Repairman Jack [08]-Crisscross (48 page)

His voice trailed off as he stared at Jack. It made Jack a little uncomfortable.

"But what?"

"But nothing. I'm seeing that look on your face."

"What look?"

"I know it, Jack. I've seen it before. And more often than not, when I see it, someone winds up shuffling off their mortal coil."

Jack knew he tended to let his guard down with Abe, but even with reins on the darkness, was it that obvious? He'd have to watch himself.

"Maybe it's because it's not yet noon and I've had a very bad day."

"Something's wrong? Gia and Vicky—?"

Jack held up a hand. "They're fine. It's no one you know. At least personally."

Interest lit in his eyes. "And that means?"

Abe knew Jamie Grant from reading
The Light
. Maybe Jack could use her as a carrot.

"The Beretta, Abe? Get me that Beretta before tonight and I'll tell you what happened to Jamie Grant."

"
The Light
reporter?*" Abe made a grumbling noise. "You make your best friend in the whole world
earn
a little news?"

"In this case, yes. Here's the math: Beretta equals story. Because without the Beretta there won't be any story to tell. At least not this week."

"For next week I can't wait. I'll start making calls. And then you'll tell me?"

Jack nodded. "If it goes down, yeah."

He had to position the pieces where he needed them, otherwise he'd lose this week's window and have to move it to next. Didn't want to do that. He wanted this to go down
tonight
.

5

Jack closed the top drawer of Cordova's receptionist's desk. He now had the fat man's phone numbers—home and cell. Next stop, the filing cabinets.

He leafed through the folders in the top drawer, checking out age and sex of the clients. Some contained photos. Jack pulled out males in their thirties until he had a stack of six. Then he started dialing, pretending to be calling from the electric company.

All of the first batch were home. So he went back to the cabinet. One in the second batch didn't answer. Lee Dobbins. Jack studied his picture and vital statistics. Lee lived and worked in Queens. He'd suspected his business partner in their real estate firm of dealing with the competition. The wad of photos in the file—taken by Cordova, no doubt—had confirmed his suspicions. Jack memorized the salient points, then filed Dobbins back with all the others.

He then turned on the computer. He typed a note and printed it out under the Cordova Investigations Ltd. letterhead. He tri-folded it and stuck it in a pocket.

Hey, Lee Dobbins, Jack thought as he exited the office. You just got yourself a new best buddy. Me.

Jack knew he'd have to tread carefully here. Had to assume that Sister Maggie had told Cordova everything she knew—which wasn't much beyond Julio's and how Jack looked. He'd have to alter his appearance some.

The other possible hitch was Cordova calling to check Jack's story and finding Dobbins home. Jack could finesse that by calling Dobbins just before he met Cordova. If still no answer, he was golden. If he picked up… well… forget finesse then.

6

Richie Cordova jumped when his cell phone started ringing. Who'd be calling him on a Sunday afternoon? Sure as hell wouldn't be Neva. Eddy?

He'd been chilling—in the physical as well as the slang sense—outside Julio's for a couple of hours. The place wasn't real busy but had a steady trickle in and out. Richie had taken a couple of peeks in the front window. From what he could see through all the dead hanging plants—what was up with that?—it looked like a typical neighborhood bar. Reminded him of Hurley's, and how he wished he was nursing a shot and a beer there instead of hanging out here on a street far from home. He'd promised himself to stay around until three or so, then head back to do just that. The Giants had the four o'clock game against Dallas and he didn't want to miss it.

Hours of watching and still nobody sitting at one of the rear tables. Everyone clustered around the bar where the TV was.

And now someone was calling him. He pulled out the phone, flipped it open, and thumbed the SEND button.

"Yeah?"

"Mr. Cordova?" said a funny-sounding voice he didn't recognize.

"Who's this?"

"My name's Louis Gorcey and—"

"How'd you get this number?"

"I was just about to tell you that. I'm friends with Lee Dobbins and he gave it to me. He recommends you very highly."

Dobbins… Dobbins… Oh yeah. The real estate guy. But he didn't have Richie's cell number. Or did he? Richie sometimes gave it out to clients when he needed to stay real close to a situation.

"That's nice of him, but—what did you say your name was?"

"It's Gorcey. Louis Gorcey."

Something about the way he said his s's… he sounded like a fag.

"Well, Mr. Gorcey, I'm glad Lee recommended me, but this is Sunday. My office is closed. If you want to call back first thing tomorrow morning—"

"It can't wait till then. The window of opportunity is tonight. It
has
to be tonight."

"Sorry, I—"

"Please hear me out. This is very important to me and I'll make it well worth your while."

Well worth your while
… he liked the sound of that. But it
was
Sunday… and the Giants were playing Dallas…

"I'll pay you a thousand dollars cash just to meet with me and listen to my problem. If you aren't interested, then the money's yours to keep."

"This must be one hell of a problem."

"It's not so much a matter of magnitude as timing. We have to meet this afternoon because the window opens tonight."

A thousand bucks… that would be the best hourly rate he'd ever earned. And an hour was all it would be. Richie had already decided to get the money up front, listen, and say no thanks. Then he'd head for Hurley's and the game. Worst-case scenario was he'd miss part of the first quarter.

"Okay. You've got a deal. You know where my office is?"

He didn't, so Richie gave him the address. They'd meet there in half an hour.

A nasty suspicion crawled up his back as he thumbed the END button. What if this was the nun's Jack? What if he'd heard about Sister Maggie and decided to give Richie a dose of the same medicine?

He shook it off. Crazy. The nun had hired the guy to do a job and he did it. End of story. If something happened to the client afterward, so what? Not his business, not his worry.

Besides, not only did this Gorcey sound like a fag, but he knew Dobbins and had Richie's cell number.

Still, maybe he should do a little checking up before the meet.

7

Jack finally found Preston Loeb's number in an old notebook. They'd met in a martial arts class back in their twenties. Preston had been involved in one of Jack's early fix-its.

The second ring was answered by a soft, "Hello, Preston speaking."

"Preston? This is Jack." When silence followed he added, "From Ichi-san's class, remember?"

"Jack! How've you been, dearie? You never call, you never write—"

"I need a favor, Pres. A little sartorial guidance."

"You? Oh, don't tell me you're finally going to get with it! At your age? Well, better late than never, I guess. And you want me to do the
Queer Eye
thing for you? I'm flattered."

Even if he had the time—which he didn't—Jack was not in the mood for banter. But he tried to keep it light.

"I need help looking like someone who might be a friend of yours."

A pause, and then, "Now
that's
interesting. When would you want to—?"

"Now. As in right away. You free?"

"Just working on some sketches, and you know I don't like football, so, why not? Meet me at… let's see… how about Praetoria on Green Street?"

Way downtown in SoHo. He'd have to hurry.

"I'm leaving now."

8

"And now tell me, dearie, just
why
you of all people would want to look queer? You haven't crossed the street, have you?"

Preston Loeb stood six-one with a slim build; long, curly black hair—in the old days it had been straight—framed his handsome face. He wore a snug, vaguely fuzzy, short-sleeve, baby-blue sweater. His cream-colored slacks were tight down to the knees where they flared into outlandish bell-bottoms. A black alligator shoulder bag completed the picture.

They stood just inside the entrance to Praetoria, a men's store with a twenty-foot ceiling and front windows nearly as tall. The wan afternoon light filtering through them was swallowed in the glare of the bare flourescents high above. Everything was white except the contents of the clothing-filled racks and shelves that stretched ahead of them.

Jack shook his head. "Nope. Still hetero. And I don't want to look like a flaming queen. More like someone who's, say, just a couple of inches outside the closet."

"Well, as I'm sure you know, a couple of inches can make a world of difference."

Jack closed his eyes and shook his head. "Preston…"

"I know what you're thinking, Jack. That I'm more outrageous than I ever used to be, that I'm
such
a cliché. Well, you're right. I am. Deliberately. And do you know why? Because I love it. I…
love
… it. It's my way of thumbing my nose at all the uptight straights wandering this earth. But you know what? My clients, straight or gay, they love it too. They think a guy this flaming has to be a
great
interior designer. So allow me my fun, okay? Life should be fun. Although looking at you I can see you're not having much."

Jack sighed. He was right.

"You might say that. And soon I'm going to have even less. I've got to meet with a slimeball who might be expecting trouble from a stranger. I want to—How shall I say it?—put him at ease."

Pres put a hand on a hip. "And
you
think that if
he
thinks you're queer,
he'll
figure he's got nothing to fear."

"That rhymes, you know, and yes, that's the way his kind of mind works."

"But you know better, don't you."

"Oh, yeah."

Pres might be an interior designer and might look like a featherweight pushover, but Jack had trained with him; the guy had lightning reflexes and was a nunchuck wizard.

"Okay, then." Pres clapped his hands and looked around. "Let's get started, shall we." He pointed to the right. "There. Shirts. Always a good place to start."

Jack followed him to a rack and watched him fan through a rainbow of shirts. He stopped and pulled out something Jack could only describe as turquoise.

"Look at this. Isn't it scrumptious?"

"What's that stuff up and down the front? Looks like someone spilled spaghetti on it."

"It's embroidery, dearie. Embroidery is always fun."

"Never thought of clothes as fun."

"Oh, you'll never change: functional, functional, functional. Clothing should be an expression of the inner you."

Jack spread his arms. "And what do my clothes say about the inner me?"

"You really want to know, Jack? I mean, I don't want to hurt your feelings or anything."

"Don't worry. You can't."

"All right, then: The way you dress, it's like… it's like there
is
no inner you."

Jack allowed himself a smile. "Cool."

"How can you say 'cool'? That was
not
a compliment. I offered it with only the best intentions, but some—myself included—might consider it an insult."

"Don't worry about it. Empty is exactly how I like to look."

"Jack, dearest, you
do
know that you're a very odd man, don't you. I mean very,
very
odd."

"So I've been told."

He handed Jack the shirt. "Okay. We'll keep this as a possibility. I'll pick out some others and…"

He was staring at Jack's hair.

"What's wrong?"

"With the way you look? Everything. But especially that hair." He pulled a phone from his bag and hit a button. "Christophe? I need you, baby… No, not for me. It's for a friend… I
know
you're busy"—he looked at Jack and rolled his eyes as he made a chitterchatter sign with his free hand—"but you've just
got
to squeeze him in. It's an emergency… I
never
exaggerate!" A quick glance at Jack's hair. "You'll understand when you see him… Okay, we'll be over in half an hour."