He tried to take his mind off Gia and what might be happening in that treatment room by shuffling through some leftover section of the Times. He spotted a familiar name in the Sunday Styles section: "New York's most eli-gible bachelor, Dormentalist Church guru Luther Brady, was observed in close conversation with Meryl Streep at the East Hampton Library Fund charity ball."
Not exactly an abstemious lifestyle.
He looked up as a nurse approached. She started to speak, then broke into a laugh.
"What's so funny?"
"I'm sorry. When your wife said to look for a man dressed like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, I thought she was kidding."
By now Jack had gotten used to the stares from the other people in the waiting room. He'd left the mask, gloves, and feet back at the house, but still wore the green, finned bodysuit.
"It is Halloween, you know. How is she?"
"Dr. Eagleton will tell you all about it."
They followed her to a treatment room where they found Gia propped up on a gurney. Her color was better but she still looked drawn. Vicky darted to her side and they hugged.
As Jack hung back, letting them have their moment, a tall, slim woman with salt-and-pepper hair stepped in. She wore a long white coat.
"You're the father?" she said, eyeing his costume. When Jack nodded, she held out her hand. "I'm Dr. Eagleton."
"Jack," he said. She had a firm grip. "How's she doing?"
Dr. Eagleton didn't look exactly comfortable discussing this with a man in a rubber monster suit, but she bore with it.
"She's lost a lot of blood, but the contractions have stopped."
"She's going to be okay?"
"Yes."
"And the baby?"
"Ultrasound shows no problem—good position, steady heart rate."
Jack closed his eyes and let out a relieved breath. "Thanks. Thank you very much."
"I want to keep her overnight, though."
"Really? Is there still a danger?"
"She should be fine. The further along the pregnancy, the less likely a miscarriage. Gia's in her twentieth week and it's rare after that. So I think we're in good shape. Just the same, I'd like to be sure."
Jack glanced at Gia. "What caused this?"
Dr. Eagleton shrugged. "The most common causes are a dead or grossly defective fetus." Jack's stab of alarm must have shown on his face because she quickly added, "Bui that's not the ease here. Sometimes it's trauma, and sometimes it just… happens."
Jack didn't like the sound of that. For a while now it seemed that things—bad things, at least—didn't "just happen" in his life.
Jack stepped over to the gurney and took Gia's hand. She squeezed his.
"You'll take care of Vicky until I get home tomorrow, won't you?"
Gia had no family in the city. Everyone was back in Iowa.
Jack smiled. "You don't even have to ask." He winked at Vicky. "Vicks and I are going straight home to do flaming shooters of Cuervo Gold."
As Vicky giggled, Gia said, "Jack, that's not funny."
Jack slapped his forehead. "That's right! She's got school tomorrow. Okay, Vicks: only one."
As Gia went on about Vicky's schedule, Jack wondered at the awesome responsibility of caring for a nine-year-old girl, even for a day.
He'd stepped into Family Affair—without Mr. French.
Cordova and the Dormentalists weren't half as scary.
TUESDAY
1
Jack spent the night in the guest bedroom at the Sutton Square place. Lucky for him, Vicky turned out to be pretty self-sufficient.
More than self-sufficient.
Next morning, after showering and getting herself dressed, she insisted on making Jack bacon and eggs before it was time for the school bus. Bacon here meant strips of bacon-flavored soy.
She seemed in good spirits, not the least bit worried. Dr. Eagleton had told her that her mother was going to be fine and that was enough for Vicky. If Mom's doctor said so, that's how it was going to be.
Oh, to be nine again and have that kind of faith.
As he watched her bustle around the kitchen—she knew exactly what she needed and where everything was—and listened to her chatter, he felt his heart swell. Vicky was going to be a wonderful big sister to the new baby.
New baby… his appetite took a nose dive. He hadn't heard any bad news, so he gathered Gia had had a quiet night. He hoped so.
During breakfast Jack called Gia to get a progress report—and give one.
She'd had a good night but wouldn't be released until late afternoon, which meant Jack had to arrange to be home to meet Vicks when she returned from school.
No problemo.
Vicky talked to her mother for a few minutes, then it was time to run. He walked her to the bus and gave her his cell phone number, telling her to call if she needed anything—anything.
Then he showered, shaved, and headed across town to Tenth Avenue.
2
Pedestrians flowed around the sandwich board sign propped in the center of the sidewalk.
ERNIE'S ID
ALL KINDS
PASSPORT
TAXI
DRIVER'S LICENSE
No business at this hour, so Jack had Ernie all to himself.
"Hey, Jack," Ernie said from the rear of the tiny store. He stood maybe five-five, weighed a hundred pounds after a five-pound meal, had a droopy, hangdog face with perpetually sad eyes, and spoke at a hundred-and-twenty miles an hour. "How y'doin', how y'doin'. Do the thing with the door there, will ya?"
Jack locked it and flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED. On the way to the rear, next to the bootleg videos, he passed a display pole festooned with high-end handbags—Kate Spade, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada—none of them the real deal. Not with twenty-dollar price tags. Everything Ernie carried was a knockoff of one sort or another.
"Into women's accessories now?" Jack said as he reached the display case that served as the rear counter.
"What? Oh, yeah. Outta towners come in and buy three, four at a time. Can't hardly keep 'em in stock." He pulled a manila envelope from behind the counter. "Wait'll you see this, Jacko. Wait'll you see!"
He dumped the contents onto the scratched glass: a driver's license with Jack's photo and two credit cards—a Visa gold and a platinum AmEx.
"That's it?"
Jack couldn't see what all the excitement was about. Ernie furnished him with this sort of thing all the time.
"Checkitout, checkitout." He was literally vibrating with excitement. "Check the license."
Jack leaned over for a closer look, then picked it up. His picture, but the name was Jason Amurri, and the language was…
"French?"
"It's Swiss," Ernie said, "and it's perfect. And the credit cards are both exact duplicates of his, right down to the expiration date and the verification number. Just don't use 'em or you'll blow everything."
"And just who is Jason Amurri?"
Ernie grinned. "Lives in Vevey. That's on the Swiss Riviera—you know, Montreux, Lake Geneva, those kinda places. Celine Dion and Phil Collins and people like that got homes around there."
"Okay. He lives in a ritzy area in a foreign country. That's a good start. Give me the details."
"You're gonna be impressed."
Jack had set strict criteria for this set of ID. He hoped Ernie had come through.
"I'll decide that after you tell me."