Kent clapped his hands against the sides of his head and tugged on his red hair. “Aw, shit! How close?”

“I can’t say. I do know he recommended her for the job, but beyond that…” Luc shrugged.

“Dear God,” Brad said. “Can’t anything be simple? What if they’re close? We don’t want to do anything to distract her from her work! You’ve got to find out!”

Luc rose. “I’ll do my best.”

“In the meantime,” Kent told Brad, “get the cash together.”

As Luc turned and reached for the door, Brad’s voice was a low moan behind him. “How long can we keep this up?”

Brad was unraveling before their eyes.

Hang on just a little longer, Brad, Luc thought. Just a few more weeks. After that, you can dissolve into a quivering mass of Jell-O for all I care.

9

“If Abe vouches for you,” Tom Terrific said, “that’s good enough for me. But I’d like my consultation fee up front if you don’t mind.”

‘Take a check?” Jack said.

Tom Terrific acknowledged the patent absurdity with a smile that revealed small yellow teeth spaced like kernels on a stunted ear of corn. His forehead went back even farther than Abe’s, but he was much thinner, and the long salt-and-pepper hair growing off the rear half of his scalp was twisted into a single braid. He looked to be in his late forties, slightly hunched posture, painfully thin, wearing torn jeans and a sleeveless Mighty Ducks sweatshirt that revealed a showroom of tattoos up and down his arms. The Harley-Davidson insignia clung to his wasted left deltoid; a big red “1%” was engraved on his right. If Uncle Creepy had been a Hell’s Angel, he’d have looked like Tom Terrific.

“I see you’re into ink, Mr. Terrific,” Jack said as he pulled a hundred-dollar bill from his back pocket. “You into bikes too?”

The massive rottweiler in the corner leaped to his feet and growled as Jack’s hand moved toward Tom Terrific with the money.

“Easy, Manfred,” he said without turning his head. “He’s only giving Daddy some bread.” To Jack: “Hey, call me Tom, Okay. The Terrific’s just for kicks, y’know? And as for being a biker, yeah, I used to ride. Dropped outta Berkeley and rode with a Fresno gang for about ten years. Used to weigh in at an eighth of a ton too. But those days are gone. I now live the life of a pharmaceutical artiste.”

Jack glanced around the basement apartment. Abe had led him down here to a narrow cobblestone street just south of Canal in Chinatown where Tom Terrific was probably the only non-Asian resident. His furnished apartment sat under a Thai restaurant, although furnished was probably a euphemism. The rug and furniture looked like the kind of stuff that people put out on the curb but nobody would haul away, not even the sanit men.

A long way from the digs of that other pharmaceutical artiste, Dr. Luc Monnet.

“What do you want to know?” Tom said as he tucked away the bill. “Looking to start your own operation?”