Jack hunched his shoulders to relieve a crawling sensation along his nape as he remembered Canfield's talk about a "burst of Otherness." You could almost make a case for something foul entering the world early in sixty-eight.
He shook it off. "Any children of the cluster still around?"
"Only two survived," she said, wary again. "But don't expect me to tell you who they are. They deserve their privacy."
"I suppose you're right. I've already spoken to Melanie Rubin and Frayne Canfield and I thought—"
"I saw Melanie recently myself. I hadn't seen her since her mother's funeral, but just last week I passed her old house and saw her standing outside with a very handsome man."
Jack knew she couldn't be talking about Lew. "What did he look like?"
She laughed. "Oh, I doubt very much I could describe him. My attention was too fixed on the monkey on his shoulder."
"A monkey, ay?" Jack said. Hadn't Roma told Lew yesterday that he'd been looking forward to meeting Melanie in person? "Isn't that interesting."
"Yes. Cute as a button."
Jack shrugged. "I guess that's it then. Thanks."
"Let those poor people be, young man," she said as he headed for the door. "Just let them be."
Jack found a pay phone in the library foyer and called Lew's home number.
When Lew recognized Jack's voice he gasped. "Have you found her?"
"Not yet," Jack said. "Any sign of her out there?"
"No," he said, his tone disconsolate. "Not a thing."
"I had a nice little chat with Frayne Canfield."
"Was he any help?"
"Not much. What's his story?"
"Still lives with his parents. Keeps to himself pretty much except for SESOUP activities. Debugs software for a living, but I don't think he's particularly successful at it. Why? You think he's involved?"
"It's a possibility." A very good possibility. "I'm going to be keeping an eye on him. But you didn't tell me he was wheelchair-bound. He described his legs as 'deformed'…which is also how he described Melanie's left arm." Not quite true, but Jack didn't want to let on that he'd broken into the Monroe house. "How come you never mentioned Melanie's arm?"
"I didn't think it mattered."
"It does if it's an identifying characteristic. Can I ask what's wrong with her hand?"
"Well…she doesn't really have one. According to the doctors, all the fingers on her left hand fused into a single large digit while she was a fetus. The same happened with the fingernails, leaving her with one large thick nail. She keeps it bandaged in public because it tends to upset people—they either stare or turn away."
"I'm sorry," Jack said, unable to think of anything to say.
Poor Melanie…imagine having to go through life hiding one of your hands all the time…and chopping the hands off your dolls…
"Nothing to be sorry about," Lew said. "She leads a full life. People stop noticing the bandage after a while. And.to tell you the truth, it never bothered me. I fell in love with her the moment I laid eyes on her. The only thing it has stopped her from doing is having children. She's too afraid she'll pass on her deformity."
Jack shook his head, remembering the wistful look in Lew's eyes this morning when he was playing with that toddler in the coffee shop.
"There's always adoption."
''Someday I hope we will." His voice teetered on a sob. "If she ever comes back."
"We'll find her, Lew," Jack said, only half believing it himself. "Just hang in there."
"Like I have a choice?" he said and hung up.
Don't fall apart on me, Lew, Jack thought as he replaced the receiver. You're the only one I've met in this thing who seems to be dealing from a full deck.
He turned and saw an aerial map of Monroe with the streets labeled. He found Melanie's family home. He remembered the address of the Hanley mansion from the articles and, just for the hell of it, located its approximate location. Not too far from Melanie's place. Jack could see no line of causality between the storms and the deaths at the mansion in March to the birth defects in December, but he was sure some of the SESOUPers back at the convention could find multiple ways to link them. Probably link them to the King and Kennedy assassinations and every other nasty occurrence that year as well.
But there couldn't be a connection. Just coincidence…
Shaking his head, he stepped outside and ambled toward his car. He was in no hurry to get back to the hotel. By now the SESOUP crew would be frothing at their collective mouths with theories about the ritualistic murder of one of their members.
Good a time as any to do some more work on the new Social Security number, and maybe even sneak in a little time to help Vicky with her baseball skills.
14
"They cut out her eyes?" Abe said around a mouthful of frozen mocha yogurt. His expression registered disgust. "You're making me lose my appetite."
"Wait," Jack said. "That's just the start. I haven't told you what they did to her lips and how they twisted—"
He waved his hand in Jack's face. "No-no-no! What I don't know can't nauseate me."
Just as well. Jack didn't want to talk about it anyway. He kept picturing himself finding Melanie in that condition and having to tell Lew.
He'd brought a pint of fat-free frozen yogurt as a gift in anticipation of Abe's aid in authoring a letter to the Social Security Administration in Trenton. He hadn't mentioned the letter yet. He'd also brought a packet of sunflower seeds for Parabellum, who was patiently splitting the shells with his deft little beak and plucking out the tiny meats.
Jack shrugged. "Okay. Bottom line is, she's dead."
"And those tough guys in black did it?"
"I'm assuming so. Never got the chance to ask. Tossed her room pretty well too."
Abe picked,up the sweating yogurt container and peered at the label.
"Non-fat shouldn't taste this good. You're sure it's non-fat?"
"That's what it says. And less calories too."
"Fewer calories."
"Less." Jack pointed to the bright yellow flag on the container. "Says so right there."
"I should accept a yogurt label as my authority on grammar? Trust me, Jack, it's 'fewer.' Less fat—okay. But fewer calories."
"You see?" Jack said, slapping a black-and-white composition book down on Abe's counter. "That's why you're just the man to help me write a letter from a high school sophomore."
Abe's eyes narrowed. "Have I just been suckered?"
Jack blinked. "Why…whatever do you mean?"
Abe sighed. "Another letter to the SSA? Just rewrite the last one."
"Nah. You know I like a new one every time. And besides, it's all your fault. You're the one who got me started on plastic money."
"Had I but known what I would set in motion…"
When Abe finally had convinced Jack of the necessity of a credit card, he suggested adding Jack as an additional cardholder on his own pseudonymous Amex account. Jack chose the name Jack Connery—he'd been running some old James Bond films at the time—but needed a Social Security number to accompany the name.
For Connery's SSN he used Abe's new—at least it was new at the time—method: he made one up. But that didn't mean simply pulling random numbers out of the air. Under Abe's tutelage, Jack learned that the SSN was divided into three sets of digits for a reason. The first set, the three-digit "area" number, told where the number was issued. If Connery had a New York birthplace and a New York address, he should have an area number somewhere between 050 and 134, indicating the number had been issued in New York. The second set of numbers was the "block" pair, indicating when the number was issued. Since Connery was listing a birth date of 1958, Jack didn't want to submit a block number that said Connery's SSN was issued before he was born. As for the last four digits—the "serial number"—anything goes.