Bloodline

by F. Paul Wilson

  “And you’re worried about their potential victims, of course.”

  Right.

  “I’m concerned, naturally, but I’m fascinated with the research possibilities. If I can identify his offspring, quantify their oDNA, and then assess their criminality or lack thereof—think about what that will do for my research, for our knowledge about the genetic basis of behavior.”

  “Is that the only reason?”

  Levy looked at him. “There might be another. You probably wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  “Have you ever wanted to know something…know it simply for the sake of knowing…because it’s hidden out there somewhere and you feel compelled to uncover it simply because it’s hidden?”

  “Too many times. Usually gets me in trouble.”

  “Throughout history it’s caused many people big trouble.”

  “And that doesn’t worry you?”

  “Of course it worries me. But I need to know.”

  Jack was beginning to like Aaron Levy. Not a lot, but for a man who did a lot of lying, he had a core of truth.

  “Okay, I’ll get you your samples.”

  “Thank you. I—”

  Jack raised a hand as he glanced again at the front of the Kicker club and saw the door open. “Wait.”

  “What?”

  Hank Thompson stepped out and trotted down the steps. He had a backpack slung over his left shoulder.

  What’s in there, Hanky boy? A big old book, maybe? Taking it to someplace safer than the Lower East Side?

  “Get ready to roll.”

  “Roll where?”

  “Wherever I tell you.”

  Thompson turned away from them, quick walking up to Allen Street where he began waving for a cab.

  “Recognize him?” Jack said.

  Levy squinted. “Hank Thompson?”

  “Yep. And we’re going to follow him.”

  Levy shook his head. “I don’t know…”

  “This is one of those just-gotta-know things. And besides, he may be key to getting Bolton off the streets. Pull out and start rolling toward him. When he catches a cab, follow.”

  After a few seconds’ hesitation, Levy complied, easing the car forward and heading for the corner. By time they reached it, Thompson still hadn’t caught a cab. Levy slowed to a crawl. The light was green and a car behind them honked.

  “What now?”

  Jack hunched low in the seat. “Make the turn and pull over upstream. Soon as he’s moving, we follow.”

  5

  After a slow, frustrating trip uptown, mostly on First Avenue, Thompson’s cab made a left on 39th Street and headed west.

  Back to his publisher?

  Could have a meeting, could be going out to lunch. That meant another lengthy wait. Jack wished he knew whether or not he had the book on him. If not, this was all a waste of time.

  The cab pulled to the right and stopped, not before the Vector Publications building but a branch of the Bank of New York. Three words immediately tumbled through Jack’s brain.

  Safety deposit box.

  Maybe Thompson had one, maybe he was about to rent one, but whatever the case, Jack couldn’t let him stash the Compendium in a bank. He’d never see it again.

  “Quick! Pull up behind him. Close as you can.”

  As Thompson paid the cabby, Levy eased to a stop and Jack crawled into the backseat. He lowered the rear passenger-side window and stuck his head out. Thompson was stepping out of the cab, swinging his backpack over his shoulder as Jack called.

  “Mister Thompson! Hank!” Jack waved as Thompson turned. “Hey, buddy! Remember me?”

  Thompson’s curious expression morphed into a glare. “I remember you, you phony bastard!”

  Must have done some checking up. Jack pretended not to hear.

  “I’m so glad I ran into you. I have a couple of follow-up questions I’d like to—”

  “You lying fuck!” Thompson was striding toward the car. Now that Jack knew they were brothers, he could see Bolton in his eyes. “What are you after?”

  “Nothing. I—”

  Closer.

  “I mean, what’s your game, man?”

  “I just need to ask,” Jack said, then let his volume fall. “Do you hang it to the left or right?”

  Closer.

  “What?”

  “You deaf or something? Left or right? Does yours hang left or right?”

  Jack eased back as Thompson pushed his face right up to the window opening, a definite Texas Tower look growing in his eyes.

  “I want you out of my sight, scumbag! I ever see you again I’m gonna—”

  Jack hit the window up button as he grabbed a fistful of his curly Morrison locks and yanked his head inside. Thompson tried to pull back but the rising edge of the window caught him under the chin, trapping him without quite choking him.

  Thompson went wild. Red-faced with bulging eyes, he filled the car with incoherent screamed curses as he thrashed about like a trapped animal, twisting, kicking, straining, pounding his fists against the window and door and roof.

  Jack slid toward the opposite side of the seat. He saw Levy’s white face and wide eyes staring at him over the backrest.

  “Dear God! What are you doing?”

  “Only be a minute.”

  Jack slipped out the door on the driver side and stepped around the rear of the car. Few people were looking, and only long enough to nudge and point and grin. This was New York, after all.

  Still, Jack hated this. He preferred subtle, preferred to operate shielded, from a distance, invisible. This was crude and it exposed him, but he couldn’t stand by and watch the book sealed away in a bank vault. Sometimes you had to go with the most direct method.

  Thompson made quite a sight with his head buried in the car and his limbs flailing and kicking in a pattern somewhere between the Charleston and an epileptic fit. His screams of rage were muffled out here but still audible. He’d dropped the backpack. Keeping an eye on the thrashing arms and feet, Jack picked it up and unzipped the rear compartment.

  There she lay in all her metallic glory: the Compendium of Srem.

  He pulled it free, dropped the backpack, and returned to the other side of the car. As Jack slipped back into the rear seat, Thompson saw the book and lost it.

  “That’s mine! That’s-mine-that’s-mine-that’s-MINE!”

  “Wrong,” Jack said in a low voice. “Never yours.”

  Thompson squeezed his eyes shut and gave out a long, inarticulate roar.

  Levy looked ready to jump out of his skin. He shouted over Thompson’s screech. “What do we do now?”

  Jack wasn’t sure. He’d gone with his gut instead of his head. Never a good thing.

  Well, at least he had the book. Now he had to come up with an exit strategy, a way to leave Hank Thompson in the dust. Sure as hell couldn’t sit here much longer with a guy hanging out the window.

  He checked out the street ahead. The cab was long gone, leaving the space ahead of them clear. The light was green but the pedestrian sign was flashing orange.

  “Start moving…easy,” he shouted back.

  Levy gave him a panicked look over his shoulder. “But he’s still—”

  “Just do it. And be ready to floor it and make a left onto Fifth when I tell you.”

  As Levy put the car in gear and let it edge forward, Thompson stopped his screeching.

  “Hey!” He had to start walking to keep up with the car. “What’re you doing?”

  “Going for a ride.” He tapped Levy’s backrest with his left hand while his right found the window button. “A little faster.”

  “No!” Thompson cried as fear started crowding the rage from his face. “No, don’t! You can’t!”

  The Infiniti reached the corner just as the light turned orange. Jack lowered the window and gave Thompson’s head a shove.

  “Hit it! Go!”

  Levy glanced back. When he saw that Thompson was free,
he did indeed hit it. The Infiniti screeched onto Fifth Avenue.

  “Dear God, that was awful! Who do you think you are? You can’t go around doing that to people.”

  Jack didn’t answer. He glanced back through the rear window and saw Thompson sprawled on the pavement.

  “He’s probably memorized my plates by now. He’ll be calling the police and before you know it—”

  Thompson didn’t stay down long. In a heartbeat he was up and racing after them.

  “He won’t be calling the cops.”

  “Why not? You assaulted and robbed him.”

  “He’s not about to report the loss of something he stole.”

  “Stole? From whom?”

  “Me.”

  Ahead, the light at 38th Street turned green but cars were backed up, waiting to move. Levy slowed to a crawl.

  Jack said, “If you check behind us you’ll see an angry man coming our way.”

  “What?” Levy straightened in his seat and looked in the rearview mirror. “Oh, no.”

  “If you want to avoid another scene and perhaps some vehicular damage, I suggest you get moving.”

  The cars ahead began to move, but slowly.

  Another backward glance showed Thompson gaining, and quickly. Murder in his eyes, veins standing out on his neck…his face was scarlet, his mouth working—looked like he was screaming a lot of words beginning with the letter F—and…was that foam flecking his lips?

  “In your professional opinion, doc, would you say that we’ve yanked his trigger gene and his oDNA is in the driver seat?”

  “Dear God!” Levy wailed.

  Finally the traffic got rolling. A lane opened ahead and Levy darted into it, leaving Thompson in the dust, but still running, still screaming, still waving his arms as honking cars swerved around him.

  “Guy could do with a little anger management.”

  Levy was panting as if he’d been running. “Now you know what happens when you push an oDNA-loaded man like Thompson over the edge.”

  Had to admit it had been an awe-inspiring exhibition of rage. Jack had had his share of rages over the years, but they tended toward the cold type—subzero cold.

  Levy glanced over his shoulder. “You put us through all that for a book? Why?”

  “Well, number one: He had it and it’s mine. And number two: It’s mine and he had it.”

  Jack resisted the urge to open the Compendium and leaf through it to the Kicker Man page. This was not the time or place.

  “Where can I drop you off?” Levy said. “I’ve got to get back home.”

  “Not yet. I’m going to work on getting you those samples from my customer.”

  “Customer? You mean client?”

  Something about having “clients” had always bothered Jack, but he was playing the private investigator now.

  “Right. Client. If I can work a meet with her I can probably get you those samples. I want you around so I can give them to you. No sense in you driving all the way back in from Rathburg again when you’re already here.”

  “Do you want me to meet her with you?”

  “Hell, no. You don’t see her, talk to her, come within a mile of her.”

  “Then what am I supposed to do while you’re meeting her?”

  Was he kidding?

  “This is New York City, doc. You can’t kill a few hours here, you’re already dead and don’t know it.”

  6

  “I usually drink only Diet Pepsi,” Christy said as Julio set a bar-draft tumbler, half filled with reddish liquid, before her. “But today I’m making an exception.”

  They sat at Jack’s usual table, everything pretty much the same as the last time they’d met here. Except she didn’t seem as prissy.

  Jack nodded. “I can understand that.”

  She frowned at the tumbler. “Not the typical presentation for a cosmopolitan.”

  “Ain’t got no martini glasses,” Julio said and walked away.

  “Not the friendliest person, is he.”

  “He’s okay.”

  She sipped and made a face. “Ugh! Awful. And the glass is dirty.”

  “Just smudged. This place doesn’t get much call for cosmos. He probably had to go online to find out how to make one.” Jack took a swig of his Yuengling draft. “Pours a mean glass of beer, though.”

  Christy took another sip, shuddered, then pushed it aside. She gave Jack a hard look.

  “So, am I to understand that you don’t know anything more?”

  Jack knew some and suspected a hell of a lot, but couldn’t tell her anything until he was sure. He eyed her blond hair. If he could snag a few strands of that, he’d be on his way to certainty.

  “As I told you, I have someone under surveillance.”

  He’d used that—and a supposed need for more expense money—as an excuse to have Christy come to him instead of him going to her, saying he didn’t want to stray too far.

  “But I thought the idea was to have Bethlehem under surveillance.”

  “So one would think. But if I can link this guy to Bethlehem, I might be able to get your boy in enough trouble to take him out of the picture for a while.”

  Christy leaned forward. “This man you’re watching—what is he? A drug dealer?”

  “I don’t want to say yet.”

  “Look, I’ve been paying you. I have a right to—” She paused, frowned. “Oh, I see. Because I blabbed to Dawn you think I’ve got a big mouth. Is that it?”

  “In a word, yes.”

  “I suppose I deserved that.” She grabbed the cosmo and pulled it back toward her. “I don’t care how bad this swill is.”

  She took a deep sip and only winced a little this time.

  Jack said, “But it’s been costly. Paying for information has run up my expenses.”

  She gave him another long, hard look. “You wouldn’t be running a scam on me, would you, Mister Robertson?”

  Jack returned her stare. “We need mutual trust here, Christy. I can’t do my best work if I think I’m being second-guessed at every turn.”

  “Okay, okay.” She reached into her shoulder bag. “I don’t mind paying if I’m getting results.”

  She pulled out an envelope and slid it across the table.

  “Cash, as requested.”

  Jack nudged it aside with a knuckle. “Great.”

  He noted with satisfaction that she’d sealed it—by licking it, he hoped. Levy had said he could isolate DNA from her saliva.

  But what if she’d used water to wet the glue? For insurance, Jack had worked out a backup plan with Julio.

  He finished his beer and waved the empty mug. Julio saw him and nodded. Jack pointed to Christy’s half-empty tumbler.

  “Want another?”

  She shook her head. “Thanks, but I think I’ll pass.”

  When Julio arrived with a fresh draft he bumped against the back of Christy’s chair and spilled a couple drops of beer on her hair.

  “¡Ay, caramba!”

  Ay, caramba?

  “I don’t believe this!” Christy said.

  Julio set down the beer and pulled a dishrag from his back pocket.

  “I’m real sorry, lady. Today just ain’t been a good day.”

  Jack watched as he began wiping the back of her head with the cloth.

  “Ow!” She pushed his hand away. “I’m fine. I’d rather have beer in my hair than that cloth on it.”

  “Okay, okay.” Julio glanced at the cloth, then grinned at Jack over her shoulder and winked. “Sorry.”

  Christy grabbed her bag and began to rise.

  “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” she said to Jack, “and I think you know what I mean.”

  “Wait,” he said, gently grabbing her wrist. “We need to talk a little more.”

  She gave him an uncertain look as she resettled herself.

  “About what?”

  “Your family, for one.”

  “What’s my family got to do with this?”
/>
  “Maybe nothing.” Jack thought of the resemblance between her and Thompson and Bolton: maybe everything. “But I’m working every angle and I’ve got to look into the possibility that there’s something personal behind this.”

  She swallowed. “Personal? What could there possibly—?”

  “I don’t know. Have you ever seen Bethlehem anywhere before? Take away the beard, take off years…did you ever know him?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Look, first off, it’s not much of a beard, and second, ever see someone you know dressed up as Santa? Ever have a doubt as to who they were? If you know someone, a beard doesn’t hide much close up. And I’ve been close up to Jerry Bethlehem. I’ve been in his face. I can tell you that if I ever knew him, it sure wasn’t well.”

  That pretty well shot down one long-shot theory: That if they weren’t related, maybe she’d known Bolton as a kid or teen and he was getting even with her for something.

  “Okay, then. What about your husband?”

  She stiffened. “I’ve never been married.”

  “All right—Dawn’s father then?”

  “He’s never been a part of her life and he never will.”

  Something in her eyes, her tone…evasive?

  “Why not?”

  “Because he doesn’t even know she exists.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Well, you can’t be a hundred percent sure of anything, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure.”

  Jack pulled out the copy of Kick he’d retrieved from his apartment while waiting for her to make it in from Forest Hills. He showed her the jacket photo of Hank Thompson.

  “Ever seen him before?”

  She shook her head. “No. Why?”

  Damn. Another long-shot theory down in flames. He’d hoped Thompson was connected to Christy and was pulling Bolton’s strings to get even with her for something—like maybe running off with his daughter. Guess not.

  “He might be connected to Bethlehem—another trail I’m pursuing.” He leaned forward. “One last subject: your folks. Where are they now?”

  “My mother died about five years ago, and I never knew my father.”

  Damn. He’d hoped she’d make this easy and come out and say his name was Jonah Stevens.

  “What was your mother like?”