Conspircaies

dream.'

'Don't worry. You won't. That I can promise you.'

Gia smiled and went back to flipping through the Annie book; Jack looked around for Vicky. The pig-tailed eight-year-old reason they were in this particular place was over by the window, gyrating on a coin-fueled motorcycle ride. A delicate warmth suffused Jack as he watched her pretend she was racing it down some imaginary road. Vicky was the closest he might ever come to having a daughter, and he loved her like his own. Eight years old and no secrets to keep from her mom, just the moment and learning something new every day. That was the life.

'Think she'll grow up to be a biker chick?'

'That's always been my dream for her,' Gia said without looking up from the book.

Jack had promised Vicky a lunch out during her grammar school's spring vacation week, and she'd chosen the Harley Davidson Cafe. Vicky liked all the wheels and chrome; Jack loved the fact that only tourists came here, reducing to near zip his chances of running into someone he knew. Gia had come along as chaperone, to make sure the two of them didn't get into trouble. None of them was here for the food, which was mostly suitable for staving off hunger until the next meal. But as far as Jack was concerned, having the two ladies in his life along transformed any place into Cirque 2000.

'These are really good,' Gia said, spending about two seconds per page on the Little Orphan Annie book.

'You can't be reading that fast,' Jack said.

'No, I mean the art.'

'The art? They're drawings.'

'Yes, but what he does with just black ink in those little white boxes.' She was nodding admiringly. 'His composition is superb.' She closed the book and looked at its cover. 'Who is this guy?'

'Name's Harold Gray. He created her.'

'Really? I know Annie from the play and the movie, but why haven't I ever heard of him, or seen his strips before?'

'Because your Iowa paper probably didn't carry Annie when you were growing up. She'd become passe by the late sixties, and hardly worth reading after Gray died.'

'How many strips are there?'

'Well, let's see…Annie started in the twenties…'

'Wow. He kept this up for forty years?'

'The thirties and forties contain his best stuff. Punjab gets introduced in that book you've got there.'

'Punjab?'

'Yeah. The big Indian guy. Geoffrey Holder played him in the film. I've always loved Little Orphan Annie, mostly for characters like Punjab and the Asp—you didn't mess with the Asp. This guy Gray is the American Dickens.'

'I didn't know you were into Dickens.'

'Well…I liked him in high school.'

'But I can see what you mean,' Gia said, flipping again. 'He seems to deal with all classes.'

'Never thought much of his art, though.'

'Think again. This guy is good.'

Jack would take her word for it. Gia was an artist, doing commercial stuff like paperback covers and magazine illustrations to pay the bills, but she kept working on paintings on the side, always trying to interest a gallery in showing them.

'I can see Thomas Nast in him,' she said. 'And I know I've seen some of him in Crumb.'

'The underground guy?'

'Definitely.'

'You know underground comics?' Jack said.

Gia looked up at him. 'If it involves any kind of drawing, I want to know about it. And as for you, I've got to start dragging you to some art shows again.'

Jack groaned. She was always after him to go to openings and museums. He gave in now and then, but usually hated most of what he saw.

'If you think it'll help,' he said. 'But no urinals stuck to the wall or piles of bricks on the floor, okay?'

She smiled. 'Okay.'

Jack gazed into the wild blue yonder of Gia's eyes. The very sight of her gave him a buzz. She shone like a jewel here. A couple of guys seated near the windows kept looking at her. Jack didn't blame them. He could stare at her all day. She wore little make-up—didn't need any, really—so what he was seeing was really her. Humidity tended to make her blond hair wavy. Because she wore it short, the waves created feathery little wings along the sides around her ears. Gia hated those wings. Jack loved them, and she had a whole bunch of them today. He reached out and stroked a few of the feathers.

'Why did you do that?' she said.

'Just wanted to touch you. Have to keep reassuring myself that you're real.'

She smiled that smile, took his hand, and gently bit his index finger.

'Convinced?'

'For now.' He held up his tooth-marked finger and wiggled it at her. 'Meat, you know. And you a brand-new vegetarian.'

He snatched his finger back before she could bite it again.

'I am not a vegetarian,' she said. 'I'm just off meat.'

'Not some sort of religious thing? Or a plot against plants?'

'No…it's just that lately I've found myself with less of an appetite for things that were walking around under their own power not too long before they landed on my plate. Especially if they resemble what they looked like alive.'

'Like a turkey?'

She made a face. 'Stop.'

'Or better yet, a squab.'

'Must you? And by the way, anybody who eats squab in this city should know that they're eating Manhattan pigeon.'

'Come on.'

'Oh, yes.' She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. 'You order squab, they send some guy up to the roof with a net. A few minutes later…'squab.''

Jack laughed. 'Is this sort of like the fur coat thing?'

'Please—let's not discuss fur coats today. Spring is here at last and their vacuous owners will be stuffing them into vaults for the rest of the year.'

'Jeez. Can't talk about fur, squab, pulled pork—none of the fun subjects.'

'I can think of a fun subject,' she said. 'How about your father?'

'My turn to say 'Stop.''

'Come on, now. I've never met him, but he can't be as bad as you make him out.'

'He's not bad, he's just relentless. And he cannot stay with me. You know what my place is like.'

Gia nodded. 'Like the 168th Street Armory.'

'Right. I can't move all that stuff out. No place to stash it. And if he finds any of it—'

'You mean like I did?'

Jack nodded. 'Yeah. And you know what happened.'

Gia and Jack hadn't been together that long then. He'd told her he was a security consultant. She'd been doing him a favor, a little spring cleaning, when she stumbled onto one of his caches—the one in the false rear of the antique secretary. It almost had broken them up. Even though they were back together now, tighter than ever, Jack still shuddered at how close he had come to losing Gia and Vicky. They were his anchors, his reality checks, the two most important people in the world.

'He's an uptight middle class guy who already thinks his younger son is something of a loser; don't want him