Repairman Jack [05]-Hosts (41 page)

And then it occurred to him that Beth had been on the train too. She deserved a little attention. And he wasn't greedy. He could share the spotlight.

The question was, did Beth want this known?

What a question. How could she not?

He raised his hand and pulled her closer. "I'd like to introduce Beth Abrams. We met on the train that night and we've hardly been apart since, which proves that even the darkest cloud can have a silver lining."

The burst of applause and cheers, and the grins from the encircling crowd swept over him in a warm wave. He glanced at Beth and found her smiling up at him.

"That was sweet," she said.

She leaned toward him and they kissed, sending the crowd into another outburst of whoops.

"We're a hit," he said into her ear as he hugged her. "Maybe we should get an act together and take it on the road."

He was only partly kidding. If he could feel just one tenth of this every night…

Another tap on his shoulder. He turned and found a fellow about his age but all in black with a closely shaved head and a stud through his left eyebrow.

"Anytime you want to ditch this scene," he said in a low voice, "let me know."

"I don't get you."

"I'm talking about going some place very cool."

"This seems pretty cool." At least at the moment. Certainly a lot cooler now than when he'd arrived.

"This is nothing. I'm talking about a club. An exclusive club."

"Exclusive, huh?" He didn't have much money on him. The cover here had been only five bucks. In some of those clubs, "exclusive" was just a euphemism for overpriced-up-the-wazoo. "What's it called?"

"It's not called anything. I'm talking about a place so exclusive it doesn't even have a name. Doesn't need one."

"I don't know…"

"Don't worry. I can get you in. You'll be my guest. I think the regulars would like to meet you and your lady."

"Who might these regulars be?"

"Big names who wouldn't want me talking about them. But you've heard of them—everybody has. We're talking household names. You've seen their faces on the screen—the big one, not the little one. And if not their faces, then you've seen their names in big letters. You don't look like the fashion magazine type, but if you check out the Victoria's Secret catalog now and then you've seen some of the ladies' bodies."

Sandy had heard of such places: celebrity hangs for supermodels and movie people—stars, directors, producers—who wanted a place where they wouldn't be ogled and hounded for autographs.

And this guy's inviting me. Me! Shit, I don't believe this!

"All right," Sandy drawled with maximum cool. "I suppose we can check it out." He turned to Beth. "Come on. We're leaving."

"Where are we going?"

"A special place where we can have a little peace and quiet."

"Okay by me. I'll find Jay and Alissa and—"

"They're not invited. Just us."

"You think that's right?" The truth was, he hadn't thought about it. "Believe me, Beth, you'll want to be in this place."

"Fine, but the least we can do is say good-bye. I'll go find them." As he watched her thread through the thicket of people, he thought, I'm out on the town with my conscience.

Which, all things considered, probably wasn't such a bad thing.

15

She thought she'd fallen asleep, but now Kate is up and walking.

She's outside. Where? Somehow she left Jack's and is walking the street. But not Jack's street. It's much wider, with houses instead of brownstones. She's in Queens, in a place called Middle Village.

Somehow she knows that. But how? She knows nothing of Queens.

She feels a buzz of anticipation as she turns up the walk toward one of the houses. It's dark on the first floor, with a single window lit on the second. Up the three steps, across the front porch, she reaches her hand toward the bell—

No! That's not her hand! It's too big, the fingers too thick. And she doesn't own a ring that looks anything like—

She knows that ring. She saw it on Holdstock's hand. But how did she get it? And what's happened to her hands? She watches as one of them pushes the bell button, not with a fingertip but with a knuckle. Strange way to ring. And what is this undercurrent of dread she senses?

The door opens then and it's Dr. fielding standing behind the screen.

"Terrence," he says. "What a surprise."

Terrence? Isn't that Holdstock's first name?

"I hope I'm not disturbing you, Doctor," she hears herself say in Holdstock's voice, "but I need your help."

"Come in, come in," Fielding says, pushing open the screen door. "As a matter of fact, I could use your help too. Maybe we can help each other."

As she follows him inside, kicking the door closed behind her, she begins to realize what this is: another one of those surreal dreams she's been having. What's the symbolism here? What conflict is her unconscious trying to resolve?

Then she sees it: Because he was the first to be infected, Holdstock represents the leadership of the Unity. She's terrified by the Unity's invasion of her mind and body, so her subconscious is dealing with that by turning the tables and portraying her as having invaded Holdstock's.

But understanding doesn't release her from the dream's iron grip. She's simply going to have to ride it out.

Fielding is leading the way. "Let's go to my study where we can talk."

Her dread increases as she closes on Fielding's back, fumbling in her—Holdstock's—coat pocket and withdrawing a slim wire with a wooden handle on each end. Although she's never seen one, Kate knows it's a garrote. And she knows that Holdstock made it himself this afternoon, spending an hour drilling a midpoint hole through each of two short lengths of doweling, threading electrical wire through, winding it around and around and triple-knotting it.

Kate from the outset disliked this dream, and hates it now, but she can't stop Holdstock from crossing his wrists and looping the wire over the unsuspecting Doctor's head, from wrenching back on those handles and cinching the wire tight around Fielding's throat, from twisting the wire against the nape of his neck to lock it in place.

A grunt from Fielding as he claws at his throat and tries to turn but she—Holdstock—she—Holdstock—dear Lord, she can't be sure—keeps a relentless grip on the handles and stays behind the frantically struggling doctor. She can see half of his panicked, wide-mouthed face as it darkens toward blue, see one of his baffled, bulging, blood-engorged eyes as it pleads for mercy, for air, for life.

And Kate wants to scream but she's mute, tries to loosen her grip on those handles but cannot.

And now Fielding is kicking and spasming and clawing and twisting madly, slamming the both of them against the dining room table, doing anything within his fading power to break free, but Holdstock's body outweighs his by at least fifty pounds and Kate uses that to hang on, a homicidal rodeo rider on a doomed horse.

Stop it! Oh, dear God, let the poor man go!

But her cries are silent, her pleas unheeded.

And now Fielding's legs give way and he drops to his knees. Kate goes with him, directly behind, maintaining her relentless tension on the wire. His frantic movements slow, his body sags to the side. But Kate stays with him all the way to the floor, never letting up, shoving him onto his face and jamming her knees into his back and hanging on through the terminal spasms as the cells in Fielding's oxygen-starved brain and myocardium fire randomly, agonally, and then finally, not at all.

A stink fills the air as Fielding's sphincters relax. That's the sign she's been waiting for. Kate unwinds the wire and pulls it free. She jumps as Fielding sighs—a flat, atonal sound. But it's only the trapped air in his lungs escaping past his vocal cords. Gripping the table she hauls herself to her feet.

She stares down at the corpse of what had once been a brilliant man. Her dread has changed to remorse, deep regret… such a waste.

Heading for the door, she stuffs the garrote in one pocket and pulls a glove from another. She pulls on the glove and uses that hand to open the front door and close it behind her.

Kate is weeping inside as she walks back down the street, pursued by regret and remorse, and perhaps even a trace of guilt that is not her own.

SUNDAY

1

"Did last night really happen?" Beth said, her lithe body snuggled against his under the sheet.

Sandy stroked her bare shoulder. "Last night? That was this morning, babe. And I can't believe it's only eight and we're awake already."

They'd stumbled in around five, too wired for sleep, so they'd stripped and made wild, wild love. Sandy didn't know about Beth, but last night had been the best of his life—not that he had a whole lot to compare it to.

"I don't think I slept at all—I mean, I know I closed my eyes, but I don't think I slept a wink. Did it really happen? Was it a dream or was that really Leo DiCaprio with his hand on my shoulder? Was that really us in that club?"

"That was us," he replied. "And that's going to be us from now on."

On the way to Tribeca in the cab, the mysterious fellow they'd hooked up with at Kenny's told them his name was Rolf—he pronounced it strangely, as if he'd stuck an umlaut over the
o
—and how he knew all sorts of interesting people, and how his hobby, his mission in life was putting interesting people together with other interesting people.

That turned out to be a major overstatement, but Rolf had not been exaggerating about the club. Its entrance was an unmarked red door on Franklin Street. He'd had Sandy and Beth wait in the cab while he talked to someone inside the door. Finally, after what had struck Sandy as more of a negotiation than a conversation, the three of them were passed through.

Through the course of the next few hours Sandy learned that Rolf's day job was managing an ultra-exclusive accessories department in Blume's where he met the rich and famous, and his real talent seemed to be an ability as a hanger-on to parlay his acquaintanceships into entrees to exclusive scenes; he'd used Sandy's celebrity as a wedge into the nameless space, a place he'd never be admitted to on his own.

Once inside Rolf led them up a narrow staircase to a low-lit room with a small bar and lots of comfortable chairs grouped around low tables. It had taken all of Sandy's will to keep from gawking and tripping over his own feet as they followed Rolf to the bar.

He left them there and Beth's nails had been digging into Sandy's upper arm as she whispered, barely moving her lips: "Did you see who was in the red chair? And over in the corner—don't be obvious—is that who I think it is?"

It was.

Rolf meanwhile circulated to a few tables, bending and whispering in ears. Minutes later he'd returned and said, "Bobby would like you to join him at his table for a drink."

"Bobby?" Sandy said. "Bobby who?"

"De Niro, of course."

Oh, shit, he'd thought. I can't do this. He's… he's fucking
De Niro
and he's going to see right through me! But then he thought, Wait. Has De Niro ever been trapped in a speeding subway car with a murderous psycho blowing away everyone in sight? Fuck, no.

But Sandy had. So what was so scary about Bobby De Niro?

"Okay," Sandy had said, cool as a cube. "Let's go."

And so they'd had a drink with De Niro while Sandy told the story, and during the telling other famous faces had gathered around, listening, nodding, murmuring approval and awe.

And then Harvey Weinstein had drawn Sandy aside, talking about working up a piece for
Talk
with an eye toward developing the article into a screen property. Sandy could barely speak, just kept nodding, agreeing to anything, everything, his gaze always drifting back to Beth, deep in filmspeak with De Niro and DiCaprio.

"I still can't believe I spent the night talking about my student film with Robert De Niro—who kept telling me to call him 'Bobby'! How could I call him 'Bobby'? The word wouldn't pass my lips."

"I heard you calling DiCaprio 'Leo'."

"That's different; he's my age. But Robert De Niro… he's a god. He's
Mister
De Niro. And he's going to help me with my film! Lend me equipment! Let me use his AVID! Pinch me, Sandy."

He did. Gently. "There. And we're still right here together. You're on your way, Beth."

"And I owe it to one person. The Savior."

Sandy was a little miffed. He'd thought she was going to name him.

"The Savior didn't get you into that club."

"Not directly, but if not for him, the only place I would have been last night was six feet under."

Sandy couldn't argue with that. A small part of him kept insisting that he would have found some way to survive, but when he took a hard look back on that scene on the Nine… no way.

"Do you really think you can get him amnesty?" Beth said, stroking his arm.