"Now? But it's—"
"Now."
No way Jack could let this sit till tomorrow.
13
Jensen was getting sick of waiting. "No word on those tags yet?"
"She's faxing it through now."
Fortunately one of the DMV Dormentalists had been on the night shift.
A few moments later Jensen had the sheet in his hand. But what to make of it?
The owner of the getaway car was one Vincent A. Donato, resident of Brooklyn. Somehow the guy pretending to be Jason Amurri didn't look like a Vincent Donato. Something else bothered him.
He looked up at Margiotta. "Donato… Donato… why does that sound familiar?"
"Rung one of my bells too, so I asked her to send over a photo." The fax rang in the other room. "That'll be it now."
A moment later Margiotta returned, saying, "Oh-shit, oh-shit, oh-shit."
Jensen didn't like the sound of that. "What's the matter?"
"You know why it sounded familiar? Vincent A. Donato is Vinny the Donut."
Jensen levered forward in his seat and snatched the fax from Margiotta.
"What? There's got to be—"
But there on the sheet was a pudgy, jowly face known to pretty much everyone in New York—at least anyone who read the Post or the News. At various times over the past ten years Vinny the Donut had been indicted for loan sharking, for prostitution, or for money laundering. But before any charges could be brought to trial, witnesses seemed to develop memory lapses or give in to an urge to visit relatives in foreign countries. Not a single charge had stuck.
"Can you believe it?" Margiotta said. "He's driving Vinny the Donut's car! Our phony is mobbed up!"
"Got to be a mistake. Lewis flubbed the tag number."
"That's what I thought, but look what the Donut drives—a black Crown Vic. And what kind of car whisked Grant off the street? A black Crown Vic. And I doubt very, very much that he stole Vinny's car. You do not steal from Vinny the Donut."
Jensen felt adrift on a rough sea. None of this made sense.
"But what possible interest could the mob have in Dormentalism?"
"Maybe they want to horn in. Maybe they hired Grant to get inside info on us."
Jensen shook his head. "No. It's got to be something else."
"Like what?"
I don't know, he thought, but I'll come up with something.
Jensen knew he'd better have some sort of explanation when he laid this double bombshell on Brady tomorrow morning.
Not only was the SO's pet recruit not Jason Amurri, but he was connected to the mob. Brady was going to shit a brick.
14
Jamie had to admit that her current situation had her a little scared. Here she was in the dark, heading toward the wilds of upstate New York with a strange man she'd met only days ago.
At least he wasn't driving fast or lane hopping. She hated that. She had a feeling he wanted the pedal to the metal but he'd set the cruise control to sixty-five and was sticking to the right or middle lanes. Very sane, very sensible. Also a pretty sure way to avoid being stopped by a cop.
It wasn't his driving. It was him… the way he'd changed when she'd told him what Hokano meant. He'd become another person. The regular fellow in the booth at the bar had become this grim, relentless automaton encased in a steel shell.
"What if it's not Blascoe?" she said.
He didn't turn his head. His eyes remained fixed on the road. "Then we've made a mistake and we've wasted some time."
"What if he is Blascoe and doesn't want to talk?"
"He won't have a choice."
His matter-of-fact tone chilled her.
"You're very scary right now. You know that, don't you?"
She saw his stiff shoulders relax a little. Very little. But it was a start, a hint that a thaw might be possible.
"Sorry. You've got nothing to worry about."
"Yeah, I do. I started out the night with Dr. Jekyll, and now I feel like I'm driving with Mr. Hyde."
"Did I suddenly sprout bushy eyebrows and bad teeth?"
"No. But you changed—your eyes, your expression, your demeanor. You're a different person."
She saw the tiniest hint of a smile in the backwash of light from a passing car.
"So I guess we're in the Spencer Tracy version."
Jamie had no idea what he was talking about.
"What did I say—what was it about the translation of Hokano that set you off? You were fine until then."
He sighed. "You've already heard some strange stuff tonight. Ready for something even stranger?"
What could be stranger than that piece of human skin he was carrying around? Even if it was fake, even if it was some other kind of hide, the story he'd attached to it was bizarre as all hell. How could he top that?
"Seeing as we still have some time to kill," she told him, "fire away."
If what she'd heard already was any indication, it would not be boring.
"All right. It's more than a matter of killing time. You might be getting involved—hell, you're probably already involved—and you should know what you're getting into."
"How many more preambles are you going to lay on me? Can we get to the story, I mean before morning?"
He laughed—a short, harsh sound. "Okay."*
Then whatever lightness had crept into his voice in the past minute or so deserted it.
"What if I told you that there's been an unseen war going on between two vast, unimaginable, unknowable forces for eons, for almost as long as time itself?"
"You mean between Good and Evil?"
"More like Not So Bad and Truly Awful. And what if I told you that part of the spoils of this war is all this"—he waved his hand at the countryside sliding past—"our world, our reality?"
"I'd say you've been reading too much Lovecraft. What's the name of that big god of his?"
"Cthulhu. But forget about any fiction you've read. This—"
"How can I? That's what it sounds like. Earth is a jewel that all these cosmic gods with funny names slaver for."
"No, we're just one insignificant card in a huge cosmic deck. We're no more important than any other card, but you need all the cards before you can declare yourself the winner."
Was he kidding her? She couldn't tell. He sounded pretty serious. But really…
"No offense, but I've heard it all before and it's ridiculous. And if you believe it, that's scary."
"Trust me, I don't want to believe it. I'd rather not believe it. I was much happier knowing nothing about it. But I've seen too many things that can't be explained any other way. These two forces, states of being, whatever, are real. They don't have names, they don't have shapes, they don't have faces, and they don't dwell in forgotten jungle temples or sunken cities. They're just… there. Somewhere out there. Maybe everywhere. I don't know."
"And you came by this arcane knowledge… how?"
"I've been told. And somewhere along the way I became involved."
"Involved how?"
"Too complicated, and it doesn't bear directly on what we're talking about."
"All this informationus interruptus is starting to fray my nerves."
"Let me just say that I'm a reluctant participant and leave it at that. I'm sure I've already stretched my credibility to its tensile limit."
No argument there, Jamie thought.
She was going to ask him what side he was "reluctantly" involved with, but dropped it. She couldn't see him siding with "Truly Awful."
"All right. We'll leave it there. But what's the connection to Blascoe and
Dementedism and Hokano? That one little word was the jumping-off point for this story, remember?"