Hosts

by F. Paul Wilson

  "I'm practically there already."

  "Little brother does not let big sister walk the mean streets alone at night."

  "Jack—"

  "I can walk beside you or six feet behind you, but you might as well resign yourself to the fact that I'm seeing you safe home."

  Kate sighed, then smiled thinly. "Let's go then."

  Out on Seventh they walked and talked about getting together again during her stay in the city and keeping in touch afterward until a neon sign down one of the streets caught Jack's eye: FYNYL VYNYL. He thought he knew all the used record shops in the city but this was a new one. Almost 1 A.M. and it was still open. He couldn't pass this up.

  "Mind if we stop in here for a sec?" he said.

  "Not at all."

  Inside, a guy with a shaved head and huge muttonchop sideburns looked up from behind the counter as they entered. "We're closing in about fifteen minutes."

  "We'll only need one of those if you really know your stock," Jack told him.

  "What I don't remember, this baby does," he said, patting the Mac to his left.

  "Great. It's a single from 1971. A&M Records. 'Tried So Hard' by the Flying Burrito Brothers."

  The guy snorted. "Yeah, right. The Dutch 45? I've got a waiting list for that one. Still haven't seen a copy."

  Jack waved and turned back toward the door. "Thanks anyway."

  "Flying Burrito Brothers?" Kate said as they returned to the sidewalk. "They're from my time. How'd you get interested in them?"

  "You."

  "Me?"

  "Sure. You had all those Byrds albums."

  "Oh, right. Back when I was horse crazy. They did that song 'Chest-nut Mare' and that got me into them and buying up all their old records. But how—?"

  "You played their stuff so much I got to be a fan. And my favorite Byrd was Gene Clark. Still love his songs. So a couple of weeks ago, after buying myself a dual-deck CD burner, I decided to make the ultimate Gene Clark disk. And I want the version of 'Tried So Hard' that he sang with the Burritos. Trouble is, it was only released in Holland on a 45. The group took his voice out when they put the song on their third album."

  "So you're hunting a 1971 record that wasn't even released on this side of the Atlantic. Kind of obsessive, no?"

  "All your fault. The enduring influence of my big sister."

  "Wow. Should I feel pleased or guilty?"

  "Guilty."

  "Thanks a lot. As if I don't have enough…"

  She never finished the thought because someone behind them said, "Hey."

  Jack turned. He was pale, dressed in dusty black jeans and a rumpled long-sleeved shirt; looked all of twenty.

  He said, "A spear has no branches."

  Jack stared at him, baffled. "What?"

  The guy blinked, as if coming out of a trance. "I need some money."

  "Sorry about that," Jack said.

  "You don't get it." He raised a shaky hand, showing a box cutter. "I need some money now." His desperation was palpable.

  Jack heard Kate's sharp intake of breath. He guided her behind him with his left hand while slipping his right under his sweater and pulling the Glock from the small of his back. He held the pistol against the front of his right thigh where Kate couldn't see it.

  "Look," Jack said, "I've had a bad day, a very bad day, and I'm in no mood for this. Try it somewhere else."

  Looking as if he couldn't believe what he'd just heard, the guy waved the box cutter before him. "Money, man, or I start cuttin'."

  "You don't want to start this, pal," Jack said. "You really don't. 'Cause if you do it's not gonna go down the way you were thinking." He raised the Glock a few inches and waggled it to make sure the guy couldn't miss it. "You see what I'm saying? So do yourself a favor and take a walk."

  The guy's eyes angled down to the pistol, then back to Jack's face. He backed up a step.

  "Hey, forget it, okay?"

  "Forgotten," Jack said.

  The guy turned and hurried away. Jack watched to make sure he kept going, then he turned Kate around and guided her ahead of him back toward Seventh, tucking away the pistol as they moved.

  "I've never been so frightened in my life!" she said, looking over her shoulder. "My goodness, Jack, he had some sort of razor blade and you… you just talked him out of it! How on earth—?"

  "I think that even though he was a mugger, he must be one of those naturally empathetic people."

  "An empathetic mugger?"

  "Sure. I told him I'd had a bad day and really didn't want to be bothered, and he understood."

  "That's crazy! I've never heard of such a thing!"

  "Happens now and then. You'd be surprised how many people like him respond to reason if given a chance."

  Kate talked about the encounter non-stop until they reached the place where she was staying, an apartment in the mid-Twenties. Jack took one look and fell in love with the building. Its five-story brick front was lined with intricate terra cotta friezes, two per floor, one running along the floorline, the other arching over the windows, and in the keystone spot atop each window was set an open-mouthed face of some sort—animal or human Jack couldn't be sure in this light.

  "What a neat building!" he said.

  It stood out like a polished gem amid the debris of an otherwise purely commercial block of parking lots, print shops, frame galleries, and businesses dealing in wholesale fabric and sewing machine repairs.

  "It's called the Arsley," Kate said. "The name's not anywhere on the building, at least not that I've seen, but that's what people who live here call it."

  "I'll have to add this to my collection."

  "You collect buildings?"

  "Only neat ones. And this one is very neat."

  "You're still saying 'neat'?"

  "Never stopped." He snapped his fingers. "Hey, how about I take you on my Neat Building tour sometime?"

  "I don't know, Jackie."

  "I want to get together with you again before you go back to Trenton, Kate. I want Gia and Vicky to meet you too."

  The need to reconnect with Kate was an ache in Jack's soul. He'd just got her back and couldn't let her slip away again.

  Finally she smiled. "Okay. I think I'd like that. You have my cell number. Set it up and call me."

  "I'll do that."

  His delight was blunted as his mind darted back to the very real possibility that she was in some sort of trouble. She'd felt threatened enough to call a perfect stranger for help. Something was going on, something more serious than a friend acting strangely. Kate might say she didn't want his help, but that didn't mean she didn't need it. And if she needed help, like it or not, he'd see that she got it.

  Then the briefest of hugs but the contact filled him with a protective fire.

  Kate was his sister, damn it. Nobody was going to play games with his sister. Not on Jack's watch.

  9

  "Why did you follow me?"

  Kate jumped at the sound of Jeanette's voice, turned and saw her standing at the end of the apartment's short front hallway. Kate had left Jack down on the sidewalk and had been expecting an empty apartment.

  Jeanette was dressed for bed in her usual—an XXXL T-shirt that hung off one thin shoulder and reached almost to the knees of her long slim tanned legs; tonight's was emblazoned with the cover of the Indigo Girls' Come On Now Social album. Her dark shoulder-length hair was pulled back in a short ponytail. Her brown eyes fixed Kate with a reproachful stare.

  Kate's first thought was, How does she know? Then she remembered the figure she'd thought she'd seen at the window of the Holdstock house. She'd had the impression it was a man but it must have been Jeanette.

  And then guilt scalded her. She'd sneaked out behind the woman she loved and followed her like a cop tailing a criminal. But she'd done it out of concern.

  "Because I'm worried about you, Jeanette. You're just not yourself and I—"

  "You shouldn't have done that."

  Kate sensed
no anger in her voice, no threat, yet something in the words, a subliminal note in her tone, raised gooseflesh along her arms.

  "I couldn't help myself. I'm so worried."

  "Don't be. I'm fine. In fact I've never been better."

  "But we never talk, and—"

  "We'll talk soon," Jeanette said. "We'll talk as we've never talked before. I promise."

  And then she turned and walked away toward the study at the rear of the apartment.

  Kate trailed after her. "How about now?"

  "No. Not now. But soon."

  "Please, Jeanette. I'm… lonely without you."

  Jeanette stopped and turned at the study door. "That's only temporary. Soon you'll never be alone or lonely again."

  Kate was struck dumb. Before she could respond Jeanette closed the study door. Kate heard the click of the lock, just as she'd heard it every night since Jeanette had moved out of the bedroom. She felt her throat tighten.

  I am not going to cry. I am not.

  She was a grown woman, a mother of two, and a seasoned physician. She was an expert problem-solver, and she would solve this one. Somehow. And she would do it without tears.

  Trouble was, she couldn't find a handle for this problem. Perhaps because her heart was breaking.

  Kate stood in the center of the living room and looked around. Hardwood floors, an oriental rug, functional furniture, paintings by local artists picked up at street fairs—some they'd picked out together. The kitchen-dining area at the far end, which was not very far at all. A small, two-bedroom apartment with the second small bedroom converted to a study/office where Jeanette worked when she telecommuted to Long Island. She worked for a software company that designed custom databases for businesses. She could do a stand-up routine with her store of quips about the underdeveloped bodies and overdeveloped brains of the nerdy twentysomethings she worked with. A good dozen years older than most of them, she'd said she felt like a den mother most of the time.

  But now her home office was back to being a bedroom. Four nights ago Jeanette had moved out of their bed to sleep on the couch in the office. No fight—they never fought—not even a mild disagreement. She'd simply picked up her pillow and moved out of the room. When Kate had asked—begged—for an explanation, all Jeanette would say was, "It's only for a little while. We'll be back together again soon."

  Kate wandered into the little kitchen and saw the edge of a crumpled-up white paper bag sticking out of the garbage pail top. As she pushed it farther down to allow the lid to close she spotted the red and yellow McDonald's logo and froze.

  McDonald's?

  She pulled out the bag and found a Big Mac container inside and her heart sank. More proof of the change in Jeanette who'd lived her entire adult life as a strict vegetarian. She wouldn't even eat eggs. Until now.

  Kate leaned against the counter and ran the events of the past week or so through her head again, trying to make some sense of it all.

  Jeanette had come home from the hospital her cheerful, acerbic old self, so wonderfully upbeat that the experimental protocol had worked. Like a condemned prisoner with an unexpected reprieve from death row.

  But slowly she'd begun to change. Kate hadn't noticed it at first, but looking back now she could identify the subtle initial signs of Jeanette's progressive withdrawal. Sitting and staring out a window instead of rattling off her usual running commentary as she read the paper; gradually she abandoned the paper altogether, stopped listening to music, lost interest in TV. Originally she'd said she wanted to use her medical leave to work on her pet project—a CD-ROM-based in-teractive drama for women—but spent less and less time at her computer with every passing day; even stopped mentioning her plans for Int-HER-active, Inc., the company she hoped to start someday.

  Silence. It gave Kate the creeps because this little apartment had always been filled with the sounds of life: music, the TV, sound clips from the computer—a multimedia mélange combined with constant chatter. At thirty-eight Jeanette was a quasi-activist lesbian who had been out since her teens; Kate was a middle class mom of forty-four who still wasn't ready to come out. Their different perspectives had made for endless hours of lively discussion.

  Until now.

  And food. Whenever Kate was up from Trenton, and that was every other weekend, they'd always gone out of their way to whip up at least one elaborate meal. But now Jeanette had lost all interest in cooking, leaving it to Kate. Not that Kate minded—after all, she was here to help all she could—but Jeanette could at least show some interest in the food. She consumed hearty portions but didn't seem to care what was on the plate. Homemade eggplant rollatini and Kraft macaroni and cheese straight out of the box were non-greeted as equals.

  And then Jeanette had begun her disappearing acts, leaving without a word of explanation, without even saying good-bye.

  Kate sighed. She felt helpless, and she wasn't used to that. An alien feeling…

  Alien… that was what Jeanette had become. This was like an episode of the X-Files, or Twilight Zone. Jeanette seemed to be turning into someone else, a remote being who sneaked out to prayer meetings or whatever they were.

  And tonight the surreality had been compounded by a strange woman giving Kate a phone number that turned out to belong to her brother.

  Jack… he'd become someone else too, an unsettling someone else.

  Was the whole world going mad, or just her?

  But at least she still recognized her brother. Some of the old Jackie she'd known was still part of the new Jack; she wished she could say the same about Jeanette. And despite all his changes she'd found something intensely likable about the new Jack, something solid and dependable. She sensed that the boy she'd known had grown into an upright man, one who'd do what he said he'd do, honor his word, stay the course… all those old-fashioned virtues that might seem corny and hokey in this city, in this time.

  The incident with that razor-wielding youth had left her shaken, but when Jack had put his arm around her on the walk home she'd felt so… safe. Was that the right word? Yes. Safe. As if an impenetrable transparent shield had slipped over her.

  Feeling as if her limbs were cast in lead, Kate dropped into a chair. She grabbed the remote and thumbed the POWER button, not caring what was on so long as it broke this unbearable silence.

  Fox News… and someone talking about a mass murder on the subway. Her first thought was of Jack, fear that he might have been caught in the gunfire, then she realized they were talking about something that had happened hours ago.

  She shook her head… big sister still worrying about little brother, when it had been abundantly clear tonight that little brother was quite capable of taking care of himself.

  But what about big sister? She wasn't doing too well.

  Something Jeanette had said tonight sifted back to her.

  We'll talk soon… we'll talk as we've never talked before. I promise.

  It had sounded so sincere… a ray of hope. Why didn't it make her feel better?

  And what else had she said?

  Soon you'll never be alone again.

  What did that mean?

  One day at a time, Kate thought. That's the way I'll have to deal with this… one day at a time.

  10

  The pain wrenched Kate from sleep.

  A sharp stabbing sensation in her hand—and the feeling that she wasn't alone in the room.

  "Jeanette?"

  No answer.

  Terrified, she rolled over and fumbled for the switch on the bedside lamp. Finally she found it and turned it on. She blinked in the sudden glare and scanned the room.

  Empty. But she'd been so sure…

  The bedroom door stood open. From down the hall came a sound… the click of the study door closing. And locking.

  Kate looked at her stinging hand and found a small drop of blood leaking from a puncture wound in her palm.

  WEDNESDAY

  1

  Sandy was up and out at the ungodly hour of 6:0
3 A.M., but the sun was ahead of him, peeking around the granite Gothic spires of St. John the Divine as he bounded along the sidewalk. He skidded to a stop before the newsstand and there it was: The Light. The headline took up the top half of the page:

  SIX-GUN

  SAVIOR!

  A blurry photo of the dead killer occupied the bottom half. His photo! They'd found something usable on his roll.

  And below that, the banner: EXCLUSIVE EYEWITNESS REPORT INSIDE! (see pg. 3)

  "Yes!" he shouted and pumped his fist.

  He snatched up an issue and opened it to page three and there he was: his first-person account boxed with his picture. Oh, no! They'd used the geeky photo from his HR file! But he forgot about that as soon as he started reading.

  Butterflies fluttered up from his stomach and into his chest. This was his first Ferris wheel ride, his first look at the Magic Kingdom, his first kiss all rolled into one. He felt as if his head were about to float away.

  "That is one dahlah," said an accented voice.

  "Hmmm?"

  Sandy looked up and saw the swarthy newsstand owner holding out his hand.

  "You must buy to read. One dahlah."

  "Oh, yeah." He fished singles out of his pocket. "I'll take four."

  He'd have access to virtually unlimited free copies at work but that wasn't the same. The ones in his hand came from a newsstand, from the street, and somehow that made them more real.

  "Oh yeah, and I'll take a copy of that subway map too."

  He checked out the front pages of the competition. The Post headline was okay—"SUBWAY SLAUGHTER!"—but he liked the News headline better: "NIGHTMARE ON THE NINE!" As expected, the Times was more sedate with "SIX DEAD IN SUBWAY MASSACRE." But both ran photos from above ground, mostly of the survivors as they emerged from the subway station. He looked at The Light again with his photo and its banner about his story. His story. A laugh bubbled up inside and he let it loose. When the newsstand owner gave him a strange look Sandy pulled open one of his copies and pointed to his picture.

  "That's me, my man! Me!"