Gently, Bill put some space between them. Room for the Holy Ghost, as the nuns used to say when he was a kid.
“Are we straight on that?” He gazed into her blue eyes. “You’re not responsible.”
She nodded. “Right. But how can I stop feeling like his mother, Bill? Tell me how I can do that?”
He saw the pain in her eyes and resisted the urge to pull her into his arms again.
“I don’t know, Carol. But you’ve got to learn. You’ll go crazy if you don’t.” They looked at each other for a moment, then Bill changed the subject. “How’s Nelson? Does he know yet?”
She shook her head and turned away.
“No. I haven’t been able to tell him.”
“Don’t you think—?”
“You’ve met Nels. You know what he’s like.”
Bill nodded silently. He’d met Nelson Treece a number of times—he’d even been invited over here for dinner twice—but always as a priest and an old friend of the family. Nelson was a straight arrow, a comptroller in a computer software firm. A man who dotted all his i’s, crossed all his t’s, and whose numbers always added up. A good man, a decent man, an organized man. The antithesis of spontaneity. Bill doubted whether Nelson had ever done anything on impulse in his entire life.
So unlike Jim, Carol’s first husband. Bill couldn’t see Nelson Treece and Carol as a loving couple, but maybe that was because he didn’t want to. Maybe Nelson was just what she needed. After the way chaos had intruded repeatedly on Carol’s life, maybe she needed the structure, stability, and predictability a man like Nelson offered. If he made her happy and secure, more power to him.
But that didn’t make Bill want Carol any less.
“How can I tell him what we know?” she said. “He’ll never accept it. He’ll think I’m crazy. He’ll have me going to psychiatrists. I wouldn’t blame him. I’d probably be doing the same if positions were reversed.”
“But now with the sun playing tricks, we’ve got an indisputable fact on our side. Carol, he’s got to know sooner or later. I mean, if you’re going to be involved—”
“Maybe if he met Glaeken. You know how persuasive he is. Maybe he could convince Nelson.”
“It’s worth a try. I’ll talk to him about it. Maybe tonight—”
“Maybe not tonight. He’s been away on a trip.”
“Since when does he travel?”
“Just the past month or so. The company’s been sending him. And when he comes back he crashes. I don’t think he’s built for travel. It … changes him.”
What was she saying? Or rather, what was she not saying?
“I’m not following.”
A shrug and a shy smile. “It’s nothing. Just stress.”
Bill glanced at his watch. “When’s he due in?”
“Any minute. His flight from Denver should have landed about an hour ago.”
“I’d better go.”
“No, Bill.” She took his hand and squeezed it. “Stay. Please.”
Her touch shot a bolus of tingling warmth up his arm.
“I can’t. I’ve got a bunch of errands to run for Glaeken. Now that Rasalom’s made his first move, the old guy’s looking for countermoves. He needs me to be his legs.”
Bill gave her a quick hug and fled the apartment.
He hated lying to Carol. But how could he tell her that it ripped his heart out to see Nelson Treece stroll in the door and give her his usual casual hello kiss? Didn’t Nelson realize what he had? Did he have any idea what Bill would give—do—to take his place?
He had another reason for wanting to leave. He was afraid to get too close to Carol, afraid to care too much. First and most obvious: She was married. But, more important, terrible things seemed to happen to people he cared about. All his emotional investments crashed.
Bill began looking for a place where he could have a quiet beer and sit alone in the dark.
Repairman Jack
Jack sat at his back-against-the-rear-wall table in Julio’s, apart from the evening regulars, nursing a Stella and fuming.
Some low-rent scumbag had tried to put the moves on Gia this morning while she was waiting with Vicky for the school bus. At seven in the morning. Right in front of Vicky.
He couldn’t get it out of his mind. Hoped the creep tried it again tomorrow. He planned to be across the street. Watching. Waiting.
Everything seemed to be going to hell. After a long period of relative peace, the city was becoming unmanageable again. Same all over the world. During the past year or so he’d witnessed a slow unraveling of the social fabric. He had a pretty good idea what was behind it. Or rather, who.
It had started last year with the advent of the Kickers, but had spread from there, going into overdrive since March. As if the worst sensed that something was coming and they’d better grab what they could while they still had time.
Too many people had begun acting as if nothing was beneath them. Rip off an old lady’s handbag or a toddler’s candy bar. No item too small, no deed too low. Everything up for grabs, anything okay if you got away with it—that was the operating ethic.
Mine was anything I could take and keep. If you put something down and left it unguarded, it became mine if I could snatch it and make off with it. Civilized folk were on the run. Those who could afford to were leaving, others were withdrawing, tightening their range of activities, limiting their hours in public. And those unfortunates who had to be out on the streets and down in the subways were fodder. And they knew it.
Like the city had gone back in time to the seventies and eighties.
On the way over tonight he’d passed car after car with “No Radio” signs in the windows. Every street was flanked with them. A symptom of the city-dwellers’ response to the predators. With failing faith in City Hall’s ability to make the streets safe, they retreated. When they parked their cars they removed their satellite units and took them into the steel-doored, barred-windowed fortresses they called home. One more piece of ground surrendered. They’d pulled all their belongings in from the street; after having shrubs and small trees repeatedly dug up and carted off from the fronts of their apartment houses, they’d stopped planting them, and they’d chained—chained—the trunks of the few larger ones that remained.
The Taint was taking over.
It all sickened Jack. He’d had it up to here with watching the good folks retreat. But maybe it served them right. They’d allowed themselves to be disarmed, surrendered all responsibility for their own safety until they’d been reduced to rabbits cowering in their burrows, praying the wolves wouldn’t find them.
Jack sighed and sipped.
“Is this seat taken?”
Startled, Jack looked up and saw Glaeken standing across the table, one big hand holding his cane, the other resting on the back of a chair.
“How do you do that?”
The man could slip through a room like a ghost.
“Years of practice.”
Years … right. More like millennia.
Julio ambled over, wiping his hands on a towel.
“Hey, G. The usual?”
“If you’d be so kind.”
“Comin’ up, meng.”
“Make that two,” Jack said.
Glaeken sniffed the air as he watched the muscular little man hustle back to the bar.
“I do believe he’s managed to find a cologne worse than the last.”
Jack nodded. “I think this one’s Eau du Wet Stray Dog.”
The old man looked older than ever as he dropped into the chair and stared at the tabletop.
“Something wrong?”
Glaeken looked up. “Wrong? Of course there’s something wrong. Have you been in a cave all day?”
The snapping tone was uncharacteristic. Glaeken upset … not good. He never got upset.
“Let’s pretend that’s just where I’ve been. What’s up?”
“The sun rose five minutes late this morning and set ten minutes early tonigh
t.”
The words hit him like a bucket of ice water.
It will begin in the heavens.
Rasalom’s warning back in March.
March … the horror of that night in Glaeken’s apartment. Weezy, Eddie, the Lady …
“Oh, hell.”
“Exactly: Hell. How could you not have heard?”
Jack had glanced through Abe’s newspapers at the shop this morning and spent the rest of the day setting up a fix over in Brooklyn.
“Guess it happened too late for the morning papers and I’m not much for radio and TV.”
“It’s all everybody’s talking about.”
Jack gestured to the crowd of Julio’s regulars, yakking and yukking it up like any other night.
“Not here.”
“This place has its own consensual reality. It doesn’t count. But you know now, and I think you know what it means.”
Jack nodded, feeling a little sick. “He’s started his final moves, his end game.”
“Yes, the Change…”
Why now, damn it? This conflict had been running for ages. Why did the final showdown have to come at a time when Gia and Vicky would be caught in the fray?
Julio returned with two pints of John Courage. He’d put it on tap for Jack a few years ago. Jack had moved on to other brews but Courage Amber had become such a hit with the regulars that Julio kept it running with privately imported kegs.
Glaeken lifted the glass with a big, scarred hand, quaffed about a quarter of its contents in one gulp, then loosed an appreciative burp.
“Not as good as when they first made it back in oh-two, but still tasty.”
Jack knew he meant 1902. He leaned forward. “What are our options?”
Glaeken sighed. “I’d hoped not to live to see this day. But ever since … that night, I’ve been doing some research, trying to prepare.”
“And?”
“And I’ve found some of what we’ll need, but not all.”
“What have you got?”
Glaeken leaned back in the chair.
“Nothing yet. One is a person—a boy. I could not very well go to his mother and tell her our story without something tangible—without evidence that I’m not simply a crazy old man. What is happening to the sun will lend credence to what I must tell her.”
Jack shook his head. “If she’s got even one skeptical neuron in her brain, some fluctuations in the sun’s timing aren’t going to be near enough. A cosmic shadow war … that’s going to be one hard sell.”
“Not as hard as the one I’m going to ask of you.”
Jack stiffened. “Don’t like the sound of that. I’m not exactly the salesman type. Who’s the projected sellee?”
“Someone you know: Kolabati Bahkti.”
Kolabati … as much as Jack was devoted to Gia—now more than ever—unbidden memories of Kolabati’s long, dark, slender body occasionally floated back to him.
Glaeken was eyeing him. “I’m trying to locate her.”
“Can’t help you there. Haven’t seen her in years.”
“Oh, I realize that. I’ll find her eventually. And when I do, that’s when I’ll need your help.”
“What for?”
“I need the necklaces.”
“You’re talking plural? As in both?” Jack shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re asking. Kolabati will never give them up. Not in a million years. I might talk her out of one, but never both.”
“I’ll need both. And soon.”
“Then forget it. The necklace keeps her alive, keeps her young. She’s on the downslope toward the end of her second century. But she looks only thirty or so. All because of the necklace. You think she’s going to give that up?”
“That’s why I’ve come to you. So you can convince her once I’ve located her.”
“She’ll die without it.”
“I have faith that you’ll return with both necklaces.”
Jack stared at him. “You asking me to kill her?”
“I hope it won’t come to that.”
“But if it does?”
Glaeken didn’t blink. “Then I’ll leave that decision to you.”
“News flash,” Jack said, feeling a burst of heat. “That’s the kind of decision that never was and never will be anybody else’s.”
“Of course. But will you go to her when I find her?”
Tough question.
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“On where she is. If she’s still in New York, sure. I’ll do my best.”
The thought of facing Kolabati … they had a history, but he’d locked it away. He didn’t want her thinking he was back looking for a key.
“And if she’s not nearby?”
“Well, then … I don’t know.”
Glaeken spread his hands. “With the stakes what they are, how can you refuse?”
“Because of the stakes—because I have no idea what Rasalom’s got planned. If Bati’s back in India, I’ll have to leave Gia and Vicky here. What if the Change kicks in full speed while I’m away and I can’t make it back?” The thought of those two facing the apocalypse without him … He shook his head. “Can’t risk it.”
“They can stay with me.”
“Oh, swell. You’re right in Rasalom’s crosshairs—numero uno on his extermination list. That would really put my mind at ease.” He noted Glaeken’s steely gaze. “Don’t take that personally. It’s just that I don’t consider camping out on a firing range the best way to keep from getting shot.”
Glaeken sighed. “Point taken. But you can’t believe you’re the only one who can protect them.”
“That’s not the point. When they need me, I want to be there.”
“Short term, that makes sense, but in the long term Kolabati’s necklace might be a greater help to them.”
“‘Might’ be.”
“Yes. Might be. I can offer a little hope, but sadly, no guarantee. You must—”
Jack raised a hand. “Let’s table this for some other time. If you find her and she’s living in Hoboken, then this is all wasted air: Of course I’ll go.”
“And if she’s in India?”
“Isn’t there another way? What about the Compendium?” Immediately Jack wished he hadn’t brought that up.
Glaeken lowered his gaze. “We lost our interpreter.”
The words were a gut punch, bringing back the aching sense of loss he’d managed to hide from … well, most of the time.
“I miss her, Glaeken.” His throat felt thick.
“So do I. The Lady too.”
“Yeah. The Lady too.”
He did miss the Lady, but nowhere near the way he missed Weezy. A hole in his life. Not the gaping chasm the loss of Gia and Vicky would leave, but a hole nonetheless.
“They made the ultimate sacrifice. So … if Kolabati’s back in India?”
Jack’s teeth clenched. “I told you—”
“Will you reconsider if Central Park shrinks?”
“Sure.” That seemed a safe bet. “If you find her in India or someplace else on the far side of the globe, I’ll go see her when Central Park shrinks.”
“Fine,” Glaeken said, nodding. “It’s a deal then.”
“Deal.”
“Wonderful.”
The old man finished off his Courage, rose, and dropped a Hamilton on the table.
“My treat. See you soon.”
As Jack watched Glaeken make his way to the door, he thought about Kolabati and wondered how she was. Where she was. And what she was up to these days.
Kolabati
Maui—upcountry
The wind stopped.
Kolabati put down her book and rose from her chair. Not sure at first what had happened, she took her coffee cup and stepped out on the lanai where she stood for a moment, listening. Something was wrong. Too quiet. In her time on Maui she could not remember a truly silent moment. She had no neighbors to speak of, at least none within shouting or ev
en bullhorn distance, but even when the birds and insects were silent, the Maui breeze whispered. Child of the tireless trade winds rolling from the northeast, its constant sussurrant undertone varied in pitch but never ceased—perpetual, interminable, timeless, relentless.
But it paused now. The ceramic wind chimes hung silent on the corners of the unscreened lanai. The air lay perfectly still, as if resting. Or holding its breath.
What was happening? First the news of the late sunrise this morning, and now this.
Kolabati looked down the slope of Haleakala past the rooftops of Kula to the valley spread out below in the late afternoon sun. A gently curved, almost flat span between the two volcanic masses that defined the island of Maui, the valley’s narrow waist was checkered with the pale green squares of sugar cane, the darker green of pineapple plants, the rich red-brown of newly tilled earth, and the near black of a recently burned cane field. She spent part of each day out here staring across the valley at the cloud-capped West Maui Mountains, waiting for her daily rainbow, or watching the cloud-shadows run across the valley floor thousands of feet below. But no shadows ran now. The streaming trade winds that propelled them had stalled. The clouds and their shadows waited.
Kolabati waited too. The air should have grown warmer in the wind’s absence, yet she felt a chill of foreboding. Something was wrong. The Maui breeze occasionally changed its pattern when the kona winds came, but the air always moved.
Krishna, Vishnu, she said, silently praying to the ancient gods of her youth, please don’t let anything spoil this. Not now. Not when I’ve finally found peace.
Peace. Kolabati had searched for it all her life, and it had been a long life. She looked thirty, perhaps a youngish thirty-five, yet she had been born in 1848. She had ceased counting her birthdays after the one hundred fiftieth.
A long time to be searching for contentment. She thought she’d found a chance for it a few years ago with a man named Jack but he had spurned her and the gift of longevity she’d offered him. She’d left him sitting in a pool of his own blood, dying. He was probably dead, and the thought saddened her. Such a vital man …
The Complete Adversary Cycle: The Keep, the Tomb, the Touch, Reborn, Reprisal, Nightworld (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack) Page 190
