F. Paul Wilson - Haunted Air

At least he'd had the presence of mind last night to demand a private room. He didn't care how much it cost. The last thing in the world he needed now was a nosy roommate.

"As I was saying," Dr. Sadiq said, "you are a lucky man, Mr. Bellitto. Very lucky. If that knife had sliced but a quarter of an inch further to the left, we would have had a much bigger problem."

Eli thought, I've got oxygen running into my nose, morphine hooked into my left arm, an IV running into my right, and a tube in my bladder draining bloody urine into a bag hanging near the floor. This is not lucky.

Dr. Sadiq went on. "The knife sliced into the base of your penis, just missing your urethra. We saved your penis without much trouble, but we could not save the right testicle, I'm afraid. It was too badly lacerated. I had to remove it."

The room seemed to darken around Eli as he listened. Not so much the details-that he had been sexually maimed and mutilated, that a piece of him had been amputated-but that it had occurred at all. What had happened to his invulnerability? Why had it failed him?

More importantly, who was that man last night? Had it been a chance encounter, or could he have been following him and Adrian? Could he know about the Circle?

Eli forced a smile. "I'm not thinking about starting a family. Not at my age."

"But you do not have to worry too much about sexual function. There will be scarring, of course, and that may interfere with erections, but with proper care and therapy, you should be able to resume normal sexual function within a couple of months."

Eli didn't care about sexual function. Last night had not been about sex, although the man who had attacked them seemed to think so. Not that Eli could blame him. Two men in the dark with an unconscious boy... the prosaic, untutored mind would naturally leap to such a conclusion. But the Circle was devoted to concerns far more profound than mere sex.

Eli wanted no more talk about his wounds or his chances for full recovery. He changed the subject.

"My friend, Mr. Minkin, the one with the head injuries... how is he doing?"

Adrian was an ox, yet their attacker had felled him in an instant and left him senseless.

Dr. Sadiq shook his head. "That I do not know. He was admitted to the neurology service. Is he your... partner?"

"Partner?"

Now why on earth would Dr. Sadiq think Adrian had anything to do with the shop? Unless... could he be even considering that he and Adrian were lovers! Yes, that had to be it.

Anger flared in Eli. What's wrong with this world? Everything is not about sex!

"Oh, no," Eli said. "He's just an old friend."

A tiny shift of his hips was rewarded by a disproportionate shock of pain. He was suddenly very tired.

"I think I'd like to rest now, doctor."

"Of course," Dr. Sadiq said. "I'll look in on you again during my evening rounds."

As soon as the door closed Eli grabbed the morphine delivery button and began jabbing at it like a telegraph operator. Soon a delicious lethargy suffused him, pushing away the pain and worries about strange men who lunged out of the darkness.

4

Jack stopped in front of Municipal Coins on West Fifty-fourth. He'd planned to come by yesterday but Gia's revelation had blown that plan clear out of the water.

Midday sun gleamed off the polished gold and silver coins in the window display, but Jack's attention was more focused on Eli Bellitto's last words than on precious metals.

I don't have a brother named Edward or anything else. I'm an only child.

Somebody was lying.

Eli Bellitto was a child molester, most likely a child killer-you go to the trouble of abducting a child as Bellitto and his buddy had, you're not likely to let him go-so lying was hardly a stretch. But why lie about having a brother to someone you thought was a hospital administrator? Unless you didn't want to acknowledge that brother.

But Eli Bellitto hadn't sounded like he was lying. Edward, on the other hand...

The phone number he'd given Jack was bogus, as was no doubt much of the story he'd laid on him. Edward had a Irish accent, Eli didn't. The two supposed brothers looked nothing alike.

No question... Edward had lied.

What particularly rankled Jack was that he'd made Edward-if that was his real first name; his last sure as hell wasn't Bellitto-for a straight shooter. Every so often a customer tried to pull a fast one, but Jack usually found out before any damage was done. Since many of his jobs involved getting even, with maybe inflicting a little hurt on someone if necessary, Jack made sure to do a fair amount of backgrounding before he took any action. But Edward had wanted Jack to keep people from being hurt, so he'd taken the man at his word.

But if he wasn't Eli Bellitto's brother, who the hell was he? Had he hired Jack to be there when Bellitto snatched that child? Seemed so. But how had he known?

Jack figured chances were slim to none he'd ever find out.

Still, he wasn't quite ready to write this off as a bad deal. Not yet. The phone number Edward had given him wouldn't allow that. If you're going to leave a phony number, you simply write down an area code and seven random digits. Why leave one out? It didn't make sense.

Jack's brain held a closetful of things that didn't make sense. He'd pitch this in with the rest.

He pushed through the door and entered the cool interior of Municipal Coins.

"Mr. Blake!" said a man who had been rearranging a tray in a long row of display cases. He bustled forward and shook Jack's hand. "So good to see you again!"

"Hello, Monte. Call me Jack, okay?"

He'd been telling Monte for years to call him Jack but the man must have been born with an extra formality gene that made it impossible for him to address a customer by his first name.

"I'll do that," he said. "Yes, I'll do that."

Monte was half owner of Municipal Coins. Every time Jack looked at him, the word thick sprang to mind: thick body, thick lips, even his curly black hair. But he moved like a ferret. Had a numismatic database for a brain and an MBA from Yale, but the only business he had any desire to administrate was rare coins.

"Just bought a big collection," he said, motioning Jack toward the rear of the store where he kept the cream of his inventory. "Some incredible pieces came in last week. You've got to see them. Absolutely gem."

Jack was one of Monte's regular customers. Probably saw him as a well-heeled collector of rare coins, but Jack's stash of coins was more than a collection. They were his life savings..

Without a Social Security number-a real one-he couldn't invest in CDs or stocks; he wouldn't have wanted to under any circumstances because that would mean paying taxes, a burden Jack had managed to avoid thus far in his life. So whenever he accumulated a lump of cash, he put it into gold coins, some of them bullion type, like Krugerrands, but mostly the rare and collectible. Not an exciting investment, but other facets of his life provided enough adrenaline and he saw no need to look for more in the investment realm. He'd missed the rocketing stocks of the nineties, but he'd also missed the crash of the aughts.

"Not looking for coins today, Monte," Jack said.

And I won't be buying many more if I keep allowing myself to get stiffed by customers who lie to me.

"Just a social call then?" Monte said, doing a fair job of hiding his disappointment. "Always good to see you, Mr. Blake, no matter what the occasion."

"But I am in the market for something to display my coins. Where are those clamshell cases you've been telling me about?"

Monte had been pushing a new line of pocket-sized display cases on Jack for months, telling him they were the latest and greatest thing for the collector who wanted to safeguard his coins when he showed them off. Jack had repeatedly turned him down.