Dark City (Repairman Jack - Early Years 02) (38 page)

“Thanks, man. I’ll fasten it down later. Want a beer?”

Julio shook his head. “Nah.”

“Come on. You’re always buying me one.”

Another head shake. “I pour the stuff all day.”

“You don’t mind if I…?”

“Do it.”

The first thing Jack had done upon moving in was to stick a six of Rolling Rock longnecks in the fridge. He grabbed one now, twisted the top, and took a pull as he returned to the front room.

“Gotta say it again, meng, this one shitty-looking table.”

Jack had found it in a used furniture store down in SoHo. The top was a scratched-up mess and someone had painted the whole thing a Chinese magenta.

“You know what this would have cost with a nice finish? Lots.”

“It puts the
ugh
in ugly.”

“As a kid I used to work for this guy named Mister Rosen in a store called USED.”

“Used what?”

“Used anything. All secondhand stuff. I picked up a few things working for him. One of them was lock picking—because lots of times furniture would come in with locked drawers and the key was long gone. The other was an eye for quality old furniture. Not so much antiques, but good old stuff.”

He dropped to one knee beside the table and motioned Julio to do the same.

“Check out the underside here. Hardly anybody ever paints that. See that wavy grain? That’s golden oak. Mister Rosen showed me how to strip furniture down to the original wood. This’ll clean up nicely.”

He’d get to work on that soon.

“You need help?” Julio said as they rose again.

“Thanks, but I kind of like working with my hands.”

“I owe you, Jack. You know, for Zalesky.”

“Don’t even think about it. I get off on that. But we’re not done with him yet. We’ve got to figure a way to get into his safe deposit box.”

“Too bad you can’t just walk in with the key and say you’re him.”

Jack shook his head. “He’s probably been in and out a bunch of times. Somebody might know him.”

“We can get someone who looks like him.”

Jack shook his head again. “I don’t want a third party involved. Let’s keep this just between the two of us. Besides, it would have been just his style to hit on one or more of the ladies.”

Julio grinned. “Then they
really
remember him.”

Just what Jack was afraid of.

“I’ll think of something.”

He hoped.

“I still owe you, meng.”

“Well, then, if you feel that way, the best thing you can do for me is get working on helping Rico get set up in business.”

Julio shook his head. “You got some kinda godfather thing going?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, like I owe you, this Rico guy’s gonna owe you—”

“I owe Rico for his leg. I’m just evening up.”

Julio gave a derisive snort. “You saved his sister! For that alone he owes you big-time. Now you set him up in business—”

“He’s gonna think the money came from
you
, and he’s gonna pay
you
back.”

“Unless he’s a real dumbass, he’s gonna figure where the money’s from, and so he’ll owe you twice.”

“Whatever. So anyway, how’s that make me a godfather?”

“You keep up like this, pretty soon you have people all over town owing you favors. Like that mafia guy—what’s his name? The one who talk funny.”

“Don Corleone?”

“Yeah. Him.”

Jack laughed. “Yeah right. Like that’s gonna happen.”

But he did prefer to be owed favors than owe them.

Julio had to take off for the bar, so Jack began looking for a spot in the new place to hide his cash and guns. He’d brought them uptown in a backpack he’d kept tightly strapped in place.

With the extra advance rent and security deposit on the apartment, plus the cash he’d given Julio to help Rico, his money supply was dwindling. He was still more comfortable than he felt he had any right to be, but he needed to find an income stream. He’d have to work on that. But first he had to work on a way to get into Zalesky’s safe deposit box.

He emptied his pockets and found a receipt from a one-hour photo place. He stared at it a moment, wondering where it had come from. Oh, right. Two weeks ago … taking shots of Zalesky’s bank lady friend at that midtown pub. Well, with Zalesky out of the picture now, the bank lady didn’t matter.

He crumpled the receipt and was about to toss it in the garbage when he remembered that Zalesky was in those shots too … from all angles …

He flattened out the receipt as an idea began to form.

3

Jack noticed Cristin wince when he slung his arm over her shoulders. They were walking along Second Avenue on their way from a tapas-fest at Rioja, one of their regular feeding stations; a cold wind had risen as winter reasserted its hold on the city and Jack was trying to offer a little extra protection.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m a little sore there.”

“Hurt your neck?”

“No.”

She seemed hesitant—all the more reason to push.

“Well, why’s it sore?”

“Just got a tattoo there.”

“Tattoo? You?”

“Wasn’t that the name of a Stones album when we were kids?”

“You’re avoiding the question. Tattoo?”

“You’ve got something against them?”

“Well, I don’t understand them. The stick-on kind you can wash off—fine. But permanent?” He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

“What if it really means something to you?”

He shrugged. “Opinions change. Tastes change. I’ve seen amazingly ugly tats on people.” One of the shirtless DDP guys flashed from his memory of Thursday afternoon. “Just last week I saw this guy—”

“The one who worked over your face?”

The bruises had turned a sickly yellow and were fading, but still pretty obvious. He’d given her a sketchy rundown of what had happened.

“Not sure. One of them, probably.”

“You hang with strange people.”

“I definitely don’t hang with these guys. Anyway, he had this huge tattoo on the back of his shoulder—a black-and-white skull with Technicolor flames roaring from its eye sockets. I wouldn’t want something like that on my
wall
for ten minutes, let alone on my
skin
where I’d be carrying it to my grave.”

“
De gustibus
 … right?”

“Yeah, of course. And it’s his skin. But what gets me is that if he thinks that flaming skull is so cool, why place it where he can’t see it? It’s only where other people can see it, and only if he takes off his shirt.” Jack shrugged, genuinely baffled. “I mean, what’s the point?”

She smiled. “Well, if it’s where he can’t see it, he won’t have to look at it if he decides later he hates it.”

Jack laughed. “Yeah, there’s that. Some of these ugly tats might have seemed like a good idea at the time—like when you were stoned or drunk—but in the light of day I’ll bet there’s been tons of times people have shuddered and said,
You mean I’m stuck with that the rest of my life?
”

“What if you could have van Gogh tattoo
Starry Night
across your back? Would you turn him down?”

“I’d send him to you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. If it’s on
my
back, I can’t see it unless I’m looking over my shoulder in a mirror. If it’s on
your
back, I can sit and gaze in wonder. Might be even more wonderful across your front. Those hills could be—”

She hit him on the arm. “You’re too damn practical. And how do you know I’d take my shirt off for you?”

He laughed. “That’s never been much of a hurdle.”

She laughed too—and hit him again.

When they reached her apartment she took off her coat, turned away from him, and lifted the back of her hair to reveal a strange symbol in black ink across her nape …

“Okay. What is that?”

“Ama-gi.”

“Gesundheit. Really, what am I looking at? It looks like golf-tee Tinker Toys.”

“It’s Sumerian. I was leafing through a book in a client’s apartment—”

“Making a house call?”

“He’s head of an anthropology department and wanted to throw a retirement party for an old professor on the faculty. Anyway, he had this book with all these cuneiform symbols—”

“Cuneiform, eh?”

“The first writing—started out as pictograms and eventually evolved into—well, golf tees is a pretty good description. I used to reference them for dress designs.”

“For your FIT assignments?”

“Right. Everyone thought they were sooo original—like I’d come up with something totally new.” She smiled. “I might have forgotten to mention that they came from the dawn of civilization.”

“Why would you? I’m sure the copyright has lapsed.”

“Anyway, they’ve fascinated me ever since. And when I saw that this means ‘freed,’ I had to have it.”

“Why not just
‘freed
’—in English, I mean?”

She dropped her hair and turned to him. “Because it’s more than a word. It was the first written form of the concept of liberty. And it was originally a
tattoo
! The Sumerians tattooed it on freed slaves. The professor told me it’s literally ‘return to mother.’ Isn’t that cool?”

Jack didn’t know much about slaves, but he’d heard many were abducted as children—he thought of Bonita—so it made a lot of sense.

He slipped his arms around her waist. “You want to return to your mother?”

“No. But the point is, I can if I want to, but I don’t have to. I’ve declared myself free.”

He kissed her forehead. “Of what?”

“Everything: people, conventions, society, laws.”

“So you’re an anarchist?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

Jack shrugged. “I don’t think much about politics.”

All he knew about the two major parties was they talked different talk, but once in, they both seemed to walk the same walk.

“This isn’t politics—this is personal.”

“Okay, fine. But come on, Cristin. You’ve got to have
some
rules.”

“I have tons of rules—for myself.”

“What about everybody else?”

“Just one: Don’t tread on me.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah, I can go with that.”

“And anarchy doesn’t mean ‘no rules,’ by the way. It means ‘no
rulers
.’ Big difference, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely.” Sounded like Cristin had given this some real thought. He loved how she was so full of surprises. He ran his lips along the side of her throat. “Why the back of your neck?”

“Because then no one can see it.”

“But neither can you. So what’s the point?”

“The point is,
I
know it’s there, because
I
put it there. And I didn’t put it there to tell the world, I put it there to remind me to avoid all entanglements, foreign and domestic.”

“You’re taking George Washington personally?”

“Damn right. This is the sovereign state of Cristin.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you’ve formed an alliance with the sovereign state of Jack.”

“This is true. And it’s an alliance that has lasted longer than any other in the history of Cristin. But that’s because Jack is a like-minded state and we have no treaty.”

He kissed the other side of her throat and heard her breath quicken.

“And that’s important?”

“Yes, because there are no obligations.”

“What about concessions?”

“Concessions are always on the table for discussion, but obligations are not. Once one sovereign state starts to think the other has obligations to it, the alliance is dissolved.”

Jack felt a twinge of hurt. He understood exactly what she was saying, and mostly agreed. Yet … he felt obligations to her. After all the Sundays they’d spent together, didn’t she feel any toward him?

She grabbed his belt buckle and began dragging him toward the bedroom.

“The alliance is about to engage in joint maneuvers.”

“Joint?”

“Yours.”

How could he refuse?

MONDAY

1

Since today was Hadya’s day off, she was sleeping in. Kadir had held his tongue during the hours she had been home on Saturday and Sunday. That had been easier than he’d anticipated since, except for food and use of the bathroom, she’d confined herself to the bedroom. She kept her head uncovered, as was allowed at home among family members, and he found he could not take his eyes off her hair … the hair she had so brazenly exposed to the world.

After gathering the equipment he would use to punish her, he had set his alarm for early this morning. Now, awake and dressed, he prepared what he needed and silently entered her room. She lay on her side, her back to him, sound asleep.

Leaning on the headboard so as not to jostle the mattress, he reached across her and slapped a piece of duct tape across her mouth. As she started from sleep, he grabbed both her arms and pulled them behind her. Forcing her onto her stomach, he straddled her. As she lay kicking and screaming into the tape, he bound her wrists with more duct tape. When they were securely bound, he sat on her legs and wrapped her ankles and knees with more.

Then he turned her over and stared down at her. Her eyes were wide with terror and fury. At last he could vent his rage. But he kept his voice low so as not to disturb the neighbors.