Repairman Jack [03]-Conspiracies (32 page)

The rim is almost to the hotel now. Jack grabs a chair and uses it to smash the window. Then he climbs out onto the ledge and strains to see into the depths, but the bottom is lost in midnight shadow. He feels the building shudder and tilt to a crazy angle. As the hotel leans, poised on the rim, Jack leaps from the ledge. If he's going to fall, he'll fall his way.

He swan-dives into the abyss ...

And hears a loud crash! It's not the hotel ... it's something else ... something smaller ... closer ...

Jack blinked in the darkness. Not complete darkness. The glowing red numerals on the clock read 4:33; light from the street filtered around the drapes. No cosmic rumble or sound of mass panic in the street outside.

He let out a deep breath. Another nightmare. But what was that noise? Sounded like it had come from—

"Aw, no."

Grabbing his pistol from under the pillow, he jumped out of bed and crept toward the bathroom. The only light at this end of the room was a narrow strip from the hallway leaking past the bottom edge of the door. The bathroom was dark ... and the cold air flowing from it chilled his feet.

"Not again."

He reached in and turned on the light. Squinting in the glare, he saw the first crate under the sink where he'd left it. But now a new box of the same dark green material, smoking like dry ice, sat in the middle of the floor.

Jack checked the room door. This time he'd leaned the desk chair under the doorknob before hitting the sack. The chair was still in the wedged position.

Back to the bathroom: the second box had obviously arrived by the same route as the first. Which was ... how?

He stepped back to the desk and retrieved a hotel pen from beside the phone, then used that to flip off this crate's lid.

No mini girders this time. The new crate was filled with curved metal plates and copper spheres, all collecting a rime of frost as moisture from the air condensed and froze on their surfaces. He checked out the underside of the lid and saw more construction plans—an exploded diagram of whatever it was, plus an illustration of the completed structure: Looked like an oil rig with a warty dome on top. As before, the directions appeared to have been seared into the material of the lid. He even thought he saw something that looked like lettering in one corner, but couldn't decipher it through the thickening layer of frost. He could check that out later. Right now ...

Jack shivered—with cold as well as uneasiness. It was damn near freezing in here. He turned off the light and closed the bathroom door behind him.

He checked the clock again: 4:35 A.M. This second crate had arrived about the same time as the first. What was all this? Some weird equivalent of the "interociter" from
This Island Earth
? Was that it? Was he supposed to assemble the damn thing?

"Don't hold your breath, whoever you are," he muttered as he sat on the bed.

Jack had a bad feeling about that gizmo in there, a sense that putting it together might not be such a good idea. But even if he were gung-ho to do the Erector Set thing with it, he didn't have any tools with him.

He wondered if Lew had come back to the hotel. Wouldn't hurt to get his input. Maybe he'd seen something like this before.

An ungodly hour to get a call, but so what? Lew had got him into this. He rang Lew's room but no answer.

Still out in Shoreham, he guessed. It could wait till morning.

Jack got back under the covers but knew he wouldn't sleep. He tried not to think of those crates or the dream ... a giant hole again, sucking him down. Why did it feel more like a premonition than a dream?

His thoughts drifted to Ceil Castleman and the lost, utterly crushed look in her eyes as he'd led her to the closet. And that called up another vision—Lewis Ehler, who seemed rudderless without his missing Melanie.

He lay still, thinking about lost souls as daylight grew beyond the pulled curtains.

Roma ...

"Once again we come up empty-handed," Mauricio said from his place on the basement shelf.

Roma saw no need to acknowledge the obvious. He had a sinking feeling as to where the second delivery had come to rest.

"What I do not understand is
why
. Why is the Otherness directing the components elsewhere?"

"Maybe the stranger has found a way to influence the Otherness?"

Roma snorted in derision. "That man, controlling the Otherness? I hardly think so."

"But what other explanation is there?" Mauricio said, rising and pacing along the shelf. "You are The One. The device is for your use. Why would the Otherness direct it to anyone else? Unless ... "

"Unless?"

"Never mind. It was a fleeting, ridiculous thought."

"Say it."

"Very well: Unless you are not The One."

The words staggered Roma. His terror-clenched jaw blocked speech. He locked his knees to keep from sagging. Not The One? Unthinkable! He had been preparing for ages! It could be no one else. There
was
no one else!

"You can see why I might think that," Mauricio said quickly. "After being prevented from killing the stranger, I had to wonder: Could he be The One? But of course that is impossible. I would not have been sent to you if you were not The One. The stranger has been marked by the Otherness, but he is not The One."

Mauricio was right. He had to be. The Otherness was not capricious. It was infinitely patient and glacially deliberate. It would not suddenly designate another over him without sufficient cause. And he had given it no cause.

Roma felt his muscles relax as the terror oozed away. Still, it left him feeling strangely weak.

"I believe the Otherness has plans for the stranger. In good time we will know. If it has delivered the device to him, it is no doubt for a good reason. We will not interfere."

"Your faith is admirable," Mauricio said. "But the Otherness is not infallible. It has made mistakes before, as you well know."

Roma nodded. "Mostly by underestimating the opposition." And he had often paid the price for those mistakes. "But these are different times. The opposition is all but non-existent these days."

"Let us hope you are right," Mauricio said.

Yes, Roma thought with a sharp pang of uneasiness. Let us fervently hope so.

1

Still a little shaky and unsettled from the night before, Jack balanced his cup of coffee atop the lobby pay phone and dialed Gia. Everything was fine there. No signs of anyone lurking about. That was a relief. Next he checked his voice mail. Only one call and—cheers—not from his father. Oscar Schaffer had left him a terse message.

"I've got the rest of your money. Just tell me where you want me to drop it."

Jack dialed the number and Schaffer picked up.

"Good morning. It's Jack."

"Oh. Where do you want me leave the money?"

And a gracious good morning to you too, Jack thought, wondering at Schaffer's tight, brusque tone. Go back to bed and get up on the other side.

"Drop it off at Julio's this morning. What's the story with—?"

"You going to be there?"

"Probably not."

"Good. 'Cause I don't even want to be in the same building as you, you sick, perverted bastard. I'll drop off your money, and then I don't want to see or hear or even think of you again!"

And then he hung up.

What's his problem? Jack wondered as he cradled the receiver. Schaffer should be one happy guy this morning. His sicko brother-in-law was in the hospital by now, and his sister was on vacation from her job as part-time punching bag.

Jack got a sour feeling in his stomach. Had Gus come to and managed to hurt Ceil worse than he had before? Jack couldn't see how—not with two broken legs. Had to be something else. He decided to hang out at Julio's this morning and find out firsthand what was bugging Oscar Schaffer.

He was almost to the lobby door when a familiar gangly figure limped through.

Lew. Jeez, he'd almost forgotten about him. Sometimes Jack became so immersed in a job that he lost sight of why he'd got involved in the first place. This missing Melanie thing wasn't the first gig that had taken on a life of its own, engulfing and carrying him along.

Lew looked terrible—pale, bags under his eyes, clothes wrinkled enough to look like he'd slept in them, except Jack had a feeling the guy wasn't sleeping much. Or showering much either: He needed a shave and his presence wasn't exactly a breath of fresh air.

"Lew. I thought you were out on the island."

Lew blinked heavy-lidded, red-rimmed eyes as he focused on Jack.

"I just got back. I stayed up all night out there, sitting in front of the TV, and then first thing this morning I was overcome with this feeling that I shouldn't be there. I should be ... " His voice trailed off, followed by his gaze, settling somewhere over Jack's right shoulder.

"Should be where, Lew?"

He shrugged, still staring at some far corner of the ceiling. "I don't know. Somewhere
else
. So I came here." He focused on Jack again. "Any progress? Any news?"

Yeah, Jack thought. Something tried to kill me. But the call luring him to the basement yesterday had mentioned Olive instead of Melanie, so maybe there was no connection.

On the other hand, someone else
had
mentioned Melanie's name.

"Well," Jack said, "I discovered last night that I'm not the only one looking for Melanie."

Lew blinked and straightened. "Who? Who's looking for her?"

Jack told him about his run-in with the black-clad men in the black Lincoln.

"Men in black," Lew said, rubbing a hand over his rubbery features. "Everybody's heard of them, but ... despite all the stories, I've never believed they were real. Maybe these were just guys dressed up and trying to scare you."

"Maybe. But I'll tell you this, if they were just hired meat, they were good actors; and if they were just actors, they were pretty damn tough meat. And they weren't trying to scare me off; they wanted to know where she was." He changed his tone to imitate the voice from last night. '"Where is Melanie Rubin Ehler?'"

Lew stiffened. "'Melanie
Rubin
Ehler?' They said that? They used her maiden name?"

"Every time. Something wrong with that?"

"I don't know about wrong, but it's certainly odd. Melanie never used her maiden name. She hardly ever used a middle initial."

"Well, whoever they were," Jack said, trying to boost Lew's spirits, "at least they think she's still alive—and findable."

He brightened. "Hey, that's right. That's right. Jack, I think you just made my day."

"Great, Lew. Why don't you go to your room and crash for awhile. You look dead on your feet."

"I think I'll do just that."

Jack watched Lew limp off, and couldn't help thinking of the other husband he'd dealt with in the past twenty-four hours. Could any two people be more different? Maybe someday Ceil would find herself a Lew to help her forget Gus.

As he was turning toward the door, Jack caught Roma staring at him from the other end of the lobby. Roma raised his hand, and for an instant Jack thought he was going to wave. But no—he made that three-fingered clawing gesture again.

Jack was tempted to make a gesture of his own, a more economical one employing only a single digit, but thought better of it. Instead, he held Roma's dark gaze until the monkey jumped up on his shoulder and added his own stare to his master's.

That was enough for Jack.

Later, Roma, he thought as he turned and pushed through the revolving door. We're not finished yet.

2

Roma watched the stranger leave, wondering where he was headed with such purpose at this early hour.

"Why did you do that?" Mauricio whispered when no one was looking.

"I wanted to rattle his cage, as they say."

"To what end?"

"To keep him off balance until we know the part he plays in this. Did you check his room?"

"As we assumed: the rest of the device is there."

Roma had expected this, would in fact have been shocked if Mauricio had reported otherwise, yet still it elicited a pang of dismay in his gut. Why, why,
why
?

"Undamaged?"

"Yes, but still, I am worried."

"No need to be," Roma said, forcing a casual tone. "As I told you, he knows nothing of the Otherness. And yet the Otherness seems to want him involved. Else why deliver the device to him—and protect him from you? No, my friend. We must watch carefully and see how this plays out ... before another sunrise we will know what part this stranger is to play."

Mauricio growled his dissatisfaction, then said, "By the way, I ran into Frayne Ganfield this morning. He's looking for you. Says he has something important to tell you."

"That despicable little hybrid always thinks he has something important to tell me. He will have to wait. I have better things to do than listen to his prattle."

Much more important, Roma thought, feeling his excitement grow. Less than twenty-four hours until his hour came round. He needed solitude. The growing anticipation made further human contact almost unbearable.