Legacies

13.

They were waiting in the darkened, stuffy, slightly rotten-smelling front room of Thomas's apartment when he got home.

Alicia had watched with amazement as Jack, using just a few little wirelike tools, got them through one door after another in Thomas's apartment building. They'd been waiting only twenty minutes or so before they heard the sound of a key in the lock. Jack sprang up and disappeared, leaving Alicia sitting alone.

Thomas stepped in and turned on the light. He froze like a deer in headlights when he saw her.

"Alicia? What are you—?"

Jack moved from behind the door then and slammed it closed. Thomas jumped to his left and stared at Jack.

Alicia saw the color leach from his pocked face.

"Who?"

"A friend of your sister's," Jack said, grabbing him by his collar and shoving his pear-shaped body across the room. "Sit!"

Alicia was startled by the snarl on Jack's face. He looked so… feral. Not at all like the man she'd opened up to less than an hour ago. Which was the real Jack?

Thomas stumbled and came up against a chair. He folded his ungainly body into it.

"What do you want?"

"Answers," Jack said. "And maybe to look at some pictures."

"You can't do this," Thomas cried. "I'll call the police!"

Suddenly Jack had a little pistol in his hand and was pointing at Thomas's left knee. Then he shifted his aim to the right.

"Which knee first, Alicia? You choose."

Me? she thought, panic rising. Is he serious? What's he doing? And then she remembered what Jack had told her when they'd entered the apartment: I may have to get rough with him, but whatever I do, play along.

Jack aimed the pistol at Thomas's crotch. "Or how about here?"

Okay, she thought. I'll play along.

"I'm thinking," she said.

"Alicia!" Thomas wailed. "Don't let him! They told me about him! Please don't let him shoot me!"

She noticed a dark wet stain spreading across the crotch of Thomas's slacks. He must have heard some real horror stories about Jack.

"Then bring out 'the master collection' you told me about," Alicia said.

"Okay! Okay! I'll do it. It's in the bedroom. I'll get it."

He got up and hurried past Alicia with Jack trailing him.

"'I'm thinking,' " Jack whispered with a wink as he passed. "Beautiful."

And now that she was alone, she took a look around. This was the first chance she'd had to see the apartment in the light. The place was a mess, littered with dirty clothes and dirty dishes and food containers. And that smell… her best bet was that it came from a pizza box sitting on the windowsill near the radiator.

The two men returned moments later, Thomas carrying two cardboard boxes, and Jack carrying a third… and another gun.

"Look what Thomas has," Jack said. "A cute little .32."

But Alicia had eyes for only the boxes.

He has the collection, she thought with dismay. He really has it. Part of her had been hoping he'd been bluffing.

"That's all of it?" Jack said.

Thomas nodded vigorously. "Yes." Still standing, he turned to Alicia. "Yes, I swear."

"Why, Thomas? Besides its blackmail value, why would you want to keep that filth? It's a catalog of degradation."

"It wasn't so bad. I mean, what's the big deal. No one got hurt."

Jack raised a fist and Alicia thought he was going to hit Thomas, but he glanced at her and she shook her head. All her life she'd wanted never to talk about this part of their childhoods—now she couldn't stop.

"No one got hurt? What about you? What's your life been like? Have you had even one intimate relationship?"

I know I haven't, she thought.

"You think I don't know what a loser I am?" he said, narrowing his eyes as he looked at her. "I know. Believe me, I goddamn well know. And it's Dad's fault. That's why I deserve the house. I need it. You don't. You've done fine for yourself. You're a doctor."

"You don't know a thing about me," Alicia said softly.

That overcoming line she'd fed Jack was just that—a line. A mantra. Maybe if she kept repeating it, she'd come to believe it. Maybe it might even become the truth. But she had a long way to go.

I may look "okay" on the outside, she thought, but inside I… I look like this apartment.

"You 'deserve,' " Jack said, his voice acid. "You 'need.' You make me sick. You wouldn't know what to do with the windfall you'd get from broadcast power."

Alicia caught her breath, wishing Jack hadn't let that slip, but then she saw Thomas's legs buckle. He dropped into the chair behind him. If his face had been white before at his first sight of Jack, it was even paler now. And when Thomas started babbling, she realized Jack's "slip" had been calculated.

"You know? Oh, dear Christ! How'd you find out? It was last night, wasn't it." The words tumbled out. "God-damm it! We turned that house upside down and couldn't find shit! You two waltz in and—wait—do you know where the transmitter is?"

"Come on," Jack said, grabbing his arm and pulling him out of the chair. "We're going for a walk."

"What?" Thomas's knees looked rubbery as he got to his feet. "Where?"

"Outside."

"Wh-why?"

Alicia was asking herself that same question.

"Because you don't have a fireplace here." He held up Thomas's .32. "I'll leave your training pistol here. But bring those boxes with you."