By the Sword rj-12

by F. Paul Wilson

  What would stiff-and-staid Henry do if she totally came on to him? He looked to be like fifty—like two and a half times her age. But big deal. She'd been living with a pervo twice her age and doing him every night.

  She bit back a surge of acid as her stomach tried to hurl. Don't think about that. You've got that perv's baby inside you and the only way you're going to get rid of it is to get out of this place.

  She could do Henry. If she could do that perv she could do anyone. And it would only be once. She'd let him think it would be a regular thing, but no way.

  How did that phrase go? Quid pro quo? Yeah. She hadn't gotten straight A's at Benedictine Academy without paying attention in Latin class.

  If she did something for him, he'd have to do something for her if he wanted a replay. But no replay. This time if she got out she would be so not coming back.

  Did she dare? She'd feel like such a loser if he turned her down. But she had to risk it. She had this awful feeling that her future depended on it.

  She opened her mouth to speak but no words of seduction would come.

  Hey. Maybe she could seduce him with money. She had a quarter of a million in cash in her room.

  "Henry? What if I paid you for a shopping trip?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "What if I totally paid you ten thousand dollars to take me out for an hour?"

  He looked offended. "You insult me, miss. I am not for sale."

  She was about to double the offer but saw in his steely eyes that it would be a waste of time.

  Okay. Time to bite the bullet, as it were.

  Keeping her chin at water level, she reached behind her and unhooked the top of her bikini. She slipped out of it, releasing the girls, and pushed it under her. Next came the bottom.

  Now… the big moment.

  She rose to her feet and stood thigh deep in the bubbling water, facing Henry. She glanced down at her girls. The wet mounds glistened in the sunlight streaming through the windows. She could see the nipples rising in the chill room air. Maybe she was a little too thick in the waist, a little too wide in the hips, but she had great skin and she was like totally sure that hers was the best bod Henry had seen in a long, long time. She couldn't see her pubes right now but knew they looked sort of funny. Pervo Jerry had made her shave. Well, didn't force her, exactly. All he'd had to do was ask and she'd done it—like she'd done other things he'd asked. The hair was growing back now, looking like a three-day stubble.

  She'd never asked herself why he'd wanted her bare there. Thought it was just some simple kink. Maybe even a hygiene thing, though he'd never shaved himself.

  But knowing what she knew now, it was probably a way to make her look more like a child.

  Her gorge rose again but she forced it back.

  Focus, Dawnie. Focus.

  She looked at Henry and saw that his jaw had totally dropped. The offended look in his eyes had given away to a sort of wonder and awe.

  "Like what you see?"

  Henry continued to stare in silence, his expression frozen.

  She stepped toward him, trying to make her movements languid and sexy, hiding the urgency bubbling inside. If this was going to work, if this was even going to get done, it had to get started soon and end quickly. Before Gilda arrived to make sure Dawn didn't soak beyond her allotted twenty minutes.

  She climbed the two steps up to floor level and stopped before him, dripping.

  And still Henry said nothing. Maybe he'd been dreaming of sex with an eighteen-year-old. Maybe even younger.

  "You got a problem with young stuff, Henry? If not, I'm about to make you a very happy man."

  Ugh. That sounded awful. Still… she'd gotten her message across and he hadn't backed off. Hadn't moved toward her either.

  Okay… looked like it was going to be all up to her.

  She knelt before him and reached for his fly, hoping this wouldn't be too gross.

  She felt a bulge behind the fabric as she tugged on the zipper.

  Henry didn't move to stop her.

  6

  Gerrish had a seat in the clubhouse's reserved section but Jack had a good view of him from his spot. The guy bet on every race. Jack decided to keep his distance. He studied his copy of Post Parade Magazine and made a few mental bets of his own, but lost every single one—even when they were favorites.

  He hoped he had better luck bird-dogging Gerrish home.

  Jack made it a policy to follow Gerrish to the windows. He often collected wads of cash. Either the guy was dating Tyche on the side or really knew his ponies. After the next-to-last race he skipped the windows and headed for the exits.

  Giving him a good lead, Jack followed him to the LIRR Bellerose station. He stayed out of sight until a westbound train pulled in. He waited for Gerrish to board, then hopped on two cars ahead of him. The train was fairly empty, so Jack moved back a car and sat where he could take an occasional peek at his quarry.

  Gerrish got out at the Jamaica stop and walked east. With the sun still bright, Jack had no shadows to hide in, so he hopped out and walked behind a trio of chattering Ecuadorians, using them as a shield until they hit the street.

  He allowed Gerrish a full block lead. The guy was a fast walker. Maybe these treks back and forth were the only exercise he got, so he made the most of them. A dozen quick blocks on Jamaica Avenue, then a left on Merrick past an old and gloriously ornate building called the Tabernacle of Prayer. Looked like a converted movie theater. Finally he stopped outside a six-story building—a beauty parlor and a Duane Reade drugstore on the first floor, and what looked like apartments above.

  He watched Gerrish enter the building. By the time Jack reached the door he was gone. He peeked through the glass and saw rows of mailboxes. Excellent.

  He waited around until an elderly black woman in a matching green jacket and skirt came by, lugging two plastic sacks of groceries. She put them down to take out her key. When she'd unlocked the door, Jack grabbed the handle and held it open for her.

  She gave him a suspicious look. "You live here?"

  He smiled. "Nah. Just waiting on a friend." He pointed to the bags. "Want help with those?"

  "I can handle them."

  "Well, at least let me get the other door."

  He slipped into the foyer and held the inner door for her. She kept an eye on him, as if expecting him to jump her. She watched until the inner door had closed behind her, then headed for the elevator.

  "You're welcome," Jack said.

  He checked out the mailboxes, noted that 4D was labeled GERRISH.

  Perfect.

  He'd return after dark and pay ol' Hughie a visit. Find out if he still had the sword. If sold, he'd find out the name of the buyer. If not, he'd offer to buy it. If Hugh wasn't selling, Jack would take it.

  Either way, like it or not, Hugh Gerrish would wake up tomorrow morning as the former owner of that sword.

  As Jack stepped out onto the street he glanced back and saw the old woman watching him. He smiled and waved.

  7

  "Remember, miss. Only an hour."

  "Sure, Henry."

  Not.

  Doing him had been kind of rough but not totally unbearable. Like maybe if you didn't look up or didn't think about who it was—like make believe it was someone you liked—you could get through. Even get into it maybe. Except Dawn didn't have anyone she really liked in that way—not anymore—so no way she'd been able to get into it.

  But she'd gotten through it. That was what counted.

  He'd never said a word. Just stood there like a statue through the whole thing. The only good thing—if anything good could be said about it—was that it hadn't taken long at all, like he was a guy who hadn't gotten any in a long time. The only sounds he'd made were some grunts at the end. And when he'd squirted all over her, at least it didn't mess up any clothes. After it was over he'd zipped up while she was still on her knees, turned, and left.

  She got a little satisfaction out of seei
ng his legs wobble as he'd walked out, but otherwise she felt crushed. She'd made a whore of herself for nothing.

  So she washed up—crying in the shower—and dressed, and was combing out her wet hair when he'd knocked on her door and said Gilda had left to go shopping. If Dawn wanted to go out, they had a window of two hours, so it had to be now. She'd stuffed her quarter mil in a shoulder bag and headed for the door.

  She was surprised at how calm she was feeling about the whole thing. A little dirty, yeah, but it was over and done with now, and considering who she'd been having sex with before this, Henry was like a hot soapy shower.

  Yeah, Henry… a total prince. No leering remarks, no familiar touching. Acted like it never happened. He was doing such a convincing job, she could almost make herself believe it hadn't.

  Kind of a shame she was going to have to screw him in a totally different way this afternoon.

  She'd had him drive her down to SoHo and cruise lower Broadway. Along the way she'd bargained—reasonably, she thought—to define the "hour" on the town as an hour of shopping, transit time not included. He'd reluctantly agreed. But when she tried to convince him to drop her off at one of the boutiques, he totally wouldn't.

  "For your well-being—and that of my job—I cannot let you out of my sight."

  She gazed out at the shopping bag—carrying throngs crowding the sidewalks and said, "Are they like giving stuff away?"

  "It's the dollar, miss. Very cheap these days, which makes visiting the States and shopping here a real bargain."

  Mixed among the foreigners—they didn't carry signs saying so but their clothing styles screamed Not from here!—were clusters of bridge-and-tunnel folks from the burbs and Jersey.

  She didn't care where they came from, as long as there were lots of them. The more the merrier, and the easier it would be to disappear into their ranks.

  When Henry pulled into a parking lot, she waited behind the tinted glass, adjusting her pak chadar while he took a ticket from the attendant. She put on her sunglasses and stepped from the car. A quick glance at her reflection in the window confirmed that no one, not even her mother, would recognize her in this getup.

  She led Henry through the crowd, noticing the curious looks from the B-and-T types but not the Euros. She guessed they were more used to seeing covered Islamic women. One scruffy type was totally staring at her—or squinting, rather. With a start she recognized him as the guy with the flyers from Monday.

  Her chest tightened. Why the interest? Did he recognize her from outside Blume's? Maybe that was it. No way he could match her to the girl on his flyers.

  She could feel his gaze on her back after she'd passed him.

  She shook it off and focused on the stores. She was looking for a certain type of layout. She stepped into one after another. The first three had their dressing rooms in the rear. But the fourth had situated them mid-store.

  Just what she was looking for.

  Dawn had a plan.

  You can do this, she told herself as she wandered the aisles, examining overpriced T-shirts and ugly, rhinestone-studded belts and designer jeans.

  Some of the sales folk were eyeing her, probably wondering why a fundamentalist chick would be interested in this stuff. Let them wonder.

  She wandered to the rear of the store, hoping Henry would trail her, but he lingered at the front, people watching through the big front windows when he wasn't watching her.

  She had to get him back here. So the next time he glanced her way she waved and signaled him to join her. When he arrived, she pulled a sundress off a rack and held it up before her.

  "What do you think?"

  His face remained expressionless. "Not my size."

  She laughed. "No, silly. For me."

  "It's not very Islamic."

  She smiled at him. "Neither am I. Wait here while I try it on, then I want your opinion."

  He glanced around. "Do you think that's wise? It's very out of character."

  "Don't worry." She tugged on her veil. "I'll keep this on the whole time."

  Before he could say any more she hurried forward to the changing room. As soon as she was inside she ripped off the pak chadar and turned to the squat Hispanic attendant busy arranging items that had been tried on but not purchased.

  "I need your help," she said in a low voice.

  The woman looked up at her. "You don't want that, just leave it here."

  "No. There's a man following me."

  "So? Call the cops."

  "I don't want to cause a scene."

  Totally true. She could have reported Henry to the police at any time, said she'd never seen him before and that he was following her, harassing her. Maybe while they were questioning him, she could slip away. And maybe not. She'd most likely have to identify herself, and then someone would make the connection between her and the girl on the flyers. And even if she could slip away before identifying herself, that kind of activity would draw a crowd, put her at the center of attention, attract stares. All things that were so not what she wanted.

  No, she needed to do this quietly. Slip out onto the street and totally fade away.

  The woman gave her a bewildered look. "What can I do? Call the manager?"

  "No. Look—just take a look. Is there a tall guy in a gray suit hanging around the sundresses?"

  The woman peeked through a slit in the curtains, then nodded. "Is that him?"

  "Yeah. Look, I have an idea. Let me help you carry these back into the store. We'll head toward the front, drop them off, then I'll escape to the street."

  She gave Dawn a suspicious look. "I don't know…" she said slowly.

  Dawn had totally expected this and had come prepared. She pulled a hundred-dollar bill from a side pocket of her shoulder bag and handed it to her.

  "Please? He really creeps me out."

  The woman's eyes bulged when she saw the zeroes. She quickly shoved it into a pocket.

  "Okay. How we do this?"

  Dawn pulled a green linen table napkin she'd snared from the penthouse and knotted it around her head do-rag style. Then she looked around and spotted another sundress, a light blue flowered print, in the pile the woman had been arranging. She grabbed that along with a couple of others and held them high by their hangers—high enough to obscure her head and torso. If she kept the dresses between her and Henry, he'd never see her.

  Or so she hoped.

  Her stomach totally cramped. This so had to work. If she blew it she'd never get another chance.

  Do it.

  "You lead the way," she said.

  The woman nodded, filled her arms with clothing, and darted between the curtains.

  "Ándale!"

  Dawn followed, dresses held high, gliding toward the front in the woman's wake. As she reached the checkout area she tossed the dresses on a counter and kept going—out the door, onto the sidewalk, and into the ambling crowd.

  This was dangerous, she knew, as she wove through the throng. Yeah, she had her hair covered, wore sunglasses, and was holding her hand across her mouth, hiding most of her lower face, but someone still might recognize her. Wouldn't be easy to do, but with the way her luck had been running lately, she couldn't take anything for granted.

  She risked a look back as she turned the first corner she came to. No sign of Henry.

  Relieved, she pressed on. He probably didn't even realize she was gone, and when he finally did, he'd be looking for someone wearing a pak chadar. But he wouldn't find one, or if he did, someone else would be wearing it. And if he asked anyone if they'd seen a woman wearing a veil, whoever they'd seen wouldn't be Dawn.

  The sidewalks here on Spring Street were narrower than Broadway, slowing her progress. She resisted the urge to step off the curb and walk in the street. She wanted to avoid anything that would separate her from the pack.

  She looked around and saw a cab but it was occupied. She didn't want to stand in the street signaling for one. She wanted off the street and sidewalk.

>   She'd been shopping in SoHo tons of times, sometimes with her mother, sometimes with friends. The closest subway stops were each two blocks away, but both too near Broadway. She might run into Henry. She continued along Spring. She knew of another straight ahead on Sixth Avenue.

  Time to get totally lost in New York.

  8

  I must be living right, Darryl thought as he followed the girl through the crowd.

  Or maybe it was because he was dissimilated. Hank had always said good things would start to happen once you dissimilated yourself. Darryl had memorized his words:

  The time has come to separate yourselves from the herd. You don't belong with the herd. Come out of hiding. Step away from the crowd. Let the dissimilation begin!

  Darryl had done just that. One of the guys on the line with him at the Ford plant in Dearborn had handed him a copy of Kick during a break and told him to read it. Said it had changed his life and would do the same for Darryl. Well, he'd never been much of a reader, but one look at that spidery black figure on the yellow cover and he'd had to know what was inside.

  He'd read it. Then he'd read it again. And again. And when he checked Hank Thompson's Web site and learned that he was speaking in New York City, he'd headed east.

  And after he'd heard him in person, he never went back. What for? Back to his dead-end job? Back to an ex-wife who hated him, and a kid who barely knew who he was? Fat chance, baby.

  So he'd declared himself dissimilated and stuck around, earning room and board playing gopher for Hank, and grooving to the whole Kicker Evolution thing. For the first time in his life he felt like he belonged. His brother and sister Kickers were like the family he'd never had.

  He had no idea why Hank wanted Dawn Pickering found, but that didn't matter. She was going to make Darryl a star among Kickers. The five-grand reward in his pocket wouldn't hurt neither.

  He couldn't believe his luck. He'd got up this morning, scrounged some breakfast, and got out and wandered. That had been his pattern since Hank had put up that reward for finding her. Some days he'd go uptown, some days down, subwaying as far up as the Bronx and all the way down to the Battery, and everywhere between. But ever since Monday, after seeing that chick with the Arab thing around her head outside Blume's, he'd been sticking to the shopping areas. Hank had thought she was the girl he was looking for, and that was good enough for Darryl. He had Dawn's face branded on his brain, but he was also keeping an eye peeled for anyone wearing a veil.