F. Paul Wilson - Legacies

Then she went to her office and sipped her coffee, lukewarm by now, and thought about that nothing-special-looking man named Jack—"Just Jack" Niedermeyer.

On Friday afternoon he'd said he'd see what he could do. Thirty-six hours later, the gifts were back and the thief in custody.

A man who could do that just might be able to solve her other problem.

Alicia looked up a number in her computer's directory and began dialing.

3.

Jack winced as he reached for the phone. He could think of only one person who'd be calling him this morning, so he picked up before the answering machine.

"Jack, you're wonderful!" Gia said. "Just wonderful!"

"I think you're pretty swell too, Gia."

"No, I'm being serious here. I just got a call from Dr. Clayton, and she told me the toys are back."

"Is that so? Gotta hand it to New York's finest. When they get on the job—"

"Right," she said, and damned if he couldn't hear her smile. "You had nothing to do with it."

"Not a thing. You said you didn't approve, so I gave it up."

"Okay. Be that way. But Dr. Clayton said as far as she can tell, every single gift is back, and the guy who stole them is locked up. I don't know how you managed it, but—"

"I simply E-mailed Santa and he did the rest."

"Well, Santa may have to do some more. Dr. Clayton asked me for your number."

Jack stiffened. "You didn't give it to her."

"No. I didn't give her any number. I told her I didn't know it by heart, and I'd have to look it up and get back to her."

Jack relaxed. "You done good, Gia. The perfect answer. Any idea what she wants?"

"Something about a personal matter. She didn't offer any details, and I didn't ask."

"Okay. Write this down." Jack rattled off the number at the Tenth Avenue drop. "Tell her to leave a message on the answering machine. Tell her that's how you get hold of me."

"Will do. Are we still on for this afternoon?"

"Sure are. Westchester, right?"

"No," she said, drawing out the word. "FAO Schwartz."

"We'll discuss that later. See you at noon."

4.

"Oh, my God!" Gia said. "What's that?"

"Just a little bruise."

Jack looked down at the large purple area on his left chest wall. Damn. He'd hoped she wouldn't notice, but here in the warm afterglow of their lovemaking, he'd forgot all about it.

They'd dropped Vicky off at her art class after lunch. She spent most of every Sunday afternoon learning the basics of drawing, painting, and sculpture. Her teacher said she showed a real flair for drawing. Jack figured it had to be genetic, what with her mother an artist and all. Vicky loved the classes, and Jack loved the chance to be alone with Gia on Sunday afternoons.

Their routine was to dash here to Jack's apartment immediately after dropping Vicky off. Often they didn't travel ten feet inside the door before they were tearing at each other's clothes. From there they usually wound up on the nearest horizontal surface. Today, however, they'd made it all the way to the bed.

Jack pulled the sheet up to his neck, but she pushed it down.

"I'd hardly call that 'little.' " He watched Gia's fingers trace over it. "Does it hurt?"

"Nah."

She pressed and he winced.

"Right," she said. "Doesn't hurt a bit. How long have you had it?"

"Since last night." Since a little before midnight, to be exact.

He told her about the creep taking a shot at him, and how the Kevlar vest had saved him.

"Thank God you were wearing it!" she said. She couldn't seem to take her eyes off it or stop touching it. "But if the vest is bulletproof, how come you're hurt?"

"Well, it did keep the bullet from going through me, but the slug's still got all that velocity behind it. Something had to absorb it, and that something was me."

Jack still wasn't sure why he'd given in to the impulse to wear the Santa suit. Usually if he dressed up it was either as a lure or to allay suspicion. Last night's flamboyant performance with the ho-ho-ho's and the beard and red suit was not his style.

But somehow… this time, this job… he'd felt compelled to make a point.

And he'd known that was stupid. Experience had taught him, when you try to make a point instead of simply getting the job done, you up the chances of things going wrong, which ups your chances of getting hurt.

So Jack had taken precautions. He never wore body armor, but had made an exception last night. Normally he would have opened a can of mace and lobbed it into the truck, then taken down the guy or guys with a sap when they tumbled out the door. But doing the Santa thing required more exposure, and he knew sure as hell someone would have a gun.

He'd been right. The guy got off a lucky shot that felt like a four-by-four slamming end-on into Jack's chest. Knocked him off the truck and the wind out of his lungs, but the ten-ply vest had stopped the slug.

Good thing he'd had those weighted gloves. Abe hadn't been able to find white ones, but he'd provided Jack a pair of white cotton gloves to wear over the more traditional black leather. The lead inserts doubled the impact of every punch and allowed him to make short work of the creep.

And then Jack had lost it. Maybe it was the pain, maybe it was thinking how he'd be dead if he hadn't worn the vest, and maybe it was remembering the victims of the slimeball's rip-off. Whatever, the darkness within slipped out of its hole and took over for a little while.

Gia slipped an arm around him and pulled him closer.

One of her breasts rested on the bruise. She nuzzled against his neck.

"When are you going to quit this?" she said.

Jack took a deep breath and felt a sharp stab of pain. He figured the bullet impact had caused a minor separation in his rib cartilage. Not the first time for him, probably not the last.

"Oh, we're not going to get into that now, are we?" he said softly, smoothing her soft blond hair.

"It's just that I get so scared when I think about people shooting at you."

"It's not an everyday occurrence. Most of my fix-ups are strictly hands-off affairs."

"But there's always the potential for things to go wrong. I mean, you're not exactly dealing with upstanding citizens in your line of work."

"You've got a point there."

Maybe if he kept agreeing, she'd let it drop.

"I know I owe Repairman Jack, but—"

"You don't owe him anything."

"Yes, I do. Vicky is alive because of him. That crazy Indian killed Grace and Nellie, and if you had been anybody else, he would have fed Vicky to those things …"

She shuddered and pressed against him.

Jack closed his eyes and remembered the nightmare… Kusum Bahkti had traveled from Bengal to honor a vow of vengeance against the Westphalen family stemming from an atrocity during the Raj. With her aunts Grace and Nellie gone, Vicky was the last of the Westphalen line.

Kusum had come this close to fulfilling his vow.

"I think ol' RJ owes Gia an equal debt. If you hadn't come back here that night…"

Jack had been cut up pretty bad saving Vicky. He'd lost a lot of blood, and was too weak to cross the room to the phone. If Gia hadn't come looking for him and taken him over to Doc Hargus…

"I'd say we're even," he said.

He felt Gia shake her head against his shoulder.

"No. Anybody off the street could have found you and got you to a hospital. But saving Vicky… if you had been a carpenter or a copywriter, or even a cop, anyone but who you are… she'd be gone. And that's why I feel like such a hypocrite when I tell you to hang up your Repairman Jack suit—"

"Hey, now. You make me sound like Batman."

"Okay, you're not into spandex, but deep down inside, that's who you are, aren't you."