Crisscross. Part 29

The tone was guarded. "It was. How did you get this number?"

"Not important. I have a message from your mother. She-"

"You what what? Who are you?"

"Someone your mother hired to find you. She's been worried about you and-"

"Listen, you son of a b.i.t.c.h," Roselli gritted, and Jack could all but feel the steam coming through the phone. "Who put you up to this? The GP? Are you one of Jensen's drones trying to trap me?"

"No, I'm simply-"

"Or some dirty WA trying to hara.s.s me?"

Be nice if I could finish a sentence.

"Not even close. Look, just call your mother. She's worried and wants to hear from you."

"f.u.c.k you!"

And then the phone slammed down.

Jack tried three more times. On the first he heard the receiver lift, then clatter down again. After that all he got was a busy signal.

Okay. He'd done his job, delivered the message. Johnny apparently had big issues with Mom. Jack was sorry about that but his fix-it skills-thankfully-did not reach into family therapy.

As he kept walking east, heading for Eighth Avenue where he could catch a train, Brady's globe spun into his thoughts again... the red and white lights... the network of crisscrossing lines... so tantalizingly close... he reached for it, stretching...

And then Jack grasped it. But when he realized what he had hit on he instantly wished he hadn't. He stumbled as he felt the world slow around him.

The lights and the lines... he'd seen that pattern before... and now he knew where...

Suddenly out of breath, he stopped walking and leaned against a railing. He wasn't going to be sick, but he wanted to be.

When his heart and lungs dropped back toward their normal tempos, he pushed off and got moving again. He'd planned to stop by Maria Roselli's to tell her he'd contacted Johnny boy, and then drop in on Gia and Vicky to see how his girls were doing. But all that was out of the question now. He needed answers, needed to find someone who might have an explanation.

He could think of only one person.

8.

Jamie had been working late-as usual-when Robertson called. His voice had sounded tight and he'd said he needed to talk to her. Now. Something had come up-something big and very strange.

Well, she'd been ready to leave anyway. After she a.s.sured him that the line had been checked for taps, he said he'd pick her up in his car, a big, black Crown Victoria. When she'd reminded him about her Dementedist shadows, he told her where to meet him and exactly how to get there.

So here she was at 8:15 walking west through the Forty-second Street tunnel. One of the Dementedist shadows was following her, laying back about fifty feet or so. Where was the other? They usually had a crew of two waiting outside The Light The Light. It bothered her that she didn't know where he was.

Jamie was puffing by the time she reached the Eighth Avenue station. d.a.m.n those cigarettes. Had to quit some day.

Instead of heading for one of the train platforms, she rushed up the steps to the street.

Now she was really breathing hard. She spotted a big black car idling at the corner. That had to be Robertson, but he'd told her to wait until he gave a signal. Why? She didn't want to wait with one of those nutcases coming up behind her. She wanted in that car now now.

Suddenly the pa.s.senger door flew open and his voice called from within.

"Let's go!"

Jamie didn't need to hear that twice. She trotted over and jumped in. The car was roaring up Eighth Avenue before she closed the door.

"We've got to stop meeting like this, Robertson."

Light from pa.s.sing street lamps flashed against his face. His features looked tight, tense.

"Call me Jack, remember?"

"Oh, right. Hey, tell me, why did you want me to wait by the top of the steps instead of just jumping in and going?"

"I wanted the traffic lights the right color. Not much point in burning rubber just to stop a block away. Now they'll have to find a cab before they can come after us. And they're not going to find us when they do."

"Not they-he. Only one tonight. But he probably got a look at your license plate."

The line of his mouth tightened further. "Might have got a look at more than that. While I was waiting for you a guy I'd seen in Jensen's office when I was getting my Entry Card came out of a deli carrying a paper bag. Coffee and sandwiches, probably. Walked right past the car."

"Think he saw you?"

"Looked at me but didn't seem to recognize me."

"Oh, h.e.l.l. If they've got your plate numbers-"

He smiled, but even that was tight. "Won't do them much good. And they're in for a pile of trouble if they start ha.s.sling the real owner of these tags."

"So this is a borrowed car?"

"No, it's mine, but the plates are duplicates of someone else's. Someone you don't want to mess with."

"Who?"

He shook his head. "Trade secret."

That again. But he'd piqued her curiosity. "Would I have heard of him?"

"As a reporter? Oh, yeah."

The way he drew out the oh oh was enough to make her crazy. Who was he talking about? But she sensed that asking again would be like talking to a statue. was enough to make her crazy. Who was he talking about? But she sensed that asking again would be like talking to a statue.

He took a left onto Fifty-seventh and headed farther west.

"Where are we going?"

"We need someplace quiet and private. Any ideas?"

"We're only a few blocks from my place but I think it's got a surveillance situation."

"Wouldn't be surprised, but let's go check it out anyway."

She directed him to her block on West Sixty-eighth.

She pointed right to the front door of her apartment building. "That's me."

Jack jerked a thumb toward his side window. "And there's the Dormentalist stakeout team."

Jamie saw a dark coupe, parked curbside, no lights on inside or out. A man sat alone in the front seat. Her stomach crawled.

"Let's get out of here."

9.

Jensen was on his way out of the temple when his two-way chirped. It was Margiotta.

"Finally found a picture of him, boss."

"Amurri?"

"Yeah. You'd better come see. I don't think you're going to like it."

"Be right there."

On the contrary, Jensen thought as he did an about face and headed back across the nearly deserted lobby. I bet I'll like it just fine.

Margiotta's tone had said it all: The photo he'd found did not match the guy who'd been calling himself Jason Amurri.

He did a mini fist pump. Knew it!

His instincts had been right on target. He gave himself a mental pat on the back for his powers of observation, and for plain old gut instinct. He'd spotted Amurri for a ringer from day one.

And now we've got him.

Another chirp from his two-way. Margiotta again.

"Here's something else you won't like, Boss. Lewis and Hutchison just called in. They lost the quail."

Margiotta knew better than to mention names on a two-way. He didn't have to. Jensen knew who he meant.

Noomri's b.a.l.l.s! How hard can it be to follow one middle-aged, overweight broad?

"They give any details?"

"No, but they have more to tell. They're waiting till they get here. They should be walking in any minute."

Jensen considered waiting and holding the elevator for them, then giving them h.e.l.l once the doors closed. He decided not to. He couldn't wait to see the face of the real Jason Amurri.

Margiotta sat in the office, seated before the computer. He leaned back and pointed to the screen.

"There he is."

Jensen leaned in and saw a blurry image of a man in his thirties. He ran a mental comparison and couldn't find one point of correspondence between this man and the one who claimed to be Jason Amurri. Darker hair, darker skin, bigger nose, different hairline...

"You sure this is the real Jason Amurri?"

Margiotta shrugged. "It says it's him, but that doesn't mean it is."

"What do you mean? I thought you said-"

"This is the Internet, boss. What you see ain't necessarily the real deal. Anybody can post anything, true or false. No one fact checks the Internet."

"But can you think of a reason why anyone would go to the trouble of posting a fake photo of Jason Amurri?"

"I can think that a fake Jason Amurri might, just in case we checked. If it looked just like him, I'd check when it was posted. And if it was of real recent vintage, I'd say we couldn't trust it. But this is a couple years old and doesn't look at all like our guy. So I'm ninety-nine percent sure it's legit."

"What would make you a hundred?"

"Finding another with the same face."

"Okay, then. Keep looking. I want to be absolutely sure before I take this to the SO. But for now, put a flag on his pa.s.s code. Next time he swipes his way in, I want him detained at the security desk."

Lewis and Hutchison walked in then. Jensen was opening his mouth to begin charbroiling them when Lewis held up one of his skinny hands.

"Yeah, I know, we lost her, but we didn't come back empty-handed."

"It had better be good."

The heavier Hutchison told about tailing her underground and then losing her to a waiting car.

Jensen had to admire the ditch: sweet and simple.