He watched Abe do some mousing and keyboard tapping, frown, do some more, then come up with…

"Nothing. The name and address connected to that number are restricted."

Jack shrugged. "I'll go with what I have then. How's the professor, by the way?"

Abe shook his head. "Again I dropped in on him last night. No change. His mind… I don't know. Still with the numbers."

"Shame. Okay, I'm off on my map quest."

"Wait. I just thought of something. Let me try a straightforward lookup." More tapping. "Ha! Here's an Aaron Levy, M.D., at twenty-six-eighty-one Riverview Road in Rathburg, New York."

"That's the address I have. Okay, we've found him. What can you tell me about him?"

Abe did his click-click-tap-tap thing and then smiled.

"Here's something mentioning him as an attendee at a fund-raiser for the Rathburg Public Library."

"Got a picture?"

"What for you want a picture?"

"Because I've got a lawyer's chance of heaven of getting through the front door to see this guy. I'll have to use some backdoor tactics. And to do that I need to know what he looks like."

"Here we go: 'Doctor Aaron Levy, associate director of patient care at the Creighton Institute, with his wife, Marie, and daughter, MolUe* at the same fund-raiser."

Abe turned the monitor toward Jack. He saw a smiling dark-haired man in his early fifties with a dark-haired woman of the same age, flanking a dark-haired girl who looked about twelve or so. The article, from the Rathburg-on-Hudson Review, had appeared two years ago.

"Perfect. Print that out for me, will you?"

"It's printing already."

"Great. And while we're waiting, see where I can find this Creighton Institute. I saw that mentioned on Gerhard's computer. Sounds like a hospital or something."

"Here it is: The Creighton Institute. And you'll never guess the address."

"Twenty-six-eighty-one Riverview Road in Rathburg?"

"You got it."

"Okay. That's where he works. But where does he live? There's gotta be a way—"

"Tax records, maybe. No, wait. Let me Google this." Abe started tapping again. "New… York… property… search…" He hit ENTKR. "Gevaltl Let me fill in these boxes. County • ■ • Westchester. Town… Rathburg. Name… Aaron Levy. Enter." A pause, then, "Here it is: Nine-oh-three Argent Drive."

Jack felt a little queasy as he said, "Print that out for me too."

Abe shook his head as he hit PRINT. "This is terrible."

Jack knew exactly what he was feeling.

"Because it's so easy?"

"Frighteningly so."

"Makes me glad I rent, Abe. Go back to that Creighton Institute. What else can we find out about it?"

"Let's see." After a few more clicks Abe leaned back and looked at him. "Oy. The full name is the Creighton Institute for the Criminally Insane."

Jack shook his head. "Swell."

2

Broadway seemed like a good place to find a map, so Jack ambled west.

Broadway ran north-south up here. A few blocks downtown, at 79th Street, it broke from the grid and started angling east, crossing the city on a diagonal all the way down to the East Village where it headed due south again.

He spotted a Barnes & Noble and saw a display of Kick in its front window. The cover was hard to miss with its bold black type and stick-figure drawing against a neon-yellow background.

He stared at the Kicker Man, feeling that same odd sensation.

Enough of this wondering. He needed to find out why that figure looked so… what? Familiar?

A placard with a similar color scheme posted behind the display read:

Join the kicker evolution!

Evolution?

He went inside, picked up a trade paperback, and flipped through it. Large type and a little Kicker Man in each of the breaks.

"Save your money, man."

Jack looked up and saw a long-haired guy in jeans and a tie-dyed shirt giving him a sidelong look.

"Say what?"

"That book." He spoke in a conspiratorial whisper from the corner of his mouth. "It's a load of crap, man."

Nodding knowingly, he moved off.

Well, well. A reader review. But not a helpful one. Jack expected a load of crap. He simply wanted to know how Hank Thompson had come up with that four-armed man.

He found a New York State map and headed for the checkout counter. On the way he passed a "New Paperback Fiction" rack where a cover caught his eye: cobalt blue with a pair of glowing yellow eyes—definitely not human—staring out above a pile of pills. He stopped when saw the title: Berzerk!

Those eyes were startlingly close to a rakosh's. And the pills… last spring he'd run up against a drug with a lot of street names, one of which was Berzerk—misspelled just as it was on the cover.

And then his heart stuttered a beat when he read that it was "a Jake Fixx novel" and "sequel to RakshasaV by P. Frank Winslow.

He snatched it from its rack and grabbed a passing employee—a twenty-something guy with thin hair and thick sideburns.

"What is this?"

The guy looked at Jack, then the novel, then Jack. "We call that a book."

A comedian. Yay.

"I know that. But who's this guy Winslow? How many of these has he written?"

The guy shrugged. "I dunno. You'll have to check with Information."

"But you work here."

"Yeah, but I just put them on the shelves. I don't read them. Sorry. Check with Information."

Jack did, but the kiosk was empty. He found the fiction section and searched through the W authors where he found one copy of Rakshasa. He checked out the cover and found the same cobalt blue, same glowing eyes, but instead of pills, a freighter floated in the foreground.

"Christ!"

He didn't know what was inside, but from the look of the covers it seemed like someone was peeking into his life.

The information kiosk was still empty so he headed for the checkout area. With no line he walked up to the only cashier, a guy with a shaved head and a black soul patch.

Jack slapped the novels on the counter and pushed them forward.

"What do you know about these?"

He shook his head. "Nothing." He pointed to the copy of Kick. "But I know a lot about that."

Jack noticed a tiny Kicker Man tattoo in the web between his thumb and forefinger.

"Fine, but—"

"You'll love it, I can tell. It'll be like a wire into your brain. I've read my copy so many times it's damn near worn out."

Jack pointed to the tattoo. "Who'da thunk."

The guy held up his hand. "That lets the world know I've dissimilated and evolved. I'm a Kicker and proud of it."

He scanned and bagged, then said, "That comes to twenty-four-seventy-one."

Jack reached for his wallet. "Comes to more than that, I think."

The guy smiled and lowered his voice. "The Kick is on the house."

"Yeah? Where does it say that?"

"I'm giving you a special discount. You know, Kicker to a soon-to-be Kicker."

"No thanks. I'll pay."

The guy spoke through his teeth as he pushed the bag toward Jack. "Take it."

"I'll pay my own way, if you don't mind." He pushed the bag back. "Scan the book. Now."

The guy glared at him as he snatched the book from the bag, scanned it, then shoved it back in.

"Forty-two-oh-seven."

Jack handed him a MasterCard. The John Tyleski identity was still good. Barring a glitch he'd probably keep it until fall.

After he signed and pocketed his receipt, he picked up the bag and started to turn away.

"I see you at the rally, I'll kick your ass."

"That a pun?"

The guy looked confused. "Huh?"

"Never mind. What rally?"

"The Kicker rally at the Garden next month. Don't you know nothin'?"

"I know I won't be there."

The guy nodded and sneered. "Oh, you'll be there. Once you read that book you won't be able to stay away."