Jack walked around the room, checking out the recovering plants.
'So… you take two trees and make them into one.'
'It's a strange sort of math,' Alicia said. 'As one of my grafting books put it: One plus one equals one. And the nice thing is, there's no loser. The understock's roots are getting fed by the scion's leaves.'
'I bet you wish you could do that with people.'
When Alicia didn't answer, Jack turned and found her standing rigid in the center of the room, staring at him. Her face was pale, and her voice sounded strained when she finally spoke.
'What did you say?'
'I said it would be great if it were that easy with people. You know, cut them loose from their crummy roots and let them grow free and uncontaminated by their past.'
She seemed even paler.
'Is something wrong?'
'No,' she said, but Jack couldn't believe it. 'I just want to know why you said that.'
'Well, I was thinking of your AIDS kids. I mean, they inherited their sickness from their roots… too bad you can't find a way to graft them onto healthy stock that'll allow them to grow up disease free.'
'Oh.' She visibly relaxed. 'You know, I never thought of that. But it's a wonderful thought, isn't it.'
She still seemed troubled, though, as if she'd taken a step back into another dimension, and only appeared to be in the room. Jack wondered what nerve he'd touched, what region of her psyche it sprang from, and where it led.
'If only it were possible,' she said softly from that other place.
'Speaking of those kids,' Jack said, 'how's my man, Hector?'
And then abruptly, she was back. 'Coming along,' she said. 'The antibiotic seems to be doing the trick.' She clapped her hands once. 'Now… I guess we have business to discuss.'
'Uh, yes… and no,' Jack said.
'Oh, I don't think I like the sound of that.'
Might as well get it out on the table: 'I checked out your father's house yesterday, and I think if you really want to get rid of it, you've got to find some way other than fire.'
'No,' she said stonily. 'It's got to be fire.'
'But the rest of the block could go with it.'
'That's what the New York City Fire Department's for, isn't it—to prevent that from happening.'
'Yeah, but fire's funny. You never know what it's going to do. The wind changes and—' He saw her expression and realized he was getting nowhere. 'Maybe one of those demolition experts'—he was inventing this, right off the top of his head—'you know, the guys who can set charges just right so a building collapses in on itself? I can look around for you, see if one of them might—'
Alicia stood there, her face an alabaster mask, slowly, deliberately shaking her head.
'No. Fire. And if I'm willing to pay you, why won't you do it?'
Jack stared at her. This was not at all what he'd expected from Alicia. She seemed to care so deeply about so many things, why was she so blind about this? Almost as if her rational processes ducked for cover whenever that house was mentioned.
But whatever the reason, Jack wasn't about to get into a debate about doing the arson. It wasn't something he put up for discussion.
'Because who I work for and what I do for them is entirely up to me. And I choose not to do this.'
After a moment of utter silence, during which Alicia's eyes blazed with such intensity Jack thought she might explode, she turned and walked back to the door to. her apartment, opened it, and stepped back.
'Then, there is nothing left for us to discuss. Good-bye, Jack.'
She had that right. But as Jack passed her at the door, he said, 'Just remember, there are other ways you can handle this. Take a few deep breaths and think about it before you go looking for somebody else to do the job.'
'Don't worry,' she said. 'I won't be looking for somebody else.'
And then she slammed the door.
Jack took the stairs down slowly. Maybe it was all for the best to cut loose from Alicia Clayton. That was one seriously overwound human spring back there in that apartment. He'd rather not be around when she snapped and started bouncing off the walls.
At least now he could devote himself full time to Jorge's problem. He'd already learned some interesting stuff about Ramirez.
Jack turned and glanced back at Alicia's door. Still… something appealing about her. Or maybe tantalizing was a better word.
What was that expression—something about a riddle inside a mystery wrapped in an enigma? That was Alicia Clayton: a riddle inside a mystery wrapped in an enigma within a thick coat of Semtex.
And a very short fuse.
'I don't
She'd call him now, and set this up as soon as possible. That house was a cancer on the face of the city, the planet, her life.
And fire… the cleansing flame… was the only cure.
WEDNESDAY
'He spiked 103.4 last night,' Sorenson said as they entered Hector's room. 'But it responded nicely to a single dose of Tylenol, and it's stayed normal since.'
Alicia glanced at the nurse. 'One spike? Just one?'
Jeanne Sorenson flipped through the chart and checked the temperature graph. 'Just one. At four- twenty.'
Maybe it was nothing. One spike could be merely a fluke. She hoped that was all it was.
She pointed to the cluster of Mylar balloons floating at the corner of the bed.
'Where'd they come from?'
'Came yesterday. Addressed to 'Hector with the mad buzz cut on Pediatrics.' The teddy bear too. But the card only said it was from a friend.'
Alicia seated herself on the bed next to where Hector lay clutching a new teddy bear dressed as a doctor.
Jack, she thought, smiling. You didn't forget.
She rubbed her hand over Hector's bristly hair.
'Hey, Hector.'
'Hey, Dr. Alith.'
He smiled up at her, but she didn't like the look in his eyes. Something wrong here. She could sense it.
'How's it going, guy?'
'My arm thtill hurths. You thaid you were gonna take the needle out.'
'Soon as I can. I promise.'
Still looking at Hector, she asked Sorenson, 'How was his last chest?'
'Continued improvement,' the nurse said.
'Labs?'
'CBC back to normal.'
X rays and numbers on the upswing, yet Alicia couldn't shake the sense that something was wrong. She'd learned to trust that sense. Despite all the years of booking, of learning how to take a good medical history, how to do a thorough physical exam, how to interpret pages of test results, sometimes you had to throw them all away and
