Repairman Jack [08]-Crisscross (45 page)

… another hand… and this one with a short pinkie as well… an old amputation.

Jamie Grant… they'd killed her, drowned her in concrete last night… and Christ, he'd stood outside and watched the whole thing. That little leak he'd noticed along the seam… had that been Jamie trying to break out? Had she worked her fingers to the edge before her air ran out?

Jack felt a pressure build in his chest. He pounded his fist against the pillar's cold rough surface below the hand.

He'd failed her.

If only he'd known. Maybe he could have saved her… or at least tried. Maybe…

The sound of a car engine outside stopped the growing string of maybes and pulled Jack to his feet. He looked around at one of the windows and spotted a car pulling up. He jumped down from the truck bed and hid himself behind an array of metal drums stacked against the wall.

The frustration at being unable to locate Jamie was gone, overwhelmed by a black rage that pounded against the inside of his skull. He hoped,
prayed
this was Brady or Jensen—or, better yet, both. He could hear his molars grinding. He wanted to hurt someone connected to the Dormentalist Church. And the higher up, the harder the hurt. Give him the right guy and he might not be able to stop once he got started. Might hurt them to death. Which wasn't so bad. Certain people had it coming.

As he peeked between a pair of drums he saw two men push open the big doors at the opposite end. It wasn't Brady or Jensen, or any of the other four he'd seen up on the catwalk last night.

Shit.

These two didn't look like Dormentalists of any stripe. In fact, Jack thought he recognized the one on the right, the guy wearing the cowboy hat.

Then he remembered. The cowboy was the big-gutted driver of the sand hauler that had damn near killed his father down in Florida. He hadn't been behind the wheel when that happened; his job had been to drive a load of Otherness-tainted sand from the Everglades nexus point to this plant… sand that Jack was sure had been used to make the concrete that entombed Jamie.

Jack reached back and removed the Glock from his SOB holster.

Only two of them. He could take them, even if they were armed. But were they the only ones here? Could be a couple more outside.

He decided to wait and see.

Turned out to be a short wait. The two guys climbed into the truck cab, started her up, and pulled the truck outside. One jumped out to close the doors, and then they were driving away.

Jack eased back outside. The Suburban they'd pulled up in was empty. Just two of them.

He waited until the truck rumbled up to the road and disappeared, then he headed for his car at an easy trot. No need to rush. That big rig couldn't move fast on these winding back roads, and it sure as hell wouldn't be hard to spot.

Jack wanted to see where they intended to inter Jamie Grant. And then they were going to have to answer some tough questions.

5

"Body of Christ," Sister Maggie said as she took the host from the gold-lined pyx and, holding it between her right thumb and forefinger, raised it before Amelia Elkins's wrinkled face.

Amelia responded with a hoarse Amen and opened her mouth.

Maggie placed the wafer of bread on her tongue, and then they said a prayer of thanksgiving together, Amelia in her wheelchair, Maggie kneeling beside it.

Genny Duncan, the Eucharistic Minister who usually brought Holy Communion to the parish's shut-ins, was ill today, so Maggie had offered to take over for her. She was tired after the long day of working over the ovens and steaming kettles in the Loaves and Fishes, but that didn't mean these poor homebound souls should be denied their weekly communion.

When they finished the prayer, Amelia grabbed Maggie's hand as she rose.

"Can I fix you some tea, sister? I have some brownies my daughter dropped off. We could—"

Maggie patted her hand and smiled. "I wish I could stay, Amelia, really I do, but I have another stop to make."

"Oh. Yes, of course. I'm not the only one who needs communion, I suppose. I was just hoping…"

Poor thing, Maggie thought as she replaced the cover on the pyx. So lonely.

"Tell you what I
can
do, though," she said. "I can stop by tomorrow around midday and we can have lunch together. I'll bring—"

"Sunday lunch!" Amelia said, beaming. "And you won't bring a thing. I'll fix us some nice sandwiches. Do you like tuna fish salad?"

Maggie wasn't fond of anything made with mayonnaise, but she put on a brave face. "I'll bet you make a delicious one."

"I do. These old legs may be unreliable, but I can still whip up a mean salad. What time can you be here?"

"How does one o'clock sound?"

"One o'clock it is!" She looked years younger. "I'll have everything ready when you arrive."

A few minutes later Maggie was hurrying down the rickety stairway from Amelia's third-floor apartment, wondering if she might be spreading herself too thin. She had such trouble saying no to people in need.

She stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked around. The light faded so early these days. She checked her watch. Just five o'clock and already the sun was down.

Well, only one more stop to go. She checked her list. Mr. Whitcolm lived just a few blocks away. Wonderful. She'd be back at the convent in time to set the dinner table.

She took two steps toward Fourth Street, then stopped.

"Thank you, Lord," she whispered. "Thank you for this second chance to do Your will, and to help those who can't help themselves."

As she started walking again a car pulled into the curb beside her. She angled closer to the buildings. The neighborhood was a lot safer than it used to be, but still had more than its share of drug dealers and other unsavory types.

"Miss?" said a man's voice.

Maggie slowed but didn't stop. She saw only one person in the car. A very large man, taking up most of the front seat as he leaned across from the driver's side. His features were indistinguishable in the waning light, his face little more than a pale moon floating just inside the front passenger window, but she was sure she didn't know him.

"I'm lost. Can you help me?"

The car wasn't flashy like the ones the drug dealers drove, and not a rattletrap like some of their customers'. Just a normal, everyday, respectable-looking Jeep. A family car.

Still, you had to be careful.

"I've been driving in circles down here," he said, a plaintive note in his voice. "All I need is someone to point me in the right direction."

She'd had to say no to Amelia. The least she could do was help out this lost man. She stepped closer to the car.

"Where do you want to go?"

"One of the housing projects."

"Which one? Jacob Riis? Lillian Wald? There's more than one down here."

"I'm not sure. My wife wrote it down for me but she has terrible penmanship." He thrust his arm out the window. A slip of paper fluttered in this hand. "Can you make sense of this chicken scratch?"

Keeping her distance from the car, Maggie pulled the slip from his fingers and squinted at it in the twilight. He hadn't been exaggerating about the penmanship. It was terrible. Obviously his wife hadn't attended Catholic school. She thought she could make out an uppercase
M
and
T
on two adjacent words.

"It might be Masaryk Towers."

"That sounds right. Where are they?"

"Farther downtown. Are you sure…?"

"Something wrong?"

She'd never been inside the Masaryk Towers but had heard them referred to as a "vertical ghetto." It did not seem the kind of place a middle-class white man would want to go.

"Well, it has a rough reputation."

"Really? Maybe I'll just drive by. If it looks too rough I'll just keep on going and come back during the day."

"That might be a good idea." She pointed east. "Go up here, make a right on Avenue C, and take it down to East Houston. You can't miss it."

"Thank you very much. Are you going that way? The least I can do is give you a lift."

Yes, Maggie was going that way, but no, she didn't want to get into this stranger's car.

"That's very kind of you, but I have just a little ways to go and I need the exercise."

"Okay," he said. "I thought it only fair to offer." He held his hand out the window, not quite as far as last time. "Thanks for your help. I just need that address back."

"Oh, of course."

She'd forgotten that she still had it. She stepped closer, holding it out.

But instead of taking the paper, the man grabbed her wrist. As he yanked her forward, his other hand darted from the window and grabbed a fistful of her hair. Her scalp burned and she cried out in pain and terror. He pulled her arm and head through the window and into the car. Maggie screamed and then something hard and heavy slammed against the back of her head. Her vision blurred. She opened her mouth for another scream but then something hit her again, harder this time. Twilight became night.

6

Traffic had been awful. Everything seemed to be under construction. Three-and-a-half hours since leaving Jersey and rolling onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and they were only in the Reading area. Where in hell were these guys going?

Jack saw the truck's turn signal begin to flash and he followed it into a rest area. About time. He needed to make a pit stop and get some gas. But first…

He watched the driver and his buddy get out of their truck and head for the restaurant area. They locked the cab doors but left the big diesel engine running. Jack hurried around to his trunk and pulled the slim jim from his duffel bag of tools. Then he made his way to the passenger side. The truck cab was old and beat up. Probably didn't have a working alarm system, but you never knew.

Jack stepped up on the running board and looked around. The lot was mostly empty and quiet except for the rumble of traffic. Turnpike rest stops did not seem a popular Saturday night destination.

He slipped the slim jim down between the window and the door panel, moved it around in a circular motion until it caught. Jack took a breath, then pulled up. The lock knob on the other side of the window popped up.

No alarm. But now the real test: He removed the slim jim and opened the door. The courtesy lights came on, but again, no alarm.

Great.

He leaned inside and pawed through the papers piled at the center of the bench. Mostly toll receipts and maps. He picked up a Pennsylvania map and noticed that someone had crisscrossed it with red lines. A place where three of those lines intersected, out past Harrisburg and Camp Hill, was circled. A piece of plain white paper was clipped to an upper corner of the map. Jack scanned the typewritten note and realized it was a set of directions from the Turnpike to "the farm."

He wondered how much these two drivers knew. Were they just doing a job, just making a delivery? Or did they know what lay inside that hunk of concrete? Their lack of furtiveness led Jack to suspect they knew nothing, but the only way to be sure was to ask.

He refolded the map and slipped out of the cab, relocking the door as he went.

Still a fair number of miles ahead of them. Jack would definitely need a full gas tank. He'd also need a little food and drink before he set out again.

Looked like it was going to be a long night. He wanted to see this "farm" and find out what they planned for Jamie's remains.

And then he'd get answers to his questions.

7

Richie Cordova looked down at Sister Maggie where she sat tied to a nice, sturdy oak chair, looked into her eyes and saw the fear and confusion there.

He reveled in the moment. Hard to believe that less than an hour ago he'd been terrified, ready to call the whole thing off.

All well and good to work up a plan to snatch a nun off the street, but getting down to the job of doing it… that's a whole other story. He'd smeared mud on his plates so no one could report the number, he'd had the sap ready, he'd juiced himself with fury, but when he'd spotted her walking and pulled into that curb… man, he'd switched from being pissed to almost pissing his pants.

But he'd made himself do it. It was pretty dark, no one around with a clear line of sight—now or never. And he had to do it right. If he blew it, he'd never get another chance.

He'd pulled it off, clubbing her unconscious and then speeding away with her slumped and huddled on the passenger side floor. But even then he hadn't been able to relax. What if someone had seen? What if some nosy old bitch had been watching out her window and reported it? Not that it was likely or would even matter. He was driving a nondescript Jeep—had to be a million of them in the city—with unreadable plates.

Still… you never could tell. Driving along he'd spent so much time looking into the rearview mirror he almost ran down a pedestrian.

But no one gave him a second look on his way to this urban wasteland west of Northern Boulevard in Flushing. And now he was here, hidden away in a rundown warehouse he'd sniffed out yesterday, where no one would interrupt him.