Food? Dinner at The Header… now there was a thought. Tonight's speciaclass="underline" ebola quiche.
But Johnny didn't enter the bar. Instead he keyed open a narrow door around the side from the entrance and disappeared inside. A minute or so later Jack saw a third-floor window light up.
He didn't get it. Why a third-floor walk-up over a biker bar? According to his mother the guy was worth millions.
Maybe he'd given it all to the Dormentalists. Or maybe he still had it but had decided to live in poverty. Jack tried to care, but failed. No explaining cult members. Waste of time to try.
And anyway, his job wasn't to make sense of Johnny Roselli, it was to give him a message from his mother. The easiest way would be to knock on his door and tell him, but he didn't like the idea of letting Johnny see his face.
Why not? After delivering the message to call Mama, Jack's job was done. If he were sticking with the Jason Amurri identity, yeah, it would matter: He wouldn't want to risk Johnny spotting him and opening his yap. But Jack had no intention of ever setting foot in the temple again…
Or did he?
He had a feeling he had unfinished business there… business involving Brady's globe.
Jack noted the number on the door, then turned and headed east at a comfortable pace. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed information. They had no listing for a J. Roselli at that address.
Damn. He stopped walking. He might have to show his face after all.
On a sudden whim he called back and asked for a party named "Oroont" at that address. Bull's-eye.
He smiled and said aloud, "Am I good or am I good?"
He let the operator dial for him and a few seconds later he was listening to a phone ring, A man answered.
"Is this John Roselli?"
The tone was guarded. "It was. How did you get this number?"
"Not important. I have a message from your mother. She—"
"You what? Who are you?"
"Someone your mother hired to find you. She's been worried about you and—"
"Listen, you son of a bitch," Roselli gritted, and Jack could all but feel the steam coming through the phone. "Who put you up to this? The GP? Are you one of Jensen's drones trying to trap me?"
"No, I'm simply—"
"Or some dirty WA trying to harass me?"
Be nice if I could finish a sentence.
"Not even close. Look, just call your mother. She's worried and wants to hear from you."
"Fuck you!"
And then the phone slammed down.
Jack tried three more times. On the first he heard the receiver lift, then clatter down again. After that all he got was a busy signal.
Okay. He'd done his job, delivered the message. Johnny apparently had big issues with Mom. Jack was sorry about that but his fix-it skills—thankfully—did not reach into family therapy.
As he kept walking east, heading for Eighth Avenue where he could catch a train, Brady's globe spun into his thoughts again… the red and white lights… the network of crisscrossing lines… so tantalizingly close… he reached for it, stretching…
And then Jack grasped it. But when he realized what he had hit on he instantly wished he hadn't. He stumbled as he felt the world slow around him.
The lights and the lines… he'd seen that pattern before… and now he knew where…
Suddenly out of breath, he stopped walking and leaned against a railing. He wasn't going to be sick, but he wanted to be.
When his heart and lungs dropped back toward their normal tempos, he pushed off and got moving again. He'd planned to stop by Maria Roselli's to tell her he'd contacted Johnny boy, and then drop in on Gia and Vicky to see how his girls were doing. But all that was out of the question now. He needed answers, needed to find someone who might have an explanation.
He could think of only one person.
8
Jamie had been working late—as usual—when Robertson called. His voice had sounded tight and he'd said he needed to talk to her. Now. Something had come up—something big and very strange.
Well, she'd been ready to leave anyway. After she assured him that the line had been checked for taps, he said he'd pick her up in his car, a big, black Crown Victoria. When she'd reminded him about her Dementedist shadows, he told her where to meet him and exactly how to get there.
So here she was at 8:15 walking west through the Forty-second Street tunnel. One of the Dementedist shadows was following her, laying back about fifty feet or so. Where was the other? They usually had a crew of two waiting outside The Light. It bothered her that she didn't know where he was.
Jamie was puffing by the time she reached the Eighth Avenue station. Damn those cigarettes. Had to quit some day.
Instead of heading for one of the train platforms, she rushed up the steps to the street.
Now she was really breathing hard. She spotted a big black car idling at the corner. That had to be Robertson, but he'd told her to wait until he gave a signal. Why? She didn't want to wait with one of those nutcases coming up behind her. She wanted in that car now.
Suddenly the passenger door flew open and his voice called from within.
"Let's go!"
Jamie didn't need to hear that twice. She trotted over and jumped in. The car was roaring up Eighth Avenue before she closed the door.
"We've got to stop meeting like this, Robertson."
Light from passing street lamps flashed against his face. His features looked tight, tense.
"Call me Jack, remember?"
"Oh, right. Hey, tell me, why did you want me to wait by the top of the steps instead of just jumping in and going?"
"I wanted the traffic lights the right color. Not much point in burning rubber just to stop a block away. Now they'll have to find a cab before they can come after us. And they're not going to find us when they do."
"Not they—he. Only one tonight. But he probably got a look at your license plate."
The line of his mouth tightened further. "Might have got a look at more than that. While I was waiting for you a guy I'd seen in Jensen's office when I was getting my Entry Card came out of a deli carrying a paper bag. Coffee and sandwiches, probably. Walked right past the car."
"Think he saw you?"
"Looked at me but didn't seem to recognize me."
"Oh, hell. If they've got your plate numbers—"
He smiled, but even that was tight. "Won't do them much good. And they're in for a pile of trouble if they start hassling the real owner of these tags."
"So this is a borrowed car?"
"No, it's mine, but the plates are duplicates of someone else's. Someone you don't want to mess with."
"Who?"
He shook his head. "Trade secret."
That again. But he'd piqued her curiosity. "Would I have heard of him?"
"As a reporter? Oh, yeah."
The way he drew out the oh was enough to make her crazy. Who was he talking about? But she sensed that asking again would be like talking to a statue.
He took a left onto Fifty-seventh and headed farther west.
"Where are we going?"
"We need someplace quiet and private. Any ideas?"
"We're only a few blocks from my place but I think it's got a surveillance situation."
"Wouldn't be surprised, but let's go check it out anyway."
She directed him to her block on West Sixty-eighth.
She pointed right to the front door of her apartment building. "That's me."
Jack jerked a thumb toward his side window. "And there's the Dormen-talist stakeout team."
Jamie saw a dark coupe, parked curbside, no lights on inside or out. A man sat alone in the front seat. Her stomach crawled.