Jack shook his head. "For the last year or so, Tom, reality's been just about as interesting as I can stand."
10
Gia stopped her paintbrush in midstroke and listened. Was that the doorbell? She and Vicky had come out to the sunny backyard—Vicky for her playhouse, Gia to work on her painting—and they were a long way from the front door.
She heard the chime again, clearly now. With a glance at Vicky, who was setting a Munchkin-size chair before a Munchkin-size table by her playhouse, Gia wiped her hands and stepped inside.
As she headed through the house toward the front door, she wondered who it could be. Jack had said he'd be tied up most of the day, Gia hadn't arranged a play date for Vicky, and this was not a neighborhood where people popped in for a cup of coffee.
Despite the months of living in this grand old East Side town house, Gia still didn't feel she belonged here. Vicky's aunts, Nellie and Grace, had owned it but they were gone now, officially missing persons since last summer. But Gia knew the truth—the two dear old women were dead, devoured by creatures from some Hindu hell. If not for Jack, Vicky would have suffered the same fate. And thanks to Jack, the creatures were as dead as Nellie and Grace, incinerated on the ship that had brought them, their ashes sent swirling into the currents of New York Harbor. Vicky would inherit the house when Grace and Nellie were declared legally dead. Until then, she and Gia lived here, keeping it up.
Gia padded across the thick Oriental rug that lined the foyer floor and approached the front door as the bell rang again. Probably Jack and he'd forgotten his key, but just to be sure, she put her eye to the peephole—
And froze.
Gia's heart kicked up its tempo as she recognized the two men standing on her front step—from the other day on the beach in front of Milos Dragovic's house. No way she'd forget the obnoxious one with the bad bleach job.
What were they doing here? How had they found her? Why?
Jack. Had to be Jack. Always Jack. He'd been interested in Dragovic, and the objects of Jack's interest tended not to be the happiest bunch after he finished with them. But now Jack—and she as well, it seemed—had attracted the attention of the city's most notorious mobster.
Gia jumped as the bell chimed again. She looked back down the hall, hoping Vicky wouldn't hear it and come charging in expecting to find Jack. The best thing was probably to stay quiet and hope they'd conclude no one was home. Since the town houses here all sat cheek by jowl along the sidewalk, there was no way for them to go around to the rear. Maybe they'd just give up and go away.
She heard them talking on the other side of the door. It didn't sound like English.
Finally they walked back to the black Lincoln sedan at the curb. Gia breathed a sigh of relief as they pulled away, but they didn't go far. They parked at the end of the cul-de-sac and lit cigarettes.
They're watching for us. Damn them!
Gia felt a quiet anger begin to simmer beneath her uneasiness. She and Vicky were trapped in their own home. And they had Jack to thank for that.
She picked up the phone and dialed his beeper. He got us into this; he can damn well get us out.
11
"Whatsa matta?" Sal Vituolo said, giggling as he wiped the tears from his eyes. "You don't think that's funny?"
Sal had just run the tape of last night's raid on the little TV-VCR set in his office.
"I think it's perfect," Jack said.
Ten minutes ago he would have had some good yucks watching Dragovic's goons running and ducking as the tires chased them. That would have been before he'd spoken to Gia and learned that two of those goons were parked outside her door at this very moment.
He knew how they'd found her: had to be that hidden security camera by Dragovic's front gate.
My fault. Should have spotted it sooner. Must have recorded a picture of the car, and they traced her from the plate.
Damn! Never should have taken them along.
The good news was that Dragovic couldn't know that Gia had any connection to last night's rubber rain. He was just flailing about.
Trouble was, the man might get lucky.
Jack's first thought had been to tell Gia to call the cops and complain about two suspicious-looking guys lurking outside. That would chase them, but not far. They'd move, but they would not go away.
So he'd have to handle this but be careful as to how. His first reflex had been to take them out, permanently, leave the police to clean up the mess. Since they both work for Dragovic, everyone would write it off as a mob hit.
Everyone except Dragovic. He'd know why those two were there, and removing them would be like erecting a big neon sign over Gia's door saying, I'm involved.
No, this called for a more subtle approach. But what…?
Sal's voice jarred him back to Staten Island. "I don't know how many times I've watched it already, but I crack up every time." He popped the cassette out of the set and held it up. "How many copies do I make and where do we send them? Eyewitness News?
"No copies yet."
"Ay," Sal said, pointing to the new dual-deck VCR Jack had instructed him to buy. "Ain't that why I bought this? To make copies?"
"Right," Jack said. "But we need more. You've got to be on that dune to film the sequel at tomorrow night's party."
"I'll be there, but how about something better'n tires this time? How about glass? Yeah! I gotta shitload of broken glass around here."
He forced his voice to stay calm. "Tires are just phase one. Phase two is where he gets nailed."
"Nails?" He heard an unmistakable note of glee in Sal's voice. "You're gonna use nails? Now you're talkin'!"
Jeez. "No."
"Then what's phase two?"
"All in good time, my man. All in good time. Meanwhile, not to worry. I've got it all figured out."
"But we done tires. I don't want to do tires again. Tires ain't enough."
Jack chewed the inside of his cheek and resisted the urge to whirl and get in Sal's face and tell him if he didn't like what was going down he could take over and finish it himself.
That's the worry about Gia and Vicky, he realized.
It was getting to him.
He rose and stepped to one of the windows. Through the grime on both sides of the pane he could vaguely make out the mountains of old cars and scrap metal stretching behind the office.
"Gotta be something better than tires again," Sal whined.
"OK, Sal," Jack said, giving in. "Let's take a walk through your yard. If we find something better, we'll use it. If not—tires again."
And maybe I'll come up with a solution for Dragovic's goons.
As an ebullient Sal led him out into the sunny afternoon, Jack noticed a couple of men piling scrap metal onto the hydraulic lift on the rear of a battered old delivery truck, the same one Jack had used to deliver the tires to the Ashe brothers on Friday.
He watched the old truck's lift return to ground level after another load of scrap had been pushed into its interior. Its rear edge was beveled… like a knife…
That gave him half of an idea. Jack scanned the rest of the yard and spotted some battered and rusted cars lined up against one of the fences. He pointed to them.
"Any of those wrecks drivable?"
Sal stopped and looked around. "Yeah, I s'ppose. Not legal-like. A coupla them'll getcha from here to there, but probably not back."
"I don't need to get back."
"Whatchathinkin'?"
Jack was beginning to feel a little better now.
"I'm thinking I may take out some of my fee in trade after all."
12
"How long are we going to sit here?" Vuk Vujovic said, lighting another Marlboro.