Jack didn't respond. He was trying to get a grip on this virtual stranger who was his brother. He sensed a deep melancholy. He seemed almost… dispirited.
Tom sighed. "Maybe I should have done what you did."
"Meaning?"
"Disappear. All Dad did was talk about you and how he was going to track you down and bring you back. I was there but all he cared about was you."
"Cut me a break," Jack said. "He had Kate and Kevin and Lizzie, and… and your kids."
Tom looked at him. "You don't even know their names, do you. They're your nieces and nephews and you don't know a thing about them."
True. He didn't. Hadn't met any of his family's next generation.
"Yeah, well, maybe it's time for me to start remedying that."
"Don't do us any favors."
Jack fought a flare of anger.
"Christ, Tom, you're here, what, fifteen minutes, and listen to you. That why you came? To start a fight? That's not what this is about."
Tom sighed again. "Yeah, you're right. It's not." He drained his drink. "Sorry."
Jack did the same with his ale.
"Let's get you to your hotel room."
His head snapped toward Jack. "Hotel? I sort of figured I'd be staying with you."
"Nobody stays with me, Tom."
"Really?" He took on a pugnacious look. "How about Dad? Where was he going to stay?"
"Not with me."
Tom shook his head. "You're a weird one, Jackie—"
"Jack."
"Okay: Jack. I talked to Dad last week about the Philly leg of his trip—during which he was going to stay at my place, by the way—and he said some strange things about you."
Uh-oh.
"Like what?"
"Well, I mean besides all the hagiographic blather about how you'd turned out and how good it was to get to know you again and all, he said something like, 'If you ever need someone to watch your back, call Jack.' Now what did he mean by that?"
"Couldn't say."
"What went on down in Florida that made the two of you so buddy-buddy?"
"I guess you could say we bonded."
Bonded… the lump reformed in Jack's throat, smaller this time, but definitely there. If he'd only known how little time they had left.
"Yeah? How? I saw him a lot more than you did over the past fifteen years and we never 'bonded.' What happened?"
"We took care of a problem together."
"What sort of problem?"
"Not important."
"Shit. You're as oblique as he was."
Jack shrugged. He was glad Dad hadn't discussed it with Tom. Jack didn't want to.
Since Tom was making no move to pay for the drinks, Jack reached for his wallet.
"I've got it," Tom said. He pulled out a roll of bills, peeled off a twenty, and passed it to Jack. "How's that look to you?"
Jack recognized the workmanship—the same crew that had made the C-notes he'd passed to a pair of psychics last summer.
"Queer."
"Damn it! You can tell?"
"Stuff's been all over town. Question is, what's a judge, an officer of the court, doing with bogus bills?"
Tom shrugged. "Evidence in a case. They looked fairly genuine so I pocketed a sample."
"Why? You haven't been passing them, have you?"
Another shrug. "It's kind of a hobby. You know, to see if I can get away with it."
"Jesus, if you get caught—"
"Hey, I'm a judge. I had no idea. Someone passed it to me and I innocently passed it on." He smiled and put a hand over his heart. "I shall adopt the plaint of victimhood."
That might work for Tom, but Jack couldn't risk being pulled in as an accomplice. Someone might ask him questions he couldn't answer.
"Well, don't try it here." Jack pointed to a twenty and a C-note taped to the mirror next to the cash register. "Everybody's on the lookout for them."
Tom's smile held. "No problem. I'll bet I can work out a way around that."
This time he took out his wallet and removed a fifty. He waved to the barmaid and handed it to her along with the tab. Seconds later she was back with the change.
As she turned away, Jack watched Tom pocket the real twenty and hold up the queer.
"Oh, excuse me, miss. Can I have two tens for this?"
She said, "Sure," and went to the cash register and pushed in the twenty without checking it. Why would she? She thought it was the same bill she'd just given him. She returned and handed Tom the tens.
When she was out of earshot, he grinned at Jack. "How about that for slick?"
It took Jack about half a minute to recover. He'd seen a lot—a lot—of off-the-wall things, but his brother the judge pulling a two-bit bill switch…
"You've gotta be kidding me, Tom. Are you crazy?"
"Maybe. So what?"
"Get that bill back."
"Relax. It's a game. And it's only twenty bucks."
"It's not 'only' to her, and she'll get docked for accepting it."
Tom shook his head and stared at him. "No need to get all touchy-feely on me, Jack. I got the impression from Dad that you were some sort of tough guy. I guess I got it wrong."
"If I'm tough, it's not with working stiffs trying to earn a living."
My brother the judge, Jack thought.
Wasn't that about as high as you could go in the legal profession? The arbiter of right and wrong, of admissible and inadmissible, the guy in charge of the blind lady's scales… and he was acting like a lowlife. A bottom-feeding lowlife.
Jack knew loads of people on the wrong side of the law, and coufd think of a few who'd be only too happy to knock over Houlihan's and clean the cash registers of every last dime. But none of those guys would stoop to stiffing the barmaid. Okay, maybe he knew one or two who'd shortchange their blind, deaf, crippled mother, but they left a telltale trail of slime wherever they went and topped Jack's AVOID list.
"Well?" he said, giving Tom a hard stare. "You gonna get it back?"
Tom looked at him as if he'd just told him Dad was a space alien.
"Hell no."
Jack resisted the impulse to punch his brother's doughy face. Instead he took out his wallet, found a ten and two fives, and flagged down the barmaid.
"Could you give me a twenty for these?"
She glanced at Jack, then at Tom, then back again.
"Is this some kind of game?"
"No. I just need a twenty."
She shrugged and retrieved the bogus bill. Jack took it, then snatched a five from Tom's change and handed it to her.
"For your troubles."
She smiled. "Thanks."
Tom shot him a venomous look.
Screw him.
Jack started toward the elevators up to street level.
"Let's get you set up in your room."
5
"The Pennsylvania Hotel?" Tom said as he followed Jack across Seventh Avenue. "Never heard of it."
He was feeling the vodka percolating through his bloodstream now, dulling the pervasive shock of being the son of a man murdered by terrorists. He and Dad had never been close—hell, who have I ever been close to?—but still… he was his father and he'd been scheduled for a stayover next week. Tom didn't kid himself—Dad's primary reason for coming had been to see his grandkids.
But still…
Vodka usually made the world look a little friendlier, a little easier to handle. Not today.
This city was partly to blame. He'd never liked New York. Always struck him as more toxic landfill than city. Too big, too coarse, completely lacking the elan of Philadelphia. Philly… now there was a city.
But here…
He eyed the passing parade of New York's lumpenproletariat: the glaborous, the rugose, the nodose, the labrose. An endless procession of elves, spriggins, goblins, trolls, fakirs, shellycoats, gorgons, Quasimodos, and Merricks.