He crept back to his car and pointed it toward Manhattan. Once through the tunnel, he swung by Sutton Square to see if Dragovic's men were back on watchdog duty but saw no sign.
He wondered if they'd be back tomorrow. They'd camped out all day without catching even a glimpse of Gia, so maybe they'd think she was away for the weekend and give up.
And maybe they wouldn't.
If they were back in the morning he'd have to deal with them again. He'd been cooking up an idea, but he'd need help.
Jack drove to the Upper West Side and, miracle of miracles, found a parking spot half a block from his apartment—had to love these holiday weekends. He walked over to Julio's.
The usual crowd was stacked at the bar, but the table area was only moderately filled.
"Slow night?" Jack asked as Julio handed him a Rolling Rock long-neck.
They were standing by the window under the hanging plants. Jack's head brushed against one of the pots, causing a minor snowfall from the dead asparagus fern.
"Yeah!" Julio said, beaming and rubbing his hands together. He was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt as usual, and the motion caused muscles to ripple up and down his pumped-up arms. "Isn't it great. Just like the old days."
The yups and dinks were all out of town. The regulars at Julio's, working guys who had been coming in since he opened the place, weren't the type to leave on three-day weekends.
"I'm going to need a favor tomorrow," Jack said. "The driving kind."
"Sure. When?"
"Sometime between twelve and one will do."
"What I gotta do?"
Jack explained the details. Julio liked them, and so they agreed to meet around noon.
Jack walked home feeling as if the various situations around him might be under control. Not a comforting thought. Experience had taught him that the time you feel things are under control is the time you should start some serious worrying.
He managed to stay awake through the Lancaster-York The Island of Dr. Moreau, which somehow managed to make a fascinating story very dull. Barbara Carrera was gorgeous, but the luscious Movielab greens of the island sapped the atmosphere, and Richard Basehart didn't quite cut it as the Sayer of the Law. It was an official entry in the Moreau Festival, though, and he felt obliged to sit through it. A penance of sorts before the guilty pleasure to come: the hilarious Brando-Kilmer version from 1996.
SUNDAY
1
Oh, no, Nadia thought as she gazed at the shape floating before her. Oh please don't let this be true.
But how could she deny what was staring her in the face?
She hadn't slept much last night. She hadn't expected to after Jack dropped that bomb on her yesterday. It's not Berzerk anymore. Every so often the stuff turns inert—all at once. This stuff turned the other day.
Turns inert… just like the molecule Dr. Monnet wanted her to stabilize. His had also turned the other day… inert.
The first thing she'd done upon arriving this morning was prepare a sample of Jack's yellow powder for the imager. She'd inserted it a moment ago and now its molecular structure floated before her: an exact duplicate of the Loki molecule after it became inert.
If inert Berzerk equaled inert Loki, then the inescapable conclusion was that active Loki was active Berzerk. Dr. Monnet had her working on stabilizing a designer drug that induced violent behavior.
Amid a wave of nausea, she dropped into a chair. She had to face it: Dr. Monnet was involved with a dangerous drug. But to what extent? Was he manufactaring it for Milos Dragovic or merely trying to stabilize it for him?
And how willing was his participation? That was the real crux. Nadia couldn't help but notice how anxious Dr. Monnet seemed. That certainly was a good indication that he could be being pressured, even threatened. Or was she simply looking for excuses?
No. She had to have faith that he was not a willing party. And besides, logic said it couldn't be for the money. It made no sense for Dr. Monnet to be involved in illegal drugs when there was so much money to be made in the legal ones.
I should go to the police, she thought, but quickly changed her mind.
An investigation might or might not lead to Dragovic, but it would certainly expose Dr. Monnet's involvement. He could wind up in jail while Dragovic remained untouched.
There had to be another way. Jack was the key. She prayed he'd come up with something soon.
One thing she did know, though: she wasn't going to do another lick of work on this molecule until she had some answers.
2
Ivo had the wheel this time. Another day spent in front of the town house would garner attention, so they'd parked on the west side of Sutton Place this morning in front of a marble-faced apartment house, slightly uptown from Fifty-eighth Street and across from Sutton Square. From this spot he had a good view of the town house.
Yesterday's collision with the truck still bothered him: Accident or intentional? How to tell?
Their car today was another Town Car, but older. Since they'd parked Ivo had been noticing an odor.
"What's that smell?"
Vuk sniffed and ran a hand through his bleached hair. "Smells like piss."
"Right," Ivo said, nodding. "We got a car somebody pissed his pants in. Backseat, I'll bet."
Vuk smiled. "Someone was awfully frightened while riding in this car. Very likely his last ride."
"Well," Ivo said, "if a pee-stained car is our worst punishment, I'll take it."
Vuk laughed. "The boss was mad as hell, wasn't he. We're lucky we got off with our skins."
Ivo nodded. They could laugh now, but last night it had been no laughing matter. Normally Dragovic would shrug off an accident like a pierced radiator, but he'd flown off the handle, raging about the security area like a madman. He was still in a fury over the tire attack, wanting to kill somebody for it, but who? For a few moments Ivo had been ready to piss his own pants, fearing that he and Vuk would end up as surrogate whipping boys.
But then Dragovic had stopped abruptly, almost in midshout, and stalked from the room, leaving Vuk and Ivo—and no doubt many of the others present—shaken and sweaty.
Ivo remembered a sergeant like that in Kosovo. He'd had that same unpredictable, almost psychopathic streak. But at least the Army's rules and regulations had restrained him somewhat. Dragovic had nothing to hold him back. The rules were all his and he could change them whenever he pleased.
Ivo missed the Army, even though much time was spent sitting around waiting for something to happen or to be told what to do. Mostly he missed the structured existence. He did not miss the fighting.
He still had nightmares about Kosovo. He hadn't taken part in the cleansing. Never in a thousand lifetimes could he step into a home and shoot everyone in sight. Most of that had been done by the local police and paramilitaries. Some soldiers had participated—Vuk, for one—but most just stood by and let it happen.
That was my sin, Ivo thought. Turning my head. That and looting.
The looting had been so senseless—carrying off televisions with no way to get them back home. Only the officers had access to trucks, and they simply commandeered the most valuable items from the men under them and shipped them home.
The Ivo who left Kosovo was a far cry from the Ivo who had entered that hellish province. The night before boarding the transport out, he'd prayed that he wouldn't have to kill. But he'd returned with blood on his hands—the blood of a few KLA guerrillas, and civilians as well. But he'd killed civilians only when they'd asked for it.
His unit had been stationed in the area between Gnjilane and Zegra, and no one who was not there could ever understand what it was like. An old woman would hobble by a group of soldiers and, just before turning a corner, toss a hand grenade into their midst.