And he was all set for Jack, already in mid-swing when the door opened. Jack was utterly unprepared for the black-gloved fist that rammed deep into his solar plexus.
The force of the blow slammed him against the cinderblock wall. Pain exploded in the pit of his stomach. He couldn't breathe. His mouth worked, struggling to draw air, but his diaphragm was paralyzed. He tried to keep his feet but they wouldn't cooperate. He crumpled like an old dollar bill, doubled over and grunting on the landing, helpless to stop the second man in black as he followed his buddy downstairs.
It took Jack a good fifteen-twenty seconds before he could breathe again. He lay there gasping, sucking delicious wind, waiting for the pain to go away. Eventually he was able to push himself up to a sitting position. He leaned back against the cinder blocks, groaned, and shook his head. No, he was not going to vomit, no matter how much his stomach wanted to.
Christ, that was some shot. Perfect placement, damn near went clear through to his spine. Must have been wearing a weighted glove—at least Jack hoped he was. Didn't like the thought of such a skinny guy packing that kind of wallop all on his own.
Finally he struggled to his feet. No sense in trying to catch up to them now; they were long gone. Jack got himself together, pulled open the door, and tried to look casual as he limped down the hall to his room.
11
After splashing some water on his face, Jack pondered his next move.
Olive…dead. Christ. And not merely dead—mutilated.
Jack had seen his share of corpses, but never one like Olive's. One thing to kill somebody, but then to cut out her eyes, carve off her lips…jeez.
Why? Was there symbolism there? Had she seen too much? Talked too much? She'd told Jack about the disks. Had she told someone else—the wrong someone else? The room had been ransacked—in search of the disks, he'd bet. Question was: had they found them?
Not that Jack could go back for a second look. In another twenty minutes or so, Evelyn would be asking the management to open Olive's room. He didn't want to be around when the police started swarming through the hotel asking questions, but he didn't want to be on anyone's suspect list either. Except for the time he'd spent at Gia's, his whereabouts for most of the morning were pretty well accounted for. Better to hide in plain sight until the body was found, then lay low.
Which meant he should head downstairs and make sure Evelyn and anybody else around saw him.
When he reached the meeting area, he looked around for someone he'd met, but saw neither Zaleski, Carmack, nor Evelyn. He'd even settle for Roma—find out about his three-fingered high sign—but he wasn't in sight. Jack did spot the red-headed guy with the beard, staring at him again from his wheelchair.
All right, Jack thought. Let's make this a two-fer: establish my presence and find out what makes me so damn interesting.
He crossed the common area and stood over the guy. Close up Jack saw that he'd be on the short side even if he could stand. He was barrel-chested under his Polo golf shirt. Stick a horned helmet on his head and he'd pass for Hagar the Horrible. His pelvis and legs were wrapped in a loud red, black, and yellow plaid blanket.
"Do you know me?" Jack asked.
The man looked up at him. "Last night was the first time I ever laid eyes on you."
"Then why do you keep staring at me?"
"You wouldn't understand."
"Try me."
"You're the last one to hear from Melanie, I'm told."
That wasn't an answer, but Jack nodded. "Supposedly. News travels fast around here."
"Melanie and I go way back." He extended his hand. "Frayne Canfield."
Jack remembered Lew mentioning that name—Melanie's childhood friend from Monroe—but he shook his hand and played dumb.
"How far back?"
"We grew up together, and we've kept in touch. Hasn't Lew mentioned me?"
"Possibly," Jack said. "I've met so many people since I arrived." He shrugged.
"Well, if he hasn't, he probably will. We've stayed close, Melanie and me, and sometimes I think Lew's suspected us of having an affair." He smiled bitterly and pointed to his blanketed lower body. "But that, I'm afraid, is quite impossible."
Canfield's legs shifted under the plaid fabric, and something about the way they moved sent a chill across Jack's upper back. He felt he should make some sort of response but couldn't think of anything that didn't sound lame.
Canfield shrugged. "Ironic, in a way: The thing that keeps us close also keeps us from getting too close."
"I'm not following you," Jack said.
"Our deformities…they're a kind of bond unhindered people can't understand."
Jack was baffled. "Melanie has a deformity?"
Canfield looked smug. "You mean you don't know? Perhaps I shouldn't have said anything." He tugged on his red beard and stared at Jack. "You really haven't met her, have you."
"Why would I be lying?" Jack said, then had to smile. "But then, considering the nature of this gathering, why should I be surprised I'm not believed?"
Canfield nodded. "You've got a point."
Jack mentally reviewed the photos he'd seen both in Shoreham and in Monroe. Melanie had looked perfectly normal.
"What's Melanie's deformity?"
Canfield looked around. "Let's get out of the traffic." He started rolling his chair to the left. "Over here."
He stopped before a couch against the wall. Jack sank into the too-soft cushions, so far down that he was now looking up at Canfield.
"I'm not going to discuss Melanie's particular deformity," Canfield said. "When you meet her you'll know."
At least he's optimistic, Jack thought.
"But I will tell you," Canfield went on, "that it shaped her life. It's the fuel powering her engine. She's searching for the cause of the Monroe Cluster."
"Cluster of what?"
"Deformities. Toward the end of 1968, half a dozen deformed children were born in Monroe over a period of ten days. The parents all got to know each other. That was how my folks met the Rubins, Melanie's folks. I remember others—the poor Harrisons, whose severely deformed daughter Susan didn't survive past age five, and the doubly damned Bakers, whose daughter Carly disappeared after murdering her brother. They and a few others formed a mini-support group, looking for answers, wanting to know, Why us??'
Jack glanced at Canfield's shrouded nether half, wondering what hid beneath that blanket.
"A radiation leak, maybe?" Jack offered.
Canfield shook his head. "An investigative team from Mount Sinai came out and puttered around, looking for evidence of just that. When that didn't pan out they tested the water and the ground for toxic contamination, but never found a thing. Melanie thinks they came up empty-handed because they were looking for a natural cause. She thinks the cause was unnatural."
Canfield's legs shifted again under their blanket…something not quite natural about that, either.
"Like what?"
"Something else…something other."
"Is this a secret code or something? You're losing me."
Canfield sighed. "Melanie and I have discussed it endlessly. She's been convinced that something 'unnatural' happened in Monroe in late February or early March of 1968 when her mother and my mother and all these other mothers were newly pregnant. Something happened that warped the fragile cell structures of the newly conceived fetuses. 'A burst of Otherness,' she calls it. She refers to us and the other deformed ones as 'Children of the Otherness.'"