5

"Keep to the left there, Vicks. See that doorway? Head for it."

Jack hovered over Vicky's shoulder as she navigated the future noir world of DNA Wars. The PlayStation version had come out about six months ago. At nine she was still a bit young and inexperienced to make it through the video game on her own. Jack had fought through to the end where he'd unlocked all the secret codes, including the special gene splices. So he'd entered them for Vicky, allowing her to play in "god mode"—immortal, omnipotent, with the game's entire array of mDNA templates and weapons at her command.

He slid to the side so he could see her face, watch the images from the big TV screen reflecting in her eyes, revel in her look of fascinated concentration. She was completely into it.

Since Jack's apartment and Lincoln Center were both on the Upper West Side, and since Jack had the big TV and all the cool video games, Gia had decided it would be easier to drop Vicky here. Her Christmas break had begun, so no school tomorrow.

The black dress Gia had worn was snug around the waist, but she looked dazzling anyway. And who'd notice her swelling belly next to Tom? His dwarfed hers. The rented tux made him look like Opus the penguin on his way to an Overeaters Anonymous banquet.

So Jack and Vicky had parked themselves on the edge of the bed in the TV room—Tom's bedroom now but not for much longer. The sixty-inch screen stretched the game's pixels, but made the gameplay intensely immersive.

Before Vicky's arrival Jack had hidden the Lilitongue and its chest in the hall closet. Couldn't say why, simply didn't want Vicky in the same room with it.

Keeping her eyes glued on the screen, Vicky said, "How come Mom's going out with Tom instead of you?"

"Because I don't like opera and your mother and Tom do. This way your mother gets to see something she likes and I get not to see something I don't like."

"I think he likes Mom."

Jack had to smile. Amazing what kids pick up on.

"I believe he does."

… demonstrating uncharacteristic good taste.

"Then why did you let her go with him?"

"I didn't 'let' her. Your mother makes her own decisions. I trust her to make good ones, just as she trusts me. What's the point of a relationship if one person can't let the other person out of sight?"

She glanced at Jack. "What if he kisses her?" He won't.

Not if he knows what's good for him.

"But what if he does?"

"Then we'll have to count Mom's teeth."

"Huh?"

Jack pointed to the screen. "You stuck?"

She nodded, back in the game. "I can't fit through this door."

Jack recognized Vicky's predicament—he'd been here before.

"Switch to a smaller template."

She hit the pause button instead.

"I gotta go sprinkle."

Jack took the controller. "I'll hold the fort."

"Don't play while I'm gone."

"I'll try… not to…" Jack said in a strained voice. His hand trembled over the toggles, moving closer, then pulling away. "Won't… be… easy… better hurry…"

Vicky ran from the room.

Jack smiled. God, he loved that kid.

And soon he'd have his own.

Now there was a frightening thought. A tiny baby, fragile, helpless, totally dependent. He shuddered. Facing a raging, three-hundred-pound, knife-wielding drunk would be less intimidating.

6

-83:00

A cry from Vicky shattered Jack's reverie.

"Jack!Jack!"

The fear in her voice had him on his feet and almost to the door when she rushed in.

"What's wrong?"

"That thing!" she wailed.

He gripped her upper arms. She was trembling.

"What thing?"

"Tom's sea treasure… I touched it!"

Oh, shit.

"You went into the closet?"

"I… I wondered where it was and I peeked in and saw the box in there and I wanted to see it again so I opened it and touched it—I only put my finger in its belly button—and—"

Fear quick-crawled on clawed feet through Jack's chest.

"You touched it?"

He wanted to be angry, but at whom? Vicky or himself?

She nodded. "But only once."

"Did it hurt you?"

A quick shake of her head. "No, but it moved!"

"Moved? How—?"

"Come see!"

She pulled him toward the hall but slid behind him as they left the TV room.

"See it? See it?"

Jack's heart began to pound. Yeah, he saw it. But what the hell—?

7

-81:28

"I'm so glad we could do this," Gia said, patting the back of Tom's hand.

They sat in the rear of a cab heading uptown toward Jack's place. Tom reached across and clasped her hand between both of his.

"It was wonderful, wasn't it. And you weren't exaggerating about Noelle's voice. Magnificent. But not as magnificent as the woman I shared the evening with."

Gia slipped her hand free and laughed.

"Mah, mah, Mister Tom," she said in a Southern-belle accent, "Ah declare, how you do go on."

Tom had to smile. She was good… maintained a distance between them without bruising his feelings.

Why was he so damn crazy about this woman? What was it about her that made him want to be her slave? Or babble like a fool?

Christ, when he'd been sipping champagne at the intermission he'd launched into a discourse on how it's usually a mixture of chardonnay, pinot noir, and pinot meunier, and how blanc de blanc was all chardonnay—blah-blah-blah until Gia's eyes had started to glaze over. And with good reason: He'd sounded like a pedantic twit.

And the last thing he wanted to do was bore her. He felt as if his past no longer existed, as if all his life he'd been marking time until he'd met her.

Marking time… thoughts of his present predicament brought him down from his high. If only he'd marked time instead of wheeling and dealing and lining his pockets, he'd be free and clear today. His ass would belong to him instead of a swarm of cops.

At least Gia didn't know the depth of his troubles, and as long as that remained the case, he could pretend to be the kind of man she could admire.

He well knew that, on the surface, that didn't make sense. She was carrying the baby of a man she loved—and he could tell how much by the way she looked at Jack—even though he was a career criminal. So why should Tom think she'd be repulsed if she knew the truth about him?

Jack had nailed it on the boat: Yeah, Jack was a criminal, but he wasn't a crook. Not mere semantics there. A whole world of difference.

On another day he might have told himself that he could offer Gia the gravitas Jack lacked. But he'd finally stopped doing the Nixon thing. He was a crook. Not the Great String-puller, not the Master of the System, a crook, and a tawdry one at that: A guy with a FOR HIRE sign on his soul.

At first he'd regretted his transgressions only because he'd got caught. Now he wished he'd played it straight all along, so he could play straight with Gia, talk to her about his record as a judge and point to it with pride.

But Gia… what would this woman who had a numinous core of probity and was so naturally and effortlessly good and straight that it seeped through her skin and suffused the air around her… what would she think of a man with his past?

Tom knew. And he couldn't bear the thought of her looking at him like a slug.

He thought of a line from As Good as It Gets: "You make me want to be a better man."

Yeah. He could say that to her and mean every word. But it was too late. Way too late. Now all he could do was look at her and think how she made him wish he'd been a better man.

Still, he couldn't understand what she saw in Jack.

He said, "You know I never got to ask how you and Jack met."

In truth he'd asked Jack but had been blown off with "at a party."