F. Paul Wilson - By the Sword

She smiled. "Okay, it was fantastic for me too."

"What did you do to me?"

"I'm not sure. It's kind of fuzzy now."

"Whatever it was, I think I'm going to need a walker to get out of here."

"Sorry. No walkers around. Only Nellie's old cane."

"I'll take it."

He closed his eyes relishing the touch of her fingers on his chest. He felt wiped out.

"Well?"

He looked at her and saw her expectant expression. No way out of this. He'd have to tell her something, and it had to be the truth. He wasn't going to start lying to her.

He glanced at the clock. He wanted to get to Belmont noonish. Still plenty of time, so he couldn't use that as an excuse.

He raised a finger and began tracing concentric circles on her left breast, languidly gyring toward the nipple.

"A rosy-tipped breast, as the novels like to say."

She pushed his hand away. "That tickles. And if you're trying to distract me, it might work, so stop it and tell what's been going on."

Jack sighed. Where to begin?

"Last month I learned that I have big chunks of bad DNA floating around my chromosomes." He didn't mention that she and Vicky carried a little of it too. That everyone did to varying degrees.

She frowned. " 'Bad'? What's wrong with it?"

"It's not normal. It gives people… violent tendencies."

There. He'd laid it on the table.

Gia's expression remained neutral, registering neither shock nor fear nor revulsion.

"Oh."

"And I've got a lot of it."

"Oh."

After a silence that seemed to last forever she took a breath. "Well, I guess that explains some things—at least it's a hint as to why you're good at what you do—but it doesn't explain your gentleness around here. You're a pussycat with Vicky."

"She owns me."

"And you've never once raised your voice against me, let alone your hand, so why have you—?"

"It feels like a ticking bomb."

"You can feel it?"

"No, but just knowing it's there, inside me…" At a loss for words, he shrugged. "I don't know."

"But I think I do. You're afraid it will hurt us?"

"No. I seem to be able to control it—most times. I have no doubt that you're safe. But anyone who threatens that safety…" He thought of all the dead yeniçeri back in January. "They're on the endangered species list."

Her brow furrowed. "Then what? You can't infect us with it."

"No, but I just injected you with some."

She looked puzzled for a few heartbeats, then, "Oh." Her eyes widened. " Oh . Emma."

"Yeah. Emma."

"You think she inherited some of this bad DNA?"

"How could she not? She was half me."

Another long silence, then, "Well, it's kind of scary, but it's moot, isn't it. Emma's gone and I don't want to—I can't go through that again. I'd get my tubes tied if it mattered."

"Why doesn't it matter? Because of those coma dreams?"

She nodded.

She'd come out of the coma this way, sure that the future was short—very short. Veilleur had mentioned something along those lines, and someone he knew who said he could see the future had told him next spring ended in darkness.

When Gia had been on death's threshold, had she peeked through and seen what was coming?

Did that mean Rasalom was going to win?

He shook it off.

"Look, if anyone's getting tubes tied it's going to be me."

She smiled. "That's sweet, but it doesn't matter."

"Please stop saying that."

"Well, it's true, but I'll stop saying it."

She rose from the bed. Jack stared at her. He loved Gia's body—the breasts that fit his hands so perfectly, the curve of her hips, the slight swell of her belly. He wanted to reach out and grab her and pull her back.

She'd taken it well. Seemed like he'd been worried about nothing. But a vasectomy… that was a thought. He didn't want his oDNA going any further.

He glanced at the clock. Time was moving.

"Hey, Gi? How should I dress for my day at the races?"

Gia had thought he should dress down, and suggested his construction worker look: worn jeans, flannel shirt, work boots, Mets cap, dollar-store sunglasses.

He drove the Long Island Expressway the entire length of Queens and crossed the border into Nassau County where Belmont Park occupies a large chunk of Elmont. He arrived a little past noon. Post time for the first race wasn't until one o'clock, so he had time to settle in. He decided against valet parking, and chose the preferred lots instead, in case he needed his car in a hurry.

His big problem—besides having nothing more than a blurry photo of his quarry—was not knowing where Gerrish was coming from, or how. The Long Island Railroad's Bellerose stop was only a short distance away. If Gerrish didn't have a car, that might be the way he'd come and go.

From the outside, the patriotic bunting—bedecked grandstand was pretty much like he remembered it from the old days, except the ivy had spread farther across the brick walls and around the big arched windows.

He bought a clubhouse admission and a program, and strolled the flagstone floors, checking out the Neiman manqué paintings on the walls as he refamiliarized himself with the place.

He took the escalator up to the second floor and found a Sbarro's. That hadn't been here before.

He ordered a slice of pepperoni pie and hung at the counter where he could keep watch on the traffic at the betting windows. Jack was betting on Gerrish being a clubhouse kind of guy—if he was as flush as he'd told folks, he wouldn't hang outside with the hoi polloi. That meant sooner or later he'd show up here.

Melancholy seeped into his mood as he watched the thin, drab, sadlooking crowd, mostly middle age or older, go through the motions. No zip, no vim or vigor. He seemed to remember a livelier crowd, Runyonesque flashy dressers with style and attitude. But memories are unreliable, tending to be colored by wishful thinking. Maybe it had never been like he thought he remembered. But either way, these folks had more in common with Willie Loman than Sky Masterson and Nathan Detroit.

Around 12:45, after doing flybys to check out a couple of guys who turned out to be almosts-but-not-quites, Jack spotted a likely candidate lining up at a window. He had a round, florid face and wore dark blue nylon warm-up pants with white stripes under a loud Hawaiian shirt acrawl with birds of paradise. Brown, wavy hair stuck out below the edge of his Rangers cap.

Could be.

Jack slipped the photo from his pocket and gave it a quick look.

Yeah. A definite possibility. Even had the big diamond stud earring. Trouble was, he wore wraparound shades and had his cap pulled down almost to his eyebrows. The Hugh Gerrish in the photo had a wicked widow's peak, but this guy's hat was obscuring his hairline. Jack needed a way to sneak a peek at the peak.

He hurried over and slipped behind him in the betting line.

"Rangers fan, huh?"

The guy turned and looked at him. "You got a problem with that? You gonna give me some Islander shit?"

The Islanders had just won the Stanley Cup and Ranger fans were not happy.

Jack smiled. "Hey, easy. I'm a Ranger guy too." Lie. Jack hated hockey. He hated high fives almost as much, but held up his hand for one. "Next year the cup is ours."

The guy smiled and gave Jack's raised palm a good-natured slap.

"From your lips to God's ear."

Jack made a point of staring at his cap. "That's a nice one. Where'd you get it? The Garden?"

He nodded. "Cost an arm and a leg but worth every penny."

"Yeah. Nice quality. Wonder who made it. Mind if I see the label?"

"Sure."

The guy took it off, revealing a huge widow's peak. Jack couldn't help staring at it.

Lily, call Herman—we've found Eddie.