Conspiracies

by F. Paul Wilson

  A drop of his blood.

  He watches in horror as the ruby bead drifts like a snowflake toward the rakosh's head, splatters against its snout. He cannot move as a dark tongue snakes from a lipless mouth and licks the smear, leaving no trace.

  What happens next is blurred: a hiss, the flash of bared teeth, a three-taloned hand thrusting up, bursting through the steel mesh as if it were window screen, grabbing Jack's bloody hand and yanking it down through the opening. Jack cries out in terror and pain as his right shoulder slams against the mesh. He tries to wrench his hand free but the rakosh's grip is like a steel band.

  And then he feels something writhe against his hand, something cool and wet, with the texture of raw liver.

  Jack looks down and sees the rakosh licking the blood off his hand. Flooded with revulsion, he tries to grab the slimy tongue, to rip the damn thing out of the creature's head, but it's too slippery.

  And then he sees other forms emerging from the shadows, converging from both ends of the catwalk below. More rakoshi. They begin to fight over his hand, baring their fangs and snapping at each other. The tugging on his arm grows increasingly fierce until Jack begins to fear they'll rip his arm out of its socket.

  Then one of the creatures rears up and bites into Jack's forearm. He screams with the blinding agony of razor teeth slicing through skin and muscle, crunching through bone, and then it's gone—the lower half of his forearm, his hand, his wrist, all gone—and the rakoshi are lifting their heads and opening their cavernous maws to lap the crimson rain spewing from the stump.

  Helpless, his consciousness fading, Jack watches his life draining away ...

  No!"

  Jack sat up in bed, gripping his right arm. He fumbled for the switch on the bedside lamp and turned it. Relief washed through him as he checked his hand—still there, with all five fingers.

  And the fingertips—no bleeding. Same with the sheets—no bloodstains.

  He flopped back, gasping. God, what a nightmare. So real. He hadn't dreamed about those demons since ... must have been sometime late last year that he'd stopped having rakoshi-mares. What had brought one on tonight? Melanie's painting had been in the dream. Had that triggered it? Why? How? He didn't remember seeing anything in it to remind him of those creatures.

  He rolled out of bed and padded to the front room. Everything was as he'd left it. He took some comfort from the familiarity of the crowded shelves, but he knew he wasn't going to have an easy time getting back to sleep.

  He held up his hand and wiggled the fingers, just to be sure. He could almost feel a phantom ache in the bones above the wrist where they'd been bitten off in the dream. That shouldn't be. And then he remembered other mangled limbs, plastic limbs—the left arms of little Melanie's Ehler's dolls. Had seeing them been the trigger for losing his hand in the dream?

  Sure. Jack could buy that. But why the rakoshi? Why should they return to haunt him now?

  He headed for the kitchen. He needed a beer.

  WEDNESDAY

  1

  Still frazzled from last night's dream and his fragmented sleep, Jack struggled out of bed late and checked his voice mail while he nuked a pint of water for coffee. He found two messages waiting: the first was from his father. He groaned when he heard it:

  "Jack? Jack? Are you there? You're never home. This is Dad. Please give me a call back. I want to discuss some travel plans."

  Travel plans ... he knew what that was about. Last fall Jack had promised to visit his father in Florida. Here it was spring and he still hadn't made the trip. Not that he had anything against seeing Dad, it was just that he knew his father's ultimate goal was to set up Jack in business down there, "something more stable" than the appliance repair trade he thought his younger son was involved in now.

  The second message was also from his father.

  "Jack, this is Dad. I don't know if you got my last message—I mean, you never called back—so let me tell you about the trip I'm planning."

  Jack listened with a steadily sinking feeling as Dad described his itinerary: He had his reservations all set to leave his retirement development in Florida to visit Jack's sister and her two kids in Philadelphia next week, then hop over and visit Jack's brother in Trenton. Then he dropped the bomb, the dreaded words that struck pure terror into Jack's heart.

  " ... and since I'll be back in the Northeast, I thought I'd swing by New York and spend a couple of days with you."

  Stay here! He's got to be kidding.

  Jack saved the message as a reminder. He'd call back later. Much later. Right now he had to get himself together in time to meet Gia and Vicky for lunch.

  He shaved, showered, and left early, figuring a good brisk walk would clear the fuzzies from his head.

  Rakoshi-mares ... he hoped this wasn't the start of a trend.

  On the way out he grabbed the book he'd picked up for Vicky. In the downstairs foyer he checked his mailbox and found the annual circular from the local Little League, asking for donations. That time already? He always gave them a generous anonymous donation. Which meant he'd have to start his Little League collection drive soon—the Annual Repairman Jack Park-a-thon.

  Jack cut through Central Park, heading for Midtown. He ambled past a pond where two mallards and a drake were nuzzling around a floating "I NY" bag and a latex surgical glove in search of a snack.

  Cooler today; not too many people parking it. A guy sitting on one of the pond bridges breaking up a hot dog roll and splitting it between the ducks on the water below and the sparrows and pigeons on the pavement; a woman walking four tiny Italian greyhounds with fleece-lined collars; a couple of hand-holding Rollerbladers flashing by. The path wound between a procession of giant granite domes, weeds sprouting anew from their cracked surfaces; a young woman sat on her raincoat atop one of them, eyes closed, feet tucked into the lotus position, meditating.

  In a few weeks the park would be fully awake and people would be sunning themselves on those rocks. The willows, oaks, and maples, along with the ubiquitous tree-sized urban weed, the ailanthus, would be in full leaf. Lovers would be walking hand in hand, guys would be tossing Frisbees, parents would be pushing baby carriages; there'd be jugglers and ice cream parts along the paths, couples making out on the benches next to old folks enjoying the shade.

  Jack spotted a knot of people near the Shakespeare statue. At first he thought it might be one of the hawkers who specialized in thirty-five-dollar Louis Vuitton bags and twenty-buck Rolexes; they'd been pretty much chased off Fifth Avenue in the past few years, but they hadn't gone away. Then he spotted the two sliders on the cub, grimly eyeing the paths.

  Jack smiled. A monte game. He loved to watch these.

  He was still fifty feet away but one of the sliders had locked onto him as a possible incoming "d." The guy and his partner a dozen feet further down looked barely eighteen and sported the big-puffy-jacket, losing-my-pants, and I-forgot-how-to-tie-my-sneakers look. The nearer slide's hair was faded and his Yankee cap was facing the wrong way; his black face gave away nothing, but Jack knew his quick dark eyes were doing a laser-sharp read of his clothes, gait, his entire demeanor.

  I'll be highly insulted if you think I'm a plainclothes dick, Jack thought.

  He slowed his pace and put on a curious expression. If this was a typical monte set up, there'd be five guys in the team. Two "slides," or lookouts; a pair of "sticks" acting as shills, and a "shaker" working the caps and ball at the cardboard table.

  If the slide thought Jack was trouble, that was the word he'd shout: "Slide!" And then the team would fold up its boxes and melt away.

  But Jack must have passed muster because no alarm was raised as he approached. He slowed to a crawl as he passed, craning his neck for a peek at the action. Then he stopped but hung back as if uncertain about whether he'd be welcome.

  A tall thin black guy in a dark blue knit cap glanced at him, then started yelling at the shaker.

  "Hey, I wanna turn. You lettin' this guy have
all the fun. Gimme my turn now. You got forty dollah mine. Lemme get it back." He turned to Jack. "Hey, bro. C'mere and watch this. Gonna break the bank, yo."

  Jack glanced around with a he-isn't-talking-to-me-is-he? expression, then turned back to Knitcap. He pointed his finger at his own chest.

  "Yeah, you," Knitcap said. A large gold bulldog hung on a heavy braided gold chain around his neck. "I want you to watch and make sure this guy ain't cheatin' me."

  Jack took a hesitant step forward, then stopped.

  Another tall black, bareheaded and grinning, moved aside to make room for Jack. "Right here, man."

  Okay. Jack knew the sticks now. And from the size and number of the gold rings on their hands, business must be good lately.

  "Winnin' ain't sinnin'," said the shaker at the center of the semicircle, a black ferret in a dark blue hoodie, hunched behind the makeshift cardboard table. In his mid-twenties, he was the old man of the crew, and its leader. "I repeat, I never cheat, I'm just the one you gotta beat."

  Jack shrugged. Might as well join the crowd. This would be a good dose of reality to help banish the rakoshi remnants from last night.

  He moved into the opening, bringing the number of marks up to three. To his right stood a Hispanic couple looking about thirty; the guy had a mullet haircut and wore a diamond earring; the woman had a round face and shiny black hair pulled back into a tight bun.

  "Awright!" said Knitcap with a welcoming grin. "Keep your eyes open now, yo."

  Jack smiled, accepting the welcome. Sure, they were glad to see him: fresh meat. Knitcap didn't want him as an extra pair of eyes watching the shaker; he wanted another sucker at the table. Jack slipped Vicky's book inside his shirt and watched the action.

  He figured monte had to be five thousand years old, much older than its more common cousin, three-card monte. Somebody using three walnut shells and a dried pea probably had ripped off the pharaoh's workers during breaks between hauling stone blocks to the pyramids. The modern day version substituted white plastic Evian caps and a little handmade ball of rouge, but the object was the same: find a sucker and fleece him.

  The shaker leaned over a piece of cardboard supported on two cardboard boxes. He clutched a thin stack of tens and twenties in his left hand, secured by his middle, ring and little fingers, leaving his thumb and index finger free to manipulate the caps and ball. His hands flew back and forth, crisscrossing over and under as his nimble fingers lifted and dropped the caps, skedaddling the little ball back and forth, a flash of red appearing and vanishing, but not so quickly you couldn't see where it came to rest.

  That was the whole point, of course. Let the marks think they had a lock on the ball's location.

  Jack ignored the ball and listened to the shaker's patter. That was where the real action was. That was how he communicated with his sticks.

  "Watch till you're blind, no tricks will you find. I pay forty if you put down twenny. Forty down earns a hunnert, and believe me that's plenty. The ball goes around, it hides and it shows. It goes in, it goes out, till nobody knows. Forty's come to play, now cop me the money. You cry when I win, I laugh 'cause it's funny."

  Hidden in the chatter was a set of precise instructions to Knitcap.

  Jack never played monte, but out of curiosity he'd made a practice of eavesdropping on shaker patter whenever he had the chance. They all used a similar code, and by careful watching and listening he'd managed to break it.

  "Cop" told the stick to win, "blow" to lose. "Money" signaled the cap near his left hand where the shaker held his money, although Jack had heard other shakers call it "rich."

  "See" was the middle cap, "switch" was the one on the other end from the money hand.

  By loading his riff with "forty's come to play, now cop me the money," the shaker was telling Knitcap to bet forty bucks and win by picking the cap near the shaker's left hand.

  Sure enough, Knitcap bet forty bucks, found the rouge ball under the cap next to the money hand, and collected a hundred dollars.

  "I'm no sinner," the shaker announced. "We have a winner!"

  Knitcap was all smiles. "I'm up!" He pointed his money at Jack. "You my good luck, yo. You wanna play, I'll watch for you."

  Before Jack could decline, the Hispanic guy jumped in. "Hey, no. It's me this time. I'm down."

  "Santo, you've lost enough," said his wife. At least Jack assumed it was his wife. Both wore wedding rings.

  "Hey, how about me?" said Nocap, close on Jack's left.

  "Let's not fight, I'll make things right," said the shaker as he started the skedaddle again. "Everybody gets a turn, I'm a man with time to burn."

  Santo dropped two twenties onto the cardboard. The shaker kept up his chatter but no instructions now since neither stick was in the game. He shuffled the caps, skittering the ball between them, demonstrating absolute control. But just before he stopped he let the rouge ball slow so that everyone could see it come to rest under the middle cap.

  "Didja see it?" whispered Nocap.

  "Yep," Jack said.

  Doing your damnedest to lure me in, aren't you.

  Jack watched closely as the shaker slid the three caps forward and arranged them along the front of the cardboard. Jack knew that was when the ball would be moved from under the cap to the web between the shaker's thumb and forefinger. He was expecting the transfer, looking for it, but still didn't spot it. This guy was slick.

  The shaker said, "There they are, lined up tight. Forty pay a hunnert if you pick it right."

  Santo didn't hesitate. He pointed to the center cap.

  The shaker lifted it—nothing. He lifted the other two and ... out rolled the little red ball from under the one in his right hand.

  Santo pounded his fist against his thigh and cursed in Spanish.

  "Okay," said his wife, tugging on his arm. "That's it. That's a hundred twenty dollars you lost now."

  Knitcap stepped around, blocking their retreat, and started yelling at the shaker. "Hey, yo, you gotta give this guy another chance!"

  Nocap chimed in. "Yeah, man. Give him a double or nothing so he can get even at least!"

  Knitcap added. "What he said. Help this guy out or I'm walking!"

  Let the sucker go, Jack thought. You've soaked him enough.

  Apparently they didn't think so.

  The shaker shrugged. "Awright, awright. He puts down fifty he can win back his one-twenty."

  What, no rhymes? Jack thought.

  "No, Santo," said the wife.

  But Santo had the fever. He popped his diamond earring into his hand and held it out.

  "I got no more cash. How 'bout this?"

  "No!" his wife gasped. "I bought you that!"

  The shaker took the earring, held the tiny diamond up, twisting it this way and that in the light.

  Say no, Jack thought, sending the shaker a mental message. Let him go.

  The shaker shrugged. "Awright," he said with almost believable reluctance. "I'll make an exception this once."

  "Mah man!" Knitcap said, slapping Santo on the back. "You gonna win! I can smell winnin' in the air!"

  Jack ground his teeth. Sons of bitches.

  The woman wailed. "Santo!"

  "Don't worry," Santo told her. "I won't lose it."

  Oh, yes you will, Jack thought, but could say nothing.

  He fumed as he watched the shaker put the earring on the cardboard and begin the skedaddle. One thing to fleece a sucker. Rules of the street were, someone stupid enough to bet on a game like this deserved to lose, and Jack had no quarrel with that. Sort of a tax on the street impaired. But there were limits. You collected the tax and moved the guy along. It was stone cold to suck him dry, especially in front of his woman.

  Jack usually ran his Annual Park-a-thon for the Little League at night, but he was incensed enough now to make an exception for this monte crew.

  He studied the sticks, then turned and checked out the slides. Most likely they were all carrying knives; none of them looked to
be packing heat, but damn near impossible to tell under those bulky coats.

  He made a decision as he turned back to the game: He would accept a donation from these generous fellows, allowing them the honor of being the first contributors to this year's Little League fund.

  He felt his pulse quicken a little. He hadn't come prepared for this. Usually he avoided spur-of-the-moment gigs, but the opportunity was here, so why not grab it?

  Jack watched the shaker and his flying hands. Same routine as before, then the caps were pushed forward.

  "Didja see it?" Nocap whispered again.

  "Sure did," Jack said, nodding and smiling, looking like a guy taking the bait and waiting to be reeled in.

  Santo picked the money cap, but the ball rolled out from under the center cap.

  "Shit!"

  His wife wailed again as the earring disappeared into the shaker's pocket.

  "Hang on a sec," Jack said, grabbing the stricken Santo's arm as he turned to go.

  "No!" the wife shouted, her voice rising in pitch. "No more!"

  "Please," Jack said. "I think I've got this figured and I want witnesses. I'll make it worth your while when I win."

  Jack was telling the truth. He didn't want to be alone at the table when he played.

  The possibility of salvaging something from their disaster changed their minds, and Santo and his wife nodded. He looked sullen, chastened; she stood teary eyed with her arms folded across her chest.

  "Great," Jack said. He turned to Nocap and said, "You were next, I believe."

  "Hey, no, that's okay," Nocap said, grinning. "Be my guest. Wanna see if you really do got this thing scoped, yo. 'Cause then you can tell me."

  "Thanks." Jack pulled two fifties from his wallet. "What does this get me?"

  "Two-fifty," the shaker said.

  "Come on," Jack said. "A hundred bucks on one play—that should get me at least three hundred."

  "Sorry, man. Two-fifty's the limit."