After half a dozen rings, Gia picked up. Her voice was tentative.

“Hello?”

Jack paused for an instant at the sound of her voice. After what he had been through in the past few hours, he wanted nothing more than to call it quits for the night, hop over to Queens and spend the rest of the time until morning with his arms around Gia. Nothing more would be needed tonight—just holding her.

“Sorry to wake you,” he said. “I’m going out for a few hours and wanted to make sure everything is okay.”

“Everything’s fine,” she said hoarsely.

“Vicky?”

“I just left her side to answer the phone. She’s fine. And I’m just reading this note from Abe explaining that he had to go out and not to worry. What’s going on?”

“Crazy stuff.”

“That’s not an answer. I need answers, Jack. This whole thing scares me.”

“I know. All I can say right now is it has to do with the Westphalens.” He didn’t want to say any more.

“But why is Vicky…oh.”

“Right. She’s a Westphalen. Someday when we have lots of time, I’ll explain it to you.”

“When will it all end?”

“Tonight, if things go right.”

“Dangerous?”

“Naw. Routine stuff.” He didn’t want to add to her worries.

“Jack…” She paused and he thought he detected a quaver in her voice. “Be careful, Jack.”

She would never know how much those words meant to him.

“Always careful. I like my body in one piece. See you later.”

He didn’t hang up. Instead he depressed the plunger for a few seconds, then released it. After checking for the dial tone, he stuffed the receiver under the seat cushion of his chair. It would start howling in a few minutes, but no one would hear that… and no one could call here and awaken Kolabati. With luck, he could take care of Kusum, get back here and replace the necklace without her ever knowing he had taken it. And with considerably more luck, she might not ever know for sure that he had anything to do with the fiery explosion that took her brother and his rakoshi to a watery grave.

He picked up his variable frequency beeper and hurried down to the street, intending to head immediately for the Isher Sports Shop. But as he passed the alley, he paused. He had no time to spare, yet he could not resist entering it to see the remains of the Mother rakosh. A jolt of panic shot through him when he saw no corpse in the alley. Then he came upon the smoldering pile of ashes. The fire had completely consumed the Mother, leaving only her fangs and talons. He picked up a few of each—they were still hot—and shoved them into his pocket. There might come a day when he would want to prove to himself that he had really faced something called a rakosh.

21

Gia cradled the phone and thought about what Jack had said about all this being over tonight.