The driver on the ground made a signal to his partner in the flatbed's cab. As Jack watched, the truck's winch began to raise the forward end of the pillar, tilting the butt over the black maw of the hole.
Jack's instincts spurred him to put a stop to this now. Jamie deserved better. But he'd be taking on six men; some of them could be armed. Better to let them complete their work. This way at least he'd know where to find Jamie when the time came to arrange for a proper burial.
And another reason for holding back: As long as he knew where to find the pillar—literally where the body was buried—it remained a potential weapon against Brady and Jensen. What he had to do now was figure out how to use it to inflict maximum damage.
So he held his place and his breath and watched the pillar angle up, up, up, then slip off the truck bed and into the hole.
9
In Midtown Manhattan an old woman cries out and clutches her back as pain lances through her. Her dog, a Rottweiler, stands beside her, legs stiff, body tense, barking in sympathy.
She knows the cause of her suffering.
Another one… they've buried another one. They must be stopped before it's too late.
But she can't do it. Someone else must act on her behalf.
10
Jack's thoughts raced ahead of his car as he cranked eastward on the Penn Turnpike. How to get the most out of that pillar…
Nothing was coming. He was dry… dry as the earth they'd backfilled into Jamie's grave.
East of Harrisburg he gave up and switched on the radio. Maybe he could zone out on music for a while, then tackle the problem with a fresh head. But he couldn't find anything he felt like listening to. He wished he'd brought along some of his CDs, but realized he probably wouldn't want to listen to them either.
The problem wasn't with the music, but with him. He wouldn't feel right, wouldn't be himself until he'd fixed this.
He switched to AM and picked up a strong, clear signal from WABC in New York. He hung on through a commercial to see which one of their stable of talk show geeks had the mike tonight, but instead wound up in the middle of the top-of-the-hour news update. He was reaching for the SEEK button when he heard…
'Wo word yet on the missing nun. Sister Margaret Mary O'Hara was last seen being pulled into a car from a Lower East Side sidewalk earlier this evening. The witness did not know the make or color of the car, and couldn't read the license plate. If you have any information on this incident—any information at all—please call …"
Feeling as if his bones were dissolving, Jack veered through the right lane and onto the shoulder where he stopped and set the shift into park.
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, his hands squeezing the steering wheel as if trying to strangle it.
He's got her… the son of a bitch has got her.
But how could he have known it was Maggie?
An instant of self-doubt pierced him, but then faded as he reviewed all the moves he'd made in the Cordova fix. He was certain—knew—that he hadn't left the faintest link to Maggie.
She must have made a slip talking to him.
Jack pounded the steering wheel. "Shit! Shit! Shit!"
All that effort to make the fix look like an accident—for nothing. Cordova knew, and he had her. God knew what he was going to do with her. Or was doing to her. Or had already done to her.
A slimeball like Cordova… didn't deserve to live… shouldn't have bothered finessing the fix. Oxygen waster like him… best thing to do—for his victims and for the human gene pool—was to walk up to him and deliver a hollowpoint between the eyes.
But Jack hadn't wanted to set himself on that road. Feared once he started traveling it he might not be able to step off. He'd approached Cordova as a guy who wasn't doing anyone physical harm—his bloodletting was emotional and financial—so Jack had taken a parallel approach. Cordova was hands off, so Jack had gone the hands-off route.
He realized now that was a mistake. A bullet to the brain would have solved the Cordova problem. Quick, clean, easy. No more blackmail, and sure as hell no worry about a good-hearted nun being abducted.
A mood cold and black settled on Jack as he threw the Buick back into drive and merged with the eastbound traffic.
He knew where Cordova lived, where he worked. He'd find him. And if that fat slug had done anything to Sister Maggie, if he'd harmed her in any way…
11
Richie Cordova wiped the blood from his shaking hands. His hands weren't all that was shaking. His whole body was twitching. Like someone had shoved a live lamp cord up his ass.
Richie knew a few guys who might think that felt good, but he felt sick.
He turned toward the nun—or what was left of her—still tied in the chair, and quickly turned away. He couldn't look at her, couldn't believe how he'd let himself get so out of control.
No… not out of control. In control. Complete control. Of her. It had thrown some sort of switch in him, made him do things he'd never dreamed he was capable of thinking up, let alone doing.
He'd planned to kill her. That was a sure thing. Ain't no way she was leaving once he got her here. But he'd wanted to punish her some first, for ruining his game, and to get her to tell him all about it, sing the song he wanted to hear.
And she'd sung. Held out for an amazingly long time, but finally she'd started to sing. Oh, how she sang. Told him all about meeting a guy named Jack in a place called Julio's and hiring him to get back the pictures of her and Metcalf, how Metcalf didn't know nothing about it, how she'd called him and told him not to worry no more. She'd sung about how she hadn't known Richie's name. Only this guy Jack knew that and he wouldn't tell her.
Richie should have stopped then and ended it. He had what he wanted, so the thing to do was slit her throat and call it a night. He'd had the razor all set. Unlike the .38s in his pistol, a razor couldn't be traced.
But he hadn't used it. Because he couldn't stop—didn't want to stop. He had control, he was in the driver's seat and he didn't want to use no brakes, didn't want to let go of the steering wheel.
Only when the last of her life had leaked away did he come out of it. Then he'd stepped back and looked at what he'd done. And blew lunch.
He felt a little better now, but not much. It suddenly came to him that this was partly Neva's fault. A lot of the time he spent working on the nun he'd been thinking of his ex-wife, seeing her face. Yeah. Her fault. If she hadn't been such a…
Anyway, it was over. At least this part of it. He'd hide the body, try not to think about what he'd done, and move on to the next step.
And that was finding this Jack guy. That was real important, because this Jack knew who he was. Once he was out of the way, any connection between Richie Cordova and the missing Sister Margaret Mary would be gone.
But the nun couldn't remember his phone number—oh, she'd wanted to remember, Richie made sure of that, but it wasn't there.
Which left him with the name of an Upper West Side bar called Julio's. Richie wasn't sure how he was going to work this. He was at a disadvantage not knowing what this Jack looked like. The nun had given him a description but it sounded like any one of a zillion guys. He'd sleep on it and see if he came up with anything.
Sleep. Yeah, that would be good. He was dead on his feet.
But first he had to deal with the body.
Steeling himself, he turned and walked toward it…
12
Jack wasn't dressed for Beekman Place but he was in too foul a mood to play games.
He'd been to Cordova's house—picked his way in and searched it from basement to attic. Not a trace of Sister Maggie.
Next stop was Hurley's. If Cordova had snatched her, chances were slim that he'd be hanging out at his favorite bar. Then again, if he'd killed her and dumped her body, he might feel the need for a few drinks, and maybe an alibi as well. But Jack couldn't find him at Hurley's either. Even checked out the men's room. No Cordova.