“You’ve got that right.”
The Center was a black hole of need.
“Can I talk to you a minute?”
She looked at Gia more closely and saw that her eyes were red. Had she been crying?
“Sure.” She had no time, but this woman donated so much of hers to the Center, the least Alicia could do was give her a few minutes. “Sit down. Are you okay?”
“No,” she said, gliding into the chair. Her eyes got redder. “I’m so angry I could… I don’t like thinking about what I’d like to do to the scum that stole those toys.”
“It’s okay,” Alicia said. “The police are working on it.”
“But you’re not holding your breath, right?”
Alicia shrugged and sighed. “No. I guess not. But they’re all we’ve got.”
“Not necessarily,” Gia said.
“What do you mean?”
She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I know someone…”
3.
Jack kept an eye out for Dwight Frye on the TV screen as he scrolled through the messages left on the Repairman Jack Web site.
He was celebrating his discovery of the 1931 version of the Maltese Falcon with a Dwight Frye film festival. He had the Maltese Falcon running in the front room of his apartment. Frye played the role of Wilmer Cook in this one, and for Jack’s money, he out-psychoed Elisha Cook’s portrayal in the later John Huston version. But Ricardo Cortez was on the screen now, and he wasn’t such a hot Sam Spade.
Back to the World Wide Web.
Most of the questions on Jack’s home page were about refrigerators and microwaves, which he didn’t mind. Web wanderers who stumbled onto his page thought he was some sort of appliance answer man. Fine. After no replies to their questions, they’d delete his URL from their bookmarks.
But this one… from a guy named “Jorge.”
I BEEN RIPPED OFF. CAN’T GET MONEY OWED TO ME FOR WORK I DO. CAN’T GO ANYWHERE ELSE. CAN YOU FIX?
Yeah. That sounded like business.
Jack typed in a reply to Jorge’s E-mail address:
SEND ME YOUR PHONE #. I’LL BE IN TOUCH.
RJ
He’d call the guy and see what this was about. If he was having trouble with his bookie, tough. But he’d said it was money for “work.” So maybe Jorge was a potential customer.
The phone rang but Jack let the machine pick up. He heard his outgoing message… “Pinocchio Productions—I’m out at the moment. Leave a message after the beep”… then:
“Jack, this is Dad. Are you there?” A pause as he waited for Jack to pick up. Jack closed his eyes and didn’t move. He felt bad about leaving his father hanging, but he wasn’t up to another conversation with him right now. “All right… when you get in, give me a call. I came across another great opportunity for you down here.”
Jack exhaled when he heard the click of the connection breaking.
“Dad,” he said softly, “you’re making me crazy.”
His father had moved down to Florida a few months ago and Jack had thought it was a good idea at the time. Better to be a retired widower down there than in Burlington County, New Jersey.