Repairman Jack [08]-Crisscross (38 page)

Eventually she regained control and seemed embarrassed. The good news was that throughout the long wait by the exit ramp he'd seen no sign of Jensen and company. Heading the wrong way had worked.

They'd found an all-night Wal-Mart and bought clean clothes. Jack grabbed the wheel then and took the long way home.

They'd been arguing since they hit North Jersey about where Jamie would spend the night. Her place was out of the question—probably had half a dozen IPs glued to it—as was Jack's. He hadn't let her know his name, and he sure as hell wasn't letting her know where he lived. So he'd been pushing for a hotel room somewhere in the wilds of Queens. He'd sleep outside her door if necessary.

Jamie wanted none of it. She insisted that he drop her off at
The Light
.

"You think they won't be watching your office too?" Jack said. "It's stupid to go back there."

"Jack, I'll be under guard. You've seen the security there during the day, and it's even tougher at night. You've got to be buzzed through the door, and Henry, the night guy, is armed."

Jack shook his head. "I don't like it."

She reached over and patted his hand. "I'll be fine. I'll take a cab and get dropped off right at the door. What are they going to do—grab me off the street in front of Henry? He'll buzz me in and I'll be safe for the night. I can work on transcribing the interview without worrying."

"I think you should call the cops. You're a taxpayer—get some of it back in protection."

She looked at him. " 'You're a taxpayer'… kind of an odd turn of phrase, don't you think? I mean, so are you."

Jack could have told her how he'd never sullied his hands with a 1040, but didn't want to get into that.

"Let's forget turns of phrase. Call the cops."

"No way. Not yet. I want to get this story filed first. If I call in the gendarmes now, I'll have to tell them about Coop and—"

"'Coop'?"

She blinked and Jack noticed her eyes glistening. "He wasn't a bad guy, just an old hippie. A gentle hedonist. He didn't create Dormentalism as it is today, he isn't responsible for what Brady's done to it. He didn't deserve to die… to be blown up… and I can't help thinking how he'd still be alive if I'd just left him alone…"

Her voice choked off in a sob, but only one.

Jack thought about asking her if her meltdown in Carmel was the reason she was being so hard-nosed about not hiding out or getting help. He decided against it. Probably only get her back up.

"The cops, Jamie? What's wrong with getting them involved now instead of later?"

"Because in order to get protection I'll have to tell them why I'm in danger, and that means telling them what happened to Coop. And once they hear that, I'll be trapped in an interrogation-deposition situation for hours, maybe days, during which—"

"At least you'll he safe."

"—the story of what happened up there will leak out, and every paper in the city will he screaming their takes while mine remains unwritten and unfiled."

"Yeah, but the stories will be about you. You'll be famous."

"Like I care, /want to break the story—me. Nobody else. Where I come from, that's important. I'll be safe. Really."

"Really? Remember Coop? They blew him up."

She threw up her hands. "Look, I'm through talking about it. Stop someplace where I can get a cab."

Jack sighed. He knew an immovable object when he saw one—Gia could be just as intransigent. His instincts urged him to head straight for the on-ramp to the Queensboro Bridge and cross the East River. He wanted to find a motel room and lock her in it until she saw the light.

But he couldn't do that. He'd fight tooth and nail if someone tried to lock him up, so how could he do that to her? It went against everything he believed in.

And yet… how could he let her put her life on the line just to be first to file a story?

Let her
… listen to me… like I own her.

He didn't. Jamie owned Jamie, and so Jamie had to be allowed to do what she felt she had to, even if Jack thought it was insanely risky. Because in the end all that mattered was what Jamie thought. It was her life. And so what mattered most was what mattered to Jamie.

Jack turned downtown, away from the bridge.

"Shit! This is idiotic, Jamie! You're going to get yourself killed. And me with you."

"How's that?"

"Well, you don't think I'm going to let you go alone."

She placed a hand on his arm. "I appreciate that, but you don't need to come along. Just cover my back till I'm inside. After that I'm home free: locked doors, an armed guard."

"I do
not
like this."

"I'm not crazy about it either, but a gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do."

"Not funny."

"Wasn't meant to be," she said.

3

Jamie waited in the rear of the cab until she spotted Henry through the glass doors of
The Light's
front entrance. There he was, sitting behind his kiosk, just where he was supposed to be. Time to move. Heart pounding, she hopped from the cab and raced across the sidewalk.

As she jammed the ringer button, her head snapped left and right—would have rotated full circle had her neck allowed—looking for Dementedist goons. She knew Jack was somewhere nearby, hiding in the shadows. Still, if a couple of TPs suddenly jumped out and pulled her into a van, was he close enough to help?

She heard a noise and jumped. About a hundred feet to her left two men in raincoats were gliding from a parked sedan.

Oh, God!

She started hammering on the glass and at just that moment the door swung open. She leaped inside and elbowed Henry out of the way to pull it closed behind her. As it latched she peered through the glass and saw the two men standing on the sidewalk, halfway to the door, staring at her. She resisted the urge to give them the finger.

Henry laughed. "What's the hurry, Ms. Grant?"

Jamie figured if she told him that people were after her because of a story she was about to write, he'd call the cops.

She turned and smiled. "Got a big story to write, Henry."

"Must be a whopper to bring you in at this hour. I mean, this is early even for you." He leaned closer and looked at her. "Or is it late?"

She glanced up. The lobby clock showed ten after two.

"Late, Henry," she said as she started for the elevators. "Very late."

She hadn't slept well Wednesday, finally giving up on the possibility around four A.M. Thursday. She'd hauled herself out of bed and headed for the office. Here it was, Friday morning, which meant she'd been going full speed for over twenty-two hours. Yet she didn't feel the slightest hint of fatigue. She was jazzed. Adrenaline strummed heavy-metal power chords along her axons.

Good thing too, otherwise the horrors of the night—cutting through Coop's skin… his body blowing to pieces—would have reduced her to a trembling basket case by now.

But she couldn't dwell on that.

On the third floor she turned on all the overhead lights and wound through the deserted cubicle farm to her office. She paused on the threshold and looked at the comforting confusion of strewn-about books, newspapers, printouts, and scribbled-up yellow notepads.

Bless this mess, she thought. I'm home.

She dropped into her desk chair, lit a ciggie, and turned on her terminal. She'd rewound the tape during the trip back, so all she had to do now was pull the recorder from her shoulder bag and hit PLAY.

She had a bad moment when she first heard the murdered man's voice begin to speak to her from the tiny speaker…

'
"You mean why I'm not in suspended animation, and how I came to be a shell of my former self? Know what? If you hold me up to your ear you can hear the ocean roar
."

… but she held herself together and began to transcribe.

4

Jensen eyed the front entrance of
The Light
from the rear seat of the Town Car.

"That's the only way in?"

Hutch the hulk was still behind the wheel. Davis, a twitchy sort who'd been watching
The Light's
granite office building since Jensen had called in an alert, sat in the front passenger seat.

"The only way worth mentioning," Davis said. "The side entrance is a steel door. Unless you want to get into some acetylene action, this is it."

Jensen's head throbbed, especially around the scalp cut. They'd never caught up to Grant and Mr. Whoever, so when they got back to the city Jensen called a Dormentalist doctor who did work for the Church on the QT—anything for the cause and all that. The doc had said bring him to his office where he'd see what he could do. One look at Lewis's ass—he'd been shot in the thigh too, but the ass wound was really messy—and he said he needed a hospital. He'd try to admit him as a car accident to avoid a gunshot wound report to the police, but couldn't guarantee he'd be successful.

He'd wanted to stitch up Jensen's scalp but Jensen couldn't spare the time. He let the doc butterfly it closed and then he was on his way.

He leaned over between the seats for another quick look at his forehead in the rearview mirror. The three beveled strips of tape gleamed like white neon against his black skin. Didn't anyone make black butterflies? Or at least dark brown?

Why am I thinking about this shit when everything's poised to slide into the crapper?

He needed a way out and needed it bad. If the Blascoe story got out, he'd have to hit the road. The cops—maybe even the feds—would be grilling everybody in the Church, and sure as shit one of them would crack and start pointing a finger at him as the guy responsible for Blascoe's death. Another murder rap would put him away for good. No way he was going back to the joint. Not even for a minute.

Hutch said, "How about just going up to the door and ringing the bell? Get him to open up and speak to you and then you're in."

Davis shook his head. "At two-thirty in the morning? Wouldn't catch me opening that door for anybody I don't know."

Davis had a point. Then Jensen remembered a couple of props he had left over from an investigation they did into a state assemblyman who was making trouble for the Church a few years back.

"What if you two showed up at the door flashing metal?"

"You mean guns?" Hutch said.

Jesus! How thick was this guy?

"No. I'm talking police detective shields."

"That'll get us in. Yeah, that'll do it."

Jensen lowered his voice. "Thing is, you'll have to take out the guard."

Davis turned in his seat. "Take out… as in permanently? Why?"

"Because we can't risk even the tiniest chance of this leading back to the Church. And you know the rules: Grant has been officially declared IS, and that means anyone protecting her is IS too."

"In Season." Hutch shook his head. "We haven't had one of those in a while."

"Well, any IS you've dealt with in the past is nothing compared to this one. Grant and her pal are the biggest threat the Church has ever faced. A lot's riding on you guys tonight. Question is, are you up for it?"

Right off, Hutch said, "Sure."

Good old Hutch. Not so bright, but he'd do anything for the Church.

Davis hesitated, then finally nodded. "To save the Church, I guess I am."

"No guessing, Davis."

A sigh, then, "Give us the badges and we'll get this over with."

He tapped Hutch on the shoulder. "Get us over to the temple." That was where he kept the badges. "And when we get back, I want Grant in one piece. The guard goes, but I need to talk to Grant."

Did he ever. Because one way or another she was going to tell him all about her boyfriend.

5

Jack had promised to cover Jamie until she got inside, but he'd hung on after that when he spotted Jensen's Town Car idling across the street from
The Light
. If he and his goons made a move on the front door, Jack would have to act. Didn't want that, because it most likely would involve gun play. He didn't know what kind of marksmanship he'd be up against, but even if he got off unscathed, gunshots tended to attract cops.

So he crouched in a shadowed doorway and waited.

After five or ten minutes, the big car shifted into gear and roared off. Jack allowed himself to relax, but not too much. They might be simply driving around the block looking for another way in.

But when thirty minutes had passed and they didn't show, he called it a night. Jamie was safe behind locked doors and an armed guard. Jack didn't see what he could add to that.

6

Jamie lifted her head and looked around. She thought she'd heard a noise. Like maybe the elevator. She went to her door and stared out at the cubicle sea. She waited to see if anyone came through the hallway door. She supposed it would be way too much to expect Henry to stop by with a much-needed cup of coffee, but it didn't hurt to indulge in a little of that stuff that springs eternal.