"You mean about getting on with your life?"
"Yeah."
"How many times have I told you that Kate wouldn't want you to spend the rest of your life moping around? And when was the last time I mentioned that very thing? How many hours ago? Two? Three maybe?"
He grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, I know. But sometimes you have to hear it from a stranger. Anyway, I think it's time for me to get back in the saddle again. I've got a couple of calls in my voice mail right now. I'll check them out tomorrow, and if one of them is right for me, I'll be back to work."
"That's wonderful."
What am I saying? Gia thought.
She hated Jack's work. It was usually dangerous. Every time he hired on to "fix" a situation, he ran the risk of being hurt. But worse, because the police were as much a threat as any hoodlum he took on, he couldn't count on them for help if he got in over his head. When Jack went off to work, he went alone.
How many times had she pleaded with him to find something less dangerous to do? He'd compromised by promising to restrict his fix-it work to situations he could repair at arm's length, where he didn't have to show his face or get personally involved. Gia believed he tried his best to keep that promise, but too often the jobs didn't go as planned.
But his interest in returning to work meant he was pulling out of his funk. That, at least, was good.
"Maybe you should go back for a private session," she said. "Maybe he'll tell you to get into a safer line of work. And maybe you'll listen when he tells you. Heaven knows you don't listen when I do."
"I think we should stay away from Ifasen, but not for that reason."
"Meaning?"
"I think he's got trouble."
"You mean because he yelled 'bomb'?"
"That… and other things."
"Like what?"
"A patched bullet hole in his front window, for instance."
"You're sure?"
He nodded. "It could have been there when he bought the house, but he's obviously renovated the place, so… someone's giving him a hard time."
"But who—?"
"Other psychics. The lady—I use the term loosely—that I once worked for used to go berserk when she lost a sitter to another psychic. She called herself Madame Ouskaya but her real name was Bertha Cantore. I used to think she'd seen The Wolfman too many times and ripped off the name of that old actress Maria Ouspenskaya who played the gypsy, but that was giving her too much credit. I can't imagine her ever sitting though the credits of a movie. Finally one night, when she'd had a few too many gins and was sailing a few too many sheets to the wind, she told me that she'd cadged it off an ancient Russian neighbor who'd died when Bertha was ten. But you know how they talk about a leopard never changing its spots? That was Bertha. She may have called herself Ouskaya, but that didn't hide her true nature. Her father was Sicilian and she had a hitman's temper. She'd send me out to slash tires and break windows and—"
"Did you?"
Jack didn't look at her. "Most of the time I just told her I did, but sometimes… sometimes, yeah, I did."
"Jack…" She couldn't keep the dismay out of her voice.
"Hey, I was hungry, stupid, and a lot younger. I thought what was bad for her was bad for me. I hadn't figured out yet that she was bad for me. Hell, if she knew how to make bombs, she'd probably've wanted me to plant them, or wire ignitions to blow the competition away." He shook his head. "What a nutcase."
"Could she be the one Ifasen's afraid of?"
"Nah. Couple of years ago I heard that she'd, as they say in the trade, migrated to the Other Side." A quick glance Gia's way, embarrassment in his eyes. "Let's not talk about her, okay? Makes my teeth hurt just to think about her."
Gia knew getting off the topic of this Madame Ouskaya would probably turn the conversation to her question to Ifasen. She cast about for a diversion and spotted the pamphlet Jack had brought from the psychic's house. She snatched it up.
"'The Menelaus Manor Restoration Foundation.' What's this?"
"Sounds like a scam. Take donations to renovate the house you're living and working in. A win-win proposition for Ifasen if I ever heard one."
"Is all this true?" Gia said, gathering flashes of the house's history of mayhem by the light of street lamps they passed.
"I never got a chance to get into it. What's it say?"
She turned on the console lamp and held the brochure under the glow. "It says the place was built in 1952 by Kastor Menelaus. He died of cancer, and was the last owner to 'pass on to the Other Side' due to natural causes."
Jack grinned. "This sounds like it's gonna be good!"
"His son Dmitri, who inherited the house, committed suicide in the early nineties. The next owners, a Doctor Singh and his wife, had the place for a few years, did some renovations, and then someone cut their throats while they were sleeping." She looked up at Jack. "This is awful! I hope it's fiction."
"Read on."
Gia was liking this less and less. "The previous owners, the ones before Ifasen, were Herbert Lom and his wife—"
"Not the actor—the guy who played in the Hammer Phantom of the Opera?"
"It doesn't say. He and his wife Sara disappeared after—oh, God." Something about a mutilated child. Her stomach turned and she closed the brochure.
"After what?"
"Never mind. Jack, this is sick! It's like the place is cursed. He has to be making this stuff up."
Jack was shaking his head. "Doubt it. Too easy to get caught. My guess is he's taken a few facts and embellished them to within an inch of their collective lives. Read on."
"I'd rather not."
"Just skip to some part that's not gory."
Reluctantly she reopened the brochure and skipped down a paragraph from where she'd left off. "Ifasen quotes himself here: 'I chose Menelaus Manor because the violent deaths have left behind strong psychic vibrations. The souls of those who died here do not rest easy, and their ongoing presence weakens the divide between our world and the Other Side, making Menelaus Manor the perfect site for the church I will establish here.'" Gia looked at Jack. "Church?"
Jack smiled. "The ultimate scam. Tax-free heaven, and completely legal. Like minting money. How do you think the Scientologists can afford to sue anyone who says a discouraging word about their racket?"
"He says here donations will go toward 'putting the Manor at peace with this world and in harmony with the next.' What does that mean?"
"It means renovations will probably go on forever. Or at least until Ifasen crosses over to the Other Side himself."
"Careful, Jack," she told him. "Keep talking like that and I'll start suspecting you're a cynic."
"Me?"
Jack pulled into Sutton Square and stopped before Gia's door. He pulled her close and kissed her.
"Thanks for dragging me out tonight. Earthquakes and psychics in cursed manors… you sure know how to show a guy a good time."
She returned the kiss. "Anytime. And tomorrow night I'll show you an even better time."
"Hot-cha!"
Laughing, they got out of the car. Jack put an arm around her shoulders; he started to walk her the short distance to her door, but stopped halfway there.
"Hey. Wait a sec. You never told me your question. What was it?"
"It was nothing. Just some silliness I was playing around with. Don't—"
"Who loves silly more than me? Tell, Gia. I won't go home until you do."
"All right." She could see no way out of it. "I asked, 'How many children will I have?'"
"And he told you two." Jack grinned. "I wish I believed in this stuff. That would mean I'd be the father of number two. At least I assume I'd be."
"He said it with such assurance."