Ground Zero Part 57

11.

"I really wonder if you should be out," Weezy said as she strolled along the sunny side of Columbus Avenue with the Lady and the dog.

Her long black dress and three-legged dog made it hard not to think of her as Mrs. Clevenger.

"You keep saying that. You think I should hide? I am the Lady. I do not hide. And besides, if the Fhinntmanchca Fhinntmanchca is going to disrupt the noosphere, it will do so no matter where I am." is going to disrupt the noosphere, it will do so no matter where I am."

Weezy couldn't argue with the logic of that. The noosphere was all around, more ubiquitous than air. No one could protect it, no one could hide it, or hide from it.

Still, Weezy worried.

"But what if it's after you-personally, I mean?"

"Then it will find me eventually."

"Let's hope Jack finds it first."

The Lady nodded. "And for your sake-for everyone's sake-let's hope he can do something about it. But I fear he cannot."

A warm feeling rippled through her. "Jack seems full of surprises."

"A very capable man, but everyone has limits, even the Heir." She pointed to their left. "Let's head this way. We can walk along the edge of Taxidermy Park."

Weezy smiled. "Why do you call it that?"

"A piece of the city's wild past stuffed and mounted and put on display." As they crossed the avenue she said, "You love him, don't you."

The words startled her. "We're just old friends-dear old friends-and I care deeply for him, but I don't love ..."

Or did she?

The wall of denial she'd built collapsed, and what she saw staggered her.

Yes, she'd fallen for him. But she'd been vulnerable. The void Steve left had never closed. She'd tried to fill it with her probings into the secrets behind 9/11, but that hadn't been enough. It wasn't just that he'd come back into her life, it was the way way he'd come back-at full charge, with such he'd come back-at full charge, with such drama drama. Vulnerable? She'd been a sitting duck.

Or maybe nothing was really new about this. She suspected now that she might have loved him back when they were teens, but her neurotransmitters had been too screwed up, swinging her moods back and forth, up and down, to let her notice.

Or were her feelings now just a manifestation of a new swing of her bipolar pendulum? Were these true emotions or just another hypomanic oscillation?

It sucked not to be able to trust your feelings.

The Lady suddenly gripped her arm and pulled her toward the curb. "Let's cross the street here."

Weezy sensed a sudden urgency. "Why?"

"I do not wish to walk past that place."

Weezy looked over her shoulder and saw a blue awning leading to gla.s.s doors. Sitchin Clinic Sitchin Clinic was etched in the gla.s.s. was etched in the gla.s.s.

"What's wrong?"

"Their screams."

Baffled, Weezy looked again and saw Women's Center Women's Center in smaller letters. Women's center ... the euphemism for abortion clinic. in smaller letters. Women's center ... the euphemism for abortion clinic.

"You can hear ... ?"

The Lady nodded. "They linger."

After they'd walked a ways in silence, the Lady said, "His heart is taken, you know."

"Jack's? Yeah, I met her."

And liked her, d.a.m.n it. Not the kind of woman she would have expected to be paired with the man Jack had become, but their differences seemed to strengthen their bond instead of weaken it.

"But we were close long before she even knew he existed. I can claim first dibs." When the Lady gave her a look, she added, "Only kidding. But who knows? They could split. Nothing lasts forever, right?"

She immediately hated herself for saying that. She didn't wish anyone pain, especially Jack, but relations.h.i.+ps fell apart every day.

"They have a special bond ... a child."

"Vicky? She's a doll, but-"

"No. Another child ... unborn."

Weezy stopped walking and gawked at her. "Gia's pregnant pregnant?"

The Lady shook her head. "Was. I will explain ..."

12.

The few Kickers on the front steps of the Lodge did not seem their c.o.c.ky selves. They looked shaken.

"Hey, what's up?" Jack said, shaking out a cigarette and offering the pack to one of the hangers.

The guy waved him off, saying, "It's awful."

The Fhinntmanchca Fhinntmanchca, maybe?

"What happened?"

"I didn't see it go down, but Hags and Ansari, man ... I got a peek at them. The others are bad, but they're just awful."

Something awful had happened to that creep Ansari? Well, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

Diana's warning popped into his head. It's dangerous. It's deadly It's dangerous. It's deadly.

"I'm not following. What-?"

"Darryl ..." The guy shook his head.

"Darryl?" He remembered Ansari telling him about his HIV. "I thought he'd been kicked out."

"So did I. But he was back this morning and ..." He shook his head again and looked away.

"Thanks. You've been a big help."

As Jack turned and climbed toward the entrance, he heard the wail of sirens. From the top of the steps he could see a pair of ambulances making their way down the street. He hurried inside where he found more sh.e.l.l-shocked Kickers milling around.

Where would Darryl and Ansari be? A group of guys were cl.u.s.tered around the stairway down to the bas.e.m.e.nt. He headed in their direction. The bas.e.m.e.nt looked like the place to be, and after following Thompson and Drexler yesterday, that made sense. If the Fhinntmanchca Fhinntmanchca was here, that was where he'd find it. was here, that was where he'd find it.

"All right, everybody!" he called, clapping his hands as he approached. "Let's get clear! The ambulances are here. Let's let the EMTs through."

He began clearing a path down the steps, but a big guy at the door wouldn't move.

"Off-limits. And who the f.u.c.k are you?"

Jack looked him square in the eye. "One of your Kicker brothers. And I've got EMTs right behind me. You gonna keep them out while Hags and Ansari bleed to death?"

His eyes s.h.i.+fted. "Ain't bleeding."

No? Strange. Now he wanted more than ever to get past that door.

"You know what I mean. Come on, clear the door. You really gonna stand there and keep them from getting help?"

That last seemed to do it. With a grunt he turned the k.n.o.b and shoved the door open. Jack slipped through and found a mess.

He counted eight Kickers, each seemingly damaged in a different way, lying or sitting on the floor. Moans and sobs filled the room. Half a dozen others stood and stared at them or tried to help. He spotted Ansari on his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks as he felt around on the floor with his left hand.

"Anybody seen my hand? Where's my f.u.c.king hand?"

What?

And then Jack saw the stump of his right wrist, but no blood there-it looked charred.

Hagaman sat on the floor, his back against the wall, his face a sick pale green. He clutched the stump of his left arm, charred as well. The rest of the arm lay across his lap.

He kept repeating, "You think they'll be able to sew it back on? Do ya? Do ya?"

Half a dozen other Kickers had deep, deep burns in their arms and backs. One lay facedown on the floor. He had a fist-size hole in his upper back, all the way through into his chest cavity. Except for the lack of blood, it looked like the kind of exit wound a Magnum hollowpoint would make. The guy's eyes stared at nothing and he wasn't breathing.

What the h.e.l.l happened here?

"Where's the boss?" he asked one of the dazed-looking Kickers standing around and watching. The guy wore his sandy hair in a long mullet.

"Huh?" He blinked and focused. He seemed to have been in a trance. "He followed Darryl."

"Where'd they go?"

"The f.u.c.k should I know?" he said, his voice thick with the Deep South. "I just hope I never f.u.c.kin see that guy again."

"Who, the boss?"

"You f.u.c.kin kiddin me? Darryl!" He gestured to the fallen Kickers. "Look what he did!"

Jack stared at the guy. He seemed sober. His pupils looked okay.

Shock seeped through as he surveyed the devastation again.

"Darryl did this?"

"f.u.c.k yeah!"

Jack tried to imagine it and failed.

"How?"

"The f.u.c.k I know? Like anything he touched turned to steam. Never seen nothin like it and hope to G.o.d I never see it again."

Darryl? This guy had to be on drugs. But then again, the wounds Jack had seen sort of fit with what he was saying.

But how? Could it have anything to do with the Fhinntmanchca Fhinntmanchca? Had to. What other explanation could there be?

Over the guy's shoulder and past his mullet, Jack saw the door to the smaller side room standing open. He needed to see what lay at the bottom of that circular stairway.

"How about Drexler? He around?"

"Who?"

"The dude in the white suit."

"Oh, yeah. That his name? He went with the boss."

The EMTs arrived then, and suddenly the focus was on them. Jack used the diversion to slip into the back room.

Inside, the closet door stood open, with the trapdoor up as well. Looked like someone had left in a hurry. Jack closed the door to the main room, then stepped into the closet and listened for sound from below.

All quiet.

Okay. Make this quick.