Howard Beach. He’d passed through every imaginable variety of neighborhood, from mansions to blocks of middle-class houses with dauntingly fastidious yards to trailer parks to abandoned buildings to empty, overgrown lots. He’d been around Spring Creek Park half a dozen times. To cover all bases, he’d even made a couple of side trips along the western perimeter of JFK Airport.
But all the while he’d obeyed every traffic sign, stayed at or under the speed limit. So why the stop? Broken tail light? What?
He pulled to the curb on Ninetieth Street in Howard Beach and the cop pulled in behind him. He wiggled his driver license free of his wallet and removed the registration and insurance cards from the glove compartment. All three cards and the license plate on the rear bumper were as real as a politician’s promises. But also the best that money could buy, courtesy of Ernie’s ID.
That didn’t prevent a little extra acid from pooling in his stomach. They’d been tested before and passed, but no guarantee they’d pass this time. He shouldn’t worry. The Tyleski identity was solid. The real John L. Tyleski was dead, but officialdom had no record of his passing. He’d never broken the law and had no outstanding debts—he paid off both his credit cards in full every month with money orders.
Jack’s main worry was the tranq gun. He’d wired a large canvas holster with a snap flap under the driver seat. The tranq pistol rested in that. No way a cop outside the car could get a hint of its existence.
Still…every once in a while, no way became yes way.
Not illegal to own a tranq gun, but how to explain it?
It boiled down to the simple fact that he couldn’t allow himself to be arrested. Because once they took him in and started digging into his identity, his carefully constructed house of lies would start to crumble and they’d never let him loose—talk about a flight risk. He’d never take another free breath.
He rolled down the window and placed both hands in plain sight at ten and two on the steering wheel as he waited for the cop to come alongside. If memory served, the areas Jack had been searching came under the jurisdiction of the 106th Precinct. The guy took his time, no doubt running a computer check on the plates. They would come up as belonging to one Vincent Donato of Canarsie, Brooklyn, maybe a half-hour drive from here. But the local constabulary had to be relatively comfortable dealing with the likes of Vinny Donuts, seeing as John Gotti and Junior Gotti used to call Howard Beach home.
Jack had cloned Vinny’s car a couple of years ago—same make, model, plates. He’d first met the big man shortly after arriving in the city. Vinny wouldn’t remember Jack, but Jack remembered Vinny. Neither side of the law had any issues with the Donut. He belonged to a branch of the Gambinos and ran a legit scrap/salvage business up front. He made the right donations to the cops, paid a respectful percentage of his gross to his capo, and kept his games and loansharking close to the ground. Vinny Donuts liked a low profile. The cops and the other families wished they had more like him.
Jack got stopped now and again, and when the cop thought he was dealing with Vinny’s car and driver, he never wrote a ticket and didn’t ask too many questions. Never asked to look in the trunk. Some things you didn’t necessarily need to know.
Jack’s problem here would be explaining his presence, crisscrossing the area all day. The truth—well, part of it—offered a perfect excuse.
Finally, the cop appeared at Jack’s window and shone his flashlight all around the interior.
“Good evening, sir. May I see your license and registration, please?”
Jack handed them over. “Is there a problem, officer?”
Had to strike the right balance here: Cool, calm, respectful but not obsequious. He worked for Vinny Donuts, after all.
“We’ve had a number of reports from concerned residents about a car like yours lurking in their neighborhood.”
“I don’t know about ‘lurking,’ officer. I’ve been searching for a lost dog.”
“Your dog?”
“My employer’s”
“Would that be the owner of the vehicle?” He had the flashlight on the registration card. “Vincent Donato?”
“It would, sir.”
“And you’re John Tyleski?”
“Yessir. I was driving Mister Donato back from a business meeting this morning and we stopped to let the dog do his business in that little park off Conduit, just past Linden.”
Jack had been through there twice today.
“Tudor Park.”
“It’s got a name? I guess all parks got a name, right? Whatever, the dog somehow got off its leash and bolted.”
“Big dog?”
“Little. Maybe eight pounds. A mix called a Bijou.”
The cop made a face. “Bijou…no kidding?”
“Yeah. One of these new breeds—half Bichon and half Shih Tzu.”
“Bijou.” He seemed to like the word.
“I had a theater in my home town called the Bijou,” Jack said, making it up as he went along. “Coulda been worse for the dog: Coulda called the breed ‘Shitzon.’”
He saw the cop’s lips twist toward a smile. Jack knew about Bijous because Vicky wanted one. So far Gia had resisted.
“Anyway, the little guy’s name is Zorro.”
“Zorro?” Now he cracked a full smile. “Vinny Donuts has a Bijou named Zorro?”
“Yes. He doesn’t advertise it, if you understand my meaning, but Mister Donato is quite attached to Zorro.”
The cop cleared his throat. “I’m sure. And you’ve spent the day looking for it?”
“After dropping Mister Donato at his office, I returned with this.” Jack held up the tracker Hess and Monaco had given him. “Zorro has a chip embedded under his skin and this is supposed to locate him, but I haven’t got a hit all day.”
“Well, that being the case, maybe you should call it a day. People around here are on edge.”
“Why is that, may I ask?”
“Two local kids went missing last night.”
He recalled Abe mentioning them between garlic knots…
“I heard something about that. Not found yet?”
“No, sir. And as for Zorro…” The smile turned serious. “He might have been picked up. Certain types of people are always on the lookout for little dogs. Grab any stray they see. They’re never seen again.”
Jack knew what he was talking about. The subhuman slugs who ran dog fights were always looking for live fodder to train their killers.
“I appreciate what you’re saying. Would you mind if I took another hour? I’ll stay out of residential neighborhoods like this.”
“I’m going to run your license. If it’s clean, you’ll get your hour.”
He sauntered back to his unit and stayed there for what seemed like an awful long time. He finally returned and handed back the cards. Which meant they’d passed. Good old Ernie, his product never failed.
“You got till six. I’ll have to ticket you if I catch you around here after that.”
“Understood,” Jack said and gave a little salute as he rolled up the window and cruised away.
And of course, that was when a blip lit on the screen.
“Well-well-well. Sun goes down and out you come. Let’s see if we can arrange a meeting.”
The tracker placed the blip to the east. He made the turn and headed that way, ending at Cross Bay Boulevard, four lanes running alongside a boat basin and lined with local businesses. Not his first time here today. He’d had a hot pastrami on rye for lunch at the Cross Bay Diner. The blip was now south of him so he turned and crawled along with his hazard lights flashing until he came to a Popeye’s.
The blip was just about centered in the screen so this looked like the place. He turned into the lot and eased toward the rear until he found a dumpster. Scrounging for food? Had to be it.
At least H3 had good taste. Popeye’s spicy chicken was a fave.
He pulled the tranq gun from under the seat and hid it inside his jacket as he jumped out of
the car. Finger on the trigger, alert for any sign of movement, he eased toward the dumpster. When he reached it, he found the top open and the area littered with scattered trash, but no H3. Whoever or whatever had been going through the garbage had left a mess but was gone now—along with a supply of discarded biscuits and chicken tenders maybe? And some popcorn shrimp as well?
But the tracker had said…
He hurried back to the car where the tracker showed the blip north of here.
Just missed it.
H3 must have been moving fast because it was already nearing the Belt Parkway opposite Aqueduct.
Jack started rolling again, figuring H3 wouldn’t be able to cross the Belt without getting killed, so it would have to turn east or west. All Jack needed was a little proximity and a clear shot.
As he neared the Belt he checked the tracker again.
Blank.
What?
Had the tracker gone dead?
He pressed the button to show all chips and it lit up with a dozen or more dots. He switched back to H3-specific mode and was rewarded with a blank screen again.
Three options here: It hopped a truck and rode out of range, the chip had died, or H3 had found a hidey hole that blocked the signal.
The last one made the most sense. H3 could very well have spent the day underground in a sewer or drainage pipe that not only kept it relatively warm but blocked the chip’s signal. After dark it came out to forage, then returned to its lair to eat.
Yeah. That fit the facts, explaining Jack’s wasted day and the brief tease just now.
So, H3 had gone to ground—underground. But where? The tracker had nowhere near the precision needed to pinpoint the chip’s position even when it was receiving a signal. And now, with a blank screen, Jack was out of luck.
Further complicating matters was Officer Krupke’s warning to be out of town by six.
He pulled to the curb on 155th Avenue and idled the Vic.
Something wrong here. No, make that a lot of things wrong.
Exactly what was he chasing? It moved fast and unnoticed. How could that thing in the photos Hess and Monaco had shown him move about without raising alarms? His Crown Vic—certainly not a rare car in these parts—had been reported to the cops, but no mention of H3. Granted, H3 had waited till dark, but it wasn’t six o’clock yet. How could it move from Popeye’s to the Belt unseen?
He knew of only two people who could answer those questions….
5
Hess and Monaco arrived around ten-thirty. Jack had been watching from the living room’s picture window and let them in the front door.
“Wow,” Hess said as he stepped inside. “I know Long Island pretty well but this is in the middle of nowhere.”
“The Incorporated Village of Nowhere,” Jack said.
“Seriously,” Monaco said, “Google Maps is mostly blank here.”
“Welcome to my country place. That smell is mildew. I don’t spend much time here.”
In truth, he spent no time here. He’d accepted the old two-bedroom farm house years ago as payment for a fix. It remained on the books in the customer’s name but Jack paid the taxes and utilities. His country place, so to speak, but Jack used it exclusively as a decoy house.
After losing H3 in Queens, he’d called the number Hess had given him. He told them he’d captured H3 and brought it to a safe place to make the exchange—final payment for the beast—away from prying eyes.
“Looks haunted from the outside,” Hess said. “And what happened to that truck in the front yard? Looks like it exploded.”
“It did. Killed a number of people.”
Hess laughed, but when Jack didn’t crack a smile, he and Monaco stared in disbelief.
“It’s true,” Jack said. “Happened two years ago, almost to the day.”
If anyone had heard the explosion—unlikely, what with everyone’s windows sealed against the cold and the considerable distance to the next house—they never reported it. Certainly, the murderous crew that had invaded Jack’s place that winter night wasn’t about to tell anyone about it. They’d carried off their dead and wounded and never returned.
Rubbing his hands together Monaco finally said, “Well, that’s fascinating, but where is H3?”
“In the spare bedroom, sound asleep.”
He grinned. “The n-m agent worked like a charm, I take it?”
“Took two doses but he’s out cold.”
“Well, let’s haul him out and get this over with,” Hess said.
Jack held up a hand. “Not so fast.”
“Ah, yes,” Monaco said. “The balance payment.”
Jack pulled out the Glock and pointed it at them. “Before we do anything else, we’re gonna have us a little talk.”
They made all sorts of shocked noises and blathering protests as Jack herded them into the kitchen where he had them shuck their coats. Next, he made Monaco duct tape Hess into one of the straight back chairs, then taped Monaco into another himself.
Next step was to go through the coats. The usual miscellaneous items dropped from Hess’s pockets, but two pairs of nickel-plated handcuffs fell out of Monaco’s.
“Into some kinky stuff, are we?”
Monaco made a face. “They’re for H3. Maybe you can use duct tape on us, but it won’t work on H3. It’ll chew right through it.”
Good point. Something to remember.
He dropped into a third chair and laid the Glock on the wobbly kitchen table. “Time for a heart to heart. Time to come clean.”
“We’ve been totally honest with you,” Monaco said. “Honest as the day is long.”
“What do you do on Plum Island?”
Two pairs of eyes widened.
Hess said, “Plum Island? We have nothing to do—”
Jack picked up the Glock and pointed it at his face to shut him up.
“No more bullshit. You give me the straight story or I drag your pal H3 out here and leave you to deal with it when it wakes up.”
Both went pale.
“You wouldn’t do that!” Monaco said.
“You can’t!”
Both looked panicked. Clearly, they feared H3.
“I’m getting the feeling you two aren’t on the best of terms with your beastie.”
“It’s not th-that,” Hess said.
“It’s what? It wakes up cranky? What? Tell me now what you left out of your original tale or I go get it.”
They looked at each other, then Hess said, “You tell him.”
“Me?”
“You’re the ‘people person,’ remember?”
Monaco glared at him, then sighed. “All right. But no interruptions, Ed. I’ll tell it my way and you stay out of it.”
Hess said, “Fine with me.”
Monaco gave Jack a pleading look. “How about untying us first?”
“Not a chance.” He wanted to concentrate on the words, not monitor their actions. “But warning: My bullshit meter is on high alert. You set it off and you can tell the rest of your story to H3.”
He didn’t know what he’d do if they called his bluff. Maybe fire off a few rounds.
“Okay, okay. It started back around the turn of the century.”
“No-no-no. Start with H3. We can get to ancient history later. What. Is. H3?”
Another sigh. “H3 is a human-wolf hybrid.”
Jack was about to call bullshit but Hess spoke first.
“No!” Hess cried, glaring at Monaco and looking like he wanted to kick him. “You can’t!”
“Do I have a choice? We’re between a rock and a hard place here. Unless you want to take over explaining.”
Hess said nothing but looked genuinely upset. Terrified even.
“That’s what I thought. So just leave me to it and zip your lips.”
“Let’s stop right there,” Jack said. “I don’t know much about biology, but I know you can’t interbreed a wolf and a human.”
“Of course you can’t. Did I say anyth
ing about interbreeding? Did you hear the word breed pass my lips? No. That’s because we haven’t been breeding anything. We’re part of a project that’s introducing human stem cells to various non-human species to see if anything useful develops.”
“Come on,” Jack said. “The non-human will reject the stem cells.”
Hess laughed. “Looks like he’s not as dumb as you thought.”
“Hold your tongue!” Monaco looked at Jack. “The stem cells are specially treated.”
“Who’s paying for all this? Homeland Security?”
Jack had done a little homework after talking to Abe. Homeland security was now in charge of the animal disease studies on Plum Island.
“Yes and no. The Department of Defense is behind it, via DHS.”
“What does Defense want with human-animal hybrids?”
“Think about it: The Army’s got dogs as non-human assets and what else? Nothing. But if we could give, say, a mountain lion certain human characteristics—greater intelligence, greater ability to follow instructions, and maybe even the ability to improvise as it searches for insurgents in the towns and mountains—what an asset that would be. Silent, agile, and ferocious. Much more effective than a dog. Same with wolves. Set a pack of human-wolf hybrids loose at night in the hills? The Taliban’s worst nightmare.”
“You’re talking wolfmen? Is that what H3 is? A wolfman?”
Unbidden, Maria Ouspenskaya’s voice started droning in his head. Even a man who is good by day…
Monaco looked uncomfortable. “We hate that term. Technically, if you called it a wolfman, you wouldn’t be wrong, because it’s a wolf with a lot of human cells in its brain and body. But ‘wolfman’ inevitably brings Lon Chaney and lycanthropy to mind, right? H3 is not by any stretch a werewolf. It doesn’t change with the full moon. It’s the same thing all the time, day in and day out, twenty-four / seven.”
“Gotcha.”
“But the possibilities are endless. Imagine hybrid rats or even mice with mini go-cams strapped to their backs invading an occupied building to show you exactly what the occupants are up to. Greatest things since sliced bread.”
The Last Christmas: A Repairman Jack Novel Page 10