By the Sword rj-12
Page 10
Suzy grinned. "Should've been. He picked the winner." More button pressing. "Let's see here. Hey, here's you and Artie."
"Nah. Where's the one with me and Hughie?"
"Here's you with Joey from Ohio."
"You must be one photogenic guy," Jack said. "Everyone wants a picture with you."
"Yeah, I'm a photo ho. Look, Suze—"
"Here's the last one of you—with Laurie this time."
Bobble glanced at it with a disappointed expression, started to look away, then grabbed the phone for a closer look.
"Hey!" Suzy said.
He handed it back. "Sorry. Any way I can get a copy of that?"
"I can send it to your cell phone."
"Ain't got a cell phone."
She looked at him as if a third eye had just appeared in his forehead. "You're kidding, right?"
"Wish I were." He turned to Jack. "You?"
"Yeah, but you sure you want a picture of you and this Laurie?"
"Oh, yeah." He lowered his voice. "And so do you."
"Great," Suzy said. "I'll zap it to you now."
Jack pulled out one of his trusty old TracFones. "Never done that. How's it work?"
Suzy launched into a wire-head word salad about texting and attaching the photo file to a text message, then sending the message to Jack's phone, blah-blah-blah. It left him feeling like he was standing on a platform watching the technology train pull out of the station.
He held up his phone. "All I do with this is make calls."
She took it, looked it over, grimaced as if she'd just picked up a handful of spoiled meat, then quickly handed it back.
"That's about all you can do with that dinosaur. You need an emergency upgrade." To Bobble: "I'll have to e-mail it to your computer instead." She stopped. "You do have a computer, don't you?"
Bobble shook his head and turned to Jack again. "You?"
"Yeah. Send it to: r-p-r-m-n-j-c-k at yahoo."
Suzy gave a wry smile as she tapped it into her phone. "Not only a computer but an e-mail address too. Wow. I'll upload it to the photo site and forward it to you later." Her tone made it sound as if she'd been asked to use a rotary phone.
Bet I can whip your butt in DNA Wars.
"You can't do it now?" Bobble said.
"Need to get to a computer for that."
Jack nudged Bobble. "I'll print it out so you can send it to your mother."
Actually, he'd have to have Russ print it out since Jack had never bothered to buy a printer. What for?
"Or if you want, I can send it straight to your mom."
"Thanks but she, um, doesn't have a computer either."
Suzy rolled her eyes. "Where's she live?"
"Um, Toronto."
Jack could tell he'd pulled that one out of the air.
She laughed. "Toronto! I've been there! I love Toronto! It's like another country."
A few heartbeats of silence, then Bobble said, "Oooooookay. We'll be going now, Suze. Don't forget to send that picture to my man, here."
"Right. See you here for the Belmont party? Or are you going out to the track?"
"I'm here, Suze."
She gave him a thumbs-up.
"Wow," Bobble said as they hit the street. "Another country? She knows all that techie stuff but doesn't know Toronto's in Michigan? I mean, people are so stupid these days."
Jack let it go.
"So why do we want a photo of you and this gal Laurie?"
Bobble grinned. "Because guess who's in the background, staring straight at the camera?"
"Our man Hughie?"
"None other."
Things were looking up.
"Neat," Jack said. "Old Hughie got Zaprudered."
Bobble said, "Zapwha?"
"Never mind."
9
Hideo knocked on the door a third time. It needed painting. In fact, the whole apartment building needed a makeover. He shook off the thought. His need for orderliness sometimes distracted him from the matter at hand.
And what mattered here was getting past this door.
He heard movement on the other side. The three yakuza flanked the doorframe, out of range of the peephole. Though dressed in suits and ties, they looked anything but respectable. Yakuza… the word meant "good for nothing," and that quality shone through. Each might as well have had another tattoo on the forehead announcing "hoodlum."
But Hideo had no idea what he'd run into on the far side of the door, and so was glad to have them along.
The facial recognition software had done its job half well. In the NYPD database it had found mug shots of a brown-haired man named Hugh Gerrish, arrested for breaking and entering two years ago. They matched perfectly the face on the security cam. Gerrish had pleaded out to an illegal-trespass charge and been given probation with no jail time. The file listed this apartment in Brooklyn's Greenpoint area as his address.
The software had not, however, found the ronin. Rather, it had found too many of them. One hundred twenty-seven hits, each of them resembling the ronin. Either his features were very common, or the only existing photo was not detailed enough for an accurate search. Perhaps both. Hideo would have to work on a way to narrow the selection.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," said an old woman's voice from within. Her accent was Spanish. A few seconds later the peephole darkened and he heard: "Who are you?"
Gerrish's mother, perhaps? Hideo was prepared for this.
"Police, ma'am," he said, holding a gold NYPD detective's badge up to the peephole. "We need to speak to you about your son."
"Madre de Dios!"
A chain rattled, the knob turned, and the door opened. A wizened, gray-haired old woman in a stained housedress looked up at him with frightened eyes.
"Mi Julio! What has happened?"
Hideo had a sudden bad feeling about this. Hugh Gerrish hadn't looked the least bit Hispanic. He pushed open the door and motioned the yakuza inside. The old woman backed up a step and opened her mouth to scream but Hideo pressed a finger firmly against her lips.
"Silence, please. We mean you no harm." When she took a breath as if to scream anyway, he held up his other hand in a stop sign. "Please."
She stayed silent.
Beyond, in the tiny apartment, Hideo heard a cacophony of doors and drawers opening and closing. It lasted less than a minute, and then Kenji was beside him.
"Empty, Takita-san," he said in Japanese. "And no katana."
"How many bedrooms?"
"One."
Hideo nodded as a sinking feeling dragged on his gut.
"The closets—any men's clothes?"
He shook his head. "Only woman's. And not much of that."
Goro and Ryo appeared, the latter holding up a framed photograph. Hideo took it and saw the old woman with her cheek pressed against that of a dark-haired, dark-skinned young man who looked nothing like Hugh Gerrish. He showed it to her.
"Who is this?"
She snatched it from him. "Mi Julio." Tears rimmed her eyes. "What has happened to him?"
"Nothing. He is fine. We have made a mistake."
"Mistake?" she said, her tone and expression growing indignant. "You break into my home and frighten—"
"How long have you lived here?"
"Since September."
Eight months. Gerrish must have moved out last summer. Hideo suppressed a curse and masked his frustration as he pulled a wad of bills from his pocket.
"We have disturbed you and wasted five minutes of your time." He peeled off five hundred-dollar bills and pressed them into her hands. "I trust this will help you forgive us."
She gazed at the bills as if he'd given her a fortune. Perhaps to her it was. To him it was merely an expense he would charge to Kaze.
What had seemed so straightforward and easy yesterday was proving digressive and difficult. He had run into obstacles, but none he could not surmount.
As Americans liked to say: Back to the drawing board.
10
He'd just left Russ Tuit, his go-to guy for all things computer. Russ had downloaded the photo, cropped out Bobblehead and the inebriated-looking Laurie, sharpened and enlarged the guy behind them, and printed it out. Still kind of blurry, but serviceable.
Hugh Gerrish had a round, florid face topped by wavy brown hair that scooped down into a sharp widow's peak. The outstanding feature was a big diamond stud stuck in his left earlobe. Jack wished he had more of a view of his body to help spot him from a distance, but this would work.
He'd checked the post time at Belmont: first race one o'clock except Fridays when it moved to three P.M. The track was closed today so he'd have to wait till tomorrow.
"Jack?"
A woman's voice. He looked around and saw a slim blonde in her mid-twenties, looking much younger because of her pigtails and her getup. She wore a white oxford shirt with a loose, askew tie, a plaid pleated miniskirt, white knee socks, and high-heel Mary Janes. Only a few of the shirt buttons were fastened, exposing her diamond-studded navel.
Jack stared, dumbfounded. "Do I—?"
She smiled and batted her heavily mascaraed, blue-shadowed eyes. "It's me. Junie. Junie Moon. We met—"
"Right-right. Gia's friend. How are you?"
They'd met last summer when Junie had been a guest at a Brooklyn party celebrating a big sale of one of her paintings. But she hadn't looked like jailbait then.
"Fine. Things have cooled down a little, but still better than I'd ever dreamed."
Nathan Lane had bought one of her paintings and publicly raved about it and suddenly her canvases were going for twenty K apiece. Jack had never seen any of her work but Gia said she was good.
"You're looking… different."
"Like it?" She struck a pose. "Marketing. All marketing." She stepped closer. "I saw Gia last week."
"You did?"
"She didn't tell you?"
"No."
Jack wondered why not.
"Must've forgot. I finally got the nerve to stop by. I'm such a slut of a friend. I mean, here she's been like my big sister for years, but I couldn't bring myself to stop by after the accident. I just couldn't stand seeing her hurt."
"She's pretty much back to normal now."
Junie shook her head. "Not really."
Jack felt a sinking sensation. "What do you mean?"
"Her art, my brotha. Her paintings. They're…"
"She showed you?"
"Well, ya-ah. We're both artists, you know. Why wouldn't she?"
It stung knowing Gia would share them with someone else but not him. Maybe the artist connection explained it, but still…
"I haven't seen them."
"Oh, shit. You two aren't on the outs, are you? Because if you've hurt her—"
"Never in a million years. She just doesn't want me to see them."
"Yeah, well, maybe I can see why."
"Want to give me a hint?"
"They're not her."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"They're not like anything she's ever painted. They're… dark. You know how Gia's stuff has always been sunny, with all that Hopperesque bright light and shadow. Now it's mostly shadow. I think that accident changed her, Jack. I mean, you talk to her, she seems the same, but those paintings…" She looked uncomfortable. "They aren't from the Gia I knew."
They chatted awhile longer, with Junie monologuing and Jack monosyllabling, barely hearing what she said.
Those paintings… he had to get a look at Gia's paintings.
11
"Glenn! Glenn!"
Glaeken stood at the living room window, watching the stretched shadow of his building inch across Central Park's Sheep Meadow.
Glenn… he was glad Magda had forgotten his real name. Wouldn't do to have her calling "Glaeken!" a thousand times a day. Glenn, Glaeken, Veilleur, and all the other names he'd adopted down through the ages. Sometimes he lost track of who he was supposed to be.
Used to be he could always return to "Glaeken," but no longer. In his mind these days he'd become simply Veilleur.
"Coming, my dear."
The voice had come from the kitchen, as were sounds of rattling cookware now. He headed that way and found Magda standing by the granite-topped island, staring at the open cabinets in confusion.
Her white hair was neatly combed, thanks to the visiting homemaker who had just left. Her weight loss over the past few years or so accentuated the stoop of her shoulders. She wore a sweater as usual, because she was always cold.
"My kitchen!" she cried, her Hungarian accent thicker than before the decline had begun. "Glenn, what's happened to my kitchen?"
"Nothing, Magda. It's just as it always is."
A vision of a younger Magda took shape before him. Soft, smooth skin; long, chestnut hair; dark, gleaming eyes so full of wit and intelligence. That Magda was gone, but his love for her remained. He heard echoes of her voice as she sang, of her mandolin as she played, the sight of her bent over her typewriter as she wrote.
Another vision… Magda facing down the greatest evil… defying everything Rasalom could throw at her… terrified, horrified, repulsed, yet holding out, blocking his way until Glaeken could gather strength enough to take her place.
The memory of her courage and her unyielding trust that he would not let her down constricted his throat—now as much as then.
But two years ago her memory began to fail. She noticed it first. Then he noticed her making notes about the simplest things. He knew what it meant. And it crushed him.
The one woman across his eons with whom he could grow old was failing, becoming less and less the woman he'd fallen in love with. He refused to allow the splendid life they'd lived, the glowing love they'd shared to be tainted by her decline. He would never leave her, never give up on her. He would be with her until the end.
And perhaps that end was not too far off.
For both of them.
For everyone.
"But how can I cook dinner?"
He stepped to her side. "We've already had dinner."
She looked at him. "No! We couldn't. I'm still hungry."
"We had lamb chops, roasted red potatoes, and string beans. You cleaned your plate."
"No, I—"
"I cut your meat for you, remember?"
She closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. They were moist when she opened them.
"I do remember." She squeezed his forearm. "Oh, Glenn, I'm making it so hard on you."
He patted her hand. "Not at all, my love."
"But why am I still hungry?"
"Perhaps you didn't eat enough."
Her eating habits had become bizarre. She would be famished after a big meal, and then go most of the following day without eating anything—needing to be talked into sitting down for dinner.
"How about some ice cream? We have chocolate, your favorite."
She shook her head. "I need something more… more…" She frowned, searching for the word.
"Substantial?"
"Yes!" She brightened. "I'll have Miranda fix me some scrambled eggs."
Miranda had been their housekeeper six years ago.
"Miranda's not here, but I'll fix them."
She clapped her hands like a delighted child. "Wonderful! And you'll fix them the way I like them?"
He nodded. "With grated asiago. Of course."
He pulled out a frying pan and began melting a pat of butter. He'd cooked countless meals down the seemingly endless years and had become skilled at it.
He knew if Magda followed her usual pattern, her appetite would be gone by the time the eggs were ready. And then he'd eat them. He'd have to. He'd been hungry too many times, sagging against death's door more than once from starvation, ever to throw away food.
But that was all right. He made excellent scrambled eggs.
12
What the—?
It had happened again.
Jack sat at his round oak table and stared at the page he'd bookmarked in the Compendium of Srem. Nobody knew the book's age. He'd heard it was from the First Age, but no one could prove that, and the people with the credentials to do some sort of backgrounding on it believed it was a myth. After all, only one copy existed, and Jack had it. He'd been told it was indestructible, that Grand Inquisitor Torquemada had tried everything—fire, sword, ax, and anything else he could think of—but had been unable to destroy it. Finally he'd given up and buried it beneath a monastery. But it hadn't stayed buried.
All very odd, but the oddest thing about the Compendium was that everyone who opened it found it written in his or her native tongue.
Jack had bookmarked the section on the Seven Infernals the other day and decided tonight would be a good time to check out a weird-looking contraption he'd seen there that looked oddly familiar… displayed in a sideshow, long ago. But now, when he opened to the page, he found himself in another section.
Impossible that someone could have moved the bookmark, because he was the only one in the apartment, the only one for weeks.
He started paging through, looking for the Infernals again, but could find no trace of them. Instead he found pages he'd never seen before. He'd read a lot of the book—understanding little—and had flipped through it a number of times, but now he was finding whole sections he'd never even glimpsed before.
This wasn't the first time. What was this thing? Could it be sentient?
He slapped the book closed and pushed it to the center of the table. Damn thing was heavy.
He leaned back and tried to let his mind go blank, but an aching need popped Gia into his head. He saw her… he heard her… the sounds she made when they were in bed. She wasn't a wailer, not a screamer, not an oh-godder… just soft little moans, almost like whimpers, from way back in her throat. He felt her nails raking his back when he was in her, heard the rasp of those nails as they raked the sheets when he was down on her.
He had to go back. He couldn't stay away any longer.
WEDNESDAY
1