F. Paul Wilson - Infernal

Jack sat in silence. One more nail in the coffin of Hamad Al-Kabeer. He just wished it wasn't all so damn circumstantial. He wanted something more concrete before he ripped the guy in half.

And if Al-Kabeer had been a part of it—didn't matter if he was the shooter or just a planner—tearing him up was too easy. He needed something worse than just death. But what? If Jack had the time, he knew he'd come up with something. But time was in short supply.

Time…

He straightened in his chair.

Lyle looked at him. "What?"

"Just had an idea."

"Care to share?"

"Not yet. Need to work out the details…"

Yeah. Many details.

Jack stepped out of Menelaus Manor in higher spirits than when he'd arrived, but not much. He squinted. The rooftops of the houses across the street flared with a corona effect from the lowering sun behind them.

… your edges are blurry and you seem to be… transparent …

Jack shivered in the twilight, and not because of the icy wind.

11

-39:17

A pale ghost of the nearly full moon rode the twilight as Jack stood outside Gia's front step and knocked. He wondered if there'd be a moon or even a sun where he was going. He swore that if he somehow managed to extricate himself from this mess he'd never again take this sort of everyday beauty for granted.

Gia opened the door. Her eyes widened when she saw him.

"Where have you been?"

"Here and there."

"But you were gone so long! You said you'd only be an hour!"

"I know. Things got complicated."

"I was getting worried."

"Can I spend the night?"

Gia burst into tears.

Jack said, "Is that a no?"

She grabbed him and pulled him into the foyer where they clinched.

She sobbed against his chest. "I can't lose you!"

"Well, I'm not gone yet. The lady in the size-forty dress hasn't started her song yet."

Jack didn't know if his half-formed plan had any chance of working, but if it did, she'd never sing.

At least not Jack's tune.

12

-33:22

Tom watched the guy step out of the bodega doorway and approach the cab. When he recognized Tom he flashed his Leon Spinks smile.

After last night's uptown sortie, Kamal had offered his cell number. He said Tom could call anytime, and if he was on duty—which was most of the time—he would take Tom back to the bodega.

Tom was glad he'd taken the little slip of paper. He'd dug it out of his pants pocket and made the call.

After being all but kicked out of Gia's this morning, he'd aimlessly wandered around the city. When he finally returned to the apartment he'd found the Lilitongue floating in Jack's bedroom. He'd closed the door. Couldn't stand to look at it.

He needed a lift. A big one.

"Lose your girlfriend again?" said the bodega man.

"Yeah, and it's got me down."

"Want me to find her again?"

"No, I think I need someone different tonight."

"I know all sort of girls. What kind you like?"

"Someone to lift my spirits. She changes her name all the time. Last time I saw her she was going by a name that began with E, but she might have changed it to something that begins with X."

"Ah, yes. I know such a one."

Tom held up a fifty. "Will this do?"

"Yes. That good for two."

"Two?"

That Spinks smile again. "Okay, since you are repeat customer, I give you three."

Tom hadn't been trying to haggle. He'd taken E a few times in the early nineties and had paid about fifty a tab. He'd liked the feeling, but not the emotional drop after the drug wore off.

As the man snatched the fifty he said, "You want else? We got other letters—A, MJ from TJ—and we got weather—snowflake and purple rain—and we got baseball, roofies, and Georgia Home Boy."

Pretty much the same patter as last night.

"Just the girl."

After that it was more deja vu. A little talk into a two-way, then a jogging kid—different one from last night—tossing an envelope through the window.

Tom had swallowed one of the tabs before Kamal's cab reached the end of the block.

By the time they reached the Upper West Side Tom was cruising. Waves of warmth and relaxation washed over him. The African music on Kamal's radio that had bugged him on the uptown trip now sounded beautiful and perfect. Tiny bubbles swam in his vision, as if he were looking at the world through a glass of champagne.

Instead of going straight back to Jack's, he had Kamal drop him off near where Broadway cut across Columbus Avenue. As he moved through the milling crowd he felt wonderful. So connected to all these strangers, connected to the point where he wanted to climb atop a lamppost and shout out his love for all of them.

Jesus God, when was the last time he'd felt this good about the world, about himself ?

War, poverty, crime, violence, terrorism all so far away. So was Jack's predicament. Even though he loved even Jack tonight—and really loved Gia—he couldn't get worked up about his impending "escape." The world, existence, were all too wonderful to allow anything really bad to happen.

Everything would be all right, everything would work out for the best.

WEDNESDAY

1

-22:42

Jack tried to focus on the newspaper but the words didn't make sense. When he realized he'd been through the same paragraph three times without understanding it—and this was the Post —he slapped it down on Gia's kitchen table.

Less than a day until launch. For Gia's and Vicky's sakes he'd wanted to keep everything as normal as possible. Hadn't expected it to be easy, but it was proving impossible.

Especially after checking himself in the bathroom mirror this morning and seeing the ends of the Stain under his pecs… less than six inches apart.

Vicky barreled into the kitchen.

"Jack! What are we getting Mommy for Christmas?"

The question stunned him.

"Christmas?"

She rolled her big blue eyes. "It's on Friday, silly!"

"Jeez, that's right. Tomorrow's Christmas Eve."

With everything else going on, it had been drop-kicked from his consciousness.

His heart sank. He wouldn't be here for Christmas, wouldn't be able to lounge by the fire as he'd done last year and watch Vicky tear into her presents.

"We haven't even bought the Christmas tree yet!"

Jack cleared his thickening throat and slapped the side of his head.

"You're right! What were we thinking? Let's get right on it." He lowered his voice. "And while we're out we'll find Mommy a present too."

"Neat! Let's go!"

Jack shook his head as he watched her run to the hall closet. Vicky did everything at top speed. His throat clenched again. Christ, he was going to miss her as much as Gia.

His cell phone rang.

"Joey?"

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

"Psychic. What's up?"

"You know that pay-as-you-go phone you acquired yesterday?"

"Yeah? Learn anything?"

"Did I ever. All but four calls were local, mostly to the Center. The others were all to the city."

"Does that help us?"

"They were made at seven A.M. exactly two weeks ago today. Guess where to?"

Joey seemed to enjoy playing his guess-what-I-got? game, but Jack had no patience for it.

"Come on, Joey, spit it—" And then it dawned. That was the morning Wrath of Allah claimed credit for the massacre. "You're serious?"

"Deadly. ABC, NBC, CBS, and the Times . Four in a row, bing-bang-boom."

That clinched it. Some of the blood Charlie had seen on Hamad Al-Kabeer's hands was Dad's.

Instead of an explosion of murderous rage, Jack felt only crushing depression. His energy seemed to drain away, leaving him empty, mute, immobile.

Such a waste, such a futile, hollow waste of life. These fanatics murdering innocents in the name of their vain, puerile, cold-blooded god.