Jack peeked over the gutter and positioned himself over a dark window. Slid off the roof feet first and belly down, easing his weight onto the gutter. It groaned and creaked and sagged as he hung by his fingers. Before it could give way he managed to place his feet on the windowsill and let that take his weight. Eased himself into a crouch to where he could grip the sill with his hands, then dropped again. He clung to the sill only a second or two, poising his feet a mere six feet off the ground, then let go. He twisted in the air and hit the ground running.
His sneakers made no sound as he sprinted along the sidewalk. He bent as low as he could without compromising his speed and waited for a second shot. But none came. Took a left at the first corner and a right at the next and kept running. At least now he was out of the line of fire—if Cordova stayed on foot. But if he got into a car and started cruising…
Plus, cops should be on their way.
What a mess. This was supposed to be a simple in-and-out job with no one the wiser until later.
Kept moving in a crouch, watching the passing cars, on alert for flashing lights. Slipped out of his partially shredded windbreaker—he was wearing a WWE Lance Storm T-shirt beneath—and pulled the Mets cap from the pocket. Jammed the cap on his head and bunched the jacket into a nylon lump the size of a softball. Palmed that and slowed to a speedy walk.
Slowed further when he hit 232nd Street. Stuffed the windbreaker down into a trash receptacle as he walked to the elevated subway station on 233rd. Caught the 2 train and settled down for a long ride back to Manhattan.
He patted the letter folded in his jeans pocket. Another problem fixed. Jankowski would be happy, and Cordova…
Jack smiled. Fat Richie Cordova had to be fuming as much as the sulfuric acid on his photos and papers.
2
A man who was something more than a man crouched among the foundation plantings of a two-story house in a quiet Connecticut community. He moved through the world under different guises, using different names, but never his own, never his True Name. And as he traveled, doing what must be done to prepare the way, he searched out places such as this family home.
He sat with his spine and the back of his head pressed against the house’s concrete foundation. Someone coming upon him might have thought he was an indigent sleeping off a bender. But he hadn’t been sleeping. He required very little rest. He could go for days without closing his eyes.
And even if this had been one of those rare occasions when he needed rest, he would have found sleep impossible while basking in the exhilarating emanations from the basement of this house.
On the other side of the wall…systematic torture, mutilation, and defilement. The victim wasn’t the first so abused by this family of three, and would not be the last. Or so the man who was something more than a man hoped.
What the two adults within had done to the ones they’d captured and imprisoned over the years would have been sustenance enough for this man. But the fact that they had debased their own child and made him a willing participant in the systematic defilement of another human being…this was exquisite.
He flattened his back more firmly against the wall, drinking, feasting…
3
After stopping at Julio’s for a couple, Jack fell into bed when he got home. Jankowski could wait till morning for the good news.
Somewhere around 3 A.M. the ringing of the front-room phone dragged him from slumberland. The answering machine clicked on and out came a voice he hadn’t heard in fifteen years.
“Jackie. This is your brother Tom. Long time no see. I assume you’re still alive, though it’s hard to tell. Well, anyway, Dad was in a car accident earlier tonight. He’s in pretty bad shape, in a coma, they tell me. So give me a call, prontissimo. We need to talk.”
He rattled off a number with a 215 area code.
Jack had been up and moving at the mention of his father’s accident, but didn’t reach the receiver in time to pick up. He stood over the phone in the dark.
Dad? In an accident? In a coma? How the hell—?
Unease trickled through his gut. The past he’d cut himself off from was worming its way back into his life. First he runs into his sister Kate last June, and a week later she’s dead. Now, three months after that, he hears from big brother Tom that his father’s in a coma. Was he detecting a scary symmetry here? A pattern?
Deal with that later, he told himself. First find out what happened to Dad.
Jack replayed the message, writing down the phone number. He used his Tracfone to return the call. That same voice answered.
“Tom? Jack.”
“Well, I’ll be. The long lost brother. The prodigal son. He lives. He returns a call.”
Jack didn’t have time for this. “What’s the story with Dad?”
Jack had never particularly liked his brother. Hadn’t disliked him either. They’d never had any sort of a relationship growing up. Tom—Tom, Jr., officially—was ten years older and seemed to have viewed his little brother as an inconvenient pet, one that belonged to his parents and his sister but had nothing to do with him. He’d always been self-involved to a fault. Kate had said he was on his third wife and hinted that the latest marriage was headed for the same fate as his others. Jack hadn’t been surprised.
Tom had been a Philadelphia lawyer for a couple of decades and was now a Philadelphia judge. Which meant he was an officer of the court, a cog in the wheels of officialdom. All the more reason for Jack to keep his distance. Courts gave him the creeps.
“Pretty much what I told you. I got a call from this nurse at the Novaton Community Hospital that Dad was involved in an MVA and—”
“M-V—?”
“Motor vehicle accident—and that he’s in bad shape.”
“Yeah. A coma, right? Jeez, what do we do?”
“Not we, Jackie. You.”
Jack didn’t like the sound of this. “I don’t get you.”
“One of us has to go down there. I can’t, and since Kate’s not exactly available, that leaves you.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?”
“I—I’m in the middle of a bunch of legal business…judicial matters that have me tied up.”
“You can’t get away to see a comatose father?”
“It’s complicated, Jackie. Too complicated to go into on the phone at this hour of the morning. Suffice it to say that I can’t leave the city now.”
Jack sensed a lot more going on here than Tom was telling.
“Are you in some sort of trouble?”
“Me? Christ, why would you ask something like that?”
“Because you sound funny.”
Tom’s tone took on a sharp edge. “How would you know what I sound like? We haven’t spoken in, what, ten years, and you’re going to tell me how I sound?”
“It’s been fifteen years”—not quite long enough, Jack thought—“and yeah, I’m telling you you sound funny.”
“Yeah, well, don’t worry about me. Worry about Dad. He gave me your number before he moved to Florida. ‘Just in case,’ he said. Well, ‘just in case’ just happened. Tag, you’re it.”
Jack sighed. “All right. I guess I’ll go.”
“Don’t sound so enthusiastic.”
Jack shook his head. First off, he hated to leave New York for any reason, period. Plus, this wasn’t a good time for him to be heading for Florida or anywhere else. He had another fix-it in the early stages of development, but he’d have to let it wait. Worse, an emergency trip like this meant that driving and Amtrak were out. He’d have to take a plane. He didn’t mind flying itself, but all the extra security since 9-11 made an airport a scary place for a guy with no official identity.