"I'm sure any conspiracy theory has its paranoid schiz mavens; that sort of stuff is tailor-made for them. But for the rest who haven't completely broken with reality, the cult aspect is probably as important as the conspiracies themselves. Fellow True Believers form a sort of intellectual commune. Not only do you share The Truth with them, but appreciation of that common knowledge sets you apart from the workaday schlmiels who remain in the dark. You form an elite corps. Soon you're associating only with other True Believers, people who won't challenge The Truth, which in turn reinforces The Truth over and over. I'm sure no small number of people are involved for fun and profit, but the core believers are searching for something."
"Control."
"Yes…and something else, maybe. Something they're not finding in modern society. Family, I think. Fellow believers become a family of sorts. And in this rootless, traditionless, culturally challenged society America has become, family is hard to find."
Family…Jack thought about how violent death had hurled him on a tangential arc from his own family, how his father and sister and brother were scattered now up and down the East Coast. And he thought of how Gia and Vicky and Abe and Julio had become a new family of sorts. Anchors that kept him from drifting into a dark no-man's land.
"Yeah," he said. "I guess everybody needs a family of some sort."
"And this fish yoich group—"
"SESOUP."
"Whatever—is a sort of extended family. And like any family, they have squabbles."
"Deadly squabbles?" Jack said. "Neck-twisting, eye-gouging, lip-removing squabbles?"
Abe shrugged. "Hey. When the police find a dead body, who's the first suspect? Someone in the family. And here you're dealing with one meshugge family."
"Yeah, maybe," Jack said. "But I've got to tell you, Abe, after what's been happening, I'm starting to wonder."
"Oy, you're not serious? I'm starting to think maybe you've been hanging around these people too long."
"Something's, going on, something a lot bigger than a bunch of conspiracy nuts sitting around and trading theories. I sense it, Abe. Someone's moving around behind the scenery. I don't know if it's one of these fabled secret organizations or a government agency—"
"If it's a government agency, then you should include yourself out of this mess immediately, if not sooner. You and government weren't meant to mix. Let someone else find the missing lady."
"But I can't," Jack said, wishing he could get out, but haunted by what Melanie Ehler had told Lew.
"Why the hell not?"
"Didn't I tell you? Because only I can find her. Only I will understand."
5
Jack closed his apartment door behind him and froze. He scanned the front room as he snatched the Semmerling from his ankle holster.
Something wrong here.
He listened. No sound except the hum from the computer's CPU fan and the ticks and tocks from the various pendulum clocks—a Shmoo, Felix the Cat, Sleepy the Dwarf—on the walls. No unusual odor.
He didn't sense anyone in the apartment, yet something was not right. With his pistol against his thigh, he did a quick search of all the rooms—he knew every possible hiding place, and each was empty. All the windows were double-locked with no sign of forced entry. Times like this he wished he'd put bars on the windows; trouble was, bars worked both ways, and there might come a time when he wanted to go out one of those windows.
Jack and his fellow tenants had a mutual watchdog society and were extremely careful who they buzzed in. A four-way bar-bolt secured his door. No one was going to break it down, but as he well knew from experience, no lock was bypass-proof. No system was perfect.
Long ago he'd considered and rejected an alarm system; that would bring the police, and the last thing he wanted was a couple of cops—city or private—snooping through his place looking for an intruder.
He thought of Kenway's motion recorder and wished he had one. That would have settled the question once and for all.
Jack turned in a slow circle. He was the only one here now. And from all appearances, he was the only one who had been here since he'd locked up and left yesterday.
But he didn't put the Semmerling away. His hackles were up and his nervous system was on full alert.
Why?
He couldn't put his finger on it, but the apartment and its contents seemed subtly out of kilter, just the tiniest bit askew.
He checked his computer, the filing cabinet, riffled through the papers on his desk, did a count in the weapons cache behind the secretary. Nothing appeared to be missing, everything seemed to be just where he'd left it. He checked his shelves, still crammed with all his neat stuff. Nothing had been disturbed—
Wait. At the base of the Little Orphan Annie Ovaltine shake-up mug…a crescent of clean wood reflecting the sunlight from the window. The rest of the shelf's lacquered surface—what little wasn't obscured by the crowded mementos—sported a down of dust. Jack had never been one to expend much energy in the housekeeping department, tending to wait until the situation reached crisis proportions, and now he was glad of it. Because that bright sliver of polished wood meant the mug had been moved.
If Jack were searching this room, he knew he'd want to know if anything was hiding in that old red domed mug. And since it sat at eye level, the only way to check would be to take it down, lift the cap, and look inside, then replace it.
No question—the mug had been moved. But by whom?
Me?
Had he adjusted the mug or looked at it when he'd bought the Daddy Warbucks lamp? After all, Daddy and Annie were connected. He couldn't remember.
Damn. If he'd known it was going to matter, he would have paid more attention at the time.
Or was all this simply his imagination? Maybe all the hours he'd been spending with the SESOUP crowd were having an effect.
Is this what it's like? he wondered. Is this how Zaleski and Kenway live, suspicious of every little inconsistency, always looking over their shoulders and under the bed?
Had somebody been here or not, dammit?
He was surprised at how rattled he was by the mere hint that the seal on his sanctum had been broken. And rage accompanied the rattle. He had to get back to the hotel, but he didn't want to leave. He wanted to hunker down in the easy chair with a scattergun across his knees and wait. Anybody came in—men in black, men in blue, men in chartreuse or paisley, Jack didn't care—they'd get bellies full of magnum double-O buck, fifteen pellets per round, one after the other.
But he had to find a missing lady…and talk to a weird guy with a monkey.
He holstered his pistol and stepped into the bathroom. Positioning himself before the mirror, he pulled up his shirt, exposing his chest. He stared at the three ragged lines, angry red now instead of pale, running diagonally across his chest.
How could Roma possibly know about these scars?
And what was it he'd said? Something about being "marked by the Otherness."
They're not marks, Jack thought. They're ordinary scars. No big deal. I've got lots of scars. These are just part of the collection.
You are much more a part of this than you realize.
No. I'm not part of anything, especially this Otherness junk. And you're not sucking me in. I'm not like you people.
But were these scars why Melanie had said that only Repairman Jack could find her…that only he would understand?
And he remembered something else Roma had said yesterday, just minutes before that creature had attacked him.
You would do well to take care, Mr. Shelby. You might even consider returning to your home and locking your doors for the rest of the weekend.
Had Roma known he was going to be attacked?
Too many questions…and he could think of only one man who might be able to answer them.