“What thing?”
“Tom’s sea treasure… I touched it!”
Oh, shit.
“You went into the closet?”
“I… I wondered where it was and I peeked in and saw the box in there and I wanted to see it again so I opened it and touched it—I only put my finger in its belly button—and—”
Fear quick-crawled on clawed feet through Jack’s chest.
“You touched it?”
He wanted to be angry, but at whom? Vicky or himself?
She nodded. “But only once.”
“Did it hurt you?”
A quick shake of her head. “No, but it moved!”
“Moved? How—?”
“Come see!”
She pulled him toward the hall but slid behind him as they left the TV room.
“See it? See it?”
Jack’s heart began to pound. Yeah, he saw it. But what the hell—?
* * *
-81:28
“I’m so glad we could do this,” Gia said, patting the back of Tom’s hand.
They sat in the rear of a cab heading uptown toward Jack’s place. Tom reached across and clasped her hand between both of his.
“It was wonderful, wasn’t it. And you weren’t exaggerating about Noelle’s voice. Magnificent. But not as magnificent as the woman I shared the evening with.”
Gia slipped her hand free and laughed.
“Mah, mah, Mister Tom,” she said in a Southern-belle accent, “Ah declare, how you do go on.”
Tom had to smile. She was good… maintained a distance between them without bruising his feelings.
Why was he so damn crazy about this woman? What was it about her that made him want to be her slave? Or babble like a fool?
Christ, when he’d been sipping champagne at the intermission he’d launched into a discourse on how it’s usually a mixture of chardonnay, pinot noir, and pinot meunier, and how blanc de blanc was all chardonnay—blah-blah-blah until Gia’s eyes had started to glaze over. And with good reason: He’d sounded like a pedantic twit.
And the last thing he wanted to do was bore her. He felt as if his past no longer existed, as if all his life he’d been marking time until he’d met her.
Marking time… thoughts of his present predicament brought him down from his high. If only he’d marked time instead of wheeling and dealing and lining his pockets, he’d be free and clear today. His ass would belong to him instead of a swarm of cops.
At least Gia didn’t know the depth of his troubles, and as long as that remained the case, he could pretend to be the kind of man she could admire.
He well knew that, on the surface, that didn’t make sense. She was carrying the baby of a man she loved—and he could tell how much by the way she looked at Jack—even though he was a career criminal. So why should Tom think she’d be repulsed if she knew the truth about him?
Jack had nailed it on the boat: Yeah, Jack was a criminal, but he wasn’t a crook. Not mere semantics there. A whole world of difference.
On another day he might have told himself that he could offer Gia the gravitas Jack lacked. But he’d finally stopped doing the Nixon thing. He was a crook. Not the Great String-puller, not the Master of the System, a crook, and a tawdry one at that: A guy with a FOR HIRE sign on his soul.
At first he’d regretted his transgressions only because he’d got caught. Now he wished he’d played it straight all along, so he could play straight with Gia, talk to her about his record as a judge and point to it with pride.
But Gia… what would this woman who had a numinous core of probity and was so naturally and effortlessly good and straight that it seeped through her skin and suffused the air around her… what would she think of a man with his past?
Tom knew. And he couldn’t bear the thought of her looking at him like a slug.
He thought of a line from As Good as It Gets: “You make me want to be a better man.”
Yeah. He could say that to her and mean every word. But it was too late. Way too late. Now all he could do was look at her and think how she made him wish he’d been a better man.
Still, he couldn’t understand what she saw in Jack.
He said, “You know I never got to ask how you and Jack met.”
In truth he’d asked Jack but had been blown off with “at a party.”
“Strangely enough, through the UN.”
“The UN? Jack?” Talk about strange bedfellows.
“Yes, he was involved with the UK mission for a while.”
“No kidding? Doing what?”
“I really can’t say.”
Tom could tell she meant won’t say, but didn’t press.
The UK mission to the UN… what could they have possibly wanted from Jack?
Little brother was just chock-full of secrets and surprises.
“I hope I’m not speaking out of turn, but you and Jack… you don’t seem to go together.”
She laughed: music.
“You probably are out of turn, but you’re pretty much on the money.” She glanced at him. “Did you and Jack talk much on your trip?”
He nodded. “I’d pretty much figured out how he lives and how he makes his living, and he pretty much confirmed it.”
“‘Pretty much’?”
“Well, I’m only starting to get to know my brother again, but it’s not easy. He’s not exactly forthcoming about himself.”
Another soft laugh. “That’s my Jack.”
My Jack… Tom loathed the sound of that.
“So, given what I know, that’s why I said—”
“That we don’t seem to go together? On the surface we don’t. I’m a vegetarian, he’s an omnivore. I love the arts, he merely tolerates them. I’m a square and he’s never the same shape twice. I’m a Mondrian, he’s a Picasso. I’m an uptight, middle-class, law-abiding woman and he’s… well, he’s Jack. Yet despite the surface differences and divergent tastes, we agree on the big things—the things that matter. We agree on what’s right and wrong, on being truthful, on value given for value received, on what’s straight and what’s crooked. We both believe in doing the right thing, even though we sometimes disagree on how to do it. I tend to try to tease out life’s tangles. Jack tends toward Alexander’s solution to the Gordian knot.” Another soft laugh. “Two years ago if you’d told me I’d be partnered with this man and having his baby, I’d have laughed in your face.”
“Why?”
“Because… I didn’t know what I was looking for back then, but I was sure it wasn’t him. I didn’t see it at first, but Jack is a rock.” She smiled. “The world flows past, but Jack doesn’t move. Doesn’t matter what’s fashionable, what’s in, what’s out, what’s politically correct, what’s become legal, what’s become illegal, Jack doesn’t budge. I failed to appreciate that at first. I misunderstood him, got him all wrong, and ran from him. Said terrible, hurtful things to him. But when Vicky and I needed him, there he was, right where I’d left him. He was there for me then and he’s been there for me ever since. I can always depend on Jack to do the right thing.”
The right thing… when had Tom worried last about doing the right thing? He couldn’t remember the last time the concept had made the faintest blip on his radar.
He forced a sigh. “The world’s the way it is because not enough people do the right thing, wouldn’t you say?”
“Hard to argue with that.”
“But maybe some people have never had the right reason to do the right thing.”
Gia glanced at him. “I’ve always figured the reason for doing the right thing is because it’s the right thing.”
“Do you think maybe someone who hasn’t been doing the right thing could change for the right person?”
“I suppose, but then wouldn’t he be doing the right thing for the wrong reason.”
“I don’t get you.”
“Well, the way I see it, you don’t do the right thing for anyone else, you do it for yourself. Because doing anything
less diminishes you.”
Tom fell silent. Her words were like stab wounds. If Gia was right, if doing the wrong thing diminished you, what was left of him?
A puff of smoke in the wind… if that.
* * *
-81:25
Tom led the way up the stairs to Jack’s apartment! When he reached the door and raised his hand to knock, it flew open and Vicky blew past him to leap into her mother’s arms.
“Mommy! Mommy!” She sounded terrified.
“What is it?”
“Jack’s mad at me!”
“What? Why?”
“I touched the treasure and it moved and now he’s making me stand by the door and I heard you coming and—”
Suddenly Jack filled the doorway. His face was flushed, his teeth bared. He jabbed his finger to within an inch of Tom’s nose.
“Damn you!”
Gia said, “Jack? What on earth is—?”
His features softened as he turned toward her. “You and Vicky stay out here.” Then hardened again as he swung back on Tom and grabbed the front of his shirt. “But you…”
“Wha—?”
Jack yanked him into the apartment and pointed across the front room.
“That should be your goddamn problem, but now it’s mine too!”
Tom looked but couldn’t fathom what he was talking about. Had he flipped his—?
Then he saw it. The Lilitongue, five feet off the floor, floating in the air before the open closet door.
Tom took a step toward it.
“Jesus God! Is that… I mean, what’s holding it up?”
“Not a goddamn thing, Tom.”
“But that’s imposs—”
Jack grabbed his shoulder and shook him. “Obviously not! What the hell did you bring into my home?”
Tom heard Vicky’s voice coming from behind.
“Isn’t it neat, Mom? It’s floating all by itself.”
He turned and saw Vicky stepping in from the hallway.
Jack said, “Vicky, please! No closer! Gia, keep her back. I don’t want either of you anywhere near this thing. I’ve kept Vicky back by the door since after it activated.”
Vicky said, “But it’s only—”
Gia had a hand over her mouth and her gaze locked on the Lilitongue. Tom would have expected wonder in those eyes, tinged maybe with some uneasiness, but instead he saw fear. Why? Granted, they were in the presence of a unique phenomenon, but there was nothing threatening about it. Why did she look so frightened as she pulled Vicky back?
“Jack’s right, honey. We don’t know what it is. And when something’s doing what it shouldn’t be able to do, something you can’t explain, it’s better to keep your distance until you know it won’t… until you know it’s safe.” She hugged the child against her. “And anyway, it’s late. Past your bedtime.”
“But Ma-om,” she whined. “There’s no school tomorrow.”
“Say good-bye.”
Vicky made a barely audible response, then turned to go.
Gia said to Jack, “Call me later.” Then to Tom, “Thank you for the opera.”
He would have loved to see a smile as she said that, but her expression was tight, almost fearful.
“My pleasure, Gia. I’m sorry the evening had to end like this.”
“So am I.” She glanced at the Lilitongue and then back to Tom. “I hope you haven’t brought more trouble into our lives.”
Tom had no reply for that. He could only nod and wonder what she meant by “more” trouble. What could she be talking about?
When the door had closed behind her, Tom turned and stared at the Lilitongue. The sight of it floating in midair filled him with wonder, awe, and a strange glee.
No, it shouldn’t be, and yes, it was impossible. And that meant that the paranormal hints he’d run across in research hadn’t been the ravings of ancient lunatics.
The possibility that the Lilitongue just might live up to its press thrilled him. This could be his way out after all. It might prove his seemingly ineluctable fate to be, well, eluctable.
Slowly, hesitantly, he approached the thing. Its looks hadn’t changed—still a misshapen, leathery, basketball-size olive with a dimple toward its lower end; no glow, no hum, no whine… simply sitting there five feet above the floor.
Behind it, the open hall closet. Beneath it, the sea chest. Tom waved his hands over, under, and around it. Nothing. God, this was amazing. Amazing! This defied the laws of gravity.
“Looking for strings?” Jack said.
“Looking for something.”
“How about a reason for me not to break your neck?”
Tom glanced at him and backed up a step when he saw his brother’s eyes. Something very scary there.
“Hey, take it easy, Jack. This is weird, I know—very, very weird—but not a reason to get so pissed. I mean, you act like I just dropped a cobra down your shorts.”
“Maybe you have.” He pointed to the Lilitongue. “I don’t want this here. Get it out.”
“What the hell is wrong with you? This is the find of the century—of the last four centuries! They’re going to have to rewrite the laws of gravity because of this thing! It’ll go down in history. We’ll go down in history.”
Jack’s expression switched from anger to disgust. “Right. You’ll be the most famous guy in the federal lockup. And I’ll probably wind up right there beside you.”
Shit. The wonder of the phenomenon had momentarily blinded him. As glorious as it would be to become an international celebrity, it wouldn’t nullify the malfeasance charges. All it would accomplish was to transmit his obloquy nationwide. Maybe even worldwide.
Jack said, “I want it gone, Tom.”
“Okay, then, I’ll put it back in the chest, lock it, and that will be that.”
Jack’s expression remained fierce. “Be my guest.”
Tom reached for the Lilitongue, then hesitated, his fingers only inches from its surface. What would it feel like now that it had been awakened? Would he feel a vibration? Or even more disturbing… a pulse?
He forced his hands forward and touched it lightly with his fingertips. No vibration, no throb… but it sent a peculiar feeling through him, a hint of instinctive revulsion that quickly passed.
And damn if it didn’t feel warm. Almost like… skin temperature.
He pressed his palms against it, got a grip, and pushed down, aiming for the sea chest.
The Lilitongue didn’t budge.
He pushed harder, grunting with the effort, but it was like trying to move a house.
Tom looked at Jack. “Give me a hand here.”
“Okay, but it’s not going to do any good.”
Together they pushed. Tom could see Jack’s face crimsoning with the strain—mirroring his own, no doubt—but together they achieved no more than Tom had alone.
“It won’t budge,” Jack said. “Trust me, it won’t move up, down, or sideways. It’s fixed in space. The proverbial immovable object.”
“Then we’ll need an irresistible force.”
“How about your stupidity?”
“Hey—”
“You weaseled it in here and now I’m stuck with it.”
“There has to be a way.”
“Yeah?” Jack reached down behind the couch and came up with an aluminum bat. “Try this.”
Tom took it and hefted it. Heavier than he expected.
“So you still play baseball?”
“It’s a versatile item.” Jack pointed to the Lilitongue. “Go ahead. Take a swing.”
“I don’t want to damage it.”
“You won’t. Trust me. Take a big swing.”
Something in Jack’s tone set off a warning bell. So instead of a big swing, he gave the Lilitongue a light tap.
Nothing beyond a dull thunk.
A harder tap.
Another thunk, plus a metallic ring from the bat.
“Come on, Tom. Don’t be such a wimp. Swing for the bleachers, big guy-�
��
Wimp, huh?
Tom raised the bat above and behind his shoulder, then let loose, putting his arms and body behind it, giving it everything.
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