"It rings true."

Gia looked at him. "You'd know, I guess."

"Unfortunately, yes."

Thompson's account reminded Jack a little of the time he spent on the street when he first arrived in the city. He'd wanted to stay below the radar, and that meant working off the books for cash and hustling for every buck. He wasn't proud of some of the moves he'd made back then.

Gia yawned again, then lifted her head and kissed him on the cheek.

"Have fun. I'm outta here."

As she rolled over and tugged the blanket up over her head, Jack returned to Kick.

Thompson had just turned nineteen in the story when he started stealing cars in Columbus, Georgia, and driving them into Alabama where he got top dollar from a chop shop in Opelika.

Maybe this was why so many Kickers had criminal records—they identified with Thompson.

He read on…

Then came a major turning point in my life. One bright hot summer day I wheeled a I^exus LS 400 into one of Jesse Ed's bays. The Lexus was still the new kid on the automobile block back then and damn hard to find in the South. This was a primo grab and I was expecting a big payday. What I got instead was trouble. Instead of finding a grinning Jesse Ed waiting with his acetylene torch, I found a gang of Alabama state troopers who'd raided the place about an hour before I got there.

Well, let me tell you, I smoked that Lexus's tires backing out of there and led those troopers on a merry old chase back to the state line. Beat them too. But I ran into a Georgia state cop roadblock where they shotgunned my tires.

I was so royally pissed at getting caught that I guess you could say I went a little bit nuts. It took four of those boys to take me down. And take me down they did. If someone had been around with a video camera, I could have been the white Rodney King.

I woke up the next day battered and bloody and facing not just a local GTA rap, but federal charges for ITSMV. (For those of you who've never been on the wrong side of jail bars, that's grand theft auto and interstate transportation of stolen motor vehicles, respectively.)

Jack had to smile. Yeah, he could see where getting busted simultaneously for both state and federal raps could be a life-changing experience.

He read on with amusement about Thompson's troubles with incompetent—at least according to him—public defenders and drunken judges and crooked prosecuting attorneys, but the chapter's last paragraph stopped him cold.

Well, no question the Lexus was stolen, but they couldn't prove I did the actual stealing, so I skated on the GTA charge. But I couldn't dodge the ITSMV. Not with all those pursuing Alabama smokies as witnesses to my crossing the state line in a stolen car. So I was looking at federal time, and not in some country club either. They had me slated for the Jesup medium security FCI when out of the blue came a reprieve. Oh, not that kind of reprieve. I was still going to do time, but in much cushier surroundings. Don't ask me why, but for some reason the fed-

era! government, in all its wisdom, had decided to ship me to the East Coast, to a place in New York I'd never heard of. I didn "t know it then, hut the Creighton Institute would change my life.

Jack stared at the page in shock. This was too much of a coincidence to be a simple coincidence. It was happening again: Something was pulling his strings.

But the question remained: Why had a nobody car thief like Hank Thompson been shipped across the country to a federal facility?

Jack had a feeling that, whether he wanted to or not, he'd be searching for the answer.

FRIDAY

1

"You'd like to talk to Hank Thompson?" Abe said. "Want I should arrange a meeting?"

Jack smiled. "Why don't you do just that."

He took a bite of one of the bagels with fat-free cream cheese he'd brought along. Time to get serious about Abe's waistline again.

He thought Abe was kidding when he picked up the phone, but then listened as he got the number of Vector Publications from information. He dialed that and asked for publicity. As he waited he put his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to Jack.

"Who do you want to be and what paper are you from?"

"You think you can pull this off?"

"Of course. Such a publicity hound I've rarely seen. Been on every radio station in town already. Probably be on WFA1N if he could work in a sports angle. This rally of his he's pushing like there's no tomorrow."

This might work. Jack had some questions for Thompson—details he hadn't shared in the book. Like what had really gone on at Creighton. He'd made vague mention of counseling and psychological testing, but no mention of why the long arm of the federal government had reached across the country to pluck him out of the county jail in Columbia. And did he know a certain Dr. Levy.

"Okay. I'll be John Tyleski." Why not? "And I'll be from…" He didn't want a New York City paper—the publicity people would be familiar with the names on the local book beat. He thought back to his boyhood when the city papers near home were in Philadelphia and Trenton. "Say I'm with the Trenton Times."

Abe nodded as he started to speak again—with no accent. "Hello, public-

103

ity? Who there is handling Hank Thompson? Oh. you are. Excellent. I'm Moishe Horowitz, features editor for the Trenton Times.""

Jack mouthed, Moishe Horowitz? Abe shrugged.

"Yes, well, one of my reporters happens to be in New York today and we're wondering if Hank Thompson would be available for an interview. We'd like a face-to-face if possible. Yes, of course." He fumbled for a pen and handed it to Jack. "Let me give you my reporter's cell number. His name is John Tyleski and his number is…"

Jack scribbled it down on the back of an envelope and Abe read it off. Abe closed with a few stroking pleasantries about the success of the book and what a wonderful job they were doing promoting it.

"There," he said as he hung up. "What could be simpler? Her name is Susan Abrams and she'll call after she talks to Thompson."

"Great." Jack took a sip of his coffee. "What do you think about all this? The Kicker Man links the Compendium to Thompson, and Thompson's linked to the Creighton place. Christy Pickering is linked to Jerry Bethlehem—whoever he really is—who's linked to Doctor Levy who works at Creighton."

"Bethlehem is linked to a dead man as well, don't forget."

"I'm not. But I wonder why there's been no mention of Gerhard's death. You sure you haven't seen anything?"

"Not a word."

If Abe hadn't read it, then it hadn't been published. He pored over every inch of his papers.

"Why are they keeping it under wraps?"

"Maybe he was more than he pretended to be. Maybe he worked for this group you mentioned already that runs Creighton. Your instincts say what?"

"That the Creighton Institute is the key."

"I agree. Might be something going on there that connects everything. Then again, maybe not."

"Well, I know someone on the inside at Creighton, and he owes me—big time. But I've got a feeling that's not going to be enough to make him open up." Jack checked his watch. "Gotta run. I'm meeting Christy Pickering in an hour."

"Go already. I'll do searches on Creighton. Such fun I'll have."

"See if you can get me an interview with Winslow while you're at it."

If he was going to go to the trouble of printing up some business cards, might as well multitask them.