Why would Madame de Medici entrust the precious Bagaq to such a man? Did she know him? Or was it because a man who has managed to hide his true self is the perfect choice to hide other things.
Tier checked the map on his phone. According to the app they’d started to close on Jack.
“Slow a little more,” he said. “We don’t want to catch up just yet.”
Jack was definitely slowing. The map showed him nearing the Woodhaven Boulevard exit. That might be his plan…
“Stay to the right. I think he’s getting off.”
Sure enough, his blip moved onto the off-ramp.
“Okay, Marley. Exit Nineteen it is.”
As the sign loomed out of the snow, Marley eased farther right and—
“Shit!”
Three cars ahead, a pickup swerved from the middle lane toward the ramp. It slipped sideways and hit the yellow plastic containers protecting the divider. Amid an explosion of sand, the truck rolled over and slid onto the ramp on its side. The car it cut off T-boned it. Marley managed to slow the Lincoln into a controlled skid along the shoulder, stopping just shy of the car ahead.
No collision.
Tier was releasing a sigh of relief when something crashed into the Lincoln’s rear.
8
Jack’s tracker beeped.
So soon? Excellent.
Woodhaven Boulevard had become Cross Bay Boulevard and he’d just entered Ozone Park. H3 showed due south—straight ahead. Cross Bay ran past the restaurants and fast food joints along the boat basin in Howard Beach.
Probably hungry, Jack thought.
Cross Bay Boulevard and the upper end of its row of food joints were a thousand feet or so from the entrance to H3’s underground conduit. A quick run from there, hit a few Dumpsters for leftovers, then back to the safety of the tunnel in no time.
Not sunset yet—at least by the clock—but who could tell? The low clouds and the snow swallowed the light. The roads were damn near deserted. Anyone with half a brain was huddled indoors. And the kids were probably miffed that a storm that would have guaranteed a snow day or two was happening during Christmas break.
A good time to go foraging through the restaurant Dumpsters. But would H3 find any food? How many places were open in this mess? If your workers couldn’t get in…
Not Jack’s problem. His problem was finding H3 and bringing it down. Hess and Monaco were out of the equation right now. Jack had questions about H3—lots of them—and he was determined to find the answers. The Plum Island pair would figure into all this again, but right now Jack was in it for his own reasons.
He crossed the Belt Parkway into Howard Beach where the Cross Bay streetlights were going strong, their glows diffusing and fusing in the snow-filled air. H3’s blip was nearing center screen, so Jack pulled into the lot by New Park Pizza. The place was closed but its lot had only four inches or so of snow, which meant a plow had been through sometime earlier in the day.
He rolled down his window and listened to… nothing. The falling snow muffled all sound. But dumpsters were noisy bastards and sooner or later H3 would give itself away.
A clang echoed from behind the pizza place.
Gotcha.
Jack gunned the Jeep around the corner and angled the headlights into the rear area.
There! An overcoated figure leaping off the Dumpster into the shadows on its far side.
Tranq gun in hand, Jack jumped out and gave chase. The snow made following easy. H3’s tracks led over a fence and across the parking lot of a Chase branch—also closed—toward a brightly lit Stop & Shop still open for business. Its Pharmacy Open sign lit up the night. Yeah, people still needed their meds no matter what the weather.
A box truck faced him, filling the rear alley while a guy lugged cartons through the back door. Whoever he was, the storm hadn’t stopped him from making his deliveries.
Good on you, fella.
The truck’s presence hadn’t deterred H3. His tracks led around its front toward the rear. Jack had just reached the front fender when the driver emerged from the store. He stopped dead in the doorway.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Hey, what—?”
Jack hid the tranq gun just before the guy looked his way.
“Was that someone in an overcoat?” he said.
The driver had flat, Toltec features which at the moment were casting a suspicious look Jack’s way. “Yeah. You know him?”
Jack ad-libbed. “Tried to break into my car back at the pizza place. I chased him here. What kinda food you hauling?”
“Food? He took something, but if he’s after food, he’s shit outa luck.”
“What’s that mean?”
“All I got’s toys, man.”
Pocketing the tranqer, Jack walked around to the open rear of the truck. A box had been ripped open and a bunch of doll clothes lay scattered across the floor.
The driver joined him. “Shit! That shipment’s ruined.”
But Jack was tracing the retreating tracks into the buffer trees at the rear of the store. H3 had beat it.
“Who needs doll dresses that bad?” the driver was saying. “I mean, really?”
“Thought it was something else maybe?”
“Check out the box, man. Big drawing of the dresses right there. Big as life.”
Yeah…big as life. Jack had been nursing a bad feeling about H3 and it just got worse.
“Whoever he is, he’s gone,” Jack said. “I’m heading back to my car.”
Halfway across the Stop & Shop lot he paused and checked the tracker. Just as expected, H3 was on its way back to the conduit. When the blip disappeared, Jack hurried back to his Jeep. Maybe he could catch him on the far side of the Belt.
Sticking to local streets—he’d become familiar with them the past couple of days—he worked his way to Cohancy Street and over the Belt to the racetrack area, found a place to park, and waited.
Didn’t take long for the blip to reappear. H3 had resurfaced somewhere between Jack and Aqueduct Racetrack and was heading for the track.
The track? Really? How—? Never mind.
He jumped out and followed.
H3’s tracks appeared as if by magic outside a clump of bushes much like the clump on the south side of the Belt. Jack checked and, yep, another manhole. And within the bushes, flanking the opening, two oblong, snow-covered lumps. Jack brushed the snow off the near end of one and found…
A head.
Oh, shit.
After a little more brushing, Jack ignored the danger and pulled out his key ring flash. A quick flick on and off revealed a young face and a ruined throat. Same with the other.
Aw, man. The two missing kids—had to be. H3’s doing. No doubt. But why? No sign they’d been eaten. So, if not for food, what? This looked like the work of a psycho killer.
He put away the tranq gun, pulled out his Glock, and got moving.
Even in the failing light, the broken snow of the tracks stood out against the surrounding unmarred surface.
He followed the trail to a broken section of cyclone fence and through to the huge parking lot on the other side. He felt exposed out here, but he pushed on, following the diagonal path that led straight toward the dark, empty grandstand. Aqueduct operated through the winter, but no thoroughbreds would be running tonight. Or tomorrow.
Jack was panting when he reached the grandstand. Running in eight or nine inches of snow, even when following in someone else’s tracks, was hard work. But here the snow ended and so did the trail. H3 had kept on going, right into the inky shadows under the grandstand.
He edged into the blackness. Glock ready, he used quick flicks of his keyring light to follow the snow H3 had dragged in from the lot, but soon that petered out, leaving Jack lost.
Where the hell had H3 gone?
He didn’t want to use his flash much more for fear of giving himself away—if he hadn’t already. H3 could be crouched back there in the shadows, ready to spring. Well, two could play that game.
/>
He found a dark corner, pulled the lower end of his parka under his butt, then sat with his back against a wall. Bundled up as he was, and out of the wind and snow, he could hang out here for a good while. Not all night, but he didn’t think H3 would wait that long to forage again. It hadn’t snagged any food last trip. It had to be hungry.
He checked his phone and found a succinct voicemail from Abe, who hated voicemail almost as much as texting.
“Info I got. Call me.”
So, Jack called.
“This person of interest for you,” Abe said without preamble and without mentioning Barry Wexler by name. “Such a fine human specimen.”
“He registered?”
“He is. Grabbed a little girl off the street but someone had been watching from a window and called it in. He got caught before he could do anything nasty. Said he was just giving her a ride home. But his home computer—oy, such a load of kiddie porn they found. He pled, did three of a five-year sentence, and had been a model parolee since his release.”
“Not so model.”
“What I figured since you were asking. He was being a bad boy?”
“Not any more. He’s changed his ways for good.”
A heartbeat or two of silence, then, “Jack, Jack, Jack…”
“Not me!”
“Ah, those impetuous brothers are at it again, are they?”
He was referring to the Mikulskis, but…
“No. A new player.”
Looked like H3 had done the human race a service, whether it knew it or not. But that was all the more reason for Jack to keep up his guard.
He pulled out the tranq gun and settled it in his left hand. The Glock remained in his right. He’d leave which one he used up to H3.
9
“Come on!” Poncia said from the back seat. “Get this rustbucket rolling!”
Finally, they were moving again, but not moving well. Tier couldn’t say what, exactly, but something was wrong with the rear axle.
They’d lost a good hour and a half dealing with cops, showing ID, Marley trading insurance info, conferring with the limo service office, waiting for tow trucks to remove the disabled vehicles behind them, convincing the cops to let them reverse out and get back on the LIE. No way the Woodhaven Boulevard exit would be clear anytime soon.
Tier had used the time to stand out in the snow. He found weathering a blizzard preferable to sitting in a car with two other people, especially if one of them was Poncia.
“This ’bout the best she do,” Marley said. “She hurtin’. I’m gonna have to take her back in.”
Tier didn’t want to hear that.
“You’re sure?”
He nodded. “I push her, she crap out sure. Even doing thirty like this I’m no sure she make it back to the city.”
They could not go back to the city—especially not at thirty miles an hour. The waste of time was unacceptable.
Tier opened his phone and searched for car rentals.
“Okay. Get off on the Grand Central exit and head south. There’s an Enterprise place there. I’ll call ahead. We’ll rent us a four-wheeler.” He turned and glanced at Poncia. “If we’d had one all along, we’d have been far away when that pickup made its asshole move.”
“Fuck you, Tonto.”
That was number four.
10
Leaving the Allard behind, Madame de Medici walked up Central Park West through the snow. As much as she hated the cold, she loved the way a snowfall painted everything white, hiding the litter, making a dirty city appear clean and new.
She’d looked for Tier Hill in his usual spot across the street from the Allard, but hadn’t seen him. He didn’t strike her as the type who would be scared off by a snowfall, even a blizzard.
Maybe her ruse had worked. If he’d reported to Roland that he’d found no trace of the Bagaq in her apartment and that she was headed for Egypt, Roland might have sent him elsewhere.
And that elsewhere might be…watching Jack’s place. Hill knew where he lived because she had deliberately led him there. Jack had a reputation for leaving a certain amount of carnage in his wake, and she had use for that.
So, she’d decided to take a walk uptown to see what Jack was up to. Had he kept the Bagaq in his apartment or taken it someplace more secure?
As she crossed Columbus Avenue onto his block, she spotted a big bearded man in a brown homburg and overcoat—the same man she’d seen from Jack’s apartment window. She remembered the look on his face, as if he’d recognized her.
He made a sharp turn and started slogging away through the snow. She was sure he’d seen her. Was he trying to avoid her?
“Excuse me, sir!” He ignored her. “Excuse me!”
Still no sign that he’d heard. No, he’d quickened his pace. He’d heard her, all right, and was trying to escape. Which only intensified her desire to confront him.
She increased her own speed. Running in this snow was not an option. She sensed he was already moving as fast as he could—he looked old and that walking stick probably wasn’t entirely for show. She easily caught up to him.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said as she tugged on his sleeve. “Sir!”
He stopped and turned to face her so abruptly she almost bowled into him.
“What do you want, woman?”
He seemed bigger close up, bordering on massive, at least compared to her slight frame. Despite his age and slightly stooped shoulders, he looked strong enough to break her in two. Snow coated his homburg and the shoulders of his overcoat.
“You know me! You recognized me on Sunday.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“And if you know me, I must know you…”
She stared. His beard and the hair not covered by his homburg were gray, but his olive skin—it hadn’t always been so wrinkled—and his pale blue eyes…
No. It couldn’t be.
“Glae—!”
His gloved hand shot out and sealed her mouth.
“I am called Veilleur these days,” he said in a low voice. “Gaston Veilleur.”
Him, really him…Glaeken in the flesh. But…
“You’re old!”
“How observant of you. Far more astonishing is that you are not. You should be long, long dead. And yet you haven’t aged a day since I last saw you. Explain how this can be.”
She’d spent millennia wondering that herself.
“Anything can be,” she said. “You ought to know that by now. But as to how…” She shook her head. “I was at the flashpoint of the cataclysm—what they nowadays call ‘ground zero’—and yet I miraculously survived. I do not use the term miraculous lightly. Perhaps that’s why I survived. Whatever the reason, I went on surviving and surviving. When I—”
Glaeken held up a hand and furtively scanned their surroundings.
“If we are going to discuss our past, we shouldn’t do it out in the open.”
She looked around. Not much of a risk of being overheard with hardly anyone out in the storm, but she didn’t want to stand here in the blowing snow anyway.
“Yes. It’s too cold. Let’s find a bar or a coffee shop.”
“Coffee shop? That’s even worse.”
“Not if we use the Old Tongue. You do remember it, don’t you?”
He almost smiled. “Some things one never forgets, no matter how much time has passed.”
They trudged through the snow up to Amsterdam Avenue where she spotted a Korean buffet between a nail salon and a Japanese restaurant.
With the lunch crowd gone—if the place had had any sort of crowd on a day like today—and the dinner folks yet to arrive, the space was virtually empty. Though not hungry, they each piled a plate with one of the varied offerings from the tray array—she some kimchi, he some sea-leg salad—to justify their presence to the watchful owners. In the rear seating area, they found a rickety table against the back wall. Glaeken doffed his hat and lo
osened his overcoat.
She remembered that big body pressed against hers during the First Age, when his skin had been smooth and his hair a red flame. They’d been lovers for a short while, but their lives hadn’t meshed. They’d parted friends and remained close until the Cataclysm.
She stayed buttoned up—the cold had reached her bones—and switched to the Old Tongue once they were settled.
“As I was saying, I keep on living. I don’t know why. I don’t sicken, I don’t age, I don’t gain or lose weight. When cut I bleed, but I do not scar. I simply keep going.”
She used chopsticks to try the kimchi and found it quite good. Glaeken’s surimi salad sat untouched before him.
“I was once like that.” He stared hard at her. “And you… you look the same, but you’ve changed.”
“Really?” Of course she had. “How so?”
“I sense a deep bitterness within. This is new for you. You were always upbeat and now you seem almost… despondent.”
“You know what it was like after the cataclysm. Amazing how little time it took once our civilization vanished for everything to devolve into barbarism. Brute force ruled the day. The reign of the thugs. If you’d been beaten and raped as many times as I, you’d be bitter too. I’ve come to see most men as little better than beasts. Present company excluded.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“And so are they. I never forgave, never forgot. I waited for my chance—time was on my side, after all—and then I struck.”
Glaeken raised his eyebrows and drew a finger across his throat.
“Oh, no,” she said. “That was too quick.” She held up her chopsticks, one in each hand. “A sharpened stick into each eye. You can imagine what life is like for a suddenly blind bully and rapist in those times. They never lasted long, but in the days before they died they paid heavily for their depredations.”
“Yes, you’ve definitely changed.”
“But not you, I think. I still sense the same thoughtful barbarian beneath the wrinkles.”
“Had I known you lived, I would have sought you out and stayed by your side.”
“I searched for you between my enslavements, but never found a trace.”
The Last Christmas: A Repairman Jack Novel Page 20