Jack looked up. "People buy this stuff?"

"By the ton. Apparently he's a mesmerizing speaker."

Jack read on and stopped at another quote.

"It is time to separate yourselves from the herd. You know who you are. You know who I'm talking to. You don't belong with the herd. Come out of hiding. Step away from the crowd. Let the dissimilation begin!"

"'Dissimilation.' That's a new one."

"You should remember it. Adopt it even. It's what you've done with your life already."

Jack thought about that. He supposed he had. But he got the feeling Thompson wasn't talking about living under the radar.

When I ask him what he has to say about claims that an unusually high percentage of his followers—known as "Kickers"—have criminal records, his face darkens.

"First off, they're not followers' of anyone. When you're dissimi-lated you follow your own path. As for the rest—half truths spread by jealous rivals who see me as a threat to their little self-help empires! But their kind of self-help really boils down to helping themselves get rich on other people's hard-earned money. We have Kickers who are corporate CEOs, housewives and secretaries. I'm not out to accumulate a fortune or start an empire."

I press him about the criminal record, because it's a subject that concerns a lot of people.

"My message speaks to the disadvantaged as well as the advantaged. If there's a large number of what some people like to sneer at as 'lowlifes' among the Kickers, it's because I started getting the word out by going to bars and halfway houses and AA meetings and just talking. I'd say my piece, sell a few copies of the book, then move on.

"I connected with those people. I come from where they come from, and I've lived through what they've lived through, survived what they survived. No one else speaks to them or for them. They know I care about them and won't lie to them. And they listen to me because they know I'm a man with a mission."

I ask him what that would be.

"Why, to change the world, of course."

Jack looked up: "Jack's Law: Never trust anyone who wants to change the world."

He stared down again at the head shot of Hank Thompson. The same strange figure was either painted or hung on the wall behind him; the way it framed him, a few of its appendages seemed to be jutting from his head. Jack tapped the cover reproduction and then the figure on the Xerox sheet.

"What is this thing? It looks like a spider."

"Two more legs a spider should have. To me it looks like a four-armed man—or woman."

"Let's hope it's not a woman…"

Jack remembered the painting of a four-armed goddess—Kali—in the horror-filled hold of a freighter floating off the West Side.

"The 'Kicker Man,' Thompson calls it."

"Whatever it is, it's ancient."

Abe frowned. "How so?"

"Despite promises to the contrary, your professor friend copied this from the Compendium."

Abe looked offended. "Oh? You were there when he copied it?"

"No, but—"

"Then how do you know?"

Abe seemed to be taking this personally so Jack explained about their copying one of the pages together. He pointed to the squiggles accompanying the figure.

"That's what the original First Age writing looks like when you photocopy it—when it can't mutate into English or whatever your native language is."

Abe frowned. "You've told me this before but how do you know it's true?"

"To the prof's eyes it was written in German."

"A joke you're making, right?"

"I kid you not. The upshot is that this figure is O-L-D. You studied all kinds of ancient languages and stuff with the prof. Ever come across anything like this?"

Abe shook his head. "Never. But Doctor Buhmann might have. That was maybe why he copied it. Or he'd seen the cover of this guy's book and wanted to compare them, see how close they were."

Jack studied them. "Line for line, they're damn near identical. Question is, where does a high school dropout come across something like this? Where else can you find it besides the Compendium ofSremV

"Yours is maybe not the only copy?"

Jack gave the counter a shot with the heel of his hand.

"Damn, I wish I had the book. I'd like to read up on this thing, get the story behind it."

"Nu? You care?"

"Doesn't it do anything to you?"

Abe looked confused. "It should do something to me? What already? Tt's just a stick figure of a four-armed man."

"It doesn't make you feel… funny inside?"

"Not at all. The only funny-inside feeling I have is the need for another elephant ear."

Jack took one last look at the figure, then refolded the sheets.

"Got a phone book?"

"Only yellow."

"Fine."

Abe reached under the counter, came up with a fat one, and dropped it with a thud on the counter.

"You're looking up Muller's to order a delivery, right?"

"They don't deliver. I need info on a PI named Gerhard."

Abe shook his head as if to clear it. "He knows about the Compendium?'1''

"No, this is another matter. Although, the way things have been going lately, he just might."

He had contact information from Christy but wanted a look himself. Under Private Investigators and Detectives he found the Gerhard Agency, and listed under that was Michael P. Gerhard. The address was a "suite 624" on West 20th here in Manhattan, but the 718 area code of the phone number was the same Brooklyn number Christy had given him.

He pointed to the computer on the counter.

"Do me a favor and look up Michael P. Gerhard in Brooklyn."

Abe's pudgy fingers flew over the keyboard, then he adjusted his glasses and squinted at the screen.

"Plenty of Gerhards. No Michael P. but there's a Gerhard MP on Avenue M."

Avenue M ran through a number of Brooklyn neighborhoods.

"Can we narrow that down a bit?"

Abe pushed out his lower lip. "Can't say for sure, but I got a feeling that's a Flatlands address."

"How can you tell?"

"Old uncles I had used to live out there when it was predominantly Jewish. Now it's predominantly not Jewish."

Jack pulled out his cell phone and called the number Abe gave him. After four rings he was shunted to voice mail. He listened to the standard message—''Hi, this is Mike, blah-blah-blah"—and hung up. Then he called the office number and got voice mail again. A more formal message this time: "Hello. You have reached the Gerhard Agency …"

No question: Same voice both times.

Jack left a message: "Mister Gerhard, this is Jack—"

He needed a last name. He glanced around, saw Nike on a shoebox. No. Saw Prince on a racket.

"—Prince and T wish to engage your services. Please call me as soon as possible. It's an urgent matter." He left his Tracfone number.

There. All he had to do now was wait for his callback, arrange a meet, and convince him to square his accounts with Christy Pickering.

But while he was waiting, why not check out his "office."