Alan said, “It probably won’t be bright and it certainly won’t be early.”
Sylvia watched Jack go over to Ba and extend his hand.
“I respect where you’re coming from, Big Guy, but believe me, this is our only chance to really do something about this—to maybe turn it around and stop it so we can all get back to our normal lives. That’s worth risking a couple of days, isn’t it?”
Ba shook his hand slowly. “I will go with you tomorrow.”
Jack smiled. “Try to control your enthusiasm, okay?”
Then he waved and headed for the front door.
When he was gone, Ba turned to her. “Excuse me, Missus. I have work outside.”
“Of course.”
As Sylvia watched him go, she caught her breath as that recurring phrase slipped into her mind.
Only three will live to return.
“Something wrong?” Alan said.
They were alone now and his gentle brown eyes were fixed on her.
“Is something right?”
“You looked frightened.”
“I was thinking about what that lunatic in Glaeken’s apartment told you and wondering if I was sending Ba to his doom. What if he’s killed on this trip? It will be my fault.”
“I’ve never believed anyone could tell the future,” he said. “And as for fault, that’s a no-win game. If Ba goes off and gets killed, is it your fault? But if you don’t convince him to go and he gets killed around here, then isn’t that also your fault? Neither scenario is anybody’s fault. It’s nothing but a mental trap.”
“I guess you’re right. I’m treating some nut’s rant as if it’s really going to happen. I must be as crazy as he is.” She leaned over and kissed him. “Thanks, Alan. You’re good for me.”
He gave her a kiss of his own. “And thank you.”
“For what?”
“For saying, ‘Alan and I are quite capable of handling the situation.’ That meant a lot.”
So … he had been stung by Ba’s remark.
“Ba didn’t mean anything.”
“I know that.”
“Ba admires you and respects you. He’s forever in your debt for the care you gave Nhung Thi before she died. You’re on his good-guy list.”
“I’d hate to be on his bad-guy list.”
“Ba doesn’t really have one of those. All the people he considers bad guys seem to disappear. And he’d be crushed if he thought he’d offended you.”
“I wasn’t offended.”
Sylvia stared into his eyes. “Truth, Alan.”
“Okay,” he said, glancing away. “That crack about not wanting to leave you ‘alone’ did get to me. I mean, what am I—a houseplant? I know I’m in a wheelchair, but I’m not helpless.”
“Of course you’re not. And Ba knows that too. It’s just that he’s been my self-appointed watchman for so many years, he thinks he’s the only one who can do the job. If I had the Eighty-second Airborne camping in with me, he’d still consider me unprotected if he wasn’t at my side.”
“It’s funny,” Alan said, staring at the wall. “You hear women complaining about being labeled as ‘the weaker sex’ and not being given a chance to prove their competence and equality and maybe even superiority to men. They don’t see the flip side of the coin. The guys are saddled with the macho ethic. We’re expected to be tough, we’re supposed to be able to handle anything, be cool in any situation, never back down, never surrender, never admit we’re hurt, and for God’s sake, never ever cry. It’s not easy to handle even when you’re at the top of your form; but when something happens to knock you off your feet, I tell you, Syl, it becomes a crushing burden. And sometimes … sometimes it’s just plain murder.”
Sylvia didn’t know what to say to that. She simply reached over and held his hand. She hoped that said it all.
Carol was returning from the mailbox—empty. No delivery today, apparently.
The elevator doors opened to reveal a middle-aged couple, each weighted with a pair of suitcases. They looked pale, drawn, shaken. Carol recognized the woman—she’d seen her by the mailboxes a few times.
“Moving out?” she said, stepping aside to let them step out into the foyer with their luggage.
The woman nodded glumly. “My sister’s got a place in the Catskills. We’re going to move in with her until this mess gets straightened out.”
“What happened?”
“We were invaded by the bugs. All the lower floors were.”
“How awful!” Carol said.
She realized then how lucky they were to have an apartment on an upper floor. She’d been in and out of bed repeatedly, checking the windows. A few times she’d found one sort of monstrosity or another clinging to the screens, but for the most part she’d been spared last night. But what about tonight?
“Not as awful as what happened to the Honigs in two-twelve,” her husband said. “Jerry lost his left hand and their little girl got carried off.”
The woman’s brave facade crumbled as she began to sob. “Poor Carrie!”
Carol’s heart went out to the Honigs, whoever they were.
“If there’s anything I can do for them—I mean…”
Her voice trailed off. What could she do? She wasn’t sure how to handle her own problems.
She wished them luck as she stepped onto the elevator and pressed the 10 button. The door closed, leaving her alone with her fears. More like uncertainties. Still no word from Nelson despite dozens of calls. She’d filled his voice mail and now it wasn’t accepting new messages.
The bank had been no help. They said all the transactions had been verified with the proper PINs and phone inquiries. They’d all originated from Atlantic City.
That last convinced Carol that something awful had happened to Nelson. He was—or had been—in Denver, and had never been a gambler. He’d always joked that it made more sense to take your money and simply hand it to a casino pit boss and save everyone a lot of time and effort. He must have been kidnapped or—
The phone rang. She checked the caller ID and knew the number. She snatched it up.
“Nelson!”
A croak: “Carol.”
She barely recognized the voice, but was sure it was Nelson.
“Where are you? What happened?”
“I owe you an explanation. I—”
Her own voice seemed to have a will of its own. “Are you still in Denver? Did you get my messages? What—?”
“Can I get a word in here?”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
“I got your messages. I’m in Atlantic City. I—”
“Atlantic—!”
“Yes, Atlantic City—and I’m not coming back.”
Carol found herself speechless.
“All my ‘business trips’ to Denver have actually been down here to AC. I … I found someone and I’m going to stay with her. I’ve been a tight-ass all my life. Time to live a little. I emptied my accounts because I need the money.”
“But you—”
“What? You’re going to complain about that? It’s my money. I earned it. And you’ve got plenty of your own. More than you can spend. So I don’t understand all these frantic calls about the accounts.”
She did have more than she could spend—forty million? Fifty? She didn’t know. When he’d walked out at age fifteen, Jimmy—Rasalom—had taken half the fortune he’d amassed, and left the rest. It had kept growing. She’d given millions away to charities, but it kept growing, and growing.
She felt a surge of anger. “I wasn’t worried about the money, I was worried about you!”
A long pause, then, “Well, don’t be. It’s not you. I just don’t want to be married anymore.”
“You could have been man enough to tell me in person!”
He sighed. “I’m sorry about that, but I thought this was just a temporary thing. After all, I’m seventy freaking years old. But when I saw that Central Park hole on the tube, something inside told me it was a
ll over.”
“Oh, give me a break!”
“It’s true, Carol. It’s the end times. I’ll spend my last days down here, you spend yours up there with your priest friend.”
That last shocked her more than anything.
“Bill? Don’t be—”
“Don’t bullshit me, Carol. I’ve seen the looks passing between you two. Maybe you had something going on in the past, maybe something’s going on now. I don’t know. But if not, my advice is to get it on now. There’s not much time left.”
Were her feelings for Bill that obvious?
He said, “That’s it, Carol. Get out of the city. Get someplace safe. It’s all going to fall apart. Sorry if I’m hurting you, but this is the way it has to be.”
And then he hung up.
Carol stood in her living room, the silent phone in her hand, and felt a cascade of disparate thoughts, feelings, and observations take shape.
Nelson … he’d been somewhat distant over the past few months but she hadn’t paid all that much attention. Her own life had been turned upside down earlier in the year by revelations of what her child had become, the horrors he’d perpetrated. And then … the return of Bill Ryan.
Was she to blame? Had she helped send Nelson off the rails? Or was he simply giving in to the off-kilter zeitgeist? He hadn’t had a midlife crisis, so now he was having a late-life crisis?
Whatever the reason, he was gone, off with someone new, leaving her alone.
No … not alone. She didn’t have to face this alone.
WNYW-TV
CAMERON: But Dr. Sapir, how exactly did you arrive at these figures?
SAPIR: I simply charted the times of sunrise and sunset and the resultant hours of daylight since Wednesday on a graph. Those figures yielded the curve you see here. I have merely continued that curve.
CAMERON: And that shows…?
SAPIR: All you have to do is follow it. We’ll have approximately eleven hours of sunlight today; slightly less than ten hours tomorrow, Monday; about eight hours and forty minutes of daylight on Tuesday, about seven hours on Wednesday, and—you see how steep the curve is becoming—four hours and forty-two minutes of light on Thursday.
CAMERON: And on Friday?
SAPIR: On Friday, nothing.
CAMERON: Nothing?
SAPIR: Correct. If the curve holds true, the sun will set at 3:01 P.M. on Thursday and will not rise again. There will be no sunrise on Friday.
CAMERON: But how is that possible?
SAPIR: It’s not.
CAMERON: Then how—?
SAPIR: It is what it is.
Manhattan
Bill Ryan sat stunned before the TV in Glaeken’s study. He’d turned on the Sapir interview to see if the sight of Nick’s old colleague would shock him back into the real world. Instead it was Bill who had received the shock.
No sunrise on Friday? It seemed impossible, but Dr. Harvey Sapir was world renowned. And to see him break down and cry …
“Nick,” Bill said, turning to the younger man. “What’s going to happen? You’ve been coming on with all sorts of predictions lately. How’s all this going to turn out?”
Nick didn’t answer. His vacant gaze remained fixed on one of the curlicues in the wallpaper design.
Bill closed his eyes and tried to keep from shouting in frustration. Nothing was right. Especially Nick. Because every time he looked at Nick he was reminded of all the people who had suffered because they were close to him, because he’d cared for them. His parents, little Danny Gordon, Lisl, and now Nick. All of them either dead or mad. And to what end? To isolate him? To make him doubt himself? To make him afraid to get close to anyone, or care for anyone again?
Hello, down there! he thought, looking out the study window at the Sheep Meadow hole, a dark splotch in the afternoon light. Guess what? It’s working.
What the hell good was he? Of what use was he to Glaeken? If anything, he was a Jonah. Why did the old man keep him around?
Answerless questions. Glaeken wasn’t even home. He was somewhere in the building readying the deserted apartments for refugees people would be bringing in. Bill would have liked to help—the physical activity might do something to dispel this lethargy weighing upon him—but someone had to stay with Nick. And Bill felt responsible for him.
The doorbell rang.
Strange, he thought as he headed for the door. You needed a key to get up here. Who’d come this far and then ring the bell?
He was startled when he saw the woman standing in the atrium.
“Carol! I didn’t know you were coming.”
The sight of her swept away his lethargy.
“Neither did I. Glaeken sent me up.”
Immediately he knew something was wrong. He looked at her more closely and saw how prominent were the lines in her face. Carol had always looked younger than her years, but today she showed every birthday.
“Come in.” He glanced out into the atrium as she passed. “Nelson back yet?”
“No. And he’s not coming back.” Her eyes filled with tears. “He’s left me.”
“What?”
She sat on the couch and told him about the agony of worry she’d been weathering, and then the phone call she’d just received.
The bastard! He dumped her over the phone? The phone?
“You should have come to me when you learned about the accounts,” he heard himself say. “You didn’t have to go through that alone.”
Without realizing it, he had slipped into his old priestly, family-counselor role. He pulled back from it. This wasn’t some parishioner, this was Carol. Someone he knew. No, not just knew, but—he could admit it now—loved since he was a teenager. Silly to try for emotional distance where she was concerned. He’d never make it.
“I didn’t want to get you involved.” She glanced at the vacant-eyed Nick. “You have your own problems.”
“Do you love him, Carol?”
The words slipped out and immediately he wanted to call them back. He went to tell her she didn’t have to answer, then realized she knew that. So he let it hang. The question had plagued him since his return to the city a few months ago. He wanted to know, damn it.
“Yes. In a way. Not like I loved Jim. Nothing like that. This relationship had a much lower ambient temperature.”
“Why did you marry him?”
He couldn’t believe he was asking these questions. But here in the darkening room, with Carol becoming a silhouette against the dying light, he felt he could. Should. He didn’t reach for a lamp. That would break the mood set by the half light.
“I guess I was lonely. When I came back to New York, I knew no one. Mostly, I wanted it that way. I wanted a fresh start. I didn’t want to go back to Monroe and look up old friends. Too much time had passed. They’d just remind me of Jim and the life we had there. And they’d want to know where I’d been all these years, they’d want to know why I left, and they’d want to know about … the baby. I didn’t want to talk about any of it. It would be too much like reliving everything. I wanted to create a new Carol.”
“I can understand that. Perfectly.”
“Can you?”
“Sure. I did it myself in North Carolina. Even changed my name to Will Ryerson. But for different reasons. Strange, isn’t it? We were a thousand miles apart but we were both trying to remodel ourselves, and at just about the same time.”
“Well then, maybe you understand how lonely it can be. At least you have your religious beliefs—”
Bill shook his head slowly. “Had. Had my beliefs. They’re gone now.” Like just about everyone or everything else in my life I’ve cared about. “But go on. Please.”
“This isn’t an easy city to build relationships in. Not if you’re my age and unconnected. You get hit on by men who think because you’ve got some miles on you you’re an easy mark who’ll be so grateful for the attention you’ll hop into bed with them right off, or you’re pursued by ones who’ve a
lready got a couple broken marriages behind them and think nothing of trying a third, or others who are simply looking for someone to take care of them. That’s why Nelson was so refreshing.”
“What was he looking for?”
“Nothing. He was self-sufficient—a lifelong bachelor who knew how to take care of himself. He wasn’t on the make, and neither was I. So we wound up feeling very comfortable with each other. No pressure. Just companionship—real companionship.”
Bill made no comment. He’d heard far worse reasons for marriage.
“Companionship led to a … um … closer relationship, which led to us moving in together. We seemed a good fit, made a good couple, caring and attuned to each other’s needs. After a while we decided to make it legal.” A soft laugh in the growing darkness. “Not the stuff that makes for a hot romance novel, but it worked for us. Until now.”
Bill racked his brain for some brilliant words of advice while fighting the conflicting feelings roiling through him. Carol had been hurt, dealt an emotional slap in the face, and yet he was … glad.
“Carol—”
“You’re still here?” Glaeken said.
They both looked up. He’d entered silently, as he tended to do.
Carol stiffened and turned to look out the window. “My God, it’s almost dark! I’d better get going.”
She shot to her feet and Bill rose with her. It seemed like the day had just begun. He opened his mouth to object but Glaeken beat him to it.
“It’s sunset. You can’t go out now. You’d never make it to the other side of the park, let alone to your apartment. You’ll spend the night here. We’ve plenty of apartments.”
Bill repressed a fist pump. Try as he might, he could not douse the gleeful elation sparking at the prospect of having her near all night.
The Bunker
“I don’t like this place, Mom.”
Gia gave Vicky’s shoulder a gentle squeeze and thought, Neither do I. But she didn’t voice it.
The Complete Adversary Cycle: The Keep, the Tomb, the Touch, Reborn, Reprisal, Nightworld (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack) Page 209
