SEVEN

Manhattan

Sunday

1

Tennis!

Jack rolled out of bed with a groan. He’d been lying there dreaming of a big brunch at Jake’s Steaks and Cakes down on Seventh Avenue when he remembered the father-son tennis match he’d promised to play in today.

And he had no racquet. Only one thing to do: Call Abe and tell him it was an emergency.

After Abe agreed to meet him at the store, Jack showered, shaved, pulled on a pair of shorts, a dark blue jersey, sneakers and socks, and hurried down to the street. The morning sky had lost its weeklong humid haze. Looked like a nice day.

As he neared the Isher Sports Shop, he saw Abe waddling from the other direction. Abe looked him up and down as they met before the folding iron grille that protected the store during off-hours.

“Tennis balls! You’re going to tell me you want a can of tennis balls, are you?”

Jack shook his head and said, “Naw. I wouldn’t get you up early on a Sunday morning for tennis balls.”

“Glad to hear it.” He unlocked the grille and pushed it back far enough to expose the door. “Did you see the business section of the Times this morning? Such talk about the economy picking up? Feh! The Titanic we’re on, and the iceberg’s dead ahead.”

“It’s too nice a day for an economic holocaust, Abe.”

“All right,” he said, unlocking the door and pushing it open. “Go ahead, close your eyes to it. But it’s coming and the weather has nothing to do with it.”

After disarming the alarm system, Abe headed for the back of the store. Jack didn’t follow. He went directly to the tennis racquets and picked out a Wilson Hammer. The grip felt good in his hand, and it was already strung.

He was about to call out that he’d take this one when he noticed Abe glaring at him from the end of the aisle.

“For this you took me away from my breakfast? A tennis racquet?”

“And balls, too. I’ll need some balls.”

“Balls you’ve got! Too much balls to do such a thing to me! You said it was an emergency!”

Jack had been expecting this reaction. Sunday was the only morning Abe allowed himself the forbidden foods: lox with his bagels, verboten because of his blood pressure.

“It is an emergency. I’m supposed to be playing with my father in a couple of hours.”

Abe’s eyebrows rose and wrinkled his forehead all the way up to where his hairline once had been.

“Your father? First Gia, now your father. What is this? They talk of self-hating Jews, but a self-hating goy?”

“He’s not so bad.”

“Nu? Then why do you avoid him? And why are you in such a black mood every time you return from one of these jaunts into Jersey?”

“Because he’s a good guy who happens to be a pain in the ass.”

They both knew that wasn’t the whole story but by tacit agreement neither said any more. Jack paid for the racquet and a couple of cans of Penn balls.

“I’ll bring you back some tomatoes,” he said as the grille closed across the storefront again.

Abe brightened. “That’s right. Beefsteaks are in season. Get me some.”

Next stop was Julio’s, where Jack picked up Ralph, the car Julio kept for him. It was a ’63 Corvair, white with a black convertible top and a rebuilt engine. Not at all Julio’s style, but Julio hadn’t paid for it. Jack had seen it in the window of a classic car store; he’d given Julio the cash to go make the best deal he could and have it registered in his name. Legally it was Julio’s car, but Jack paid the insurance and the garage fee and reserved preemptive right of use for the rare occasions when he needed it.

Today was such an occasion. Julio had it gassed up and waiting for him. He’d also decorated it a bit since the last time Jack had taken it out: A “Hi!” hand waved from the left rear window, fuzzy dice hung from the mirror, and in the rear window sat a little dog whose head wobbled and whose eyes blinked red in unison with the tail lights.

Jack gave Julio what he hoped was a withering stare. “You expect me to ride around with those?”

Julio did his elaborate shrug. “What can I say, meng? ’S in the blood.”

Jack didn’t have time to remove the cultural paraphernalia, so he took the car as it was. Armed with the finest New York State driver’s license money could buy—in the name of Jack Howard—he slipped the Semmerling and its holster into the special compartment under the front seat and began a leisurely drive cross town.

Sunday morning is a unique time in Manhattan. Few buses and cabs, no trucks being unloaded, no work crews tearing up the streets, and only a rare pedestrian or two here and there. Quiet. All would change as noon approached, but at the moment Jack found it almost spooky.

He followed Fifty-eighth Street all the way to its eastern end and pulled in to the curb before 8 Sutton Square.

2

Gia answered the doorbell. With Eunice off and Nellie still asleep, the job fell to her. She wrapped her robe more tightly around her and walked slowly, carefully from the kitchen to the front of the house. The inside of her head felt too big for her skull, her tongue thick, her stomach slightly turned. Champagne … why should something that made you feel so good at night leave you feeling so awful the next day?

A look through the peephole showed Jack standing there in shorts and a dark blue shirt.

“Tennis, anyone?” he said with a lopsided grin as she opened the door.

He looked good. Gia had always liked a lean, wiry build on a man. She liked the linear cords of muscle in his forearms, and the curly hair on his legs. Why did he look so healthy when she felt so sick?

“Well? Can I come in?”

Gia realized she had been staring at him. She’d seen him three times in the past four days and was getting used to having him around again. That wasn’t good. But she saw no defense against it until Grace was found—one way or another.

“Sure.” When the door was closed behind him, she said, “Who’re you playing? Your Indian lady?”

She regretted that immediately, remembering his crack last night about jealousy. She wasn’t jealous … just curious.

“No. My father.”

“Oh.” Gia knew from the past how painful it was for Jack to spend time with his father.

“But the reason I’m here…” He paused uncertainly and rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m not sure how to say this, but here goes: Don’t drink anything strange.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“No tonics or laxatives or anything new you find around the house.”

Gia was not in the mood for games. “I may have had a little too much champagne last night, but I don’t go around swigging from bottles.”

“I’m serious, Gia.”

She could see that, and it made her uneasy. His gaze was steady and concerned.

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. But there was something bad about that laxative of Grace’s. Just stay away from anything like it. If you find any more of it, lock it away and save it for me.”

“Do you think it has anything to do—?”

“I don’t know. But I want to play it safe.”

He wasn’t telling her everything. Her unease mounted.

“What do you know?”

“That’s just it—I don’t know anything. Just a gut feeling. So play it safe and stay away from anything strange.” He gave her a slip of paper with a telephone number on it. It had a 609 area code. “Here’s my father’s number. Call me there if you need me or there’s any word from Grace.” He glanced up the stairs and toward the rear of the house. “Where’s Vicks?”

“Still in bed. She had a hard time falling asleep last night, according to Eunice.” Gia opened the front door. “Have a good game.”

Jack’s expression turned sour. “Sure.”

She watched him drive back to the corner and turn downtown on Sutton Place. She wondered what was going on in his mind; why the odd warning against drinking “anything strange.” Just to be sure, Gia went up to the second floor and checked through all the bottles on Grace’s vanity and in her bathroom closet. Everything had a brand name. Nothing like the unlabeled bottle Jack had found on Thursday.

She took two Advils and a long hot shower. The combination worked to ease her headache. By the time she’d dried off and dressed in plaid shorts and a blouse, Vicky was up and looking for breakfast.

“What do you feel like eating?” she asked as they passed the parlor on their way to the kitchen. She looked cute in her pink nightie and her fuzzy pink Dearfoams.

“Chocolate!”

“Vicky!”

“But it looks so good!” She pointed to where Eunice had set out a candy dish full of the Black Magic pieces.

“You know what it does to you.”

“But it would be delicious!”

“All right,” Gia said. “Have a piece. If you think a couple of bites in a couple of minutes is worth a whole day of swelling up and itching and feeling sick, go ahead and take one.”

Vicky looked up at her, and then at the chocolates. Gia held her breath, praying Vicky would make the right choice. If she chose the chocolate, Gia would have to stop her, but there was a chance she would use her head and refuse. Gia wanted to know which it would be. Those chocolates would be sitting there for days, a constant temptation to sneak one behind her mother’s back. But if Vicky could overcome the temptation now, on her own, Gia was sure she’d be able to resist for the rest of their stay.

“I think I’ll have an orange, Mom.”

Gia swept her up into her arms and swung her around.

“I’m so proud of you, Vicky! That was a very grown-up decision.”

“Well, what I’d really like is a chocolate-covered orange.”

Laughing, she led Vicky by the hand to the kitchen, feeling pretty good about her daughter and about herself as a mother.

3

Jack had the Lincoln Tunnel pretty much to himself. He passed the stripe that marked the border of New York and New Jersey, remembering how his brother and sister and he used to cheer whenever they crossed the line after spending a day in the city with their parents. It had always been a thrill then to be back in good ol’ New Jersey.

Those days were gone, along with the two-way toll collections. Now they charged you double to get into Manhattan and let you leave for nothing. And he didn’t cheer as he crossed the line.

He cruised out of the tunnel mouth, squinting into the sudden glare of the morning sun. The ramp made a nearly circular turn up to and through Union City, then down to the Meadowlands and the New Jersey Turnpike. Jack pushed his speed to 65 miles per hour and settled into the right lane. He was running a little late, but the last thing he wanted was to be stopped by a state cop.

The olfactory adventure began as the Turnpike wound its way through the swampy lowlands, past Port Newark and all the surrounding refineries and chemical plants. Smoke poured from stacks and torchlike flames roared from ten-story discharge towers. The odors encountered on the strip between Exits 16 and 12 were varied and uniformly noxious. Even on a Sunday morning.

But as the road drifted inland, the scenery gradually turned rural and hilly and sweet smelling. The farther south he drove, the further his thoughts were pulled into the past. Images streaked by with the mile markers: strange adventures in the Pine Barrens … Mr. Canelli and his lawn … early fix-it jobs around Burlington County during his late teens, usually involving vandals, always contracted sub rosa … starting Rutgers but keeping his repairs business going on the side … the first trips to New York to do fix-it work for relatives of former customers …

Tension began building in him after he passed Exit 7. Jack knew the reason: He was approaching the spot where his mother had been killed.

It was also the spot where he had—how had Kolabati put it?—“drawn the line between yourself and the rest of the human race.”

It had happened during his third year at Rutgers. A Sunday night in early January. Jack was on semester break, he and his parents driving south on the Turnpike after visiting his Aunt Doris in Hightstown; Jack had the back seat, his folks the front, Dad driving. Jack had offered to take the wheel, but his mother said the way he wove in and out of all those trucks made her nervous.

As he remembered it, he and his father had been discussing the upcoming Super Bowl while his mother watched the speedometer to make sure it didn’t stray too far over the limit. The easy, peaceful feeling that comes with a full stomach after a lazy winter afternoon spent with relatives was shattered as they cruised under an overpass.

With a crash like thunder and an impact that shook the car, the right half of the windshield exploded into countless flying, glittering fragments. He heard his father shout with surprise, his mother scream in pain, felt a blast of icy air rip through the car. His mother moaned and vomited.

As his father swerved the car to the side of the road, Jack jumped into the front seat and realized what had happened: A cinder block had crashed through the windshield and landed against his mother’s lower ribs and upper abdomen.

Jack didn’t know what to do. As he watched helplessly, his mother passed out and slumped forward. He shouted to get to the nearest hospital. His father drove like a demon, flooring the pedal, blowing the horn and blinking the headlights while Jack pushed his mother’s limp body back and pulled the cinder block off her. Then he removed his coat and wrapped it around her as protection against the cold gale whistling through the hole in the windshield.

His mother vomited once more—this time all blood, splattering the dashboard and what was left of the windshield. As he held her, Jack could feel her growing cold, could sense the life slipping out of her. He knew she was bleeding internally, but there was nothing he could do about it. He screamed at his father to hurry, but he was already driving as fast as he could without losing control of the car.

She was in deep shock by the time they got her to the emergency room. She died on the way to surgery: a lacerated liver and a ruptured spleen. She’d exsanguinated into her abdominal cavity.

The incalculable grief. The interminable wake and funeral. And afterward, questions: Who? Why? The police didn’t know and doubted very much that they would ever find out. It was common for kids to go up on the overpass at night and drop things through the cyclone fencing onto the cars streaming by below. By the time an incident was reported, the culprits were long gone. The State Police response to any and all appeals from Jack and his father was a helpless shrug.

His father withdrew: The senselessness of the tragedy had thrown him into a sort of emotional catatonia in which he appeared to function normally but felt absolutely nothing.

Jack’s response was something else: cold, nerveless, consuming rage. He was faced with a new kind of fix-it job. He knew where it had happened. He knew how. All he had to do was find out who.

He would do nothing else, think of nothing else, until that job was done.

And eventually it was done.

A decade and a half … a lifetime ago. Yet as he approached that overpass he felt his throat constrict. He could almost see a cinder block falling … tumbling toward the windshield … crashing through in a blizzard of glass fragments … crushing him. Then he was under and in shadow, and for an instant it was nighttime and snowing, and hanging off the other side of the overpass he saw a limp, battered body dangling from a rope tied to its feet, swinging and spinning crazily. Then it was gone and he was back in the August sun again.

He shivered. He hated New Jersey.

4

Jack got off at Exit 5. He took 541 through Mount Holly and continued south on the two-lane blacktop through towns that were little more than groups of buildings clustered along a stretch of road like a crowd around an accident. The spaces between were all open cultivated field. Fresh produce stands advertising Jersey Beefsteak tomatoes dotted the roadside. He reminded himself to pick up a basketful for Abe on the way back.

He passed through Lumberton, a name that always conjured up ponderous images of morbidly obese people waddling in and out of oversized stores and houses. Next came Fostertown, which should have been populated by a horde of homeless runny-nosed waifs, but wasn’t.

Finally Johnson, NJ, on the edge of the fabled Jersey Pine Barrens.

And then he was turning the corner by what had been Mr. Canelli’s house. Canelli had died and the new owner must have been trying to save water, because the lawn had burned to a uniform shade of pale brown. He pulled into the driveway of the three-bedroom ranch in which he, his brother, and his sister had all grown up, turned off the car, and sat a moment wishing he were someplace else.

No sense in delaying the inevitable, so he got out and walked up to the door. Dad pushed it open just as he reached it.

“Jack!” He thrust out his hand. “You had me worried. Thought you’d forgotten.”

His father was a tall, thin, balding man tanned a dark brown from daily workouts on the local tennis courts. His beakish nose was pink and peeling from sunburn, and the age spots on his forehead had multiplied and coalesced since the last time Jack had visited. But his grip was firm and his blue eyes bright behind the steel-rimmed glasses as Jack shook hands with him.

“Only a few minutes late.”

Dad reached down and picked up his tennis racquet from where it had been leaning against the door molding. “Yeah, but I reserved a court so we could warm up a little before the match.” He closed the door behind him. “Let’s take your car. You remember where the courts are?”

“Of course.”

As he slid into the front seat, Dad glanced around the interior of the Corvair. He touched the dice, either to see if they were fuzzy or if they were real.

“You really drive around in this?”

“Sure. Why?”

“It’s…”

“Unsafe at Any Speed?”

“Yeah. That too.”

“Best car I ever owned.”

Jack pushed the little lever in the far left of the dashboard into reverse and pulled out of the driveway.

For a couple of blocks they made inconsequential small talk about the weather, and how smoothly Jack’s decades-old car was running, and the traffic on the Turnpike. Jack tried to keep the conversation on neutral ground. They hadn’t had much to say to each other since Jack dropped out of college all those years ago.

“How’s business?”

Dad smiled. “Great. You’ve been buying any of those stocks I told you about?”

“I bought two thousand of Arizona Petrol at one-and-an-eighth. It was up to four last time I looked.”

“Closed at four-and-a-quarter on Friday. Hold onto it.”

“Okay. Just let me know when to dump it.”

A lie. Jack couldn’t own stock. He needed a Social Security number for that. No broker would open an account for him without it. So he lied to his father about following his stock tips and looked up the NASDAQ listings every so often to see how his imaginary investments were doing.

They were all doing well. Dad had a knack for finding low-priced, out-of-the-way OTC stocks that were undervalued. He’d buy a few thousand shares, watch the price double, triple, or quadruple, then sell off and find another. He’d done so well at it over the years that he quit his accounting job to spend his mornings wheeling and dealing. He was happy. He was living by his wits and seemed to love it, looking more relaxed than Jack could ever remember.

“If I come up with something better, I’ll let you know. Then you can parlay your AriPet earnings into even more. By the way, did you buy the stock through a personal account or your IRA?”

“Uh … the IRA.”

Another lie. Jack couldn’t have an IRA account either. Sometimes he wearied of lying to everybody, especially people he should be able to trust.

“Good! When you don’t think you’ll be holding them long enough to qualify for capital gains, use the IRA.”

He knew what his father was up to. Dad figured that as an appliance repairman Jack would wind up depending on Social Security after he retired, and nobody could live off that. He was trying to help his prodigal son build up a nest egg for his old age.

They pulled into the lot by the two municipal courts. Both were occupied.

“Guess we’re out of luck.”

Dad waved a slip of paper. “No worry. This says court two is reserved for us between ten and eleven.”

While Jack fished in the back seat for his new racquet and the can of balls, his father went over to the couple who now occupied court two. The fellow was grumpily packing up their gear as Jack arrived. The girl—she looked to be about nineteen—glared at him as she sipped from a half-pint container of chocolate milk.

“Guess it’s who you know instead of who got here first.”

Jack tried a friendly smile. “No. Just who thinks ahead and gets a reservation.”

She shrugged. “It’s a rich man’s sport. Should’ve known better than to try to take it up.”

“Let’s not turn this into a class war, shall we?”

“Who? Me?” she said with an innocent smile. “I wouldn’t think of it.”

With that she poured the rest of her chocolate milk onto the court just behind the baseline.

Jack set his teeth and turned his back on her. What he really wanted to do was see if she could swallow a tennis racquet. He relaxed a little as he began to rally with his father. Jack’s tennis game had long since stabilized at a level of mediocrity he felt he could live with.

He was feeling fit today; he liked the balance of the racquet, the way the ball came off the strings, but the knowledge that there was a puddle of souring chocolate milk somewhere behind him on the asphalt rippled his concentration.

“You’re taking your eye off the ball!” Dad called from the other end of the court after Jack’s third wild shot in a row.

I know!

The last thing he needed now was a tennis lesson. He concentrated fully on the next ball, backpedaling, watching it all the way up to his racquet strings. He threw his body into the forehand shot, giving it as much topspin as he could to make it go low over the net and kick when it bounced. Suddenly his right foot was slipping. He went down in a spray of warm chocolate milk.

Across the net, his father returned the ball with a drop shot that rolled dead two feet from the service line. He looked at Jack and began to laugh.

It was going to be a very long day.

5

Kolabati paced the apartment, clutching the empty bottle that had once held the rakoshi elixir, waiting for Kusum. Again and again her mind ranged over the sequence of events last night. First, her brother disappeared from the reception; then the rakosh odor at Jack’s apartment and the eyes he said he’d seen. There had to be a link between Kusum and the rakoshi. And she was determined to find it. But first she had to find Kusum and keep track of him. Where did he go at night?

The morning wore on. By noon, when she had begun to fear he would not show up at all, she heard the sound of his key in the door.

Kusum entered, looking tired and preoccupied. He glanced up and saw her.

“Bati. I thought you’d be with your American lover.”

“I’ve been waiting all morning for you.”

“Why? Have you thought of a new way to torment me since last night?”

This wasn’t going the way Kolabati wanted. She’d planned a rational discussion with her brother. To this end, she’d dressed in a long-sleeved, high-collared white blouse and baggy white slacks.

“No one has tormented you,” she said with a small smile and a placating tone. “At least not intentionally.”

He made a guttural sound. “I sincerely doubt that.”

“The world is changing. I’ve learned to change with it. So must you.”

“Certain things never change.”

He started toward his room. Kolabati had to stop him before he locked himself away in there.

“That is true. I have one of those unchanging things in my hand.”

Kusum stopped and looked at her. She held up the bottle, watching his face closely. His expression registered nothing but puzzlement. If he recognized the bottle, he hid it well.

“I’m in no mood for games, Bati.”

“I assure you, my brother, this is no game.” She removed the top and held the bottle out to him. “Tell me if you recognize the odor.”

Kusum took the bottle and held it under his long nose. His eyes widened.

“This cannot be! It’s impossible!”

“You can’t deny the testament of your senses.”

He glared at her. “First you embarrass me, now you try to make a fool of me as well!”

“It was in Jack’s apartment last night!”

Kusum held it up to his nose again. Shaking his head, he went to an overstuffed couch nearby and sank into it.

“I don’t understand this,” he said in a tired voice.

Kolabati seated herself opposite him. “Of course you do.”

His head snapped up, his eyes challenging her. “Are you calling me a liar?”

Kolabati looked away. Rakoshi were in New York. Kusum was in New York. She could imagine no circumstances under which these two facts could exist independently of each other. Yet she sensed that now was not the right time to let Kusum know how certain she was of his involvement. He was already on guard. Any more signs of suspicion on her part and he would shut her out completely.

“What am I supposed to think?” she told him. “Are we not Keepers? The only Keepers?”

“But you saw the egg. How can you doubt me?”

She heard a note of pleading in his voice, of a man who wanted very much to be believed. He was so convincing. Kolabati was sorely tempted to take his word.

“Then explain to me what you smell in that bottle.”

Kusum shrugged. “A hoax. An elaborate, foul hoax.”

“Kusum, they were there! Last night and the night before as well!”

“Listen to me.” He rose and stood over her. “Did you ever actually see a rakosh these last two nights?”

“No, but there was the odor. No mistaking that.”

“I don’t doubt there was an odor, but an odor can be faked—”

“There was something there!”

“—and so we’re left with only your impressions. Nothing tangible.”

“Isn’t that bottle in your hand tangible enough?”

Kusum handed it to her. “An interesting imitation. It almost had me fooled, but I’m quite sure it’s not genuine. By the way, what happened to the contents?”

“Poured down a sewer.”

His expression remained bland. “Too bad. I could have had it analyzed and perhaps we could learn who is perpetrating this hoax. I want to know that before I do another thing.”

“Why would someone go to all the trouble?”

His gaze penetrated her. “A political enemy, perhaps. One who has uncovered our secret.”

Kolabati felt the clutch of fear at her throat. She shook it off. Absurd! Kusum was behind it all. She was sure of it. But for a moment there he almost had her believing him.

“That isn’t possible!”

He pointed to the bottle in her hand. “A few moments ago I would have said the same about that.”

Kolabati continued to play along. “What do we do?”

“We find out who is behind this.” He started for the door. “And I will begin right now.”

“I’ll come with you.”

He paused. “No. You’d better wait here. I’m expecting an important call on Consulate business. That is why I came home. You must wait here and take the message for me.”

“All right. But won’t you need me?”

“If I do, I will call you. And do not follow me—you know what happened last time.”

Kolabati allowed him to leave. She watched through the peephole in the apartment door until he entered the elevator. As soon as the doors slid closed behind him, she ran into the hall and pressed the button for the second elevator. It opened a moment later and took her down to the lobby in time to see Kusum stroll out the front entrance of the building.

This will be easy, she thought. She should have no problem trailing a tall, slender, one-armed Indian through midtown Manhattan.

Excitement spurred her on. At last she would find where Kusum spent his time. And there, she was quite sure, she would find what should not be. She still did not see how it was possible, but all the evidence pointed to the existence of rakoshi in New York. And despite all his protests to the contrary, Kusum was involved.

Staying half a block behind, she followed him down Fifth Avenue to Central Park South with no trouble. The going became rougher after that. Sunday shoppers were out in force and the sidewalks became congested. Still she managed to keep him in view until he entered Rockefeller Plaza. She’d been here once in the winter when the area had been mobbed with ice skaters and Christmas shoppers wandering about the huge Christmas tree. Today there was a different kind of crowd, but no less dense. A jazz group was playing imitation Coltrane and every few feet men with pushcarts sold fruit, candy, or balloons. Instead of ice skating, people were milling about or taking in the sun with their shirts off.

Kusum was nowhere to be seen.

Kolabati frantically pushed her way through the crowd. She circled the dry, sun-drenched ice rink. Kusum was gone. He must have spotted her and ducked into a cab or down a subway entrance.

She stood amid the happy, carefree crowd, biting her lower lip, so frustrated she wanted to cry.

6

Gia picked up the phone on the third ring. A soft, accented voice asked to speak to Mrs. Paton.

“Who shall I say is calling?”

“Kusum Bahkti.”

She thought the voice sounded familiar. “Oh, Mr. Bahkti. This is Gia DiLauro. We met last night.”

“Miss DiLauro—a pleasure to speak to you again. May I say you looked very beautiful last night.”

“Yes, you may. As often as you wish.” As he laughed politely, Gia said, “Wait a second and I’ll get Nellie.”

Gia was in the third floor hall. Nellie was downstairs in the library watching one of those public affairs panels that dominate Sunday television. Shouting down to her seemed more appropriate to a tenement than a Sutton Square townhouse. Especially when an Indian diplomat was on the phone. So Gia hurried down to the first floor.

As she descended the stairs she told herself that Mr. Bahkti was a good lesson on not trusting one’s first impressions. She had disliked him immediately, yet he’d turned out to be quite a nice man. She smiled grimly. No one should count on her as much of a judge of character. She’d thought Richard Westphalen charming enough to marry, and look how he’d turned out. And after that there had been Jack. Not an impressive track record.

Nellie took the call from her seat in front of the TV. As the older woman spoke to Mr. Bahkti, Gia turned her attention to the screen where the Secretary of State was being grilled by a panel of reporters.

“Such a nice man,” Nellie said as she hung up. She was chewing on something.

“Seems to be. What did he want?”

“He said he wished to order some Black Magic for himself and wanted to know where I got it. The Divine Obsession, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” Gia had committed the address to memory. “In London.”

“That’s what I told him.” Nellie giggled. “He was so cute. He wanted me to taste one and tell him if it was as good as I remembered. So I did. They’re lovely! I think I’ll have another.” She held up the dish. “Do help yourself.”

Gia shook her head. “No, thanks. With Vicky allergic to it, I’ve kept it out of the house for so long I’ve lost my taste for it.”

“That’s a shame,” Nellie said, holding another between a thumb and forefinger with her pinkie raised and taking a dainty bite out of it. “These are simply lovely.”

7

Match point at the Mount Holly Lawn Tennis Club:

Jack was drenched with sweat. He and his father had scraped through the first elimination on a tiebreaker: 6–4, 3–6, 7–6. After a few hours of rest they started the second round. The father-son team they now faced was much younger—the father only slightly older than Jack, and the son no more than twelve. But they could play. Jack and his father won only one game in the first set; but the easy victory must have lulled their opponents into a false sense of security because they made a number of unforced errors in the second set and lost it 4–6.

So with one set apiece it was now 4–5 with Jack behind in his serve: deuce with the advantage to the receiver.

Jack’s right shoulder was on fire. He’d been putting everything he had into his serves but the pair facing him across the net had returned every single one. This was it. If he lost this point, the match was over and he and Dad would be out of the tournament. Which would not break Jack’s heart. If they won it meant he’d have to return next Sunday. As much as he didn’t relish that thought, he wasn’t going to throw the match. His father had a right to one hundred percent and that was what he was going to get.

He faced the boy. For three sets now Jack had been trying to find a weakness in the kid’s game. The twelve-year-old had a topspin forehand, a flat, two-handed backhand, and a blistering serve. Jack’s only hope lay in the kid’s short legs, which made him relatively slow, but he hit so many winners that Jack had been unable to take advantage of it.

Jack served to the kid’s backhand and charged the net, hoping to take a weak return and put it away. The return came back strong, forcing Jack into a weak volley to the father who slammed it up the alley to Jack’s left. Without thinking, Jack shifted the racquet to his left hand and lunged. He made the return, but then the kid passed Dad up the other alley.

The boy’s father came up to the net and shook Jack’s hand.

“Good game. If your Dad had your speed he’d be club champ.” He turned to Jack’s father. “Look at him, Tom—not even breathing hard. And did you see that last shot of his? That left-handed volley? You trying to slip a ringer in on us?”

His father smiled. “You can tell by his ground strokes he’s no ringer. But I never knew he was ambidextrous.”

They all shook hands, and as the other pair walked off, Jack’s father looked at him.

“I’ve been watching you all day. You’re in good shape.”

“I try to stay healthy.” His father was a shrewd cookie and Jack was uncomfortable under the scrutiny.

“You move fast. Damn fast. Faster than any appliance repairman I’ve ever known.”

Jack coughed. “What say we have a beer or two. I’m buying.”

“Your money’s no good here. Only members can sign for drinks. So the beer’s on me.” They began to walk toward the clubhouse. His father was shaking his head. “I’ve got to say, Jack, you really surprised me today.”

Gia’s hurt and angry face popped into Jack’s mind.

“I’m full of surprises.”

8

Kusum could wait no longer. He had watched sunset come and go, hurling orange fire against the myriad empty windows of the Sunday-silent office towers. He had seen darkness creep over the city with agonizing slowness. And now, with the moon rising above the skyscrapers, night finally ruled.

Time for the Mother to take her youngling on the hunt.

Though not yet midnight, Kusum felt it safe to let them go. Sunday night was a relatively quiet time in Manhattan. The stores closed early, the theaters had no evening performances, and most people were home, resting in anticipation of the coming week.

The Paton woman would be taken tonight, of that he was certain. Kolabati had unwittingly cleared the way by taking the bottle of rakoshi elixir from Jack and disposing of its contents. And had not the Paton woman eaten one of the treated chocolates as she spoke to him on the phone this morning?

Tonight he would be one step closer to fulfilling the vow. He would follow the same procedures with the Paton woman as he had with her nephew and her sister. Once she was in his power, he would reveal to her the origin of the Westphalen fortune and allow her a day to reflect on her ancestor’s atrocities.

Tomorrow evening her life would be offered to Kali, and she would be given over to the rakoshi.

9

Good gracious, what is that smell?

Nellie had never thought one could be awakened by an odor, but this …

She lifted her head from the pillow and sniffed the air in the darkened room … a carrion odor. Warm air brushed by her. The French doors out to the balcony were ajar. She could have sworn they’d been closed all day, what with the air conditioner going. But that had to be where the odor was coming from. It smelled as if some dog had unearthed a dead animal in the garden directly below the balcony.

Nellie sensed movement by the doors. No doubt the breeze on the curtains. Still …

She pulled herself up, reaching for her glasses. She found them and held them up to her eyes without bothering to fit the end pieces over her ears. Even then she wasn’t sure what she saw.

A dark shape was moving toward her as swiftly and as soundlessly as a puff of smoke in the wind. It couldn’t be real. A nightmare, a hallucination, an optical illusion—nothing so big and solid looking could move so smoothly and silently.

But no illusion about the odor that became progressively worse with the shadow’s approach.

Nellie was suddenly terrified. This was no dream! She opened her mouth to scream but a cold, clammy hand sealed itself over the lower half of her face before a sound could escape.

The hand was huge, it was incredibly foul, and it was not human.

In a violent spasm of terror, she struggled against whatever held her. It was like fighting the tide. Bright colors began to explode before her eyes as she fought for air. Soon the explosions blotted out everything else. And then she saw no more.

10

Vicky lay awake, shivering under the sheet. Not from cold but from the dream she’d just lived through in which Mr. Grape-grabber had kidnapped Ms. Jelliroll and was trying to bake her in a pie.

With her heart pounding in her throat she peered through the darkness at the night table next to the bed. Moonlight filtered through the curtains on the window to her left, enough to reveal Ms. Jelliroll and Mr. Grape-grabber resting peacefully where she’d left them. Nothing to worry about. Just a dream. Anyway, didn’t the package say that Mr. Grape-grabber was Ms. Jelliroll’s “friendly rival”? And he didn’t want Ms. Jelliroll herself for his jams, just her grapes.

Still, Vicky trembled. She rolled over and clung to her mother. This was the part she liked best about staying here at Aunt Nellie’s and Aunt Grace’s—she got to sleep with Mommy. Back at the apartment she had her own room and had to sleep alone. When she got scared from a dream or during a storm she could always run in and huddle with Mommy, but most of the time she had to keep to her own bed.

She tried to go back to sleep but found it impossible. Visions of the tall, lanky Mr. Grape-grabber putting Ms. Jelliroll into a pot and cooking her along with her grapes kept popping into her head. Finally, she let go of her mother and turned over to face the window.

The moon was out. She wondered if it was full. She liked to look at its face. Slipping out of bed, she went to the window and parted the curtains. The moon was almost to the top of the sky, and nearly full. Its smiling face made everything so bright. Almost like daytime.

With the air conditioner on and the windows closed against the heat, all the outside sounds were blocked out. Everything was so still and quiet out there, like a picture.

She looked down at her playhouse roof, white with moonlight. It looked so small from up here on the third floor.

Something moved in the shadows below. Something tall and dark and angular, manlike yet very unmanlike. It moved across the backyard with a fluid motion, a shadow among the shadows, looking as if it was carrying something. And there seemed to be another of its kind waiting for it by the wall. The second one looked up and seemed to be gazing right at her with glowing yellow eyes. They had hunger in them … hunger for her.

Vicky’s blood congealed in her veins. She wanted to leap back into bed with her mother but could not move. All she could do was stand there and scream.

11

Gia awoke on her feet after a moment of complete disorientation with no idea where she was or what she was doing. The room was dark, a child was screaming, and she could hear her own terror-filled voice shouting a garbled version of Vicky’s name.

Frantic thoughts raced through her slowly awakening mind.

Where’s Vicky … the bed’s empty … where’s Vicky? She could hear her but couldn’t see her. Where in God’s name is Vicky?

She stumbled to the switch by the door and turned on the light. The sudden glare blinded Gia for an instant, and then she saw Vicky standing by the window, still screaming. She ran over and lifted the child against her.

“It’s all right, Vicky! It’s all right!”

The screaming stopped but not the trembling. Gia held her tighter, trying to absorb Vicky’s shudders into her own body. Finally the child was calm, only an occasional sob escaping from where she had her face buried between Gia’s breasts.

Night horrors. Vicky had had them frequently during her fifth year, but only rarely since. Gia knew how to handle them: Wait until Vicky was fully awake and then talk to her softly and reassuringly.

“Just a dream, honey. That’s all. Just a dream.”

“No! It wasn’t a dream!” Vicky lifted her tear-streaked face. “It was Mr. Grape-grabber! I saw him!”

“Just a dream, Vicky.”

“He was stealing Ms. Jelliroll!”

“No, he wasn’t. They’re both right behind you.” She turned Vicky around and faced her toward the night table. “See?”

“But he was outside by the playhouse! I saw him!”

Gia didn’t like the sound of that. No one was supposed to be in the backyard.

“Let’s take a look. I’ll turn out the light so we can see better.”

Vicky’s face twisted in sudden panic. “Don’t turn out the lights! Please don’t!”

“Okay. I’ll leave them on. But there’s nothing to worry about. I’m right here.”

They both pressed their faces against the glass and cupped their hands around their eyes to shut off the glare from the room light. Gia quickly scanned the yard, praying she wouldn’t see anything.

Everything was as they’d left it. Nothing moved. The backyard was empty. Gia sighed with relief and put her arm around Vicky.

“See? Everything’s fine. It was a dream. You just thought you saw Mr. Grape-grabber.”

“But I did!”

“Dreams can be very real, honey. And you know Mr. Grape-grabber is just a doll. He can only do what you want him to. He can’t do a single thing on his own.”

Vicky said no more but Gia sensed that she remained unconvinced.

That settles it, she thought. Vicky’s been here long enough.

The child needed her friends—real, live, flesh-and-blood friends. With nothing else to occupy her time, she’d been getting too involved with these dolls. Now they were even in her dreams.

“What do you say we go home tomorrow? I think we’ve stayed here long enough.”

“I like it here. And Aunt Nellie will be lonely.”

“She’ll have Eunice back in the morning. And besides, I have to get back to my work.”

“Can’t we stay a little longer?”

“We’ll see.”

Vicky pouted. “‘We’ll see.’ Whenever you say ‘we’ll see’ it ends up meaning ‘no.’”

“Not always,” Gia said with a laugh, knowing that Vicky was right. The child was getting too sharp for her. “But we’ll see. Okay?”

Reluctantly: “Okay.”

She put Vicky back between the covers. As she went to the door to switch off the light she thought of Nellie in the bedroom below. She could not imagine anyone sleeping through Vicky’s screams, yet Nellie had not called up to ask what was wrong. Gia turned on the hall light and leaned over the banister. Nellie’s door was open and her bedroom dark. It didn’t seem possible she could still be asleep.

Uneasy now, Gia started down the stairs.

“Where’re you going, Mommy?” Vicky asked with a frightened voice from the bed.

“Just down to Aunt Nellie’s room for a second. I’ll be right back.”

Poor Vicky, she thought. She really got a scare.

Gia stood at Nellie’s door. All was dark and still within. Nothing out of the ordinary except an odor … a faint whiff of putrefaction. Nothing to fear, yet she was afraid. Hesitantly, she tapped on the doorjamb.

“Nellie?”

No answer.

“Nellie, are you all right?”

When only silence answered, she reached inside the door, found the light switch, but hesitated, afraid of what she might find. Nellie wasn’t young. What if she’d died in her sleep? She seemed to be in good health, but you never knew. And that odor, faint as it was, made her think of death. Finally she could wait no longer. She flipped the switch.

The bed was empty. It obviously had been slept in—the pillow was rumpled, the covers pulled down—but no sign of Nellie. Gia stepped around to the far side, walking as if she expected something to rise out of the rug and attack her. No Nellie lying on the floor. Gia turned to the bathroom. It stood open and empty.

Frightened now, she ran downstairs, going from room to room, turning on all the lights in each, calling Nellie’s name over and over. She headed back upstairs, checking Grace’s empty room on the second floor, and the other guest room on the third.

Empty. All empty.

Nellie was gone—just like Grace!

Gia stood in the hall, shivering, fighting panic, unsure of what to do. She and Vicky were alone in a house from which people disappeared without a sound or a trace.

Vicky!

Gia rushed to their bedroom. The light was still on. Vicky lay curled up under the sheet, sound asleep. Thank God! She sagged against the door frame, relieved yet still afraid. What to do now? She went out to the phone on the hall table. She had Jack’s number and he’d said to call if she needed him. But he was in South Jersey and couldn’t be here for hours. Gia wanted somebody here now. She didn’t want to stay alone with Vicky in this house for a minute longer than she had to.

With a trembling finger she dialed 911 for the police.

12

“You still renting in the city?”

Jack nodded. “Yep.”

His father grimaced and shook his head. “That’s like throwing your money away.”

Jack had changed into the shirt and slacks he’d brought along, and now they were back at the house after a late, leisurely dinner at a Mount Holly seafood restaurant. They sat in the living room sipping Jack Daniel’s in near-total darkness, the only light washing in from the adjoining dining room.

“You’re right, Dad. No argument there.”

“I know houses are ridiculously expensive these days, and a guy in your position really doesn’t need one, but how about a condo? Get hold of something you can build up equity in.”

Not a new subject. Dad would go on about the tax benefits of owning your own home while Jack lied and hedged, unable to say that tax deductions were irrelevant to a man who didn’t pay them.

“I don’t know why you stay in that city, Jack. Not only have you got federal and state taxes, but the goddamn city sticks its hand in your pocket, too.”

“My business is there.”

His father stood up and took both glasses into the dining room for refills.

When they’d returned to the house after dinner, he hadn’t asked Jack what he wanted; he’d simply poured a couple of fingers on the rocks and handed him one. Jack didn’t know how many glasses they’d had since the first.

Jack closed his eyes and absorbed the feel of the house. He’d grown up here. He knew every crack in the walls, every squeaky step, every hiding place. This living room had been so big then; now it seemed tiny. He could still remember that man in the next room carrying him around the house on his shoulders when he was five. And when he was older they’d played catch out in the backyard. Jack had been the youngest of the three kids. There’d been something special between his father and him. They used to go everywhere together on weekends, and whenever he had the chance, Dad would float a little propaganda toward him. Not lectures really, but a pitch on getting into a profession when he grew up. He worked on all the kids that way, telling them how much better it was to be your own boss rather than be like him and have to work for somebody else. They’d been close then. Not any more. Now they were like acquaintances … near-friends … almost-relatives.

His father handed him the glass of fresh ice and sour mash, then returned to his seat.

“Why don’t you move down here?”

“Dad—”

“Hear me out. I’m doing better than I ever dreamed. I could take you in with me and show you how it’s done. You could take some business courses and learn the ropes. And while you’re going to school I could manage a portfolio for you to pay your expenses. ‘Earn while you learn,’ as the saying goes.”

Jack was silent. His body felt leaden, his mind sluggish. Too much Jack Daniel’s? Or the weight of all those years of lying? He knew Dad’s bottom line: He wanted his youngest to finish college and establish himself in some sort of respectable field. Jack’s brother was a judge in Philly, his sister a pediatrician in Trenton. What was Jack? In his father’s eyes he was a college dropout with no drive, no goals, no ambition, no wife, no children; someone who was going to drift through life putting very little in and getting very little out, leaving no trace or evidence that he’d even passed through.

In short: a failure.

That hurt. Like most sons, he wanted his father to be proud of him. Dad’s disappointment was like a festering sore that tainted their already attenuated relationship, making Jack want to avoid a man he’d always loved and respected.

He was tempted to lay it out for him—put all the lies aside and tell him what his son really did for a living.

Alarmed at the trend of his thoughts, Jack straightened in his chair and got a grip on himself. That was the Jack Daniel’s talking. Leveling with his father would accomplish nothing. First off, he wouldn’t believe it; and if he did, he wouldn’t understand; and if he believed and understood, he’d be horrified … just like Gia.

“You like what you’re doing, don’t you, Dad?” he said finally.

“Yes. Very much. And you would, too, if—”

“I don’t think so.”

After all, what was his father making besides money? He was buying and selling, but he wasn’t producing anything. Jack didn’t mention this—it would only start an argument. The guy was happy, and the only thing that kept him from being completely at peace with himself was his youngest son. If Jack could have helped him there he would have. But he couldn’t.

“I like what I’m doing. Can’t we leave it at that?”

Dad said nothing.

The phone rang. He went into the kitchen to answer it. A moment later he came out again.

“It’s for you. A woman. She sounds upset.”

The lethargy that had been slipping over Jack suddenly dropped away. Only Gia had this number. He pushed himself out of the chair and hurried to the phone.

“Nellie’s gone, Jack!”

“Where?”

“Gone! Disappeared! Just like Grace! Remember Grace? She was the one you were supposed to find instead of going to diplomatic receptions with your Indian lady friend.”

“Calm down will you? Did you call the cops?”

“They’re on their way.”

“I’ll see you after they leave.”

“Don’t bother. I just wanted you to know what a good job you’ve done!”

She hung up.

“Something the matter?” his father asked.

“Yeah. A friend’s been hurt.” Another lie. But what was one more added to the mountain he’d told over the years? “Gotta get back to the city.” They shook hands. “Thanks. It’s been great. Let’s do it again soon.”

He had his racquet and was out to his car before Dad could warn him about driving after all those drinks. He was fully alert now. Gia’s call had evaporated all effects of the alcohol.

Jack was in a foul mood as he drove up the turnpike. He’d really blown this one. It hadn’t even occurred to him that if one sister disappeared, the other might do the same. He wanted to push the car to eighty but didn’t dare.

At least the traffic was light. No trucks. The night was clear. The near-full moon hanging over the road was flat on one edge, like a grapefruit someone had dropped and left on the floor too long.

As he passed Exit 6 and approached the spot where his mother had been killed, his thoughts began to flow backward in time. He rarely permitted that. He preferred to keep them focused on the present and the future; the past was dead and gone. But in his present state of mind he allowed himself to remember a snowy winter night almost a month after his mother’s death …

13

He’d been watching the fatal overpass every night, sometimes in the open, sometimes in the bushes. The January wind had frosted his face, chapped his lips, numbed his fingers and toes. Still he waited. Cars passed, people passed, time passed, but no one threw anything off.

February came. A few days after the official groundhog had supposedly seen its shadow and returned to its burrow for another six weeks of winter, it snowed. An inch lay on the ground already and at least half a dozen more predicted. Jack stood on the overpass looking at the thinning southbound traffic slushing along beneath him. He was cold, tired, and ready to call it a night.

As he turned to go he saw a figure hesitantly approaching through the snow. Continuing his turning motion, Jack bent, scooped up some wet snow, packed it into a ball, and lobbed it over the cyclone fencing to drop on a car below. After two more snowballs, he glanced again at the figure and saw it was approaching more confidently now. Jack stopped his bombardment and stared at the traffic as if waiting for the newcomer to pass. But he didn’t. He stopped next to Jack.

“Whatcha putting in them?”

Jack looked at him. “Putting in what?”

“The snowballs.”

“Get lost.”

The guy laughed. “Hey, it’s all right. Help yourself.” He held out a handful of walnut-sized rocks.

Jack sneered. “If I wanted to throw rocks, I could sure as hell do better’n those.”

“This is just for starters.”

The newcomer, who said his name was Ed, laid his stones atop the guardrail and together they formed new snowballs with rocky cores. Then Ed showed him a spot where the fencing could be stretched out over the road to allow room for a more direct shot … a space big enough to slip a cinder block through. Jack managed to hit the tops of trucks with his rock-centered snowballs or miss completely. But Ed landed a good share of his dead center on oncoming windshields.

Jack watched his face as he threw. Not much was visible under the knitted cap pulled down to pale eyebrows, or above the navy peacoat collar turned up around his fuzzy cheeks, but a wild light flared in Ed’s eyes as he threw his snowballs. And he smiled as he saw them smash against the windshields. He was getting a real thrill out of this.

That didn’t mean Ed was the one who’d dropped that cinder block. He could be just another one of a million petty terrorists who got their jollies destroying or disfiguring something that belonged to someone else. But what he was doing was potentially deadly. The impact of one of his special snowballs—even if it didn’t shatter the windshield—could cause a driver to swerve or slam on his brakes. And that could be lethal on the slippery asphalt.

Either that had never crossed Ed’s mind, or it was what had brought him out tonight.

Could be him.

Jack fought to think clearly. Had to find out. Had to be absolutely sure.

Jack made a disgusted noise. “Fucking waste of time. I don’t think we cracked even one.” He turned to go. “See ya.”

“Hey!” Ed said, grabbing his arm. “I said we’re just getting started.”

“This is diddley-shit.”

“Follow me. I’m a pro at this.”

Ed led him down the road to where a 280-Z was parked. He opened the trunk and pointed to an icy cinder block wedged up against the spare tire.

“You call that diddley-shit?”

It took all of Jack’s will to keep from leaping on Ed and tearing out his throat with his teeth. Had to be sure. Jack’s plan left no room for error. No going back later and apologizing for making a mistake.

“I call that big trouble,” Jack managed to say. “You’ll get the heat down on you somethin’ awful.”

“Naw! I dropped one of these bombs last month. You shoulda seen it—perfect shot! Right in somebody’s lap!”

Jack felt himself begin to shake. “Hurt bad?”

Ed shrugged. “Who knows? I didn’t hang around to find out.” He barked a laugh. “I just wish I coulda been there to see the look on their faces when that thing came through the windshield. Blam! Can you see it?”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “I can see it.”

As Ed leaned over to grab the block, Jack slammed the trunk lid down on his head. Ed yelled and tried to straighten up but Jack slammed him again. And again. He kept on slamming it until Ed stopped moving. Then he ran to the bushes where twenty feet of heavy-duty rope had lain hidden for the past month.

*   *   *

“Wake up!”

Jack had tied Ed’s hands behind his back. He’d cut a large opening in the cyclone wire. He now held him seated on the top rung of the guardrail over the south side of the overpass. A rope ran from Ed’s ankles to the base of one of the guard rail supports. Ed’s legs dangled over the southbound lanes.

Jack rubbed snow in Ed’s face.

“Wake up!”

Ed sputtered and shook his head. His eyes opened. He looked dully at Jack, then around him. He looked down and stiffened. Panic flashed in his eyes.

“Hey! What—?”

“You’re dead, Ed. Ed is dead. It rhymes, Ed. That’s ’cause it’s meant to be.”

Jack was barely in control. He would look back in later years and know what he was doing was crazy. A car could have come down the road and along the overpass at any time, or someone in the northbound lanes could have looked up and spotted them through the heavy snow. But good sense had fled along with mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.

This man had to die.

Jack had decided that after talking to the State Police after his mother’s funeral. It had been clear then that even if they learned the name of whoever had dropped the cinder block, without an eyewitness to the incident or a full confession freely given in the presence of the defendant’s attorney, he’d walk.

Jack refused to accept that. The killer had to die—not just any way, but Jack’s way. He had to know he was going to die. And why.

Jack’s voice sounded flat in his ears, and as cold as the snow drifting out of the featureless night sky.

“You know whose lap your ‘bomb’ landed in last month, Ed? My mother’s. You know what? She’s dead. A lady who never hurt anyone in her whole life was riding along minding her own business and you killed her. Now she’s dead and you’re alive. What’s wrong with that picture, Ed?”

He took bleak satisfaction from the growing horror in Ed’s face.

“Hey, look! It wasn’t me! Wasn’t me, I swear!”

“Too late, Ed. You already told me it was.”

Ed let out a scream as he slid off the guardrail, but Jack held him by the back of his coat until his tied feet found purchase on the ledge.

“Please don’t do this! I’m sorry! It was an accident! I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt! I’ll do anything to make it up! Anything!”

“Anything? Good. Don’t move.”

Together they stood over the right southbound lane, Jack inside the guardrail, Ed outside. Both watched the traffic roar out from beneath the overpass and flee down the turnpike. With his hand gripping the collar of Ed’s peacoat to steady him, Jack glanced over his shoulder at the oncoming traffic.

With the continuing snowfall, the traffic had slowed and thinned. The left lane had built up an accumulation of slush and no one was using it, but plenty of cars and trucks remained in the middle and right lanes, most doing forty-five or fifty. Jack saw the headlights and clearance lights of a tractor-semitrailer approaching down the right lane. As it neared the overpass he gave a gentle shove.

Ed toppled forward slowly, gracefully, his bleat of terror rising briefly above the noise of the traffic echoing from below. Jack had measured the rope carefully. Ed fell feet first until the rope ran out of slack, then his body snapped downward. Ed’s head and upper torso swung over the cab of the oncoming truck and smashed against the leading edge of the trailer with a solid thunk! His body bounced and dragged limply along the length of the trailer top, then swung into the air, a piñata spinning and swaying crazily on its string.

The truck kept going, its driver probably blaming the noise on a clump of wet snow that had shaken loose from the overpass. Another truck came rolling down the lane but Jack didn’t wait for the second impact.

He walked to Ed’s car and removed the cinder block from the trunk. He threw it into a field as he walked the mile farther down the road to his own car.

No connection to his mother’s death, no connection to him.

Over.

Done.

He went home and put himself to bed, secure in the belief that starting tomorrow he could pick up his life again where he’d left off.

He was wrong.

He slept into the afternoon of the following day. When he awoke, the enormity of what he’d done descended with the weight of the earth itself. He’d killed. More than killed: He’d executed another man.

He was tempted to cop an insanity plea, say it hadn’t been him up there on the overpass but a monster wearing his skin. Someone else had been in control.

It wouldn’t wash. It hadn’t been someone else. It had been him. Jack. No one else. And he hadn’t been in a fog or a fugue or consumed by a red haze of rage. He remembered every detail, every word, every move with crystal clarity.

No guilt. No remorse. That was the truly frightening part: The realization that if he could go back and relive those moments he wouldn’t change a thing.

He knew that afternoon as he sat hunched on the edge of the bed that his life would never be the same. The young man in the mirror today was not the same one he’d seen there yesterday. Everything looked subtly different. The angles and curves of his surroundings hadn’t changed; faces and architecture and geography all stayed topographically the same. But someone had shifted the lighting. Shadows lurked where once there had been light.

Jack returned to Rutgers but college no longer seemed to make any sense. He could sit and laugh and drink with his friends, but he no longer felt a part of them. He was one step removed. He could still see and hear them, but could no longer touch them, as if a glass wall had risen between him and everyone he thought he knew.

He searched for a way to make some sense of it all. He went through the existentialist canon, devouring Camus and Sartre and Kierkegaard. Camus seemed to know the questions Jack was asking, but he gave no answers.

Jack started flunking courses. He drifted away from his friends. Finally he saw no point in continuing the charade. He took all his savings and disappeared without telling anyone, including his family—especially his family—where he was going. He moved to New York where he took odd jobs to survive, and made contacts, started getting fix-it work with a gradually escalating level of danger and violence. He learned how to pick locks and pick the right gun and ammo for any given situation, how to break into a house and break an arm. He’d been there ever since.

Everyone, including his father, blamed the change on the death of his mother. In a very roundabout way, they were right.

14

The overpass receded in his rearview mirror, and with it the memory of that night.

Jack wiped his sweaty palms against his slacks. He wondered where he’d be and what he’d be doing now if Ed had dropped that cinder block a half second earlier or later, bouncing it harmlessly off the hood or roof of his folks’ car. Half a second would have meant the difference between life and death for his mother—and for Ed. Jack would have finished school, had a regular job by now, with regular hours, and maybe even a wife and kids. Stability, identity, security.

And he’d be able to drive under that overpass without reliving two deaths.

Jack came through the Lincoln Tunnel and headed directly cross town. He drove past Sutton Square and saw a blue-and-white unit parked outside Nellie’s townhouse. After making a U-turn under the bridge, he drove back down to the mid-Fifties and parked near a hydrant on Sutton Place South. He waited and watched. Before too long he saw the blue-and-white pull out and head uptown. He cruised around until he found a working pay phone and used it to call Nellie’s.

“Hello?” Gia’s voice was tense, expectant.

“It’s Jack, Gia. Everything okay?”

“No.” She seemed to relax. Now she just sounded tired.

“Police gone?”

“Just left.”

“I’m coming over—that is, if you don’t mind.”

Jack expected an argument and some abuse; instead, Gia said, “No, I don’t mind.”

“Be there in a minute.”

He got back into the car, pulled the Semmerling from under the seat and strapped it to his ankle. Gia hadn’t given him an argument. She must be terrified.

15

Gia had never thought she’d be glad to see Jack again. But when she opened the door and found him standing there, it required all her reserve to keep from leaping into his arms.

The police had been no help. In fact, the two officers who finally showed up in response to her call had acted as if she was wasting their time. They’d given the house a cursory once-over inside and out, seen no sign of forced entry, hung around asking a few questions, then they’d gone, leaving her alone with Vicky in this big empty house.

Jack stepped into the foyer. For a moment it seemed he would lift his arms and hold them out to her. Instead, he turned and closed the door behind him. He looked tired.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“Vicky, too?”

“She’s asleep.” Gia felt as ill at ease as Jack looked.

“What happened?”

She told him about Vicky’s nightmare and her subsequent search of the house for Nellie.

“The police find anything?”

“Nothing. ‘No sign of foul play,’ as they so quaintly put it. I believe they think Nellie’s gone off to meet Grace somewhere on some kind of senile lark!”

“Is that possible?”

Gia’s immediate reaction was anger that Jack could even consider such a thing, then realized that to someone who didn’t know Nellie and Grace the way she did, it might seem as good an explanation as any.

“No. Utterly impossible.”

“Okay. I’ll take your word for it. How about the alarm system?”

“The first floor was set. As you know, they had the upper levels disconnected.”

“So it’s the same as with Grace: The Lady Vanishes.”

“I don’t think this is the time for cute movie references, Jack.”

He nodded. “You’re right. Sorry. Let’s take a look at her room.”

As Gia led him up to the second floor, she realized that for the first time since she’d seen Nellie’s empty bed, she was beginning to relax. Jack exuded competence. He had an air about him that made her feel things were finally under control here, that nothing was going to happen without his say-so.

He wandered through Nellie’s bedroom in a seemingly nonchalant manner, but she noticed that his eyes constantly darted about, and that he never touched anything with his fingertips—with the side or back of a hand, with the flat edge of a fingernail or knuckle, but never in any way that might conceivably leave a print. All of which served as an uncomfortable reminder of Jack’s state of mind and his relationship with the law.

He nudged the French doors open with a foot. Warm humid air swam into the room.

“Did the cops unlock this?”

Gia shook her head. “No. It wasn’t even latched, just closed over.”

Jack stepped out onto the tiny balcony and looked over the railing.

“Just like Grace’s,” he said. “Did they check below?”

“They were out there with flashlights—said there was no sign that a ladder or the like had been used.”

“Just like Grace.” He came in and elbowed the doors closed. “Doesn’t make sense. And the oddest part is that you wouldn’t have found out she was gone until sometime tomorrow if it hadn’t been for Vicky’s nightmare.” He looked at her. “You’re sure it was a nightmare? Is it possible she heard something that woke her up and scared her and you only thought it was a nightmare?”

“Oh, it was a nightmare, all right. She thought Mr. Grape-grabber was stealing Ms. Jelliroll.” Gia’s insides gave a small lurch as she remembered Vicky’s scream—“She even thought she saw him in the backyard.”

Jack stiffened. “She saw someone?”

“Not someone. Mr. Grape-grabber. Her doll.”

“Go through it all step-by-step, from the time you awoke until you called the police.”

“I went through it all for those two cops.”

“Do it again for me. Please. It may be important.”

Gia told him of awakening to Vicky’s screams, of looking out the window and seeing nothing, of going down to Nellie’s room …

“One thing I didn’t mention to the police was the smell in the room.”

“Perfume? Aftershave?”

“No. A rotten smell.” Recalling the odor made her uneasy. “Putrid.”

Jack’s face tightened. “Like a dead animal?”

“Yes. Exactly. How did you know?”

“Lucky guess.” He now seemed tense. He went into Nellie’s bathroom and checked all the bottles. He didn’t seem to find what he was looking for. “Did you catch that odor anywhere else in the house?”

“No. What’s so important about an odor?”

He turned to her. “I’m not sure. But remember what I told you this morning?”

“You mean about not drinking anything strange like Grace’s laxative?”

“Right. Did Nellie buy anything like that? Or did anything like it come to the house?”

Gia thought for a moment. “No … the only thing we’ve received lately is a box of chocolates from my ex-husband.”

“For you?”

“Hardly! For Nellie. They’re her favorite. Seem to be a pretty popular brand. Nellie mentioned them to your Indian lady’s brother last night.” Was that just last night? It seemed so long ago. “He called today to find out where he could order some.”

Jack’s eyebrows rose. “Kusum?”

“You sound surprised.”

“Just that he doesn’t strike me as a chocolate fan. More like a brown-rice-and-water type.”

Gia knew what he meant. Kusum had ascetic written all over him.

As they walked back into the hall, Jack said, “What’s this Mr. Grape-grabber look like?”

“Like a purple Snidely Whiplash. I’ll get it for you.”

She led Jack up to the third floor and left him outside in the hall while she tiptoed over to the night table and picked up the doll.

“Mommy?”

Gia started at the unexpected sound. Vicky had a habit of doing that. Late at night, when she should be sound asleep, she would let her mother walk in and bend over to kiss her good night; at the last moment she would open her eyes and say, “Hi.” It was spooky sometimes.

“Yes, honey?”

“I heard you talking downstairs. Is Jack here?”

Gia hesitated, but could see no way to get out of telling her.

“Yes. But I want you to lie there and go back to—”

Too late. Vicky was out of bed and running for the hall.

“Jack-Jack-Jack!”

He had her up in his arms and she was hugging him by the time Gia reached the hall.

“Hiya, Vicks.”

“Oh, Jack, I’m so glad you’re here! I was so scared before.”

“So I heard. Your mommy said you had a bad dream.”

As Vicky launched into her account of Mr. Grape-grabber’s plots against Ms. Jelliroll, Gia marveled again at the rapport between Jack and her daughter. They were like old friends. At a time like this she sorely wished Jack were a different sort of man. Vicky so needed a father. But not one whose work required guns and knives.

Jack held his hand out to Gia for the doll. Mr. Grape-grabber was made of plastic; a lean, wiry fellow with long arms and legs, entirely purple but for his face and a black top hat. Jack studied the doll.

“He does sort of look like Snidely Whiplash. Put a crow on his shoulder and he’d be Will Eisner’s Mr. Carrion.” He held the doll up to Vicky. “Is this the guy you thought you saw outside?”

“Yes,” Vicky said, nodding. “Only he wasn’t wearing his hat.”

“What was he wearing?”

“I couldn’t see. All I could see was his eyes. They were yellow.”

Jack started violently, almost dropping Vicky. Gia instinctively reached out a hand to catch her daughter in case she fell.

“Jack, what’s the matter?”

He smiled—weakly, she thought.

“Nothing. Just a spasm in my arm from playing tennis. Gone now.” He looked at Vicky. “But about those eyes—it must have been a cat you saw. Mr. Grape-grabber doesn’t have yellow eyes.”

Vicky nodded vigorously. “He did tonight. So did the other one.”

Gia was watching Jack and could swear a sick look passed over his face. It worried her because it was not an expression she ever expected to see there.

“Other one?” he said.

“Uh-huh. Mr. Grape-grabber must have brought along a helper.”

Jack was silent a moment, then he hefted Vicky in his arms and carried her back into the bedroom.

“Time for sleep, Vicks. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Vicky made some halfhearted protests as he left the bedroom, then rolled over and lay quiet as soon as Gia tucked her in.

Jack was nowhere in sight when Gia returned to the hall. She found him downstairs in the walnut-paneled library, working on the alarm box with a tiny screwdriver.

“What are you doing?”

“Reconnecting the upper floors. This should have been done right after Grace disappeared. There! Now no one gets in or out without raising Cain.”

Gia could tell he was hiding something from her.

“What do you know?”

“Nothing.” He continued to study the insides of the box. “Nothing that makes any sense, anyway.”

That wasn’t what Gia wanted to hear. She wanted someone—anyone—to make some sense out of what had happened here this past week. Something Vicky said had disturbed Jack.

“Maybe it will make sense to me.”

“I doubt it.”

Gia flared into anger. “I’ll be the judge of that! Vicky and I have been here most of the week and we’ll probably have to stay here a few more days in case there’s any word from Nellie. If you’ve got any information about what’s going on here, I want to hear it!”

Jack looked at her for the first time since she’d entered the room.

“Okay. Here it is: There’s been a rotten smell that has come and gone in my apartment for the last two nights. And last night I saw two sets of yellow eyes looking in the window of my TV room.”

“But Jack … you’re on the third floor!”

“They were there.”

Gia felt something twist inside her. She sat down on the settee and shivered.

“God! That gives me the creeps!”

“It had to be cats.”

Gia looked at him and knew that he didn’t believe that. She pulled her robe more tightly about her. She wished she hadn’t demanded to know what he was thinking, and wished even more that he hadn’t told her.

“Right,” she said, playing along with the game. “Cats. Had to be.”

Jack stretched and yawned—like a big cat—as he moved toward the center of the room. “It’s late and I’m tired. Think it’d be all right if I spent the night?”

Gia bottled a sudden gush of relief to keep it from showing on her face.

“I suppose so.”

“Good.” He settled into Nellie’s recliner and pushed it all the way back. “I’ll just bed down here while you go up with Vicky.”

He turned on the reading lamp next to the chair and reached for a magazine from the pile next to the dish full of the Black Magic chocolates. Gia felt a lump swell in her throat at the thought of Nellie’s childlike glee at receiving that box of candy.

“Need a blanket?”

“No. I’m fine. I’ll just read for a little while. Good night.”

Gia rose and walked toward the door.

“Good night.”

Leaving Jack in a pool of light in the center of the darkened room, she hurried up to Vicky’s side and snuggled against her, hunting sleep. But despite the quiet and the knowledge that Jack was on guard downstairs, sleep never came.

Jack … he’d come when needed and had single-handedly accomplished what the New York Police Department had been unable to do: made her feel safe tonight. Without him she would have spent the remaining hours till daylight in a shuddering panic.

She fought a growing urge to be with him, but found herself losing. Vicky breathed slowly and rhythmically at her side. She was safe. They all were safe now that the alarm system was working again.

Gia slipped out of bed and stole downstairs, taking a lightweight summer blanket with her. She hesitated at the door to the library. What if he rejected her? She’d been so cold to him … what if he…?

Only one way to find out.

She stepped inside the door and found Jack looking at her. He must have heard her come down.

“Sure you don’t need a blanket?” she asked.

His expression was serious. “I could use someone to share it with me.”

Her mouth dry, Gia went to the chair and stretched herself alongside Jack; he spread the blanket over both of them. Neither spoke. There was nothing to say, at least for her. All she could do was lie beside him and contain the hunger within her.

After an eternity, Jack lifted her chin and kissed her. It must have taken as much courage to do that as it had taken her to come down to him. Gia let herself respond, releasing all her pent-up need. She pulled at his clothes, he lifted her nightgown, and then nothing separated them. She clung to him as if to keep him from being torn away from her. This was it, this was what she needed, this was what had been missing from her life.

God help her, this was the man she wanted.

16

Jack lay back in the recliner and tried unsuccessfully to sleep. Gia had taken him completely by surprise tonight. They’d made love twice—furiously the first time, more leisurely the second—and now he was alone, more satisfied and content than he could ever remember. For all her knowledge and inventiveness and seemingly inexhaustible passion, Kolabati hadn’t left him feeling like this. This was special. He’d always known that he and Gia belonged together. Tonight proved it. There had to be a way for them to get back together and stay that way.

After a long time of drowsy, sated snuggling, Gia had gone back upstairs, saying she didn’t want Vicky to find them both down here in the morning. She’d been warm, loving, passionate … everything she hadn’t been the past few months. It baffled him, but he wasn’t fighting it. He must have done something right. Whatever it was, he wanted to keep doing it.

The change in Gia wasn’t all that was keeping him awake, though. The events of the night had sent a confusion of facts, theories, guesses, impressions, and fears whirling through his mind.

Vicky’s description of the yellow eyes … until then he’d almost been able to convince himself that the eyes outside his window had been some sort of illusion. But first had come Gia’s casual mention of the putrid smell in Nellie’s room—the same odor that had invaded his apartment? Then the mention of the eyes. The two phenomena together on two different nights in two different locations could not be mere coincidence.

A link existed between what had happened last night at his apartment and Nellie’s disappearance tonight, but Jack was damned if he knew what it was. He’d been disappointed when he could not find any of the herbal liquid he’d found in Grace’s room last week. He couldn’t say how, but he was sure the odor, the eyes, the liquid, and the disappearances of the two old women were connected.

Idly, he picked up a piece of chocolate from the candy dish beside his chair. He wasn’t hungry, but he wouldn’t mind something sweet right now. Trouble with these things was you never knew what was inside. He could use the old thumb-puncture-on-the-bottom trick, but that didn’t seem right on a missing person’s candy. He dropped it back in the bowl and returned to his musings.

Jack reached down and checked the position of the little Semmerling where he’d squeezed it and its ankle holster between the seat cushion and armrest of the recliner. It was still handy. He closed his eyes and thought of eyes … yellow eyes …

And then it struck him—the thought that had eluded him last night. Those eyes … yellow with dark pupils … why they’d seemed vaguely familiar to him: They resembled the pair of black-centered topazes on the necklaces worn by Kolabati and Kusum and the one he’d retrieved for their grandmother!

He should have seen it before! Those two yellow stones had been staring at him for days, just as the eyes had stared at him last night.

His spirits rose slightly. He didn’t know what the resemblance meant, but now he had a link between the Bahktis and the eyes, and perhaps the disappearance of Grace and Nellie. It might well turn out to be pure coincidence, but at least he had a path to follow.

Jack knew what he’d be doing in the morning.