Eric Lustbader - First Daughter

The balding man returns, nods at Gus.

"C'mon," Gus says, apparently to Jack.

Jack follows him behind the counter. As he passes by, the balding man plucks a chocolate-chip cookie off a pile in the case, gives it to him. Jack chews it thoughtfully, staring at the containers as he walks by.

The passageway gives out onto a cavelike room with a low ceiling the color of burnt bread. It is dominated by a line of enormous stainless steel ovens. A cool wind blows from a pair of huge air-conditioning grilles high up in the wall. Two men in long white aprons go about their laconic task of filling the kneading machines, placing pale, thin loaves into the ovens in neat rows.

Standing in the center of the room is a squat man with the neck of a bull, the head of a bullet. His wide, planular olive-gray face possesses a sleekness that can come only from daily shaves at a barbershop.

"Hello, Cyril," Gus says. He does not extend his hand. Neither does Cyril.

Cyril nods. He takes one glance at Jack, then his round, black eyes center on Gus. "He looks like shit, that kid." He's got a curious accent, as if English isn't his first language.

Gus knows a put-down when he hears one. He chews an imaginary chaw of tobacco ruminatively. "He looks like shit 'cause a Andre."

Cyril, divining the reason for the visit, seems to stiffen minutely. "What's that to me?"

Gus puts one huge hand on Jack's shoulder with an astonishing gentleness. "Jack belongs to me."

The bakers are looking furtively at the two men as if they are titans about to launch lightning bolts at each other.

"I would venture to say Andre didn't know that."

"Andre an' his crew beat the crap outta Jack." Gus's voice is implacable. The inner rage informs his face like heat lightning.

Cyril waits an indecent moment before acquiescing. "I'll take care of it."

"I warned you 'bout that muthafucka," Gus says immediately.

Cyril shows his palms. "I don't want any trouble between us, Gus."

"Huh," Gus grunts. "You already been through that bloodbath."

THE LINCOLN Continental is singed with invisible fire as Gus drives them away from the bakery. Gus, brooding, is like a porcupine with his quills bristling.

"That muthafucka," he mouths, his eyes straight ahead. And Jack doesn't know whether he means Andre or Cyril.

"You know that bakery isn't a bakery," Jack says. "First off, there were no customers, just some men standing around." He's afraid of what he's said, afraid that Gus's seething will find its outlet in him. But he can't help himself; it's part of what's wrong with him. His brain is exploding with everything he saw, heard, intuited, extrapolated upon.

"Course it ain't only a bakery. Fuckin' Cyril runs drugs 'n' numbers outta there."

Times like now, when he can focus on what his own brain has recorded, when it shows him the big picture, when he can «read» the signs and from them build a three-dimensional model in his mind, he has a clarity of thought he finds exhilarating. "I mean they're making something more than bread there."

Brakes shriek as all at once his words sink in. Gus pulls the Continental over to the curb. The engine chortles beneath them like a beast coming out of a coma. Gus throws the car into park. His seat groans a protest as he twists around to stare at Jack.

"Kid, what the hell you talkin'?"

For once Jack isn't intimidated. He's in his own world now, secure in what he has seen, what he knows, what he will say.

"There was the smell."

"Yeast and butter and sugar, yah."

" Underneath all those things there was another smell: sharp and blue."

"Blue?" Gus goggles at him. "How the fuck can a smell be blue?"

"It just is," Jack said. "It's blue, like the smell when my mother takes off her nail polish."

"Acetone? Nail polish remover is all acetone. I use it to take glue spots offa stuff people bring in to my pawnshop." Gus's expression is thoughtful now. "What else, kid?"

"Well, that cookie the guy gave me was days old. It should've been fresh. Plus which, whatever he had on his hands wasn't flour or yeast, because his fingertips were stained orange by what he had on them."

Gus appears to think about this revelation for some time. At last he says, as if in a slight daze, "Go on. Anything else?"

Jack nods. "The room with the ovens should've been hot."

"Course it wasn't hot," Gus says. "It's hugely air-conditioned."

"Still," Jack persists, "no heat came from inside when they opened the oven doors. The loaves were too thin to be bread. That wasn't dough they were putting in, it was something that needed drying."

"How the hell-?"

"Also, that guy Cyril is scared of you."

"Huh, you betta believe he is."

"No," Jack says, "I mean he's scared enough to do something about it."

Gus frowns. "You mean he actually wants to move against me?" He shook his head. "No way you could know that, kid."

"But I do."

"Cyril an' I have a treaty-an understanding. Between us now it's live an' let live."

"No, it's not."

Something in Jack's voice-some surety-gives Gus pause. "What are you, kid, a oracle?"

"What's an oracle?" Jack says.

Gus stares out the side window. "You like fried pork chops an' grits?"

"I never had grits."

"Shit, that figures." Gus makes a disgusted face. "White folk."

He puts the car in gear.

ALLI CARSON saw the handsome man smile, remove himself from the doorway, pull a folding chair from the shadows. He straddled it, arms folded across the metal-tube back. He radiated a kind of magnetism, strong as her father's, but entirely different: steely, opaque. All she saw when she looked into his face was her own reflection.

"They tied you up, poor girl," he said gently. "I asked them not to do that, but do they listen to me?"

"Who-?" Alli's tongue felt thick and gluey. "I'm so thirsty," she managed to choke out.

The man stepped into the shadows, returned with a glass of water. Alli stared at it, desire flooding her, but fear, too, because there was an unknown world all around her. What horrors lurked there, waiting?

Leaning over her, he tipped the glass against her lower lip. "Slowly," he said as she gulped. "Sip slowly."

Despite her aching thirst, Alli obeyed him. When at last the glass was drained, she ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth. "I don't understand," she said. "Who are 'they,' who are you ? Why have you brought me here, what do you want?"

He had soft eyes and such a large masculine presence, it seemed to fill the entire lit space.

"Be patient," he said. "In time, all your questions will be answered."

She wanted to believe him. That way lay hope. Hope that she'd soon be freed. "Then can't you at least untie me?"

He shook his head sadly. "That would be most unwise."

"Please. I won't run away, I swear."

"I'd like to believe you, Alli, really I would."

She began to cry. "Why won't you?"

"The others might come in at any time, you see, and then who would be punished? Me. You wouldn't want that, would you?"

She felt desperation fluttering in her breast like a caged bird. "For God's sake, before they come!"

"Are you kidding me?" He said in a voice that lashed her like a whip, "You can't be trusted. You're a liar-and a cheat."

Alli, confused as well as disoriented, said, "I–I don't understand. What are you talking about?"

He produced a thick manila folder, which he opened on his lap. With a shiver, she saw a snapshot of herself stapled to the top sheet of paper. Wasn't this a scene from a film she had seen? And then with an internal shriek she realized that her mind and body had parted company, that she was looking at herself from a distance, or another dimension, where she was safe, would always be safe because nothing could touch her.