“I’m sure you are—whatever that means—but why don’t you be good boys and say you’re sorry to the nice lady.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll have to unfriend you on MySpace.”
Short jabbed a finger at him. “My balls in your mouth!”
Jack gripped the pole at the left end of his seat, then cupped a hand around his right ear as he leaned forward.
“Sorry? What did you say?”
An old, old trick. He wondered if the jerk would fall for it.
He did. He bent and leaned toward Jack. Got within two feet.
“You fuckin deaf? I said, my balls—”
Jack’s hand was already raised, its blade edge angled toward Short. All he had to do was snap his arm straight to deliver a sharp chop to the chain-layered throat.
Which he did.
Not a larynx crusher, but hard enough to crack some cartilage and send the kid tumbling backward onto the floor, kicking and gagging as he clutched his throat.
Someone screamed—the pregnant girl. She had a hand over her mouth, her wide eyes bulging.
Jack was already up and pivoting to ram his right heel into the shocked Tall’s knee. He felt it give and bend the wrong way—just a little, but enough to guarantee a payment or two on an orthopedist’s Porsche. Tall screamed as he fell toward the floor, and Jack took that opportunity to land a second kick, this one square into his family jewels. Another turn, another good shot to the presumed location of Short’s berries. The hoarse wails climbed to tenor. Bull’s-eye.
“Now, gentlemen, your balls are in your mouths.”
The pregnant girl’s gaze was shifting between Jack and the writhing not-so toughies.
“W-w-what did you just do?”
“Hurt them.”
And loved every second of it.
How many seconds? Four? Five, tops. That was all it had taken.
Amazing how much better a few seconds could make you feel.
He noticed movement to his right and saw the old man pulling a cell phone from his pocket. He pointed at him.
“And you think you’re doing what with that?”
“Calling nine-one-one.”
“On me?”
“No, of course not. On them.”
“You will put that away. Now.” He looked around at the two passengers at the rear end of the car. “I don’t want to see anyone with a phone. No calls until Elvis has left the building. Got it?”
They nodded. The man at the front end tucked his phone away.
Jack looked back at the pregnant gal. “Got it?”
She nodded.
“By the way,” he said, jerking a thumb at the pair of writhing, groaning losers. “They’re sorry.”
The train began to slow then. When it stopped at the Forest Hills station Jack stepped out and quick-walked toward the exit. When he looked back, the rest of the able-bodied passengers were leaving the car as well.
No one was talking on a phone.
3
The R line terminated in Forest Hills. When Jack trotted up to street level he looked around for Christy Pickering.
That name…he still couldn’t nail down why it struck such a familiar chord…something from way back in his past.
He heard a toot and saw her waving from a big black Mercedes. As he slipped into the passenger seat, she stuck a twenty-ounce bottle of Diet Pepsi into a cup holder and offered her hand.
“Well, Mister Jack, should we drive or just sit here?”
She wore dark blue slacks, a red-and-white-checked blouse, and looked nervous. Her palm was damp when Jack shook her hand.
“Let’s drive.”
He didn’t want to hang around the station. Sooner or later someone would find those two and call an ambulance. Cops would tag along.
“Okay.” She put the car in gear. “Where?”
Jack could have taken her on a tour of all the gardens he helped plant a dozen years ago when he’d worked for a landscaper. Giovanni had been based in Brooklyn but he’d built up quite a following in the patrician enclaves out here. Hot, hard work, but Jack had always enjoyed it. He’d done it as a summer job in college so he didn’t come to Giovanni as a complete newbie. The major benefit was getting paid off the books. The major drawback was finding something else to do in the winter. He’d been the only American in Giovanni’s crew and had learned along the way to swear fluently in Spanish.
“How about past the tennis club, then you can take me to the station on Sixty-third. I’ve got to get back on the train pretty soon and that’ll put me two stops closer to the city.”
And two stops away from this one.
“You into tennis?”
Jack had done some landscaping at the famous West Side Tennis Club, but that wasn’t the reason.
“When I was a kid my dad used to sit me down in front of the TV and we’d watch the US Open when it was played here.” A mantle of melancholy settled over him. “He really loved tennis.”
She pulled into the traffic.
“He’s gone?”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry.”
“So am I.”
All those years spent ducking his calls, and now he’d never call again.
Christy sighed and ran a quick hand through her ash blond hair. “Never knew my father.”
Jack glanced into the back seat and saw a stack of sheet music.
“You’re into musicals?”
“Literally—but strictly community-theater level.”
“And Promises! Promises! is the latest?”
She smiled and nodded. “I landed the part of Jill.”
“Ever dream of Broadway?”
“When I was young.” Her eyes shone. “And who knows? After Dawn’s off in college I might give it a try. But right now I’m delighted to get the lead in this little show. I love the music, but the musicians are having trouble with the shifting time signatures.”
“Especially the title song, I’ll bet.”
She was staring at him. “You know musical theater?”
“Some.”
“More than some. Not many people remember that kind of detail from Promises! Promises!”
Jack shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s much of a detail, but I do know I never liked the late, great Jerry Orbach’s voice.”
She smiled. “Do you mind my asking if you’re gay—not that it matters.”
He laughed. “No. Why?”
“Just wondering.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “Let’s talk about another Jerry. What have you got for me?”
“Let’s wait till we’re at the other station.”
She gave him a strange look but he said nothing. He had a reason: He didn’t think it was a good idea for her foot to be on the gas pedal when she heard what he had to tell her.
They passed the huge Tudor-style tennis club, set on the edge of one of the nicest neighborhoods in all of Queens.
“You live in one of these?” he asked as they cruised Exeter Street.
“I wish. But I’ve got a nice place on the other side of the boulevard in the upper Sixties near Peartree.”
A few minutes later they pulled into a parking spot near the station. She turned off the engine and angled to face him. Her smile looked forced.
“Okay. Shoot. Don’t forget—bad news can be considered good news in this case.”
“Don’t count on that.”
The smiled faded. “Okay. Hit me.”
“I’ll tell you what I know for sure. First off, Gerhard is dead. Murdered.”
She paled. “What? You’re sure?”
He told her what he’d found.
“Oh, my God! Do you think Jerry did it?”
“I don’t know, but even if he did I doubt there’s a shred of evidence to prove it. Not even a body.”
He went on to explain his 911 calls.
“But he might be involved?”
She’d wanted bad news about Bethlehem, but Jack could tell by her expression that she
hadn’t wanted it to be this bad.
“Yeah. Because he’s violent.”
Without mentioning Levy’s name, he told her about witnessing his abduction.
“And this guy’s not pressing charges?”
“He refused.”
“For God’s sake, why?”
“Not sure. He gave some lame excuse about working on a sensitive government project, but there’s got to be more to it than that. He knows Bethlehem…but seems to know him by another name.”
“Jerry’s leading a double life? Poor Dawnie!” Christy slumped against the seat, head back, staring to the roof. “I had a feeling something was off with him, but never in my wildest dreams…I’ve got to get her away from him.”
“Tread carefully here. Again, I can’t be sure, but his MO for dealing with threats might be to eliminate them.”
She looked at Jack, fear alive in her eyes. “You don’t think he’d do anything to me, do you?”
“I don’t think so—at least not as long as he wants to stay on Dawn’s good side—but I’d play it cool for now anyway. Instead of you trying to break them up, let me see if I can arrange for the legal system to do the job for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“During my first twenty-four hours of digging into this clown I found one man murdered and witnessed the abduction of another. I don’t know if Bethlehem did the former, but there’s no doubt about the latter, which I doubt very much was an aberrant event in an otherwise blemish-free life. Jerry Bethlehem—or whoever he really is—probably has a closet crammed with skeletons. I’ll try to sniff out one of them. When I find one, I’ll drop a dime. And then, as he’s cuffed and led away to the hoosegow, you can be on hand to comfort Dawn.”
“I don’t think I can handle knowing she’s with that kind of man…monster.”
“Remember, we don’t know he’s a monster. And so far he’s done nothing to harm her. So just hang in there. Come on too strong with nothing to back you up and you may only push her closer to him.”
Listen to me: Family Counselor Jack.
“But—”
“Give me a chance to take care of this without wrecking your relationship with Dawn.”
She stared at him. “I could bear Dawnie never speaking to me again if I knew she’d never speak to Jerry Bethlehem again either.”
Jack nodded. A mother’s love. Christy didn’t look tough but he sensed a lioness beneath her skin…one whose cub was threatened.
“A couple of days…can you keep mum for a couple of days?”
“It won’t be easy, but yes, I can give you a couple of days.”
Jack hoped she could hold to that.
4
“Tell me about that cute little stick man on the cover of your book,” Jack said.
Hank Thompson smiled. “I wouldn’t exactly call the Kicker Man cute.”
After returning from Queens, Jack had made a quick stop home for a tape recorder, notepad, and pens to help him look reporterish, then headed for Fifth Avenue.
Vector Publications occupied the fourth floor of an office building in the upper Thirties. He’d stepped out of the elevator and found himself in a bare, nondescript hallway painted a sickly green. To his left he spotted a pair of glass doors etched with VECTOR PUBLICATIONS, LLC. On the far side of those he found a book-lined reception area. The guy at the desk had paged Susan Abrams and she’d led him to the author.
“Hank gives a great interview,” she’d gushed. “You’re going to love him.”
Apparently Ms. Abrams—black hair, black dress, and bare arms as pale and thin as dental floss—already did.
She’d ushered him into the conference room and introduced him as John Tyleski of the Trenton Times to a rangy six-footer leaning against an oval mahogany table. With obvious reluctance, Susan left them to get down to business.
Most of Thompson’s responses so far had been virtually word for word the same as Jack had read in the first article. Thompson seemed to have memorized them. When pressed on how the world would be changed, he’d offered only vague platitudes.
The guy had charisma, Jack had to grant him that. An easy smile and a comfortable, confident way about him. In person he looked even more like a mid-thirties Jim Morrison than in his photo, except for the eyes—his were blue.
They sat facing each other across the conference table, the recorder midway between them. Jack had opened with a few typical questions he’d read in dozens of author interviews: Where did he get his ideas, how had the book’s success changed his life, blah-blah-blah.
Then came the time to home in on the Kicker Man. He’d undoubtedly been asked about it before, but Jack hadn’t seen the answer.
“No, Hank”—Thompson had quickly established a first-name relationship—“I don’t suppose he is. Not with four arms. Why four?”
“I don’t know. The figure kept recurring in my dreams. I figured that meant it was important so I began to draw it on all my things. And every time I looked at it I had this strange feeling inside.”
Jack swallowed. Like what he’d felt when he’d first seen it?
Thompson added, “And later I found out I wasn’t alone. A lot of people have told me they feel something when they look at it.” His gaze locked on Jack. “How about you? Get a little chill when you first saw it?”
Jack shook his head. “Afraid not.”
He hoped he was convincing.
“Well, it still does something to me. So much so that I even put it on the cover of my book.”
Time now for a little probing.
“I’ve heard it’s an ancient symbol.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Really? Of what? I’d love to know.”
He seemed sincere on that point.
“I don’t know, but I read somewhere that it appeared in an ancient book.”
Jack noticed a slight lessening of Hank’s easygoing manner, a minor tightening of his tone.
“What ancient book?”
Jack frowned and put on a puzzled expression. “I wish I could remember the title. But I recall something about it having a metal cover. You ever see a book like that, Hank?”
He sensed Thompson stiffen in his chair. “No, I don’t believe I ever have. How about you?”
Jack kept his tone innocently blasé. “I believe I heard that it once belonged to Luther Brady.”
“The Dormentalist guy?”
“Yes. Did you ever meet him?”
“No. And if what he’s accused of is true, I don’t want to.” Thompson’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not one of them, are you?”
“One of whom?”
“A Dormentalist?”
If you only knew…
“No. But if I were…?”
“Check out their Web site. See what lies they’re spreading about me. Scientologists too.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Because lots of their members are leaving to become Kickers. They’re losing dues to my clubs and it’s driving them crazy.”
“Interesting. But back to the book: I think I saw it in a museum once, but I can’t remember which one. I’ll let you know if it comes to me.”
“You do that.”
A definite cooling on the far side of the table.
“Let’s move on to another topic. Tell me about your stay at the Creighton Institute.”
Thompson fixed him with his blue gaze. “Why do you want to know about that?”
“Well, Hank, as I told you, I read your book to prepare for this, but I also read a lot of your other interviews as well.”
He smiled but it had lost some of its previous warmth. “Doing your homework. I like that.”
“Well, I wanted my piece to be a little different. You’ve earned yourself a lot of column inches lately and I’m looking to cover some new ground, if possible. So…about Creighton…”
“If you want to cover new ground, that’s fine with me. But why the Creighton Institute?”
“Well, it struck me as odd that af
ter your conviction—and I must say, I was impressed with your candor—the federal government shipped you from Georgia all the way across the country to New York. I don’t know a lot about the federal penal system, but I doubt that happens very often.” Jack put on a smile. “I mean, ITSV hardly makes you public enemy number one. You must have wondered at that yourself.”
“I sure did.”
“Did you ever find out why?”
“Nope.”
“Not even from the Creighton people?”
“Not a hint. Can we move on?”
Jack was far from finished. “Did you know that the Creighton Institute is listed as an incarceration facility for the criminally insane?”
A semi-strangled laugh, then, “I’m a little crazy, but I’m not that crazy. Seriously, though, they had two separate populations: the violent types in the lockdown wing, and the nonviolent sort in the medium-security area.”
Violent types…lockdown wing…could Jerry Bethlehem have been one of Levy’s patients at Creighton? Could they be connected?
“Did you make any friends there?”
“I suppose.”
“Have you kept in contact with any of them?”
“One of the conditions of parole is that you avoid contact with any other criminals—and anyone I knew inside was a criminal.”
“How about the staff?”
“Look,” he said, his annoyance clear, “when I got out they shipped me back to Georgia.”
“But now you’ve returned to New York. Do you like it here?”
He relaxed a smidge. “Yeah. A lot. I’m thinking of setting up the Kicker HQ here. The city’s already got the biggest number of Kicker clubs in the country. Seems like a logical choice.”
“Indeed it does. Does that mean we can expect to see a lot more Kicker graffiti around town?”
He frowned. “That’s not approved nor encouraged, but it is an indicator of the level of enthusiasm for the evolution.”
“You keep calling it ‘evolution.’ Why is that?”
“It’s like when an ugly caterpillar makes a cocoon and then comes out as a big, kick-ass butterfly—it’s kicked off its lower form and evolved into a higher one.”
Jack wondered whether this would be a good time to tell him that he wasn’t describing evolution at all.
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