ring finger as well. So Jack had made himself a guide. He'd found a plastic cutting board, a quarter-inch thick, and notched one of its edges. Now he was holding the board upright with the notch clamped over the base of Munir's pinkie; the rest of his hand was safe behind the board. All Jack had to do was chop down as hard as he could along the vertical surface.
That was all.
Easy.
Right.
'I am ready,' Munir said.
He was dripping sweat. His dark eyes looked up at Jack, then he nodded, stuffed a dishrag in his mouth, and turned his head away.
Swell, Jack thought. Glad you're ready. How about me?
Now or never.
He steadied the cutting board, raised the cleaver. He couldn't do this.
Got to.
He took a deep breath, tightened his grip -and drove the cleaver into the wall.
Munir jumped, turned, pulled the dishrag from his mouth.
'What? Why-?'
'This isn't going to work.' Jack let the plastic cutting board drop and began to pace the kitchen. 'Got to be another way. He's got us on the run. We're playing this whole thing by his rules.'
'There aren't any others.'
'Yeah, there are.'
Jack continued pacing. One thing he'd learned over the years was not to let the other guy deal all the cards. Let him think he had control of the deck while you changed the order.
Munir wriggled his fingers. 'Please. I cannot risk angering this madman.'
Jack swung to face him. An idea was taking shape.
'You want me in on this?'
'Yes, of course.'
'Then we do it my way. All of it. First thing we do is untie you.' He began working at the knots that bound Munir's arm to the table. 'Then we make some phone calls.'
14
Munir understood none of this. He sat in a daze, sipping milk to ease a stomach that quaked from fear and burned from too many pills. Jack was on the phone, but his words made no sense.
'Yeah, Ron. It's me. Jack… Right. That Jack. Look, I need a piece of your wares… small piece. Easy thing… Right. I'll get that to you in an hour or two. Thing is, I need it by morning. Can you deliver?… Great. Be by later. By the way-how much?… Make that two and you got a deal… All right. See you.'
Then he hung up, took the glass from Munir's hands. Munir found himself taken by the upper arm and pulled toward the door.
'Can you get us into your office?'
Munir nodded. 'I'll need my ID card and keys, but yes, security will let me in.'
'Great. There a back way out of here?'
Munir led him down the elevator to the parking garage and out the rear door. Night was falling. They caught a cruising gypsy cab and rode downtown to a hardware store on Bleecker Street. Jack told the cabbie to wait, then grabbed Munir's arm.
'Let's go.'
'I can stay with the cab.'
'No way. This won't work without you.'
Munir followed him inside to where a painfully thin man with sallow skin and no hair whatsoever, not even eyebrows, stood behind the counter.
'Hey, Jack,' he said.
'How's it going, Teddy? How're you feeling?'
'Like warmed-over shit. This chemo sucks the big one.'
Munir noticed a pack of cigarettes in the breast pocket of Teddy's shirt and made a tentative diagnosis. And yet he was still smoking? He didn't understand some people.
He followed Jack to the paint department at the rear of the store. They stopped at the display of color cards. Jack pulled a group from the brown section and turned to him.
'Give me your hand.'
Baffled, Munir watched as Jack placed one of the color cards against the back of his hand, then tossed it away. And again. One after another until 'Here we go. Perfect match.'
'We're buying paint?'
'No. We're buying flesh-specifically, flesh with Golden Mocha number one-sixty-nine skin. Let's go.'
And then they were moving again. Jack slapped a ten-dollar bill on the counter as he passed.
'What's that for?' Teddy said.
'Your trouble. Hang in there, Teddy.'
'Like I got a choice.'
And then they were back in the cab. Jack directed the driver to the East Side now, up First Avenue to Thirty- first Street-Bellevue Hospital. He ran inside with the color card, then came out and jumped back into the cab empty-handed.
'Okay. Next stop is your office.'
'My office? Why?'
'Because we've got hours to kill and we might as well use them to look up everyone you fired in the past year.'
Munir thought this was futile but he had given himself into Jack's hands. He had to trust him. And as exhausted as he was, sleep was out of the question.
He gave the driver the address of the Saud Petrol offices.
15
Kris Szeto knocked on the door of apartment 7C and waited. He'd already checked A and B, so now it was C's turn. Best to search in an orderly fashion. Much less apt to miss something.
The photo of the woman had come attached to an email from the Grand Paladin of the Dormentalist temple on Lexington Avenue. A Dormentalist woman had spotted someone who looked like Louise Myers-Drexler had begun referring to her as Louise Connell, but she would always be Louise Myers to Kris.
Because he hated Louise Myers.
To the Dormentalist's credit, she had followed the woman to her apartment, even knew her floor, and somehow had managed to take a picture of her.
It all sounded perfect, but the resultant photo was blurry and the lighting poor. The woman in the photo did resemble Louise Myers, but Kris saw enough differences to make him wonder. Last year they had tracked her to Wyoming through her debit card.
Since he was the only one left alive who had seen Louise Myers in the flesh, it had fallen to him to follow her there. But the trail had dried up. Now she was back in the city. Couldn't stay away, apparently. Not that he blamed her. He blamed her for many things, but he'd been to Wyoming and wouldn't want to stay there either.
And since he was the only one left alive who could recognize her, he was here to make certain this was the woman they sought.
