Crisscross. Part 11

He started humming the refrain from Richie Haven's "Freedom" as he stepped back onto the sidewalk.

Okay, check off Step One on the Dormentalist front. As for Sister Maggie's problem...

Before leaving home this morning he'd looked up the number of Cordova Security Consultants, Ltd. He now punched it into his cell phone as he walked up Lexington.

A woman answered. When Jack asked for Mr. Cordova he was told that he was in, but with a client. Could she take a message? Jack asked if he could have an appointment later this afternoon. No, sorry, Mr. Cordova was leaving soon. Would he like an appointment tomorrow? Jack said he'd call back later.

Perfect. Now home for a quick change, a little makeup, and a hustle to the Bronx.

7.

"'Of all these people, the Belgae are the... the most courageous because they are far... farthest removed from the... '"

Sister Maggie suppressed the urge to translate the difficult word for the little girl, opting instead for simple encouragement.

"Keep going, Fina. You've got it so far."

Big brown eyes glanced up at her, then refocused on the text.

"'Farthest removed from the... the culture and civilization of the Province.'"

"That's wonderful! You are so so good at this." good at this."

And she was. Little Serafina Martinez might be only nine but she was already reading from Caesar's Gallic Wars Gallic Wars-not fluently, of course, but her grasp of Latin vocabulary and sentence structure was beyond anything Maggie had ever seen in someone her age. Knowing how to speak Spanish didn't hurt, but still...

And language wasn't Fina's only strong point. She was a whiz in math too, already doing simple algebraic equations.

No question about it: This girl was the brightest child Maggie had encountered in nearly twenty years of teaching. Best of all was her hunger to learn. Her brain was a sponge, sucking up everything that came within reach. The child actually looked forward to her thrice-weekly after-school sessions with Maggie.

"I think that's enough for today, Fina. You did great. Pack up your things."

She watched Fina stow her Latin book in an oversized, overstuffed backpack that must have weighed as much as she. Well, perhaps not that much. Fina still had her baby fat, but less of it this year than last. And were those budding b.r.e.a.s.t.s beginning to swell beneath the top of her plaid uniform jumper?

Fina wasn't one of the cool kids in school. Makeup wasn't allowed in St. Joseph's Elementary, but already some of the girls were starting to strut what little stuff they had: shortening the hems of their jumpers up to thigh level, pus.h.i.+ng their knee socks down to their ankles. Fina remained oblivious to that. She kept her hair unfas.h.i.+onably short and, if anything, her jumper was overly long; she kept her socks all the way up to her knees. But she had plenty of friends; her easy smile and winning sense of humor guaranteed she'd never be a social outcast.

But Maggie worried about Fina. The child was approaching a critical juncture in her life. When her hormones kicked in and ignited a growth spurt, her baby fat would very likely rearrange into more womanly curves. If she turned out to resemble her mother, even remotely, the boys would start to circle. And then she might have to decide: Be popular or be smart.

Maggie had seen it happen so many times-bright children dumbing down to be with the "in" crowd-because cool kids found school "boring"; cool kids didn't care about anything except what was pulsing through their grafted-on headphones; and cool kids certainly didn't get A's.

If Fina stayed in St. Joe's, Maggie was sure she or one of her sister nuns could keep her on the road to academic excellence and help her reach her full potential. But Maggie feared this might well be Fina's last year here.

Maggie's too if those pictures were ever made public.

"Any word on your father?" she asked as the child began to struggle into the straps of her backpack.

Fina paused in her efforts, then shrugged the pack onto her back. Her lips trembled.

"He's going to jail."

Maggie had known this was coming. For years her father, Ignacio, had been in and out of rehab for cocaine. Last year it looked like he'd finally made it. He'd found a decent job that had eased the family's financial burdens. Even so, the tuition cost of sending four children to St. Joe's, despite the break the parish allowed for each successive child, strained their budget to the limit. But they'd been getting by. And then Ignacio was caught selling cocaine. It wasn't his first arrest, so this time he was sentenced to a jail term.

Maggie smoothed the child's glossy black hair. "I'm so sorry, Fina."

Fina's mother Yolanda was already working three jobs. Without her husband's income she was going to have to pull her children out of St. Joe's and send them to public school. They'd wind up at PS 34 up on East Twelfth. Maggie knew some good teachers there, but it was an entirely different atmosphere. She feared the public school meat grinder would chew up Fina and spit her out. And even if she did manage to keep her head, no way could she receive the one-on-one guidance Maggie offered.

She'd gone to Sister Superior and Father Ed, but the parish was tapped out. No more financial a.s.sistance available.

So Maggie had searched elsewhere for financial aid. And as an indirect result of that search, she was now being blackmailed.

How could something begun with such good intentions have turned out so wrong?

Maggie knew the answer. And hated it. She'd been weak.

Well, she'd never be weak again.

She walked Fina out to the late bus and saw her off. But instead of returning to the convent, she unlocked the door to the bas.e.m.e.nt and entered the church's soup kitchen. The Loaves and Fishes served a hearty lunch every day. Volunteers from the parish ran it during the week, with Maggie and the other teaching nuns pitching in on weekends and holidays.

She wound her way between the deserted tables toward the rear. Just outside the kitchen door she grabbed a chair and dragged it through. She set it before the stove and turned on one of the burners, turning the flame to high. She removed the two-inch-long steel crucifix from around her neck, then pulled a pair of kitchen tongs from a utensil drawer. She seated herself and pulled her skirt up to the top of her thighs. Using the tongs, she held the crucifix in the flame until it began to redden. Then she took a deep breath, stuck a dish rag between her teeth, and pressed the crucifix against the skin of her inner thigh.

Sister Maggie screamed into the towel but held the cross in place as the smoke and stench of burning flesh rose into her face.

Finally she pulled it away and leaned back, weak and sweaty.

After a moment she looked down at the angry red, blistering cross, identical in shape and size to three other healing burns on her thighs.

Four down, she thought. Three more to go. One for each time she'd sinned.

I'm sorry, Lord. I was weak. But I'm strong now. And these scars will remind me never to be weak again.

8.

Jack stepped up to the door and looked up at the camera as he pressed the b.u.t.ton next to the Cordova Security Consultants label. He'd put on a black wig, black mustache, and shaded his skin with a little Celebre dark olive makeup. Getting a natural look around the eyes was a b.i.t.c.h, so he wore sungla.s.ses. He'd removed his tie but left the s.h.i.+rt b.u.t.toned to the top; he'd kept the blazer but wore it draped over his shoulders, Fellini style.

A tiny speaker in the wall bleated a tinny "Yes?" in a woman's voice.

"I seek an investigation," Jack said, trying to sound a little like Julio, but not pus.h.i.+ng it. He'd never been great with accents.

"Come in. First door on your right at the top of the stairs."

The door buzzed and he pushed through. Upstairs he opened the Cordova Security Consultants door and entered a small waiting room with two chairs and a middle-aged reed-thin black female receptionist behind a desk. Jack doubted Cordova was busy enough to need a secretary-receptionist or a waiting room-if he were he wouldn't need the blackmail sideline-but it looked good. Sam Spade had Effie Perine and Mike Shayne had Lucy Hamilton, so fat Richie Cordova had to have a Gal Friday too.

Jack gave the inner surface of the door a good look-see as he made a point of closing it gently behind him. He noticed how the two wires from the foil strip ran off the door just below the upper hinge to disappear into the plaster of the wall. They protected the gla.s.s, but what about the door? A glowing light on the keypad beside the doorframe confirmed an active alarm system, but where were the door contacts?

"Yes, sir?" the receptionist said with a smile as she looked up at him over her reading gla.s.ses.

"I seek an investigation," he repeated. "Mr. Cordova was recommend."

"How nice." She picked up a pen and poised it over a yellow pad. "May I have his name?"

Jack shrugged. "Some guy. Look, is he in?"

He glanced around and saw no area sensors. He did spot a magnetic contact switch on the waiting-room window. It, like all the office windows, sat above Tremont. No way he was getting in through those.

But why no alarm on the door?

"I'm afraid Mr. Cordova is engaged in an investigation at the moment. I can make you an appointment for tomorrow."

"What time he come in?"

"Mr. Cordova usually comes in around ten." She gave him a you-know-what-I-mean smile as she added, "His work often keeps him up late."

"No good. Be outta town. I come back nes' week."

"I'll be glad to book that appointment for you now."

Jack noticed that the door to the rear office stood open behind her. He wandered over and gave the room the once-over. As fastidiously neat and clean as his house, but no area sensors here either. He made note of the monitor on the desk.

"Sir, that's Mr. Cordova's private office."

"Jus' lookin'." He stepped back into the waiting room, keeping his distance. Too close and she might notice the makeup. "Bueno. How 'bout next Wen'sday? Garcia. Geraldo Garcia. Son'time in the afternoon."

She put him down for three P.M.

As he opened the door to make his exit, he stopped and crouched on the threshold, pretending to tie his shoe. From the corner of his eye he checked out the hinge surface of the molding. And thar she blew: The short plastic cylinder of a spring-loaded plunger jutted from the wood a couple of inches off the floor. These babies popped out whenever the door opened and, if the system was armed, sent a signal to the box. If the right code wasn't punched in during the preset delay, the alarm would sound.

Jack smiled. Outdated stuff. Easily bypa.s.sed as long as you knew it was there.

Down on the street again he checked his voice mail and heard Russ saying his floppy would be ready around six. Jack called back and said pickup would have to wait till tomorrow.

Tonight he had a heavy date.

9.

Jack was glad the weather had turned chilly; even then, his Creature from the Black Lagoon suit was hot and stuffy. Glad too that daylight saving time had ended yesterday. If the sun were still out he'd be parboiled inside this green rubber oven.

Green... why did they always color the Creature green? The films were all black-and-white, so who knew his real color? Most fish Jack had seen were silvery gray, so why should the Creature be this sick green?

Another recurrent question: If Eric Clapton had to steal one of the Beatles' wives, why the h.e.l.l couldn't it have been Yoko? Imponderables like this were what filled his head when he couldn't sleep.

He and Gia were chaperoning Vicky and five of her friends-two princesses, a leprechaun, a Hobbit, Boba Fett, and the Wicked Witch of the West-along an upper-crust Upper West Side block of single-owner brown-stones. Gia walked, Jack lumbered, and the kids scampered. Only Gia was uncostumed, though she denied it, saying she was disguised as a nonpreg-nant woman. Since she didn't look to be in a family way, Jack couldn't argue.

Through the mask's eyeholes he watched the kids run up a brownstone's front steps and ring the bell. A pleasant, blue-blazered, balding man in horn-rimmed gla.s.ses answered the door to a chorus of "Trick or Treat!" He dropped a candy bar into each kid's goodie bag, then grinned down at Jack waiting on the sidewalk.

"Hey, Creature." He gave a thumbs-up. "Nice."

"Better be, after what it cost to rent it." Jack's voice sounded at once m.u.f.fled and echoey inside the mask.

"How about a snort of ice-cold Ketel One to keep you going?"

"I'd need a straw."

The guy laughed. "Not a problem."

Jack waved and started moving after the kids. "Have to take a rain check. Thanks for the thought, though."

The guy called, "Happy Halloween," and closed his door.

Vicky ran back from where her friends were climbing to the next door. With her black pointed hat, flowing dress, and warty green skin she made a great mini Margaret Hamilton.

"Look, Jack!" she cried, digging into her bag. "He gave me a Snickers!"

"My favorite," Jack said.

"I know." She held it up. "Here. You can have it."

Jack knew she was allergic to chocolate, but was touched by her generosity. He was continually amazed at the bond they'd developed, and wondered if he'd ever be able to love his own child as much as he did Vicky.

"Thanks a million, Vicks, but"-he held out his gloved hands with their big webbed fingers and rubber talons-"can you hold it for me till we get home?"

She grinned and dropped it back into her bag as she ran after the others. Her friends were just finis.h.i.+ng up atop the next set of steps. The door closed just as Vicky reached it. She knocked but the young woman behind the gla.s.s shook her head and turned away. She knocked again but the lady turned back and made a shooing gesture.

Vicky trudged back down the steps and looked up at her mother with teary eyes.

"She wouldn't give me any candy, Mom."