Glad to be out of that place. All sorts of undercurrents flowing through it. Probably something illegal going on and he'd riled their suspicions.
But no matter. He'd got the break he'd been praying for. And Riverside Park was only a few blocks ahead.
Anticipation spurred him into an easy trot.
4
"Your sister?" Gia said, her blue eyes wide.
"The one and only."
Jack tapped the Crown Vic's steering wheel in mild frustration; they'd zipped out of the airport parking area but now the Grand Central Parkway was moving at a geriatric pace.
He'd picked up Gia and Vicky at LaGuardia after their flight in from Des Moines. Jack was stirred at how much these two meant to him. The anxiety he'd felt before the plane landed, his impatience when they weren't the first off, and then the throat-tightening burst of pleasure when they appeared: Gia, trim and leggy in jeans and a pink T-shirt, and eight-year-old Vicky running to him, dark brown braids bouncing behind her; picking her up, swinging her around, then hugs and kisses from both of his ladies. He still carried the glow.
"You've got a sister, Jack?" Vicky said from the back seat. "I didn't know you had a sister. Can I play with her?"
"Sure. She's my big sister, you know."
"Oh." Vicky's voice fell. "You mean she's old."
Jack drew in his lips, covering his teeth, and hoarsened his voice to sound like an old codger. "Yesh, she'sh sho old she'sh got no teeth, jusht like me."
Vicky laughed and said, "Is that a joke, Mom?"
Gia said, "Very loosely defined, yes."
"Goody! That means I can give you the present I brought you from Iowa."
"A present?" Jack said, exaggerating his surprise. "For me? Oh, you shouldn't have."
While Vicky was fumbling in her backpack, Jack's beeper chirped.
Only three people had the number, and one of them was sitting next to him. Had to be Abe or Julio. Checked the display: it read simply, J.
That bothered him. Julio usually left messages on Jack's voice mail. This was the first time he'd ever used the beeper. Something must be wrong.
"Got to call Julio."
"Want to use my cell phone?"
He shook his head. "Never know who else is on the line. I'll find a gas station."
Until recently Gia might have made a remark about his being paranoid. But a few weeks ago someone had traced the tags on her car thinking it belonged to Jack and she'd wound up with a couple of Bosnian goons hanging around outside her door.
"Where's my present?" he cried out, raising his right hand over his shoulder and thrusting it backward, palm up. "Gimme, gimme. I can't wait!"
A fusiform shape in a papery sheath landed in his palm. He glanced at it.
"Corn? You brought me an ear of corn? I'm at a loss for words, Vicks. No one's ever, ever given me a gift like this."
"Mom thought of it. She said to give it to you next time you told one of your jokes."
"Oh, she did, did she?"
He glanced at Gia who was staring straight ahead, wind fingers from the open window running through her short blond hair as a barely perceptible smile played about her lips.
Jack had been teaching Vicky to tell jokes. One of the many wonderful things about an eight-year-old was that even the hoariest, lamest one-liners got a laugh. She loved puns, and a joke the caliber of What's the difference between a fish and a piano? You can't tuna fish! was the absolute funniest thing she'd ever heard. Trouble was, Vicky practiced her act on her mother who had to listen to the same joke again and again and be expected to laugh every time.
"I think this calls for a new knock-knock, Vicks," Jack said. He had a really bad one he hadn't told her yet.
Gia groaned softly. "No. Please, God, no."
"Knock-knock," Jack said.
Vicky replied, "Who's there?"
"Banana."
"Banana who?"
"Knock-knock."
"Who's there?" she repeated with a giggle.
"Banana."
"Banana who?"
"Knock-knock."
Vicky was laughing now. "Who's there?"
"Banana."
"Not again! Banana who?"
"Knock-knock."
"Who's there?"" She made "there" a two-syllable word this time.
"Orange."
"Orange who?"
"Orange you glad I didn't say banana again?"
Vicky dissolved into belly laughs. A child laughing—Jack couldn't think of a more wonderful sound. She went on so long that he began laughing himself. Only Gia seemed to miss the humor. She'd closed her eyes and thrown her head back against the headrest.
"The only good thing about knock-knocks," she said in a low voice, "the only thing, is that they're short. But now you've gone and taught her one that's triple length. Thank you, my love."
Jack pressed the ear of corn against the side of his head. "What's that? Your voice sounds husky. I can't ear you."
Vicky burst into another laugh so loud and hard that even Gia had to smile—though she hid it behind her hand.
"I got a million of 'em, Vicks. Want to hear another?"
"Let's talk about your sister instead," Gia said quickly. "How on earth did she find you?"
Jack took a moment to allow himself to switch gears. "It's complicated but in the end it comes down to this: this friend she's babysitting after brain tumor therapy has been acting weird and got herself involved with some sort of cult. A stranger gave her my number."
Gia frowned. "A stranger just happens to give your sister your number. Do you buy that?"
"I know it's one hell of a coincidence, but it happened. What else could it be? I know 1 was the last person on earth Kate was expecting to meet. You should have seen the look on her lace when she saw me. Looked like she'd been poleaxed."
"Still," Gia said, shaking her head. "Very strange. What does she look like?"
"Not too much like me. She takes after my father's side. But you can see her in person tonight if you want. She called this morning and invited us over for dinner."
"Us?"
"Yeah, well, I told her about you. Are you up for it?"
"Are you kidding? Pass up an opportunity to get first-hand dirt about you when you were in knickers?"
"I never wore knickers."
"I wouldn't miss it for the world!"
"Swell."
He spotted an Exxon sign and pulled off. Called Julio and heard what he had to say. When he returned to the car he must have looked as ill as he felt.
Gia took one look at him and said, "What's wrong?"
Time to tell her. "We had an incident on one of the subways while you were gone," he said, trying to be oblique.
"The bang-bangs," Gia said, catching on that he wanted to keep Little Miss Big Ears in the back seat out of the loop. With practice they'd managed to raise vagueness to an art. "That made the news even in Ottumwa."
"Then you've heard about the man they're looking for."
"The one they're calling the Savior?"
Jack looked at her and nodded. "Uh-huh."
Gia met his eyes, then she paled and jammed her hand against her mouth. "Oh, God, Jack, no!"
"What is it?" Vicky said from the rear. "What happened?"
"A car came too close, honey," Gia said.
"Oh." She went back to her Harry Potter book.
Gia stared at him. "I heard about it on the news. I worried about you, if you were one of the victims, but that lasted only an instant because then they were talking about someone who'd stopped the, um"—her eyes flashed toward the rear seat—"carnage and then taken off, and the first person I thought of was you, because you wouldn't let something like that happen, and you certainly wouldn't hang around afterward." She took a breath. "But I never really believed it was you. It must have been awful!"