Bloodline rj-11 Page 4

  But they should.

  "Do you think…?" She paused, then, "Do you think he could have found out something about Bethlehem and be blackmailing him?"

  Possible, but…

  "Well, if he's that much of a crook, he'd be calling back and stringing you along for a few extra payments."

  "What if Bethlehem bought him off? Or…" She leaned forward. "What if he found something and Bethlehem killed him?"

  "That's a helluva what-ifT

  Though not an impossibility.

  "Find out for me, will you? Find Gerhard, see what he knows about Bethlehem."

  "And get your money back?"

  "Anything you get back you can keep. As a bonus. On top of your fee." She patted her purse. "Which I have right here."

  Jack considered. Finding Gerhard seemed doable. Brace the guy and get him either to finish what he'd started or return the retainer. Or tell Jack what he knew about Bethlehem so Jack could pass it on to Christy.

  Piece of cake.

  Yeah,sure.

  But Jack had to admit Christy had piqued his curiosity about this Jerry Bethlehem. What games had he designed? Shouldn't be too hard to track that down. A Google or two would probably do it.

  Christy Pickering was staring at him, a pleading look in her big blue eyes.

  "Can you help me? Please?"

  Oh, why not? He needed something to do. A small project like this was perfect. Take a couple of days, tops.

  "Okay, I'll give it a shot."

  "Thank God! Thank you!"

  "Don't thank me yet. I'll take the Gerhard angle and that's all. Here's how we'll work it…"

  7

  Back in the saddle, Jack thought as he strolled up Central Park West. For only a short ride, true, but it felt good.

  When he reached the museum he stood aside to let a horde of school kids crowd through an exit door in a brownstone arch and swarm toward their idling yellow buses. Once they were past he headed for the museum offices. The receptionist remembered him and passed him through.

  On the way up the stairs he checked his watch. A little after four. The prof had had almost three hours with the Compendium. Jack knew he was going to face pleas for more time but he'd done his good deed for the day-week-year-whatever. Time to collect his book and go home.

  Again came the thought about letting the old guy keep it longer, and again he pushed it aside. He'd needed the Compendium once. Never knew when he might need it again.

  He knocked on Dr. Buhmann's door, then opened it—and froze on the threshold.

  The prof sat slumped forward in his chair, his arms hanging limp at his sides, his right cheek against his desktop.

  Jack leaped to his side.

  "Doc!" He shook his shoulder. "Doc, you okay?"

  But he wasn't okay. The chair rolled back and the old man would have tumbled to the floor if Jack hadn't caught him.

  "Christ!"

  Emaciated though he was, he was still dead weight. As Jack eased him to the floor he noticed he was still warm. And when he stretched him out on his back he saw him take a breath.

  Still alive.

  But what had happened?

  He did a quick search for a wound or a bump on the head but found nothing. Then he noticed how the right side of the prof's face sagged, compared to the left.

  Stroke?

  He jumped up and dashed into the hallway.

  "Hey! Anybody here? We've got a problem!"

  An elderly woman stuck her head through a doorway. "What's the matter?"

  "Doctor Buhmann. Something's wrong with him."

  "What?" She hurried toward him. "Where?"

  Jack stepped aside to let her see. "I think he's had a stroke."

  "Oh, dear!" The woman jammed her hand against her mouth. "I'll call nine-one-one:

  f"

  As she hurried back into the hall, Jack dropped to a knee beside the prof.

  Yeah. Still breathing.

  Eye level with the desktop now, he glanced across it. He saw a couple of sheets of paper, but no book.

  "Oh, hell!"

  He jumped to his feet and searched the desk and the area around it. No Compendium, but he did find a couple of Xeroxed sheets. One was filled with the squiggles they'd seen earlier, the other showed a strange design surrounded by its own squiggles.

  What was it? Some sort of spider? But it had only six legs.

  As he stared at the figure, a strange feeling stole over him. He was sure he hadn't seen this thing before, but it seemed familiar. It triggered an odd twinge inside, as if something he hadn't been aware of, something sleeping within him had stirred.

  Then he realized what these sheets meant.

  "Oh, hell!"

  The prof had promised no copies, but obviously he hadn't kept his word. Bad enough. But what had he done with the damn book?

  Or had somebody stolen it?

  He checked the prof again and found no sign of injury. But no sign of the book either.

  Jack folded and pocketed the sheets, then waited for the EMTs to show.

  What had happened here?

  8

  He hung around until the prof had been wheeled away. When everyone else followed the stretcher down the hall, Jack stayed behind and searched the office, opening every drawer and checking all the shelves. A book that size would be hard to hide and, with its metallic cover, even harder to miss. But he came up empty. No Compendium ofSrem.

  Out in the hall he drew one of the secretaries aside. She was young with black-dyed hair, dark mascara, and pale makeup.

  "I brought in a book for Doctor Buhmann earlier. He was going to look it over and then, um, give me his opinion on it."

  "I'm afraid I can't let you take anything from his office."

  Jack had seen that coming, but it was a moot point at the moment.

  "I can understand that, but the problem is, I don't see the book anywhere."

  "What did it look like?"

  "Not like any other book you've ever seen. You'd remember if you saw it."

  She shook her head. "I did see him bring a book to the copier, but I didn't get a look at it. And I know he didn't leave it there because I used the copier right after him. I saw him go straight back to his office. So it has to be there."

  "It's not. Trust me."

  She frowned. "Are you saying it was stolen?"

  "I left him reading it at his desk. I come back and find him out cold and the book gone. What would you think?"

  She made no reply, but something in her eyes…

  He said, "Have you had other things go missing lately?"

  "Maybe you'd better talk to Security."

  Just about the last thing Jack wanted to do, but he didn't see that he had much choice.

  9

  Dark had fallen by the time Jack made it back to Gia's. No sign of the watcher—not that he'd expected any. But inside he found Gia sitting in the library with a familiar-looking woman—slight with fine pale features and glossy black hair.

  Alicia Clayton, M.D., medical director of the St. Vincent's Center for Children with AIDS. The sight of her banished thoughts of men in homburgs and stroked-out professors.

  Smiling, she rose and hugged him.

  "Long time, Jack."

  True. Well over a year since she'd hired him to retrieve some Christmas toys stolen from the center, then again for a more personal problem echoing from the horrors of her childhood.

  "How're things at the center?"

  She shrugged. "You know how it is: Never good, but not as bad as it could be."

  Jack nodded. When dealing day after day with kids with AIDS… maybe that was the best you could hope for.

  "What brings you uptown?"

  "Me." Gia rose from her chair and stepped toward them. She looked tired. "She wants me to go back to volunteering at the center."

  Gia used to be a regular down there, holding and rocking and feeding the AIDS infants. She'd stopped with the pregnancy. But now…

  "How do you feel a
bout that?"

  Gia shrugged. "I don't know if I'm ready."

  "Well, only you can decide that," Alicia said. "But your visits brightened many a little life."

  Gia bit her lip. "Yes, well…"

  Alicia slipped her arms around her. "When you're ready for us, we're ready for you."

  Gia returned the hug without speaking. Alicia broke it off.

  BLOODLINE 41

  "Gotta go. I'm dragging Will to a fund-raiser ior the center."

  "Will the cop?" Jack said. She was still going out with Detective Will Matthews?

  Alicia laughed. "Don't worry. I've never mentioned you."

  Gia was lifting the tea tray from the table.

  "I'll put this away and get your coat."

  As soon as she was out of sight Alicia grabbed his arm.

  "She's changed, Jack."

  "You should have seen her two months ago."

  "I can imagine. But inside and out—she's not the same."

  Jack didn't want to hear that.

  "She will be. She's tough."

  "I know she is. But get her back to the center if you can. I think it will be good therapy. Holding a newborn might be tough as hell for her at first, but once she gets past that, I think it will do her a world of good."

  "I'll do what I can. Nice of you to visit."

  "After all her trips to the center, it was the least I could do. I would have come sooner but I didn't want to intrude."

  And then Gia was back. Jack helped Alicia into her coat and together he and Gia waved good-bye as she hurried up to the top of the block for a cab.

  Jack hitched Gia closer. "What do you think of her idea?"

  "Sounds good, but I don't think I'm ready. I might drop one of those babies." She kissed him on the cheek. "Got to get dinner ready."

  As she moved away he searched the street, looking for a homburg-wearing man with a cane. But the street was empty.

  WEDNESDAY

  1

  "You were right," Abe said as Jack approached the store's rear counter. "A stroke. A bad one. He's still in a coma and might not come out."

  Jack had called Abe with the bad news yesterday.

  "How do you know?"

  "From his doctor, who else? Just now, before you came in, I was on the phone already."

  "I thought that kind of information was supposed to be privileged."

  "It is. But not from a worried son calling all the way from Florida."

  "I see. No sign of injury or foul play?"

  "Because of what you told me about the missing book I asked just that, and the doctor says no. A spontaneous thing." Abe shook his head. "A good man. A brilliant man. Such a thing shouldn't happen to a dog."

  "Here's a weird thought: Do you think the book could have caused it?"

  "Your Compendium? How can a book cause a stroke?"

  "Maybe he read something that got him so upset or horrified or whatever that he stroked out."

  "His doctor—the neurologist who's taking care of him—said it was a brain hemorrhage."

  "All right then: Could something in the book have pushed his blood pressure so high he blew out an artery in his head?"

  Abe shrugged. "Me? A lowly merchant? I should know?"

  Jack held up a white paper bag, darker in spots where grease from the contents had soaked through.

  "Figured you'd need some comfort food."

  Abe's eyes widened. "From Muller's?"

  "Where else?"

  Abe wiggled his fingers. "Let me see. Let me see. You brought me an elephant ear? Please say you brought me an elephant ear."

  Jack had to smile as he deposited the bag on Abe's pile of morning newspapers. Some people are so easy to please.

  "Got two—one for you and one for me."

  Abe's fingers fairly trembled as he pulled the sack open and peeked. He pulled out a fiat, oblong donut. Elephant ears from Muller's weren't the sugared fried dough usually associated with the name. These were like a flattened cruller, thick-glazed and dusted with some sulfurous yellow powder.

  Abe took a big bite. He closed his eyes and made guttural Muttley noises as he chewed. Parabellum, his parakeet, must have been conditioned to those sounds because a light blue streak swooped out of nowhere and landed on the counter, ready to catch the inevitable crumbs.

  Jack pulled out the other elephant ear and tossed a bit to the bird.

  "'Splain this to a confused old man," Abe said around a second mouthful. "On some days, rabbit food you bring me; and others—like today—an artery plug. Why?"

  He wasn't sure. Maybe the prof's stroke got him thinking that life was too short and too unpredictable to keep denying yourself what you really enjoy. He might feel differently tomorrow, but today had felt like an elephant-ear-for-Abe day.

  Jack shrugged. "Don't know. It's a mystery. Like the whereabouts of that damn book."

  "You keeping after the museum?"

  Jack nodded. "Yeah. Talked to one of the security guys again this morning. They haven't found it. But one of the maintenance crew didn't show up today—the one who'd been working on the prof's floor yesterday. They checked his locker but no book."

  "Probably not him. Think of all the curios and artifacts a janitor must see around the museum on a regular basis. He should risk his job and whatever else to steal a book?"

  "Not just any book—a one of a kind."

  "And a maintenance man's going to know that?"

  Good point, Jack thought, but…

  "The security guy said a funny thing this morning. Said they found a book in the maintenance guy's locker, but it wasn't mine. Then he said, 'Looks like he's a Kicker.' Any idea what he was talking about?"

  "Probably means the book they found was Kick."

  "Never heard of it."

  Abe's eyebrows rose. "Really? It's something of a phenomenon. 1 saw an article on it in yesterday's Post. Don't you read the papers?"

  "Sometimes. A little—usually right here. But I don't study them like you do."

  Abe slid off his stool and rummaged under the counter, finally coming up with a tabloid. He thumbed through it, then folded it back and turned it toward Jack.

  "There. Big as life."

  Jack glanced at the header—Kicking Back with Hank Thompson—and saw a photo of a guy he assumed was the author. Below that was a picture of the book's cover—

  He snatched the paper from Abe's hand.

  "Christ!"

  Ice water trickled down his spine as he stared: The word Kick ran across the top, the author's name along the bottom, and between them… a chillingly familiar insectoid stick figure.

  "Nu?"

  Jack dropped the paper and dug into his back pocket. He pulled out the sheets he'd found on the prof's desk and unfolded them, then held the figure copied from the Compendium next to the reproduction of the cover.

  The same… exactly the same.

  And again, that feeling of familiarity, of connection.

  "What the hell?"

  2

  "He's something of a phenomenon," Abe said as Jack skimmed through the article. "He self-published the book two years ago and sold tens of thousands of copies over the Internet. One of the New York houses picked it up and it's become a bestseller."

  "But what is it?"

  The article wasn't much help. It mentioned the author's "troubled youth" as if everyone knew about it. And Hank Thompson's quotes about searching inside for the true inner you and then breaking down the barriers that blocked you from your real self sounded trite.

  "Aldous Huxley said to open the doors of perception." He laughs. "I dropped out of school in the tenth grade. I know about Huxley through the Doors. Jim Morrison—the Lizard King—has always been a personal hero of mine. But I say, don't be satisfied with just opening those doors—KICK THEM DOWN!" he shouts in the oratory style that has packed his speaking engagements across the country.

  Jim Morrison was his hero? Jack looked at the picture and figured, Yeah, he must be. With that long, unr
uly, wavy dark hair, Thompson could be what Morrison would have looked like if he'd survived into his late thirties. Except for the eyes. He lacked Morrison's piercing dark eyes.

  "Of all the possible people through human history to look up to, he picks Jim Morrison?"

  Abe frowned. "Jim Morrison… who's Jim Morrison? Is he a customer?"

  "Never mind. Is this guy for real?"

  An Abe shrug. "I should know? Apparently lots of people think so."

  "/ tell them to KICK down those doors and let in the light—new light, new air, a new world awaits. The future is calling—ANSWER!"

  Jack looked up. "People buy this stuff?"

  "By the ton. Apparently he's a mesmerizing speaker."

  Jack read on and stopped at another quote.

  "It is time to separate yourselves from the herd. You know who you are. You know who I'm talking to. You don't belong with the herd. Come out of hiding. Step away from the crowd. Let the dissimilation begin!"

  "'Dissimilation.' That's a new one."

  "You should remember it. Adopt it even. It's what you've done with your life already."

  Jack thought about that. He supposed he had. But he got the feeling Thompson wasn't talking about living under the radar.

  When I ask him what he has to say about claims that an unusually high percentage of his followers—known as "Kickers"—have criminal records, his face darkens.

  "First off, they're not followers' of anyone. When you're dissimi-lated you follow your own path. As for the rest—half truths spread by jealous rivals who see me as a threat to their little self-help empires! But their kind of self-help really boils down to helping themselves get rich on other people's hard-earned money. We have Kickers who are corporate CEOs, housewives and secretaries. I'm not out to accumulate a fortune or start an empire."

  I press him about the criminal record, because it's a subject that concerns a lot of people.

  "My message speaks to the disadvantaged as well as the advantaged. If there's a large number of what some people like to sneer at as 'lowlifes' among the Kickers, it's because I started getting the word out by going to bars and halfway houses and AA meetings and just talking. I'd say my piece, sell a few copies of the book, then move on.