off."

"You? I think you're great and all, Sandy, but how on earth would you manage that?"

He grinned. "By mobilizing the people. The pen is mightier than the sword, my dear. Never underestimate the power of the press."

2

"This is our guy, Stan."

Not this again, Stan Kozlowski thought as he looked up from his bagel and shmear.

They'd returned to Moishe's this morning and were back at their usual table. His brother Joe was hidden behind The Light's screaming headlines, with only his hands visible. Both of them. Joe wasn't bothering to hide the scarred left this morning.

"Where's it say that?"

Joe lowered the paper. His dark eyes glittered in his puffy face. "Right here where he says he freelances for government agencies but can't say which ones or what he does for them."

"So?"

"Think about it, Stan." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "Maybe ATF traced the components of one of our little devices back to a point where they suspected us but couldn't make a case. So they hire this ex-SEAL to find our stash and blow it. That happens, what's the first thing the locals do? Call in ATF of course. Bang. They've got their case. Works for me."

Stan thought about that. He had a sense, what with how Waco took so long to go away, that ATF would be a bit shy about burning or blowing up buildings. But if the job was done by an outsider, someone who couldn't be connected to them…

"That would be illegal, Joe," he said, deadpan. "I refuse to believe that an agency of our government would stoop to something like that."

Joe smirked. "Yeah, of course. What was I thinking?"

"What are you thinking?"

Joe pulled a newspaper clipping from the breast pocket of his shirt and unfolded it on the table. Stan recognized the article from the other day—the eyewitness account. Joe stabbed a finger onto the photo of the writer.

"See this guy? Same one as talked to this fucking Savior in today's paper. What I'm thinking is I go hang around The Light offices and see what this microturd's up to."

"You mean follow him?" Sounded like a major waste of time.

"Yeah. Why not? Not like I got much else goin' on in the toilet I call my life these days."

Wasn't that the truth. For both of them.

And now that Stan thought about it, maybe this would be good for Joe. Even if he came up empty handed—as he most likely would—at least he'd be out and about instead of sitting in his chair in that litterbox apartment staring at the TV all day.

"Maybe I'll tag along," Stan said. "Just to keep you out of trouble."

He said it lightly, but he was dead serious. Joe was like a carelessly wired block of C-4 these days. No telling what might set him off.

3

"You look awful," Kate said to her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Pale, dark circles under her eyes… at least her eyes showed no signs of conjunctivitis. She'd been worried about adenoviruses lately, and that was a common symptom.

She checked her palm. The tiny puncture had healed. For a while, with the aches and malaise Kate had experienced two days after the wound, she'd feared she'd been infected with something. But today the aches were gone.

Not so the fatigue. The dreams had something to do with that, she was sure. Last night's had been the strangest by far. She'd spent the night flying over a landscape of coins—pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters, all the size of sports arenas, and all face down. And droning in her head a babble of voices, mostly unrecognizable except for Jeanette's and one that sounded like Holdstock's, drifting in and out, calling her name.

And then the dream had stopped.

Not too long afterward she'd heard Jeanette come in and go directly to her room.

And now here she was facing another morning feeling exhausted—physically, mentally, emotionally.

Part of her wanted to run. The emotional abuse from Jeanette—she'd found a way to make silence and indifference abusive—was almost more than Kate could stand. But she kept telling herself this was not Jeanette. Somehow her brain had been affected and her true self was crying to get out. The need to rescue the real Jeanette was the only thing keeping Kate here.

A buzzing sound… she opened the bathroom door. The vestibule bell. Someone down front wanted to get in. Jeanette had stopped answering bells of any sort—phones, doors—so Kate knew it was up to her.

Who on earth? she thought as she pressed the button and said, "Hello?"

"Kate, it's Jack. We need to talk."

Do we? she thought.

"Okay. Come up for coffee."

"Can you come down? We'll find an Andrews or something."

He sounded so serious. What was on his mind?

"Let me throw on some clothes."

Minutes later, dressed in jeans and a sweater, she stepped out of the stairwell into the building's lobby. Kate had left a note to Jeanette saying where she'd be. Not that Jeanette would care.

She found Jack, also in jeans but wearing a flannel shirt, waiting outside on the sidewalk. He didn't look too well rested himself. He stepped up to her and enfolded her in his arms.

"I know about you and Jeanette," he said in a low voice, "and it doesn't change a damn thing. You're my sister and I love you."

And suddenly Kate found her face pressed against his chest and she was crying—quaking with deep-rooted sobs. She tried to stop them but they kept coming.

"It's okay, Kate," he said. "Don't be afraid. I won't tell a soul."

She pushed free and wiped her eyes. "That's not why I'm crying. I'm glad you know. You can't imagine what a relief it is to stop hiding it from you, to come out tosomeone.'1''

"Oh… good. I spent half the night trying to figure the best way to word it. I didn't know how you'd react. I—"

She stretched up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. "You did just fine."

She clung to him a moment longer, almost dizzy with relief and lighter in heart than she'd felt in years.

"Let's walk," he said. "I'm not yet properly caffeinated."

"But just let me hear it again, Jack," she said as they ambled arm in arm toward Seventh. "Does my being a dyke really not change a thing for you or were you just trying to make me feel better?"

He made a face. "You're not a dyke."

"Sure I am."

"No. When I hear 'dyke' I see a fat broad in work clothes and boots with a bad haircut and a load of 'tude."

She laughed. "It doesn't mean superbutch anymore. It's what we call ourselves. As Jeanette says, 'We're taking back the word.'" Or what Jeanette used to say, Kate thought as a wave of sadness brought her down. "But you're not answering the question."

"Okay, the question seems to be since I lie about myself to just about everyone every day, how can you be sure I'm telling you the truth."

"Not at all—"

"Or is it about whether I'm one of those politically correct liberal types who knee-jerks to this sort of thing?"

Had she offended him?

"Jack—"

"So let's get a few things straight, Kate. I'm not PC and I'm not liberal—I'm not conservative or Democrat or Republican either. I operate on one principle: you own your own life, and that means you're free to do anything you want with that life so long as you don't interfere with other people's freedom to live their lives. It means you own your own body and you can do anything you want to it—pierce it, fill it with drugs, set it on fire—your call. Same with sex. As long as there's no force involved it's none of my business how you get off. I don't have to approve of it because it's not my life, it's yours. I don't have to understand, either. Which, by the way, I don't."

As he paused for breath Kate jumped in. "But that doesn't tell me how you feel."

"Feel? How does surprised and baffled sound? If you'd been a tomboy all your life and had never dated I could see it. But you had one boyfriend after another."

"Right. But no steady."

"Is that significant?"

"I didn't think so then, but 1 do now."

They found a little place on Seventh called The Greek Corner. She saw no one looking even vaguely Greek behind the counter, but the coffee smelled good. They took a table in a largely deserted glassed-in bump-out that would have been a solar oven if the sun had been out.

Jack sighed. "To tell the truth, Kate, I don't understand same-sex attraction. I know it exists and I accept that, but it's alien to me. I'm not wired for it. And then, of all people, you."

"You can't be more surprised than I was, Jack. But it's here. It's me. And there doesn't seem to be a darn thing I can do about it."

"But how? When? Where? Why? Help me here, Kate. I'm completely at sea."

"I'm still trying to figure it out for myself, Jack. You want to know when? When I knew? I'm not sure. Gay guys seem to know much earlier. With women it's not so easy. We're much more fluid in our sexuality—not my term, something I read. But it's true. We're much more intimate with each other. Sure I liked boys when I was a teenager. I liked dating, being courted, pursued. I even liked the sex. But you know what I liked more? Pajama parties."

Jack covered his eyes. "Don't tell me there were teenage lesbian orgies going on just a few feet down the hall from my bedroom and I didn't know."

Kate gave him a gentle kick under the table. "For crying out loud, Jack. Cool it, okay? Nothing ever happened. But there was a lot of contact—the pillow fights, the tickling, the laughing, the sleeping three to a mattress, two to a bedroll. Back then that was all considered normal teenage behavior for girls, but not for guys."

"I'll say."

"And it was normal for me. I loved the closeness to the other girls, the intimacy, and maybe I loved it more than the others, but I never connected it with sex."

"When did that happen?"

"When did I know I was a dyke?"

Jack drew in a breath. "That word again."

"Get used to it. I found out about two years ago."

"Two years? You mean you never once…?"

"Well, in France—you remember my junior year abroad—"

"I missed you terribly."

"Did you? That's nice to know. I had no idea."

"Big boys don't cry."

"And that's a shame, isn't it. But anyway, I had an 'almost' or a 'pretty near' experience there but never gave it much thought afterwards because things are different in France. You remember that Joni Mitchell song, 'In France They Kiss On Main Street'?"

"Vaguely."

"Well, it's true. In France the girls kiss on main street—straight girls. They kiss, they hug, they walk down the street hand in hand, arm in arm. It's just a natural thing there."

It's February and her name's Renee, dark hair, dark mysterious eyes, tall, long-limbed and, at twenty-two, a year older. She's invited Kate to her family's country place in Puy-de-Dome for the day. The two of them are wandering one of the adjacent fields, talking, Renee so patient with Kate's halting French, when it begins to pour. They're drenched and half frozen by the time they reach the empty house. They strip off their sodden clothes, wrap themselves in a huge quilt, and huddle shivering before the fire.

Renee's right arm snakes around Kate's shoulders and pulls her closer… for extra warmth, she says.

And that's good because Kate wonders if she'll ever feel warm again.

Your skin is so cold, Renee says. And she starts to rub Kate's back… to warm her skin.

And it works. Only a few rubs and Kate is flushed and very warm. She returns the favor, sliding her hand up and down Renee's smooth back, her skin as soft as a baby's. Renee's long arm stretches to where her hand can rub Kate's flank, stretches farther still until it reaches her breast. Kate gasps at the electric sensation of Renee's finger's caressing her nipple and holds her breath as lips nuzzle her neck and the hand trails down along her abdomen. She feels as if something deep inside her is going to burst—

And then the sound of tires on the gravel outside—Renee's mother and little brother, back from the market with the makings for tonight's dinner. The spell shatters with shock and then a mad laughing dash to Renee's room where she lends Kate some clothes to wear until her own are dry. They go down to greet Renee's mother… and neither of them ever speaks of that afternoon again.

"What 'almost' happened?" Jack said.

"The details aren't important. It all receded into my subconscious—or maybe it was pushed, I'm not sure which—but the end point was that when I allowed myself to remember it, I looked on it as nothing more than an interesting but anomalous event. After all, I was free, white, and almost twenty-one, and it was the seventies when it was cool to experiment. I saw it as a brush with lesbianism but I knew I wasn't a lesbian. I moved on."

"To medical school."

"Where I met Ron. He was a good-looking, sensitive man and we had so much in common—middle-class backgrounds, similar families, both headed for medical careers. And he was crazy about me so it seemed a perfect match. I loved him, maybe not as much as he loved me, but there was a genuine attraction there and getting married was what was expected of me. So that's what I did. Ron's a good guy. A lot of formerly married women who've come out can tell horror stories about abusive relationships. I don't have that. I can't say I finally came out because I was mistreated. If anything, I mistreated him."

"As I heard it from Dad, he cheated on you."

"And I don't blame him. After Elizabeth was born I lost interest in sex. It's not that unusual, at least on a temporary basis, but for me it went on and on. Ron and I had a good marriage for a long time. I was a good wife and he was a good husband. But as the years went by, I kept feeling less and less fulfilled. That's a terrible word, but it's the only one that fits. Something was missing, Jack, and I didn't know what it was. Until I met Jeanette."

"You mean Sybil."

"Please don't do that, Jack," she said, feeling a flush of anger. "You didn't know her before this virus thing. She's the most exhilarating person I've ever met."

"All right. I'm sorry. You're right. I only know the Moony version of Jeanette. But still, is she worth all this turmoil in your life?"

"Jack, you can't imagine what I was like. I was no fun. Seeing my patients and doing okay as a mother, but I wasn't cutting it at all as a wife. Ron's a good man, and he was a considerate lover, but no matter what he did, it wasn't right. And I wasn't giving Ron what he needed, so finally he went elsewhere. I don't blame him, but he blames himself. And that breaks my heart. We'd been best friends. He thinks he broke up our marriage, but really, it was me."

"You, or Jeanette?"

"I didn't meet her until after Ron and I were separated. My pedi-atric group had decided to computerize and I knew nothing about com-puters—Ron was into them and so were the kids, but somehow the things never appealed to me. I figured I'd better get up to speed, so when I saw an ad for a computer course at the local Marriott designed for women novices, I signed up."

"Let me guess: Jeanette was the instructor."

"She moonlights from her programming job to do stints with a firm that runs seminars all over the country. She designed her own course, aimed strictly at female computerphobes. It's a bit of a cause for her, so women won't be relegated to the sidelines during the digital revolution."

Kate felt her throat tighten at the memory.

"You should have seen her, Jack. She was wonderful. Took control of the room with her presence. She kept it light but we could sense how she truly cared. And she was so funny, Jack. Hard to believe from what you've seen, I know, but she cracked us up with tales from the days when she worked for a computer problem hotline."

"Was there some sort of instant chemistry?"

"I couldn't take my eyes off her. She tended to wear tennis shirts and slacks and sandals; her hair was shorter then—she looked more butch than now, but at the time I chalked that up to computer geekiness. I wouldn't say I was in love, but when the class was over that first night, I was so captured by her I couldn't bear the thought of leaving her and going home. I wanted more. I approached her and asked if she gave private lessons…"

Jeanette gives her a long look, a little half smile gently twisting her lips.

"Lessons in what?"

"Why, um, computer lessons." What a question. "I need some sort of accelerated course."

"Why don't we discuss it over dinner?"

Kate loves the idea. The kids are home; she left them money for a pizza delivery. A hot meal with this fascinating woman is so much more enticing than snacking alone on a leftover slice or two when she gets home. She'll just have to let them know that she's going to be a little later than she'd planned.

"Sounds good," she tells Jeanette. "I just have to make a call first."

They settle on the Italian restaurant right in the hotel. Jeanette starts with a light beer while Kate has a Manhattan. Jeanette protests when Kate orders a veal dish so she settles for spaghetti puttanesca. Over the meal, during which they split a bottle of Chianti, Jeanette does a lot of asking and Kate does a lot of answering.

When they're through she invites Kate up to her room where they can use her laptop to determine how much she knows and how much tutoring she's going to need. Wonderful idea. Kate's feeling so warm and relaxed and comfortable with this woman that she doesn't want the night to end yet.

She steps into Jeanette's room, dark except for the glowing screen saver on the laptop. She starts forward but never reaches it. Hands grip her upper arms, turn her around, soft lips find hers. Kate stiffens, instinctively begins to recoil, then gives in to those lips. Jeanette's hands move from her shoulders to the buttons of Kate's blouse, tugging at them, freeing them, slipping the fabric off her shoulders. She's insistent, will not be denied. And Kate has no will to deny her or to fight her rising heat, for a new sensation is filling Kate, something she's never fully experienced. Lust.

She lets Jeanette guide her to the bed, lets her take her on the flowered spread, and feels transported to a place she's never been before, another realm. And for the next two hours she has her first private lesson from Jeanette, but not in computers, as a patient, expert teacher tutors her in the ways of warmth and wetness.

"One thing led to another and… we became lovers. Then partners. And I began my double life. A very eligible divorcee in Trenton; half of a luppie couple here in New York."

"Luppie?" Jack said, then waved his hand. "Never mind. I just got it."

"Jeanette said her gaydar picked me out during class—she called me 'a Talbot's dyke'—but had no inkling that she'd be my first."

"But she's been good for you?" Jack asked, and she saw real concern in his eyes.

"I don't think I've ever been happier or felt more… whole. Jeanette has been wonderful to me and for me. She's so tuned in. She's been my guide into this world I barely knew existed, while I've smoothed some of her rough edges and taught her to take a longer view on some things."

After coffee and sweet rolls they left the Greek Corner and wandered up to the urban garden that defined this length of Sixth Avenue, the Flower District.

"Where do you go from here?" Jack said as they threaded through the foliage.

Potted greenery lined the curbs, everything from rubber plants to oversized ferns to small royal palms. The storefronts were riots of color—reds, yellows, blues, fuchsias—and behind them, inside, dimly glimpsed through condensation-layered glass, lay deep green pocket rain forests.

Last week Kate might have picked out some flowers for the apartment, but not today… not in a flower mood today.

"In two years, when Lizzie's off to college, I'll tell the kids and Ron. After that it won't take long for the news to leak to my patients, and then the you-know-what will hit the fan. I'll lose a fair share of them. Trenton may be the state capital but it's a small town at heart. People will decide they'd rather not bring their kids, especially their daughters, to a lesbian pediatrician. Especially when there are five other straight doctors in the same office. And that won't make my partners happy."

"So come to New York," Jack said, slipping his arm around her shoulder. "Lots of kids here whose parents won't care how you spend your off hours. And it'll be great having you close."

She leaned against him. "You can't imagine how much I appreciate being able to talk to you like this. And I'm sorry for going on so. Listen to me: the love that dare not speak its name cannot shut up. But I've had this bottled up for so long and I feel so… so alone right now."

"But you and Jeanette must have some friends. I mean, there's a huge gay community down here that—"

"Yes, but I'm a forty-four-year-old baby dyke who isn't out. That makes me a sort of pariah to the younger dykes, the grrrls, the twenty-somethings who've been out since their teens. They think we all should be out and eff anyone who doesn't like it."

"'Eff'?" Jack grinned. "Did you say 'eff'?"

"I always have trouble saying the F-word."

"That's because you're a square. Always were."

Kate sighed. She couldn't take offense. It was true.

"I'm still a square in so many ways. A square dyke—can you imagine? A walking, talking oxymoron. Born square, doomed to die from terminal squareness. It's just that I was always trying to set a good example—for you when we were growing up, and later for Kevin and Liz."

"And you did," he said softly. "Just as I'm sure you still do."

"I don't want to change the world or be part of a movement. I just want to be me. It's taken me so long to get to this point that I just want to relax and enjoy it. And I never cared what others thought as long as I had Jeanette. We're both a little old for the gay club scene; we'd have dinner at Rubyfruits once in a while, but mostly we cooked in and just enjoyed being with each other."

"No dressing up and going out on the town looking like Wild One Marlon Brandos?"

"Just being a vanilla dyke more than fills my deviancy quota."

"Don't call yourself a deviant."

"It means deviating from the norm. And that's what we dykes do."

"Can't help how you feel. Not as if you're hurting anyone."

"Not yet at least. But when I finally come out… who knows?" She shook her head. "All because of a chromosome… one lousy chromosome."

"There's a gay gene?"

"Maybe. But I'm talking about the Y-chromosome, the one that makes you male. We females have two X-chromosomes, but if I could change one chromosome, change just one of my X's to a Y, my feelings for Jeanette would be considered perfectly normal."

Jack gave a low whistle. "Jeez. You put it like that, what's all the fuss about?"

"Exactly. One chromosome. And if I had it, I wouldn't have all this terrible angst and dread about letting people know."

He grabbed her shoulder. "Just thought of something. Are you going to tell Dad?"

Kate shuddered. She had no idea how her father would react. She loved him. They'd always been close, but he had no idea. No lesbians in his world. What words could she use to tell him that his only daughter was one?

"I haven't decided whether he should be before or after the kids. Either way, that's when the you-know-what hits the fan."

"Would that be 'ess' hitting the fan, or doo-doo?"

Kate laughed and hugged Jack. "Both!"

She loved the man he'd become. What great luck running into him. And what a wonderful feeling to be out to him. It had been so easy.

She looked around and realized they were back at the Arsley. She almost dreaded going back upstairs and facing Jeanette. Who would she be today?

"Mind if I come up with you?" Jack said.

Does he read minds? she wondered.

"I'd like that."

She keyed her way through the front door but stopped Jack in the lobby. She had to make one thing absolutely clear to him.

"No one else can know what we've discussed this morning, Jack. Not till Kevin and Liz are both eighteen. It's not just for my sake but for theirs too."

"Okay, sure, but—"

"No buts about it, Jack. Ron doesn't know and I can't predict how he'll react. He's a good man and I think he'll be okay, but you never know. If he feels his masculinity has somehow been compromised, he may try to get back at me through the kids. We have joint custody now but he might sue, claiming that as a lesbian I'm an unfit parent—"

"No way."

"It happens all the time, Jack. The courts can be rough on lesbians. But even if Ron accepts it, what about Kevin and Liz? The news will sweep through their school in minutes, and you know how cruel kids can be. Adolescence is hard enough. I can't add that to the load. When they're both in college I'll sit them down and tell them. Until then I've got to stay in the closet. Just like you."

"Me?" He looked shocked. "What—?"

"Yes, you. You're leading a double life just like me. You've got one face you show to the public but then there's this other side, this Repairman Jack thing that you've been hiding all these years—from Dad, from Tom, from me, and I'm sure from the police, since you've as much as said some of what you do isn't exactly legal. You've got your own closet, Jack."

He stared at her a moment, then nodded. "Never thought of it that way but I guess I do. Except I can't come out of mine. Ever."

"You did to me."

He shook his head, raised a hand, and waggled his pinky finger.

"T opened the door a crack and showed you this much. The rest stays inside."

"Why?"

"Because my closet's way deeper and lots darker than yours."

She expected to see sadness in his eyes but found only flat acceptance. He'd made choices and he'd live with them.

Just as she'd live with hers.

4

Jeanette was not in sight when Jack and Kate came in.

"She might still be asleep," Kate said.

Jack hoped not. He wanted to see what mental shape Jeanette was in before he left Kate alone with her. He also wanted another look at this woman who meant so much to his sister. He couldn't help but see her differently now. She was no longer Kate's friend, she was her lover.

"Who's asleep?" Jeanette said, stepping out of her room with a mug in her hand.

She wore an Oberlin sweatshirt and cut-off shorts. Nice legs. Great quads. She definitely worked out.

"How are you feeling?" Kate asked.

Jeanette beamed. "Absolutely wonderful. How about you? And Jack. So good to see you again. How are you?"

Jack glanced at Kate, saw the tight line of her lips, and knew how she was feeling. They were in the presence of Mary Poppins without the accent. Or maybe the Stepford Dyke.

"Just fine," Jack said. "We had a walk and a talk."

"I'm out with Jack," Kate said. "He knows everything."

Jeanette glided into the kitchen. "Isn't that nice." She placed her mug into the microwave and began punching buttons. "Not that it's going to matter."

Kate looked as if she'd been slapped. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing." Her smile broadened. "And everything."

She punched the START button and her grin died. Slack-faced and staring, she swayed.

"Jeanette?" Kate started forward.

Jeanette began mumbling, slowly, extracting the words like corks from wine bottles. "Kate… I… we… no… Kate, I'm almost gone. Can't hold out—"

And then the microwave oven chimed.

And Jeanette blinked and regained her smile as abruptly as she'd lost it.

"What?" Jeanette said. "Why are you staring?"

"You had another of those spells," Kate said.

"Don't be silly." She removed her reheated cup from the microwave and took a sip. "Mmmm."

"Jeanette—" Kate began as Jeanette brushed by her on her way out of the kitchenette, but Jeanette cut her off.

"Any plans for today, Kate?" She plopped herself in the rocking chair and smiled.

As Kate began another attempt at convincing Jeanette to make an appointment with Dr. Fielding, Jack stared at the microwave. Wasn't sure, but thought he remembered Jeanette having her 'spell' last night while Kate was nuking the dip. And now while reheating her coffee.

Could microwaves trigger these spells? Didn't know a lot about them, but if people with pacemakers were supposed to keep their distance, who knew what other effects they might have?

"Anyone mind if I make myself a cup of coffee?" he announced to the room.

Kate gave him an odd look and he knew what she was thinking: after all the coffee he'd drunk at the Greek place he should be floating.

But Jeanette said, "Sure, be my guest."

Found a mug, filled it with water, and stuck it inside the oven. This gave him a chance to look it over. Noticed the door wobbled on its hinges, and he found a crack in the lower right corner of the glass. Had it been dropped at some time?

Closed the door, set it for five minutes on high, and punched START. As it hummed to life he turned to Jeanette.

Nothing. She sat in the front room sipping and rocking and shaking her head no to everything Kate was suggesting.

So much for that theory.

But wait. Jeanette had been standing in the kitchen both times. Proximity could be a factor.

Hit the STOP button.

"Something wrong here," he said. "The microwave won't stay on."

"Sometimes the door doesn't catch," Jeanette said. "Make sure it's closed all the way."

Jack made a show of opening and closing the door, and pretended to press START.

"Nope. Still won't go."

"Men!" Jeanette said with an exasperated sigh as she rose from her chair. "You're only good for one thing."

Jack stepped aside to allow her to reach the microwave. "And what's that?"

"Procreation."

Weird thing for a lesbian to say. Wasn't breeder a derogatory term among gays?

Watched her press START.

She dropped her cup, splashing Jack's ankles with hot coffee, and now her face had that slack look again, and she started mumbling.

"No… yes… this helps… what are you…"

"Jeanette!" Kate cried, rushing into the kitchen area. "It's happening again!"

"Easy, Kate."

She grabbed Jeanette's hand. "What's happening?"

"It's the microwave oven. Seems to have some effect on her."

"Then turn it off!"

"No," Jeanette gasped. "Leave… it on."

"Listen to her, Kate. It's a good effect. Like it's snapping her out of whatever spell she's under."

"The virus," Jeanette said. "The virus…"

"What about the virus?" Kate gripped Jeanette's shoulders and gently rotated her until they were face to face. "Tell me."

Jack retreated a step. Three people strained the tiny kitchen's occupancy limit. Let Kate handle it. She was the doctor.

Jeanette's tone changed—same voice, but suddenly more focused. "We do not want to speak of this."

"What do you mean, 'we'?"

Fractured again: "Wasn't me… don't listen to them. It's the virus… changing us."

"Changing you how?"

"My brain… our brains… reaching critical mass…" Another shift in tone. "No! We will not speak of this!"

Jeanette squeezed her eyes shut, seemed to be making a heroic effort to exert control. Might have been funny on a stage or in a comedy club, somebody doing a parody of a bad horror film about demonic possession or warring multiple personalities, but the fear-sweat streaming from Jeanette's pores was real. Jack sensed a once indomitable personality clawing for a fingerhold on her identity and his heart went out to her. He wanted to help her but hadn't a clue as to how.

"Tell me, Jeanette!" Kate said. "What's happening to you?"

"Eaten… eaten alive. Every minute… every second… less of me… more of them."

"Jeanette, that sounds so—"

The microwave went ding! Jeanette stiffened, blinked.

Damn! Jack quickly reached around Kate, punched another ten minutes into the oven and got it running again.

"E pluribus unum! E pluribus unum! E pluribus unum!…"

She kept repeating the phrase and Jack couldn't be sure which Jeanette was responsible. It seemed like a prayer, or a mantra, something you might repeat endlessly to drown out a sound or a frightening thought.

"Jeanette!" Kate still had hold of her shoulders and was shaking her. "Jeanette, stop that and listen to me!"

But she kept droning the same damn phrase.

And then Jack turned at the sound of the door opening and saw Holdstock rush into the room.

"What's going on here!" the pudgy man cried. He wore a gray, three-piece suit; his face was flushed and sweaty, as if he'd been running. "What are you doing to her?"

"Hey-hey!" Jack said, stepping toward him and straight-arming him to a stop. "Where do you get off barging in here?"

"I have a standing invitation," he puffed. He held up a key. "See? More than you have, I'm sure."

He tried to slip past, but Jack wasn't about to let that happen. He grabbed him by his suit vest.

"Whoa, pal. Just stay where you are."

And behind Jack the "e pluribus unum" chant continued.

"You take your hands off me! And stop torturing that woman or I'll call the police!"

"Will you?" Jack said. "I wonder."

But the threat did hold weight for Jack. Last thing he wanted was a couple of cops at the door.

"Let me go to her! Please!"

"Let him, Jack," Kate said. "Maybe he can explain what this is about."

Jack released Holdstock who lunged past him toward Jeanette.

"Listen to her," Kate said as Holdstock neared. "Do you have any idea what that means?"

"Of course," he said.

But instead of explaining he reached past Kate and unplugged the microwave.

"Hey!" Jack said as the chant stopped.

Jeanette sagged against Kate, then straightened and pushed away.

"What…? Where…?"

"It's all right, dear," Holdstock said, guiding her from the kitchen. "I'm here now."

"Get your hands off her," Jack said.

"Should I take my hands off you, Jeanette?" Holdstock said.

"No. No, of course not."

"You're coming with me," he told her, steering her toward the door. "It's not healthy for you here."

"Not so fast," Jack said, blocking their way.

Jeanette glared at Jack. "You! You're an enemy! You're evil! Get out of my house!"

"Jeanette!" Kate said. "Please!"

"I want you to stay, Kate," she said, keeping her eyes fixed on Jack, "but if your brother is here when I come back, I'm calling the police."

Jack didn't move. His gut told him he shouldn't let her go—for her sake—but if she said she wanted to leave, he couldn't see he had much choice but to let her.

Reluctantly he stepped aside. But only a little. Just enough to let them squeeze by.

As Holdstock brushed past, one arm around Jeanette's shoulders, Jack felt something sharp scrape against the back of his hand. He glanced down and saw a fine scratch. How had that happened? Hold-stock's near hand had been in his coat pocket as he'd passed.

He shrugged. Nothing serious. Probably just a pin from a cleaning tag. Barely bleeding.

He turned to Kate and found her still standing in the kitchen, a lost, confused look on her face.

"What just happened here?" she said.

"Damned if I know. You're the doctor. Have you ever seen anything like that?"

"Never."

"Has to be the microwaves. But I know as much about microwaves as I do about string theory."

"I know they're a form of radiation—non-ionizing radiation. Depending on the wavelength, they're used for everything from radar to cell phones to cooking. But I can't believe Jeanette has a personality change anytime she gets near a microwave oven."

Jack took Kate's hand and brushed her fingers over the crack in the glass on the oven door.

"This microwave oven happens to leak."

Kate shook her head. "I still don't understand…"

"I've got a whole list of things I don't understand about this. And Holdstock is high on it. You told me he showed up right after Jeanette's first personality change, right? And now he pops in again. You think he's got the place bugged?"

Kate rubbed her upper arms. "Don't say that. I've read articles about people becoming ill from exposure to microwave snooping devices."

"A couple of months ago I spent a whole weekend with a group of paranoids who had crazy stories about any subject you could name. Among them were tales about CIA and KGB experiments using microwaves for mind control. Maybe they're not so paranoid."

"You're giving me the creeps."

"And what was she saying about the virus changing her brain? You think that could be?"

Kate looked miserable. "Jack, I don't know. It doesn't seem possible. It's an adenovims. Even mutated I can't imagine an adenovirus changing someone's brain."

Microwaves, multiple personalities, mutated viruses—Jack felt as if he'd stepped off a ledge into an underwater canyon.

"Maybe not, but I think the guy to contact is Fielding. I don't know about you, but this is way out of my league. Maybe you'd better get back to him."

"I'll do that right now."

"And while you doctor-talk with him, I'm going to run an errand. Be back in no time."

Jack had an idea he wanted to try. But he'd need some hardware first.

5

Sandy sat at his desk in a daze. This had to be the greatest morning of his life. He still couldn't believe the reception when he'd walked into the press room two hours ago—cheers and a standing ovation. George Meschke had met him in the middle of the floor to shake his hand and tell him that his edition—yes, they'd called it his edition—had been selling out all over the city.

And now his voicemail. He'd just finished listening to the last of nine messages. People he hadn't heard from in years—a former roommate, old classmates, even one of his journalism professors—had called to congratulate him. What next?

"Hi, Sandy."

He looked up and blinked. Patrice Rawlinson, the perpetually tanned silicone blonde from the art department. Sure, she was faked and baked, but with those painted-on dresses she was everyone's dream babe.

He struggled for a reply. "Oh, uh, hi."

Brilliant.

In the past when he'd said hello to her in the halls she'd always looked through him. A real Ralph Ellison moment. But now she'd come to him. She'd walked that gorgeous body all the way to his cubicle and spoken words to him. She'd said his name.

"I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your interview with the Savior. I hung on every word. That must have been so exciting to talk to him."

"It was." Please don't say anything stupid, he told himself. "It's a moment every journalist dreams of."

"You've got to tell me all about it sometime."

"Gladly."

"Give me a buzz when you're free."

And with that she swayed off. Sandy resisted sticking his head outside his cubicle for an extended look at her, as he'd done so many times in the past. He was above that now.

"Tell me that wasn't Patrice's voice I just heard," said Pokorny from somewhere on the far side of the partition.

"It was, my man. It most certainly was."

Pokorny groaned. "I'm going to kill myself."

Does it get any better than this? Sandy thought, grinning.

No. It was positively intoxicating. Like a drug. And just as addicting. He didn't want to let this go. Couldn't. He needed more, a steady fix.

But what next? He couldn't let this be the pinnacle of his career—talk about peaking too soon! He had to come up with something equal or better. And the only thing he knew for sure that would fit that bill was another interview with the Savior.

But what was left to cover in a second interview? Rehashing the same old material wouldn't cut it.

But what if I challenge the initial material? he wondered.

He suspected that some of it wasn't true. In fact the more he thought about it, the surer he became that the Savior wasn't doing undercover work for the government. That was a little too glamorous, a little too Hollywood.

So what other reasons could he have to stop him from stepping forward to be acclaimed as a hero?

And then he remembered his earlier conversation with Beth. He'd been blue-skying with her but—

Sandy slammed his hand on his desktop. Christ, I bet that's it! The man has a criminal record. He's a fugitive! Some sort of felon with a warrant out for his arrest. And that's why he was armed!

He had his next hook: get the Savior to talk about his crime. Maybe he was an innocent victim, on the run because of a crime he didn't commit—

No, stop. You're getting Hollywood again.

Maybe he'd committed just one crime, or maybe he wasn't bad all the way through. He certainly did the right thing on the train. Maybe…

And then it all came together, driving Sandy to his feet, gasping like a fish out of water. He had it! A fabulous idea!

He fumbled a slip of paper from his pocket—the phone number the Savior had given him. He reached for his phone, then stopped.

No. No calls from here. Somewhere he was sure the paper kept a record of all outgoing numbers. Better a public phone.

Sandy hurried for the street. He was a man on fire, a man with a mission. He was going to do something wonderful, something that would repay the mystery man for saving his life. Talk about advocacy journalism! He'd be pulling off a journalistic coup to make today's story look like a weather report. Not just your common everyday, run-of-the-mill journalistic coup—the journalistic coup of the new century!

Can you spell Pulitzer?

6

Jack struck out at a hardware store and an appliance store, but finally found what he wanted at the Wiz. On his way back to Jeanette's apartment he stopped at a pay phone to check his messages. He groaned aloud when he heard Sandy Palmer's voice.

"Good morning, 'Jack.' Yeah, like I'm supposed to believe that's your real name."

Jack? How did he know—?

And then Jack remembered: the outgoing message on his voicemail began, "This is Jack…" He'd forgot all about that. Not that it mattered. Palmer thought it was phony anyway.

"Listen, we have to talk again. I've come up with an idea that's going to transform your life. We've got to meet. And don't blow this off, because what I've got to say to you is vitally important. Another reason you shouldn't blow me off is I've still got the drawing. Now don't get me wrong, because I don't want you to think I'm trying to blackmail you, but I'm pretty sure you weren't completely straight with me the other day—about your past, that is—so I don't feel bound by our little agreement to destroy the drawing. But we can let bygones be bygones and straighten all this out with one little meeting. Call and tell me where and when. And trust me, Jack, or whatever your name is, you'll be ever so glad you did."

He left his number and extension at the paper.

Jack slammed the receiver against the phone box. Then did it again. And again.

Now I don't want you to think I'm trying to blackmail you…

What else am I supposed to think, you rotten little bastard?

He had this frenzied urge to get his hands around Palmer's pencil neck and squeeze until…

Easy. Step back. Look at it again…

But short of killing the kid, Jack saw no quick and easy way to take command of the situation. Palmer controlled the deck. Jack would have to play it his way. For now.

He called Palmer's number and extension. With an effort he kept his voice low and even when he reached his voicemail.

"Same place. Noon."

Then he hung up.

He'd cooled a little by the time he reached Jeanette's apartment, but his mood was still cooking over a low flame.

Kate took one look at him and said, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing to do with this."

"Need to share?"

Jack considered that, almost gave in to the urge to tell her, but decided against it. The fewer who knew, the better.

"I'll be all right. But thanks." He opened his Wiz bag and produced a little white gizmo. "Looky. A microwave tester."

He set the oven for five minutes and started it, then ran the little tester along the edges of the door. The indicator started flashing red immediately and went into high gear when he reached the lower right corner with the cracked glass.

"That confirms it. Leaky oven." He hit the off switch. "How dangerous is that?"

"I did a search on Jeanette's computer while you were out."

"I'd think a doctor would know all about microwaves."

"Why? I haven't found a use yet for radar in my practice."

"Radar?"

"That's why the first microwave ovens were called radar ranges. Microwaves are radiofrequency radiation—somewhere below infrared and above UHF in the frequency spectrum."

That meant nothing to Jack. "I know they're used for cell phone transmission. But what's the downside—besides brain tumors?"

"That's never been proven, and it seems unlikely since it's non-ionizing radiation. The main effect is heat. The guy who discovered the microwave oven was playing with different frequencies, looking for new radar applications, when he melted the candy bar in his shirt pocket."

"A true 'Eureka!' moment."

"I suppose so. The ovens work by causing vibrations in water molecules, creating heat. The strength of the transmitter and the frequency of the waves determine the depth of penetration and the amount of heat generated. The best documented ill effects in humans are cataracts and sterilized testicles."

Jack stepped away from the oven. "But no brain tumors."

"Not a one. But my search popped up lots of hits involving central nervous system effects—everything from memory loss to mind control. I don't know how factual they are though."

"So if this virus is having an effect on Jeanette's brain—"

"Which is the heart of the central nervous system."

"—maybe the microwaves disrupt that."

"But what about Holdstock? He was dosed with the virus too, but he walked right up to the oven and turned it off."

"Right. Forgot about that. Damn. So much for that theory."

"Pretty far-fetched anyway."

"Lot of far-fetched stuff going down these days," he said, thinking back on the events of the last couple of months. "And remember, I didn't come up with the virus-taking-over idea. That was Jeanette's."

"Well, rest assured, there's no virus taking over Jeanette's mind. But she might believe there is."

"Maybe that's the engine driving the Holdstock cult—some sort of shared delusion."

"You may have something there."

"Yeah, well, whether I do or not, it's something for the NIH boys to handle, not me. Did you call Fielding?"

Kate's face clouded as she nodded. "Yes. He said not to worry. He's been in contact with them daily and what seem like interminable delays are simply the normal bureaucratic process."

"Why do I get the feeling you don't believe that?"

"Because he seemed so nervous. I could almost hear him sweating."

"Well, his reputation and his career could be at stake."

"Because of a mutation? I don't see how. I think I'm going to call NIH myself and see what I can find out."

"Good idea. And while you're doing that, I've got to meet the press."

"Sorry?"

"Long story."

Kate smiled at him. "Do you know how many times you've said that over the last few days?"

"Too many, probably. Someday soon we'll sit down together and I'll tell you a few of them if you want." A select few, he thought.

"I'd like that very much," she said.

"Then it's a date. But for now I've got to run. Call you later."

7

"Aw, shit," Joe said. "The kid's going for a walk in the park."

"Maybe he is, maybe he isn't," Stan told his brother in a soothing tone. Joe was as twitchy and fidgety as he'd ever seen him. Like he had roaches crawling all over his skin.

They'd hung around outside The Light offices all morning, watching for this reporter, this Sandy Palmer guy. They didn't even know if he was in the building, so they called inside and got him on the phone. That settled, they waited. He finally came out around 11:30 and ducked into the subway. Guy could have been going home, out for a haircut, or to visit his mama. No way to know. But wherever he was going, Joe insisted on following. The reporter had jumped on the Nine so they did the same. On the outside chance he might be on the lookout for a tail, they'd split up—Joe in the car ahead of him, Stan in the one behind. Stan noticed Joe keeping his left hand in his pocket the whole time. The kid ever saw that, Joe would be tagged; he'd have to back off and let Stan do the tail solo.

When the reporter got off at Seventy-second, Stan thought he might simply be returning to the scene of the crime. But no, he headed straight for the stairs.

Topside, Stan and Joe each took a different side of the street and gave him a block lead as he headed west along Seventy-first. Waste of effort. The kid was in his own world, loping along without a single look back.

Stan had joined up with Joe at the corner of Riverside Drive where they hung back as the reporter ambled into the park.

Stan tried to show Joe the bright side.

"This might be something. If you remember, we set up quite a few meetings in parks in our day."

Joe rubbed his stubbled chin. "Come to think of it, I do. So how do we work this?"

Stan surveyed the landscape. Riverside Drive ran at a higher level, bordered on its west flank by a low wall overlooking the greenery that sloped away below it.

"We split," Stan said. "You take the high road and I'll take the low road—"

"And I'll be in wherever-it-is before ya."

"Scotland. Keep your cell phone on and I'll call you if I think he's made me or I see him heading back up to the street. Then you pick him up and—"

"Shut up!" Joe hissed. He grabbed Stan's arm, his fingers digging in like claws. "There he is!"

"Who? Where?"

"Over there. Two blocks down. See him? In the baseball cap, leaning on the wall, watching the park."

Stan saw an average-looking guy. Nothing striking about him. Looked relaxed as all hell, taking a little fresh air while killing some time.

"You think that's our guy? Could be anybody."

Joe hadn't moved a muscle. His eyes were fixed on the baseball cap like a dog on point.

"It's him, Stan. I see him in my dreams, and I've been dreaming of this moment. You don't know how I've been dreaming of this moment." His breath rasped through his teeth. "The fucker! The fucker!"

"Easy, Joe. We've got to be sure. We—"

"I'm sure. God damn fuck am I sure! Know what he's doing? He's casing the park, watching this reporter make his entrance and checking him for a tail. If you'd gone down there he'd've spotted you and that would've queered it all. He disappears and the meet is off. But he's a dumb fuck. Figures if someone's tailing the reporter, whoever it is doesn't know what he looks like. Thinks he's sittin' safe and pretty up there with his bird's-eye view. But we know what he looks like, don't we, Stan. We know."

The longer Joe talked and the longer Stan looked, the more familiar this guy at the wall became. Stan was almost afraid to believe it was him, afraid he'd fool himself because he so very much wanted it to be him. Not as much as Joe, maybe, but still, some heavy debts cried out for payment—with tons of vig.

"You know, Joe… I think you might be right."

Joe was still staring. A heat-seeking missile that had found its target.

"Course I'm right." He reached into his jacket pocket. "I'm doin' him, Stan. Gonna splatter his IQ all the way to the river then take his head home as a souvenir! Make a soup bowl out of his skull and eat from it every fucking night!"

Stan gripped his brother's arm before he could pull his .38. The area was crawling with people.

"Too many witnesses, Joe," he said quickly. "What good's doing him if it's going to land us in the joint? Like you said before, we've got to send a message here. This is the guy that blew up our stash, our cash, and our reps. We got to do him in kind. Blow him to hell. A public blow. And then we can say, remember that guy who got blown to chili con carne back in June? That was the guy who blew our farm and wrecked Joe's hand. We found him and did him. Did him good."

He felt Joe's arm relax as he nodded, still staring at the guy.

"Yeah. All right. And not just him, but him and everything he owns and everyone around him. You don't mess with the K Brothers."

Stan knew it would never be the same. They'd never completely salvage their reps, but at least they'd have evened some of the score. That counted for something.

"How you want to handle this?"

"He's looking for someone tailing the reporter. But we'll be tailing him. We find out where he lives, then we do him. And no waitin' around, Stan. We do him tonight!"

8

Sandy checked his watch: 12:30. He'd been wandering around the park for half an hour now. The message had said same place, noon. The noon was clear enough. And Sandy had assumed "same place" meant same bench. So he'd waited there for a while, but no Savior. He wondered if he should call the Savior "Jack." He didn't know if that was his real name, but it was better than the Savior.

After fifteen minutes on the bench he'd got up and wandered around. Maybe "same place" had meant the park in general. But another fifteen minutes of trudging up and down a ten-block length had yielded no sign of the man.

Looked like he'd been stood up. What now? He'd threatened the Savior with the drawing, told him he hadn't got rid of them. Not true. He'd torn them up and flushed them down a toilet in one of The Light's men's rooms. But he could print out another from the computer in minutes if he wanted to. But did he want to?

He remembered what Beth had said about To Kill a Mockingbird. Did he have a right to drag Boo Radley into the spotlight just for a story?

But the analogy didn't hold. He was here to do the Savior a favor—the biggest favor of his life.

Sandy checked his watch again. He'd give him another fifteen minutes, then—

"Hey!"

Sandy jumped, looked up, looked around—the Savior stood by a tree twenty feet away. He cocked his head down the slope toward the highway.

"Wait a minute or two," he said, "then meet me in the underpass."

Sandy watched him walk off, waited the requisite time, then followed. He found him waiting in the shadows of a concrete arch that supported a short span of the West Side Highway. Noise from the traffic above rumbled through the space.

"Look," Sandy said, approaching him, "before we go any further I just want to say—"

The Savior held up his hand for silence and scanned the park behind Sandy.

"If you're worried about my being followed, I wasn't."

"Probably right," he said. "Didn't see anyone tail you into the park, but you can never be sure about these things."

After a moment of narrow-lidded surveillance, he turned to Sandy. "What's the story, Palmer? We gonna play games, is that it? I thought we had an understanding: you get your interview, I never hear from you again."

He sounded pissed, and had a right to be, but Sandy had figured the best way to play this was not to allow himself to be put on the defensive.

"No games," he said. "I just don't think you were playing straight with me. I don't think you're working for the government, and I'm not so sure you were ever a Navy SEAL, either."

"True or not, what's the difference? You got your story, the paper's selling out—"

"How do you know that?"

His mouth twisted. "Had to go to three newsstands before I found a copy. Which means your bosses must be happy. You're a big shot now. Where's your gripe?"

Sandy resisted the urge to wipe his moist palms on his pants. This was a dangerous man and he had to be careful how he spun this. He'd mentally rehearsed his spiel for the last hour. Now it was show time.

"No gripe at all. It's just that I figured out the real reason you don't want your face in the papers, why you don't want anyone to know your name: you're a wanted man."

Bingo. The Savior had been scanning the park again, but when he blinked and stared at Sandy, he knew he'd struck pay dirt.

"You're nuts."

"Hear me out. I figure it had to be a felony. A misdemeanor wouldn't put you into hiding. So you're either wanted for a crime or you've jumped bail or escaped prison."

"Got it all figured out, don't you."

Sandy shrugged. "What else can it be?"

"Should have known I couldn't fool you." The Savior shook his head and looked away. "The orphan part is true, but I made up the part about the cop telling me to join the army or go to jail. I've been in and out of trouble most of my life. Got picked up after knocking over a liquor store."

"A liquor store…" Sandy was afraid to ask the next question. "No one was shot, were they?"

"Nah. I just flashed a starter pistol. But that didn't matter; got charged with armed robbery. Couldn't plea down. I was only nineteen at the time. I wasn't going up for that, so I jumped bail and I've been on the run ever since."

"Are you wanted for anything else?"

The Savior didn't answer immediately. He was staring past Sandy again. Finally he pursed his lips and said, "Shit. Move back."

"What?"

He shoved him against the sloping concrete wall of the underpass.

"Back!"

Sandy turned to see this guy about his own age in cut-offs and a T-shirt and a scraggly attempt at a beard racing a crummy looking bike full tilt down the slope toward the underpass. He clutched a gray handbag and kept looking over his shoulder.

His eyes widened as he entered the underpass and saw that it was occupied, but the Savior gave him a friendly, reassuring wave and said, "Hey, how's it goin'?"

"Not bad," the guy panted.

Then a lot of things happened quickly, too quickly for Sandy to process fully. Suddenly the Savior was moving, taking a quick step forward and kicking the bike's rear wheel. The guy lost control, hit the curb, and went flying over the handle bars. Sandy watched in shock as the Savior kept moving, following the man as he sailed toward the pavement, leaping as he landed chest first, and landing with his heels driving into the guy's upper back. The muffled crunch of breaking bones turned Sandy's stomach, as did the man's scream of pain.

What the fuck? Sandy thought.

"That was my mother back there!" the Savior shouted. He crouched beside the writhing man who was trying to rise but couldn't seem to get his arms to work. "You just rolled my mother!"

"Aw, shit!" the guy said, his voice a faint wheeze.

"My mother!" he screamed, his face reddening.

"Didn't know, man!" he groaned, every syllable wrapped in pain. "Didn't mean nothin'!"

The Savior turned to Sandy, his eyes wild. "Your turn to be a hero," he said, pointing to the gray handbag beside the man. "Take that back to the old lady he knocked down back near the top of the slope. Tell her you found it on the grass."

Sandy could only stare, stunned.

"Come on, Palmer. Move! I'll meet you over by the basketball courts." He bent again over the fallen man and screamed, "My mother!"

"I know, man," the purse snatcher grunted. "I'm sorry… like really… sorry."

He gave Sandy another look, then trotted out the opposite end of the underpass, leaving Sandy alone with the stranger. Gingerly he stepped closer, picked up the handbag, then beat it back to the sunlight and the park.

The Savior's mother? Was she in the park? Was this her bag?

He spotted a cluster of people near the top of the slope and jogged toward them. An old woman sat on a bench in the center of the cluster, sobbing. Her knees and hands were scraped, her stockings torn.

"… just pushed me," she was saying. "I don't know where he went. I never saw him."

The Savior's mother… Sandy shook his head. Not likely. The old woman was black.

"Did you lose this?" Sandy said, edging into the circle around her.

She looked up and her tear-filled eyes widened. "My bag!"

"Where'd you get that?" said a beefy guy, eyeing Sandy suspiciously.

Sandy handed the bag to the woman, then jerked a thumb over his shoulder and stuck to the story.

"I was walking down by the highway and found it."

"Everything's here!" the woman said, opening her wallet. "Oh, thank you, young man! Thank you ever so much!" She pulled out a couple of twenties. "Let me reward you."

Sandy waved her off. "Absolutely not. No way."

The beefy guy slapped him on the back. "Good man."

Sandy made a show of checking his watch. "Look, I've got a meeting," he said to the man. "Will she be all right?"

"We called the cops. EMTs are on their way."

"Great." To the old woman he said, "Good luck to you, ma'am. I'm sorry this happened."

She thanked him again and then he was on his way down the sloping path toward the basketball courts, trying to process the events of the past few minutes. He'd led a sheltered life, he knew. His exposure to violence while growing up had been limited to a few schoolyard shoving matches. But all that had changed with the bloodbath on the train. His baptism of fire.

But in some strange way he found this new incident even more disturbing. The Savior had acted so quickly, with such decisiveness—one moment the purse snatcher had been cycling by, Sandy had blinked, and next thing he knew the man was flat on his face with two broken or dislocated shoulders and the Savior screaming at him about his mother.

What was that all about?

And more frightening had been the terrible dark joy in the Savior's eyes as he'd hovered over the downed man. He'd enjoyed hurting him. And he'd done it without the slightest hesitation. That was very, very scary. And even scarier was the thought now of dealing with him one on one.

Sandy began to sense that he might be in over his head, but he brushed it off. He wasn't here to threaten this man; he wanted to do him a favor.

But would that matter if he was dealing with a psycho? In an instant the Savior had changed from regular guy to mad dog. And why had he even bothered with the purse snatcher? If the Savior was a wanted felon, why would he interfere with a fellow criminal?

None of this made any sense.

He found the man leaning against the high chain link fence bordering the asphalt basketball courts. He started moving away as Sandy approached, motioning him to follow. Sandy caught up with him in a small grove of trees.

"Why here?"' he said, looking around and noticing that they were partially hidden from the rest of the park. He was uneasy now being alone with this man.

"Because your picture's been in the paper twice this week. Who knows when someone will recognize you?"

"Yeah?" Sandy said, suddenly aglow. Someone recognizing him on the street. How totally cool would that be. "I mean, yeah, sure, I see what you mean."

Sandy sensed that Mr. Hyde had disappeared. The Savior seemed to have returned to Dr. Jekyll mode.

"So tell me," the Savior said. "How are you going to change my lowly criminal life?"

Sandy held up a hand. "Wait. You tell me something first: What was all that business about your mother? She wasn't your mother."

"She could have been. My mother would be about her age if she'd survived."

"Survived what?"

"Death."

Sandy sensed a big sign saying PROCEED NO FURTHER, so he switched to the other question that was bothering him.

"All right then, tell me this: why did you, someone who supposedly wants to avoid the spotlight, get involved in that?"

He gave him a puzzled look. "How could I not? If he'd taken off the other way I wouldn't have run after him, but he was passing right in front of us. To let him sail by would be… like…" He seemed to be searching for the words. "It would make me into an accomplice—an accomplice in rolling a little old lady. Uh-uh."

Sandy stared at him and experienced a flash of insight that seemed to point the way toward getting a handle on this man.

"I think I understand you now," he said, nodding. "You can't tolerate disorder yet you're trapped in a world where everything is spinning out of control."

"I'm not trapped anywhere."

"We all are. But you're doing something about it."

"Are you crazy?"

"Not at all. Look what just happened. A robbery. That's wrong. A prime example of the random disorder afflicting our lives."

"That is life. Been happening every minute of every day since some cave man decided he didn't feel like hunting and tried to steal his neighbor's brontoburger."

"But you made sure this one didn't happen. You reordered the disorder."

"Are you on drugs or did you run out of your medication? You make it sound like I'm out patrolling the streets trolling for wrongdoers. I'm not. This went down right in front of me. And he passed right by me. And I knew what I could do at no cost to myself. Period. End of story. End of discussion."

"But—"

"End. Of. Discussion."

"You ever heard of Nietzsche?"

"Sure. The music guy, right?"

"I doubt it. He was a philosopher."

"Jack Nitzsche? Nah. Used to play piano for the Stones."

"Friederich Nietzsche. Friederich."

"Fred Nitzsche? Who's he? Jack's brother? Never heard of him."

He's putting me on, Sandy thought. He's got to be. But his expression was deadpan.

"He's been dead about a hundred years," Sandy said. "I studied him in college. You really must read him. The Will to Power will crystallize so much of who you are."

"Crystallize… just what I need right now. To get crystallized. Look, forget philosophers and get down to you and me. What do I have to do to get you out of my life?"

Sandy felt as if he'd been slapped. "Hey, look, I'm trying to help you here."

"I think we both know who you're trying to help."

"Damn it, I can bring you in from the cold."

The Savior laughed. "You can what?"

"Are you wanted for anything besides that liquor store robbery?"

He stared at him. "Where's this going?"

"Just tell me."

"No."

"You're sure?"

"I haven't exactly been trying to draw attention to myself."

Sandy's mind raced, barely keeping up with his thumping heart. This was exactly what he'd hoped for. One crime—a felony, yes, but years ago when he was a teenager. Now he's grown, living on the fringe, but keeping his nose clean. A fugitive, an outcast, but when law-abiding citizens were under the gun, when their lives were in deadly peril, who stepped into the breach and saved them? This man, this criminal.

Oh, dear sweet Jesus, this has major motion picture written all over it. Got to secure the rights.

"I can get you amnesty!" Sandy blurted.

The Savior squatted and dropped his face into his hands. He rubbed his eyes. "I don't believe this."

He's overcome with emotion, Sandy thought.

"I can!" Sandy said. "I can start a campaign. Look at the lives you saved that night. How can they not grant you amnesty?"

"Very easy," he said, looking up at him now. "They just say no."

"They won't be able to say no. You don't know the power of the press. I'll make them bring you in from the cold."

The Savior rose to his feet again. "How do you know I don't like the cold? Maybe I'm a goddamn polar bear!"

"I don't believe that. Because nobody wants to be a nobody when they can be a somebody—a really big somebody!"

"You're wasting your time. And mine too." He turned and started moving off.

"Wait! You can't walk out on this! It's the chance of a lifetime!"

"For you, maybe." He didn't even look back. "I'm out of it."

Alarmed, Sandy started after him. He had to talk to him, had to change his mind. And then he stopped as he realized he didn't need his cooperation to do this. He could singlehandedly create a ground-swell of sympathy for the Savior… and he wouldn't have to stretch the truth in the slightest.

First, a piece telling how he'd spoken again to the Savior, and how the man had confessed that his real reason for not coming forward was that he's a wanted felon. Sandy would say nothing of the crime—didn't want the cops to scoop him by using police records to identify the Savior before he did—but would portray him as a decent man guilty of a single youthful mistake, who'd escaped prosecution years ago, but last week had repaid his debt to society in spades, repaid it in a manner far more fruitful than incarceration, repaid it with saved lives instead of lost years. Next he'd get testimonials from other survivors—starting with Beth. Then he'd interview the mayor and the police commissioner and the DA and put them on the spot: what about amnesty for this hero? Will the one bad deed he committed as a teenager live on while the enormous good he did wind up interred with his bones?

The words weren't just flowing, man, they were gushing!

The whole campaign was taking beautiful shape in his mind. He could see the other major papers being forced to take up the issue—whether pro or con, who cared?—and from there the debate would spread to the national news magazines like Time and Newsweek. If he could get this ball rolling it could carry him into People Magazine.

And once he achieved amnesty for the Savior, it would be up to the man himself to accept it or reject it. Either way, Sandy's debt to him would be paid.

He headed back to the subway, excitement spurring him to a trot. He couldn't wait to get started.

9

"Are you okay, Jack?" Kate asked.

He'd returned to Jeanette's apartment straight from the park and hadn't been able to sit still.

"A little edgy, that's all," he told her.

Not a little edgy—a lot edgy. Even maximum edgy didn't quite cover it. He felt like a pin cushion. All the while in the park he'd had this feeling of being watched but had never been able to spot anyone who seemed interested in him. The feeling had followed him back to Jeanette's.

He stood at the window now, watching the street, scanning for anyone who looked like he didn't belong. Saw a couple of guys having a smoke outside the print shop, another pair unloading rolls of fabric and lugging them into the wholesaler shop. But no lurkers.

He chalked up the feel to Palmer's crazy plan.

The kid had no idea what was involved here. An amnesty for him would mean coaxing the IRS, the BATF, and the FBI to sing harmony with the New York State Attorney General and the DAs of most of the five boroughs. Right. And the Jets are going to win the next six Super Bowls.

And Nietzsche? And "in from the cold"? Where did he come up with this stuff? That kid had to get out more.

Jack turned away from the window. "What did you hear from NIH?" he asked, anxious to move the talk away from his mood.

Kate shook her head. "Nothing good. Everyone I talked to was very closed mouthed."

"Meaning?"

"I couldn't find anyone who would admit that they'd heard from Dr. Fielding, and couldn't find anyone who'd admit that they hadn't."

"Typical bureausaurus run-around."

"That's what I figured but…"

"But it just doesn't feel right."

She nodded. "Exactly."

"You think Fielding might not be telling us everything?"

"Not sure. But that's the vibe I'm getting."

Jack had to smile. " 'Vibe.' How seventies."

She shrugged. "That's where I spent my teens." She reached for the phone. "I've had enough of this tiptoeing around. I'm going to call Fielding and ask him point blank—"

Jack gently gripped her arm. "Point blank tends to work better face to face. Where's his office?"

"NYU Medical Center."

"Along First Avenue?" That was due east from here—Twenty-seventh would take them right to it. "Road trip?"

"Why not. We'll pay Dr. Fielding a little surprise visit." She started toward the door, then stopped. "But what if he doesn't want to talk? What if he stonewalls us?"

Yeah, he might try that. But Jeanette was important to his sister, which made her important to Jack. No stonewalls today. Jack would be along to see to that.

"He'll talk," Jack told her. When she gave him a strange look he added, "People just seem to open up to me. It's a gift. You'll see."

10

"Yeah," Joe said, "but how do we know if that's where he lives? Maybe he's just visiting."

Stan Kozlowski chewed the inner surface of his cheek as he stared at the ornate apartment building on West Twenty-seventh. This had to be the sixth time Joe had asked that same question, and Stan was just as much at a loss for an answer now as the first time.

They'd followed their guy here after Riverside Park. Not so hard.

He hadn't seemed to be on the lookout for a tail, but they'd taken every precaution, giving him so long a lead one time they almost lost him.

They'd seen him go into this building. Since they couldn't follow him inside, they'd found a shady spot on the same side of the street and kept watch on the entrance.

"Only one way to find out," Stan told him. "Tail him everywhere he goes, and wherever he keeps coming back to, wherever he spends the night, that's where he lives."

"You hope."

"Since we don't know his name or anything about him—"

"We got that whisper that his name might be Jack."

"A 'might-be' doesn't help us. And Jack isn't exactly a rare name.

Don't see how we've got much choice except to watch and wait."

"I can't wait, Stan. Been waitin' too long already."

"Just hang in there, Joe. A week ago we had no hope of ever seeing this guy again. Now we've got him in our sights."

"Ka-pow! Joe said, grinning.

"Ka-pow is right. We—hey, isn't that him?"

Yes. Definitely him. And he wasn't alone. He had his arm around a blonde.

"Shit," Joe said softly as they pressed back against a wall. "He's got a babe. Ain't that sweet."

"If she's a live-in, bro, we may have found his crib. But let's keep on him, just to be sure."

"Oh, yeah," Joe said, grinning as he rubbed his scarred hand with his good one. " 'Cause we want to be sure."

Stan watched the couple turn and head for Sixth Avenue. This was kind of fun. And the best part was that he hadn't seen Joe enjoying himself this much in years.

11

"All I can say," Dr. Fielding said, spreading his hands in a helpless gesture, "is be patient."

Kate watched the light glisten off his gelled black hair as he sat behind his desk in his cluttered office on the third floor of the Solomon and Miriam Brody Center for Clinical Research. Kate knew the marble halls of this two-story, brick-faced building well. She'd been here enough times with Jeanette.

Fielding had looked rattled when they'd barged in—Jack had not accepted any excuses from the receptionist—but had settled back into his self-assured role of physician-priest. Kate was familiar with the type; she'd met enough of them in her work.

He'd sworn he'd been in touch with NIH daily, and that he was as anxious as Kate for their help.

"But she's getting worse by the day," Kate said, keeping her voice calm though she wanted to scream.

"I know, I know." He shook his head mournfully. "But we're dealing with a bureaucracy the size of the Pentagon."

An overstatement, Kate knew. So did Fielding, apparently. He glanced at Jack—something he'd been doing repeatedly. Maybe because Jack had announced upon entering that his sister had some questions and hadn't said a word since. He'd simply sat and stared at Fielding. Kate found his basilisk act unsettling; she could only imagine how Fielding felt.

Abruptly, Jack came to life. He slapped his hands on his thighs and stood.

"Well, I guess that's it then." He extended his hand to Fielding. "Thanks for your time, Doc."

Fielding rose and they shook hands. "I'm sure we'll have this all straightened out soon."

"One more question," Jack said, still holding Fielding's hand. "Why are you lying?"

"What? How dare—"

Jack's grip shifted and suddenly he was holding Fielding's thumb, bending it, twisting it. Fielding groaned as his knees buckled.

"Jack!" Kate said, stepping toward him. "Dear Lord, what are you doing? Stop it!"

"I apologize for the strong-arm stuff, Kate," he told her. "If we had time I'd find another way. But since time is tight—"

"I'll call security!" Fielding gasped. He brought his free hand up to try to break Jack's grip but that only allowed Jack to trap his left thumb as well. "The police!"

"Fine." Jack spoke softly, calmly, as if giving a passerby directions to the nearest subway. "But that won't stop me from dislocating both your thumbs and putting a three-sixty twist on each of them. You're a doctor. You figure out how long it'll be before you can use them again, if ever. The cops may come, but you'll have to live without opposable thumbs. A lower life form."

"Jack, please!" She'd never imagined her brother like this—an irresistible force, implacable, glowering with the threat, the promise of violence. He was frightening, terrifying. "He doesn't—"

"Truth!" Jack said, voice rising as he gave both thumbs a quarter twist. "You haven't called NIH, have you. Not even once. Am I right?"

Fielding whimpered as sweat beaded his livid face. Finally he nodded.

"You bastard!" Kate said.

Jack looked at her. "The B-word?"

Kate ignored him and stepped up to Fielding's desk. Just a heartbeat ago she'd felt sorry for the man—she hated seeing anyone hurt—but now she wanted to grab his brass pen set and brain him. It had taken Jack a mere thirty seconds to melt away Fielding's mask, reducing him from distinguished colleague to weasel.

"Why not?" she cried. "Explain!"

"Please?" he panted, nodding toward his trapped hands.

Jack released the left, but kept a grip on the right. "We're waiting."

Fielding took a deep breath. "The vector virus didn't mutate."

Kate was stunned. "But if there's no mutation, why—?"

He looked away. "It's a contaminant."

Now she understood.

"So what?" Jack said. "Either way, Jeanette's got the wrong bug in her brain, so—"

"He can't be blamed for a wild mutation," Kate told him. "Not unless he exposed the virus to ionizing radiation. But a contaminant… he's wholly responsible for that. No excuses there. A contaminant makes him look very bad."

"You slug," Jack growled. "Just for the hell of it I ought to—"

"No… please…" Fielding whined.

"Jack, don't."

Jack shoved Fielding's hand away, sending him back into his chair where he cowered.

Kate closed her eyes and gave herself time to pull her turbulent thoughts together. She knew the next question but hesitated to ask it, feared the answer. But someone had to.

"What is the contaminant?" she said.

"That's just it. I don't know. It's unlike any virus I've ever seen. Seems to be in a class by itself."

Oh, no. Kate's stomach lurched. "How did this happen?"

"I'm baffled," Fielding said. "We keep all the cultures under lock and key, with a sign-in, sign-out procedure."

Jack said, "You mean someone would want to steal a virus?"

"No, of course not. It's simply to insure that only authorized personnel—people who know the protocols of handling viruses—come in contact with the cultures. It's designed to prevent the very thing that happened: contamination."

"Looks like your people need a refresher course," Kate said.

She noticed an uneasy expression flash across Fielding's face.

"What's wrong?"

"Wrong?" Fielding said. "Nothing."

"Tell her," Jack said. He interlaced his fingers and popped his knuckles. Fielding jumped at the sound.

"We had, er, something of a breach in the security procedures."

Jack leaned closer. "What kind of something?"

"An unauthorized person gained access to the viral cultures."

Kate felt sick. "Some sort of terrorist?"

"I doubt that. I might never have known if I hadn't learned about the contaminant. I went back and checked the sign-in records and found a name that didn't belong."

"Anyone we know?" Jack said. "Like Holdstock, maybe?"

"No. I found only one entry, dated months ago." He sifted through the papers on his desk and came up with a Xerox of a sign-in sheet. He pointed to an entry he'd circled in red. "There. 'Ms. Aralo.' But we have no one named Aralo in the institute, let alone with clearance to the viral lab."

"Wait a minute," Jack said, grabbing the sheet and staring at it.

"What's the matter?" Kate asked. "Do you know her?"

He shook his head. "Never heard of her. But something about that name…" He stared awhile longer, silently mouthing the name, then handed it back. "Forget it. Whatever it was, it's gone. Probably nothing."

But Kate could see it still bothered him.

"Well, if you remember anything, please let me know immediately. No one here remembers a thing about this person, not even who allowed her to sign in."

"Do you think this Aralo woman contaminated them?"

"I have to assume so. She signed for my adenovirus cultures. But I keep asking myself why. What purpose could anyone have in contaminating cultures used to fight brain tumors?"

"Some professional rivalry?" Kate suggested.

Fielding shrugged. "I'm not exactly breaking new ground here; more like fine tuning a protocol."

"How about germ warfare?" Jack said.

Fielding smiled for the first time since they'd arrived—a small, condescending twist of the lips. "With an adenovirus? Highly unlikely."

Jack glared and spoke through his teeth. "I meant the contaminant."

Fielding's smile vanished. "Also unlikely. It doesn't seem to cause any symptoms."

"Other than personality changes," Kate said.

"If that. We can't be sure. But even if it does, that's not a terrorist scenario. They want terror—something of epidemic proportions like ebola where people are dropping like flies in pools of bloody excrement. From what I've learned so far about the contaminant it isn't air or fecal borne."

"Then it's blood borne?" Kate said, feeling a chill.

She glanced down at her palm. The puncture wound had healed. But had something entered through that little break in her skin?

"I believe so," Fielding said. "If only Jeanette or Holdstock or one of the others would cooperate, I might have a handle on it. I'd love to see if they've formed any antibodies. It's a strange virus that can occupy the cerebrospinal fluid—at least I'm assuming that's where it's concentrated—without causing any sign of encephalitis or meningitis."

"Which are?" Jack said.

"Anything from fever and headache to paralysis, seizures, coma, death."

Jack looked at her. "Jeanette looked pretty healthy this morning."

"Physically, she's been fine," Kate said.

But what about me? she wondered.

She felt okay now, but she remembered mild aches and chills and a headache yesterday and the day before.

"That's what's so puzzling," Fielding said. "There seems to be virtually no immune response—at least nothing that's clinically apparent. If only I could get a sample of blood…"

"We're going to let NIH worry about that," Jack said. "Aren't we."

"And the CDC," Kate added.

Fielding paled. "Look. I'm Jeanette's best hope. I'm way ahead of everyone on the contaminant. I've already started testing virucidal agents against it."

"And?" Kate said, praying for some good news.

"No luck so far." He licked his lips and spoke quickly. "But at least I know what doesn't work, and when I find one that does, I'm sure I can reverse the effects on Jeanette and the others. I've already started laying the groundwork for a polysaccharide vaccine against the contaminant."

"Good," Jack said. "Now the big boys can pick up where you left off."

Fielding pressed his palms together as if in prayer. "Please give me a little more time. I can do this faster than those big bureaucracies. They'll take forever to start meaningful research."

"Forget it," Jack said.

Kate opened her mouth to agree, but a wave of indecision swept over her, clogging the words in her throat.

Maybe Fielding's right. Maybe he can do more alone than those lumbering bureaucracies.

No. That was ridiculous. She had a duty to let NIH and the CDC know about a new virus that causes personality changes.

The indecision mounted… Why not give Fielding some time? With such low danger of contagion, why not wait… for Jeanette's sake. Just a few days…

She shook her head. Where did these crazy ideas come from?

"Kate?" Jack said.

She looked up and found Jack and Fielding staring at her. Fielding's face was hopeful, Jack's expression said, You can't be having second thoughts about this.

And that look broke through the wall of indecision.

"Call them now," she said, pushing out the words. Pain lanced through her skull as she spoke them.

"Right," Jack said. "I see you've got a speakerphone. Use that. We'll listen."

"No, please. I—"

"If you call CDC," Kate said, fighting to control her voice, to keep from screaming at this man, "you can salvage something of your reputation. If I have to make the call, I'll tell them how you refused to report a wild contaminant, and then you can kiss your career good-bye."

Fielding made the call.

Kate sat with Jack, listening to the speakerphone as Fielding wove his way through the CDC maze until he found the right someone in the right office who could handle his problem. Dr. Paige Freeman, who sounded as if she couldn't be over twelve, gave him specific instructions on how to overnight the sample to Atlanta.

Kate personally oversaw the sealing, packing, and shipping of the culture. They even waited for the FedEx man to pick it up.

Dr. Fielding had been subdued during all this, but his resolve appeared to stiffen as they were leaving.

"It's not fair, you know. I always follow strict anti-contamination procedures. I can't be held responsible if someone deliberately contaminated the culture. It's just not fair!"

"You believe in fair?" Jack said. "I suppose you believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy too. You think fair just happens? It doesn't. You want fair, you make fair."

Kate looked at Jack, surprised by his sudden intensity. What was he getting at?

But Fielding seemed to understand. He nodded, saying, "I still say I'm your friend's best hope. I've got a head start on this and I'm going to keep after it. If I'm going to get stuck with the blame for the contaminant, then I might as well take the credit for discovering how to control it. You watch. Before the CDC has even begun to roll, I'll have the solution for you."

Kate thought him overly optimistic but didn't want to discourage him.

"Thank you," she said.

"And if I could just get a sample of Jeanette's blood," Fielding said, "it would certainly speed the process."

"We'll see what we can do," Jack told him.

After they'd left Fielding's office, Kate asked, "How do you think we're going to get blood from Jeanette?"

He shrugged. "You'd be surprised. Lots of ways to get blood."

Kate sighed and let it go. At least the experts were on the case now. She knew the Center for Disease Control, despite its worldwide renown, was neither infallible nor omnipotent, but it had access to the best virologists in the world. She felt confident that a solution was on the way.

But just as her spirits began to lift, they dipped. Would she need treatment too? Although she had no way of knowing for sure, and did not want to believe it, Kate suspected that Jeanette had infected her with the rogue virus.

Why? Why would Jeanette do such a thing to her? She shuddered at the thought of an unidentified organism taking up residence in her body, invading her cells and multiplying. What could it be doing to her?

12

Stan paid the cabby and joined Joe at the curb.

"What do you think they were doing over at that medical center?" Joe asked.

"Beats me."

They'd followed their guy and his woman over to the East Side, hung around First Avenue for what seemed like hours, then tailed them back here to their starting point.

"Think he's got cancer or something?"

Stan didn't remember a sign on the building that said anything about cancer. What was going on in Joe's head?

"How would I know? And what difference does it make?"

"Because if he's got the Big C, maybe we don't do him right away. Maybe we wait and watch him rot for a few months, then do him."

They stood way up toward Sixth near a framing place where they had a long view of the front of the apartment building. Their guy hadn't gone in yet. He hung outside the front door talking to his lady.

"That'd sort of be like putting him out of his misery, don't you think?"

Joe kept staring at their guy. "Maybe, but I don't want no lousy tumor putting him away. We gotta do that. We gotta be the ones that sign his death certificate. Ain't that right?"

Stan wondered if Joe meant 'death sentence' but didn't get to ask because suddenly Joe was grabbing his arm.

"Shit! What're they doin'? They're splittin'!"

Their guy had wrapped his arms around his girl in a clinch that had the look of a good-bye hug.

"Get moving!" Stan said. "Other side of the street. Follow him if he takes off."

Although he worried about Joe losing control while tailing this guy, he couldn't risk going himself. Stan still looked pretty much the same as he had two years ago. This guy would recognize him if he spotted him. Joe, with his extra forty pounds and semi-beard had a better chance of going unnoticed.

Joe was on his way. "What're you gonna do?" he said over his shoulder.

"Follow her inside. See where she lives."

"Excellent!"

Sure enough, the couple disengaged and their guy started walking away. Stan got moving, quick-walking along the street side of the parked cars as the woman turned toward the front door of the apartment building. She keyed the lock, pulled the door open, and stepped inside. Stan dodged to the sidewalk and dashed for the door, catching its edge with barely an inch to spare.

As he stepped into the vestibule he spotted the elevator standing open at the far end, but it was empty. Where the hell…?

Directly to his right he saw a door marked STAIRWAY swinging closed, and heard footfalls echoing. Keeping at least a flight between them, Stan followed her up to the third floor. As he stepped out into the hallway he spotted her to his left, moving. Stan turned right and ambled down the hall in the opposite direction. He fished in his pocket for his keys and dropped them on the carpet. While stooping to pick them up he watched her out of the corner of his eye, saw her disappear into a doorway.

When her door had closed, he reversed and hurried toward it.

Pleased, Stan headed back to the stairway.

Now we know where she lives, he thought. Let's hope that's where he lives too.

13

That feeling again.

Jack did a slow turn, giving the small, crowded platform of the Twenty-eighth Street subway station a full inspection.

Somebody watching him. Could feel it. Trouble was, the Friday afternoon rush hour was just getting started and he was surrounded by a horde of possible suspects.

The question was who? Probably some member of Holdstock's cult. Jeanette and Holdstock he'd recognize immediately, and maybe a couple of others, but not all. One of them could be standing beside him right now… or behind him…

That possibility pushed Jack back from the edge of the platform.

Why follow me?

To keep tabs? Or find out where he lived?

The notion jolted him. That was where he was headed now: a stop home to run a few errands, then return to Kate's later with the car, in case they needed to take another trip to the Bronx.

The uptown 9 rattled into the station then, and the crowd pressed forward. Jack held his spot, watching for the slightest hint of undue interest in the commuters eddying around him.

Nothing.

But the watched feeling persisted.

Keeping to the rear of the press, Jack shuffled with the rest toward the nearest open door. He squeezed aboard backward, the tips of his shoes barely inside the door line, and waited. As soon as the doors began to move he stepped back onto the platform. He turned and scanned the length of the train as all the doors slid shut, watching for someone else making a last-second exit. But everyone stayed put as the doors closed, sealing all the passengers within.

The train began to roll, rumbling out of the station. Jack watched the windows, searching the visible faces for signs of surprise or anger. He saw only boredom and fatigue.

Had he let the train go by for nothing? Maybe. He knew he had paranoid tendencies—with good reason, he always insisted—and this wouldn't be the first time he'd expended extra time and effort because of a vague suspicion. He considered it time and effort well spent. Never be too busy to walk that extra mile… just in case.

And he was going to do a little extra walking right now—over to Eighth Avenue to catch a train there.

Started to move, then stopped, noticing something.

The feeling of being watched… gone.

14

Stan had found a spot on Seventh Avenue to wait for Joe. He'd just settled himself onto a shady bench near the Fashion Institute when his cell phone rang.

"Lost the fucker," said Joe's voice.

Even through the tiny speaker Stan could feel the heat of his brother's barely suppressed rage.

"He spot you?"

"Couldn't have. I kept my distance and he never even looked at me. Fucker must have a sixth sense or something. You pin down his apartment?"

"Sure did. Three-C. Checked the mailbox downstairs. Says the place belongs to 'J. Vega.'"

"J. Vega, eh? 'J' as in 'Jack'? I like it. You keep an eye on the door so we know when he comes back. I'm goin' home to put a few things together."

"What few things?"

"I'll show you when I get back. See you soon."

Stan hit the OFF button. If Joe wouldn't discuss the few things on the phone, that meant they weren't legal. But Stan had a pretty good idea of what Joe was going to put together. Something that went boom.

15

Kate approached the door cautiously. Who could be knocking? No one had buzzed from the vestibule. She peeked through the keyhole, half-expecting to see Jack. Instead she found a heavyset man in coveralls.

"Yes?"

The voice filtered through the closed door. "Bell Atlantic, ma'am. We got reports of line trouble all through the building. Any problems?"

"No. I don't think so."

"It's with incoming calls."

She wished he'd speak louder. Did he say incoming calls? How would she know if an incoming call hadn't got through? What if Jeanette or Jack—or, dear lord, one of the kids—were trying to get through to her.

Kate reached for the knob, then hesitated. She'd heard horror stories about situations like this—rapists posing as servicemen. She slipped on the chain latch and opened the door a few inches.

He looked convincing with his gray coveralls and toolbox.

"Can I see some ID?"

"Sure."

He unclipped the badge that hung on an elastic tether from his pocket and handed it through. It certainly seemed authentic, and identified the man as Harold Moses, Bell Atlantic employee. But the photo…

Kate looked up again, comparing the picture to the real thing.

"I know, I know," he said with a sheepish grin. "I quit smoking and I'm the size of a house."

The smile did it for Kate—the same as in the photo.

"Is there any way you can come back later? It's not my place and—"

"Well, it's late and if I don't do it today it could be another week. We've got trunk line problems all over the city."

No incoming calls for a week? Kate unlatched the door and handed back the badge.

"Okay. I guess you'd better check it out."

"Only take a couple of minutes," he said, stepping past her and looking around the front area.

Immediately Kate wished she hadn't let him in. She hadn't sensed it when he was in the hall, but now, enclosed in the same room with him, she found him frightening. He seemed so tense and he radiated… something. She couldn't put her finger on what it was but it seemed malevolent, as if his overstuffed coveralls were bursting with rage instead of flesh. And those narrow eyes, darting everywhere, as if searching…

But when he spoke he was all business. "How many phones you got, ma'am?"

"Three," she told him. She wanted to run out into the hall but kept her cool. "One in the kitchen and two more in the bedrooms."

He placed his toolbox on the kitchen counter and she noticed for the first time that he wore an oversized work glove on his left hand—only his left.

"Okay. I'll work through this one; but I'll need you on one of the others."

"Any particular one?"

He shrugged. "Your choice."

He barely looked her way, didn't seem at all interested in her. Kate began to relax. This strange business with Jeanette seemed to have shifted her imagination into high gear.

After an instant's hesitation she started for the bedroom. "Okay. What do I do?"

"Just pick it up and keep talking. Don't dial—just talk. Count from one to a hundred if you want. Anything."

He waved his left hand as he spoke and Kate saw that some of the fingers of the glove looked empty and others looked stretched to the limit.

Wondering if his deformity was congenital or accidental, Kate entered the bedroom; she picked up the receiver and started counting.

She heard the kitchen phone come off the hook. "That's good," the serviceman told her. "Keep it up. Don't stop."

Through her receiver she listened to him whistling softly as he rummaged through his toolbox. She heard tape rip and wondered what he was doing, but the phone cord didn't stretch far enough to reach the door. She looked around for her pocketbook and saw it on the dresser. At least she knew he wasn't pilfering her wallet.

After three minutes or so she heard a series of beeps through the receiver, then the man's voice.

"Okay, ma'am. All set."

Kate hung up and returned to the front room to find the man snapping the clasps on his toolbox.

"That's it?"

He nodded. "Yours was okay. Have a nice day."

"You too. Thanks."

As she closed the door behind him she wondered at her earlier apprehensions. Just now he'd seemed a different man, calm and serene, as if he'd been relieved of a great burden. Almost… happy.

How silly she'd been.

16

Joe opened the rear door of the car, dumped his toolbox on the floor, then dropped into the front passenger seat.

"Done!"

Stan looked at him. "Fine. And now that it's done, you mind telling me just what it is that's done?"

Half an hour ago Joe had arrived in this stolen Taurus and parked it downstream from the apartment building. He'd looked like a new man—showered, shaved, and dressed like a serviceman. He'd been coy, refusing to say what he was up to until he'd done it.

"Left a little gift for our guy. I was afraid I wasn't going to get in, what with that obsolete Bell Atlantic ID from the old days, but she bought it."

"Lucky. How big a gift?"

Joe grinned. "A brick."

"A whole brick?"

"Damn right."

Stan closed his eyes. Before the Feds had closed in they'd managed to salvage part of their stash of army-issue C-4—foot-long bricks, two inches wide and an inch thick, neatly wrapped in olive-drab cellophane. Lovely stuff. Stable enough to play catch with, still soft and moldable at minus-seventy degrees, no extrudation even at one-hundred-seventy.

In Nam he'd come up with other uses for it beyond explosions. Starting fires, for instance. Cut an inch-thick slice off a block, put a match to it, and instant fire. Stank but it burned hot enough to ignite wet wood. One thing you had to remember, though, was if you wanted to put out burning C-4, you drowned it. You did not—repeat, not—stomp on it. He once saw a guy lose the front end of his foot trying that. Stan even learned the meaning of detonation velocity, and that C-4's was a devastating 8,100 meters per second.

And Joe had set a whole brick of it in that apartment. Shit.

He pressed the buttons that raised the windows and swiveled toward his brother.

"Joe… an old building like that… you just might bring the whole thing down."

A beautiful building… a shame to mess it up.

"Yeah, maybe. But probably not."

"At the very least it'll take out most of the third floor and both apartments above and below his, and blow off the whole front of the building."

Joe stared at him. "And your point is…?"

"He hasn't come back yet. He might not come back before it blows. It might not even be his place."

"Oh, it's his all right. His girlfriend told me it wasn't her place, so that means it's his."

"All right, let's say it is his place. What if he's out all night? If the place blows without him there, then we've tipped our hand. He'll know—"

"He'll know that his girlfriend is dead and that he's next." Joe's voice dipped to a cold rumble. "Let him stew awhile, let him suffer a little, let him be scared, wonderin' when the next shoe's gonna drop. I almost hope he doesn't come home in time. I want to be in the crowd and see his face when he finds what's left of his building."

"It's not our style, Joe. We always placed just the right amount in just the right place to get the job done with a minimum of collateral damage. We were surgeons, Joe."

"Yeah, well, this is a special case. This will send a message that if you mess with the Kozlowskis you die. And not only do you die, but your family and friends and neighbors die. You mess with the K brothers you invite a whole shitload of death and destruction. So think twice. Think three times. Better yet, don't think about it at all."

Stan sighed. No talking to Joe on this.

He glanced in the rearview mirror where he had the apartment house entrance framed. The car seemed far enough away to be safe from the bigger chunks of debris. And it would be downstream from the explosion, which meant they'd be able to cruise away immediately after the blast.

He watched a black Crown Victoria pull into a space directly in front of the doorway. He had to smile. Here was a guy probably thanking his lucky stars for finding such a primo parking spot. He wouldn't be thanking anyone if his car was still there when Joe's bomb blew.

"Joe!" Stan whispered when the driver stepped out of the car. "Take a look!"

Joe did a casual one-eighty in his seat, then jerked up straight when he recognized the man on the sidewalk.

"Yes!" He started punching Stan on the shoulder. "Yes-yes-yes-yes!"

"When does this go down?"

"Soon," Joe said softly. "But not soon enough."

17

"You let him inV Jack said, not quite believing this.

Kate shrugged. "He had a Bell Atlantic ID, with his picture and everything. What was I supposed to do?"

Jack didn't want to go into how easy it was to fabricate photo ID. Someday he'd show Kate his extensive personal collection. But maybe it was all right. Maybe the guy had really been from the phone company and Jack was making more out of this than he should. But the fact remained that Terrence Holdstock seemed to know too much about what went on in this apartment. Maybe one of the bugs had gone bad and he'd sent someone to replace it.

"All right, what did he do while you were here? Tell me exactly."

"I… I don't know exactly. You see, he needed someone talking on one of the extensions while he…" She flushed as her voice trailed off. "Boy, that really sounds dumb, doesn't it."

Jack wanted to shout Yes! But this was Kate, so kept his voice level.

"It's okay. You simply don't have a fine-tuned sense of paranoia."

"Like you."

"Like me. How long was he alone in here?"

"Five minutes tops."

Jack looked around the front room. This wasn't good. The guy could have hidden any number of bugs in a zillion places, or—