5
Jensen's secretary's voice rasped from the speaker on his desk. "TP Peary on line one, sir."
Jensen had told Peary to get into his street clothes and follow this phony bastard Amurri. At first, when the routine background check on "Jack Far-rell" had come up blank—name, address, SSN, none of them had connected—he'd suspected the usual. Most troublemakers for the Church were either members of another belief system who felt Dormentalists had to be "saved," or former members with an imagined score to settle. Occasionally one turned out to be a muckraker like that Jamie Grant bitch.
Just as Jensen had expected, when he called a raid on "Jack Farrell's" locker during the Reveille Session, they came up with a whole different set of ID. But not the ID of someone who fell easily into the usual categories.
Jason Amurri. Okay. But from Switzerland? That had thrown Jensen. Why would a guy come all the way from Switzerland to join the New York Dormentalist temple under an assumed name? Granted, this temple was the center of the Church, its Vatican, so to speak, but why the lies? And bad lies to boot. Obviously he'd never thought they'd check up on him.
Couldn't let anybody get away with that. Doesn't matter if you're from Switzerland or Peoria—you lie, you get the boot. That was the rule.
Jensen stared at the phone and frowned. Kind of early for Peary to be calling in. He'd only started tailing the Amurri guy a little while ago.
Unless…
He snatched up the receiver. "Don't tell me you lost him."
"No. Only had to follow him to Central Park South. He's staying at the Ritz Carlton."
Another surprise.
"How do you know he's not just visiting someone?"
"Because I called the hotel and asked to be connected to Jason Amurri's room. A few seconds later the phone started ringing."
The Ritz Carlton? Jesus. Years ago, while the luxury suites were being refurbished here in the temple, Jensen had had to book rooms in the Ritz for visiting Dormentalist celebrities. He remembered how a rear single with a view of a brick wall had cost almost seven hundred a night. And, of course, none of the visiting high rollers wanted that. No, they wanted a park view. Cost a damn fortune.
"What do you want me to do next?" Peary said.
"Come back in."
He hung up. No sense in having Peary waste his time watching a hotel. Jensen now knew where the guy was and who he was.
Well, not really who. Just his name. And home address in Switzerland. And that he was staying at just about the most expensive hotel in the city. That meant he had some bucks. This Jason Amurri was full of surprises.
A worm of unease wriggled in Jensen's gut. He didn't like surprises.
He reached for the buzzer and hesitated. What was his new secretary's name? The brainless little twits came and went so quickly. He seemed to go through them like a fox through chickens. No one applied to be his secretary anymore; they had to be drafted from the volunteer pool. Was he that hard on them? Not that he cared what they thought, it was just that some of them had long learning curves.
He decided he didn't give a shit about her name.
He buzzed and said, "Get me Tony Margiotta."
Jensen loved what computers could do for him but, beyond e-mail, he let other people deal with them. Margiotta was the computer whiz among the TPs. He'd find out what Jensen needed to know.
He just hoped it wasn't something he didn't want to know.