Jack hated this, but didn't see a way out. "Okay. But when Ernie delivers, you go."
He grinned. "Deal! Oh, one more thing. Promise me you won't mention my troubles to Gia, okay? I'd rather she didn't know."
"She already knows you've got legal problems."
Tom's face fell. "Oh hell."
"I didn't go into detail—she didn't want me to—but if she asks, I'll tell her what she wants to know. No holding back."
Jack's holding back the truth had once nearly destroyed their relationship just as it was beginning.
"Fair enough, I guess. I hope she doesn't ask. And by the way, thanks for volunteering to sit for Vicky tonight. I think Gia's going to have a really good time."
"And you? You're doing this out of the goodness of your heart, I suppose."
Tom laughed. "You ought to know me better than that by now. Just as I'm sure you know I'm crazy about your woman."
"Hardly a great intuitive leap. But I don't think of her as my woman. I don't think Gia is anybody's woman. She's just Gia."
"Well, she is carrying your child. Which leads to a question that's been bugging me." Tom waved his hands before him. "Now, it's not my intention to offend, but I've got to ask: What the hell does a bright, beautiful woman like Gia see in you?"
Jack had to smile. "Damned if I know."
He'd come to realize that it's often better not to probe too deeply into these things, but he'd decided that they were good together because of the way they complemented each other. Yin and yang.
Gia was strictly above ground, the product of a Catholic family in the Midwest, a believer in motherhood and apple pie. Jack lived underground, in a separate world, a mirror image of Gia's.
But somehow they'd found each other, somehow they'd bonded. And soon their child would be born.
The turmoil that prospect was causing in Jack's life had been swallowed up by his father's death. But it hadn't gone away. It remained a ticking bomb, with a timer set for March—three months away!
In order to be the child's legal father, to claim her should anything happen to Gia, Jack had to establish an above-ground identity, one that would sidestep the questions of where he'd been for the past fifteen years and why he hadn't paid a cent of taxes during all that time.
Ernie could help a guy live below the radar, but what Jack needed was out of his league.
So Abe was working on it, but progress was slow. The Holgate glacier moved at a brisker pace.
Half a year ago Jack had foreseen none of this. Hell, a year and a half ago he'd seen no hope that he and Gia would ever be together.
They'd been on the outs then—way out. Jack realized with a start that he and Gia most likely would still be on the outs if a mad Hindu named Kusum hadn't come to town to keep a century-and-a-half-old vow of vengeance. He'd brought them back together and they hadn't been apart since.
Tom said, "All right then, answer me this: Why aren't you two living together?"
"None of your beeswax."
Tom jabbed a finger at him. "No, No, Nanette, right?"
Jack didn't know what to say. He'd never seen No, No, Nanette. And didn't plan to.
"I'll have to take your word for it."
Time to call Ernie. Tell him he needed a rush job on Tom's new identity.
5
"Keep to the left there, Vicks. See that doorway? Head for it."
Jack hovered over Vicky's shoulder as she navigated the future noir world of DNA Wars. The PlayStation version had come out about six months ago. At nine she was still a bit young and inexperienced to make it through the video game on her own. Jack had fought through to the end where he'd unlocked all the secret codes, including the special gene splices. So he'd entered them for Vicky, allowing her to play in "god mode"—immortal, omnipotent, with the game's entire array of mDNA templates and weapons at her command.
He slid to the side so he could see her face, watch the images from the big TV screen reflecting in her eyes, revel in her look of fascinated concentration. She was completely into it.
Since Jack's apartment and Lincoln Center were both on the Upper West Side, and since Jack had the big TV and all the cool video games, Gia had decided it would be easier to drop Vicky here. Her Christmas break had begun, so no school tomorrow.
The black dress Gia had worn was snug around the waist, but she looked dazzling anyway. And who'd notice her swelling belly next to Tom? His dwarfed hers. The rented tux made him look like Opus the penguin on his way to an Overeaters Anonymous banquet.
So Jack and Vicky had parked themselves on the edge of the bed in the TV room—Tom's bedroom now but not for much longer. The sixty-inch screen stretched the game's pixels, but made the gameplay intensely immersive.
Before Vicky's arrival Jack had hidden the Lilitongue and its chest in the hall closet. Couldn't say why, simply didn't want Vicky in the same room with it.
Keeping her eyes glued on the screen, Vicky said, "How come Mom's going out with Tom instead of you?"
"Because I don't like opera and your mother and Tom do. This way your mother gets to see something she likes and I get not to see something I don't like."
"I think he likes Mom."
Jack had to smile. Amazing what kids pick up on.
"I believe he does."
… demonstrating uncharacteristic good taste.
"Then why did you let her go with him?"
"I didn't 'let' her. Your mother makes her own decisions. I trust her to make good ones, just as she trusts me. What's the point of a relationship if one person can't let the other person out of sight?"
She glanced at Jack. "What if he kisses her?" He won't.
Not if he knows what's good for him.
"But what if he does?"
"Then we'll have to count Mom's teeth."
"Huh?"
Jack pointed to the screen. "You stuck?"
She nodded, back in the game. "I can't fit through this door."
Jack recognized Vicky's predicament—he'd been here before.
"Switch to a smaller template."
She hit the pause button instead.
"I gotta go sprinkle."
Jack took the controller. "I'll hold the fort."
"Don't play while I'm gone."
"I'll try… not to…" Jack said in a strained voice. His hand trembled over the toggles, moving closer, then pulling away. "Won't… be… easy… better hurry…"
Vicky ran from the room.
Jack smiled. God, he loved that kid.
And soon he'd have his own.
Now there was a frightening thought. A tiny baby, fragile, helpless, totally dependent. He shuddered. Facing a raging, three-hundred-pound, knife-wielding drunk would be less intimidating.
6
-83:00
A cry from Vicky shattered Jack's reverie.
"Jack!Jack!"
The fear in her voice had him on his feet and almost to the door when she rushed in.
"What's wrong?"
"That thing!" she wailed.
He gripped her upper arms. She was trembling.
"What thing?"
"Tom's sea treasure… I touched it!"
Oh, shit.
"You went into the closet?"
"I… I wondered where it was and I peeked in and saw the box in there and I wanted to see it again so I opened it and touched it—I only put my finger in its belly button—and—"
Fear quick-crawled on clawed feet through Jack's chest.
"You touched it?"
He wanted to be angry, but at whom? Vicky or himself?
She nodded. "But only once."
"Did it hurt you?"
A quick shake of her head. "No, but it moved!"
"Moved? How—?"
"Come see!"
She pulled him toward the hall but slid behind him as they left the TV room.
"See it? See it?"
Jack's heart began to pound. Yeah, he saw it. But what the hell—?
7
-81:28
/>
"I'm so glad we could do this," Gia said, patting the back of Tom's hand.
They sat in the rear of a cab heading uptown toward Jack's place. Tom reached across and clasped her hand between both of his.
"It was wonderful, wasn't it. And you weren't exaggerating about Noelle's voice. Magnificent. But not as magnificent as the woman I shared the evening with."
Gia slipped her hand free and laughed.
"Mah, mah, Mister Tom," she said in a Southern-belle accent, "Ah declare, how you do go on."
Tom had to smile. She was good… maintained a distance between them without bruising his feelings.
Why was he so damn crazy about this woman? What was it about her that made him want to be her slave? Or babble like a fool?
Christ, when he'd been sipping champagne at the intermission he'd launched into a discourse on how it's usually a mixture of chardonnay, pinot noir, and pinot meunier, and how blanc de blanc was all chardonnay—blah-blah-blah until Gia's eyes had started to glaze over. And with good reason: He'd sounded like a pedantic twit.
And the last thing he wanted to do was bore her. He felt as if his past no longer existed, as if all his life he'd been marking time until he'd met her.
Marking time… thoughts of his present predicament brought him down from his high. If only he'd marked time instead of wheeling and dealing and lining his pockets, he'd be free and clear today. His ass would belong to him instead of a swarm of cops.
At least Gia didn't know the depth of his troubles, and as long as that remained the case, he could pretend to be the kind of man she could admire.
He well knew that, on the surface, that didn't make sense. She was carrying the baby of a man she loved—and he could tell how much by the way she looked at Jack—even though he was a career criminal. So why should Tom think she'd be repulsed if she knew the truth about him?
Jack had nailed it on the boat: Yeah, Jack was a criminal, but he wasn't a crook. Not mere semantics there. A whole world of difference.
On another day he might have told himself that he could offer Gia the gravitas Jack lacked. But he'd finally stopped doing the Nixon thing. He was a crook. Not the Great String-puller, not the Master of the System, a crook, and a tawdry one at that: A guy with a FOR HIRE sign on his soul.
At first he'd regretted his transgressions only because he'd got caught. Now he wished he'd played it straight all along, so he could play straight with Gia, talk to her about his record as a judge and point to it with pride.
But Gia… what would this woman who had a numinous core of probity and was so naturally and effortlessly good and straight that it seeped through her skin and suffused the air around her… what would she think of a man with his past?
Tom knew. And he couldn't bear the thought of her looking at him like a slug.
He thought of a line from As Good as It Gets: "You make me want to be a better man."
Yeah. He could say that to her and mean every word. But it was too late. Way too late. Now all he could do was look at her and think how she made him wish he'd been a better man.
Still, he couldn't understand what she saw in Jack.
He said, "You know I never got to ask how you and Jack met."
In truth he'd asked Jack but had been blown off with "at a party."
"Strangely enough, through the UN."
"The UN? Jack?" Talk about strange bedfellows.
"Yes, he was involved with the UK mission for a while."
"No kidding? Doing what?"
"I really can't say."
Tom could tell she meant won't say, but didn't press.
The UK mission to the UN… what could they have possibly wanted from Jack?
Little brother was just chock-full of secrets and surprises.
"I hope I'm not speaking out of turn, but you and Jack… you don't seem to go together."
She laughed: music.
"You probably are out of turn, but you're pretty much on the money." She glanced at him. "Did you and Jack talk much on your trip?"
He nodded. "I'd pretty much figured out how he lives and how he makes his living, and he pretty much confirmed it."
"'Pretty much'?"
"Well, I'm only starting to get to know my brother again, but it's not easy. He's not exactly forthcoming about himself."
Another soft laugh. "That's my Jack."
My Jack… Tom loathed the sound of that.
"So, given what I know, that's why I said—"
"That we don't seem to go together? On the surface we don't. I'm a vegetarian, he's an omnivore. I love the arts, he merely tolerates them. I'm a square and he's never the same shape twice. I'm a Mondrian, he's a Picasso. I'm an uptight, middle-class, law-abiding woman and he's… well, he's Jack. Yet despite the surface differences and divergent tastes, we agree on the big things—the things that matter. We agree on what's right and wrong, on being truthful, on value given for value received, on what's straight and what's crooked. We both believe in doing the right thing, even though we sometimes disagree on how to do it. I tend to try to tease out life's tangles. Jack tends toward Alexander's solution to the Gordian knot." Another soft laugh. "Two years ago if you'd told me I'd be partnered with this man and having his baby, I'd have laughed in your face."
"Why?"
"Because… I didn't know what I was looking for back then, but I was sure it wasn't him. I didn't see it at first, but Jack is a rock." She smiled. "The world flows past, but Jack doesn't move. Doesn't matter what's fashionable, what's in, what's out, what's politically correct, what's become legal, what's become illegal, Jack doesn't budge. I failed to appreciate that at first. I misunderstood him, got him all wrong, and ran from him. Said terrible, hurtful things to him. But when Vicky and I needed him, there he was, right where I'd left him. He was there for me then and he's been there for me ever since. I can always depend on Jack to do the right thing."
The right thing… when had Tom worried last about doing the right thing? He couldn't remember the last time the concept had made the faintest blip on his radar.
He forced a sigh. "The world's the way it is because not enough people do the right thing, wouldn't you say?"
"Hard to argue with that."
"But maybe some people have never had the right reason to do the right thing."
Gia glanced at him. "I've always figured the reason for doing the right thing is because it's the right thing."
"Do you think maybe someone who hasn't been doing the right thing could change for the right person?"
"I suppose, but then wouldn't he be doing the right thing for the wrong reason."
"I don't get you."
"Well, the way I see it, you don't do the right thing for anyone else, you do it for yourself. Because doing anything less diminishes you."
Tom fell silent. Her words were like stab wounds. If Gia was right, if doing the wrong thing diminished you, what was left of him?
A puff of smoke in the wind… if that.
8
-81:25
Tom led the way up the stairs to Jack's apartment! When he reached the door and raised his hand to knock, it flew open and Vicky blew past him to leap into her mother's arms.
"Mommy! Mommy!" She sounded terrified.
"What is it?"
"Jack's mad at me!"
"What? Why?"
"I touched the treasure and it moved and now he's making me stand by the door and I heard you coming and—"
Suddenly Jack filled the doorway. His face was flushed, his teeth bared. He jabbed his finger to within an inch of Tom's nose.
"Damn you!"
Gia said, "Jack? What on earth is—?"
His features softened as he turned toward her. "You and Vicky stay out here." Then hardened again as he swung back on Tom and grabbed the front of his shirt. "But you…"
"Wha—?"
Jack yanked him into the apartment and pointed across the front room.
"That should be your goddamn problem, but now it's mine too!"
<
br /> Tom looked but couldn't fathom what he was talking about. Had he flipped his—?
Then he saw it. The Lilitongue, five feet off the floor, floating in the air before the open closet door.
Tom took a step toward it.
"Jesus God! Is that… I mean, what's holding it up?"
"Not a goddamn thing, Tom."
"But that's imposs—"
Jack grabbed his shoulder and shook him. "Obviously not! What the hell did you bring into my home?"
Tom heard Vicky's voice coming from behind.
"Isn't it neat, Mom? It's floating all by itself."
He turned and saw Vicky stepping in from the hallway.
Jack said, "Vicky, please! No closer! Gia, keep her back. I don't want either of you anywhere near this thing. I've kept Vicky back by the door since after it activated."
Vicky said, "But it's only—"
Gia had a hand over her mouth and her gaze locked on the Lilitongue. Tom would have expected wonder in those eyes, tinged maybe with some uneasiness, but instead he saw fear. Why? Granted, they were in the presence of a unique phenomenon, but there was nothing threatening about it. Why did she look so frightened as she pulled Vicky back?
"Jack's right, honey. We don't know what it is. And when something's doing what it shouldn't be able to do, something you can't explain, it's better to keep your distance until you know it won't… until you know it's safe." She hugged the child against her. "And anyway, it's late. Past your bedtime."
"But Ma-om," she whined. "There's no school tomorrow."
"Say good-bye."
Vicky made a barely audible response, then turned to go.
Gia said to Jack, "Call me later." Then to Tom, "Thank you for the opera."
He would have loved to see a smile as she said that, but her expression was tight, almost fearful.
"My pleasure, Gia. I'm sorry the evening had to end like this."
"So am I." She glanced at the Lilitongue and then back to Tom. "I hope you haven't brought more trouble into our lives."
Tom had no reply for that. He could only nod and wonder what she meant by "more" trouble. What could she be talking about?
When the door had closed behind her, Tom turned and stared at the Lilitongue. The sight of it floating in midair filled him with wonder, awe, and a strange glee.
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