Hosts

by F. Paul Wilson

  "That sounds fair, I guess."

  "And you should know up front that I don't work cheap."

  "I think it's a little early to haggle about fees. How will I spot you?"

  "No problem. I'll stand out."

  "How?"

  "I won't be wearing black."

  A tiny laugh. "I've spent enough time here to appreciate that!"

  Her laugh… something vaguely familiar there… an echo of a laugh from long ago, but damned if he could remember who or when.

  "Do I know you?" Jack asked.

  "Oh, I doubt that. I doubt that very, very much."

  Probably right. She said she was from out of town and Jack didn't leave the city much.

  She added, "I only heard of you a couple of hours ago."

  "From whom?"

  "That's the strangest part. This woman I've never seen before gave me your number and said you could help."

  "A stranger? What's her name?"

  "I don't know. She had a Russian accent and a big white dog. She said to call you tonight… only you."

  Got his number from a stranger… that didn't sit right, especially since the only people he knew with Russian accents were members of a Brighton Beach crew he'd had a brush with last year, and they weren't too fond of him.

  A little extra caution might be in order here.

  "You call someone you've never heard of on the recommendation of someone you don't know. You must be a very trusting person."

  "No, I'm not. I'm just a very upset person. Maybe even a little frightened."

  Thought he heard her voice threatening to crack at the end there. Okay. She sounded genuine. He could figure out later who the mystery woman was. For now…

  "All right. I'll be dressed like Joe Prep; no way you'll be able to miss me in that crowd." Thought of something. "And remember, it's the Chelsea Hotel, not the Chelsea Savoy which is a couple of doors away. You want the big old red building with wrought-iron balconies all up and down its face and a red-and-white-striped awning over the entrance. Got it?"

  "Got it."

  "Okay. See you then."

  Hung up and flagged a cab. As the driver headed down Broadway,

  Jack wondered why he felt so determined to involve himself in fixing this woman's problem, whatever it was. He knew he was looking for a distraction, but it went beyond that.

  Shrugged it off. Important thing was he was on the move, doing something instead of hanging around his apartment like a prisoner in a cell.

  6

  Sandy sat before one of the workstations in the darkened editorial pool, cursing as he tried by trial and error to decipher the workings of the unfamiliar program.

  Once he'd figured he'd learned all he was going to at the crime scene, he got McCann to spring him and made a beeline for The Light offices just off Times Square. Immediately he'd had a face-to-face with George Meschke and the rest of the staff during which they'd listened with wide eyes as he recounted his tale. What a buzz getting the rapt attention of all those hardened pros.

  Only Pokorny, good old smart-ass Jay Pokorny, the only other reporter on the staff anywhere near his age, had tried to rain on his parade.

  "You sure you didn't stage this, Palmer?" he said, looking down at him along his long, thin, patrician nose. "You know, hire some guy to off people in front of you just so you could make the front page?"

  "Only you'd think of that, Jay," he'd said.

  "I could be home getting laid," Pokorny mumbled, and wandered away.

  After Sandy had written up his first-person eyewitness account—sans the GPM's description, of course—he zapped it to Meschke's computer. From there it would go to the printers who were standing by, readying a double run of tomorrow's edition.

  All he needed now to make this incredible evening complete was just one usable frame on that roll he'd given the photo lab.

  At the moment, Sandy was on his own time, doing his own thing. That involved a program called Identi-Kit 2000. He'd seen a reporter using it once and learned it was loaded onto the mainframe. Tonight he'd found and accessed it, and was now trying to get it to work for him. A manual existed somewhere in the building, he was sure, but he couldn't go asking for it. Anyone hearing about a witness to a major crime who wanted to know how to use the computer equivalent of a police sketch artist would catch on fast to what Sandy was up to.

  He wasn't doing too badly without the manual, but the program offered so many variations on facial features that he felt his mind going numb. He'd wasted a lot of time trying to guess the hairline, then realized that was a mistake. He'd never seen the GPM's hairline and if he got it wrong it would work against him. So he had the program stick a knit watch cap on the head and that solved that.

  A truly amazing piece of software. Slowly, steadily, through trial and error, hit and miss, he'd seen the GPM's face emerge and take shape on the screen. Except for the damn eyes. He'd worked the chin, the nose, the lips until they were pretty close to what he remembered. But the eyes—when he raised them they looked too high, yet when he lowered them they looked equally wrong.

  He closed his own eyes and tried to remember the man's face as he'd looked past Sandy's shoulder to check the station stop… brought it into focus and zeroed in on those mild brown eyes…

  Wider. That was it.

  Back on the screen, Sandy widened the eyes then moved them up just a tad.

  It's him! he thought, feeling his fingers tingle. Damn me, it's him!

  He saw a world, a universe of possibilities bursting open before him.

  But only if he kept it to himself. If anybody else got hold of this he'd lose his exclusive… lose that glorious future.

  Sandy glanced around. No one nearby. He mouse-clicked PRINT, typed a "10" into the COPIES box, then turned off his monitor. He rose, stretched, and made his way as casually as he could to the printer. There he watched the sheets with that face, that wonderful generic face, sliding into the tray.

  When all ten were done, he folded them once and buttoned them inside his shirt, then returned to the workstation.

  Now… what to do with the Identi-Kit file? His first instinct was to delete it. But what if he needed to come back to it, maybe revise it? He didn't want to have to start from scratch all over again. He decided to label it GPM and leave it in the Identi-Kit folder. That way it would have no connection to him, and anyone finding it would think GPM stood for the initials of the guy in the drawing. Gerald P. Mahoney perhaps.

  Sandy grinned as he closed out the program. Sometimes I'm so sneaky I scare myself.

  He headed for the exit, gliding like a dancer through the maze of empty desks. A little shut-eye, then he'd be up early to catch the morning edition with his first byline. Maybe a call to the folks to make sure they picked up The Light so they wouldn't miss seeing how all those years of tuition were finally bearing fruit, even if he was working for a sleazbloid.

  And then later tomorrow… starting the search.

  Only problem was, he wasn't the least bit tired. In fact he was still totally wired. He wished he could drop into a bar where all his friends hung out and hoist a few beers while he blew their minds with his story of the subway ride to hell and back.

  Trouble was, he didn't have a gang of friends. Not even one good friend, to tell the truth. Hell, he didn't even have a roommate. He still lived alone in the co-op his parents had bought in Morningside Heights when he'd entered Columbia. They still owned it and had been letting him live on there rent free since graduation—a great perk for him and a solid investment for them with the relentless rise in West Side property values.

  Most of the time he didn't mind not having close friends. Acquaintances were perfectly adequate. But tonight… tonight he wished he had one person—just one—he could share this with. That film student, for instance. Beth. What was her last name? He could kick himself now for not getting her phone number. And the least he could have done was to have found her and said good-bye before he'd dashed back to The Light.


  Typical me, he thought. A brown thumb with relationships.

  And face it, what did he have to offer? Not as if he was setting the world on fire like some of the guys he'd known in undergrad. A few of his fellow English majors had gone on to brokerage houses and investments banks and mega-bonuses—English majors without a single business course to their names! And don't mention the computer geeks who spent every waking moment of their college years playing Ultima Online and then joined dot-coms in the Flatiron District to haul down six figures plus stock options. The market collapse had stifled their brags, but financially they remained light years ahead of Sandy.

  When's my turn? he'd asked himself.

  Well, he'd got the answer tonight. Sandy Palmer's turn was now. He'd always dreamed of breaking a big story, and now that dream was about to come true.

  He kept flashing back to Woodward and Bernstein. Who were they before they connected with Deep Throat? Nobodies. But afterward they were household names. This story wasn't the caliber of Watergate, but it had the same potential for hooking public interest, and not just locally—nationwide eyeballs could be staring his way.

  He tried to rein in the fantasies—never paid to get your hopes up too high—but he could feel them taking off, soaring in a high, jet-fueled arc.

  Fifteen minutes of fame? Screw that. He'd do a network hour with Charlie Rose, be on all the talk shows. He'd be the man to know, the guy to be seen with, his name would pop up in gossip columns, his face a regular on "The Scene" page of New York Magazine as he's spotted attending film premieres, gallery openings, and literary receptions, and don't forget parties in the Hamptons where his dalliances would be mentioned in the "Sunday Styles" section of the Times.

  Dalliances… oh, yeah. Those models and starlets just throw themselves at famous writers and journalists. No more worrying about relationships, everybody will want to know Sandy Palmer.

  But first he'd have to find the guy.

  That sobering reality brought him back to earth. This was not going to happen by itself. He had some work ahead of him. Hard work.

  Out on the street Sandy flagged a cab. He'd already decided to splurge on a taxi home. He didn't think he could handle another subway ride tonight.

  7

  Jack knew it was her the moment she stepped through the door.

  He'd been sitting in the Chelsea's intimate, marble-tiled lobby on an intricately carved sofa situated between the equally intricately carved fireplace and a metallic sculpture of some sort of jackal sitting atop an undersized elephant. He'd spent the waiting time admiring the vast and eclectic array of art festooning the walls.

  The Chelsea had been a fabled haunt of artists and entertainers for decades, and nowadays most of them seemed to own clothes of only one color: black. So when this woman in beige linen slacks and a rose sweater set stepped through the door she stood out among the leather and lingerie habitues as much as he did. Her head was down so he didn't see her face at first, but the style of her curly honey blond hair and mature figure jibed with the voice on the phone.

  Then she looked up and their eyes met and Jack's heart stuttered and missed a beat or two.

  Kate! God, it was Kate!

  Her voice, that little laugh—now he knew why they'd sounded familiar. They belonged to his sister.

  Kate looked as stunned as Jack knew he must, but then her shock turned to something like fear and dismay.

  "Kate!" he called as she started to turn away. "My God, Kate, it's me! Jack!"

  She turned toward him again and now her face was more composed but hardly full of the joy one might expect at seeing her younger brother for the first time in a decade and a half.

  Jack hurried up and stopped within a foot of her, staring.

  "Jackie," she said. "I don't believe this."

  Jackie… Christ, when had he last heard someone call him that? The word sundered an inner dam, loosing a flood of long-pent-up memories that engulfed him. He'd been the last of three kids: first Tom, Kate two years later, and Jack eight years after her. Kate, the natural nurturer, had half-raised him. They'd bonded, they'd been pals, she'd been the coolest person he knew and he'd fairly worshipped her. And then she'd gone off to college, leaving a hole in his ten-year-old life. Med school and pediatric residency after that. He remembered her wedding day…

  Most of all Jack remembered this face, these pale blue eyes, the faint splash of freckles across the cheeks and nose, the strong jawline. Her hair was shorter and faintly streaked with gray; her skin had aged a little with a hint of crows feet at the corners of her eyes; and her face was a bit fuller, her hips a tad wider than he remembered, but her figure wasn't that much different from the one that had kept the boys calling all through high school. All in all his big sister Kate hadn't changed much.

  "I don't believe this either," he said. "I mean, the odds are…"

  "Astronomical."

  He felt they should kiss, embrace, do something other than stand here facing each other, but they'd never been a huggy clan, and Jack had dropped out of his family and never looked back. Hadn't spoken a word to Kate in fifteen years. Until tonight.

  "You look great," he said. And it was true. Even with very little make-up she did not look like a forty-four-year-old mother of two. She'd always been fair haired, but now she was a darker shade of blonde than he remembered. What a mane she used to have. "I see you've stopped straightening your hair. I still remember watching you use Mom's iron to flatten out your waves."

  "Eventually you get to the point where you have to stop fighting your nature and just go with it." She glanced away. "Look. This was a mistake. If I'd had the slightest inkling you were the Jack I was calling, I never would have…" She let it trail off.

  "Why not? If you've got a problem you should call family."

  "Family?" Kate's eyes blazed to life as she turned back to him. "What would you know about family, Jackie? You vanished from our lives without even saying good-bye! Just a note saying you were leaving and not to worry! As if that was possible. For a while we didn't know if you were dead or alive. Do you have any idea what that was like for Dad? First he loses Mom, then you drop out of college and disappear. He almost lost it!"

  "I'd already lost it, Kate."

  Her eyes softened, but only a little. "I know how Mom's death—"

  "Murder."

  "Yes, you always insisted on calling it that, didn't you. It hit us all hard, and you the hardest perhaps, but Dad—"

  "I've been back to see him."

  "Only rarely, and only after he tracked you down. And I sent you all those letters, invited you to christenings and graduations and anniversaries, but you never responded. Not even to say no. Not once."

  Jack's turn to look away, focus on a painting of a Manhattan street scene, but viewed at a crazy angle. Kate was right. She'd made a major effort to keep in touch, tried hard to bring him back into the family, and he'd snubbed her.

  "Jackie, you've got a niece and a nephew you've never even met. They used to look at the wedding pictures and point to this young stranger who was one of the ushers and ask who he was."

  "Kevin and Elizabeth," he said. "How are they?"

  He knew them only from their photos. Kate was one of those people who sent out an annual here's-what-we've-been-doing-all-year letters with her Christmas card, usually accompanied by a family photo. At least she used to. Nothing at all from her for the last few years. Since the divorce.

  "They're wonderful. Kevin's eighteen, Liz is sixteen, as if you give a damn."

  Jack closed his eyes. Okay. Deserved that. He'd seen her kids grow up long distance, on Kodak paper.

  But after he'd cut himself off and reinvented himself here in New York, how could he go back? He could never explain who he'd become. Tom, Kate, Dad especially—they'd never get it. Be horrified, in fact. Took enough to live his own life; didn't want to have to invent another life just for their approval.

  "Look, Kate," he said. "I know I hurt people, and I'm sorry. I was
just starting my twenties and coming apart at the seams. I can't change the past but maybe I can make up just a tiny bit of it to you now. Your friend and this cult you mentioned… maybe I can help."

  "I don't think this is in your field."

  "And what field would that be?"

  "Appliance repairs, right?"

  He laughed. "Who told you that?"

  "Dad."

  "Figures."

  His father had called one of Jack's numbers years ago and heard an outgoing message that went: This is Repairman Jack. Describe the problem and leave a number and Ml get back to you. Naturally he'd assumed his son was some sort of appliance fixer.

  "He's wrong?"

  "I make my living fixing other things."

  "I don't understand."

  "No reason you should. Let's go someplace where we can sit and talk."

  "No, Jackie. This won't work."

  "Please, Kate?"

  He reached out and gently gripped her wrist. He felt at the mercy of the vortex of emotions swirling around him. This was Kate, his big sister Kate, one of the best people he'd ever known, who'd been so good to him and who was still smarting from the awful way he'd treated her. She thought badly of him. He had to fix that.

  She shook her head, seemed almost… afraid.

  Afraid of him? That couldn't be. What then?

  "Look. This is my city. If I can't help out your friend, I'll bet I know someone who can. And if that doesn't work out, at least we can talk. Come on, Kate. For old times' sake?"

  Maybe his touch did it, but he felt a change in her muscle tone as some of the resistance seeped out of her.

  "All right. Just for a little while."

  "Great. What are you up for—coffee or a drink?"

  "Normally I'd say coffee, but right now I think I could do with a drink."

  "I hear you. Let's hunt up a place without music."

  He took his sister by the elbow and guided her out to the street, then up along Seventh Avenue, wondering how much he dared tell her about himself, his life. He'd play it by ear. The important thing was he had her with him now, and he wasn't letting her go until he'd done something to make up for the hurt he'd caused.