Hosts

"Oh. I didn't expect you to call back so soon." A nice voice; soft and mature. Not too old, not too young.

Good start, Jack thought.

"Some problems can wait," he said, "some can't. You didn't say anything about yours. I can meet you tonight if necessary."

"Gosh, it's late but…"

"Where do you live?"

"I… I'd rather not say."

"Not your street address, your section of the city."

"Oh. It's called the Flower District. It's—"

"Know it." Upper Twenties around Sixth, above Chelsea. "I can meet you anywhere you want down there in about fifteen minutes."

"Tonight? Gee, I don't…"

"Lady, you called me."

A pause during which he swore he could hear her chewing her lip.

"Okay. But someplace public."

Someplace public… could meet her on Forty-second Street. Few places in the city more public than the Deuce since Disney moved in. Maybe too public. Better to make it closer to where she lived…

Considered the Seventh Avenue Papaya on the corner of Twenty-third, but that was usually a madhouse this time of night. He gri

"How about the Chelsea Hotel?"

"Where's that?"

Something not right here. "Thought you said you lived in the Flower District. You live down there and don't know the Chelsea?"

"I'm visiting. I'm from… from out of town."

"Okay then. It's right down Seventh from you. On Twenty-third. I'll meet you in the lobby. Is that public enough?"

"I don't know… this is so strange."

Hesitant. Jack liked that. He'd take a hesitant customer over a gung-ho out-for-blood type any day.

"Here's how we'll work it: I'll hang out there until midnight. If you change your mind and don't show, fine. If you see me and don't like what you see, just turn around and go back home and we'll forget the whole thing."

"That sounds fair, I guess."

"And you should know up front that I don't work cheap."

"I think it's a little early to haggle about fees. How will I spot you?"

"No problem. I'll stand out."

"How?"

"I won't be wearing black."

A tiny laugh. "I've spent enough time here to appreciate that!"

Her laugh… something vaguely familiar there… an echo of a laugh from long ago, but damned if he could remember who or when.

"Do I know you?" Jack asked.

"Oh, I doubt that. I doubt that very, very much."

Probably right. She said she was from out of town and Jack didn't leave the city much.

She added, "I only heard of you a couple of hours ago."

"From whom?"

"That's the strangest part. This woman I've never seen before gave me your number and said you could help."

"A stranger? What's her name?"

"I don't know. She had a Russian accent and a big white dog. She said to call you tonight… only you."

Got his number from a stranger… that didn't sit right, especially since the only people he knew with Russian accents were members of a Brighton Beach crew he'd had a brush with last year, and they weren't too fond of him.

A little extra caution might be in order here.

"You call someone you've never heard of on the recommendation of someone you don't know. You must be a very trusting person."

"No, I'm not. I'm just a very upset person. Maybe even a little frightened."

Thought he heard her voice threatening to crack at the end there. Okay. She sounded genuine. He could figure out later who the mystery woman was. For now…

"All right. I'll be dressed like Joe Prep; no way you'll be able to miss me in that crowd." Thought of something. "And remember, it's the Chelsea Hotel, not the Chelsea Savoy which is a couple of doors away. You want the big old red building with wrought-iron balconies all up and down its face and a red-and-white-striped awning over the entrance. Got it?"

"Got it."

"Okay. See you then."

Hung up and flagged a cab. As the driver headed down Broadway,

Jack wondered why he felt so determined to involve himself in fixing this woman's problem, whatever it was. He knew he was looking for a distraction, but it went beyond that.

Shrugged it off. Important thing was he was on the move, doing something instead of hanging around his apartment like a prisoner in a cell.

6

Sandy sat before one of the workstations in the darkened editorial pool, cursing as he tried by trial and error to decipher the workings of the unfamiliar program.

Once he'd figured he'd learned all he was going to at the crime scene, he got McCa

Only Pokorny, good old smart-ass Jay Pokorny, the only other reporter on the staff anywhere near his age, had tried to rain on his parade.

"You sure you didn't stage this, Palmer?" he said, looking down at him along his long, thin, patrician nose. "You know, hire some guy to off people in front of you just so you could make the front page?"

"Only you'd think of that, Jay," he'd said.

"I could be home getting laid," Pokorny mumbled, and wandered away.

After Sandy had written up his first-person eyewitness account—sans the GPM's description, of course—he zapped it to Meschke's computer. From there it would go to the printers who were standing by, readying a double run of tomorrow's edition.

All he needed now to make this incredible evening complete was just one usable frame on that roll he'd given the photo lab.

At the moment, Sandy was on his own time, doing his own thing. That involved a program called Identi-Kit 2000. He'd seen a reporter using it once and learned it was loaded onto the mainframe. Tonight he'd found and accessed it, and was now trying to get it to work for him. A manual existed somewhere in the building, he was sure, but he couldn't go asking for it. Anyone hearing about a witness to a major crime who wanted to knowT how to use the computer equivalent of a police sketch artist would catch on fast to what Sandy was up to.

He wasn't doing too badly without the manual, but the program offered so many variations on facial features that he felt his mind going numb. He'd wasted a lot of time trying to guess the hairline, then realized that was a mistake. He'd never seen the GPM's hairline and if he got it wrong it would work against him. So he had the program stick a knit watch cap on the head and that solved that.

A truly amazing piece of software. Slowly, steadily, through trial and error, hit and miss, he'd seen the GPM's face emerge and take shape on the screen. Except for the damn eyes. He'd worked the chin, the nose, the lips until they were pretty close to what he remembered. But the eyes—when he raised them they looked too high, yet when he lowered them they looked equally wrong.

He closed his own eyes and tried to remember the man's face as he'd looked past Sandy's shoulder to check the station stop… brought it into focus and zeroed in on those mild brown eyes…

Wider. That was it.

Back on the screen, Sandy widened the eyes then moved them up just a tad.

It's him! he thought, feeling his fingers tingle. Damn me, it's him!

He saw a world, a universe of possibilities bursting open before him.

But only if he kept it to himself. If anybody else got hold of this he'd lose his exclusive… lose that glorious future.

Sandy glanced around. No one nearby. He mouse-clicked PRTNT, typed a "10" into the COPIES box, then turned off his monitor. He rose, stretched, and made his way as casually as he could to the printer. There he watched the sheets with that face, that wonderful generic face, sliding into the tray.