Haunted Air

Jack bent over him. "Lyle! Lyle, can you hear me?"

Lyle rolled over and opened his eyes. They looked dull, bloodshot. He looked around and blinked as if he'd just stepped out of a cave. His gaze came to rest on his brother standing over him, frozen in shock.

Charlie's voice was very small. "Lyle? You okay?"

"Dumb question," Lyle croaked as he propped himself up on one elbow. "Do I look okay?"

His tongue worked in and out of his mouth as he sat up.

"What's wrong?" Jack said.

"My mouth. Tastes like dirt."

"It bad, ain't it," Charlie said in that same small voice.

Lyle bent his knees and rested his forehead against them. "It started out bad, I can tell you that. It's mostly a blur, but I know for a moment there I felt as if I was suffocating, really and truly choking to death, but then the feeling passed. After that it all became pretty vague and jumbled for a while, but then I came to that same hungry darkness I saw with the others." He looked up at his brother. "But we come through it, the both of us. I mean, it seems like we do because we're still together when it's all over."

"Praise God!" Charlie said, his voice stronger now. "That can only mean you get yourself saved before the Rapture." He lifted his arms and looked up. "God, you are so great and good to have mercy on my brother and I."

Lyle glanced at his brother, sighed, then held out a hand for Jack to help him up.

Jack hesitated. "You sure you want to do that?" Jack was sure he didn't want anyone looking into his future. And they could stay out of his past and present too while they were at it.

"You've got a point there." Lyle pushed himself to his feet. He staggered a step when he was fully upright. "Man." He shook his head. "Maybe we'd better call it a day."

"Probably a good idea," Jack said. "We haven't found one loose stone in the whole damn wall. That means tomorrow we start on the floor. Probably should have started there in the first place."

Lyle nodded. "Yeah. If Dmitri was involved with Tara Portman, and maybe more missing kids, I can think of only one reason for a dirt floor all those years."

Jack walked over to the gap in the floor and examined the edge of the concrete.

"Shouldn't be too bad a job. Looks like it's only two inches thick. You could rent a jackhammer and make short work of it."

Lyle shook his head. "Rather not if I can avoid it. Too much noise. I'm not looking to attract attention."

Jack glanced at him. "Not yet, anyway."

A flat smile. "Right. Not yet. You mind if we try by hand first?"

"Sure. If you think you'll be up for it tomorrow, so will I."

"I'll be up for it. But only till mid-afternoon. I'm speaking to a women's club in Forest Hills tomorrow." He held up a pinky and pursed his lips. "Pre-di

"Hoping to expand your clientele?"

He sighed. "Yeah. That was the case when I arranged the gig." He glanced at his brother. "Now, maybe I'm just wasting my time." He perked up as he faced Jack, but it seemed to take effort. "Anyway, I'll cancel tomorrow's sittings and we'll start off bright and early. If nothing else, it'll be a good workout."

A good workout... right. What would also be good, but far from pleasant, would be finding Tara Portman's remains and putting her to rest. Maybe then Gia would put the little girl behind her. And maybe then Jack could find out what all this meant and why he was involved.

Maybe.

14

Jack loped down Ditmars toward the subway, passing rows of ethnic stores propping up gray-stone triple-decker apartments. Rush hour was in full swing with the sidewalks cramped and the streets stop and go. He turned onto Thirty-first Street and was headed toward the looming elevated N line when his phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket and hit the send button.

"Hey, hon. What's up?"

But it wasn't Gia on the other end.

"Am I speaking to Jack?" said a faintly accented male voice that cracked his name like a whip.

Jack stopped walking. "Who's this? Who're you calling?"

"I'm calling the one who tried to kill me Monday night. Would that be you, Jack?"

Bellitto! How had he got this number? That bothered him, but the scalding fury of realizing he was speaking to Tara Portman's killer engulfed his concern. He looked around, then backed into the doorway of a gyro-souvlaki shop.

"Eli!" Jack said. He felt his lips tightening, pulling back from his teeth. "If I'd wanted to kill you, you'd be making this call from your grave. I didn't recognize your voice. Maybe that's because last time I heard it you were whining like a frightened child. You know what a frightened child sounds like, don't you?"

"Just as you do, I'm sure."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, come now, Jack, or whatever your real name is. Don't take me for a fool. I know more about you than you think I do."

Unease blunted Jack's fury. Was Bellitto bluffing? He knew Jack's name-no, wait. Jack had had Eli's clerk write Jack next to Tara's key-chain entry in the sale book. That was how he'd got the name. But somehow Eli had found Jack's Tracfone number. What else did he know?

"Such as?"

"I know you're a practitioner."

"Really?" Where was this going? "Of what?"

An instant's hesitation, as if Bellitto was unsure of how much he should say, then, "The Ceremony, of course."

The word meant nothing to Jack, but Bellitto's tone had loaded it with so much portent he knew he had to play along.

He feigned a gasp of shock. "How... how did you know?"

Bellitto laughed softly. "Because I've been a practitioner so much longer than you, so much longer than anyone. And your designs are pathetically transparent."

"Are they now?"

"Yes. You want to take over my Circle."

Jack had no idea what he was talking about but wanted to keep him going, maybe find out what made him tick and use some of that as a point of attack. Because Eli Bellitto was going down. Hard. Only a matter now of when and where.

"I have my own circle, so why would I want yours?"

"Because mine is so much more powerful. I've been performing the Ceremony for hundreds of years and-"

"Wait. Did you say 'hundreds'?"

"Yes. Hundreds. I am two hundred and thirty-two years old."

Jack shook his head. This guy was Froot Loop city.

"I had no idea."

"Now you see what you're up against. My Circle extends into all areas of power and influence. And you want it for yourself, don't you."

"My circle runs pretty deep and wide itself, and-"

The voice hardened. "Yours is nothing! Nothing! You caught me by surprise Monday night, but that won't happen again. I have my Circle casting its net for you. You're clever, but you're no match for me. We have your Tracfone number and soon we'll have your name, and once we have that, you're finished!"

Jack had a pretty good idea of how they'd got his phone number. He'd made only one call since his tete-a-tete with Bellitto, and that had been to 911 to report the kid. EMS would have recorded the number on caller ID. Figuring out from there that it was a Tracfone was no big deal, but to get the number in the first place did indicate a certain amount of suck with officialdom, maybe even the NYPD itself.

Maybe Bellitto wasn't blowing smoke. Maybe he was as well co

And maybe he was trying to keep Jack talking instead of the other way around. If his "circle" had a couple of tracking cars riding around, tracing this call, could they triangulate on Jack's position and move in?

Lucky for him he was far from home.

Jack stepped away from the building and rejoined the pedestrian flow toward the elevated tracks. He'd keep the call going for a while longer, then step on a train and zoom away.