Repairman Jack [05]-Hosts (19 page)

"Then you've heard about the man they're looking for."

"The one they're calling the Savior?"

Jack looked at her and nodded. "Uh-huh."

Gia met his eyes, then she paled and jammed her hand against her mouth. "Oh, God, Jack, no!"

"What is it?" Vicky said from the rear. "What happened?"

"A car came too close, honey," Gia said.

"Oh." She went back to her Harry Potter book.

Gia stared at him. "I heard about it on the news. I worried about you, if you were one of the victims, but that lasted only an instant because then they were talking about someone who'd stopped the, um"—her eyes flashed toward the rear seat—"carnage and then taken off, and the first person I thought of was you, because you wouldn't let something like that happen, and you certainly wouldn't hang around afterward." She took a breath. "But I never really
believed
it was you. It must have been awful!"

"It was. But it's getting worse. Julio says someone was flashing what looks like a police artist's sketch of me around his place this morning. And from Julio's description it sounds like this kid from
The Light
who was sitting near me when it went down."

"
The Light!"
Gia made a face. "What are you going to do?"

"Not sure yet. But I've got to do something."

Jack drove on with a cold weight in his stomach. Couldn't let this kid go on flashing his picture around the Upper West Side. Sooner or later—sooner, Jack bet—someone would recognize the kid as the eyewitness reporter from
The Light
and two and two would add up to him.

5

The good thing about the lower end of Riverside Park, Sandy had decided, was that it was narrow enough to allow him to see from one side to the other. Luxury midrise apartment houses climbed to the east, and the Hudson sparkled in the late morning sun to the west beyond the trees and the highway. The bad part was that the man he was looking for was nowhere to be seen.

He'd wandered from the Eleanor Roosevelt statue all the way to the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial and back. The mild weather was drawing more and more people outdoors. He checked out the basketball courts, the sunbathers, the readers, the snoozers, the frisbee tossers, the dog walkers, even the baby carriage pushers, showing his printout to anyone he could collar.

No luck. Zero. Zilch.

A beautiful day but he wasn't in the mood to appreciate it as he stood near the bronze statue of a very young-looking Eleanor and wondered, Have I been had?

Could this Julio guy have sent him on this wild goose chase just to get rid of him so he could start his own search?

Sandy looked around, trying to decide whether to leave or hang in a little longer. He'd shown the printout to everyone in sight…

… except the man on the bench downslope from where he stood. When had he arrived? He slouched on the seat, chin on chest with his arms folded and a baseball cap pulled low over his face, catching forty winks.

Sandy walked toward him. He felt a brief flutter of apprehension about disturbing a sleeping man but he was determined to leave no stone unturned.

"Excuse me, sir," he said as he reached him. "Can I ask you a question?"

What happened next was a blur: the man did not look up but his hand darted out to grab the collar of Sandy's T-shirt, twisting it tight about his throat as he yanked him nearly off his feet to land in a half sprawl next to him on the bench.

Now the head turned and Sandy knew this face, the face he'd been showing people for two days, but he didn't know the eyes because the mild brown seemed so much darker now and so full of fury. He opened his mouth to cry out but the index finger of the man's free hand was in his face, an inch from his left eye, and he was talking through his teeth.

"Not a word! Not a sound!"

Sandy nodded four, five, six times. Sure, sure, he'd say nothing. That was easy. Couldn't speak if he wanted to with his tongue glued to the dry roof of his mouth.

Sandy's brain screamed: What did I do wrong? Why's he so mad? He's not going to hurt me, is he?

The man, the Savior, transferred his grip from the front of Sandy's shirt to the back, jerking him upright on the bench. He snatched the printout from Sandy's grasp and stared at it.

Maybe he's unbalanced, Sandy thought, feeling his body begin to quake. His thoughts flew in wild directions. Maybe he's as psycho as the killer on the train. Maybe he was going to start killing the passengers himself but the other guy started first and that's why he killed him because
he'd
wanted to do it.

Sandy struggled to calm himself. Stop being an idiot. The Savior had had that tiny little pistol. Hadn't been equipped for mass murder.

But sure as hell there was murder in his eyes now.

Sandy looked around. He was in a public place, people all around. Nothing was going to happen to him here.

But then anyone on the last car of the Nine the other night might have said that too.

"Where'd you get this?" the Savior said.

Sandy's attempt at a reply came out a croak.

The Savior shook him roughly. "Tell me!"

"I-I made it."

"You drew this?"

"Computer."

"Who else knows about it?"

"Just me. Look, I don't know what you're so mad—"

"How many copies?"

Sandy figured he'd better tell the truth. "A couple more on me. A bunch more at home."

"And where's that?"

He saw where this was going and didn't like it. He realized he was in the grip of a very dangerous man who was royally pissed. Detective McCann's words from that fateful night rushed back at him.

…
fucking executed him… he's a pro
…

Sandy's bladder squeezed. What had he got himself into? He needed some insurance, and fast.

"I left one in an envelope in my desk!" he blurted. "To be opened in case something happens to me."

Now he wished to hell he had.

The Savior stared at him for what seemed like an eternity, then released him with a shove. "Yeah, right." He held out his hand. "Give me the rest of them."

Sandy fished out the printouts and handed them over. The Savior folded them, then stared out toward the Hudson.

"Go home, shred those other copies, and mind your own business."

"But this
is
my business!"

"Dogging my ass is your business?"

"I'm a journalist. I'm not out to hurt you—"

"That's a relief."

"I just want an exclusive."

The Savior looked at him again. "A what?"

"When you come in, I want an exclusive on your story."

"You've heard the expression 'when hell freezes over'? Satan will be figure skating when I come in."

Sandy was stunned. Could he believe this? He'd figured the Savior was consulting with a lawyer and waiting for the media buzz to build to a howling frenzy before coming forward. That he might have no intention of coming in at all had never occurred to him.

"You can't be serious! You're a hero! You'll be on the cover of every newspaper and magazine in the world. Instant celebrity"—he snapped his fingers—"like
that
! Any restaurant, any club in town—
zip
—you go right to the head of the line."

"Yeah? Is that how Bernie Goetz is being treated these days?"

The Goetz case—was that why the Savior was hiding? It did make sense. Goetz had wound up bankrupt with his life turned upside down and inside out by the trials and suits. But that wasn't going to happen here.

"Look, I'm no lawyer, but there's no parallel. Goetz's attackers hadn't killed anybody and they had no guns when he opened up on them. The guy you shot had two guns, had just murdered six people, and was only getting started. Goetz saved himself from getting mugged and maybe cut up, you saved
other
people's lives—lots of them."

"Including yours."

"Yeah. Including mine. For which I'll be eternally grateful."

"Well, in return, you forget you ever saw me and we'll call it even."

Low-grade terror still crawled through Sandy's gut, but something in him refused to let him cave.

"Look, I can't. I've got a higher calling: the people's right to know."

"And your exclusive right to tell them? Cut me a break, kid. If I show up, I face a gang of charges: owning an unregistered weapon and carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, just for starters. You and those others are alive today because of multiple criminal acts on my part."

Criminal acts… what a great hook.

"Hey, don't worry about that. You'll be such a hero, what DA would dare bring you to trial? Instant celebrity! Think of it! Every door will be open to you. People dream about an opportunity like this!"

"Some people don't."

Didn't this guy realize what he was throwing away?

The Savior rose. "Like I said before: shred the drawings and forget about this."

He turned and started to move away.

"I
can't
forget it!" Sandy heard himself cry out. "This is my life! My future! I can
make
you come in! I can have that drawing in tomorrow morning's paper!"

The Savior stopped, turned, and Sandy quailed when he saw the look in his eyes. Maybe he'd overdone it; maybe he'd pushed this man just a little too far… pushed a man who shouldn't be pushed.

"You know… you make me wish I'd waited just a little bit longer before taking that guy out."

The realization of how much he owed this man slammed into Sandy now with the force of a runaway train.

He saved my life.

Talk about cliches. How many times had he heard people say that about saving just about everything
but
a life? Somebody finds a lost set of keys, helps finish a paper or report, provides a breath mint before an important meeting:
You saved my life
.

Not even close.

But with this man, it was a fact. Sandy knew he should be saying, You saved my everything. Sandy owed him his boxed byline in the paper yesterday, owed him last night with Beth, owed him the big fat hairy future he envisioned, a future he'd been planning to ride to on this man's back.

The Savior said, "Do your damnedest," and started to turn away again.

"Wait! Please! I'm being a shit."

"No argument here."

"Can't we work something out?"

"I doubt it."

"But there's got to be a way I can get my exclusive and you stay out of the spotlight."

Out of the spotlight… Sandy was still baffled by the man's reluctance to take credit for his heroism, but he owed him too much not to try and honor his wishes, no matter how shortsighted.

"I don't see how," the Savior said. "If you get your exclusive it means you've seen me. Then the pressure for a description is on, not just from your bosses, but from the cops—especially the cops."

"I could claim I'm protecting the confidentiality of my source."

"And then you're slapped with obstruction of justice. How many nights you think you'll last in Rikers before you cave?"

Sandy hated to admit it, but he doubted he'd hang on through an
hour
at Rikers. And then an idea struck.

"Not if I say you called me and I got the story over the phone!"

The Savior seemed to be considering this as he stood silent and stared at Sandy.

Finally he nodded. "That'll work. You go ahead and make up something—whatever you want. Say I said it and that'll be that."

"No-no. That won't cut it. I want this to be real. The truth."

They were talking about his future here. He couldn't base it on a fabricated story.

"The truth? Since when does anyone care about that?"

"I do. Pretty much."

The Savior stared at him. "You're not going away, are you."

Sandy mustered all his courage and shook his head. Would the man who'd saved his life, take it? He thought not.

"Sorry. I can't drop this. I just can't."

A long silence with the two of them standing statue still, facing each other, while growing moisture soaked Sandy's armpits.

Finally, "What do you want, kid?"

"I'll need
some
background, but I'm sure people will be mainly interested in how you learned to shoot and why you were carrying a pistol that night, and most important, what was going through your mind before and after you killed the killer."