Nightworld (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack) (38 page)

He’d never liked cops, but he was glad to see this one.

Groaning, he forced himself up to his knees and began waving with both arms.

“Help! Over here! Help! Robbery!”

The police unit screeched to a halt behind Hank’s van and a tall, graying, bareheaded trooper, resplendent in his gray uniform and shiny Sam Brown belt, hopped out and approached the two thieves still leaning inside the back doors.

“Yo, Captain,” Chuck said. “Look what we found.”

“Fucking supermarket on wheels,” Gary said.

The trooper stared at the stacks of cartons. “Very impressive. Looks like we caught us a live one.”

“Officer,” Hank said, not quite believing his ears, “these men tried to rob me!”

The trooper swiveled and looked down at Hank, fixing him with a withering glare.

“We’re commandeering your hoard.”

“You’re
with
them?”

“No. They’re with me. I’m their superior officer. I set up this little sting operation to catch hoarder scum and looters on the run. You have the honor of being our first of the day.”

“I
bought
all that stuff!” Hank struggled to his feet and stood swaying like a sapling in a gale. “You have no right!”

“Wrong,” the trooper said calmly. “I have every right.
Hoarders
have no rights.”

“I’ll report you!”

His smile was white ice. “Move away, little man. I’m the court of last resort around here. Be thankful I don’t have you shot on the spot. Your hoard is about to be divided up among those who’ll make the best use of it. It’ll see us through until the time comes to restore order.”

Hank couldn’t believe this was happening. There had to be something he could do, someone he could turn to. He shouldn’t have come alone, should have brought a few Kickers for backup, but he didn’t trust—

And then he saw the tattoo in the thumb web of the officer’s hand and relief flooded through him.

“You’re a Kicker!”

“We all are. So?”

“I’m Hank Thompson!”

“That supposed to mean something?”

“I wrote
Kick!
I created that symbol. I created Kickerdom!”

The officer sneered. “Yeah, right.”

He reached for his wallet. “I can prove it!”

The cop kicked him in the gut. “You ain’t nobody.”

As Hank gagged with the pain, he saw Gary rip open a carton and pull out a cellophane envelope.

“Hey, look! Oodles of Noodles. My favorite!”

Something snapped inside him. Ignoring the pain, he rolled to his feet. Screaming, waving his fists, he charged at Gary.

“That’s mine! Get your hands off it!”

He never made it. The captain stepped in front of him and rammed his forearm into Hank’s face. Hank reeled back, clutching his shattered nose.

“Get running, little man,” he said in a tight, cold voice. “Run while you still can.”

“You can’t do this to me! I’m your leader!”

“Git!”

Mortally afraid now, Hank said, “I can’t! There’s no place to go! We’re in the middle of nowhere! I’ve got two bags of silver coins under the front seat. You can have them. Just give me back my van!”

The captain reached for the revolver in his holster. He didn’t pause or hesitate an instant. In one smooth, swift motion he pulled it free, ratcheted the hammer back with his thumb, and pointed it at Hank’s face.

“You just don’t get it, do you?”

Hank saw nothing in his eyes as the captain pulled the trigger. He tried to duck but was too late. He felt a blast of pain in his skull as the world exploded into unbearable light, then collapsed into fathomless darkness.

Manhattan

Jack spotted a few people sitting on the park benches in Union Square as he passed. Didn’t notice any movement, so he couldn’t be sure if they were alive or dead.

He parked on 17th Street before a storefront diabetes clinic—or at least a place that had once been a clinic. The Laundromat next door was equally demolished, but at least the wrecked equipment still resembled washers and dryers. The clinic … nothing but smashed furniture.

He stepped through the front room to the office and treatment areas in the rear. Just as deserted as the rest of the place. In the office he spotted the remnants of a Mr. Coffee. He shook his head. That brought back memories. W. C. Fields had his fatal glass of beer; here was where Jack had drunk a near-fatal cup of coffee.

Which, now that he thought of it, might have led to his first encounter with Dr. Bulmer.

He heard glass crunch behind him and whirled. A stocky young woman with straight dark hair stood in the doorway, staring at him. She wore a turtleneck sweater, a short plaid skirt, and dark tights.

“Jack? What are you doing here?”

Nadia Radzminsky, M.D., had let her hair grow, but otherwise looked pretty much the same as the last time he’d seen her.

“Looking for you. Don’t have your home address, so I thought I’d give this place a try.”

He told her about Glaeken’s building and the invitation to stay there.

With a dazed expression, she looked around at the destruction. “But my patients…”

“Are gone.”

Her head snapped around. “You don’t know that.”

“Nadia, you treat the poor, the homeless, the marginal folks.” He kept his tone gentle. “Lots of people who live behind thick walls with sturdy doors and double locks didn’t make it through the night. What do you think happened to your people?”

Her eyes glistened with tears. “Some of them must have survived.”

“Then they’d be here, wouldn’t they.”

She didn’t reply, just stood there and chewed her lip.

“The one thing we’re going to need when this is over—if it’s ever over—are doctors. You want to do the most good, you’ll keep yourself safe.”

She was looking around again. “I don’t know…”

“And doesn’t your mother live in the city? She’s welcome too.”

That seemed to tip her Jack’s way.

“Okay. Where is this place?”

Jack gave her the address, then added, “You’ll bring Doug too, of course.”

She nodded. “Of course.”

“Okay. See you there. And don’t waste time. There’s not much of it.”

Good. He had a doctor for the building. Next stop, finish up a little business with an engraver. And after that, a visit to a ghost and his brother.

WFPW-FM

JO: Stay out of the water, everybody. In fact, stay
away
from the water. There are things in the rivers and apparently they don’t go into hiding during the day. We’ve just received a confirmed report of a fisherman being pulled off a dock in Coney Island and eaten alive right in front of his kids.

FREDDY: Don’t go near the water, man.

“W’happen t’yer car, buddy?”

Jack had seen the drunk staggering along the glass-littered sidewalk; he’d veered toward Jack’s car as it pulled into the curb in front of Walt Duran’s apartment building.

“Ran into some bugs,” Jack said as he got out.

The drunk stared at the ruined paint. He was fiftyish, overweight, and needed a shave; he wore a gray wool suit of decent quality, but filthy. A liter of Bacardi Light dangled from his hand. His complexion was ghastly in the yellow light.

“Tried to dissolve her, didn’t they,” he said, then his face screwed up and he began to sob. “Just like they dissolved my Jane!”

Jack didn’t know what to do. What do you say to a crying drunk? He put a hand on the guy’s quaking shoulder.

“Hang around. Maybe I can find you a place to stay.”

The guy shook his head and stumbled away along the sidewalk, still sobbing.

Jack hurried up the building’s front steps. He pressed the button for Walt’s room but got no answering buzz. The glass panel in the front door was broken. Maybe the buzzer was too. He reached through the shattered pane and let himself in, then hurried up to the third floor.

Despite repeated knocks, Walt didn’t answer his door.

Concerned now, Jack pulled the piece of clear, flexible plastic he kept in his back pocket, slipped it between the door and the jamb, and jimmied the latch. The door swung open.

“Oh, shit,” he said when he saw the carnage within.

The front room was a shambles of shattered glass, torn upholstery, and broken furniture. Jack dodged through the wreckage and hurried to the bathroom where he’d installed Walt last night.

Empty, damn it. He went to the one remaining place to look, the tiny bedroom.

Blood. Blood on the sheets, on the floor, on the glass daggers remaining in the frame of the smashed bedroom window.

“Walt,” Jack said softly, staring at the dry brown streaks on the glass. “Why didn’t you come back with me last night? Why didn’t you stay locked up like I told you?”

Angry and sad, and not sure which to give in to, he wandered back to the bathroom. Walt’s metalworking tools were set up across the rust-stained tub.

But where were the necklaces? Probably hadn’t finished them, but Jack knew he’d started them.

And what was Jack going to do without them?

Then he spotted something silvery and serpentine in the tub, under the work board. He dropped to his knees and reached in.

Out came a necklace.

Jack cupped it in his hands and inspected it. The sculpted, crescent-shaped links, the weird engraved inscriptions, the pair of topazes with dark centers. The look of it, weight of it … perfect.

A deluge of memories, most of them bad, engulfed him. He especially remembered the night he had worn the genuine article, how it had kept him alive when he should have died, how removing it had damn near killed him.

He shook off the past and felt a lump form in his throat for the man who had made this.

“Walt. You were the best.”

He reached into the tub and found the second necklace, but groaned when he got a good look at it. Only half done. The links on the left side were blank. Walt hadn’t got around to engraving them before … well, before whatever had happened to him.

One and a half necklaces wasn’t going to cut it. Jack’s plan required two phonies to get the real ones.