New York…
Yes… bring the Lilitongue to New York. Probably an even better place than Philly to learn about it, what with Columbia University, NYU, the Museum of Natural History and all.
But where to stay? He couldn’t use a credit card…
He glanced over to where Jack was stowing the last of their gear into the coffin-sized trunk of his Crown Vic.
Jack’s place… a safe haven. Wherever it was, a sure bet he had it listed under a phony name. Just like his credit card.
Tom had almost burst out laughing when he’d seen the name on the gas receipt. John Tyleski… the name from the hotel. Tom hadn’t dreamed that was Jack.
Despite all the shit coming down, Tom had to smile. Little Brother was soon going to be getting one mammoth MasterCard bill.
The smile faded. The last thing Little Brother wanted was him crashing for a week or two. If asked, Jack would turn him down—no question. So he’d have to get in through the back door. There had to be a way. After all, he had an eight-hour drive to figure it out.
Yeah, like it or not, Jack was going to have a houseguest. And once he got himself inside, there he’d stay until he’d unlocked the mysteries of the Lilitongue.
Tom smiled. Call me Sheridan Whiteside.
* * *
2
Jack breathed a sigh of relief as he and Tom pulled away from Ernie’s Photo ID. Ernie had taken a few photos of Tom and promised to get to work on a new identity right away.
He’d brought Tom directly to Ernie’s from the Lincoln Tunnel. Ernie could work miracles, but he needed time, and the sooner Tom got started, the better.
Because as soon as Tom became someone else, he and his Lilitongue would be on their way.
It was almost four thirty and the sun was hitting the horizon somewhere beyond the high-rises.
Jack was looking forward to getting home and crashing.
Long day. Up before dawn, cooped in a car with Tom for eight hours… he was fragged.
Had to admit, though, that Tom had been better company on the way back than the way down. Not because Jack was getting used to him or that they’d bonded. Hardly. The simple reason was that Tom hadn’t talked as much. Of course, when he had it had been about Gia, but a generally non-toxic trip.
Tom had insisted on driving the first leg. They’d switched after lunch at a no-name diner somewhere on the DelMarVa Peninsula. Tom had insisted that diners were far superior to fast-food chains. Jack’s burger was okay but he really could have gone for a Whopper with cheese. Tom’s beef stew had looked and smelled like hot Alpo.
Jack had had the wheel from there on.
As Jack wound through the traffic on Tenth Avenue, Tom grabbed his arm.
“Stop the car!”
Jack tensed, his eyes doing a quick 360 scan via the mirrors and windshield: nothing.
“What’s wrong?”
Tom was doubled over. “Pull over! Now!”
Jack swerved right and pulled in by a fireplug. Before the car had stopped, Tom was leaning out the door. Jack heard him retching.
When he finished, he levered himself upright and sat there panting.
“Oh, God. Must be that stew. Never should have—”
Then he was hanging out the door and retching again.
“You okay?” Jack said.
Tom nodded.
“Done?”
Another nod.
As Jack put the Vic back into gear he realized with a shock that Tom had no place to stay.
“We’ve got to find you a hotel.”
Shit. A Saturday night in Manhattan the last weekend before Christmas… where the hell were they going to find a room?
Tom slumped against the door.
“Jesus, Jack, I don’t think I can make it.”
“What do you mean?”
Jack knew what Tom meant but his mind shied from acknowledging it.
“Searching for a room.” Tom groaned. “I don’t think I can make today. I’ll find a place tomorrow. I just need a little time to get over this.”
“How much time?”
“Food poisoning doesn’t last long. One night will probably do it. By tomorrow it’ll be like it never happened.” He winced and doubled over, then looked at Jack. “How about your place?”
Jack felt like the driver of a jackknifed semitrailer in mid-skid on an icy road, painfully, hopelessly aware that no matter what pedal he tromped or which way he yanked the wheel, the ending was a foregone conclusion.
“Tom…”
His voice took on a whiny tone. “Come on, Jack. Would it kill you to let me crash one night? One lousy night?”
Bastard.
* * *
3
“He’ll be bunking in the TV room,” Jack said.
He’d called Gia as soon as he’d unloaded the car and parked it in its garage.
Tom had carried his backpack and the Lilitongue chest up to the apartment, then slumped on the couch, leaving Jack to unload and haul the rest up to the third floor by himself.
Gia said, “You… with a houseguest…” A suppressed laugh trickled through the phone. “The hermit of the Upper West Side with overnight company. I can’t believe it.”
“It’s not funny and I’m not a hermit.”
“Is he feeling better?”
“Seems to be. At least he’s not throwing up anymore. Hasn’t been sick since Tenth Avenue. Perked up right after he got here.”
Which only deepened Jack’s suspicions. Thinking back, he remembered only hearing Tom retch. Never saw any vomit. Of course, he hadn’t been exactly itching for a look at regurgitated beef stew.
Still… with a guy a little less honest than a wharf rat, you never knew.
Gia tsked. “Poor man.”
“That’s what you get for eating Alpo.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. Look, when am I going to see you?”
A whole week away. Jack had missed her.
“Well, why don’t the three of us go somewhere after you drop off your brother? There’s a German Expressionist exhibit at MOMA that might be fun.”
The Museum of Modern Art… just the place he wanted to spend his first day home from the sea.
Gia must have sensed his lack of enthusiasm.
“Give it a chance, Jack. There’s no way a man who likes The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari—which you insisted I see—won’t find something to like there.”
Oh, right. The crazy Caligari set design had been created by a couple of German expressionists.
“Okay. You’re on.”
He hung up feeling good about tomorrow, anticipating a much-needed Gia-Vicky fix.
The feeling did a quick fade when he walked into the second bedroom that served as his TV room. Tom had the convertible couch folded out into bed mode—no sheets, just a bare mattress—and he was unpacking his bag… hanging clothes in the closet.
“What are you doing?”
Tom looked up and smiled. “Just letting some of this stuff air. It’s been at sea too long. Was that Gia on the phone?”
“Yeah. She says hi and hopes you’re feeling better, which you seem to be.”
“Yeah. Amazing, isn’t it. One minute you think you’re dying, and a little while later you’re feeling fine.”
“Amazing.”
“Still feeling a little weak, though. Why don’t you ask Gia over?”
Here we go: Tom and his thing for Gia.
“I would, but what you have might be contagious.”
“I’m sure it was just food poisoning.”
“You never know.”
Tom looked disappointed. “All right, then. Got any vodka?”
Jack shook his head. “Only beer. Probably not a good thing to be pouring booze into such an unsettled stomach anyway.”
“Actually a beer would go a long way toward settling my stomach, I think. Could you get me one?”
Jack jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Bottom shelf of the fridge.”
; Jack eyed Tom’s neck as he passed. He resisted an urge to grab it with both hands and shake him like a rag doll.
He listened to the refrigerator door open and close, watched Tom return carrying two bottles of Yuengling lager. He twisted the top off one and handed it to Jack, then opened the other and held it up.
“To brotherhood.”
He clinked his bottle against Jack’s and drank. Jack felt like saying, This is brotherhood? but bit it back, choosing instead to say nothing.
For you, Dad, he thought as he took a long pull. Only for you.
He needed a beer. Had a feeling he was going to need many beers.
Tom gestured around Jack’s cluttered front room. Gia once had called it “claustrophobic,” and Abe proclaimed it “vertigogenic.”
“I’ve just got to ask you about this. I mean, who’s your decorator? Joe Franklin?”
“What do you mean?”
“The furniture for one thing.”
Jack turned and took in his Victorian wavy-grained golden oak furniture—the gingerbread-laden secretary, the hutch, the paw-footed round oak table, the crystal-ball-and-claw-footed end tables.
“What about it?”
“Looks like stuff people used when they were listening to Little Orphan Annie on the radio. And speaking of Annie, is that a Daddy Warbucks lamp?”
“It is. He was a cool guy.”
Tom stepped over to the inner wall and stared at the array of clocks and framed certificates.
“You’re living in Gew-gawville. And look at all this: The Shadow Fan Club, the Doc Savage fan club, and Jesus, a Shmoo clock!” He turned to Jack and laughed. “What are you? Ninety years old?”
Jack felt no obligation to explain.
Tom stepped back into the TV room where he dropped onto the mattress and lay on his side, his head propped against his hand. He pointed to the big screen.
“Nice set. Got any movies we can watch?”
Jack was too bushed to start searching for a hotel room now. But first thing tomorrow… first damn thing.
* * *
SUNDAY
1
After a restless night during which his bed seemed to be rocking with the swells of an unseen ocean, Jack got up and walked into the empty front room.
He stood there for a moment and tried to convince himself that last night had been a dream—that none of last week had happened.
Then he heard the snoring from the TV room and knew he wasn’t going to be that lucky.
He looked in and saw Tom sprawled on his back like a beached whale. His right arm hung over the edge of the mattress, the fingers just brushing the top of the Lilitongue chest.
Jack had been on the phone for an hour. His first call had been to Joey who hadn’t answered. Jack left a message and then got to work on the hotels. But no luck. Not one place he’d called—and he’d tried uptown and down—had a room. There had to be one somewhere in this damn city.
He needed a break. He went to the kitchen and spooned some Brown Gold into his Mr. Coffee and got a pot perking. The odor of coffee soon filled the apartment.
Jack was pouring his first cup when Tom appeared, rubbing his eyes.
“Christ, what time is it?”
Jack took one look at the wrinkled T-shirt stretched across a belly that overhung a pair of pee-stained Jockey shorts and pointed back to the TV room.
“Out, damn spot!”
Tom blinked. “What?”
“Get something on—at least on the lower half of that body.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No coffee for eyesores.”
Tom stared at him a moment, then shook his head and retraced his steps to the TV room. He reemerged a moment later wearing a pair of plaid Bermudas.
“Happy now?”
“Happiness is relative. Less aesthetically offended is more like it.”
Tom grabbed an empty cup, filled it, and took a long sip. No milk, no sugar.
He held up the cup. “Damn good coffee.” He winked. “Give me a reference.”
Jack did not want to reference that or anything else, didn’t want to get started with games. But he couldn’t resist.
“If you’d just toasted me with the cup and given a grin, I’d say Winston Wolf in Pulp Fiction. But the ‘damn’ means you’re probably thinking of Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks.”
“Excellent! I’m impressed. Now how about—?”
Jack was about to cut him off when the intercom buzzer beat him to it.
Baffled as to who’d be buzzing him at this hour on a Sunday—or at any hour on any day, for that matter—Jack stepped to the wall box and pressed the button.
“Yeah?”
“Hi, Jack.” Gia’s voice. “Buzz us in. We’ve got a surprise for you.”
Jack was momentarily baffled. Gia had a key. Then he realized that because he had company she didn’t want to barge in unannounced.
He said, “Urn, okay, sure,” and hit the unlock button.
A surprise?
“Gia?” Tom looked panicked. “I’ve got to clean up!”
* * *
2
“Well?” Gia said, waving a hand over the laden round oak table. “What do you think?”
She wore jeans and a loose, light blue top that heightened the color of her eyes.
She and Vicky had brought bagels and cream cheese, two quiches—one bacon and shallots, the other zucchini and onion—plus a coffee ring, and even the Sunday Times.
Jack forced a smile. “Looks super, but you shouldn’t have.”
No lie. Gia’s intentions were the best, but she really shouldn’t have. This was only going to delay finding Tom a room. But then, Gia didn’t know Jack was hunting a place for Tom to stay.
“I picked out the coffee cake,” Vicky said. She wore denim coveralls and had her hair pulled back into her signature French braid. “It’s got sugar-coated pecans on it.”
She picked one off and popped it into her mouth.
“It won’t have anything on it if you keep that up,” Gia said.
Vicky grinned. “I love sugar-coated pecans.”
Tom stepped out of the TV room just then, shaved, showered, wearing slacks and a loose shirt that partially obscured his gut. He crossed the room with outstretched arms. Add a silk dressing gown and he’d be ready for a full-fledged Noel Coward vamp.
“Gia!” he said, making a beeline for her. “What a wonderful surprise! Please excuse my appearance, but I’ve spent the last week at sea.”
She accepted a hug, then said, “You remember Vicky.”
“Of course.” Tom shook her hand. “A pleasure to see you again, Miss Vicky.”
“Hello, Mister—”
“Oh. Don’t call me ‘mister.’ I suppose you could call me Almost-Uncle Tom, but I’m not crazy about the sound of that.” He grinned and winked at Gia. “So why don’t you just call me Tom.”
Vicky stared at him as if he was speaking Swahili.
“Vicky and I figured you wouldn’t have any food in the house.”
Tom patted Vicky on the head. “Isn’t that sweet!”
Vicky said, “I picked out the coffee cake, even though I’m not allowed to drink coffee.”
Tom bent toward her and spoke in a gooey voice. “Isn’t that wonderful of you!”
Jack repressed a gag.
Gia said, “I never got around to asking last night: How did Jack and Tom’s Big Adventure go?”
Tom let loose a deep ha-ha-ha! “Are you a movie buff too?”
“Only by osmosis.” She hooked an arm around Jack’s waist and leaned against him. “Can’t hang around with your brother too long without picking up something.”
Tom said, “Well, speaking of something, that’s just what we found. We’re just not sure what that something is.”
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