Repairman Jack [05]-Hosts (44 page)

"So I take it, then," Kate said slowly, "that if all the bad guys went away, magically disappeared, you'd give up your guns?"

"Not a chance."

Kate nodded. Didn't smile, but her eyes said,
Gotcha
.

Using an arm of the recliner for support, Jack pushed himself to his feet.

"Right now I'm too pooped to argue. Maybe after a nap…" Shuffled back to his bedroom and collapsed on the bed. After resting a moment, he picked up the phone and punched in a number. He'd checked his voicemail before leaving the bedroom and found two messages from Sandy Palmer, boy reporter. Jack would call Gia, let her know he was feeling better and see how she was doing, then it would be time for Superman to call Jimmy Olsen and get him involved in something more productive than amnesty for the Savior…

4

Meet me at noon at the bar where you were told how to find me. I need your help.

The words bounced around the inside of Sandy's head. Especially the last four:
I need your help
.

He felt light and giddy, ready to laugh aloud as he hurried up Broadway. The Upper West Side was taking advantage of the sunny Sunday morning: dinks brunching al fresco, yuppie couples herding their kids along the sidewalk toward church or the latest IMAX offering.

Look at me! he wanted to shout. Last night I was shoulder to shoulder with the ultraglitterati, and this morning I'm answering a call from the mystery man the whole country is talking about, and he wants
me
to help him out. Don't you wish you were me? You all know you do! Say it!

This was so cool. Who'd ever dream life could be this cool.

The call had been a surprise. After Sandy had all but given up hope of hearing from the Savior, the man phones and
he
wants to meet. Because he needs help.

Help with what? Amnesty wasn't mentioned. Could he be in some sort of jam?

But back to cool: that was how Sandy was determined to be at this meet. Cool. Ultracool. Don't let the excitement show, don't buy right away into whatever he wants you to do. Think about it… check it out from all angles… weigh all the pluses and minuses…

Then jump in with both feet.

He grinned. Yes!

He'd forgotten the exact location of Julio's and made a couple of wrong turns before he found it. He stepped inside and it was déjà vu all over again: the dead plants in the window, the dark interior, the musty smell of stale beer, and at the bar, the same two hard drinkers who'd given him a hard time before. What were their names? Barney and Lou. Right. Everything exactly the same, like he'd stepped back in time: the same shots and drafts on the bar, and Sandy could swear Barney was wearing the same faded T-shirt. Did these two live here?

"Hey, meng."

Sandy glanced right to see the muscular little Hispanic owner strolling his way.

Julio said, "You've come to give me my share of the inheritance, eh?"

"What?" Sandy said, baffled.

Julio held up Sandy's original Identi-Kit printout and waved it in his face.

"The guy you were looking for, meng! I toF you where he was, so now you give me my cut, right?"

What was this—some kind of shakedown?

"Th-that was just a joke."

Julio's expression was grim. "You see me smiling, meng? You hear me laughing?"

"Maybe this was a mistake," Sandy said, turning toward the door. "I think I'd better—"

Julio's sudden grip on his arm was like a steel manacle. "He's waiting for you in the back."

He gave Sandy a push toward the shadowed rear section; nothing rough about it, but firm enough to let him know which way he was going whether he liked it or not.

Behind him Sandy heard Barney and Lou snigger. Joke's on me, I guess. Ha-ha. Everyone's a comedian.

As he wound his way among tables laden with upended chairs, a pale form began to take shape behind a cleared table set with a large bottle of orange Gatorade. The Savior… his back against the rear wall. But he looked terrible. Even in this murky light Sandy could make out his sunken, half-glazed eyes and sallow skin.

"My God, what happened?" Sandy asked.

"Sit down." The voice was a weak rasp.

Sandy pulled out a chair and settled opposite him, as far away as possible while still at the same table. Whatever he had, Sandy didn't want it.

"Are you sick?"

The Savior shook his head. He seemed barely able to stay upright. "I was poisoned."

It took Sandy a few seconds to process the words. Poisoned?
Poisoned
?

"No shit! Who? Why?"

"Let me start at the beginning. You were right to doubt what I told you about doing undercover work for the government: all bullshit."

Am I good or am I good, Sandy thought with a surge of pride. He suppressed a grin and let a sage nod suffice.

"I make ends meet," the Savior went on, "by doing odd jobs for cash. One of those jobs is bodyguarding. Sort of a freelance thing, you know? Last week a certain Dr. James Fielding was referred to me. You recognize the name?"

Sandy had never heard of the man but didn't want to look dumb. "Sounds familiar but I can't place him."

The Savior sipped from his Gatorade bottle. "You may have heard it on the news this morning: he was murdered last night."

"Oh, man! And you were supposed to protect him!" Sandy put two and two together. "Is that why you were poisoned?"

The Savior nodded. "Fielding wouldn't tell me why, but for some reason he was afraid of a former patient named Terrence Holdstock. He said he didn't have enough to go to the police, but he feared for his life."

"Some sort of malpractice thing?"

"I'm not sure. I did a little investigating—in fact I was on my way back from doing just that when our friend on the Nine started shooting. What I learned is that this Holdstock is the leader of some sort of cult."

"A cult? I helped research a feature we did on local cults a while back but I never heard of him."

"It's a small cult, and relatively new. And get this: all members are former patients of Dr. Fielding."

"Oh, that's weird. That's really weird."

"Wait. It gets weirder. They drew lots and Holdstock won: he got the honor of murdering Fielding. And not by just any means—by strangulation."

Sandy leaned back and stared at this man. Yes, he'd saved Sandy's life, but he'd also lied to him. Was he lying again? Sandy prayed not. Few things on earth were sexier—news-wise, of course—than a murder cult.

"How do you know all this?"

"I can fill you in on the how later. What matters is Holdstock succeeded, and damn near offed me in the process." He lifted his Gatorade bottle. "I tend to drink this like water. But yesterday they spiked it with something that was supposed to kill me."

"Why kill you?"

"Because I knew too much. And I stood between Fielding and the cult. But they must have miscalculated the dose because it only put me down, way down, but not out. I couldn't move but I could still see, and I watched Holdstock strangle Fielding with an electrical wire garrote."

"You're an eyewitness? Oh, man! Oh, man, oh, man, oh,
man
! You can put this guy away!"

Sandy's mind was ranging back and forth, inspecting the story from all angles. If it was true—and please, please, please, God, let it be true!—and if Sandy could break the story…

But the Savior was shaking his head. "Not me. I'm not putting anyone away."

"Why not?" And then he remembered. "Oh, shit, yes. You're wanted."

"Right. And as if that's not bad enough, I left the scene—dragged myself away is more like it—and didn't report it. If I open my mouth I'm open to even more charges. That's where you come in."

Sandy sensed what was coming and he liked it. Liked it a lot. He leaned forward. "What do you have in mind?"

"Holdstock goes down." His mouth tightened into a grim line. "I

took on a job and didn't get it done because of him. That hurts my rep. I work on referrals and this will be bad for business. But even worse, he damn near killed me in the process. So he's going down."

"Where do I come in?"

"You must know cops. You call one of them and tell him. I'll be a confidential source, someone who witnessed the murder but can't get involved. I saw your name in
The Light
and figured you're the one to call."

Something about this bothered Sandy. It was too easy, too pat. If this didn't pan he could end up looking like a gullible fool. But why would the Savior dupe him? What did that gain him?

Unless he was crazy, a complete paranoid who'd dreamed this whole thing up.

Which would make him an
armed
paranoid.

Or even worse, what if he'd killed this doctor himself?

Sandy felt his buttocks clench. He'd better be very careful what he said right now, and how he said it.

The murder was easily verifiable, but what about the rest?

He cleared his throat. "I'm all for helping you, but I can't just call up the NYPD and say, 'So-and-so did it.'"

"Holdstock. Terrence Holdstock. Lives in the Bronx. I'll give you his address."

"Great. But I'll need more."

"You can tell them about the electrical wire garrote. I'll bet they've figured that out by now but haven't released it."

"That'll help. But if there's no known motive, what do we have to connect Holdstock to this doctor, besides being his patient?"

"How about a handprint at the scene of the crime?"

Sandy straightened in his chair. "You're sure about that?"

The Savior nodded. "Holdstock covered his tracks, very careful not to touch anything in the house, but I saw him lean on the dining room table right after he finished with Fielding."

"
Now
you're talking."

Sandy's thoughts raced ahead. Worst case scenario: This is all a load of bullshit. If so, the worst that can happen is the cops think I'm just a reporter who got a bum steer from a wacked-out source. I can live with that.

How about best case scenario? If it's all true…

Sandy had to grip the edge of the table to keep from soaring away. If it's all true it means he'll be instrumental in exposing not only a murderer but a murder
cult
. He'll be all over the front page again. But more than a brighter spotlight, this new story will earn him real credibility. His amnesty campaign for the Savior will make his bones in advocacy journalism while this murder cult story will simultaneously establish him as a major investigative reporter. No one will be able to call him a flash in the pan or a lucky one-hit wonder. Sandy Palmer will have
arrived
.

Harvey Weinstein can develop the subway massacre into a studio property, but Sandy could see the murder cult story going up for auction.

Hold on, he thought, reining in his fantasies. We're not even to first base here yet.

"All right," Sandy said. "I'll run it up the flagpole with some cops I know and see if they salute."

The Savior squinted at him. "You're going to
what?"''

"I'm going to run with it. But I've got to ask: what do you want out of this?"

"Besides anonymity? I want Holdstock in Rikers getting passed around the showers like a party favor."

Sandy shuddered. "You have to know this might mean I can't devote as much time as I'd like to your amnesty cause."

"Told you I'm not interested in that."

Maybe not, but I am.

But even if the Savior should skip town as Sandy had feared this morning, he still had this murder cult to keep him hot.

"You should be, but right now I guess we've got a hotter fish to fry." He pulled out his notepad. "Okay, let's get some of these details down so I have my facts straight when I call the cops…"

5

Kate came out of Jack's kitchen when she heard the door open. He looked terrible as he stumbled across the front room like an exhausted homing pigeon flapping toward its roost. She followed and watched as he tumbled face first onto the bed she'd just made up. She'd opened the window to freshen the stale, sick air.

"Jack, are you all right?"

"Just swell," he said, his words muffled by the bedspread against his face.

"You could have fooled me."

"Imagine what's left of the Hindenberg on the Lakehurst tarmac after burning and crashing and you have the beginning of a hint."

"I was worried about you."

Those words startled her, not because they weren't what she'd intended, but because she wasn't saying them. A stormwave of terror smashed against her.