The Heaven Trilogy (70 page)

Almost.

“Ah . . . No. No it's all right. Are you okay?”

“Why? Don't I look okay?”

“Actually no. You look . . . strung out.”

“And you have a cute accent, mister. How old are you?”

He glanced around. The park was still empty. “I'm thirty-eight.”

She reached out a hand and he took it. “Glad to meet you, Thirty-eight. I'm Twenty-nine.”

He smiled. “Actually, my name is Jan. Jan Jovic.”

“And mine's Helen.”

“It's a pleasure to meet you.”

“The same, Jan Jovic.” She shot a quick look behind her again, and Jan saw concern flash through her eyes. But she recovered on the fly and looked at him, wearing that deliberate smile again. She tilted her head back, closed her eyes and ran fingers through her hair. It struck him then, while her chin pointed to the sky, that Helen was a pretty woman. Even in this anemic state she bore a faint angelic quality. She walked a few steps to the left and then returned to the spot directly before him, as if pondering some deep question.

“Are you sure you're okay?”

She eyed him, still wearing her mysterious grin.

Jan shrugged. “You look like you have something on your mind. And you keep looking back.”

“Well, to be honest, I am in a bit of pinch. But it's got nothing to do with you. Boyfriend problems.” She shrugged apologetically. “You know how love is— one day on, the next day off. So today it's off.” She sniffed and glanced behind.

“I wasn't aware that love turned on and off so easily,” he said. “So why did you come over to me?”

“Then you haven't had a lover lately, Jan. And I came over because you looked like a decent man. You have a problem with that?”

“No. But women like you usually don't walk over to men like me because we look decent.”

“Women like me? And what kind of woman's that?”

She had a quick mind—the drugs hadn't destroyed that yet. “Women who are having boyfriend problems,” he said.

“Hmm. You haven't, have you?”

“I haven't what?”

“You haven't had a lover lately.”

He felt heat wash over his face and he hoped it didn't show as a blush. “Actually I've never been married. But I am—”

“And no lovers?”

“I'm a minister of sorts. I don't just take lovers. If there's a lover in my life it is Christ.”

Her eyebrows arched. “Oh? A minister. A reverend, huh?”

“No. Actually I'm a writer and a lecturer who speaks on the love of God.”

“Well, holy cripes. The pope himself!”

Jan smiled. “I'm not Catholic. And what do
you
do, Helen? I take it you aren't a nun.”

“Pretty observant, Reverend.”

“I'm not a reverend. I told you, I'm a writer.”

“Either way, Reverend, you are a man seeking to save lost souls, am I right?”

“I suppose so. Yes. Or at least to lead them to safety. So what do you do?”

She took a deep breath. “I'm . . . I am a lover.” She smiled wide.

“You're a lover. A lover who throws love on with a switch and flees her boyfriends? You are a . . . What do you call it? A woman of the str—”

“No, I'm
not
a hooker! I'd never stoop that low.” Her eyes flashed. “Do I look like a hooker to you?”

He didn't answer.

“You probably wouldn't know a hooker if one crawled up on your lap, would you? No, because you're a man who peddles the love of God. Of course, how silly of me.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you.”

“No offense taken, Reverend.” She used the title deliberately, with a slight smile, and Jan thought that if she'd been offended, she had already let it go. “You're as pure as the driven snow, aren't you? Probably never had so much as dirt under your nails.”

“If you knew my life story you would not say that,” he said.

She blinked, not quite sure what to make of that comment. The air of defense deflated about her. He shifted his gaze past her. Two figures entered the park from the direction she had come, walking fast. Helen saw his look and turned. She spun back and clenched her jaw.

“You know, maybe you could help me.” She bit her lip and a shadow of fear flashed through her eyes. Jan looked at the men again. They strode together, dressed in dark suits, clearly intent on crossing the park.

“What's wrong? Who are they?”

“Nothing. No one. I mean, I don't want to involve you.” She looked back to them quickly. Her fear was rising, he thought.

Jan shifted to the front of the park bench. They were after her. He could see it in the attitude of their heads and the length of their strides. He'd seen men brimming with ill intent a thousand times in his homeland; had come to recognize them with a casual glance. These two now approaching with long strides meant Helen harm.

She spun back to him and this time her resolve broke. Helen dropped to one knee, in a proposal posture; her eyes wrinkled, pleading. She grabbed his right hand with both of hers. “I'm sorry! You have to help me! Glenn swore he'd kill me the next time I left. They've been following me all day. I swear they'll kill me! Do you have a car?”

Her hands were cool on his and her face begged. Hers was the face of a victim— he'd seen a hundred thousand of them in the war and they haunted him still.

“Glenn?” he muttered, standing. But his mind was not asking about this Glenn of hers. It was weighing the world in the scales of justice, balancing the touch of this lowlife against an obscure sense of correctness that had taken up residence in his mind.

He could hear Karen at the office now.
You did what?

He blinked
. I rescued a junkie from two hoodlums today.

“Glenn Lutz,” Helen said. “Please! I've got nowhere to go.” She twisted to see the approaching men. The snappy, confident woman had dissolved into desperation.

They were no more than thirty yards off now, angling directly for them.

You did what?

I rescued a junkie from two hoodlums today, and it made me feel alive.

Jan bolted from the bench, pulling Helen stumbling behind him. “Come on! Are they armed?”

“You have a car?”

He glanced back. The men had dispensed with their professional facade and tore after them. They both held handguns, jerking in their sprint.

Jan uttered a surprised cry. “Hurry! Around the corner!” The men were closing and suddenly Jan was thinking he'd made a mistake. His heart pounded as much from the rush of adrenaline as from the run.

She raced beside him now, matching his pace with two steps for each of his, but as fast nonetheless.

But the men behind were still gaining. And the car was still out of sight.

The next time he saw Karen might very well be from a hospital bed, speaking past a bandaged face.

You did what?

Well, I tried to rescue this junkie . . .

“Where's the car?” Helen panted in near panic.

They were on the sidewalk now. He flung a hand forward, pointing. Behind him shoes clacked onto the concrete. And then one stopped. Kneeling to fire?

“Where is it?”

A white Cadillac suddenly pulled away from the curb and roared full-throttle toward them, flashing its lights. Helen pulled up beside him and Jan snatched her hand.

“Come on!”

The Cadillac squealed to a stop alongside them.

Jan yanked the door open, spun Helen around and shoved her into the backseat. He cast one last glance to the side and saw that both men had pulled up and hid their weapons. He clambered in after Helen.

“This is your car?” She was staring through the tinted window at their pursuers, panting and exuberant.

“Yes. Thank God, Steve!”

Steve pulled a squealing U-turn and punched the accelerator to the floor. “Good night, Jan! What on earth was
that?
”

Jan didn't answer directly. “You okay?” he asked Helen.

“Yes.”

“What was that, Jan?” the driver asked again, glancing repeatedly in the rearview mirror. “What on
earth
was that?”

Jan gripped his hands to fists to still their tremble and he giggled.

It was a short chuckle-like giggle, but it was the first time he'd giggled in a long time. “Whoooeee!” he hooted. “We made it!”

Steve grinned wide, infected by Jan's relief. Helen let out a cry of victory. “Yeehaaa! Boy, did we!” She slapped Jan's thigh in an elemental gesture of congratulations. “Boy, did we!”

They sped around a corner. “Jan,
what
on earth was that?” Steve demanded again.

Jan looked at Helen with a raised brow. “I don't know, Steve. I really don't know.”

CHAPTER NINE

GLENN LUTZ peered past the smoke glass wall on the thirtieth floor of Atlanta's Twin Towers to the crawling city below, ignoring the sweat that snaked down his nose.

It was green and gray down there, a hundred thousand bushy trees deadlocked with the concrete in a slow battle over the territory. The gray was slowly winning. Pedestrians crawled along the streets, like ants scampering to and fro in their senseless rush. If one of them were to look up and see past the reflective glass surrounding Glenn they might see the city's best-known city councilman frowning down, hands on hips, feet planted wide, dressed in white slacks and a Hawaiian shirt, and think he was gloating over his power.

But Glenn Lutz did not feel any of wealth's pleasures just now. In fact he felt buck naked, stripped of his power, robbed of his heart. Like a man just learning that his accountant had made a mistake. That he wasn't the city's wealthiest man after all. That in fact he was quite decidedly broke. That he could no longer afford the hefty lease payment on the top three floors of Atlanta's most prestigious towers and must be out in twenty-four hours.

Glenn pulled his lips back over crooked teeth, bit down and closed his eyes for a moment. He lifted thick fingers to his chin and pulled at his prickly jaw. Sweat darkened his shirt in large fans under each arm—he hadn't showered in two days and this pointless pursuit of Helen had left him frantic. He hadn't brushed his teeth either, and he was reminded of the fact with a blast of his own breath. Two days of alcohol had not entirely weakened the heavy odors of dental decay.

Glenn turned from the window and glared at the wall opposite him. It was solid mirror from black tile to ceiling and now his image stared back at him. It showed a tall man, six foot five and thick like a bull. The flesh was firm. Bone-white, hairy, and layered in cellulite maybe, but solid. His stomach could use some trimming. Helen had told him so just three days ago and he had slapped her face with an open palm. The memory sent a chill through his arms. Never mind that she'd had her arms wrapped
around
his stomach when she'd made the remark.

His mind softened.
Helen, dear Helen. How could you do this to me? How could you leave me so empty? We had a deal, baby. We're knit from the same cloth, you and I. What can you possibly be thinking?

Glenn ground his molars. Indirect lighting cast a soft atmospheric hue over the mirrored walls. His eyes stared back at him, vacant, like two holes drilled through his head. It was his most remarkable trait, he thought. His driver's license said they were dark brown, but beyond ten feet any reasonable soul would cross themselves and swear those eyes were black. Jet black. He had started dyeing his hair light blond to accent the eyes a week after high school graduation. Now his hair hung nearly white around stubbled jowls.

Glenn lifted his chin and frowned. Truth be told, slip a black robe over his shoulders and he would look more like a warlock than some business tycoon. Now
that
would do wonders with the women. On the other hand, forget the coat; the image in the mirror was enough to terrify most women as it was.

Most. Not Helen. Helen was special. Helen was his goddess.

He glanced around the office. Over here in the business tower there was nothing to show but a single bare oak desk set on the shiny black tile. The decorator's idea had been to create a stark impression, but Glenn had fired her before she'd completed the job. Thankfully the foulmouthed wench had finished the suite on the adjacent tower; the Palace he called it. That had been three months ago, just before he'd met Helen, and to say that the Palace had delivered would be an absurd understatement. It was either pleasure to the bone or raw pain over there. Ecstasy or agony. The chambers of exotic delights. Which was appropriate considering the fact that he ran one of the country's largest drug rings out of the suite.

The phone on his desk rang and he started. He swore and strode for the black object. He snatched up the receiver. “What?”

“Sir, we really do have to talk. You have calls stacking up and—”

“And I told you not to bother me with this junk!”

“Some of them look important.”

“And what could be so important? I'm occupied here, if you didn't notice.”

“Yes, of course I noticed. Who wouldn't notice? And meanwhile you have legitimate business piling up around you.”

Glenn felt heat flush his neck. Only she could say such a thing. He took a deep breath. “Get in here,” he said, and slammed the receiver onto its cradle.

Beatrice strutted in with her chin leveled. Her black hair was piled high in a bun and her lips curved downward, matching the arc of her large nose. She was fifty pounds overweight and her cinched belt exaggerated the folds of fat at her belly. It was a symbiotic relationship with her. If she didn't know so much he might have ditched her long ago.

“What's so important?”

She slid into a burgundy guest chair and lifted a yellow steno pad. “For starters, you missed the council meeting last night.”

“Immaterial. Give me something that matters.”

“Okay. The renovations on the lower floors of the Bancroft Building are running into a snag. The contractor's screaming about—”