Jack remembered a now-extinct Little Italy trattoria where he waited tables when he first came to town. Made some friends on the staff, but didn’t think he’d added to his already abundant charm.
“You’re telling me you don’t come from money, I take it.”
Her laugh was bitter. “I come from nothing. Never went to college, at least not formally. Took courses here and there along the way, though. But most of what I know I learned on my own, and all of what I own I’ve earned on my own.”
“How?”
Here was something Jack wanted to know.
“Day trading.”
“Really.” Hadn’t expected that. “I heard most folks had dropped out of that.”
“Because they lost their shirts, most likely. But I seem to have a knack for it. I started with a little money back in the nineties when you couldn’t lose. I made it grow, and kept it growing even after the bubble burst in 2000—learned you could make money even in a down market if you knew what you were doing.”
“Good for you.”
“And you know what? It’s the perfect job for a mother. You do it from home. I’d finish my trades and be logged off before Dawnie walked in the door. I was there for her every day, ready to take her anywhere she needed to go. No having to go through what I did growing up. I gave her every opportunity to maximize her potential—and she has a lot—and now this.”
Okay. Now to the heart of it.
“So now this older man comes into her life and…what?”
“He all but takes over, that’s what.”
“How does a guy in his mid-thirties take over an eighteen-year-old’s life?”
She looked away. “I think they’re having sex. In fact I’m positive they’re having sex.”
“Lots of eighteen-year-olds are having sex. Probably most of them.”
“Not with men twice their age.”
Yeah, Jack could see how the thought of your teenage daughter in bed with a guy her father’s age could upset you. But since the girl was past the age of consent, you couldn’t use the system to pull them apart. You had to go outside the system.
Where Jack operated.
“What’s her dad think of this?”
“He’s not in the picture,” she said, her tone matter of fact. “Never was, never will be.”
He drained his Yuengling. “Okay. Give me the Reader’s Digest version. She’s working at this diner and he’s what—a regular?”
Christy nodded. “His name is Jerry Bethlehem and he began showing up sometime in January. After a while he started asking to be seated at one of Dawn’s tables. I remember her telling me about this really interesting guy with the cool job who was a great tipper.”
“What sort of cool job?”
“A freelance video game designer.”
Jack nodded. That did sound pretty cool.
“Dawn’s never been into video games, for which I’m glad—nothing but time wasters—but that’s just what allowed him to set his hook into her.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Neither did I at first. He’s clever. He told her she was just the person he needed to talk to because she was an untapped market for games. If he could design a game that appealed to non-playing girls and young women like her, he’d have every video game company in the world pounding on his door.”
“And if she helps him design it, he’ll cut her in.”
“Full partnership—fifty-fifty. She’ll be queen of the video game industry. Or so he says.”
Money and fame…quite a siren call.
“So he lures her over to his apartment—”
“Oh, no. He’s too smooth for anything so obvious. A move like that would have set off Dawnie’s alarm bells right away. And he has a townhouse, by the way. What he does is suggest they sit down and brainstorm the project at her house so he can meet her folks and assure them that he’s not some nut case with bad intentions.”
“Which you believe he’s had all along.”
“I don’t believe. I know.”
“How?”
“I…” Suddenly she looked unsure of herself—the first time since she’d walked in. “I just do.”
Jack’s skepticism must have shown.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “A mother knows. This man is a seducer.”
“So you’ve met him?”
“Right in my own living room. Bold as day. ‘How do you do, Mrs. Pickering.’ ‘You have a wonderful-brilliant-beautiful daughter, Mrs. Pickering.’ But Mrs. Pickering wasn’t born yesterday.”
Jack now knew what the P in Christy P. stood for. Something familiar about “Pickering”…from a long time ago.
Anyway…a single mother with a guy her own age making a play for her daughter. Sure, the protective instinct comes out, but Christy Pickering seemed to be protesting a tad too much. Maybe more than a tad. Envy, maybe? Jealousy? A little hey-what’s-wrong-with-me? thing going down here?
“Is this Jerry Bethlehem good looking?”
She shrugged. “He’s no Matthew McConaughey, if that’s what you mean, but he’s not bad looking. Mostly it’s his eyes. He’s got these piercing blue eyes that seem to look into your soul and let you feel you’re looking into his.”
“And what do you see there?”
“If you’re naïve, you see truth.”
“And if you’re not?”
“Ice.”
Whoa. “That so?”
“You’re giving me that look again. His eyes can convince people who haven’t been around the block that everything he’s saying is the truth, but I’ve read Charles Manson has eyes like that.”
Jack had read that too.
“Has he got some sort of cult thing going? Preaching revolution?”
“No…he’s not even promising the moon with this video game scheme, but he’s a bent wire. I feel it in my bones. He plays at being this charming, folksy Southerner but deep down he’s a redneck hick and I can’t believe he designs video games.”
“But if they’re hanging out in your living room, how—?”
“If only! That’s where they started, but then they began meeting at his place because he has a better computer. Now Dawn’s talking about moving in with him.”
“But she’ll be going off to Colgate—”
She threw up her hands. “College? Who needs college when you’re going to conquer the video game world?” Her voice rose in pitch. “‘It’s a twenty-seven-billion-dollar-a-year industry, Mom, and Jerry and I will be its king and queen.’” She returned to normal. “So what’s college going to do for her?”
Her lips quivered as she blinked back tears. She pulled a tissue from her purse and dabbed her eyes.
“Sorry. It’s just that our life has been kind of a Hallmark card until now. And okay, maybe I’ve been living vicariously through Dawn, giving her all the opportunities I never had, giving her every possible chance to be everything she could be. And so, yes, seeing her throwing it all away on some video game pipe dream with a guy twice her age is killing me. But it’s more than that. There’s something wrong with Jerry Bethlehem. He’s hiding something. I want to know what it is—I want Dawn to know before it’s too late. Before he…hurts her.”
“Hurts her how?”
She dabbed her eyes again. “I don’t know. But he’s got something bad planned for her. I just know it.”
Jack didn’t know the truth of that in the real world, but sensed it was very real to Christy.
“So you hired this PI to get something on him.”
“Right. Michael Gerhard. His specialty is divorce work—getting the goods on cheating spouses.”
A million of those guys around the city. A lot of them ex-cops.
“And he found…?”
“Nothing. At least nothing I know of. He’s not returning my calls. He came to my house, seemed very organized and professional. I wrote him a retainer check—which he cashed the next day—and haven’t heard from him since.”
; “When was that?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“Not so long—”
“He said he’d contact me in a few days with a preliminary report. He called four days later and told me that since Mister Bethlehem—he was very formal about the creep—was a freelancer without a nine-to-five job, it was taking a little longer to build a database on him. When I didn’t hear from him after that, I gave him a call. No answer, no call back.” She flashed Jack a defiant look. “I paid him good money and I want results—I want them before Dawn moves out.”
“Is she headed that way?”
“Not yet, but she’s been fiddling with the suitcases in the basement. Time’s running out.”
“Because you feel it will be easier to keep her from going than to get her back?”
She nodded. “But Gerhard hasn’t returned one of my calls.”
“He have an office?”
“No.” She chewed her lip. “The address I thought was his office turns out to be a Mailboxes R Us or something like that. His phone is a cell.”
“Might just mean he’s keeping his overhead down.”
Not every PI had a wisecracking receptionist and kept a .38 in the top drawer and a bottle of scotch in the bottom.
But they should.
“Do you think…?” She paused, then, “Do you think he could have found out something about Bethlehem and be blackmailing him?”
Possible, but…
“Well, if he’s that much of a crook, he’d be calling back and stringing you along for a few extra payments.”
“What if Bethlehem bought him off? Or…” She leaned forward. “What if he found something and Bethlehem killed him?”
“That’s a helluva what-if.”
Though not an impossibility.
“Find out for me, will you? Find Gerhard, see what he knows about Bethlehem.”
“And get your money back?”
“Anything you get back you can keep. As a bonus. On top of your fee.” She patted her purse. “Which I have right here.”
Jack considered. Finding Gerhard seemed doable. Brace the guy and get him either to finish what he’d started or return the retainer. Or tell Jack what he knew about Bethlehem so Jack could pass it on to Christy.
Piece of cake.
Yeah, sure.
But Jack had to admit Christy had piqued his curiosity about this Jerry Bethlehem. What games had he designed? Shouldn’t be too hard to track that down. A Google or two would probably do it.
Christy Pickering was staring at him, a pleading look in her big blue eyes.
“Can you help me? Please?”
Oh, why not? He needed something to do. A small project like this was perfect. Take a couple of days, tops.
“Okay, I’ll give it a shot.”
“Thank God! Thank you!”
“Don’t thank me yet. I’ll take the Gerhard angle and that’s all. Here’s how we’ll work it…”
7
Back in the saddle, Jack thought as he strolled up Central Park West. For only a short ride, true, but it felt good.
When he reached the museum he stood aside to let a horde of school kids crowd through an exit door in a brownstone arch and swarm toward their idling yellow buses. Once they were past he headed for the museum offices. The receptionist remembered him and passed him through.
On the way up the stairs he checked his watch. A little after four. The prof had had almost three hours with the Compendium. Jack knew he was going to face pleas for more time but he’d done his good deed for the day-week-year-whatever. Time to collect his book and go home.
Again came the thought about letting the old guy keep it longer, and again he pushed it aside. He’d needed the Compendium once. Never knew when he might need it again.
He knocked on Dr. Buhmann’s door, then opened it—and froze on the threshold.
The prof sat slumped forward in his chair, his arms hanging limp at his sides, his right cheek against his desktop.
Jack leaped to his side.
“Doc!” He shook his shoulder. “Doc, you okay?”
But he wasn’t okay. The chair rolled back and the old man would have tumbled to the floor if Jack hadn’t caught him.
“Christ!”
Emaciated though he was, he was still dead weight. As Jack eased him to the floor he noticed he was still warm. And when he stretched him out on his back he saw him take a breath.
Still alive.
But what had happened?
He did a quick search for a wound or a bump on the head but found nothing. Then he noticed how the right side of the prof’s face sagged, compared to the left.
Stroke?
He jumped up and dashed into the hallway.
“Hey! Anybody here? We’ve got a problem!”
An elderly woman stuck her head through a doorway. “What’s the matter?”
“Doctor Buhmann. Something’s wrong with him.”
“What?” She hurried toward him. “Where?”
Jack stepped aside to let her see. “I think he’s had a stroke.”
“Oh, dear!” The woman jammed her hand against her mouth. “I’ll call nine-one-one!”
As she hurried back into the hall, Jack dropped to a knee beside the prof.
Yeah. Still breathing.
Eye level with the desktop now, he glanced across it. He saw a couple of sheets of paper, but no book.
“Oh, hell!”
He jumped to his feet and searched the desk and the area around it. No Compendium, but he did find a couple of Xeroxed sheets. One was filled with the squiggles they’d seen earlier, the other showed a strange design surrounded by its own squiggles.
What was it? Some sort of spider? But it had only six legs.
As he stared at the figure, a strange feeling stole over him. He was sure he hadn’t seen this thing before, but it seemed familiar. It triggered an odd twinge inside, as if something he hadn’t been aware of, something sleeping within him had stirred.
Then he realized what these sheets meant.
“Oh, hell!”
The prof had promised no copies, but obviously he hadn’t kept his word. Bad enough. But what had he done with the damn book?
Or had somebody stolen it?
He checked the prof again and found no sign of injury. But no sign of the book either.
Jack folded and pocketed the sheets, then waited for the EMTs to show.
What had happened here?
8
He hung around until the prof had been wheeled away. When everyone else followed the stretcher down the hall, Jack stayed behind and searched the office, opening every drawer and checking all the shelves. A book that size would be hard to hide and, with its metallic cover, even harder to miss. But he came up empty. No Compendium of Srem.
Out in the hall he drew one of the secretaries aside. She was young with black-dyed hair, dark mascara, and pale makeup.
“I brought in a book for Doctor Buhmann earlier. He was going to look it over and then, um, give me his opinion on it.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you take anything from his office.”
Jack had seen that coming, but it was a moot point at the moment.
“I can understand that, but the problem is, I don’t see the book anywhere.”
“What did it look like?”
“Not like any other book you’ve ever seen. You’d remember if you saw it.”
She shook her head. “I did see him bring a book to the copier, but I didn’t get a look at it. And I know he didn’t leave it there because I used the copier right after him. I saw him go straight back to his office. So it has to be there.”
“It’s not. Trust me.”
She frowned. “Are you saying it was stolen?”
“I left him reading it at his desk. I come back and find him out cold and the book gone. What would you think?”
She made no reply, but something in her eyes…
He said, “Have you had other things go missing lately?”
“Maybe you’d better talk to Security.”
Just about the last thing Jack wanted to do, but he didn’t see that he had much choice.
9
Dark had fallen by the time Jack made it back to Gia’s. No sign of the watcher—not that he’d expected any. But inside he found Gia sitting in the library with a familiar-looking woman—slight with fine pale features and glossy black hair.
Alicia Clayton, M.D., medical director of the St. Vincent’s Center for Children with AIDS. The sight of her banished thoughts of men in homburgs and stroked-out professors.
Smiling, she rose and hugged him.
“Long time, Jack.”
True. Well over a year since she’d hired him to retrieve some Christmas toys stolen from the center, then again for a more personal problem echoing from the horrors of her childhood.
“How’re things at the center?”
She shrugged. “You know how it is: Never good, but not as bad as it could be.”
Jack nodded. When dealing day after day with kids with AIDS…maybe that was the best you could hope for.
“What brings you uptown?”
“Me.” Gia rose from her chair and stepped toward them. She looked tired. “She wants me to go back to volunteering at the center.”
Gia used to be a regular down there, holding and rocking and feeding the AIDS infants. She’d stopped with the pregnancy. But now…
“How do you feel about that?”
Gia shrugged. “I don’t know if I’m ready.”
“Well, only you can decide that,” Alicia said. “But your visits brightened many a little life.”
Gia bit her lip. “Yes, well…”
Alicia slipped her arms around her. “When you’re ready for us, we’re ready for you.”
Gia returned the hug without speaking. Alicia broke it off.
“Gotta go. I’m dragging Will to a fund-raiser for the center.”
“Will the cop?” Jack said. She was still going out with Detective Will Matthews?
Alicia laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ve never mentioned you.”
Gia was lifting the tea tray from the table.
“I’ll put this away and get your coat.”