But she spotted something else—a small dark lump. Gia reached in and grabbed it. She thought she’d be sick when she recognized the feel of a recently peeled and partially eaten orange.
Jack's words flooded back to her: Do you want Vicky to end up like Grace and Nellie? Gone without a trace? He’d said there was something in the orange—but he’d thrown it away! So how had Vicky got hold of this one?...
Unless there’d been more than one orange in the play house!
This is a nightmare! This isn't really happening!
Gia ran through the rest of the apartment, opening every door, every closet, every cabinet. Vicky was gone!
She hurried back to the bedroom and went to the window. The screen was missing. She hadn't noticed that before. Fighting back a scream as visions of a child's body smashed against the pavement flashed before her eyes, she held her breath and looked down. The parking lot, directly below, well lit by mercury vapor lamps. And no sign of Vicky.
Gia didn't know whether to be relieved or not. All she knew right now was that her child was missing and she needed help. She ran for the phone, ready to dial 911, then stopped. The police would certainly be more concerned about a missing child than about two old ladies who’d disappeared, but would they accomplish anything more? Gia doubted it.
She knew only one number to call that would do her any good.
Jack will know what to do. Jack will help.
She forced her shaking index finger to punch in the numbers and got a busy signal. She hung up and dialed again. Still busy. She didn't have time to wait! She dialed the operator and told her it was an emergency and she had to break in on the line. She was put on hold for half a minute that seemed like an hour, then the operator came back on, telling her that the line wasn't busy—the phone had been left off the hook.
Frantic, Gia slammed down the receiver. What was she going to do? What was wrong at Jack's? Had he left the phone off the hook or had it been knocked off?
She ran back to the bedroom and jammed her legs into a pair of jeans and pulled on a blouse without removing her pajamas. She had to find Jack. If he wasn't at his apartment, maybe he was at Abe's store—she was pretty sure she remembered where that was. She prayed she could remember. Her thoughts were so jumbled. All she could think of was Vicky.
Vicky, Vicky, where are you?
But how to get to Jack's...that was the problem. Finding a cab would be virtually impossible at this hour.
The Honda keys she’d seen earlier! Where had they been? She’d been cleaning in the kitchen...
She ran over to the flatware drawer and pulled it open. Yes! She snatched them up and ran out into the hall. She checked the apartment number on the door: 1203. Now if only the car was here.
The elevator took her straight down to the first floor and she hurried out into the parking lot. On the way in this afternoon she’d seen numbers on the asphalt by each parking space.
Please let it be here! she said to God, to fate, to whatever was in charge of human events.
Is anybody in charge? asked a small voice in the back of her mind.
She followed the numbers from the 800s up to the 1100s, and there up ahead, crouched like a laboratory mouse waiting timidly for the next injection, sat a white Honda Civic.
Please be 1203! Please!
It had to be.
It was.
Almost giddy with relief, she unlocked the door and slid into the driver's seat. The standard shift on the floor gave her a moment's pause, but she’d driven her father's old Ford pickup enough miles during her teens back Iowa. She hoped it was something you never forgot, like riding a bike.
She didn't know Queens but knew the general direction she wanted to go. She worked her way toward the East River until she saw a to manhattan sign and followed the arrow. When the Queensboro Bridge loomed into view, she slammed the gas pedal to the floor. She’d been driving tentatively until now, reining her emotions, clutching the wheel with white-knuckled intensity, wary of missing a crucial turn. But with her destination in sight, she began to cry.
27
Abe's dark blue panel truck was parked outside the Isher Sports Shop. The iron gate had been rolled back. At Jack's knock, the door opened. Abe's white shirt was wrinkled and his jowls were stubbly. For the first time in Jack's memory, he wasn't wearing his black tie.
"What?" he said, scrutinizing Jack. "You run into trouble since you left me at the apartment?"
"What makes you ask?"
"Bandage on your hand and you're walking funny."
"Had a lengthy and strenuous argument with a very disagreeable lady."
He rotated his left shoulder gingerly; it was nowhere near as stiff and painful as it had been back at the apartment.
"Lady?”
"It's stretching the definition, but yeah—lady."
Abe led Jack toward the rear of the darkened store. The lights were on in the basement, as was the neon sign. Abe hefted a wooden crate two feet long and a foot wide and deep. The top had already been pried open and he lifted it off.
"Here are the bombs. Twelve of them, magnesium compound, all with twenty-four-hour timers."
Jack nodded. "Fine. But I really needed the incendiary bullets. Otherwise I may never get a chance to set these."
Abe shook his head. "I don't know what you think you're going up against, but here's the best I could do."
He pulled a cloth off a card table to reveal a circular, donut-shaped metal tank with a second tank, canteen-sized, set in its middle; both were attached by a short hose to what looked like a two-handed ray gun.
Jack was baffled. "What the hell—?"
"It's an old No.5 Mk-l flamethrower, affectionately known as the Lifebuoy. I don't know if it'll suit your purposes. I mean, it hasn't got much range and—"
"It's great!" Jack said. He grabbed Abe's hand and pumped it. "Abe, you're beautiful! It's perfect!"
Elated, Jack ran his hands over the tanks. Why hadn't the thought of it? Especially after all the times he’d seen Them?
"How does it work?"
"This is a World War II model—the best I could do on such short notice. It's got CO2 at 2000 pounds per square inch in the little spherical tank, and eighteen liters of napalm in the big lifebuoy-shaped one—hence the name. A discharge tube with igniters at the end and an adjustable nozzle. Range is up to ninety feet. You open the tanks, point the tube, pull the trigger in the rear grip, and foom!"
"Any helpful hints?"
"Yeah. Always check your nozzle adjustment before your first discharge. It's like a firehose and will tend to rise during a prolonged tight stream. Otherwise, think of it as spitting: Don't do it into the wind or where you live."
"Sounds easy enough. Help me get into the harness."
The tanks were heavier than Jack would have wished, but did not cause the anticipated burst of pain from the left side of his back; only a dull ache. As Jack adjusted the straps to a comfortable fit, Abe looked at his neck questioningly.
"Since when the jewelry, Jack?"
"Since tonight...for good luck."
"Strange looking thing. Iron, isn't it? And those stones...almost look like—"
"Two eyes? I know."
“And the inscription looks like Sanskrit. Is it?"
Jack shrugged, uncomfortable. He didn't like the necklace and knew nothing about its origins.
"Could be. I don't know. A friend...lent it to me for the night. Do you know what the inscriptions say?"
Abe shook his head. "I've seen Sanskrit before, but if my life depended on it I couldn't translate a single word." He looked closer. "Come to think of it, that's not really Sanskrit. Where was it made?"
"India."
"Really? Then it's probably Vedic, one of the ProtoAryan languages that was a precursor of Sanskrit." Abe tossed off the information in a casual tone, then turned away and busied himself with gently tapping the nails halfway back into the corners of the crate of incendiary bombs.