Spider

24

West Village, SoHo, New York There were two reasons Howie Baumguard couldn't sleep – one was food and the other was homicide. Right now, he reckoned his plate was filled with far too much of one and far too little of the other. Bare-chested and bare-footed, with his grumbling stomach rolling over some string-tied blue cotton pyjama bottoms, he tiptoed downstairs, trying not to wake the rest of the family. For some time he'd managed to fool himself that he resembled Tony Soprano. Maybe thinning too much up top and certainly thickening too much around the middle, but still a force to be reckoned with. A good shave, a splash of cologne and a jazzy shirt and he always felt great. Great, that was, until his stick-insect wife told him he looked more like the Doughboy monster in Ghostbusters than James Gandolfini, who even she conceded was so big he was as sexy as hell. So last night, at the end of a gruelling day, he'd come home to a shrink-wrapped shrimp salad and zero-fat milk for his dinner. Man, is there no fun left in life? Well, screw her and screw the calories, now is munch time.

'Look out, Fridge, Howie's coming in!' he said as he pulled open the double doors of the larder. His face lit up as brightly as the interior light. He grabbed a foil-wrapped cold chicken and waltzed it to the kitchen table, along with a jar of cranberry jelly. The rollover stainless-steel bread bin yielded more treasure: great slabs of white bread and a jelly-doughnut (left by Howie Jnr, who already seemed to have eaten three out of the four-pack).

For good measure Howie popped a can of beer and took a long slug before settling down in the cool of the kitchen. He ripped off a leg of chicken and gnawed away at the delicious meat. A heavy sprinkle of bad-for-your-heart salt turned it from good into fantastic. He knew he was eating for comfort – and, boy, it was working. Another deep hit of beer and he felt a thousand times better than he had done for the last two sleepless hours, sloped on his side feeling hungry and worrying about the call that he was about to make.

Howie unplugged his cell phone from the charger on the kitchen worktop and hit the speed dial for Jack King. It took an age to connect. Finally an Italian ring tone kicked in and a woman's voice answered.

'Buon giorno, hello, La Casa Strada. I am Maria, how may I help you?'

Howie immediately thought of a couple of ways in which a girl with a voice as sexy as hers could help him, both of which would instantly get him on the path to divorce, so instead he stuck to his main reason for calling. 'Hi there, I'm ringing from America and I'm trying to get hold of Jack King. Could you please put me through to him?'

He felt bad because good old Jack was no doubt enjoying a fine Tuscan morning and now his old buddy Howie was about to turn all that into a ball of elephant crap.

'I am sorry, Signore King he is not here at the moment. Would you like to be speaking with Signora King?'

Given the option, Howie would rather shave his own eyeballs than risk a dressing-down from Nitric Nancy.

'Yeah, put me through please,' he said, wincing while he waited. Man, Nancy had really scorched him a few times in the past. Fact was, she and Howie had never really hit it off. In the early days, he was sure she'd resented how much time he and Jack had spent together. Then at the end, well, even though she'd never said it, he knew she partly blamed him for Jack's breakdown.

'Hello, Howie?' said Nancy, a hint of incredulity in her voice. 'What are you doing calling at this time?'

Hell, that kind of put him on the spot. What could he say now? Well, Nancy, someone's mailed the severed head of the victim of a twenty-year-old murder to your husband and I was just wondering when he could swing by and pick it up? Nope, that didn't seem a runner.

Howie went for a safer option. 'Hi, Nancy, I'm up out of bed raiding the fridge, but I need to speak to Jack, we need to chat about some stuff.'

'What stuff?' said Nancy, quicker than a New Jersey switchblade.

'Just an old case. Some new evidence has kinda cropped up. Any idea when I can get him?'

Nancy knew she was being blanked, knew it as surely as when that female Italian detective refused to tell her why she'd called. And she also knew there was no point asking Jack's old buddy if there was any connection or not.

'Howie, is this going to hurt us? Right now Jack is still on the mend, and, you know, we really could do without any extra stress.' She found herself scratching at her neck, a nervous habit that she thought she had under control. 'Tell me honestly, is this going to set him back?'

Howie needed to drain the last of the beer can before he could answer her. 'Truth is, Nancy, we're going to have to reopen the BRK files, and there's a good chance the press are going to be dragging up lots of old stuff on Jack.'

'Oh my God!'

'I'm real sorry,' said Howie, hearing her catching her breath on the other end of the line. 'Are you okay?'

She breathed out hard. 'No, I'm not, Howie. I'm really not okay.'

The good feeling that the beer and chicken had given him vanished. Howie knew it'd take more than a food-high to stop him feeling bad about this one. 'Nancy, can you at least see that it's best that I talk to Jack first? Best that I fill him in before he starts catching things on the news or in the papers?'

'Howie, I don't know. I can't even think straight at the moment. Jack is in Florence, I'll have him call you when he gets back.'

'Thanks,' said Howie, pushing the plate of chicken away.

'Sure,' said Nancy, her voice tinged with bitterness. 'By the way, Carrie's right – you are a fat selfish pig who thinks more about the FBI than about anything that should really matter to you.'

The line was dead before Howie could even think of a reply. It was just gone four a.m. but there was only one thing to do now, and that was open another can of beer.