"I know, I know," Abe said, wiping at the glob with a paper towel. "But I think this little fellow's got a condition. Colitis, maybe. Hey, you buy that stock I told you about?"
"You know I can't buy stock."
"Not can't—won't. You're missing out on a lot of easy money. Such a broker I've got. Puts me in these IPOs. I'm out before I know I'm in. A thousand shares, it goes up two bucks, we sell. Money for nothing. All you've got to—" He stopped and stared at Jack. "That face. You're making that 'when-will-you-drop-it-Abe' face."
"Who me?" Jack said, wishing Abe would drop it.
"Yes, you. And I should be making my 'when-will-Jack-wise-up' face."
"Jeez, if it isn't you, it's Gia."
"I'm not telling you to quit. You're too good a customer. I'm telling you to get your money out of those fahkaktah gold coins and put it to work for you."
"You need a social security number to open a brokerage account, Abe."
"So? You've got all those false identities, and I know some of them have social security numbers."
"Dead folks' numbers."
"Fine. You convert some of those ducats and Krugerrands into dollars. You use a dead man's number to open an account with my broker. You let him make trades for you. He makes you twenty percent a year."
"No thanks."
"Jack! How can you say no thanks to doubling your money in less than four years?"
"Because I'd have to pay taxes on those profits."
"Yes, but—" .
"No buts. I'd have to. And sitting back and letting them take their cut is saying it's okay. And saying it's okay…"
Jack couldn't do that. Once he crossed that line, even under another identity, he'd… belong. He'd have joined them. And they'd know him.
"But you wouldn't be saying okay. It'd be the fake guy with the dead man's Social Security number."
"Same thing, Abe."
Abe stared at him a moment, then sighed. "I don't understand you, Jack."
Jack smiled. "Yes, you do. And Parabellum just ejected another casing."
"Oy!"
As he watched Abe wipe the glob away, he said, "Any word on who might've done Benny?"
Abe shook his head. "Nothing. But if you should want my opinion, and I'm sure you do, I say it looks to me like Benny might've tried to set a match to the wrong building."
Jack had a sinking feeling he knew what building that might have been.
He remembered Alicia telling him how two people she'd hired to get involved in her will problems had wound up dead. Did Benny the Torch raise the tally to three?
Only one way to find out.
2.
Alicia had just hung up with the hospital lab—no results yet on Hector's cultures, but the little guy was hanging in there despite more fever spikes;—when Raymond's voice came over the intercom. "That fellow named Jack to see you," he said. "He doesn't have an appointment but says it's important." A faint murmur in the background, then: "Check that—he says it's 'urgent.'"
Alicia's first instinct was to send him away. He'd blown her off two days ago, so as far as she was concerned, they had nothing left to talk about.
But the word "urgent" got to her. It wasn't one she'd associate with Jack. If he said this was urgent, he probably meant it.
Oh, hell. "Send him in."
A few seconds later, Jack slipped past the door and closed it behind him.
"Did you hire Benny the Torch?"
He hadn't sat down, hadn't even said hello. But the name "Benny" made Alicia disregard all that.
He knows! But how could he?
"What are you talking about?" was the. best her startled brain could come up with.
"He was found dead this morning. Someone burned him alive last night. Any connection between him and what you asked me to do?"
"Oh, no!" she gasped. "Not again!"
Jack dropped into the chair. "Okay. That answers my question."
She felt his stare as she fought a surge of guilty nausea.
That twitchy little man… burned alive…
Finally he said, "I thought you weren't going to go running off looking for somebody else. I thought you were going to think about it."
"I didn't have to look," she said. Her voice sounded dull and far away. She felt as if she were listening to herself from another room. "I already had his name. My God… I killed him…"
"You didn't kill him. But I think you may have a point about the short life span of people who get involved in this. Everyone but you. And that's what I don't understand."
"I do," she said, shaking herself and forcing herself to focus. "I read the will yesterday."
"About time. And it clears up all the mysteries?"
"No. Not by a long shot. But it does explain why I'm still alive."
Her mind flashed back to yesterday, and the crawling sensation as she read that man's words, as she tried to fathom what he'd been thinking when he'd drawn it up.
"Which is?"
"Thomas is not next in line for the house."
Jack's eyebrows lifted as he nodded slowly. "Very interesting. And who is?"
"Not who. What. Greenpeace."
"The nature folks?" He laughed. "The ones who sail around ramming whalers?"
"The same."
"No wonder your brother—"
"Half brother."
"Right. No wonder he's ticked. Your father'd rather give the house to an environmental group than him. The two of them must have had one hell of a falling out somewhere along the way."
Alicia remembered the date on the will—only weeks before that man had died. Was that when he'd cut Thomas out—or had he always been out?
"I wouldn't know. As I told you, I've had no contact with either of them since I left for college." And wish it had remained that way. "And as for that man being 'green'… that's almost laughable. I don't think he ever gave a single thought to the environment in his life. He had… other interests."
Jack frowned and leaned forward. "Then why did he—?"
"I have no idea. None of this makes any sense. The way things are worded… I don't know much about law, but I can't imagine this being a typical last will and testament. I mean, it's almost as if he expected this kind of violence in connection with the house."
"Why do you say that?"
Alicia leaned over and pulled the will from her shoulder bag. She had no trouble finding the passage—she'd underlined it.
"Just listen to this: 'If Alicia dies before she can take possession of said house, or if she dies after she takes possession of said house, said house shall be deeded to the international environmental activist group known as Greenpeace with this message: This house holds the key that points the way to all you wish to achieve. Sell it and you lose everything you've worked for.' " She slammed the document down on her desk. "Can you tell me what the hell that's supposed to mean?"
"Can I see it?" Jack said, leaning forward.
Instinctively Alicia reached for the will, to grab it and put it away. She didn't want anyone knowing about her family. But she stopped herself. She had to trust someone, and Jack was all she had right now.
She pushed the will toward him. "Knock yourself out."
She felt her jaw clench as she watched Jack scan the page. She was on edge and knew it. Ready to take a bite out of somebody. She'd thought she was free of that man, but even from the grave he was managing to make a mess of her life.
"You know," Jack said, nodding, "this really does sound like he expected trouble." He looked up at her. "Your brother ever been jailed?"
"No."
"Drug problem? Violence?"
"Not that I know of." Thomas had problems, but not those.
Jack began flipping though the rest of the will. "Then why…?" He stopped and stared. "What's this? Poetry?"