The breeze off the Sound was in Jack’s face, which meant he was downwind.

Can’t be me.

A few seconds later the pair resumed their course to wherever they were going, leaving Jack a clear field. But then someone else appeared and walked by the trailer. This rear area was a little too busy for his liking. Too much traffic and too likely a chance of being caught with his eye to a keyhole.

But what possible interest could a molecular biologist like Dr. Luc Monnet have in a traveling sideshow? Didn’t seem likely it was related to what Nadia had hired him for, but experience had taught him that all too often the most disparate-seeming things could wind up connected.

He had to see this place in daylight. Tomorrow was Sunday. Too bad he couldn’t bring Gia and Vicky along. He’d bet Vicks had never seen an “oddity emporium.” But after spotting that Beagle Boy, no way. Tomorrow would be a solo flight.

He crept back to his car and pointed it toward Manhattan. Once through the tunnel, he swung by Sutton Square to see if Dragovic’s men were back on watchdog duty but saw no sign.

He wondered if they’d be back tomorrow. They’d camped out all day without catching even a glimpse of Gia, so maybe they’d think she was away for the weekend and give up.

And maybe they wouldn’t.

If they were back in the morning he’d have to deal with them again. He’d been cooking up an idea, but he’d need help.

Jack drove to the Upper West Side and, miracle of miracles, found a parking spot half a block from his apartment—had to love these holiday weekends. He walked over to Julio’s.

The usual crowd was stacked at the bar, but the table area was only moderately filled.

“Slow night?” Jack asked as Julio handed him a Rolling Rock long-neck.

They were standing by the window under the hanging plants. Jack’s head brushed against one of the pots, causing a minor snowfall from the dead asparagus fern.

“Yeah!” Julio said, beaming and rubbing his hands together. He was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt as usual, and the motion caused muscles to ripple up and down his pumped-up arms. “Isn’t it great. Just like the old days.”

The yups and dinks were all out of town. The regulars at Julio’s, working guys who had been coming in since he opened the place, weren’t the type to leave on three-day weekends.

“I’m going to need a favor tomorrow,” Jack said. “The driving kind.”

“Sure. When?”

“Sometime between twelve and one will do.”

“What I gotta do?”

Jack explained the details. Julio liked them, and so they agreed to meet around noon.

Jack walked home feeling as if the various situations around him might be under control. Not a comforting thought. Experience had taught him that the time you feel things are under control is the time you should start some serious worrying.

He managed to stay awake through the Lancaster-York The Island of Dr. Moreau, which somehow managed to make a fascinating story very dull. Barbara Carrera was gorgeous, but the luscious Movielab greens of the island sapped the atmosphere, and Richard Basehart didn’t quite cut it as the Sayer of the Law. It was an official entry in the Moreau Festival, though, and he felt obliged to sit through it. A penance of sorts before the guilty pleasure to come: the hilarious Brando-Kilmer version from 1996.