Conspircaies - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 33

9:00 PM-??? Films: Invasion USA, The Devil's Bride, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers

Jack tried but couldn't sleep. And when dawn came, he returned to the bathroom and found the dark green crate still there.

Impossible.

No, he didn't want to say impossible. Because obviously it was possible. Once you started believing the impossible, the next step was maybe hearing someone speaking to you through your TV.

He pulled the curtains and looked outside. The city was awakening. Garbage trucks rumbling and clanking, people walking their dogs before heading for work…

Just another day in Hell's Kitchen.

But not just another day in this particular hotel room. That crate wasn't a dream. The part about it floating in mid-air—that had been a dream—but the damn crate was real.

Back to the bathroom.

All right, let's think about this, he told himself, staring at the box. If the crate's real and it didn't come through the door, how did it get here? How did someone sneak it into the room without me hearing anything?

Cautiously he stepped into the bathroom. The crate wasn't steaming anymore, the air against his feet no longer cold. He reached his hand toward its surface but didn't touch it: seemed to be room temperature now. Close up like this, he could make out fine traces of black within its dark green surface.

Avoiding contact, Jack knelt and checked the floor around the crate, inspected under the sink counter, opened all the drawers…no sign of an opening or hidden door.

Baffled, he sat on the edge of the tub and stared at the crate. How had the damn thing got here?

Gingerly, he nudged it with his toe. The wood didn't feel like any wood he'd ever known. The cover moved under light pressure from his toe and he jerked his foot back.

It wasn't sealed.

Giving the crate wide clearance, Jack retrieved the desk chair from the next room. He felt like a jerk, leaning around the edge of the bathroom doorway and poking at the crate with the chair leg, but he freely admitted that this thing had him spooked and he wasn't taking any chances.

Finally the lid slid off. No explosion, no snakes or giant spiders came crawling out. The overhead lights gleamed off…metal bars.

He stepped in for a closer look. The crate held a jumble of miniature girders. Looked like an oversized erector set, with nuts and bolts and braces, but no plans.

Was he supposed to know what this was? Hell, was it even meant for him?

And then he saw part of the underside of the lid. Looked like a diagram. He flipped it the rest of the way over. Yeah. Plans that looked like an old blueprint for assembling whatever it was, not printed on the material, more like engraved in white into its dark green surface. Some sort of an oil rig, or something that resembled one. But the plans looked incomplete. The top of the structure appeared to be cut off at the upper end of the lid, as if they'd run out of room.

Didn't matter. He wasn't about to start assembling it. He had better things to do. He searched the crate inside and out for an address. He'd take an invoice, or a 'To" or a "From"—he wasn't picky—but found nothing.

He replaced the lid—weird texture to that material—and slid the crate under the sink counter.

Is somebody gaslighting me? he wondered.

After all, he was surrounded by loons.

Probably best to sit on it—figuratively—for now and see if anyone asked about it, or came looking for it.

He wasn't too crazy about showering with that crate in the bathroom, but he managed it—warily. He stood under the hot geyser and wondered what he'd got himself into here, that nightmare with the rakoshi and that voracious hole gobbling up the city…how could a dream leave him so unsettled? Maybe because he couldn't shake the feeling that it was more than a dream…that it was some sort of premonition. But of what?

And then the crate…

He pulled back the curtain to see if it was still there. Yeah, right where he'd left it under the counter. A woman disappears, a strange box appears. Any connection? And if so, how?

The hot water relaxed his tight muscles, but did little to ease his mind.

Feeling as if the walls were closing in, he quickly dried off, threw on a flannel shirt and jeans, and called Lew.

Jack met Lew outside the coffee shop where they found James Zaleski waiting with a guy in a cowboy shirt and boots he introduced as Tony Carmack. Tony had a more-than-generous nose and wore his hair in a long-banged Caesar cut. He looked like the old Sonny Bono from the '60s, but when he opened his mouth he was pure Dallas-Fort Worth. Zaleski had shed his suit for a long-sleeved red shirt and a dark blue down vest.

The receptionist led them to a rear booth. Jack got stuck on the inside, which he never liked, but decided not to make an issue of it. Lew was next to him on the end. Carmack had the other end; Zaleski was directly across from Jack.

The young, dark-haired waitress with an Eastern European accent left them with menus and a carafe of coffee. Jack jumped on it. Caffeine…he needed caffeine.

So did Zaleski and Carmack, apparently.

"What a fucking night," Zaleski said, brushing his hair off his forehead. "Worst dream of my life."

"You too?" Carmack said. "I dreamed I was in a cornfield being crushed by a landing UFO."

What is this place? Jack wondered. Nightmare city? He didn't mention his own.

"Are you a ufologist too?" he asked Carmack. He couldn't resist using the term.

The Texan shrugged. "Of sorts. Actually I'm what they call a 'cereologist.'"

"An expert on crop circles," Lew offered.

"Crop circles?" Jack said as he added sugar.

"Yep. Never thought too much of this UFO stuff," Tony said. "Then one day I woke up and found the corn in one of the back fields of my farm crushed flat in three big ol' circles—concentric circles, all of 'em perfect. That made me a believer. I just—"

"Yeah, yeah," Zaleski said, jumping in and waving Carmack off. "You and Shelby can trade sheep-humping farm stories later." He stared at Jack through his thick horn rims. "The reason I wanted to talk to you was to find out if Melanie mentioned anything else when she called you."

Carmack grimaced and sighed. Looked like he was used to being cut off by Zaleski.

"Like what?" Jack said as innocently as he could.

"Like about what else she might be working on."

Jack shook his head. "She just asked me to come out to her place to discuss my 'experience.' I was pretty shocked, seeing as I hadn't mentioned it to a soul, and I asked her how she knew. She said, 'I just do.' And that was pretty much it."

This didn't seem to be at all to Zaleski's liking. "Come on, Shelby—"

"Jack."

"Okay, Jack. There had to be more to it than that. Hell, she talked everybody's fucking ears off"—a glance at Lew—"no offense, man." Lew shrugged and Zaleski went right back to Jack. "You're sure she didn't say anything else?"

"That's what I told you, isn't it?" Jack said. This guy had the personality of a piranha. "I can make something up if you like…"

As Zaleski frowned, Jack noticed Carmack grinning and giving him a secret thumbs up.

What's the score between these two? he wondered.

Jack added, "I'd really like to find her so I can ask her how she knew."

"Just what did happen to you?" Carmack said.

Jack told his story.

"Typical alien abduction," Zaleski said when he was through.

"I wasn't abducted."

"Hell you weren't. That's what happened during those missing hours. The Jersey pine barrens are notorious for big-time alien activity. You notice any pain up your ass afterwards?"

"Any what?"

"Let me rephrase," he said with faux delicacy. "Rectal pain. The grays like to use anal probes on their abductees." He made a twisting motion with his hand. "Right up the old wazoo."

"Not to me, they didn't," Jack said, squirming at the thought. "And who are the grays?"

Zaleski rolled his eyes. "The gray aliens, man—you know, with the oval-shaped heads and the black almond-shaped eyes, like you see on T-shirts and bumper stickers? They're known as grays."

"Oh, like in Close Encounters." .

Zaleski's expression at the mention of the film would have been right at home on someone who'd just bitten into a wormy apple.

"I think I'd remember them," Jack said.

"Not if they wiped your memory, dude. And if you start to remember anything, keep mum, otherwise the Men in Black will come calling."

Jack smiled. "Yeah? You mean like Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith?"

Zaleski's face darkened. "Trust me, you won't be visited by some wisecracking clowns like in the movie. That travesty was produced for the sole purpose of making the real Men in Black look benign, to hide the fact that they're ruthless agents of MJ-12."

"What's MJ-12?" Jack remembered hearing mention of that at the reception last night.

Zaleski stared at him. "Christ, you really are a virgin, aren't you."

"Easy, Jim," Carmack said, leaning forward. "Not everyone knows what we know."

"I just can't believe how ignorant people are."

As Jack was debating whether to laugh or break Zaleski's nose, the waitress reappeared.

She took their orders, and hurried off. Jack poured himself more coffee and glanced at Lew where he sat on the end of the booth cushion. He was staring off into space, his gaze fixed somewhere out near the grays' home planet maybe. He had to have heard all this a zillion times before. Probably bored out of his skull. Or maybe just missing Melanie.

"Okay," Carmack said. "Here's how it is: I've got to assume you've heard about the Roswell crash and Area 51 and all that."

"Sure," Jack said. He'd figured how he could get Zaleski's goat. "I learned all about that in Independence Day. Saw it twice."

Zaleski slapped a hand over his face. "Oh, Christ!"

"Cool it, Jim," Carmack said. To Jack: "Then you know that a saucer crashed and members of an alien race were found in the wreckage. But the real skinny is that we've been in Ongoing contact with that alien race since Truman was president. All the rapid technological advancements since the fifties didn't come from the billions of dollars spent on the arms and space race: it was donated. By the gray aliens."

"How generous of them," Jack said.

"It doesn't come without a price," Zaleski said, "but nobody's reading the small print."

"Just let me finish," Carmack said, showing a little annoyance. "We're going to need all that help—all the help we can get. When the grays arrived in their saucers in the 1940s, they warned us of a flesh-eating reptilian race called the Reptoids that's been roaming the galaxy in a spacecraft that looks like an asteroid. When they find us—not if, when—they'll turn Earth into a giant cattle ranch, and we'll be the cattle."

Zaleski was shaking his head in disagreement. He said nothing but looked as if he were about to explode.

"The grays made us a deal," Carmack continued. "They'd supply us with some of their advanced technology in return for allowing them to experiment on animals and abduct people now and again."

"They abduct animals too?"

"You've heard about cattle mutilations, right?"

"Sure, but—"

Carmack nodded sagely. "The grays."

"But why?"

"They're an ancient race, and apparently they need to borrow some human DNA—just a little—to rejuvenate their own damaged genes. That's where MJ-12 comes in. Back in 1952 an ultra-secret government within the U.S. government called Majestic-12 was set up to deal with the aliens. MJ-12 has been keeping all evidence of the aliens under wraps. Thus the ongoing cover-up of the Roswell crash."

They paused as the waitress delivered their platters. Eggs for Zaleski and Lew, waffles for Carmack, a stack of buttermilk pancakes for Jack.

"I'd think contact with another race would be the biggest, greatest story of all time," Jack said as he drowned his cakes in syrup.

"It would be…except for the part about the approaching Reptoids. Think of the panic that would cause. And then if news of government-sanctioned alien abductions ever got out…we'd have riots in the streets."

Jack shook his head in disbelief. "You mean this has been going on for over half a century and nobody's blown the whistle?"

Zaleski jumped in. "Very few people know—even presidents are kept in the dark. JFK found out, however, and he was going to go public with what he knew. That's why he was offed. Unfortunately he told his brother, who then told Marilyn Monroe while he was boffing her, so the two of them had to go as well."

"But you guys know," Jack said. Or at least think you know. "How come you're still walking around?"

"Because we're nobodies," Carmack said. "And nobody's listening to us…at least nobody that really matters."

Zaleski pounded his fist on the table. "The Freedom of fucking Information Act revealed that every government agency—from the NS A to the Department of Education—has files on UFOs. Thousands of pages on something that officially doesn't exist. But people still don't believe." His voice rose as he pounded his fist again. "When are they going to wise up? We're a country of Pollyannas! DickheadNation!"

People at surrounding tables were craning their necks to see what was going on. He overheard someone mutter, "Uh-oh, Jimmy Z's at it again."

"Easy, Jim," Carmack said. "You don't want to have one of your hissy fits."

"The hell I don't." He turned to Jack. "Tony's only telling you part of the story. He—"

"Shoot," Carmack said. "You ain't gonna lay that Grand Deception cowflop on him are you?"

"Damn right. You had your turn, now I'll have mine. Okay?"

Carmack leaned back with a disgusted expression and nibbled a piece of toast.

"In my opinion, and I'm not alone in this," Zaleski said, "there are no Reptoids coming to Earth. That's all a big lie cooked up by the grays to gain our confidence and pursue their real agenda: crossbreeding with us and taking over the Earth."

"Now hold on a sec," Jack said. "I'm no biologist, but I've never heard of a goat crossbreeding with a cow, and I know cats don't crossbreed with dogs, so how can aliens from light years away crossbreed with us?"

"I don't pretend to know how, but they're doing it. You wouldn't believe some of the aborted fetuses I've seen: big heads, grayish skin, big black eyes. It's happening. Maybe it's advanced science, maybe there's a common human-gray ancestor somewhere. Maybe that's what Melanie's Grand Unification was about. Maybe her Grand Unification Theory will prove my Grand Deception Theory."

Lew seemed to perk up at the mention of Melanie's name, but then lapsed into Neverland again. His barely touched eggs were congealing on his plate.

"But the grays have got something else up their sleeves," Zaleski said. "They're inserting tiny probes into the brains of abductees for—"

Carmack threw down his fork with a clatter. "Hog-wash!"

"No, Tony," Zaleski said with forced patience. "It's fucking true. You just won't see it. You think they're these goody-goody Munchkin allies. Sorry, bro, they're not. They've been controlling MJ-12 since 1984 and the rate of abductions has skyrocketed. And they've started implanting probes to monitor and program abductees after they're released."

"They're not, dammit. They're on our side!"

Zaleski put a finger up his nose and leaned toward Carmack. "Probes, Tony." He wiggled the finger. "Right up the nose and into the fucking brain."

"That's it," Carmack said, rising. He pulled ten bucks from a pocket and tossed it onto the table. "I'm outta here." He pointed to Jack. "And you'll leave too, if you're smart."

He turned and stomped toward the exit.

Zaleski called after him: "You just don't want to believe about the probes because your honker's so big you've probably got a couple dozen up there already!"

Carmack never looked back.

Zaleski grinned. Not a nice sight—his already thin upper lip disappeared completely. "I love that fucker."

"I can tell," Jack said.

"No, really. We're good friends, it's just that he strays too far from mainstream ufology."

Now there, Jack thought, is an oxymoron to conjure with.

"But in all seriousness," Zaleski said, tapping his forehead, "you oughta think about getting a skull X ray to see if you've got a fucking alien probe in the ol' noggin."

"You really think so?" Jack said, putting on a concerned expression.

Which should I check for first? he wondered. The 666 chip or the alien brain probe?

"Definitely. The aliens have been using the probes to program abductees about some momentous event that will occur in the next few years."

"Like what?"

"Don't know. They've got a secret plan. That's another reason I'm anxious to hear Melanie's Grand Unification Theory. Maybe she'll shed some light on what the grays are up to." He stretched. "In the meantime, I gotta go take a dump. Don't wander off. We ain't finished yet."

He slid out and headed for the men's room.

"Classy guy," Jack said.

Lew didn't answer. His gaze was focused on a toddler who'd wandered over from a neighboring table. Jack watched Lew as he crossed his eyes and made goofy faces; the little girl loved it, grinniag and squealing with delight. They went on and on, Lew never seeming to tire of performing for her.

Finally the mother came over and pulled her away. "Let the man eat in peace," she said.

"No bother," Lew said softly. "No bother at all."

Jack saw a look a desperate longing in his eyes as the child was reinstalled in her highchair.

"You really should have kids, Lew. You're good with them."

Lew shook his head. "Mel never wanted any. She had her reasons…good ones, I suppose."

"Like what?"

"She was terrified they'd be deformed. Still, I wished we'd tried."

Deformed? Jack thought. Was he referring to his short leg? Was that a birth defect?

He was debating whether to press for details when he spotted Evelyn heading their way. The program chairwoman was dressed in yellow today and still a dead ringer for Little Lotta.

"I'm looking for Olive?" she said. "Have either of you seen her?"

Jack and Lew shook their heads.

"I saw her at the reception last night," Lew said.

Evelyn nodded. "So did I? But she didn't show up for her panel? The one she was supposed to moderate this morning? And she's not in her room?"

Lew frowned. "That's not like her."

Jack checked his pocket program: a panel about angels. From his one encounter with Olive he didn't see how she'd miss something like that…unless something was big-time wrong.

"Well, if you see her?" Evelyn said. "Tell her to get in touch with me right away?"

As she moved off, Zaleski reappeared, and Evelyn stopped him.

"Here comes Mr. Personality again," Jack said. "What's he do for a living—euthanize stray dogs and cats?"

Lew said. "He used to work for one of the Baby Bells, but now he runs a hardware store with his brother…and I understand he's got a contract from a major publisher to write a UFO book."

The waitress brought the check. Lew grabbed it. As he signed it and charged it to his room, Jack watched Zaleski.

The guy was crass, abrasive, dogmatic, obviously frustrated, and seemed to have a short fuse. He'd implied that he expected vindication from Melanie's Grand Unification Theory, but what if he'd learned the theory would counter his "mainstream ufology?" Something like that could threaten not only his reputation and standing in the UFO community, but his book contract as well. He seemed hot-headed and unstable enough to do something rash.

Finally Zaleski finished with Evelyn and returned to the booth.

"Yes sir," he said, slapping his belly as he slid behind the table. "Nothing like a healthy shit to get the day off to a good start." He craned his neck and looked around the restaurant. "You've heard about the missing Olive?"

"Evelyn just told us," Lew said. He rose from the seat. "I think I'll wander around and see if I can find her. See you later," he said to Jack, then walked off.

"Come on outside," Zaleski said. "I need a smoke."

Jack debated the offer. He had a bad feeling about Olive. Had she joined Melanie on the missing persons list? But it was too early yet to call her missing.

He checked his watch—still too early to head over to Gia's too. He hungered to be alone with her, and the clock was limping toward eleven.

"All right," Jack said. "As long as you sit downwind."

Outside they found a concrete planter to the left of the front entrance and settled on its rim. Even in the mid-morning sun, the air still held a chill. Some of the hotel workers lounged around them, taking a tobacco break.

"Here we are," Zaleski said, gesturing to his fellow smokers as he lit up. "The latest persecuted minority."

Jack made the same gesture toward the clouds of smoke wafting through the air, and at the confetti of filtered butts on the surrounding pavement and in the dirt around the flowers in the planter.

"Gosh-a-rootie, I can't imagine why."

Zaleski smiled thinly and sucked greedily on his Camel.

"You think Olive might be with Melanie?" Jack said, watching him carefully.

Zaleski made a sour face. "I doubt it. Melanie couldn't stand that nut."

"Really? That's not the impression I got."

"Yeah?" he said, eyes narrowing. "When did you get this impression?"

Jack had no idea what Zaleski knew, so he figured the best course would be to play this straight.

"Olive stopped by my room yesterday and—"

"Did she make you hold her silver cross?" Zaleski said with a smirk.

Jack nodded. "And she asked me the same thing you did: What else did Melanie say when she contacted me? She gave the impression they were close friends."

"Melanie's not into religion, and if you ain't got religion, you can't be close friends with Olive. I mean, she's got no fucking sense of humor, and a real set of hot buttons. I get such a boost out of pissing her off. You should see her face when I say something like, 'Jesus paid for our sins, so let's get our money's worth.' Goes so purple she looks like Goofy Grape. Or when I tell her the pillars of cloud and fire that led the Israelites through the desert weren't from God, that they were UFO-generated instead—which they very likely were—she almost goes postal on me." He laughed. "But what can you expect from someone who blames Satan for everything that goes wrong in the world?"

When you really should be blaming the gray aliens, right? Jack thought.

"It's like her brain's gone five hundred years back in time," Zaleski said, shaking his head. "You should hear her go on about computers—666 chips and other eschatological bullshit. Thinks they're tools of the Devil."

He grimaced as a guy in an "Area 51" cap and a blue jumpsuit studded with UFO badges strolled by. The front was open to reveal his T-shirt. It read: Abduct me now! I wanna go home!

"Asshole," Zaleski said under his breath. "Why the fuck did Roma invite jerks like him into SESOUP?

Can't figure it. They make me crazy. Trend-humping dilettantes. UFO fans—fans, can you believe it? This is serious shit and they make a fucking hobby out of it." He growled. "Guess I can't blame them. They've got the government, Madison Avenue, and Hollywood messing with their heads."

"Hollywood?"

"Christ, yes. Those bastards were bought off a long time ago. Spielberg's the worst. I wonder what MJ-12 paid him to do Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET. Those two films started the whole aliens-are-cute, aliens-are-our-friends bullshit. Men in Black was another, probably the most blatant example, and unquestionably financed by MJ-12 to make the MIBs look ridiculous. But that's their tactic: Take a fucking serious problem and defang it by making a joke out of it." He ground out his cigarette. "And where Hollywood leaves off, Madison Avenue takes up."

"The advertising industry's in on it too, huh?"

"From Day One. Just watch the fucking tube for an hour and you'll see flying saucers delivering Maytags or families of gray aliens driving around in Buicks. None of that's accidental. They've trivialized the grays. When the aliens finally reveal themselves, they'll be welcomed with open arms and given the keys to the whole fucking planet."

Jack spotted a pair of orthodox rabbis walking by. "Look," he said, shrinking back. "Men in black."

"Oh, you're a comedian," Zaleski said sourly, but Jack sensed him battling a smile. "You're no Jan Murray of course, but you're a real fucking comedian."

"Sorry," Jack said, not sorry at all. "Couldn't resist." And then he remembered the two men in the black sedan on the Castelemans' street last night. He hadn't got a good look at them, but they'd appeared to be dressed in black.

"Seriously, though," Jack said. "Have you ever actually seen one of these men in black?"

"No, and I'd like to keep it that way, thank you very much. They're supposed to be mean SOBs."

"What do they look like?"

"Like men in black suits, ties, and hats, with white shirts, and black sunglasses. They wear their sunglasses all the time."

"Even at night?"

"Word is they're human-alien hybrids, supposedly with very pale skin, and eyes that are very sensitive to light. Usually tool around in black sedans…with the headlights off."

Jack felt a prickle at the base of his spine. Zaleski was describing last night's car and its passengers to a T. And what about that black sedan out in Monroe? He didn't believe for a moment in human-alien hybrids, but he couldn't discount the very real possibility that he was being watched…and followed. How else would they cross paths in Monroe and Elmhurst? No one but Oscar Schaffer knew about the Queens job. Could Schaffer be involved in—?

Wait. Stop. I'm beginning to think like a SESOUPer.

But the idea that someone—anyone—was dogging him changed the prickle in his back to a crawly sensation in his gut. Who? And why?

"You all right?" Zaleski said.

"Yeah, why?"

"You looked like you went away for a while."

"Just thinking."

"Thinking's good." He rose and flipped his cigarette toward the curb. "And right now I'm thinking I'm freezing my ass off out here. Let's go inside. I think I'll check out Miles's panel. Wanna come along?"

"Maybe I'll sneak in later. I want to check out the exhibit room."

"Yeah, well, don't expect to find any fucking exhibits," he said with sudden heat. "It should be called the huckster room. Nothing but piles of worthless shit for sale in there."

"I think I'll check it out anyway," Jack said. Still a ways to go before he was due at Gia's, and he wondered where Zaleski's resentment was coming from.

"Go ahead," Zaleski tossed over his shoulder as he walked away. "You'll see what I mean."

Jim Zaleski fled the New World Order panel after about ten minutes. What a load of paranoid horseshit. Miles and his crew were totally clueless. They'd taken every lousy crumb of disinformation MJ-12 had tossed their way and swallowed it whole.

But even if Jim had found the panel vaguely interesting, he doubted he would have been able to focus on what was being discussed. He had Jack Shelby on his mind.

Something strange about that dude. Nothing Jim could put his finger on, but something was not fucking right.

For one thing, he didn't talk enough. He made a comment here and there, but mostly he listened. That could be because he was a newbie—he did seem genuinely ignorant of even the basics of ufology—but it might also mean he was a spy of some sort. And not necessarily from MJ-12 or the grays. Last year a writer had come to a UFO convention and pretended to be an experiencer.. He'd hung around, talking, listening, and secretly recording everything on a hidden mike. A few months later an article about SESOUP appeared in The Skeptical Inquirer. None of the quotes had been directly attributed beyond "a man said" this and "a woman said" that, but Jim had recognized a couple of his own comments, and had been furious.

You couldn't be too careful about whom you spoke to these days.

Maybe that was what it was about Jack Shelby—his vague air of amusement. Nothing overt, but a sense that he found SESOUP and its members…ridiculous.

Was he another Skeptical Inquirer type playing games? They didn't believe in anything. Probably even had doubts about gravity. But they'd be true believers soon enough. They were like the guy who's falling from the top of a skyscraper, and when people at the windows he's plummeting past ask him how he's doing, he says, "So far, so good!"

But it won't be so good when the grays reveal themselves, Jim thought. I'll have the last laugh, but BFD: nothing funny about Earth being turned into a cattle ranch.

Might not be a bad idea to check Shelby out while he wasn't looking. He'd said he was going to the huckster room. Jim hated the place, but supposed he could handle a quick fly-by without blowing his stack.

He headed for the room marked "Exhibit Area." Jim had lobbied Professor Roma against a huckster room, saying it put SESOUP in the same league as a Star Trek or comic book convention, but Roma had said he found the dealers' wares amusing. "Wares"—the pompous ass had actually use the word "wares."

He stepped inside and paused at the door. The "Exhibit Area" room always looked the same: long tables lining the perimeter and squared off in the center, each displaying the hucksters' junk. Always the same dealers, who all knew each other. Like gypsies—more like camp followers, really—they followed a circuit of conspiracy conventions.

Keeping an eye out for Shelby, Jim wandered past rows of books and pamphlets on astral projection, the secrets of interdimensional travel, even something called the Cholesterol Conspiracy ("People with the highest cholesterol live the longest!!! ").

I might have to come back and check that one out, he thought.

He strolled past the real truth about Vince Foster, the real truth about the Oklahoma City bombing, all written by "foremost experts," many calling themselves "doctor." Doctor of what? Jim always wanted to know.

Next came a whole array of exposes on the CIA, ranging from a hardcover by Bob Woodward, to pamphlets by the ever-popular Anonymous.

In the services section he passed a guy offering to take pictures of your aura for $20, a woman reading palms for $10 ("Quick! Fast! FUN!"), "Divine Astro-Tarot Readings" for an undisclosed price, then a travel service offering tours to "Places of Power" (Stonehenge and Macchu Picchu, and various Mayan temples).

"Oh, Christ," he muttered as he saw the UFO section. It was biggest of them all, easily claiming the most tables in the room.

God, I can't take this shit, he thought, readying to turn around.

But then he spotted Shelby in the thick of it.

He'd have to go in there.

Jim fought a wave of futility. Sometimes it seemed as if his whole life was a lost cause. He kept fighting to get the truth out, but every time he thought he was making headway, he found himself batted back to square one.

He's begun reading about UFOs in his early twenties. He'd become obsessed with them, and the more he'd read, the more he'd become convinced that a massive cover-up was blocking the truth from the world. He'd committed himself to uncovering that truth.

His commitment had cost him his job with the telephone company—something he was sure had been arranged as a warning, although he could never prove it. But he hadn't let that silence him. His wife left him, but he hadn't let that stop him either. He went into business with his brother, and their hardware store was doing well, although Tom was getting annoyed with all the time he was spending away from the business. Tom didn't understand that this was his life, not hardware.

Maybe if he could finish that book and make it a bestseller, he could leave the store and be on his own, devote every waking hour to making people see. This was when he felt most alive: when he was with fellow believers or preaching to the unconverted. This was what he lived for.

But even this had its dark side—people taking the truth, warping it to commercial ends, and making a quick buck on it. That was what the bastards in here were up to. And Jim hated them for it.

Taking a deep, calming breath, he forced himself forward past racks of glossy photos of crop circles, many of which looked to be more the result of Adobe Photoshop than alien space craft.

Then came rows of videos about UFOs and close encounters ("Actual footage!!!") and videos of recent Ecuadoran sightings, all narrated by the ubiquitous "foremost experts." Books about UFOs and close encounters ("True accounts!!!) followed.

Lost amid the bright covers and hokey posters were serious pamphlets and broadsides that told the plain unvarnished truth, but nobody was pushing those. The fast-buck artists and second-handers and recyclers had moved in and were making a killing while the real truth languished unnoticed, unread.

He found Shelby amid the flying saucer refrigerator magnets, green alien glo-pops, action figures of Men In Black and gray aliens, and miniature flying saucers of all shapes and sizes, labeled as either "scouts" or "motherships."

"See?" Zaleski said through clenched teeth as he came up behind Shelby.

He hadn't meant to speak but this shit never failed to put him over the edge. Every time he stepped into one of these places he felt like doing a Jesus-and-the-moneychangers number.

Shelby turned. "Oh, hey, Jim. I thought you were going to the—"

"See what I was talking about?" Jim said, hearing his voice rise. "This is what I meant by trivialization. These creeps are selling the human race down the river with this cutesy shit. Anything to make a lousy fucking buck. Lemme outta here before I strangle one of these assholes!"

To hell with Shelby. Who cared who he was. The worst enemies of the truth were right here in this room!

Without saying anything more, he pushed his way through the crowd and found the door.

Definitely a loose cannon, Jack thought, watching Zaleski go. Ready to blow somebody away at the slightest provocation—if he hasn't already.

Jack hung around a little longer, checking out the goodies. He found a wristwatch in the shape of a gray alien's head, with flying saucers on the hour and minute hands. He bought it for Vicky. She was going to love it.

He sighed as he stuffed the watch in his pocket, fighting the feeling of futility that was slowly enveloping him. At least he'd come out of the morning with something. He sure as hell hadn't got any closer to finding Melanie Ehler.

Jack had been giving some thought to this gig while browsing the exhibit area. The nightmare last night, the weird crate in his bathroom…something very wrong here…and a damn certain feeling that things were going to become much more wrong before the conference was over. His gut urged him to cut and run now.

At least the tension he'd sensed coiling in the hotel all yesterday seemed to have eased this morning, as if a pent-up charge had been released.

He spotted Lew in the common area outside the exhibit room, and ducked toward the escalator, hoping to get away without being seen. He was itching to get over to Gia's.

But no such luck.

"Jack!" Lew called, hurrying toward him. "Have you found any leads?" he asked when he reached him.

Jack shook his head. "Nothing useful. Look," he said slowly, not sure exactly how to phrase this, "I don't know if I'm the right guy for this job."

Lew stared at him with a stricken look. "You can't be serious."

Yeah, he could be…pretty much.

"I'll give you the money back, Lew."

"I don't care about the money. It's Mel I want!" His face screwed up. He looked like he was about to cry.

"Easy, Lew."

"Don't say that when you don't know what she means to me. I was nothing before I met her."

"I thought you said you owned that plant over in—"

"Yeah, sure, I owned it, but I was letting it go to hell. I thought it was too much for me, that I wasn't up to running a business by myself. I was trying to sell it when I met her. She turned me around. She told me I could do it. She said I was perfectly capable of handling it, and she helped me. She showed me how. And you know what? She was right. I damn well could do it. I just never believed it. With this gimpy leg, I was never able to keep up with the other kids while I was growing up—couldn't run worth a damn, couldn't climb worth a damn—and that's how I began to think of myself: not worth a damn."

"Yeah, but—" Jack said, trying to sneak a word in. He didn't need to hear Lew's life story.

"But Mel changed all that. In my whole life I've never felt so good about myself. And it's all because of Mel. That's why you've got to find her, Jack. Without her, life means nothing to me. And you're the only one. 'Only Repairman Jack can find me. Only he will understand.' Remember?"

"Yeah," Jack said glumly, feeling trapped. "I remember."

"So please, I'm begging you—"

"All right. I'll keep plugging, but—"

"Oh, thank you! Thank you!"

Lew tried to wrap him in a bear hug but Jack dodged clear.

"Hey, hey. None of that. We haven't even known each other two days. But I've got to tell you, it's not looking great."

"You're the one," Lew said with a burst of confidence. "Mel said you're the one and Melanie's never wrong."

"Let's hope so," Jack said.

Roma stood with a group of SESOUP members, trying to appear interested in their vacuous blather as he kept an eye on the stranger. The man who called himself Jack Shelby was in animated conversation with Lew Ehler at the far end of the common area. He wished he knew the connection between those two.

He heard a sudden burst of high-pitched screeching and turned to see Mauricio scampering toward him across the floor. Something in the creature's voice sounded almost like…terror.

Roma stooped and extended his hand toward Mauricio, to allow him to scamper up to his shoulder, but Mauricio, eyes wide with apprehension, was having none of it. He grabbed Roma's fingers and began tugging him toward the elevators.

A prickle of apprehension urged Roma to follow him. Had he found the device? Had something gone wrong with it?

He put on a wry smile and turned to the knot of attendees. "Excuse me, but apparently Mauricio wants lunch. We'll finish this discussion later."

They laughed as he moved off. At least he was free of those dullards, but what could have put Mauricio in this state? He saw the elevator doors open and half a dozen attendees step out, leaving the car empty. He hurried inside and pressed the "8" button.

"The Twins!" Mauricio said breathlessly as soon as the doors slid shut. "I saw one of the Twins!"

A chill rippled down Roma's back. "Impossible!"

"Don't say it's impossible when I saw him with these two eyes!"

"Where?"

"On the eighth floor—your floor."

The chill became a frozen hand against his spine. "Lots of other people on that floor as well. Just one Twin? What was he doing?"

"Sneaking along."

"Near my room?"

"No. He was at the other end of the hall. I didn't stay around to see any more. I was afraid I'd be recognized."

Roma glanced up and saw a red "6" on the floor indicator. Quickly he jabbed the "7" button.

"Good idea," Mauricio said. "You wouldn't want to step out of the elevator and come face to face with the Twins."

"They cannot possibly know who I am. But your true nature is not so well insulated. They might spot you. As for me, I'm sure I could walk right past them without their guessing."

"Why else would they be here? It's obvious the Enemy knows—"

"Hush," Roma said as the car stopped. "Let me think."

The doors opened onto the seventh floor elevator alcove. Roma stepped out, pressed the down button, and checked the hallway. Empty. As the elevator doors closed, he paced the alcove, trying to order his thoughts.

The Twins—ruthless, relentless agents of the opposition. Created sometime during World War Two as watchmen, after the first guardian was released from his duties, they had proved to be a nettlesome pair, barging into areas where the Otherness was making inroads. But their ham-handed methods often proved effective, and the men-in-black myth that had sprung up around them tended to work in their favor.

But now they might prove more than nuisances; now they could ruin everything. Worse, they would destroy him on sight—if they recognized him.

"Let us consider this logically," Roma whispered. "We can assume they do not know that I am The One. If they did, they would have grabbed me at the first opportunity—they would not care where, public or private…while I was giving the welcoming address last night, for instance—and torn me to pieces in front of everyone."

"But they must know something," Mauricio said. "Why else would they be here? Unless…"

"Unless what?"

"Unless they know what the Ehler woman discovered."

"Good thought, Mauricio. That might be it. Although, I will bet they know only that Melanie Ehler discovered something, and not what, and that is why they are here. They must have followed her husband right to our doorstep."

The slam of a door down the hall jolted Roma. It was followed immediately by the chime of the elevator car heading down. Roma leaped inside and jabbed the lobby button until the doors closed.

"Now will you abandon this folly?" Mauricio said quickly—neither knew how much time they had before the elevator picked up another passenger. "As I've said all along, it is not yet your time. Too many things have already gone wrong, and even if they hadn't, the arrival of the Twins alone is reason enough to abort it."

Roma shook his head. "These are merely complications. We will go ahead as planned. The second and final delivery is tonight."

"But we haven't located the first yet!"

"Then you must keep searching, Mauricio. Find that device!"

The elevator doors opened, admitting a young couple. Roma was glad of that. He knew Mauricio had more to say but he didn't want to hear it. All he needed was another twenty-four hours, and he would be able to fulfill his destiny.

"Look at your scars," Gia said, tracing her fingers across his chest. 'They're all inflamed."

Jack leaned against the tile wall of the shower stall with closed eyes. An hour of vigorous lovemaking had left him with partially vulcanized knees. The steam from the hot water was easing him into a pleasantly tranquil state of paralysis.

He opened his eyes and watched the water course over Gia's pale, lithe body as she leaned against him. The flow had molded her short blond hair against her scalp. He reveled in the soft feel of her.

The bathroom was old-fashioned white tile with time-darkened grout. But the enclosed shower was relatively new and roomy.

At Jack's urging, Gia and Vicky had moved into the Westphalen townhouse on Sutton Square. It was unofficially Vicky's anyway—she was listed in her aunts' will as the final heir. She'd be the legal owner when Grace and Nellie Westphalen were declared officially dead, but just when that would happen—their bodies never would be found—was anyone's guess. Since there was no one to object to Gia and Vicky living in the place and keeping it up, they'd done just that.

With what seemed like enormous effort, Jack looked down at the three red lines running diagonally across his chest, starting near his left shoulder and ending at the lower border of his right ribs.

The scene strobed through his mind as if it had been yesterday. Battery Park…Kusum's ship burning in the harbor…the scar-lipped rakosh closing in on Gia and Vicky…Jack clinging to its back, trying to blind it…the creature peeling him off and slashing at him…the talons of its three-fingered hand raking fire across his chest…

"Not all the scars," he said. "Just the ones made by that rakosh."

"Funny. They weren't red last time we made love."

"Yeah, well, they've been kind of itchy lately." At least he assumed they were the source of that itching out in Monroe the other day. "I dreamed about the rakoshi again last night."

"Again? Bad?"

He nodded, thinking: Please don't ask if you were in it.

Instead, she touched the scars again. "I'm hoping the whole thing will eventually seem like just a bad dream. But you'll always have these as reminders."

"I like to think of them as proof that we really did run up against those things."

"Who wants proof?" Gia said, snuggling tighter against him. "I want to forget them—forget they ever existed."

"But they were real, right? We didn't just imagine them."

She stared at him. "Are you serious? Of course they were real. How can you even ask?"

"Because of the people I've been hanging with at the conference. UFOs and aliens and Antichrists are real to them. If one of them said to a friend, 'Are the gray aliens real?' he'd get the same look you gave me just now, and the friend would say, 'Are you serious? Of course they're real. How can you even ask?' You see what I'm getting at? These people are absolutely sure these conspiracies, these beings, these secret organizations are real."

"Shared delusions," Gia said with a slow nod. She began soaping his chest, hiding the scars with lather. "I see what you mean."

"To me, they're nut cases. I mean, talk to any one of them for five minutes and you know that someone has stopped payment on their reality check. But what if you and I went around talking about the rakoshi? Wouldn't people think the same about us? And with good reason—because we can't prove a damn thing. We have no hard evidence except these scars of mine which, as far as anybody knows, could have been self-inflicted."

"It happened, Jack. We lived through it—just barely—so we know."

"But do we? What do we know of reality but what we remember? When it comes right down to it, who we are is what we remember. And from what I've read about memory lately, it isn't all that reliable."

"Stop talking like this. You're scaring me."

"I'm scaring me."

"At least we're not out there saying rakoshi are planning to take over the world, or responsible for everything bad that happens."

"No…not yet."

"Now cut that out," she said, landing a gentle punch on the chest. "We're different from them because we're not focusing on it. That awful experience happened, we've dealt with it, and we've put it behind us—believe me, I'm doing my best to forget it. But they make it the center of their lives; they extrapolate it into a worldview."

"Yeah. Why would anybody want to do that? Isn't reality complicated enough?"

"Maybe that's the problem," Gia said. "Most of the time I find reality too complicated. Something happens because of this, something else happens because of that, another thing happens because of a combination of this, that, and the other thing."

"And lots of times," Jack added, "things seem to happen for no damn reason at all."

"Exactly. But an all-encompassing conspiracy simplifies all of that. You don't have to wonder any more. You don't have to fit the pieces together—you've got it all figured out already. Everyone else might be in the dark, but you know the real skinny."

"Come to think of it, a lot of those SESOUPers do look kind of smug." Jack sighed. "But in spite of everything you've said, some of them almost remind me of…me."

"Get out."

"I'm serious. Consider: They're always looking over their shoulders, I'm always looking over mine."

"With good reason."

"Let me finish. They tend to be loners; until I met you, I was a loner—big time. They're outsiders, I'm an outsider."

"Way outside."

"They're considered weirdoes by mainstream society, I'll land in the joint if mainstream society ever finds out about me. Really, despite the fact that I'm keeping my mouth shut, how do I know I'm not just like them, or"—he held up his thumb and forefinger, a quarter inch apart "this far" from being one of them?"

"Because I say you're not," Gia said, then kissed him.

If only that was enough, he thought, closing his eyes and holding her tight against him, needing her warmth, her presence, her very existence. Gia was his anchor to reality, to sanity. Without her and Vicky, who knew what wild shore he might be sailing toward.

He glanced down once more at the reddened diagonal streaks of his scars and suddenly the image of Roma was before him, from the cocktail party last night, his three middle fingers hooked into rakoshi-like talons, raking the air between them along the exact angle of Jack's scars.

"What's wrong?" Gia said as Jack's spine stiffened reflexively.

"Nothing," he told her. "Muscle spasm."

He held her tighter to keep her from seeing his expression, knowing it would give away his shock, his bafflement.

Did Roma know? What had he said? How easily we forget. But Jack had not forgotten. And no way Roma could know.

Then why make that weird three-pronged gesture, at just the right angle? Jack could think of no other way to interpret it. Roma knows. But how?

Jack had no idea, but he intended to find out.

But if Roma knew about the rakoshi scars, did he also know about Gia and Vicky? Could he have followed Jack here?

He reached past Gia and ratcheted the hot water handle up another notch. The temperature in the shower seemed to have dropped a few degrees.

After arranging with Gia to give Vicky a little coaching on baseball later in the afternoon, Jack returned to the hotel. As he entered he thought he sensed the tension building in the atmosphere again. He looked around for Roma—Want to ask you a question or two, pal—but didn't see him. When he reached the second floor he spotted a Mutt and Jeff pair standing in the common area outside the meeting rooms: Lew and Evelyn. He headed their way.

Evelyn was anxiously rubbing her tiny, pudgy Little Lotta hands together. She looked upset.

"Something wrong?"

"We still haven't found Olive?" she said. "No one's seen her since the reception last night? I'm getting worried?"

"You've checked her room?

Lew said, "I've called, I've knocked. There's no answer."

"Maybe you should get the hotel to open it, just to make sure she's not in there in a coma or something," Jack said.

Evelyn's hand fluttered to her mouth. "Do you really think so? I never thought of that? But what if she just forgot? And she's out sightseeing or something? How will she feel when she finds out we've been searching her room?"

In any other case, Jack thought, the person in question probably would be touched by their concern. With this crew…it would all seem part of a sinister scheme.

"I think you've got to risk it."

Evelyn glanced at her watch. "I'll give her another hour? If I don't hear from her by then? I'm going to go to the management? I'll have them check? How does that sound?"

"Sounds like a plan," Jack said.

As Evelyn bustled away, Lew turned to Jack. "And I think I'll head back home for a while."

"All the way to Shoreham?"

"Yeah. I want to check and see if Mel might've come back, maybe left me a note or something," He blinked away tears. "First Mel, now Olive. I'm really scared. Anything new?"

"Nothing definite," Jack said, and saw Lew's face fall. "But maybe you can clear up something for me."

"Sure. Anything."

"Olive mentioned that Melanie had given her a set of computer disks. Why would Melanie do that?"

He shook his head. "I can't imagine. They weren't that close."

"Think she's making it up?"

"I couldn't say for sure. Maybe Olive is trying to make herself sound important. Or maybe Melanie did give them to her for safekeeping—you know, after she wiped out her GUT file. Perhaps she figured no one would think of Olive since she's a computerphobe."

"It's a thought," Jack said. "When Melanie shows up, we'll ask her."

"If she shows up." Lew took a deep, sighing breath. "I'll see you later," he said and walked off.

Jack decided to check his messages, then try to catch one of these panels…the elusive Miles Kenway was scheduled to moderate the next one. Jack wanted to get a line on him.

As he was heading for the lobby he noticed the red-haired guy sitting in his wheelchair in a doorway, staring at him again, just like last night. The intensity of the scrutiny bothered him.

What's so damn interesting? he wondered.

He used his calling card to check his voice mail. Just his father…again.

Okay, time to bite the bullet and call him. He found the number in his wallet and punched it in. He'd moved way down in Florida, someplace near Coral Gables with the Everglades practically in his backyard.

Dad was in. They made a little small talk—he always made sure you knew how nice and warm the weather was down there—then Jack got to the point.

"Are your travel plans pretty well set?"

"Yes," Dad said. "I've got my tickets and everything."

"Gee, that's too bad, because I'm going on a cruise for a couple of weeks and it falls right in the time you'll be up here."

A long silence on the Florida end of the line, during which hurt seeped through the receiver. Jack felt ropes of guilty perspiration begin to trickle down his face. Obviously Dad was trying to get closer to his wayward son in his sunset years, and Jack was giving him the cold shoulder.

I'm such a coward, he thought. A lousy lying coward.

Finally: "Cruise?" Dad said. "Where to?"

Oh, shit—where? "Alaska."

"Really? I've always wanted to cruise to Alaska, see those glaciers and all. I wish you'd said something. I would have gone with you. Maybe I can still arrange something."

Oh no! "Gee, Dad. It's fully booked."

Another long silence.

Not only am I a lousy lying coward, I'm a rat.

"You know, Jack," Dad finally said, "I realize you may not want me in your life, or that there may be aspects of your life you don't want me to know about…but—"

Jack went cold. "What…what do you mean?"

"Look, Jack, if you're…if you're g-gay"—he seemed to have trouble getting the word past his lips—"or something like that, it's okay. I can accept it. You're still my son."

Jack sagged against the phone. Gay? Is that the worst he can think of?

"No, Dad. Guys don't do a thing for me. In fact, I can't understand what women see in them. I like women. Always have, always will."

"Really?" Jack could hear the relief in his voice. "Well, then why—?"

"I won't be around, really."

"Okay. I'll buy that. But you did say you'd come down for a visit, right? When's that going to be? Let's set a date."

"I can't set a date right now, but"…he couldn't turn him down cold again…"I promise I'll get there before the year is out. How's that?"

"Okay! It's a deal!"

He kept Jack on for a few more minutes of small talk, then let him go. Jack hung up and simply stood there, recouping his strength. He'd rather face any number of enraged monte grifters than a phone conversation with his father.

He banged his fist against the wall. What did I just do? I promised to visit him, and I locked in a time frame: before the end of the year. Am I crazy?

He hated to travel anywhere, but…guilt springs eternal.

He was stuck. He'd promised.

Jack decided to go back to his room. He needed a rest.

Salvatore Roma sat staring at his room's TV, but was only vaguely aware of what was on the screen—a talk show featuring a panel of bizarrely coifed and accessorized males and females bemoaning their treatment by conventional society. His mind was elsewhere, imagining the near future, and the changes he would bring to this world. He smiled at the screen: You whine about your troubles now? Wait…just wait.

An insistent scratching at the door wrenched him back to the present. He pulled it open and Mauricio scampered in.

"I found it," he said, hopping onto the bed.

"It took you long enough."

"I could only get into the rooms when the maids entered for cleaning. I'd still be running around with no answer if I hadn't staked out one room for special attention."

Roma felt his fists clench of their own accord. "The stranger."

"Yes! The mysterious Jack Shelby. The delivery is sitting under the counter in his bathroom."

Roma squeezed his eyes shut. "Opened?"

"Yes, but I saw no sign that he'd attempted to assemble it."

"Not that it would matter. It is incomplete. And even after the rest of it arrives—"

"Let's just hope he hasn't damaged it or lost some crucial component. I think we should reclaim it as soon as possible."

"I disagree," Roma said. "Not with the Twins here. Besides, we have too many unanswered questions. Why did the delivery arrive in his room instead of the basement as planned? Was that his doing, or was it redirected from the other side? Who is this man?"

"If I hadn't spent the whole day searching for the shipment, I might be able to tell you."

"But why is he here? Is he connected to the Twins? If so, we might be playing directly into their hands by revealing ourselves if we make a move against him."

"I don't like it," Mauricio said. He scampered to the door and looked back. "Let me out of here."

Roma twisted the handle Mauricio couldn't reach in his capuchin form. "Where are you going?"

"I need to think."

As the monkey stepped out, it stared down the hallway and froze as if in shock.

The made bed in Jack's room indicated the maid had been through. He checked the bathroom and was relieved to see that no other crate had arrived. The original was still there, right where he'd left it.

He lifted the lid and looked again at the miniature girders and rods. Maybe he should take a shot at assembling the damn thing. He checked his watch: no time. Only forty or fifty minutes before Evelyn called in the cavalry to charge Olive's room. Jack had a bad feeling about her no-show at her panel. Out sightseeing? Olive? In Sin City? Hardly.

She'd told him yesterday she was in room 812.

Well…why not pay the room a visit? If she'd died in her sleep, he wanted to know. If she was alive and he found her hiding there for some reason, he'd just tell her he'd been worried about her. And if the room was empty, maybe he could find the disks she said Melanie had given her.

The more he thought about it, the better he liked the idea.

He grabbed a few goodies from his gym bag and headed up to the eighth floor. The hall was empty, and the maid was busy in a room down on the far side of the elevators. Now or never.

He found a "Do Not Disturb" sign on 812's doorknob. That would keep the maid out, but not him. Just to be sure, though, he knocked and softly called Olive's name. No answer.

Okay. He pulled out his own custom made slim-jim—a wafer-thin length of high-tensile steel, twelve inches by two, notched on one side about an inch from the end. He had his lock pick set, but this would be much quicker. He leaned on the door and slipped the metal between the jamb and the wood. The notch caught on the latch bolt. A wiggle, a pull, a slide, and the door was swinging inward—

But only an inch. The swing latch was in the locked position.

Jack froze. Those latches could only be flipped over from the other side. That meant Olive was still in the room.

"Olive?" he said through the opening.

No voice answered, but he swore he heard movement in there.

Jack's heart picked up its pace. Something very wrong here. Someone—maybe Olive, maybe not—was sneaking around in Olive's room.

Jack pulled the door closed again and checked the hall. Still no one coming. He worked his slim-jim between the jamb and the door again, this time at eye level, felt it clink against the swing latch, then pushed. He heard the latch swing back. The he reopened the knob latch and pushed the door inward.

The breeze from an open window hit him immediately. He hadn't felt that a moment ago.

But before he did anything else, he pulled out the tail of his flannel shirt and wiped the doorknob clean. Then he stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

The bathroom lights were on. He glanced in. The shower curtain was pulled back—no one hiding in here. He moved into the room. The sheer curtains, billowing in the breeze from the open window, caught his eye first. One of those casement jobs that was supposed to slide back only a few inches. Someone must have pried off the safety stop. The window was open wide enough for someone to slip through.

A mental image of Olive leaping from the ledge was taking shape in Jack's brain when he saw open drawers, the clothing strewn about; and then the walls—pictures of Jesus had been taped over the framed prints; and crosses and crucifixes, at least a dozen of them, were taped to the walls, an especially large one over the king-size bed—

"Damn!" he blurted and jumped back when he saw Olive lying in it.

At least he was pretty sure it was Olive—or had been. The covers were pulled up to her neck but she wasn't sleeping. Her eyes had been removed, leaving empty red-crusted sockets staring at the ceiling. But worse, her lips had been cut off, and none too neatly, leaving her with a hideous permanent grin.

Wary, his stomach churning, Jack inched toward the bed. The pillows and spread were oddly clean—not a bloodstain in sight. Her face was a horror, but what had they done to her body? He had to know. Steeling himself, he gripped the edge of the covers and pulled them back.

"Aw, jeez."

At first Jack wasn't quite sure what he was seeing, but it repulsed him anyway. He saw wide cuts here and there on Olive's exposed skin—slices, gouges, pieces removed. If it was torture, it wasn't like any form Jack had ever heard of. Some sort of ritual maybe? But something beyond the slicing and dicing was terribly wrong. And then with a sledgehammer shock Jack realized what it was. He gasped and involuntarily retreated a step.

He was looking at Olive's back.

Her head was still connected to her body, but it had been wrenched 180 degrees around.

The sound of breaking glass made Jack jump. He whirled, hunting the source. From over there—the window.

He leaped to the drapes and fought them aside. All the glass was intact.

"I could have sworn—"

He poked his head outside and found himself looking over the rear of the hotel. A white flutter jerked his attention to the left: part of the neighboring room's curtain was flapping through a human-sized hole in the window there. Jack looked down. No corpse splattered on the rooftop of the next building three stories below. Had someone broken into the next window?

The sound of a slamming door echoed through the shattered glass.

Jack shoved away from the window and raced for the door, gathering his loose shirttail as he ran. He twisted the knob with his flannel-wrapped hand and charged into the hall.

To his left he saw Roma's monkey scamper out of one of the rooms and freeze at the sight of him; to his right, a retreating figure—black suit and hat—was three quarters of the way to the end of the hall, not exactly running, but hurrying, making damn good time. The guy glanced over his shoulder, flashing a pale face and dark glasses, then started to run.

One of the bogey-men in black, Jack thought as he sprinted after him. Okay, guy. Let's see how you handle someone a little tougher than a middle-aged lady.

The black-clad figure ducked through the exit door into the stairwell.

Jack burst through and paused on the landing, dimly aware of bare blocks, painted beige; steel rails, dark brown with a sick green showing through the chipped spots. He focused on the whispery echo of soft soles galloping down the steps a good two flights below.

He started after them. This guy was fast. And pretty damn agile if he was outside Olive's window while Jack was checking out the corpse. Had to be some sort of human fly.

Well, I can fly too…in a way.

He vaulted over the railing to the flight below, descending a few steps, then vaulted again. Dangerous—if he landed wrong he'd break an ankle—but it was the only way he'd ever catch this guy.

Jack reached the flight directly above the killer and he vaulted the railing between them. The guy glanced up. Jack saw pale skin, a small nose, and thin lips; he also saw the soles of his sneakers reflected in the black sunglasses just before he landed on the guy's head.

They both tumbled to the next landing, Jack on top. He was vaguely aware of the sunglasses skittering across the concrete as they hit. Even with the man in black's body cushioning Jack's fall, the impact was jarring. His elbow hit the wall, sending fiery tingles down his arm. Had to be a lot worse for the other guy, but to Jack's shock, he jumped up immediately, almost as if nothing had happened, and continued his descent, grabbing his shades as he went.

Wondering if this guy's pain threshold was somewhere out near the moon, Jack struggled to his feet—not quite so quickly—and resumed the chase. The next landing was home to a red door labeled "5"—Jack's floor. The man in black dashed past it, but as Jack arrived the door swung open and he found himself facing a mirror image of the guy he was chasing, except this one was wearing a black gimme cap.

And he was all set for Jack, already in mid-swing when the door opened. Jack was utterly unprepared for the black-gloved fist that rammed deep into his solar plexus.

The force of the blow slammed him against the cinderblock wall. Pain exploded in the pit of his stomach. He couldn't breathe. His mouth worked, struggling to draw air, but his diaphragm was paralyzed. He tried to keep his feet but they wouldn't cooperate. He crumpled like an old dollar bill, doubled over and grunting on the landing, helpless to stop the second man in black as he followed his buddy downstairs.

It took Jack a good fifteen-twenty seconds before he could breathe again. He lay there gasping, sucking delicious wind, waiting for the pain to go away. Eventually he was able to push himself up to a sitting position. He leaned back against the cinder blocks, groaned, and shook his head. No, he was not going to vomit, no matter how much his stomach wanted to.

Christ, that was some shot. Perfect placement, damn near went clear through to his spine. Must have been wearing a weighted glove—at least Jack hoped he was. Didn't like the thought of such a skinny guy packing that kind of wallop all on his own.

Finally he struggled to his feet. No sense in trying to catch up to them now; they were long gone. Jack got himself together, pulled open the door, and tried to look casual as he limped down the hall to his room.

After splashing some water on his face, Jack pondered his next move.

Olive…dead. Christ. And not merely dead—mutilated.

Jack had seen his share of corpses, but never one like Olive's. One thing to kill somebody, but then to cut out her eyes, carve off her lips…jeez.

Why? Was there symbolism there? Had she seen too much? Talked too much? She'd told Jack about the disks. Had she told someone else—the wrong someone else? The room had been ransacked—in search of the disks, he'd bet. Question was: had they found them?

Not that Jack could go back for a second look. In another twenty minutes or so, Evelyn would be asking the management to open Olive's room. He didn't want to be around when the police started swarming through the hotel asking questions, but he didn't want to be on anyone's suspect list either. Except for the time he'd spent at Gia's, his whereabouts for most of the morning were pretty well accounted for. Better to hide in plain sight until the body was found, then lay low.

Which meant he should head downstairs and make sure Evelyn and anybody else around saw him.

When he reached the meeting area, he looked around for someone he'd met, but saw neither Zaleski, Carmack, nor Evelyn. He'd even settle for Roma—find out about his three-fingered high sign—but he wasn't in sight. Jack did spot the red-headed guy with the beard, staring at him again from his wheelchair.

All right, Jack thought. Let's make this a two-fer: establish my presence and find out what makes me so damn interesting.

He crossed the common area and stood over the guy. Close up Jack saw that he'd be on the short side even if he could stand. He was barrel-chested under his Polo golf shirt. Stick a horned helmet on his head and he'd pass for Hagar the Horrible. His pelvis and legs were wrapped in a loud red, black, and yellow plaid blanket.

"Do you know me?" Jack asked.

The man looked up at him. "Last night was the first time I ever laid eyes on you."

"Then why do you keep staring at me?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

"You're the last one to hear from Melanie, I'm told."

That wasn't an answer, but Jack nodded. "Supposedly. News travels fast around here."

"Melanie and I go way back." He extended his hand. "Frayne Canfield."

Jack remembered Lew mentioning that name—Melanie's childhood friend from Monroe—but he shook his hand and played dumb.

"How far back?"

"We grew up together, and we've kept in touch. Hasn't Lew mentioned me?"

"Possibly," Jack said. "I've met so many people since I arrived." He shrugged.

"Well, if he hasn't, he probably will. We've stayed close, Melanie and me, and sometimes I think Lew's suspected us of having an affair." He smiled bitterly and pointed to his blanketed lower body. "But that, I'm afraid, is quite impossible."

Canfield's legs shifted under the plaid fabric, and something about the way they moved sent a chill across Jack's upper back. He felt he should make some sort of response but couldn't think of anything that didn't sound lame.

Canfield shrugged. "Ironic, in a way: The thing that keeps us close also keeps us from getting too close."

"I'm not following you," Jack said.

"Our deformities…they're a kind of bond unhindered people can't understand."

Jack was baffled. "Melanie has a deformity?"

Canfield looked smug. "You mean you don't know? Perhaps I shouldn't have said anything." He tugged on his red beard and stared at Jack. "You really haven't met her, have you."

"Why would I be lying?" Jack said, then had to smile. "But then, considering the nature of this gathering, why should I be surprised I'm not believed?"

Canfield nodded. "You've got a point."

Jack mentally reviewed the photos he'd seen both in Shoreham and in Monroe. Melanie had looked perfectly normal.

"What's Melanie's deformity?"

Canfield looked around. "Let's get out of the traffic." He started rolling his chair to the left. "Over here."

He stopped before a couch against the wall. Jack sank into the too-soft cushions, so far down that he was now looking up at Canfield.

"I'm not going to discuss Melanie's particular deformity," Canfield said. "When you meet her you'll know."

At least he's optimistic, Jack thought.

"But I will tell you," Canfield went on, "that it shaped her life. It's the fuel powering her engine. She's searching for the cause of the Monroe Cluster."

"Cluster of what?"

"Deformities. Toward the end of 1968, half a dozen deformed children were born in Monroe over a period of ten days. The parents all got to know each other. That was how my folks met the Rubins, Melanie's folks. I remember others—the poor Harrisons, whose severely deformed daughter Susan didn't survive past age five, and the doubly damned Bakers, whose daughter Carly disappeared after murdering her brother. They and a few others formed a mini-support group, looking for answers, wanting to know, Why us??'

Jack glanced at Canfield's shrouded nether half, wondering what hid beneath that blanket.

"A radiation leak, maybe?" Jack offered.

Canfield shook his head. "An investigative team from Mount Sinai came out and puttered around, looking for evidence of just that. When that didn't pan out they tested the water and the ground for toxic contamination, but never found a thing. Melanie thinks they came up empty-handed because they were looking for a natural cause. She thinks the cause was unnatural."

Canfield's legs shifted again under their blanket…something not quite natural about that, either.

"Like what?"

"Something else…something other."

"Is this a secret code or something? You're losing me."

Canfield sighed. "Melanie and I have discussed it endlessly. She's been convinced that something 'unnatural' happened in Monroe in late February or early March of 1968 when her mother and my mother and all these other mothers were newly pregnant. Something happened that warped the fragile cell structures of the newly conceived fetuses. 'A burst of Otherness,' she calls it. She refers to us and the other deformed ones as 'Children of the Otherness.'"

Uh-oh, Jack thought. Do I sense another conspiracy theory in the making?

"All right," he said. "I'll bite: What's that supposed to mean?"

Canfield shrugged. 'That's the question Melanie has spent her life trying to answer. But just a couple of weeks ago she told me that with Professor Roma's help, she was getting close…and that she soon might have the key to her Grand Unification Theory."

Back to Melanie's theory again. All roads seemed to lead to that particular Rome.

"I'd love to hear this theory," Jack said.

"You and me both. Believe me, if a single event has shaped your life—or misshaped your life—you want to. know what it is."

"How exactly did it misshape Melanie?" Jack said.

"Sorry," Canfield said, shaking his head. "Better ask Lew. Good talking to you."

But I can't ask Lew, Jack thought. He's on his way out to Shoreham.

And then it occurred to him that the secret of Melanie Ehler's whereabouts—as well as her mysterious deformity—might not be here with the SESOUP loonies, but back in her home town. In Monroe.

Canfield had backed up his wheelchair and started to roll away.

"One more thing," Jack said. "What's your angle here?"

Canfield stopped and looked back. "Angle?"

"Yeah. UFOs? Satan and the End Days? The New World Order? The International Cabal of Bankers? The Cthulhu cult? Which is your baby?"

"Haven't you been listening?" Canfield said, then rolled away.

He knows something, Jack thought as he watched him go. The way he dodges the important questions—oh,yeah, he's definitely involved.

Jack looked across the common area and saw Evelyn step out of the hotel's business office and head for the elevators in the company of two suits with little brass name tags on their lapels. On their way to Olive's room, no doubt. Which meant the hotel would be crawling with blue uniforms in about ten minutes.

Maybe now was a good time to take another look around the missing lady's ancestral home.

Jack retrieved his rental car from the garage and backtracked out to the Long Island Gold Coast. He didn't have a map and wasn't sure of Monroe's exact location, but remembered it was somewhere at the end of Glen Cove Road. Along the way he spotted a road sign pointing him in the right direction. After that, he had no problem finding his way back to Melanie's family home. He also found himself glancing repeatedly in his rearview mirror, looking for a black sedan. He had a vague feeling that he was being watched, and he scrutinized every black car he spied along the way.

Melanie's old home was easily identified by the big oak and its oversize lot. Jack parked in the driveway this time, but went to the back door. The knob was a Yale; so was the dead bolt. Jack was good with Yales. Took him thirty seconds on the knob, less than a minute on the dead bolt, and he was in.

He wandered through the house again, rechecking all the photos. He began to see a pattern that had escaped him completely on his first pass: in not one photo was Melanie's left hand visible. In solo shots it was always behind her back; when with her mother or father she was always positioned so that her left lower arm was behind the other person.

A deformed left hand? That sort of jibed with the box full of dolls with mutilated left hands…

But so what? What if anything did that have to do with her disappearance?

Jack went downstairs to the basement. Yeah, the rope ladder was still imbedded in the cement. Did that have anything to do with Melanie's disappearance?

He stood staring at it, as baffled as ever, waiting for some sort of epiphany that would explain everything.

The only thing that happened was the front of his chest started itching again.

Damn, he thought. Must be allergic to something down here.

Still scratching, he went over to the desk and checked out the large amber crystals. He held one up to the light but saw nothing unusual about it.

He sighed. Deformed children, a missing wife, a mutilated corpse, black-clad tough guys, a gathering of paranoids…were they linked? He couldn't buy them as random and unrelated. But where was the common thread?

Frayne Canfield had said that something "unnatural" had happened in Monroe in late February or early March of 1968. Was that the link?

Jack had passed a public library in town. As long as he was here, why not check out what he could?

He made sure he relocked both the knob and the dead bolt before he left.

"Why are you interested in that particular period?" the librarian asked, giving him a close inspection. Then she added, "If you don't mind my asking."

Mrs. Forseman was straight out of Central Casting with her frumpy dress, wrinkled face, lemon-sucking pursed lips, and pointy-cornered reading glasses dangling from a chain around her neck.

"Just curious."

He'd asked to see the microfilm files of the Monroe Express for the first quarter of 1968. She clutched the cartridge in her bony hand, but hadn't offered it to him yet.

"Curious about what? If you don't mind my asking."

I damn well do mind, Jack thought, then decided she looked old enough to have been around then. Maybe she could save him some time.

"I heard about something called the 'Monroe Cluster' and—"

"Oh, no," she said, rolling her eyes. "You're not some writer planning to go digging into those deformities, are you? This town has had more than its share of trouble, especially those poor people, so leave them alone. Please."

"Actually, I'm a geneticist," Jack said. "If I publish anything it'll be in a scientific journal. Do you remember anything about the incidents?"

"I remember a lot of panic around the time those poor children were born, especially in all the other pregnant mothers in town, all terrified that their babies might end up the same way. We didn't have all the tests then that we have now, so there were a lot of very frightened families. It was an awful time, just awful. A research team from one of the medical centers came through and did a thorough investigation for the State Department of Health. They didn't find anything, neither will you."

Jack held out his hand for the cartridge. "You're probably right, but I'll never know until I look, will I."

"Suit yourself," she said, shoving the cartridge into his palm. "But you're wasting your time."

Turned out she was right.

Jack situated himself before a viewer and began paging through the back files. The Express was a small town paper, devoted almost exclusively to local issues. Took Jack no time to scan through two months' worth.

February 1968 was an uneventful month, but March turned out to be a whole different story—not a good time at all for the Village of Monroe: violent storms, protest marchers, and a man named Jim Stevens dying an ugly accidental death outside some place known as "the Hanley mansion." And then a few days later, mass murder and mayhem inside the same house.

And that was it. Not a hint as to what might have caused the birth defects that popped up nine months later, and certainly nothing to back up Melanie's "burst of Otherness" theory.

Jack returned the cartridge to Mrs. Forseman at her desk.

"Should have listened to you," he said, trying to soften her up. "Couldn't find a thing."

It worked. She actually cracked a smile. A tiny one. "Just trying to save you some trouble."

"I guess any way you look at it, sixty-eight was a bad year for Monroe."

"A bad year for the whole country," she said. "The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy came in the spring, followed by the riots in Chicago at the Democratic convention. And then the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia and slaughtered people in the streets." Her eyes got a faraway look. "Almost as if a dark cloud passed over the world that year and turned everything ugly."

Jack hunched his shoulders to relieve a crawling sensation along his nape as he remembered Canfield's talk about a "burst of Otherness." You could almost make a case for something foul entering the world early in sixty-eight.

He shook it off. "Any children of the cluster still around?"

"Only two survived," she said, wary again. "But don't expect me to tell you who they are. They deserve their privacy."

"I suppose you're right. I've already spoken to Melanie Rubin and Frayne Canfield and I thought—"

"I saw Melanie recently myself. I hadn't seen her since her mother's funeral, but just last week I passed her old house and saw her standing outside with a very handsome man."

Jack knew she couldn't be talking about Lew. "What did he look like?"

She laughed. "Oh, I doubt very much I could describe him. My attention was too fixed on the monkey on his shoulder."

"A monkey, ay?" Jack said. Hadn't Roma told Lew yesterday that he'd been looking forward to meeting Melanie in person? "Isn't that interesting."

"Yes. Cute as a button."

Jack shrugged. "I guess that's it then. Thanks."

"Let those poor people be, young man," she said as he headed for the door. "Just let them be."

Jack found a pay phone in the library foyer and called Lew's home number.

When Lew recognized Jack's voice he gasped. "Have you found her?"

"Not yet," Jack said. "Any sign of her out there?"

"No," he said, his tone disconsolate. "Not a thing."

"I had a nice little chat with Frayne Canfield."

"Was he any help?"

"Not much. What's his story?"

"Still lives with his parents. Keeps to himself pretty much except for SESOUP activities. Debugs software for a living, but I don't think he's particularly successful at it. Why? You think he's involved?"

"It's a possibility." A very good possibility. "I'm going to be keeping an eye on him. But you didn't tell me he was wheelchair-bound. He described his legs as 'deformed'…which is also how he described Melanie's left arm." Not quite true, but Jack didn't want to let on that he'd broken into the Monroe house. "How come you never mentioned Melanie's arm?"

"I didn't think it mattered."

"It does if it's an identifying characteristic. Can I ask what's wrong with her hand?"

"Well…she doesn't really have one. According to the doctors, all the fingers on her left hand fused into a single large digit while she was a fetus. The same happened with the fingernails, leaving her with one large thick nail. She keeps it bandaged in public because it tends to upset people—they either stare or turn away."

"I'm sorry," Jack said, unable to think of anything to say.

Poor Melanie…imagine having to go through life hiding one of your hands all the time…and chopping the hands off your dolls…

"Nothing to be sorry about," Lew said. "She leads a full life. People stop noticing the bandage after a while. And.to tell you the truth, it never bothered me. I fell in love with her the moment I laid eyes on her. The only thing it has stopped her from doing is having children. She's too afraid she'll pass on her deformity."

Jack shook his head, remembering the wistful look in Lew's eyes this morning when he was playing with that toddler in the coffee shop.

"There's always adoption."

''Someday I hope we will." His voice teetered on a sob. "If she ever comes back."

"We'll find her, Lew," Jack said, only half believing it himself. "Just hang in there."

"Like I have a choice?" he said and hung up.

Don't fall apart on me, Lew, Jack thought as he replaced the receiver. You're the only one I've met in this thing who seems to be dealing from a full deck.

He turned and saw an aerial map of Monroe with the streets labeled. He found Melanie's family home. He remembered the address of the Hanley mansion from the articles and, just for the hell of it, located its approximate location. Not too far from Melanie's place. Jack could see no line of causality between the storms and the deaths at the mansion in March to the birth defects in December, but he was sure some of the SESOUPers back at the convention could find multiple ways to link them. Probably link them to the King and Kennedy assassinations and every other nasty occurrence that year as well.

But there couldn't be a connection. Just coincidence…

Shaking his head, he stepped outside and ambled toward his car. He was in no hurry to get back to the hotel. By now the SESOUP crew would be frothing at their collective mouths with theories about the ritualistic murder of one of their members.

Good a time as any to do some more work on the new Social Security number, and maybe even sneak in a little time to help Vicky with her baseball skills.

"They cut out her eyes?" Abe said around a mouthful of frozen mocha yogurt. His expression registered disgust. "You're making me lose my appetite."

"Wait," Jack said. "That's just the start. I haven't told you what they did to her lips and how they twisted—"

He waved his hand in Jack's face. "No-no-no! What I don't know can't nauseate me."

Just as well. Jack didn't want to talk about it anyway. He kept picturing himself finding Melanie in that condition and having to tell Lew.

He'd brought a pint of fat-free frozen yogurt as a gift in anticipation of Abe's aid in authoring a letter to the Social Security Administration in Trenton. He hadn't mentioned the letter yet. He'd also brought a packet of sunflower seeds for Parabellum, who was patiently splitting the shells with his deft little beak and plucking out the tiny meats.

Jack shrugged. "Okay. Bottom line is, she's dead."

"And those tough guys in black did it?"

"I'm assuming so. Never got the chance to ask. Tossed her room pretty well too."

Abe picked,up the sweating yogurt container and peered at the label.

"Non-fat shouldn't taste this good. You're sure it's non-fat?"

"That's what it says. And less calories too."

"Fewer calories."

"Less." Jack pointed to the bright yellow flag on the container. "Says so right there."

"I should accept a yogurt label as my authority on grammar? Trust me, Jack, it's 'fewer.' Less fat—okay. But fewer calories."

"You see?" Jack said, slapping a black-and-white composition book down on Abe's counter. "That's why you're just the man to help me write a letter from a high school sophomore."

Abe's eyes narrowed. "Have I just been suckered?"

Jack blinked. "Why…whatever do you mean?"

Abe sighed. "Another letter to the SSA? Just rewrite the last one."

"Nah. You know I like a new one every time. And besides, it's all your fault. You're the one who got me started on plastic money."

"Had I but known what I would set in motion…"

When Abe finally had convinced Jack of the necessity of a credit card, he suggested adding Jack as an additional cardholder on his own pseudonymous Amex account. Jack chose the name Jack Connery—he'd been running some old James Bond films at the time—but needed a Social Security number to accompany the name.

For Connery's SSN he used Abe's new—at least it was new at the time—method: he made one up. But that didn't mean simply pulling random numbers out of the air. Under Abe's tutelage, Jack learned that the SSN was divided into three sets of digits for a reason. The first set, the three-digit "area" number, told where the number was issued. If Connery had a New York birthplace and a New York address, he should have an area number somewhere between 050 and 134, indicating the number had been issued in New York. The second set of numbers was the "block" pair, indicating when the number was issued. Since Connery was listing a birth date of 1958, Jack didn't want to submit a block number that said Connery's SSN was issued before he was born. As for the last four digits—the "serial number"—anything goes.

Abe submitted the information to Amex, a Jack Connery card was duly issued, and Jack joined the plastic money parade, making sure to charge a few items every month.

Sixteen months later he was holding not one but three offers for pre-approved cards. Jack Connery signed up for his own MasterCard and, shortly thereafter, Abe canceled him as an additional cardholder.

Jack Connery was on his own.

"Used to be so easy," Abe said morosely. "You'd go to the registry, pick out the name of a dead guy, copy down his dates and numbers, and send those into the credit card company. Instantly, you've got a card. But now, computers have ruined everything."

Jack nodded. "Got to love 'em, but they're a major pain in the ass too."

Abe was referring to the SSDI—the Social Security Death Index that credit report companies like TRW and Equifax had compiled to ferret out credit cheaters. People like Jack and Abe weren't out to cheat anyone—they paid on time, to the dime—but the SSDI put their fake identities at risk. Even Jack's made-up number for Connery—someone just might happen to have that same SSN. What if that someone died and his number went into the SSDI? Neither Abe nor Jack needed a fraud investigator sniffing their way.

So Jack had searched for a better way.

He'd found it in the registry of vital statistics. Children…the registry was filled with dead children, many of them infants, some gone from disease and birth defects, too many of them the victims of abandonment, abuse, or neglect whose immediate progenitors—to call them parents would be an insult to real parents everywhere—had cast them off like so much garbage. Jack collected a list of a dozen or so, all with the first name John, who had died ten to fifteen years before—without a Social Security number. For a small fee he obtained certified copies of their birth certificates…and adopted them.

As each reached his fifteenth or sixteenth birthday, Jack applied for a new Social Security number in that name.

Jack pulled out a pen and opened the composition book.

"Okay. This one's John D'Attilio. He'd have been sixteen next month. I've got Eddy working on the documents. The Hoboken drop is going to be his home address, so he'll be writing to the SSA office in Trenton. Let's make this a good one."

Since the Social Security Act allowed someone under eighteen to apply for a Social Security number through the mail, Jack took full advantage of it. Over the years, he and Abe had composed a series of letters from various kids. Abe had a real knack for sounding like a reluctant teenager forced into applying for a Social Security number because his inconsiderate parents wanted him to ruin his summer by getting a dumb job.

It took them about ten minutes to come up with a vernacular, handwritten request; Jack made a point of crossing out a word here and there along the way.

The application required certified copies of the birth certificate, which Jack already had, and a school ID, which Ernie would provide. Then he'd put them all together and send the package off to Trenton. In a month or so, John D'Attilio would be issued a bona fide Social Security number, and added to the Social Security Administration's computers: another American cow branded and allowed to join the taxpaying herd.

"How many times have we done this now?" Abe said.

"Eight, I think."

After Jack Connery had been spun off from Abe's Amex, Jack had added two additional cardholders—Jack Andrissi and John Bender—to the Connery MasterCard. A year and a half later, various banks and Amex were wooing Andrissi and Bender with pre-approved offers.

He'd then spun off Andrissi and Bender and abandoned Connery. A new identity was added to each of the Andrissi and Bender cards. And so it went, an ongoing process of creating new identities and discarding old ones, leaving an increasingly attenuated, protracted maze that—Jack hoped—would be impossible to follow.

"Kind of morbid," Abe said. "And such a megillah."

Jack sighed. "I know about the morbid part—but I mean, I could be the only one in the world who's given one thought to some of these kids since the day they died—since the day they were born, maybe. They're almost like real family to me. And, in a sense, this gives them back some sort of life."

"A virtual life—in the databanks."

"So to speak. But as for the megillah…you've got that right."

He slumped against the counter as a dark cloud seemed to form up near the ceiling and trickle a cold drizzle on him.

"You know, Abe, I've spent most of my adult life trying to get to this place. And now…I don't know."

It had been a long hard journey, full of dangerous curves, to achieve sovereign statehood, to become a nation of one. At first it had been kind of fun—the artful dodging, the hide and seek, the daily buzz of staying on his toes and living by his wits. But the buzzes had grown fewer and further between. And without the buzz, all the dodging and hiding became work—a lot of work. Jack's was a high-maintenance lifestyle.

"Sometimes I get tired of all the upkeep…and I start asking, is it worth it?"

"You're just having a bad day."

"No…it's not just the day." He thought of seeing Vicky later and playing catch with her. "It's this schizoid life I'm leading."

"Well then, the question you've got to ask is, will merging with the global mega-conglomerate out there make you happier than remaining a closely held corporation of one? It's a decision only you can make."

"Tell me about it. But I'm beginning to see that it's not really a question of 'if'—more a question of 'when.' I mean, can you see me doing this thirty years from now? Who in his sixties has the energy for this?"

"I'm in my fifties and I can barely keep up. I should retire."

A shock of alarm pierced Jack. "What? And give up the gun trade? A lot of people out there depend on you, Abe. And what would you do? You couldn't get by selling just sporting goods, could you?"

Abe shrugged. "You never know. Take Rollerblades, for instance. Such a racket. You sell them these inline skates so they can go out and have some fun exercise. But then they have to buy helmets and shin guards and knee pads and wrist protectors so they shouldn't maim themselves while having said fun exercise."

"Hardly seems fair," Jack said.

Abe shook his head. "I know. Gun running is a much more honorable trade."

"Well, you could simply refuse to carry the skates."

"What, am I crazy? You have any idea what the markup is on that stuff? I should let someone else make all the profit?"

"Eye on the ball, Vicks. That's it. Watch it all the way into the glove."

Vicky did just that—watched it go into her glove and bounce right out. As she chased it across the tiny backyard, Jack had to admit that Vicky was a bit of a klutz when it came to baseball.

He looked around. A backyard in Manhattan, a stone's throw from the East River. A private oasis in a ferro-concrete desert. What a luxury.

The grounds had gone untended through the fall. Now Gia had already started weeding the flower beds, but the grass needed cutting, especially around Vicky's playhouse in the rear corner. Jack planned to buy a mower next week and take care of that. He hadn't cut grass since he was a teenager. Used to be his summer job. He found himself looking forward to mowing again. The city was filled with smells, but new mown grass wasn't one of them.

Despite the neglect, it was still pretty out here, especially near the rear wall of the house where the buds on the rose bushes were swelling, showing some pink as they prepared to bloom.

Gia had come out to paint. She was taking a break now, sitting at the white enameled table in the shade, nibbling delicate slivers of a bright green Granny Smith as she whittled them off with a paring knife. Her latest painting—the top of the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge glinting in the afternoon sun as it peeked over the townhouse roof—sat half finished on an easel by the playhouse. Jack liked it a hell of a lot better than any of Melanie Ehler's work, especially that one in her study. Gia, on the other hand, might go for Melanie's stuff. Her appreciation of art was so much wider than Jack's. Vicky picked up the baseball and threw it—wild.

She throws like a girl, Jack thought as he raced to intercept it before it hit her mother. But then, what else did he expect?

Jack caught the ball a few feet away from a cringing Gia.

"Many athletes in your family?" he said in a low voice.

"Not that I know of."

"Didn't think so."

"Looks like you've got your work cut out for you," she said, batting her blues as she smiled up at him.

"But I'm up to it." Then, raising his voice. "Before I'm through with her, the Vickster will be the best ballplayer in the whole damn city!"

"Yay!" Vicky cried, pumping her fist in the air.

They tossed the ball back and forth a few more times, and then Vicky wanted a break.

"I'm hungry," she said.

Gia held up her Granny Smith. "Want some apple?"

"Wait," Jack said. "I've got just the thing."

He trotted over tothe shopping bag he'd brought with him and produced a red paper box. He tossed it to Vicky.

"Animal crackers!" she cried, and tore open the top.

Jack watched Vicky munch and pick through the crackers to find her favorite animals. So easy to make her happy. She took such a disproportionate amount of pleasure from little things, and he took an equally disproportionate amount of pleasure from hers.

He looked around and knew he loved it here. So far from mutilated bodies and names stolen from dead children. At times like these he didn't want to leave. Ever.

Vicky turned to her mother. "Want a lion, Mommy?"

"Vicky!" Jack said in a shocked tone. "How can you say that? You know your mother doesn't eat meat!"

Gia winged her partially eaten apple at him.

It sailed wide. Jack reached out and snagged it, then took a sloppy bite and gave them both a big juicy grin. Vicky laughed. Gia smiled and shook her head as she bit into her lion cracker.

Life could be so good.

After a quick stop at his apartment to drop off the letter and pick up some extra clothes—and delay his return—Jack finally reached the hotel. As he walked up to the front entrance, he was struck by the absence of officialdom. He'd expected at least one blue-and-white unit to be hanging around.

The lobby looked pretty quiet too, although he could feel that strange tension again, coiling and building in the air. Most of the excitement should have subsided by now, but he'd expected to see at least one or two knots of people whispering and glancing over their shoulders.

He spotted Evelyn heading for the stairs on her Little Lotta feet. He hurried to catch up with her.

"I just got back," he said, slowing to match her pace. "Did Olive show up yet?"

She shook her head. "No one's seen her? And she hasn't contacted anyone?"

Jack repressed a groan. Don't tell me they haven't opened her room yet.

"What about her room?"

"She wasn't there? I had the managers—"

Jack froze. "What?"

"Her room was empty? I—" She stopped and looked at him with motherly concern. "Are you all right?"

Jack was mentally reeling. He knew if his face reflected half of the shock he was feeling, he must look terrible. He tried to compose himself.

"She wasn't in her room?"

She shook her head. "I can't tell you how relieved I am? I was so afraid? Like maybe we'd find her dead of a heart attack or a stroke or something?"

His mind raced, stumbling along as it tried to decide which way to go. Not there? Impossible. He'd seen her…dead…mutilated…her head twisted around…

"You're sure you had the right room?"

"Of course? Eight-twelve? I was there? I searched the room myself? Olive's suitcase? And her clothes? They're all there in the drawers? But no Olive? Isn't that strange?"

"Yeah," Jack said. "Real strange."

"It makes you wonder? You know, about the End Days? When the faithful are taken away in the Rapture? Could this be the start? And Olive is one of the first to be taken?"

How do I—how does anyone—answer that? Jack wondered.

Evelyn smiled and patted his arm. "Rapture or not, the show goes on? I have to run? I'm introducing Professor Mazuko's panel on Japanese UFOs? See you later?"

"Sure," Jack said, still feeling dazed. "Later."

He wandered up to the common area and dropped into a chair. Olive's corpse…gone. How had it been spirited out through a hotel full of people?

Spirited out…swell choice of words.

And without leaving a trace of the murder.

This left him and the killers as the only ones who knew that Olive Farina was dead.

Or was she dead? Did he know that?

Jack was having a SESOUP moment here—he'd witnessed something but didn't have a shred of physical evidence to prove it.

Had to stop that kind of thinking. Olive was dead. No question about that. But who sliced her up? The two men in black he'd run into? Or someone else?

All of which made Jack intensely uneasy. This was supposed to be a quiet job, a safe job. No rough stuff.

But the condition of Olive's corpse had said loud and clear that someone was playing very rough.

Of course there was always the possibility that Olive's murder had nothing to do with Melanie's disappearance.

Yeah, right. I should be so lucky.

Olive gone without a trace…just like Melanie. Did that mean Melanie was hidden away somewhere with no lips, no eyes, and a broken neck?

A logical conclusion, seeing as Jack, like everybody else except the killers, would be thinking of Olive as simply missing—or taken by the Rapture, if you were into that—if he hadn't broken into her room. He was glad he hadn't told Lew about Olive. He'd jump to the same conclusion, and that might just kill the poor guy.

He looked around at the SESOUP folk streaming into one of the conference rooms. Maybe these people weren't as crazy as they seemed. And maybe he could learn something useful at one of these panels.

As he followed the crowd he spied a flyer taped to the wall. He stepped closer to read it.