The Haunted Air (25 page)

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Authors: F. Paul Wilson

BOOK: The Haunted Air
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Jack stopped in front of Municipal Coins on West Fifty-fourth. He'd planned to come by yesterday but Gia's revelation had blown that plan clear out of the water.
Midday sun gleamed off the polished gold and silver coins in the window display, but Jack's attention was more focused on Eli Bellitto's last words than on precious metals.
I don't have a brother named Edward or anything else. I'm an only child.
Somebody was lying.
Eli Bellitto was a child molester, most likely a child killer—you go to the trouble of abducting a child as Bellitto and his buddy had, you're not likely to let him go—so lying was hardly a stretch. But why lie about having a brother to someone you thought was a hospital administrator? Unless you didn't want to acknowledge that brother.
But Eli Bellitto hadn't sounded like he was lying. Edward, on the other hand …
The phone number he'd given Jack was bogus, as was no doubt much of the story he'd laid on him. Edward had a Irish accent, Eli didn't. The two supposed brothers looked nothing alike.
No question … Edward had lied.
What particularly rankled Jack was that he'd made Edward—if that was his real first name; his last sure as hell wasn't Bellitto—for a straight shooter. Every so often a customer tried to pull a fast one, but Jack usually found out before any damage was done. Since many of his jobs involved getting even, with maybe inflicting a little hurt on someone if necessary, Jack made sure to do a fair amount of backgrounding before he took any action. But Edward had wanted Jack to keep people
from
being hurt, so he'd taken the man at his word.
But if he wasn't Eli Bellitto's brother, who the hell was he? Had he hired Jack to be there when Bellitto snatched that child? Seemed so. But how had he known?
Jack figured chances were slim to none he'd ever find out.
Still, he wasn't quite ready to write this off as a bad deal. Not yet. The phone number Edward had given him wouldn't allow that. If you're going to leave a phony number, you simply write down an area code and seven random digits. Why leave one out? It didn't make sense.
Jack's brain held a closetful of things that didn't make sense. He'd pitch this in with the rest.
He pushed through the door and entered the cool interior of Municipal Coins.
“Mr. Blake!” said a man who had been rearranging a tray in a long row of display cases. He bustled forward and shook Jack's hand. “So good to see you again!”
“Hello, Monte. Call me Jack, okay?”
He'd been telling Monte for years to call him Jack but the man must have been born with an extra formality gene
that made it impossible for him to address a customer by his first name.
“I'll do that,” he said. “Yes, I'll do that.”
Monte was half owner of Municipal Coins. Every time Jack looked at him, the word
thick
sprang to mind: thick body, thick lips, even his curly black hair. But he moved like a ferret. Had a numismatic database for a brain and an MBA from Yale, but the only business he had any desire to administrate was rare coins.
“Just bought a big collection,” he said, motioning Jack toward the rear of the store where he kept the cream of his inventory. “Some incredible pieces came in last week. You've got to see them. Absolutely gem.”
Jack was one of Monte's regular customers. Probably saw him as a well-heeled collector of rare coins, but Jack's stash of coins was more than a collection. They were his life savings.
Without a Social Security number—a real one—he couldn't invest in CDs or stocks; he wouldn't have wanted to under any circumstances because that would mean paying taxes, a burden Jack had managed to avoid thus far in his life. So whenever he accumulated a lump of cash, he put it into gold coins, some of them bullion type, like Krugerrands, but mostly the rare and collectible. Not an exciting investment, but other facets of his life provided enough adrenaline and he saw no need to look for more in the investment realm. He'd missed the rocketing stocks of the nineties, but he'd also missed the crash of the aughts.
“Not looking for coins today, Monte,” Jack said.
And I won't be buying many more if I keep allowing myself to get stiffed by customers who lie to me.
“Just a social call then?” Monte said, doing a fair job of hiding his disappointment. “Always good to see you, Mr. Blake, no matter what the occasion.”
“But I
am
in the market for something to display my coins. Where are those clamshell cases you've been telling me about?”
Monte had been pushing a new line of pocket-sized display
cases on Jack for months, telling him they were the latest and greatest thing for the collector who wanted to safeguard his coins when he showed them off. Jack had repeatedly turned him down.
“What're you planning?” Monte said, grinning as he reached up and pulled a cardboard box from a wall rack. “Taking them to a show? Or maybe give the relatives a peek?”
The last thing Jack wanted to do with his collection was display it, but he was going to have to bite the bullet and bring some of them out for the Madame Pomerol sting.
“Relatives,” Jack told him. “Gonna give my Uncle Matt a peek.”
“Lucky him.”
From the box Monte removed a pair of keys and an oblong metal case that ran eight inches long and was just shy of five inches wide; its tapered brushed chrome surface gleamed under the lights.
“See?” Monte said, pointing. “Recessed hinges at this end and a lock at the other.”
He stuck one of the keys into the keyhole and turned it. The lid popped open revealing a clear plastic shield. Under that, gray felt molded into angled slots that would display coins of varying sizes
“But the real beauty of it is this shield here: Tough clear plastic that keeps people's hands off. Remember that old song, ‘You can look but you'd better not touch'?”
“‘Poison Ivy,'” Jack said. “The Coasters. Atco label. Nineteen-fifty-nine.”
“Oh. Right. Yeah, well, that's what this case is all about. And if anyone, God forbid, knocks the case over, the shield will keep your coins from rolling all over creation.”
Jack turned the case over in his hands. Perfect.
“How do I open the shield?”
“Another beauty feature. See that little lever recessed into the side? You turn your key over and use the edge to pull it up to where you can grab it. No one ‘accidentally' popping open the lid.”
“Beautiful,” Jack said. “I'll take two.”
Jack stepped out of the Sports Authority on Sixth Avenue in Chelsea with his purchases tucked into the same bag as the coin cases. He now had the raw materials for his encounter with Madame Pomerol this afternoon; all he had to do was assemble them. That would take half an hour, tops, which meant he still had a couple of hours to kill.
A trip down to the Shurio Coppe might be in order. Chat up the staff. See how the boss was doing. Maybe even cop a shurio.
He decided to walk. He liked to stroll the city, especially on warm days like this when the sidewalks were crowded. It fed his people-watching jones and kept him in tune with what the average New Yorker was wearing.
Average New Yorker … right. If such a creature existed, it was a chimerical beast. Take a simple item like men's headwear, for instance. In the first few blocks heading downtown Jack passed a gray-suited Sikh wearing a red turban, a three-hundred-pound black guy in a tiny French beret, a skinny little white guy in a Special Forces beret, a rabbi type wearing—despite the heat—a long frock coat and a wide-brimmed black sealskin hat, and then the usual run of doo-wraps, Kangols, kufis, and yarmulkes.
But Jack was gratified to see that the most common headwear by far was what he was wearing: the baseball cap. Yankee caps outnumbered Mets, but not by much. Jack's sported the orange Mets insignia. Although ninety percent of the caps he saw were worn backwards or sideways, and although Jack tended to avoid nonconformist looks, he wore his beak first. Backwards, the adjustable strap irritated his forehead; beak first it shadowed his face.
He figured in his Mets cap, aviator mirror shades, white Nike T-shirt, jeans, and tan work boots he was as good as invisible.
Jack walked through the door of the Shurio Coppe at around 1 P.M. He didn't see any customers. He found the red-haired assistant behind the marble sales counter unpacking a box. Jack noticed the return address:
N, Van Rijn—
Import/Export.
“Is Eli in?”
“Are you a friend of his?”
“I ran into him last night.”
The clerk blinked. “You did? When?”
“Last night. Why? Is something wrong?”
“Yes! He's in the hospital!”
“Really? Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. This is shocking! Did he have a heart attack or something?”
“No! He was stabbed! It happened right around the corner. Right on his own doorstep!”
Jack slapped his hands against his cheeks. “Get out! Is he all right?”
A nod. “I think so. He called earlier and said he should be home in a few days, but he won't be back to work for a while. It's terrible, just terrible.”
“Isn't it, though,” Jack replied, shaking his head sadly. “What kind of a world is it when an innocent man gets stabbed for no reason at all?”
“I know. Terrible.”
“Which hospital?”
“St. Vincent's.”
“I'll have to stop by and see how he's doing.”
“I'm sure he'd like that.” The assistant shook his head again, then took a deep breath and looked at Jack. “In the meantime, is there something in particular I can help you with?”
“No,” Jack said. “I think I'll just browse.” He looked around. “You're here alone? Where's … ?”
“Gert? She's off and I can't reach her. She'll be back
tomorrow.” He looked around uncertainly at the laden shelves. “I wish she were here now.”
I don't, Jack thought. This is perfect.
He placed the bag with his purchases on the counter. “Would you watch this if I leave it here?”
“I'd be happy to.”
Of course he would. Shops like this paid extra attention to browsers with shopping bags. All it took was the flick of a finger to push an expensive little item off a shelf and into a bag. Giving up the bag would make the clerk less watchful and free up both of Jack's hands.
The object of Jack's desire lay in the locked display case rightward and rearward, so he headed left front. He found an old, wooden, owl-shaped clock whose eyes moved counter to the pendulum. Or at least they were supposed to. It appeared to have been overwound. The price wasn't bad. He already had a black plastic cat clock with moving eyes at home; this would make a good partner. An owl and a pussy cat.
Jack carried the clock to the counter.
“If you can get this working, I'll buy it.”
The clerk smiled. “I'll see what I can do.”
That should keep him occupied, Jack thought as he sidled away to the right, toward the old oak display case.
Had his shim picks ready by the time he reached it. Checked the second shelf and, yes, the Roger Rabbit key ring still lay among the other tchotchkes. And the padlock still locked the door.
He'd noted Sunday that the lock was a British brand, a B&G pin tumbler model. Good, solid lock, but hardly foolproof. Opening it was a five-second procedure: two to find the shim with the right diameter for the shackle, one to slide the little winged piece of steel into the shackle hole of the lock housing, one to give it a twist, and another to pop the lock.
Jack pocketed the shims. A quick glance around—the clerk was bent over the clock and no one else in sight—then another five seconds to slip off the lock, open the door,
grab Roger Rabbit, close and relock the door.
Success.
He stared at the cheap little key ring. It felt strange in his hand … just a bit too cool against the flesh of his palm, as if he'd pulled it from a refrigerator. And still that imploring look in Roger's wide blue eyes.
Originally he'd wanted it for Vicky. But Vicky wasn't involved anymore; he didn't want her near anything Eli Bellitto had owned, touched, or had even looked at. Jack wasn't sure why he wanted it now. Bellitto had turned down a ridiculous amount of money for the silly thing. That meant it was important to him. And what was important to Bellitto might be important to Jack. Or maybe Jack wanted the key ring to harass Eli Bellitto, just for the sheer hell of it.
Before turning away he let his gaze roam once more over the shelves of the display case and the junk they carried … the Pogs and Matchbox car and Koosh ball and …
A notion struck Jack, a possibility so sick and cold he felt a layer of frost form on his skin.
These were all toys … kids' stuff … all belonging to a guy who'd snatched a kid last night.
Jack stood before the cabinets and swayed with the vertiginous certainty that these were trophies, mementos emptied from the pockets of other missing kids. And Eli Bellitto was flaunting them. How many hundreds, even thousands of people had walked by this case and stared at its contents, never guessing that each one represented a dead child?
Jack couldn't bring himself to count the items. Instead he looked down at the key ring in his hand.
Who did you belong to? Where is your little owner buried? How did he die?
Why
did he die?
Roger's eyes had lost their imploring look. They were a flat dead blue now. Maybe Jack had simply imagined that look, but it had served its purpose: He wasn't through with Eli Bellitto.
He wondered what his own face looked like. He had to compose his expression, look calm, casual.
He took a deep breath, let it out. Tossing the key ring casually in his hand, he headed for the counter.
“Sorry,” the clerk said as he approached. He tapped the owl clock before him on the counter. “I can't get it working.”
Jack shrugged. “I'll take it anyway.” He knew a clock-smith who'd have it ticking in half a minute. “What's your name, by the way?”
“Kevin.”
“I'm Jack, Kevin.” They shook hands. “You're new here, aren't you.”
“Fairly.”
Chalk one up for me, he thought. He'd got the impression on Sunday that this fellow was new.
“Well, good luck here. It's a great store. Oh, yeah,” he said, as if suddenly remembering. He tossed the key ring onto the counter. “I'll take this as well.”
Kevin picked it up and turned it over, examining it. “Never seen this before.”
Jack let out a breath. He'd been counting on that. Even if Kevin had been working here awhile, he might not have paid attention to the contents of a cabinet he couldn't open.
“I found it on a shelf back there.”
“Where?”
Jack jerked a thumb to the right. “Back there.”
“Hmmm. Trouble is, there's no price on it. I don't even think we carry anything like this.”
“I'll give you, oh, say, ten bucks for it.”
Kevin reached for the phone. “I'd better just check with Mr. Bellitto first.”
Jack stiffened. “Hey, don't bother Eli. I'm sure he needs his rest.”
“No, it's okay. He told me to call if I have any questions.”
Jack suppressed a groan as Kevin tapped in the numbers. He'd wanted to slip away with the key ring—no fuss, no hassle. That might not be possible now. But if he had to grab it and walk out over Kevin's objections, that was what
he'd do. One way or another, Jack and Roger were leaving together.
Apparently Kevin called Bellitto's room directly because seconds later he said, “Hello, Mr. Bellitto, it's Kevin. Sorry to bother you, but I've got an item here with no price tag and I was wondering—”
Even from his spot across the counter Jack could hear the angry squawking from the ear piece.
“Yes, sir, but you see—”
More squawks.
“I understand. Yes, sir, I will.” He hung up. “I'm afraid this is going to take a while. I'm going to have to go through the inventory and find similar items and price this accordingly.” He shook his head as he gazed at the key ring. “Trouble is, I'm pretty sure we don't—”
“Let me make it easy for both of us,” Jack said. “I'll pay for the clock and give you ten bucks for the key ring. If it comes to more, I'll settle up. If it's less, I get a refund. Sound fair?”
“I guess so …”
Jack picked up the key ring and dangled it between them. “Hey, let's face it, Kev, we're not talking about a Ming vase here. Just find some paper and write down, ‘Roger Rabbit key ring—ten bucks—Jack.'”
“I'll put it in the sale book,” he said, opening a black ledger. Kevin dutifully wrote it all down, then looked up. “Just Jack?”
“Sure. Eli will know.”
Maybe not right away, Jack thought as he pulled out his wallet. But soon. Very soon.
Jack wanted Bellitto to know the key ring was gone. Because that was when he would begin wondering and worrying .
Jack planned to give him lots to worry about.

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