Crisscross. Part 46

Not much of interest going on in the plant, at least not that Jack could see. Brady and Jensen had had a little tete-a-tete apart from the rest, then rejoined the other four. A little discussion-more like an argument-and then Brady had stepped over to a wall and pulled a lever. A few seconds later, cement started running down the chute and pouring into the tube.

No, not cement-concrete. A landscaper Jack worked for in his younger days had always corrected him whenever he made the mistake: cement was only part of concrete, the binding compound. When you added sand and gravel to cement, you ended up with concrete.

Looked like there might be a little defect in the tube. Jack spotted a trickle of thick gray fluid leaking through one of the seams, like brains through a bullet hole. But the trickle never graduated to anything more, and soon it stopped.

Still no sign of Jamie Grant.

While all inside were intent on their pillar manufacture, Jack went over to the cars. He flashed his light into each, front and back-empty-then tried the doors. Jensen's Town Car and the Infinity were unlocked. He popped the trunks on those, but no Jamie.

He thumped on the trunks of Brady's Mercedes and the Saab, saying, "Jamie? It's Jack. If you're in there, kick something, make any noise you can."

Not a sound.

Jamie could be inside the plant, but Jack doubted it. The place looked like a going concern. She'd been gone all day and he couldn't see them stas.h.i.+ng her here all that time. Too high a risk of someone seeing her and recognizing her. Her face was all over the news.

No, they'd have brought her somewhere else, someplace isolated.

He just hoped they hadn't hurt her.

He headed back up the hill to the road and his car. When the Dormentalists left, he'd follow Jensen this time. If anyone knew where Jamie was, and if anyone was going to lead Jack to her, it was the GP.

He reached his car, then sat in the dark and waited.

SAt.u.r.dAY.

1.

"Jack, could you please sit down," Gia said. "You're making me nervous."

"Sorry." Jack forced himself to perch on one of the chairs at her kitchen table.

"Have a donut. You haven't touched one."

When their schedules permitted, Jack liked to stop by Gia's early on a Sat.u.r.day or Sunday with a box of donuts.

He picked up a brown-sugar cruller, crispy on the outside, soft and white within, and nibbled. He wasn't hungry.

"You're looking good this morning, mama," he told Gia.

And she was. Her color was better and she seemed to have more energy.

She smiled. "Thanks. I'm feeling better. I run out of gas sooner than usual, but I should do better as my blood count gets back to normal."

He heard Vicky laugh and looked up. She sat on the far side of the table, reading a book Jack had bought her last month. The sugared creme donut she'd just finished-her favorite-had left her with a snowy mustache. Appropriately she was reading, for the umpteenth time, Ogden Nash's The Tale of Custard the Dragon The Tale of Custard the Dragon.

"What's so funny, Vicks?"

"Listen," Vicky said, grinning at him. " 'Meowch!' cried Ink, and 'Ooh!' cried Belinda, for there was a pirate, climbing in the winda.'" She laughed again. "Winda! I love that part!"

Vicky loved wordplay, which was why Nash was perfect for her.

"I'll get you the sequel. Something about Custard and a Wicked Knight."

"Another Custard book? When are you getting it?"

"Soon as I can find a copy."

As Vicky went back to reading, Jack looked up and found Gia staring at him.

"She's on your mind, isn't she." She spoke in a low tone with a glance across the table. "And I don't mean Miss Big Ears."

Jack had told her about Jamie Grant.

"Yeah. Not only do I not have a clue where she is, I don't even know if she's still, um, with us." He pounded a fist on his knee. "I shouldn't have let her go back to her office."

"And just how were you going to stop her? She's a grown woman who's got a right to make her own decisions. You of all people-"

"I know, I know. It's just... I can't help it, I feel... responsible."

Jack knew he shouldn't. What could he have done? Abducted her and tied her up in his trunk?-which was probably just what Jensen had done. But if he had done it first she'd be safe right now.

Gia was staring at him. "I thought we agreed that you were going to avoid rough stuff."

"This started off as a missing person thing and I-"

"Missing?" Vicky said. "Who's missing?"

"It's okay," Jack said. "No one you know. And he's been found."

"Oh, good." She went back to her book.

"But the problem," Gia said, speaking barely above a whisper, "is that you've traded one missing person for another. And she may be more than missing, she may be... like that poor security guard at the paper. This is not what I call avoiding rough stuff."

"Wasn't supposed to be like this." He sighed. "At least that blackmail fix-it's over with. No rough stuff there."

Clocking a mook over the head with a hot plate didn't really fit Jack's definition of no rough stuff, but he decided not to mention it.

He stifled a yawn. He hadn't gotten much sleep last night. Following Jensen had turned out to be a waste of time. He'd looked for a chance to get in the GP's face-like maybe at a rest stop-and pull a little carjack action. Force Jensen to drive him to Jamie.

But the opportunity had never presented itself. Jensen drove nonstop to a garage on East Eighty-seventh, disappeared inside. He reappeared a few minutes later and entered the apartment building next door.

Home? Probably. Holding Jamie there? No way.

So he'd driven over to the West Side where he spotted the Dormentalist surveillance team still on the job.

Again the question: Watching for her or him?

"Where is she?" he said, thinking aloud.

Gia sipped her tea. "Kind of hard for me to speculate about someone I've never met, but from what you've told me about her, she doesn't sound like a person who'd slink away in silence."

"You've got that right. Even if she was hiding in some kind of foxhole, she'd still be sending dispatches from the front." He balled a fist. "They've got her, d.a.m.n it. They've got her and I don't know where."

Gia covered his fist with her hand. "You've done all you can. The police are on it, and you pointed them in the right direction. It's out of your hands."

"I suppose it is." Easier to say than accept. "But I've got a bad feeling that this story is not headed for a happy ending."

Gia gave his fist a squeeze but said nothing.

"And on the subject of missing women," Jack said, digging his Tracfone out of his pocket, "I still haven't been able to touch base with the lady who got me involved in this mess in the first place."

He punched in the number for Maria Roselli-the only name he had for her-and listened to her phone ring and ring.

"Still not answering." He stabbed the END b.u.t.ton. "I'm going to take a quick walk down to Beekman." A ten-block trip; wouldn't take him long. "She may be there and just not answering."

Jack had told Gia that he'd been hired by a mother to locate her Dormentalist son. It had always been his practice never to mention names, even to her. Gia understood that. He'd felt free to discuss Jamie Grant with her, though, because she hadn't hired him.

But names weren't all he kept from Gia. He never mentioned details that he knew might upset her. Like the flap of Anya's skin, for instance. That was a little too gruesome to share.

He had it folded in the pocket of his jacket now. If he got to see the lady known as Maria Roselli, maybe it would shock her into answering a few questions.

"Be back soon."

"Be careful."

"I was born careful."

Gia rolled her eyes but couldn't hide the hint of a smile. "Oh, puh-lease!"

2.

Esteban shook his head. "She's out shopping."

"You're sure?" Jack said.

The two of them stood in the white marble lobby that was becoming familiar to Jack. Too familiar.

"Put her in the cab myself. Mrs. Roselli goes shopping every Sat.u.r.day morning. She and Benno."

"She takes that big dog shopping?"

Esteban smiled. "Benno goes wherever Mrs. Roselli goes."

"And you gave her my message-about calling me?"

"Of course." He looked offended. "I not only told her, I wrote it down and handed her the note."

"Okay, well do it again. And this time tell her I have something she needs to see."

Esteban nodded. "Something she needs to see... I'll tell her."

Jack stepped onto the sidewalk and started walking back uptown. Frustration burned like a furnace in his belly.

Nothing was happening. Nothing Nothing.

Maybe he should just go with it for now. Kick back and hang with Gia and Vicks for the day and wait for something to break. But he knew he'd be lousy company, his attention constantly wandering elsewhere.

He had to do something.

Maybe go for a ride. To Jersey, perhaps. To a cement plant where they poured concrete into a strange mold.

It was a Sat.u.r.day in mid-fall. The place might not even be open.

All the better.

He sighed. Probably a waste of time. Certainly nowhere near the fun of making fatso Cordova's life miserable. Jack almost wished he hadn't finished the blackmail fix so quickly.

3.