"I don't think so. I—"
In the background he heard a little voice saying, "Is that Jack? Is that Jack?" And then Gia saying, "Yes, hon, and he has something to tell you."
"Hi, Jack!" Vicky said, and rattled on with her usual ebullience. "How come you're not here yet? I've had my glove on since one o'clock and it's getting all sweaty inside while I've been waiting. When are you coming?"
The image she conjured tore at his heart.
"Uh, I'm, sorry, Vicks, but I have a job that's going to keep me away for a while. I'm really sorry, but—"
"You're not coming?" she said at about half her previous volume.
"I promise I'll make it up to you," he said quickly. "We'll have a nice long practice as soon as I can get away."
"But tryouts are next week."
Please, Vicks, he thought. Please understand.
"Vicks, I'll be there for you. I won't let you down. I promise."
"Okay." She was at quarter volume now. "Bye."
Jack leaned against the phone booth's shielding and stared at the pavement. An ant was crawling along the curb. He felt low enough to challenge it to a foot race.
"Really, Jack," Gia said, her voice taking on a vague scolding tone, "is what you're doing right now so all important that you can't come by and see her?"
"It's not that. It's just that I don't like the way things are going here."
"Meaning?"
"I'm being followed."
"By whom?"
"Not sure, and that's what worries me. I don't want them to know about you and Vicks, so I'm thinking it might be best for you two if I keep my distance until this job was finished."
"Oh," she said. "And when will that be?"
"Real soon, I hope."
Another sigh. "Jack, when are you going to give this up?"
"Please, Gia. Not now. A pay phone on a crowded sidewalk in Hell's Kitchen is not where I want to discuss this."
"You never want to discuss it."
"Gia…"
"Don't you see what this Repairman Jack stuff does? It doesn't involve just you. It affects all of us. And now you're afraid to see us because of it."
"I hate it when you're right."
That seemed to mollify her. "All right. To be continued. Please be careful, Jack."
"Always. Love you."
"Love you too."
His insides roiling, Jack hung up and stood staring at the phone. Gia was right. He should be more careful with the kinds of jobs he took. He guessed this was the price of caring, of close attachments. None of it had entered the picture in his lone wolf days when he'd done his share of rough-and-tumble gigs. But now…what was worth disappointing Vicky—or possibly endangering her?
What irked him was that he'd been so darn choosy lately. This gig, for instance—a missing wife should have been a no-risk, no-sweat fix-it. How had everything spun so damn far out of control?
Sooner or later he was going to have to face it: He couldn't have it both ways. Some hard choices were coming.
But he couldn't think about that now.
He picked up the receiver as if he were about to make another call, then whirled—
—and startled a young woman waiting behind him.
She wore jeans and a chopped Orioles T-shirt, had buzz-cut hair, and at least a dozen rings in her left ear. She recovered quickly.
"You finished with that?"
He scanned the area to see if he could catch someone watching him.
No one…at least no one he could see.
He handed her the phone and moved on. He wished he were done with this job. It was making him crazy.
8
Jack returned to his hotel room and hauled the crates out of the bathroom. He propped the lids against the headboard of his bed and made a stab at assembling some of the Erector Set-type struts, but soon realized the job required an extra pair of hands. He tried to decipher the scrawl in the corner of the smaller lid but it didn't make much sense.
Frustrated, he sat on the bed and stared at the two crates full of puzzle parts. He thought of Vicky. She loved puzzles. Under normal circumstances, this might have been a fun project to tackle with her, but something in his gut didn't want Vicky anywhere near these crates.
After a few more hours of haunting the conference areas, he was hungry. He couldn't bear the thought of another meal in the coffee shop, so he wandered out and found a place on Tenth called Druids. A pint of Guinness and a steak had him in a somewhat better state of mind and body by the time he returned to the hotel,
He was halfway to the escalator when he saw Frayne Canfield rolling toward him across the worn carpet of the lobby. He wore a bright green shirt that, along with his red hair and beard, gave him a Christmas look.
"Have you found Sal yet?" Canfield said.
Jack tried to look barely interested. "You mean Professor Roma? Who told you I was looking?"
"Evelyn. Lew. I've been looking for him too. Any, luck?"
"Nope."
"Maybe we can look together."
Is he really looking for Roma, or trying to keep an eye on me? Who's he working for?
Then he remembered that Canfield had been the first to mention this Otherness stuff. Maybe Jack could pump him about it, and maybe he'd slip—maybe he'd drop something about Melanie in the process.
"Maybe," Jack said. "We had a long discussion about the Otherness yesterday, and I wanted to get back to it."
"The Otherness, ay?" Canfield's bulging eyes narrowed as he looked up at Jack. "And how you're tied into it?"
Jack fought to hide his shock. What have I got—some sort of sign around my neck?
"We, uh, never got that far into it."
Canfield looked around. "Well, if you want to discuss it, this isn't the place. My room or yours?"
Jack considered that for a second. If he went off with Canfield, he might miss Roma. But finding Roma was looking pretty iffy; Canfield was a sure thing. He didn't want Canfield to see the mystery crates and their contents, however.
"Yours," he said, and didn't offer an explanation.
As Jack followed him to the elevator, he glanced up and saw Jim Zaleski and Miles Kenway huddled in a comer, heads close in deep conversation. They stopped talking as they spotted Jack.
Kenway called out, "I'm expecting a photo to be faxed to me any time now."
Jack gave a thumbs-up and kept walking.
So Kenway had taken his advice about getting visual confirmation on the Roma here and the Roma in Kentucky. That could be very interesting.
"What photo?" Canfield asked.
"Just a mutual acquaintance," Jack said.
Jack and Canfield rode up in silence, with Canfield busily gnawing at a fingernail, and Jack trying to avoid looking at his flannel-wrapped legs and the disconnecting way they moved beneath the blanket. He couldn't help thinking about what Melanie had said to Lew about what was wrong with those legs…
You don't want to know.
Canfield's room was laid out exactly like Jack's. In fact, it could have been Jack's…except it had no weird green crates lying about.
"Let's see now," Canfield said, grinning through his Hagar beard and motioning Jack to one of the chairs. "Where were we?"
He sat there snacking on fingernail and cuticle crudites as he regarded Jack with too-bright eyes. He seemed more wired up than usual. Salt-rimmed crescents darkened the armpits of his shirt.
"Yesterday you and I were in the 'Children of the Otherness' zone—inhabited by you and Melanie Ehler," Jack said. He settled into the chair, dropping to eye level with Canfield. "Later Roma said something about my supposedly being 'marked by the Otherness.'"
"Not supposedly—the mark is there and you know it."
You can see it too? Jack thought, stiffening. He shrugged with as much nonchalance as his tight muscles would allow.
"Do I?"
"Of course you do. Open your shirt and I'll prove it."