6
“You look tired,” Gia said as she sliced Vicky’s everything bagel. “Did you get any sleep last night?”
“Some.”
Jack had grabbed a few hours of shut-eye, showered, and shown up at Gia’s door with half a dozen bagels—including two everythings for Vicky.
He drained his mug of coffee and stepped to the counter for a refill. Gia’s super-strong Colombian was working its wake-up magic.
“Ran into two blasts from my past yesterday—Eddie and Weezy Connell from good old Johnson, NJ.”
Gia smiled her smile as she dropped the everything halves into the toaster slots. She was barefoot, wearing loose jeans and a tight pink sleeveless top. She had nice deltoids for someone who never worked out.
“Weezy? As in ‘movin’ on up’ Weezy?” She grinned. “Does she live on the East Side in a deluxe apartment in the sky?”
“She was Weezy before The Jeffersons.”
“How’d this happen?”
“Weezy’s got trouble. Stuck her nose into places where, apparently, people don’t want to see any unfamiliar noses, and now . . .”
The smile disappeared. “Is she in danger?”
As he reseated himself at the kitchen table, he glanced at the folded copy of the Post he’d picked up on his way over. The front page showed Weezy’s house engulfed in flames under the headline BACKFIRE! A brief, hastily written article inside told of three dead, unidentified gunshot victims found in the backyard, and how they’d been linked to a van containing firebomb materials parked out front.
“Oh, yeah.”
Odors of garlic and onion tinged the air as the bagel heated.
“Can’t she go to the police?”
“It usually is by the time they call you. Do I want to know any of the details?”
“Probably not. It sounds pretty wacky, and all her reasoning may be way off base, but she’s definitely stirred up a hornet’s nest.”
Gia pulled the bagel halves from the toaster and began buttering them with Jif Extra Crunchy. Jack shook his head. PB on an everything bagel . . . blech.
“Vicky!” she called. “Jack’s here and he brought bagels!” She glanced at Jack. “Weezy and Eddie . . . were you close as kids?”
“Yeah. As close to them as anyone. For years Weezy and I were best buds.”
“You’ve never mentioned them.”
“Do I mention anyone from those days? To tell the truth, I’ll bet I haven’t given them a single thought in the last ten or fifteen years.”
Pounding footsteps on the stairs, then Vicky charged in.
“Jack!”
“Hey, Vicks.”
She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek, then darted to the waiting bagel.
“Everything! Awesome!”
She dropped into her chair and tore into it.
“Human bites, Vicky,” Gia said as she placed a glass of milk before her. “You’re not a crocodile—human bites.”
Jack leaned back and looked around as he sipped his coffee. Sun streamed through the open door from the small backyard as Gia wiped the bagel crumbs from the table and Vicky chowed down in lip-smacking joy.
Hard to believe that relentless forces were at work to take all this away, to make a moment like this impossible.
He couldn’t allow that to happen, yet had no idea how to stop it.
But Weezy . . . maybe that unique brain of hers could help. Maybe if she added the contents of the Compendium to everything else in her head, she could come up with a solution, or at least point him toward one.
A long, long shot, but not trying was not an option.