3
"Sweet Jesus!" Lyle Kenton said when their uninvited guests were finally gone. He'd already dropped his Ifasen persona; now he dropped into the recliner in the upstairs sitting room and rubbed his eyes. "What happened here tonight?"
His brother Charlie, no longer the subservient Kehinde, gave him a reproachful look from where he leaned against the couch, taking tiny sips from a Diet Pepsi. That was the way he drank: no gulps, just lots of quick, tiny sips.
"Ay, yo, Lyle. I thought you was eighty-sixin' it with taking the Lord's name in vain."
Lyle waved an apology with one hand and twisted one of his dreads in the other as he reran the past hour through his brain. Not the laid-back Friday night he'd planned. He and Charlie had been sitting in the living room, channel surfing in. search of something watchable on the tube when Junie Moon had come a-knockin'.
"I tell you, Charlie, when I saw Moonie standing there on the front porch with that crowd behind her, I thought we were cooked. I mean, I figured she'd tumbled to your little visit and brought down the heat."
Of course, on further reflection, he'd realized that if it really had been the heat, Junie Moon wouldn't have been with them.
"Coulda been worse," Charlie said, pacing back and forth in front of the couch, a deep purple velvet affair that had come with the house. Everything in the room-the furniture, the upright piano, the murky landscapes in gilded frames on the walls-had been here when they'd bought it ten months ago. "Coulda been the banger who done the drive-by."
Lyle nodded, feeling his neck tighten. Just last Tuesday night he'd been standing by the picture window in the waiting room downstairs when a bullet whizzed right by his head. It had punctured the pane without shattering it, leaving a hole surrounded by a small spiderweb of cracks. He'd dug it out of the wall, but since guns weren't his thing, he couldn't tell what" caliber it was. All he could be sure of was that it had been meant for him. The incident had left him shaken and more than a little paranoid. He'd kept the curtains pulled ever since.
The reason, he knew, was that a lot of well-heeled clients had started migrating from the Manhattan psychics to Astoria since Lyle had joined the game. None of those players was happy about it. A slew of angry, threatening, anonymous phone calls over the past few weeks had made that clear. But one of them-hell, maybe a group of them-had figured that phone calls wouldn't cut it and decided to play rough.
But Lyle hadn't called the police. They say the only bad publicity is no publicity, but this was an exception. A sensational story about his being shot at could be pure poison. People might stay away for fear of being caught in the middle of a shoot-out between warring psychics. He could imagine the quips: A trip to this psychic might put you a lot closer to the dearly departed than you intended.
Oh, yes. That would be a real boon to business.
But worse was the gut-clawing realization that someone wanted him dead.
Maybe not dead, he kept telling himself. Maybe the shot had been a warning, an attempt to scare him off.
He'd find that easier to believe if he'd been in another room at the time.
Nothing else had happened since. Things would settle out. He just had to keep his head down and give it time.
"But it wasn't," Lyle said. "It was just Junie Moonie and friends. So there I was, just starting to relax after finding out she's here because she can't wait till tomorrow for her session. I open the door, and what happens? Bam! The world starts to shake. I gotta tell you, bro, I almost lost it."
Charlie's grin had a sour twist. "I know you lost that busta accent."
"Did I?" Lyle had to smile. He'd been affecting a mild East African accent for so long now-used it twenty-four/seven-that he'd thought his Detroit ghetto voice dead and buried. Guess not. "Shows how much I was worried about you, man. You're my blood. I didn't want this whole house comin' down on your head."
"I 'predate that, Lyle, but Jesus was with me. I wasn't afraid."
"Well, you should have been. An earthquake in New York. Whoever heard of such a thing?"
"Maybe it's a warning, Lyle," Charlie said, still pacing and sipping. "You know, the Lord's way of telling us to get tight."
Lyle closed his eyes. Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. You were so much more fun before you got religion.
My fault, he supposed. My bad.
A few years ago, when they'd been working a low-budget spiritualist storefront in Dearborn, a faith healer came to town and he and Charlie had gone to see how the guy worked his game, Lyle had kept his eye on all the wheelchairs the healer had brought along, and how his assistants would graciously offer them to unsteady looking old folks who tottered in-the same folks who'd "miraculously" be able to walk again after the healer prayed over them. While he was doing that, his younger brother had been listening to the sermon.
Lyle had gone home and written up notes for the future when he opened his own church.
Charlie had bought a Bible at the tent show, brought it home, and started reading it.
Now he was a Born Again. A True Believer. A Big Bore.
They used to make the bars together, pick up women together, do everything together. Now the only things that seemed to interest Charlie were reading his Bible and "witnessing."
Yet no matter what he did or didn't do, Charlie was still his brother and Lyle loved him. But he'd liked the old Charlie better.
"If that earthquake was the Lord's work and aimed at us, Charlie, he sure shook up a lot of people besides us."
"Maybe lots of people besides us need shaking up, yo."
"Amen to that. But what was with that scream? You've got to let me know when you're going to pull a new gag. The house shaking and the ground rumbling were bad enough, but then you throw in the scream from hell and everyone was ready to run for the river."
"Didn't have nothing to do with no scream," Charlie said. "That was the fo' reals, bro."
"Real?" In his heart Lyle had known that, but he'd been hoping Charlie would tell him different. "Real what?"
"Real as in not something I cooked up. That sound didn't come from no speakers, Lyle. It come from the house."
"I know. A bunch of these old beams shifting in the quake, right?"
Charlie stopped his pacing and stared at him. "You connin' me? You really gonna sit there and tell me that sounded like wood creaks to you? Betta recognize that was a scream, man. A human scream."
That was what it had sounded like to Lyle too, but it couldn't have been.
"Not human, Charlie, because the only humans here besides you and me were our uninvited guests, and they didn't do it. So it just sounded human, but wasn't."
"Was." Charlie's pacing picked up speed. "Come from the basement."
"How do you know that?"
"I standin' by the door when it went down."
"The basement?" Lyle felt a chill ripple along his spine. He hated the basement. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Didn't 'xactly have time. We had guests, remember?"
"They've been gone for a while now."
Charlie looked away. "I knew you'd wanna go check it out."
"Damn right, I do." He didn't, not really, but no way he was going to sleep tonight if he didn't. "And would you sit down or something? You're making me nervous."
"Can't. I'm too jumpy. Don't you feel it, Lyle? The house has changed, yo. Noticed it soon as we come back inside after the quake. I can't explain it, but it feels different... strange."
Lyle felt it too, but wouldn't say so. That would be akin to buying into the same sort of supernatural mumbo jumbo they sold to the fish. Which he refused to do. But he had to admit that the room lights didn't seem quite as bright as before the quake. Or was it that the shadows in the corners seemed a little deeper?
"We've had a nerve-jangling week and you're feeling the effects."
"No, Lyle. It's like it ain't just us in this house no more. Like something else moved in."
"Who? Beelzebub?"
"Don't you go crackin' on me. You know you feel it, dawg, don't tell me you don't!"
"I don't feel nothin'!"
Lyle stopped and shook his head at the double negative. He'd spent years erasing the street from his vocabulary, but every once in a while, like a weed, it popped through the Third World turf he'd been cultivating. Ifasen's accent said old Third World, his dreads said new Third World; Ifasen was an international man who recognized no barriers-not between races, not between nations, not even between life and death.
But Third World was key. The affluent, white, New Age yo-yos who made up the demographic Lyle was chasing believed that only primitive and ancient civilizations retained access to the eternal truths obscured by the technophilia of western post-industrial civilization. They'd accept just about anything an East African named Ifasen told them, but would brush off the same if it came from Lyle Kenton of Detroit's Westwood Park slums.
Lyle didn't mind the act; kind of liked it, in fact. But Charlie wouldn't make the effort, declining to become what he called an "oreo." So he became the silent partner in the act. At least he agreed to dress the part of Kehinde. Left on his own he'd be baggied out with a dukey rope, floppy fat sneaks, and a backward Tigers cap. A hip-hop Born-Again.
Lyle jumped and spilled some beer on his pants as the phone rang. Man, his nerves were jangled. He looked at the caller ID: Michigan. He picked up.
"Hey, sugar. I thought you'd be on the plane by now."
Kareena Hawkins's velvet voice slunk from the receiver. The sound gave Lyle a rush of lust. "I wish I were. But tonight's promotion ran way over and the last plane out is gone."
He missed Kareena. She ran the PR department of a Dearborn rap station. At twenty-eight she was two years younger than Lyle. They'd been just about inseparable before he moved east, and had been carrying on a longdistance relationship the last ten months, the plan being for Kareena to move east and get a job with a New York station.
"So take a morning flight."
He heard her yawn. "I'm beat, Lyle. I think I'll just sleep in."
Lyle couldn't hide his disappointment. "Come on, Kareena. It's been three weeks."
"Next weekend'll be better. I'll call you tomorrow."
Lyle pressed his case awhile longer but to no avail. Finally they ended the call. He sat there a moment, staring at one of the crummy pictures on the wall and feeling morose.
Charlie said, "Kareena ain't gonna make it, I take it?"
"Nah. Too tired. That job of hers is-"
"Hate to say it, bro, but she playin' on you."
"No way. Don't talk like that."
Charlie shrugged and mimed zipping his lip.
Lyle didn't want to admit it but he'd begun suspecting the same thing. He'd gotten the growing impression that despite all her early enthusiasm for a career move, Kareena had cooled to the idea of leaving her comfy niche in Dearborn and challenging the New York market. And now she was cooling on him.
Only one thing to do: Take some time off next week and head west. Sit her down, talk to her, show her how important she was to him and how he couldn't lose her.
He looked at Charlie and said, "Let's go check the cellar."
Charlie only nodded.
Lyle led the way down to the first level, through the old-fashioned linoleum-floored kitchen, and down the cellar steps. He flipped the light on and stopped, staring.
"Jeees-" Realizing Charlie was right behind him, he stopped himself, then added, "-and crackers."
According to the real estate agent who'd sold them the place, the cellar had been finished by a previous owner, two prior to Lyle. Whoever he was, he'd had no taste. He'd put in a drop ceiling with fluorescent lights, tacky fake wood paneling in some blah shade of pecan on the walls, and painted the concrete floor orange. Orange! It looked like a rec room out of a bad movie from the sixties, or maybe the fifties. Whatever, it did not belong in Menelaus Manor.
But now a huge crack split its orange floor.
"Peep this!" Charlie said as he brushed past Lyle and approached it.
The jagged crack ran the entire width of the floor, wall to wall, east to west, widening to a couple of inches near the center. Crack was an understatement. The concrete slab of the floor had been broken in half.
His brother was already crouched by the opening when Lyle arrived.
"Looks deep," Charlie said.
Lyle's heart stumbled over a beat as he saw his brother start to wriggle his fingers into the crack. He grabbed Charlie's wrist and snatched it back.
"What kind of fool are you?" he shouted, angry and frightened. "What if that floor decides to shift back? What are you going to do with a right hand that's got no fingers?"
"Oh, right," Charlie said, cradling his fingers as if they'd been hurt. "Good point."
Lyle shook his head. Charlie was so bright in so many ways, but sometimes, when it came to common sense...
Lyle studied the crack, wondering how deep the ground was split beneath it. He leaned over and squinted into the opening. Nothing but featureless darkness beyond.
Wait... was that-?
Lyle snapped his head up, momentarily dizzy. For a moment there he thought he'd seen stars... as if he'd been looking at a night sky, but someone else's sky, like no night sky ever seen from earth... a yawning well of stars that threatened to drag him down through the opening.
He backed away, afraid to look again, and as he moved he thought he felt a puff of air against his face. He placed his hand over the opening. A feather-light breeze wafted against his palm.
Damn! Where was that coming from?
"Charlie, look in there and tell me what you see."
"Why?"
"Make like a Nike and just do it."
Charlie put his eye to the crack. "Nathan. Just black."
Lyle looked again and this time saw no stars, no strange sky. But what about a moment ago?
He straightened. "Bring me the toolbox, will you?"
"What wrong?"
"I'm not sure."
Charlie returned in less than a minute. Lyle opened the toolbox and found some two-inch nails. He pressed his ear to the crack and dropped one through. He listened for the clink of it hitting bottom, but it never came.
Lyle motioned his brother closer. "Get your ear down here and see if you hear anything."
A second try yielded the same nonresult for Lyle. He straightened and looked at Charlie. "Well?"
Charlie shook his head. "Could be soft dirt down there. Like sand."
"Maybe. But you'd think we'd hear something."
"Got an idea!"
Charlie jumped up and ran back upstairs. He returned with a pitcher of water.
"This gotta work."
Lyle fitted his ear against the crack; Charlie did the same and then began to pour. The faint trickle of the water through the crack was all Lyle heard. No splash, not even a hint of one, from below.
Lyle straightened to sitting. "Just what we need: a bottomless pit under our house."
"What we do?" Charlie stared at him, obviously expecting an answer from big brother.
Lyle didn't have one. He definitely didn't want the city to know about this. They might condemn the place and boot him out. He hadn't come all the way from Michigan to get kicked out of the first home he'd ever owned.
No, he needed someone discreet who knew his way around construction and could tell him what was wrong and how to fix it. But he'd only been in town ten months and-
"Dear Lord!" Charlie cried, jamming a hand over his nose and mouth. "What that!"
Lyle didn't have to ask. He gagged as the odor hit him. It lifted him to his feet and sent him staggering toward the stairs. Charlie was right behind him as he pelted up to the first floor and shut the door.
Lyle stood in the kitchen, gasping as he stared at his brother. "We must be sitting over a sewer line or something."
Charlie stared back. "One that run through a graveyard. You ever smell anything stink so bad? Even close?"
Lyle shook his head. "Never." He'd never imagined anything could smell that foul. "What next? A meteor through the roof?"
"Tellin' you, Lyle, the Lord's puttin' us on notice."
"With a stink bomb? I don't think so."
Although the odor hadn't reached the kitchen, Lyle didn't want to take any chances. He and Charlie stuffed wet paper towels into the spaces between the door and its molding.
When they'd finished, Lyle went to the fridge and pulled out a Heinie keg can. He could have done with a double deuce of Schlitz M-L right now, but that was way too street.
"You not gettin' bent, are you?" Charlie said.
He handed Charlie another Pepsi. "When was the last time I got bent?"
"When was the last time you had an earthquake open a bottomless pit under your house?"
"Good point." He took a long cold gulp from the can and changed the subject. "By the way, one of the guys with Moonie tried to pull a fast one tonight, and I don't mean Mr. Square Root."
"The bama-looking Joe?" Charlie said, resuming his pacing.
"Bama-looking Jack, if we're to believe the name he wrote. I knew he was trouble right from the start. Heard me calling you by your real name when we were evacuating and wanted to know why I yelled 'bomb' when the quake hit. I kept an eye on him after that. He didn't miss a trick. He watched your every move, then mine. Good thing I was onto him, otherwise I might have missed seeing him tear a corner off his billet."
"So that's why you was holding them by the top corner. You always hold them bottom center." Charlie frowned. "You think he here to make trouble?"
Lyle shook his head. "No. I got the impression he didn't even want to be here. I think he was bored and having a little fun with me. He knew exactly what I was doing but he was cool with it. Just sat there and let the show roll."
Lyle wandered into the waiting room; Charlie followed, saying, "Maybe he in the game."
"Not ours. Another game, but don't ask me what." Lyle had sensed something going on behind that white guy's mild brown eyes; something that said, Don't mess. "Some game of his own."
Lyle prided himself on his ability to read people. Nothing psychic about it, no spirits involved, just something he'd been able to do as long as he could remember. A talent he'd honed to a fine edge.
That talent had found the visitor named Jack a hard read. Bland-looking guy: nothing-special clothes, brown hair, mild brown eyes, not handsome, not ugly, just... there. But he'd moved with a secret grace inside a damn near impenetrable shield. The only thing Lyle had sensed about him besides the steer-clear warning was a deep melancholy. So when he'd seen his question-"How is my sister?"-Lyle's instincts shouted, Recently deceased!
If the reaction of the woman with him was any indicator, Lyle had scored a bull's-eye.
"But we came out okay," Lyle said. "We may have hooked a future fish or two, and after Moonie finds her long lost bracelet right where I told her it would be, she'll be singing my praises to anyone who'll listen."
Charlie sat down at the upright piano that had come with the house, and pounded the keys. "Wish I could play."
"Take lessons," Lyle said as he drifted to the front picture window.
He pulled back the curtain just enough to reveal the bullet hole at the center of its crack web. Before filling it with translucent rubber cement, he'd run a pencil through the hole with ease. So small, and yet so deadly. For the thousandth time he wondered-
Movement to his right caught his eye. What? God damn! Someone was out there!
"Hey!" he shouted as a burst of rage drove him toward the front door.
"Whassup?" Charlie said.
"Company!" Lyle yanked open the door and leaped.onto the front porch. "Hey!" he shouted again as he spotted a dark figure racing away across the lawn.
Lyle sprinted after him. Somewhere in his brain he heard faint cries of Danger! and Bullets! but he ignored them. His blood was up. Good chance this was the banger wannabe who'd done the drive-by, but he wasn't driving now, and he wasn't shooting, he was running, and Lyle wanted a piece of him.
The guy was carrying something. Looked like a big can of some sort. He glanced over his shoulder. Lyle caught a flash of pale skin, then the guy was tossing the can Lyle's way. It didn't go far-sailed maybe half a dozen feet then hit the ground with a metallic sound and rolled. Unburdened, the guy picked up speed and beat Lyle to the curb where he hopped into a car that was already moving before the door closed.
Lyle pulled up at the sidewalk, gasping for air. Out of shape. Charlie came up beside him, breathing hard, but not as hard as big brother.
"See his face?"
"Not enough to recognize. But he's white."
"Figured that."
Lyle turned and headed back. "Let's go see what he dropped."
He squatted by the object and turned it over. A gasoline can.
"Shit!"
"What he gonna do? Burn a cross?"
"Doubt it." Whites were in the minority on these streets. Another dark face moving in was a nonevent. "This is business. He was looking to burn us out."
He rose and kicked the can, sending it rolling across the grass. The New York psychic game had only so many players. One of them had done this. He just had to find out who.
But how?
4
"All right," Gia said. "We're finally alone. Tell me how Ifasen did what he did."
She'd been dying to know ever since they'd left the psychic's house, but they'd been stuck driving Junie home. Since Karyn and Claude lived on the Lower East Side as well, they'd tagged along. Jack had dropped all three outside Junie's apartment building and now he was ferrying Gia uptown on First Avenue.
Despite the late hour, progress was slow. Gia didn't mind. Time with Jack was never wasted.
"First let's decide where we're going," Jack said. "Your place or mine?"
Gia glanced at her watch. "Mine, I'm afraid. We're getting to the end of the sitter's time frame."
Vicky, her eight-year-old, still would be up. She rarely failed to cadge extra hours of TV out of her sitters.
Jack sighed dramatically. "Another celibate night."
Gia leaned close and nuzzled his ear. "But it's the last one for the next week. Did you forget that Vicky leaves for camp tomorrow morning?"
Gia had been trying to forget it. She'd hated the week Vicky had been gone last summer-the seven loneliest days of the year-and was dreading her departure tomorrow.
"I did. Forgot completely. I realize you'll miss her terribly, as will I, but I know just the thing to ease the pain of separation."
Gia smiled and twirled a lock of Jack's hair. "And whatever would that be?"
"That's my secret until tomorrow night."
"I can't wait. And speaking of secrets, what's Ifasen's?"
"No-no," Jack said. "First you tell me the question you asked. If 'two' was the answer, what was the question?"
She shook her head. She now found herself a little embarrassed by her question. If she could get away without revealing it...
"You first. Tell me how that man can give answers when he doesn't know the question."
"You're sure you want to know?" Jack said, turning his head to give her a smile.
A smile from Jack... so few of those since Kate's death. She missed them.
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Might spoil the fun."
"I can handle the truth. How does he do it?"
"Pretty much the same way Johnny Carson did when he pulled his Karnak the Magnificent shtick."
"But he was reading off cue cards."
"Exactly. And in effect, so is Ifasen."
Gia shook her head, baffled. "I don't get it. We sealed those envelopes. We heard him give the answer, we watched him open the envelope and read the question."
"Things aren't always as they appear."
"I know that only I knew what was written on my card."
"Not after his brother Kehinde did his work."
"Kehinde? But he just-"
"Appears to be a gofer? That's what you're supposed to think. But Kehinde is key. Ifasen put on the show, but he couldn't have done it without his brother's help. The method is called 'one ahead.' If you remember, right after Kehinde collected the sealed envelopes he took the bowl around to the rear of the podium and made a show of covering it with the cloth. That's the key moment. Because while you think he's fiddling with the cloth, he's really slitting open one of the envelopes and removing its card-or billet as the psychics like to call them. He was also tossing in a marked envelope containing a blank card."
"Why?"
"Think about it. When Ifasen-and by the way, if that's his real name, mine is Richard Nixon-when he removes the white cloth on the bowl, he looks down and reads the question on the card Kehinde opened for him. Then he picks up one of the sealed envelopes and raises it above his head. But he doesn't answer the question in the raised envelope; he answers the question on the card in the bowl."
"I get it!" Gia said, feeling a burst of pleasure as all the pieces fell into place. "After he answers the question in the bowl, he tears open the envelope and pretends to read the question he just answered, but actually he's seeing the next question."
"Exactly. And for the rest of the show, he stays one envelope ahead-which is how the method got its name."
"And the blank card in the extra marked envelope is so Ifasen won't wind up one short." She shook her head. "It's so simple."
"The best tricks are."
Gia couldn't hide her chagrin at being so easily fooled. "Am I so gullible?"
"Don't feel bad. You've got plenty of company. Millions, I'll bet. That trick's been conning people since the eighteen hundreds. Probably started as a sideshow mentalist gag, then the spiritualists picked it up and they've been milking it ever since."
"So Ifasen's a fake psychic."
"That's redundant."
"How do you know so much about it?"
Jack shrugged, but didn't look her way. "You pick things up here and there."
"You told me earlier you once helped a psychic. One of your customers?"
"No. I worked for one, as a helper, playing the gofer like Kehinde, plus doing behind-the-scenes stuff."
"No!" She'd never imagined. "When?"
"Long time ago, when I first came to the city."
"You never told me."
"Not necessarily something I'm proud of."
Gia laughed. "Jack, I can't believe this. After all the things you've done..."
She saw him glance at her, then train his eyes back on the traffic again. He said nothing, but that look said it all: You don't know all the things I've done. Not even close.
How true. And Gia preferred it that way. The Jack she saw on almost a daily basis was even tempered and good-natured, gentle and considerate in bed, and treated Vicky like his own daughter. But she knew he had another side. She'd seen it only once. That had been when-
Had it been almost a year already? Yes. It was last August when that filthy creature abducted Vicky. She still remembered Jack's face when he heard about it, how it had changed, how he'd bared his teeth, how his normally mild brown eyes had become flat and hard. She'd looked then into the cold harsh face of murder, a face she never wanted to see again.
Kusum Bahkti, the man Jack had gone after that night... he disappeared from the face of the earth, as if he'd never been.
Jack killed him. Gia knew that and, God help her, she'd been glad. She was still glad. Anyone who wanted to harm her little girl deserved to die.
Kusum wasn't the only man Jack had killed. Gia knew of one other for sure: the mass murderer he'd stopped in mid-slaughter on a subway car back in June. For a while the mystery "Savior" had been all the media talked about, but the furor had pretty much died down now.
Gia was sure there had been others. She didn't know this for a fact, but it was a reasonable conclusion. After all, Jack made his living fixing situations for people who'd run out of aboveground options. When that happened, some of them went underground in search of a solution. A few of those wound up with Jack.
So Jack's clientele-he insisted on calling them customers instead of clients-was hardly the cream of society. And to solve their problems he sometimes had to mix it up with some abominable lowlifes, people ready to kill to prevent Jack from doing his job. Since Jack was still alive, she had to assume that some of those others were not.
None of these were happy thoughts, and Gia preferred to tuck them out of sight where she didn't have to deal with them. She loved Jack, but hated what he did. When she'd stepped off the bus from Iowa to pursue her dream of being an artist, she'd never known a man like Jack could exist, let alone that she'd wind up with him. She was a tax-paying, law-abiding citizen; he was not.
She'd finally forced herself to face the truth: she loved a criminal. He wasn't on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, or on anyone else's wanted list, for that matter-because none of the list makers knew he even existed-but he definitely lived outside the law. She couldn't imagine how many laws he'd broken and continued to break every day.
But strangely he was the most moral man-her father aside-that she'd ever met. He was like an elemental force. She knew he would never break faith with her, never leave her in the lurch, never allow her to come to harm. She knew that if it ever came down to it, he'd give his life for her. She felt safe with Jack, as if surrounded by an impenetrable shield.
No one else could give her that feeling. Last year at this time, they'd been split. Jack had told her when they first met that he was a "security consultant." When Gia had learned how he really made his living, she'd walked out. She'd dated other men during the hiatus, but they all seemed so insubstantial after Jack. Like wraiths.
And then, despite all the hurt and invective she'd heaped on him, when she and Vicky had needed him most, he'd been there.
"I mean," she said, rephrasing, "with all the scams you've pulled through the years-"
"Scamming a scammer is different. The fish these psychics hook don't know any better. I think people should get something real for their money, not just smoke and mirrors."
"Maybe smoke and mirrors is what they're looking for. Everybody's got to believe in something. And after all, it's their money."
Jack glanced at her. "Am I hearing right? Is this the Gia I know?"
"Seriously, Jack, where's the harm? Probably better than throwing it away at Foxwoods or Atlantic City. At least they can get some comfort out of it."
"You can lose the ranch in a casino and, trust me, you can lose just as much to a psychic. The bitch I worked for..." He shook his head. "Bitch is not a term I use lightly. It took me a while to realize what a foul, vindictive, small person she was, and when I did-"
"Did she cheat you?"
"Not me. I was already disillusioned with her and her crummy little game, but the icing came when she scammed some little old lady into signing over a valuable piece of property to her; convinced her it was what her dead husband wanted her to do."
"Oh, no." The image twisted inside Gia.
"That was when I walked."
"But they're not all like that."
"The open ones are."
"Open?"
"There's two kinds of mediums. The closed mediums really believe in the spirit world and what they're doing; they've bought the whole package. As a rule they limit themselves to readings-tarot cards, palms, tea leaves, that sort of thing. They don't put on a show. Open mediums, on the other hand, are all show. They're con men who know it's a scam, who trade background information on their suckers, and are always looking for bigger and better ways to hoodwink them. They knowingly sell lies. They promise a peek into the afterlife, but they use special effects like ectoplasm and voices and spirit writing to fool people into believing they've delivered."
"But Jack, I'll bet a fair number of people derive some comfort from them. Look at you tonight. If you didn't know what you do, and let's say you maybe half-believed, wouldn't you have found comfort in that message from Kate?"
"Sure. But here's my point: it wasn't from Kate. It was from Ifasen. He told a lie. If I'd come to him as a private client, all I would have got for my money was a lie."
"And peace of mind which, in a way, is priceless."
"Even if it's built on a lie?"
Gia nodded. "If a placebo cures your headache, you're rid of your pain, aren't you?" Jack sighed. "I suppose so." He shook his head. "The really sad thing about so many of these open psychics is that they're truly talented. They possess amazing insight into people, an instinct for reading body language and picking up on every nuance of speech and dress. They know people. They could be ace psychologists. They could make a great living in the straight world-you know, doing well while doing good. But they'd rather stay on the fringe, playing their games."
"Hmmm," Gia said. "Sounds like someone I know but I can't quite place the name. I think it begins with a J..."
"Very funny. Except I don't play games. I deliver. And if I don't, it's not for lack of trying." He shot her a rueful smile. "But you know, I do believe old Ifasen did something for me tonight. I know he just rattled off a stock message from the 'Other Side,' but to tell the truth, he happened to hit on exactly what Kate would have said."
"You mean about getting on with your life?"
"Yeah."
"How many times have I told you that Kate wouldn't want you to spend the rest of your life moping around? And when was the last time I mentioned that very thing? How many hours ago? Two? Three maybe?"
He grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, I know. But sometimes you have to hear it from a stranger. Anyway, I think it's time for me to get back in the saddle again. I've got a couple of calls in my voice mail right now. I'll check them out tomorrow, and if one of them is right for me, I'll be back to work."
"That's wonderful."
What am I saying? Gia thought.
She hated Jack's work. It was usually dangerous. Every time he hired on to "fix" a situation, he ran the risk of being hurt. But worse, because the police were as much a threat as any hoodlum he took on, he couldn't count on them for help if he got in over his head. When Jack went off to work, he went alone.
How many times had she pleaded with him to find something less dangerous to do? He'd compromised by promising to restrict his fix-it work to situations he could repair at arm's length, where he didn't have to show his face or get personally involved. Gia believed he tried his best to keep that promise, but too often the jobs didn't go as planned.
But his interest in returning to work meant he was pulling out of his funk. That, at least, was good.
"Maybe you should go back for a private session," she said. "Maybe he'll tell you to get into a safer line of work. And maybe you'll listen when he tells you. Heaven knows you don't listen when I do."
"I think we should stay away from Ifasen, but not for that reason."
"Meaning?"
"I think he's got trouble."
"You mean because he yelled 'bomb'?"
"That... and other things."
"Like what?"
"A patched bullet hole in his front window, for instance."
"You're sure?"
He nodded. "It could have been there when he bought the house, but he's obviously renovated the place, so... someone's giving him a hard time."
"But who-?"
"Other psychics. The lady-I use the term loosely-that I once worked for used to go berserk when she lost a sitter to another psychic. She called herself Madame Ouskaya but her real name was Bertha Cantore. I used to think she'd seen The Wolfman too many times and ripped off the name of that old actress Maria Ouspenskaya who played the gypsy, but that was giving her too much credit. I can't imagine her ever sitting though the credits of a movie. Finally one night, when she'd had a few too many gins and was sailing a few too many sheets to the wind, she told me that she'd cadged it off an ancient Russian neighbor who'd died when Bertha was ten. But you know how they talk about a leopard never changing its spots? That was Bertha. She may have called herself Ouskaya, but that didn't hide her true nature. Her father was Sicilian and she had a hitman's temper. She'd send me out to slash tires and break windows and-"
"Did you?"
Jack didn't look at her. "Most of the time I just told her I did, but sometimes... sometimes, yeah, I did."
"Jack..." She couldn't keep the dismay out of her voice.
"Hey, I was hungry, stupid, and a lot younger. I thought what was bad for her was bad for me. I hadn't figured out yet that she was bad for me. Hell, if she knew how to make bombs, she'd probably've wanted me to plant them, or wire ignitions to blow the competition away." He shook his head. "What a nutcase."
"Could she be the one Ifasen's afraid of?"
"Nah. Couple of years ago I heard that she'd, as they say in the trade, migrated to the Other Side." A quick glance Gia's way, embarrassment in his eyes. "Let's not talk about her, okay? Makes my teeth hurt just to think about her."
Gia knew getting off the topic of this Madame Ouskaya would probably turn the conversation to her question to Ifasen. She cast about for a diversion and spotted the pamphlet Jack had brought from the psychic's house. She snatched it up.
"'The Menelaus Manor Restoration Foundation.' What's this?"
"Sounds like a scam. Take donations to renovate the house you're living and working in. A win-win proposition for Ifasen if I ever heard one."
"Is all this true?" Gia said, gathering flashes of the house's history of mayhem by the light of street lamps they passed.
"I never got a chance to get into it. What's it say?"
She turned on the console lamp and held the brochure under the glow. "It says the place was built in 1952 by Kastor Menelaus. He died of cancer, and was the last owner to 'pass on to the Other Side' due to natural causes."
Jack grinned. "This sounds like it's gonna be good!"
"His son Dmitri, who inherited the house, committed suicide in the early nineties. The next owners, a Doctor Singh and his wife, had the place for a few years, did some renovations, and then someone cut their throats while they were sleeping." She looked up at Jack. "This is awful! I hope it's fiction."
"Read on."
Gia was liking this less and less. "The previous owners, the ones before Ifasen, were Herbert Lom and his wife-"
"Not the actor-the guy who played in the Hammer Phantom of the Opera?"
"It doesn't say. He and his wife Sara disappeared after-oh, God." Something about a mutilated child. Her stomach turned and she closed the brochure.
"After what?"
"Never mind. Jack, this is sick! It's like the place is cursed. He has to be making this stuff up."
Jack was shaking his head. "Doubt it. Too easy to get caught. My guess is he's taken a few facts and embellished them to within an inch of their collective lives. Read on."
"I'd rather not."
"Just skip to some part that's not gory."
Reluctantly she reopened the brochure and skipped down a paragraph from where she'd left off. "Ifasen quotes himself here: 'I chose Menelaus Manor because the violent deaths have left behind strong psychic vibrations. The souls of those who died here do not rest easy, and their ongoing presence weakens the divide between our world and the Other Side, making Menelaus Manor the perfect site for the church I will establish here.'" Gia looked at Jack. "Church?"
Jack smiled. "The ultimate scam. Tax-free heaven, and completely legal. Like minting money. How do you think the Scientologists can afford to sue anyone who says a discouraging word about their racket?"
"He says here donations will go toward 'putting the Manor at peace with this world and in harmony with the next.' What does that mean?"
"It means renovations will probably go on forever. Or at least until Ifasen crosses over to the Other Side himself."
"Careful, Jack," she told him. "Keep talking like that and I'll start suspecting you're a cynic."
"Me?"
Jack pulled into Sutton Square and stopped before Gia's door. He pulled her close and kissed her.
"Thanks for dragging me out tonight. Earthquakes and psychics in cursed manors... you sure know how to show a guy a good time."
She returned the kiss. "Anytime. And tomorrow night I'll show you an even better time."
"Hot-cha!"
Laughing, they got out of the car. Jack put an arm around her shoulders; he started to walk her the short distance to her door, but stopped halfway there.
"Hey. Wait a sec. You never told me your question. What was it?"