Jack's plan had been to meet up with Bolton here and hang with him in an attempt to find out what he was up to and where he thought he was headed… glean a little more info before his meeting with Christy. The impending-fatherhood announcement had made that unnecessary.
It also had made Jack dread seeing Christy.
But he had an important call to make before he met her.
5
"Are you on a cell phone?" Levy said when he came on the line.
Jack leaned against the side of an open booth on Queens Boulevard. It had taken him a long time to find a public phone. They used to be everywhere. Now…
"I'm in one of the last telephone booths in Queens. Just listen. You know the fellow we're interested in—the one dating the young girl?"
Levy's tone was cautious. "Yes."
"Well, she's pregnant, and our friend is the father."
A pause, then a gasp. "Dear God, if she inherited her mother's…" He seemed to be searching for a code word, a neutral term, anything but oDNA. "Her mother's…"
"Special sauce?"
"We're not talking about a hamburger!"
"In a way, we are."
An exasperated sigh. "I don't believe this. Very well. If she inherited her mother's special sauce, and that combines with our friend's special sauce, then—"
"Then we wind up with one hell of a Big Mac."
"Yes… yes, we do."
"That's got to be what he's been looking to do all along: create a super sauce."
"You think this is intentional?"
"He went looking for this particular girl. What else can I think? This is kind of scary."
"Yes and no. Here's the thing: The girl might not have inherited her mother's special sauce. You don't inherit a carbon copy of your mother's genome; only half. The other half comes from your father. So there's always a chance the girl is sauce free."
"Unless, of course, the girl's father was heavy on the sauce."
"Yes. In that case the odds of inheriting a large portion of the sauce increase dramatically. Dramatically. You must learn who the father was and where we can find him."
"And if I do?"
"Then you obtain a sample of his, um, sauce and we find out what we're dealing with."
"And if I can't?"
"Then get a sample of the girl's so we can see how much she's carrying. If she missed out, then the experiment was a failure—thank God."
Something in Levy's tone bothered Jack.
"You sound upset."
"I am. There's genetic manipulation going on here—it's old-fashioned, barnyard-style breeding, but genetic manipulation nonetheless—and I want to know why. Someone has a purpose here, and I want to know what it is. Because that special sauce is potentially explosive. It's TNT, which is dangerous enough. But this makes me start to think that someone has spent generations trying to make an atom bomb."
To blow up what? Jack wondered. Who or what was the target?
6
"No!" Christy cried, feeling her heart leap into her throat. "That's not possible!" They sat together on the front seat of her Mercedes, parked along the northern end of Meadow Lake, a peaceful haven hunkered between the roaring ribbons of the LIE, Grand Central Parkway, and the Van Wyck Expressway. Jack had thought it better if he stayed away from her house. He'd said Bolton, and now Dawn, knew what he looked like and either of them seeing him entering or leaving Christy's house would greatly complicate the investigation.
He'd said he had news, but she never dreamed… Jerry Bethlehem… her half brother? It was crazy! "I'm afraid it's true."
She studied Jack's face. Was he up to something? Pulling some sort of sleazy scam?
But no. She sensed genuine reluctance in him. He hadn't wanted to be the one to tell her.
Her tongue tasted like tin.
"But… how?"
"The usual way, I assume."
Not funny.
"No, damn it! Where did you find out? How did you find out? And why did you even check?"
"I knew from my talk with Bethlehem at Work the other day that his father's name was Jonah and that he had one eye."
That rocked her. One eye… her father had worn an eye patch. At least that was what she'd been told. But millions of people had lost an eye.
"So?"
"When I spoke to you yesterday you said your mother told you your father was swallowed by a whale."
And there it was, smacking her in the face.
"Oh, God… Jonah."
He nodded. "Yeah. And since, as I told you, I was looking for some sort of connection between you and Bethlehem, that sent up a bright red flare."
"But you never said anything."
"Because I thought it was such a long shot, I didn't dare. Otherwise you'd have been looking at me like you were a moment ago—ready to call the booby squad."
"But how did you get a sample of—?"
"You left some hair behind at Julio's."
"And Bethlehem?"
"I snagged a spoon from Work."
She couldn't be certain but he seemed a little less sure of himself than before. Was that true? Could you get a DNA sample from a used spoon?
"I still can't believe this. Where's the lab report?"
He looked out the window. "I don't have it."
"What? Then how do you know?"
"Verbal confirmation. Hard copy will follow, but that won't help you. The samples are numbered on the report for confidentiality. Some sort of law."
"Then it could be a mistake."
It had to be a mistake.
He looked at her now. "The guy who did the test told me flat-out that the two specimens I gave him came from people with the same father but different mothers."
Christy closed her eyes and held her breath to keep from sobbing. This was getting worse and worse.
"How can something like this happen? I mean, what are the odds of my half brother coming to town and just happening to pick up on—?" She jolted upright and stared at him. "Unless he knows! Oh, Jesus, do you think he knows?"
"I'm almost sure he does. The odds of this happening by accident are astronomical."
"But why? I knew he was bent, but what possible reason could he have for dating his niece?"
"It has to be something in your past. And since you don't know Bethlehem, the only thing I can think of is some beef with Dawn's father."
No-no-no! she thought. Don't go there! Oh, please don't go there!
"Impossible."
"He could be getting even for something."
"By…" The word fucking sprang to mind but she couldn't bring herself to say it, not when it concerned Dawn. "By going with his own niece?"
"He's a twisted SOB. Who knows what's going on in his head. But the only way I can help you find out is by learning about her father."
"No!"
He looked annoyed and she could understand that. But she couldn't tell him.
"Come on, Christy. Who was he? Was he involved when you disappeared for those weeks?"
She looked at him. "How did you—?" Then she stopped and nodded. "Oh, right. You're a detective. But you're supposed to be investigating Jerry Bethlehem, not me."
"Just putting together all the pieces of this jigsaw you handed me. Now… what about those weeks? Was he involved?"
"Forget it. I don't even want to think about him. It was a terrible—it was the worst time in my life."
"It was bad for everyone in Atlanta around then. The abortionist assassinations, the—"
The abortionist assassinations? Why was he bringing them up?
The missing weeks, the killings, a brother she'd never known existed… too much. Panic blossomed, shutting off her air. Her heart rattled about in her chest, she couldn't breathe, the car was shrinking, closing in on her, pressing Jack closer until—