DORMENTALISM!
Another better You slumbers within! The Dormentalist Church will help you awaken that sleeping part of you. Reestablish contact with your hidden self now! DON'T DELAY! Momentous change is coming! You don't want to be left out! PREPARE YOURSELF! Join the millions of Seekers like Yourself. Find the nearest Dormentalist Temple and discover the Other You… before it's too late!
A toll-free number and a Midtown address on Lexington Avenue ran along the bottom. Jack jotted them down on the margin of the article.
"You'll stay away from that lot if you know what's good for you," said a creaky voice behind him.
Jack turned and saw a chubby, hunched old woman staring up at him from a nearby seat.
"Sorry?"
"You heard me. How can they call themselves a church when they never mention God? They're doing the devil's work, and you'll endanger your immortal soul if you even go near them."
Jack instinctively looked around for a dog of some kind, but didn't see one. She wasn't carrying anything big enough to hide one.
"Do you have a dog?" he said.
She blinked up at him. "A dog? What sort of question is that to ask? I'm talking about your immortal soul and—"
"Do… you… have… a… dog?"
"No. I have a cat, not that it's any business of yours."
A sharp reply leaped to his lips but he swallowed it. Just some Paleolithic busybody. He glanced back at the ad. The last line bothered him.
Other You…
He'd got to the point where the word other triggered all sorts of alarms. And now this old lady warning him against the Dormentalists. But the strange women who'd been popping in and out of his life lately never appeared alone. They always had a dog along.
Jack dropped back into his seat. Second-guessing every little thing that happened was a sure shortcut to the booby hatch.
"Just trying to give you a friendly warning," the old lady said in a low voice.
Jack looked back and noticed she was pouting.
"I'm sure you were," he told her. "Consider me warned."
He turned to the article from The Light. "Dormentalism or Demente-dism?" delved into the early days of the cult—sorry, church. Founded by Cooper Blascoe as a hippie commune in California during the sixties, it mushroomed into a globe-spanning organization with branches in just about every country in the world. The Church—apparently they liked an uppercase C—had been run by a guy named Luther Brady, who Grant called a "propheteer," since Blascoe had put himself into suspended animation in Tahiti a couple of years ago.
Whoa. Suspended animation? Jack hadn't heard about that. No wonder Blascoe hadn't been in the news. Suspended animation does not exactly make you the life of the party.
The reporter, Jamie Grant, contrasted the early Dormentalist commune, which seemed little more than an excuse to have orgies, to the upright, uptight corporate entity it had become. The Dormentalists' cash flow was top secret—apparently it was easier to ferret eyes-only documents out of NSA than the Dormentalist Church—but Grant estimated that it was well into nine-figure country.
The question was, what was it doing with all the money?
Except for a few high-profile locations in places like Manhattan and L.A., the Church was run on a tight budget. Luther Brady's doing, Grant said—he had a business degree. Grant reported that the High Council, based here in New York, had been buying plots of land all over the place, not only in this country but around the world, spending whatever it took to secure them. To what end was anyone's guess.
In the next installment, Grant promised in-depth profiles of the inanimate Cooper Blascoe and on Dormentalism's Grand Poo-bah, Luther Brady. And perhaps the reason behind the ongoing land acquisitions.
Jack refolded the article and stared out the window as the bus crossed Fifth Avenue. He watched a young, orange-haired Asian woman in black talking on a cell phone as she waited for the walk signal. A guy next to her was talking into two phones at once—on a Sunday? The pair of antennae gave him an insectoid look. On a weekday in Midtown there were so many antennae on the street it looked like an ant farm.
Nobody wanted to be disconnected anymore. Everyone was on call twenty-four hours a day for anyone with their number. Jack recoiled at the prospect. He had a prepaid cell phone but he left it off unless he was expecting a call. He often went days without turning it on. He loved being disconnected.
Back to the article: As much as he liked its sardonic, in-your-face style, he felt vaguely dissatisfied with what it didn't say. It concentrated on the structure and finances of the Dormentalist Church without going into its beliefs.
But then, according to the tagline, this was only part one. Maybe those would be covered later.
4
Jack got out at Broadway. Before heading for the subway he picked up the latest copy of The Light, which turned out to be last week's issue. It came out every Wednesday. He thumbed through it but found no follow-up article. He did find the paper's phone number, though.
He pulled out his cell and dialed the number. The automated system picked up and put him through a voice tree—uIf you don't know your party's extension" blah-blah-blah—that required him to punch in the first three letters of Grant's name. He did as instructed and was rewarded with a ring.
Not that he expected Grant to be in on a Sunday, but figured he'd break the ice with a voice mail to set him up for some talk tomorrow. But someone picked up on the third ring.
"Grant," said a gravely woman's voice.
"Is this Jamie Grant, the reporter?" The article's tone had given him the impression that Grant was male.
"One and the same. Who's this?" She sounded as if she'd been expecting someone else.
"Someone who just read your Dormentalism article."
"Oh?" A sudden wariness drenched that single syllable.
"Yes, and I'd like to talk to you about it sometime."
"Forget it," she said, her voice harsh now. "You think I'm an idiot?"
A loud clatter broke the connection. Jack stared at his phone.
What did I say?
5
Jack was late and Maggie was already waiting at Julio's when he arrived.
During his uptown ride on the 9 train he'd got to thinking about how he'd go about earning the money Maria had given him. Since he didn't know a single Dormentalist—at least no one who admitted it—he'd have to be his own mole. Infiltrating the lower echelons would probably be easy, but wouldn't get him access to membership records. He needed an advance placement course, or maybe become someone they'd usher into the inner circle.
And that had given him an idea.
So he'd made an unscheduled stop at Ernie's ID and described what he needed. Ernie wasn't so sure he could deliver.
"I dunno, man. This ain't my usual thing. Gonna hafta do a lotta research on this. Gonna take time. Gonna cost me."
Jack had said he'd cover all his expenses and make the extra effort more than worth his while. Ernie had liked that.
As Jack entered the bar, Julio pointed out Maggie—no last name, which was fine with Jack—sitting at a rear table, talking to Patsy. Well, more like listening. Patsy was a semi-regular at Julio's and a Patsy conversation usually consisted of him talking and the other party trying fruitlessly to get a word in. Jack could see Maggie nodding and looking uncomfortable in the rear dimness.
Jack ambled over and laid a hand on Patsy's shoulder.
"This guy bothering you, lady?"
Patsy jumped, then smiled when he saw Jack. "Hey, Jacko, how's it goin'? I been keepin' her company while she's waitin' for you."
He had a round face and a comb-over that started behind his ear. He wore double-knit slacks and watched the world through aviator glasses day and night, indoors and out. Wouldn't surprise Jack if he wore them to bed.
"That's great, Patsy. What a guy. But now we've got some private talk, so if you don't mind…"
"Sure, sure." As he began backing away he pointed to Maggie. "I'll be at the bar. Think on what I said about dinner."
Maggie shook her head. "Really, I can't. I have to be—"
"Just think about it, that's all I'm askin'."
Oh, and somehow along the way Patsy had got the idea that he was quite the ladies' man.
"I wish we didn't have to meet in a bar," Maggie said as Patsy sauntered away and Jack pulled up a chair.
With a minimum of effort she could have looked okay. Fortyish with a pale face, so pale that if she told Jack she'd never been out in the sun, he'd believe her. Not a speck of makeup, thin lips, a nice nose, hazel eyes. She'd tucked her gray-streaked blond hair under a light blue knit hat that looked like flapperwear from the Roaring Twenties. As for her body, she appeared slim, but a bulky sweater and shapeless blue slacks smothered whatever moved beneath. Beat-up Reeboks completed the picture. She sat stiff and straight, as if her vertebrae had been switched for a steel rod. Her whole look seemed calculated to deflect male attention.
If that was the case, it hadn't worked with Patsy. But then, Patsy was game for anyone without a Y chromosome.
"You don't like Julio's?" Jack said.
"I don't like bars—I don't go to them and I don't think they're a good thing. Too many wives and children go hungry because of paychecks wasted in places like this, too many are beaten when the drinker comes home drunk."
Jack nodded. "Can't argue with you on that, but I don't think it happens much with these folk."
"What makes them so special?"
"Most of them are single or divorced. They work hard but don't have too many people to spend on but themselves. When they go home there's no one to beat. Or love."
"What's wrong with giving their drink money to charity?"
Jack shook his head. This lady was no fun with a capital NO.
"Because they'd rather spend it hanging out with friends."
"I can think of lots of ways to be with friends besides drinking."
Jack looked around at the bright afternoon sun angling through the front windows past the bare branches of the dead ficus and the desiccated hanging plants, so long deceased they'd become mummified. "Another Brick in the Wall" wafted from the jukebox, its metronomic beat augmented by Lou's hammering at the GopherBash in the corner.
What's not to like?
She'd been just as uptight yesterday at their first meeting. He found it hard to believe that this priss was being blackmailed. What had she ever done that would let someone get a hook into her?
Her hands were clasped together on the table before her in an interlocking deathgrip. Jack reached over and gave them a gentle pat.
"I'm not the enemy here, Maggie."
Her shoulders slumped as she closed her eyes and leaned back. Tears rimmed her lids when she looked at him again.
"I know. I'm sorry. It's just… it's just that I'm not a bad person. I've been good, I've lived a clean life, I've sacrificed for others, done good works, given to charity. Criminals, mobsters, drug dealers, they commit crimes every day and go about their lives unscathed. Me, I make one little mistake, just one, and my whole world is threatened."
If she was telling the truth, and Jack believed she was, he was sorry for her. He couldn't help responding to the hurt, fright, and vulnerability seeping through her facade.
"That's because you've got something to protect—a job, a family, a reputation, your dignity. They don't."
Maggie had been under a blackmailer's thumb since August. All she would say about the hook was that someone had photos of her that she'd rather not be made public. He'd been squeezing her and she was just about tapped out. She wouldn't say what was in the photos. She admitted that she was in them, but that was it. Fine with Jack. If he found the blackmailer and the photos, he'd know. If not, none of his business.
"And another difference between you and the sleazeballs is they'll hunt down a blackmailer and rip his lungs out. You won't, and this oxygen waster knows it. That's where I come in."
Her eyes widened. "I don't want anyone's lungs ripped out!"
Jack laughed. "Figure of speech. Probably better than this guy deserves, and it would be way too messy."
She stared at him a moment, an uneasy light in her eyes, then glanced around. Though no one was in earshot, she lowered her voice.
"The person who gave me your name warned that you played 'rough.' I'm against violence. I just want those pictures back."
"I'm not a hitman," he told her, "but this guy's not going to just hand over those pictures, even if I say pretty please. I'll try to get it done without him knowing who I'm working for, but a little rough and tumble may be unavoidable."
She grimaced. "Just as long as no lungs are ripped out."
Jack laughed. "Forget lungs, I want to know who told you I played rough. What's his name?"
A hint of a smile curved her thin lips. "Who said it was a he?"
She wasn't going to come across. All right, he'd wait. And watch. Customers without references earned extra scrutiny.
"Okay. First things first: Did you bring the first half of my fee?"
She looked away. "I don't have it all. I had very little money in the first place, and so much of that is gone, used up paying this… beast." It seemed to take an effort to call her blackmailer a name. Who was this lady? "I was wondering… could I pay you in installments?"
Jack leaned back and stared at her. His impulse was to say, Forget it. He didn't do this for fun. Too often a fix-it involved putting his skin on the line; might be different if he had a replacement, but this skin was his one and only. So he liked a good portion of his fee up front. Installments meant a continuing relationship, excuses for being late, and on and on. He didn't want to be a bank, and he didn't want a long-term customer relationship. He wanted to get in, get out, and say good-bye.
And besides, dealing with a blackmailer could get ugly.
But the twenty-five large nesting in his pocket brought back the previous owner's words…
Use whatever is left over to offset the fee for someone who can't afford you…
Maybe a lady who said she did good works and gave to charity deserved a little herself.
Still, he couldn't bring himself to agree right away.
"Well, like I told you yesterday, this could be a tough job, with no guarantees. Getting your photos isn't enough. I have to get the negatives as well. But if he used a digital camera, there won't be any. Digital photos will exist on a hard drive somewhere, and most likely on a backup disk somewhere else. Finding all that will take time. But that's Stage Two. Stage One is finding out who is blackmailing you."
She shook her head. "I just can't imagine…"
"Got to be someone who knows you. Once we identify him, we'll need to steal all copies of whatever it is he's holding over you without him knowing you were behind it."
"How can you do that?"
"The ideal scenario is to make it look like an accident—say, a fire. But that's not always feasible. If you're not his only victim—I know of one guy who's made a career out of blackmail—it makes things a little easier."
"How?"
"I can liberate more than just your stuff."
"I don't understand."
"If he's got multiple victims and just your stuff winds up missing, he'll know it was you. If I wipe out everything I find, he'll have a number of suspects. But even with your stuff gone, he'll keep trying to squeeze you."
"But how—?"
"He'll assume you'll think he still has the photos. That's why we have to pave a way out for you."
"You sound like you've done this before."
He nodded. The blackmail industry kept his phone ringing. Most victims couldn't go to the cops because that meant revealing the very thing they were paying the leech to keep under wraps. They imagined a trial, their secret trumpeted in the papers, or at the very least making the public record. A certain percentage, pushed to the point where they couldn't or wouldn't take it anymore, decided to seek a solution outside the system. That was where Jack came in.
"Many times. Maybe even for your unnamed source."
"Oh, no. He'd never—" Her hand flew to her mouth.
Gotcha, Jack thought, but didn't make an issue of it. He'd narrowed down her source to a little less than half the population. At least it was a start.
"As for the installments… we'll work something out."
She smiled, this time revealing even white teeth. "Thank you. I'll see you get your money, every penny of it." She dug into her black no-name pocketbook. "I was able to bring the hundred dollars you asked for."
She handed him a hundred-dollar bill and two folded sheets of paper.
Jack slipped the bill under his sweater and into the breast pocket of his shirt. The blackmailer had demanded a thousand as his next payment. He was going to get only a fraction of that. And Jack was going to send it.
He had a reason for doing it himself. But more important, the payment would allow him to track down the blackmailer. He'd done this before: Send the money in a padded envelope with a dime-size transponder hidden in the lining, then follow the transponder.
He unfolded the first sheet of paper—Maggie's perfect Palmer-method handwritten note saying she didn't have any more to send at the moment. Good. Just what he'd told her to write. The second was the address. The money was supposed to go to "Occupant." A street address and a number followed—plainly a mail drop. Jack did a double take at the street—Tremont Avenue in the Bronx… Box 224.
"Son of a bitch!"
"I beg your pardon?"
"I know that address and I know who's blackmailing you."
"Who?"
"A walking, talking virus."
"But what's his name?"
Jack could see his round, sweaty-jowled face with eyes and mouth crowded close to the center of his face, held there by the gravitational field of his big, pushed-up nose. Richie Cordova, a fat, no good, rotten, useless glob of protoplasm. Not two months ago Jack had ruined most of Cordova's stash of blackmail goodies. Obviously he'd missed Maggie's photos.
"Nobody you'd know. He's the guy I mentioned before, who's made a career out of blackmail."
Maggie looked frightened. "But how did he get those pictures of me and…?"
And who? Jack wondered. Male or female?
He had a pretty good idea of how it had gone down. Cordova's legit grind was private investigations. Someone hired him for a job that had put him in Maggie's orbit. The shitbum spotted something hinky, took a few pictures, and now was using them to supplement his income.
"Bad luck. The wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time."
She leaned forward. "I want his name."
"Better you don't know. It can't do you any good. Might even buy you some trouble." He looked at her. "I mean it."
"Yes, but—"
"You believe in the soul, I assume?"
"Of course."
"This guy's is a petri dish."
She slumped again. "This is terrible."
"Not really. Granted you've got a better chance of goof-ups if you're on the string to an amateur than a pro, but I've already dealt with this particular pro. I know where he lives and where he works. I'll get your photos back."
She brightened. "You will?"
"Well, maybe I shouldn't guarantee anything, but we've gone from Stage One to Stage Two in a matter of minutes. That's a record. We still have to send him that money though."
"Why? I thought that was to trace him. If you already know wüo he is—"
"There's a reason we're shorting him. I want to rattle his cage, make him get in touch with you. When he calls, you've got to cry poverty—"
She barked a bitter little laugh. "It won't be an act, I can tell you that."
"Be convincing. What that does is set the stage for your sending him no more money when and if I retrieve your photos. You simply haven't got it. Remember, he's got a lot invested in his blackmail assets. We don't want him connecting you to losing them. No telling what he'll do."
Instead of looking concerned, Maggie smiled as if a terrible burden had been lifted.
"This is going to work, isn't it," she said.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves."
"No, it is. I can feel it. God turned away from me for a while—not without good reason—but now I see His hand again in my life. He led me to you, to someone who has already dealt with my tormentor. That can't be just a coincidence."
Coincidence…
Jack felt his shoulders tighten. He hated coincidences.
6
Jack watched Maggie leave, nimbly sliding past Patsy as she gave him the brush.
Months ago a lady—a Russian lady with a big white dog—had told him there'd be no more coincidences in his life. He'd seen no hard evidence yet that she'd been right, but certain incidents that he might otherwise consider happenstance seemed to form a pattern when he looked for one. True, you could always find connections if you looked hard enough and stretched the imagination. That was how conspiracy theories were born.
But Maggie had it right: Her picking him to help her with Cordova seemed like a hell of a coincidence. On the other hand, Cordova did a lot of blackmailing. It wasn't impossible that two of his victims—Emil Jankowski in September and Maggie here at the tail end of October—would call on Jack. Not too much competition in the fix-it field.
Still…
He popped out of his seat and headed for the door, waving to Julio as he passed the bar.
Out on the street he peered up and down the sidewalk until he spotted Maggie's blue knit hat bouncing away to his right. He took off after her, keeping his distance. He hoped she'd snag a cab but no, she bounded down the steps of a subway entrance.
Damn. Following her on a Sunday wouldn't be easy. No crowds to hide in. With a mental shrug he headed down. The worst that could happen was she'd spot him and he'd have to ad lib an explanation.
He hung back on the stairs till he saw her head for the downtown side. When she hopped on an A train he slipped into the following car and positioned himself where he could watch her through the glass. She pulled a book from her bag but didn't open it. She stared at the floor, looking lost, as if the worries of the world were all hers.
She rode that way down to West Fourth where she switched to the F. Along the way she didn't look around much, too lost in her thoughts to notice anyone following.
She stepped off at Delancey and Jack followed her up to the streets of the Lower East Side. The buildings here were former tenements that maxed out at five stories. Canopied oriental and kosher food stores sat cheek by jowl along the stained gray sidewalk.
He gave her a block lead but grew a little uneasy as he started to recognize his surroundings. He'd come down here just last August to confront a priest who had hired him but managed to pull one over on him. What was his name? Father Ed. Right. Father Edward Halloran. His church had been around here somewhere, St. Somebody-or—
He stopped dead as he followed Maggie around a corner. There, across the street, looming over the surrounding tenements, sat the hulking, Gothic, granite-block mass of the Church of St. Joseph. The old building wasn't in any better shape than the last time he'd seen it. The large rose window centered over the double doors was caked with grime, as were its twin crocketed spires, but the latter boasted the added decoration of white stripes a la city squab.
The doors stood open and people, mostly older with an immigrant look, were wandering inside.
Jack had been in the rectory to St. Joe's immediate left, but not the building to the right where Maggie was hurrying up the front steps, passing a sign that read Convent of the Blessed Virgin.
A nun? Maggie was a nun?
Well, it sort of fit with her uptight personality. But he guessed she wasn't too uptight, otherwise Cordova would have nothing to hold over her. And since she was connected with St. Joe's, Jack had a pretty good idea who had referred her: Father Ed.
Okay. One mystery solved. But another remained. Why blackmail a nun? Seemed like a waste of effort. Nuns didn't have any money—unless Maggie came from a wealthy family.
Jack glanced at his watch. Five to four. He'd promised to take Gia and Vicky out to dinner, but that wasn't till seven. Maybe he'd invest an hour or so here and see if he could learn any more. Maybe Maggie wasn't a nun. Maybe she merely worked at the convent… but he doubted that.
He spotted an all-purpose convenience store/take out/coffee shop eater-corner from the church. Maybe he could watch from there.
He crossed over and bought a cup of stale coffee in the traditional blue-and-white container from the Korean proprietor. No sooner had he stepped to the window and taken his first bitter sip when Maggie reappeared. She'd changed into a gray skirt and jacket over a white blouse. Her hair was tucked under a black wimple with a white band. She hurried down the convent steps, up the church steps, and disappeared inside.
Well, that settled the is-she-or-isn't-she question. But Jack wanted a little more info. He stepped outside and crossed back to the church, dribbling his coffee onto the pavement as he went. On the far side he tossed the empty cup into a trash basket, then climbed St. Joe's front steps.
To the right, white vinyl letters snapped into a black message board that listed the Mass schedule. Sunday had one every ninety minutes till noon, then one last chance at four.
To the left, a worn black-on-white sign heralded the Church of St. Joseph's Renovation Fund and sported a thermometer to track the progress of contributions. One-hundred-thousand-dollar increments were listed to the left of the graduated column up to the goal of $600,000; the red area that marked the level of contributions hadn't even filled the bulb. Not surprising, considering the chill economic climate and the low-income level of the parish.
Jack edged through the entrance and stood in the vestibule. The nave stretched ahead through a second set of doors. A sparse crowd for the four o'clock Mass, so he had no trouble spotting Maggie. She sat behind a well-dressed man. Occasionally she'd lean forward and whisper something. He'd nod and she'd lean back.
The priest on the altar was not Father Ed; he displayed about the same level of interest in what he was doing as his parishioners, which was not much. Jack tuned him out, trying to get a fix on the relationship between Maggie—if that was her name—and her man friend. He'd thought at first that they might be having an affair, but he sensed a distance between them.
About halfway through the Mass the man rose and sidled to the aisle, then headed back toward Jack. He looked to be about fifty, with a good haircut and features that might be described as distinguished looking except for the haunted look in his eyes and the circles beneath them. He gave Jack a friendly nod and a reflexive smile as he passed. Jack nodded back.
Jack counted to five, then stepped to the front doors. He watched the man stand on the corner, looking for a cab. It took a couple of minutes but he snagged one and it headed uptown.
Jack leaned against the rusty iron railing by the building-fund sign and waited. Soon the parishioners began to filter out. He spotted Maggie among them, head down, lost in thought.
"Sister?" he called softly. "Can I have a word with you?"
She looked up and her initial look of confusion vanished in wide-eyed shock.
"You! How did you—?"
Jack motioned her closer. "Where can we talk?"
She glanced around at the final parishioners straggling from within and heading down the steps.
"In a moment this will be as good a place as any."
"You're kidding."
"No. I can't be seen strolling around with a man, and certainly not sitting in a bar with him."
Jack noted the emphasis on "bar."
He lowered his voice. "What's your real name, sister?"
"Margaret Mary O'Hara." She flashed a tiny smile. "The kids at the parish school used to call me 'Sister M&M.' They still do, but now they spell it differently."
Jack returned her smile. "Sister Eminem. That's cool. Better than Sister Margaret. That'd make you sound ninety years old."
"Around the convent I'm known as Sister Maggie, but lately I have felt ninety years old."
Movement caught Jack's eye. He spotted a white-albed altar boy at the front doors, kicking up the hooks that held them open.
"Hi, Sister," he said as he spotted her.
"Hello, Jorge," she said with a genuine smile, wider than Jack had ever seen from her. "You did a good job today. See you in school tomorrow."
He nodded and smiled. "See ya."
When the doors had closed she turned back to Jack.
"Obviously you followed me. Why?"
"Too many unanswered questions. But at least now I know who referred you. Does Father Ed know you're being blackmailed?"
She shook her head. "No. He just knows I need help and can't go to the police. I went to him for advice and he suggested you. Did… did he hire you for something?"
"You'll have to ask him. My memory's very unreliable."
The answer seemed to please her. "That's good to know."
"Are you and that man I saw you with in the photos together?"
"I'd really rather not say."
"Fair enough." Jack looked around. They were alone on the steps, alone on the deserted street. A man and a nun standing a good two feet apart. No one could infer anything improper from that. "How bad can the photos be?"
She looked at her feet. "He sent me copies. Very bad. Nothing left to the imagination."
"Well then let me ask, How much can they hurt you? I'm assuming you were with a guy, but even if you weren't, I mean, they made some openly gay guy a bishop, so what could—?"
"Good gravy, Jack. Those were Episcopalians. This is the Catholic Church."
Good gravy?
"You're kidding, right? After what Catholic priests have been up to?"
"Some Catholic priests. None that I've ever known. But this is different. Nuns are different. My order would banish me. I'd be out on the street with no home, no savings, and no job."
"Seems pretty cold."
"I love my order, Jack. But more than that, I love serving God and I love teaching these children. I'm a good teacher. It's not false pride when I say I can and do make a difference. But even if I was allowed to stay in the convent, I couldn't be allowed to teach." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Those pictures threaten everything I hold dear in my life."
Jack watched her and wondered how so many facets of her life had combined to ruin it. If she'd been Margaret Mary O'Hara, single public school teacher, she could thumb her nose at Cordova. Yeah? So? But she was Sister Maggie and that was a whole other ball game.
"Okay, answer me this: How much money do you have?*'
"We take a vow of poverty but are allowed to put a little away for special circumstances. Whatever I had is all but gone now, paid to that… that…"
"Yeah, I know. Any family money you can tap into?"
Her mouth twisted. "My father's long dead, my mother died over the summer, penniless. Every last cent she had was eaten up by the nursing home."
"Sorry to hear that. But I'm confused. Having seen the way this creep operates, I can't understand him going after someone with a vow of poverty. He tends to like deeper wells."
Sister Maggie looked away. After a few heartbeats she sighed and pointed to the sign behind Jack.
"He wants me to steal from the renovation fund. I'm one of the overseers."
"Really." This was an interesting twist. "How could he know that?"
Another look away. "It has to do with the photos. I can't say any more."
"All right then, why not simply quit that position?"
"He said if I don't pay, or if I quit working with the fund, he'll make the photos public and ruin me and the fund. The fund's having such a tough time as it is, a scandal will sink it."
"Whatever they show, you can say they're fake. You wouldn't believe how they can manipulate photos these days. Seeing used to be believing. Not anymore."
"First off," she said, "that would be lying. Secondly, I have been working closely of late with the other person in the photos. What they show would not seem so preposterous to anyone who knew us."
"So what you're saying is even if they were fakes, very good fakes, they'd still mess up your life and the building fund."
She nodded, started to say something, but couldn't get the words past her trembling lips.
Jack felt his jaw clench as he watched tears of helplessness rim her eyes. Sister Maggie seemed like good people. The thought of that slimy, belly-crawling son of a bitch turning the screws on her, and probably enjoying every minute…
Finally she found her voice. "He stole something from me… a very private moment…"
"And you want it back."
She looked up at him. "No. I want it erased." She pointed to her heart. "From here"—then touched her forehead—"and from here. But that can't happen while those pictures are out there."
"Don't worry about it. Ill take care of it. *
She looked into his eyes and didn't seem to like what she saw there.
"But without violence. Please. 1 can't be a party to violence."
Jack only nodded. No promises. If an opportunity to put the hurt on the slob presented itself, he might not be able to resist.
He'd have dinner with his ladies tonight, then he was going to pay a visit to fat Richie Cordova.
7
After a quick shower and a change of clothes, Jack stuck Sister Maggie's hundred-dollar bill into a padded envelope, addressed it to Cordova, and dropped it in a mailbox. Just in time to make the late pickup.
Then he stopped in at the Isher Sports Shop on the way to Gia's. The front doorbell jangled as he pushed through. Jack wound his way toward the rear of the store through the tilting, ready-to-topple shelves overcrowded with basketballs, snowboards, baseball bats, even boxing gloves. He found Abe, proprietor and sole employee, out of his usual spot behind the rear counter and over by the rack of hockey sticks. He was talking to a young woman and a boy who looked maybe ten.
"All right," Abe was saying to the boy in a testy tone. "Stand up straight already. Right. Unstoop those shoulders. No jaded slouch till you're at least twelve—it's a law. There. Now you should look straight ahead while I measure the stick."
Abe with a sporting goods customer—usually a theater-of-the-absurd playlet. Jack stood back and watched the show.
Abe stood five-two or -three and was a little over sixty with a malnourished scalp and an overfed waistline. He wore his customary half-sleeve white shirt and black pants, each a sampling menu of whatever he'd eaten during the course of the day. This being the end of the day, the menu was extensive.
He grabbed a handful of hockey sticks and stood them one at a time in front of the kid. The end of the handle of the first came up to the level of the kid's eyes.
"Nope. Too long. Just the right length it should be, otherwise you'll look like a kalyekeh out there on the ice."
The kid looked at his mom who shrugged. Neither had the faintest idea what Abe was rambling about. Jack was right with them.
The second stick reached the kid's chin.
"Too short. A good match this would be if you were in your skates, but in shoes, no."
The end of the third stick stopped right under the kid's nose.
"Perfect! And it's made of graphite. Such tensile strength. With this you can beat your opponents senseless and never have to worry about breaking it."
The kid's eyes widened. "Really?"
The mother repeated the word but with narrowed eyes and a different tone.
Abe shrugged. "What can I say? It's no longer a sport, hockey. You're equipping your kaddishel to join a tumel on ice. Why put the little fellow in harm's way?"
The mother's lips tightened into a line. "Can we just pay for this and go?"
"I should stop you from paying?" he said, heading for the scarred counter where the cash register sat. "Of course you can pay."
Her credit card was scanned, approved, a slip was signed, and she was on her way. If her expression hinted that she'd never be back, her comment left no doubt.
"Get out while you can," she muttered to Jack as she passed. "This guy is a loon."
"Really?" Jack said.
Abe had settled himself onto his stool and assumed his customary hands-on-thighs posture as Jack reached the counter. Parabellum, his blue parakeet and constant companion, sat in his cage to the right pecking at something that looked like a birdseed popsicle.
"Another highwater mark in Abe Grossman customer relations," Jack said, grinning. "You ever consider advertising yourself as a consultant?"
"Feh," Abe said with a dismissive gesture. "Hockey."
"At least you actually sold something related to a sport."
The street-level sports shop would have folded long ago if not for Abe's real business, locked away in the cellar. He didn't need sports-minded customers, so he did what he could to discourage them.
"Not such a sport. Do you know they're making hockey sticks out of Kevlar now? They're expecting to maybe add handguns to the brawls?"
"Wouldn't know," Jack said. "Never watch. Just stopped by to let you know I won't be needing that transponder I ordered."
"Nu?" Abe's eyebrows lifted toward the memory of his hairline. "So you're maybe not such a customer relations maven yourself?"
"No, she's still onboard. It's just that I've already dealt with the guy who's squeezing her. He's the one the last transponder led me to."
"Cor-bon or something, right?"
"Close. Cordova. Some coincidence, huh?" He waited for Abe's reaction.
"Coincidence…" His eyes narrowed. "You told me no more coincidences for you."
Jack hid his discomfort. "Yeah, I know, but coincidences do happen in real life, right?"
Abe shrugged. "Now and then."
"Watch: I'll probably find out he's a closet Dormentalist."
"Dormentalist? He's a rat, maybe, but is he meshugge?"
Jack told him about Maria Roselli and her missing Johnny, then asked, "You know anything about Dormentalism?"
"Some. Like a magnet it attracts the farblondzhet in the head. That's why the Dormentalists joined the Scientologists in the war against Prozac back in the eighties. Anything that relieves depression and allows a clearer view of life and the world is a threat to them. Shrinks the pool of potential members."
"I need to do a little studying up. What's the best place to start, you think? The Web?"
"Too much tsuris separating fact from opinion there. Go to the source."
He slid off the stool and stepped into the little office behind the counter area. Jack had been in there a few times. It made the rest of the store look neat and spare and orderly. He heard mutters and clatters and thuds and Yiddish curses before Abe reemerged.
"Here," he said as he slapped a slim hardcover on the counter. "What you need is The Book of Hokano, the Torah of Dormentalism. More than you'll ever wish or need to know. But this isn't it. Instead, it's a mystery novel, starring a recurring hero named David Daine, supposedly written by Dormentalism's founder, Cooper Blascoe."
Jack picked it up. The dust jacket cover graphic was a black-and-white melange of disjointed pieces with the title Sundered Lives in blazing red.
"Never heard of it."
Abe's eyebrows rose again in search of the Lost City of Hair. "You should have. It was number one on the Times' bestseller list. I bought it out of curiosity." He rolled his eyes. "Oy, such a waste of good money and paper.
How such a piece of turgid drek could be a bestseller, let alone make number one, makes me dizzy in the head. He wrote six of them, all number ones. Makes one wonder about the public's reading tastes."
"Whodunnit?"
"I have no idea. Couldn't finish it. Tried once to read The Book of Hokano and couldn't finish that either. Incoherent mumbo jumbo." He pointed to the book in Jack's hand. "My gift to you."
"A bad novel. Gee, thanks. You think I should buy The Book of Hokano then?"
"If you do it should be used already. Don't give those gonifs another royalty. And set aside a long time. A thousand or so pages it runs."
Jack winced. "Do they have Cliff Notes for it?"
"You might find something like that online. All sorts of nuts online."
"Still, millions of people seem to believe in it."
"Feh! Millions, shmillions. That's what they say. It's a fraction of that, I'll bet."
"Well, it's soon going to be a fraction plus one. I'm a-goin' to church."
"You mean you're joining a cult."
"They call themselves a church. The government agrees."
Abe snorted. "Church smurch. We should listen to the government? Dormentalists give up control to their leaders; all decisions are made for them—how to think, what to believe, where to live, how to dress, what country even! With no responsibility there's no guilt, no outcome anxiety, so they feel a mindless sort of peace. That's a cult, and a cult is a cult no matter what the government says. If the Department of Agriculture called a bagel an apple, would that make it an apple? No. It would still be a bagel."
"But what do they believe?"
"Get yourself The Book of Hokano and read, bubbie, read. And trust me, with that in front of you, insomnia will be no worry."
"Yeah, well, I'll sleep even better if you find me a way to become a citizen again."
Impending fatherhood was doing a number on Jack's lifestyle, making him look for a way to return to aboveground life without attracting too much official attention. It wouldn't have been easy pre-9/11, but now… sheesh. If he couldn't provide a damn good explanation of his whereabouts for the last fifteen years, and why he wasn't on the Social Security roles or in the IRS data banks as ever filing a 1040, he'd be put under the Homeland Security microscope. He doubted his past could withstand that kind of scrutiny, and he didn't want to spend the rest of his life under observation.
Had to find another way. And the best idea seemed to be a new identity… become someone with a past.
"Any more from your guy in Europe?"
Abe had contacts all over the world. Someone in Eastern Europe had said he might be able to work out something—for a price, of course.
Abe shook his head. "Nothing definite. He's still working on it. Trust me, when I know, you'll know."
"Can't wait forever, Abe. The baby's due mid-March."
"I'll try to hurry him. I'm doing my best. You should know that."
Jack sighed. "Yeah. I do."
But the waiting, the dependence on a faceless contact, the frustration of not being able to fix this on his own… it ate at him.
He held up the book. "Got a bag?"
"What? Afraid people will think you're a Dormentalist?"
"You got it."