"Now, gentlemen, your balls are in your mouths."

The pregnant girl's gaze was shifting between Jack and the writhing not-so toughies.

"W-w-what did you just do?"

"Hurt them."

And loved every second of it.

How many seconds? Four? Five, tops. That was all it had taken.

Amazing how much better a few seconds could make you feel.

He noticed movement to his right and saw the old man pulling a cell phone from his pocket. He pointed at him.

"And you think you're doing what with that?"

"Calling nine-one-one."

"On me?"

"No, of course not. On them."

"You will put that away. Now." He looked around at the two passengers at the rear end of the car. "I don't want to see anyone with a phone. No calls until Elvis has left the building. Got it?"

They nodded. The man at the front end tucked his phone away.

Jack looked back at the pregnant gal. "Got it?"

She nodded.

"By the way," he said, jerking a thumb at the pair of writhing, groaning losers. "They're sorry."

The train began to slow then. When it stopped at the Forest Hills station Jack stepped out and quick-walked toward the exit. When he looked back, the rest of the able-bodied passengers were leaving the car as well.

No one was talking on a phone.

3

The R line terminated in Forest Hills. When Jack trotted up to street level he looked around for Christy Pickering.

That name… he still couldn't nail down why it struck such a familiar chord… something from way back in his past.

He heard a toot and saw her waving from a big black Mercedes. As he slipped into the passenger seat, she stuck a twenty-ounce bottle of Diet Pepsi into a cup holder and offered her hand.

"Well, Mister Jack, should we drive or just sit here?"

She wore dark blue slacks, a red-and-white-checked blouse, and looked nervous. Her palm was damp when Jack shook her hand.

"Lets drive."

He didn't want to hang around the station. Sooner or later someone would find those two and call an ambulance. Cops would tag along.

"Okay." She put the car in gear. "Where?"

Jack could have taken her on a tour of all the gardens he helped plant a dozen years ago when he'd worked for a landscaper. Giovanni had been based in Brooklyn but he'd built up quite a following in the patrician enclaves out here. Hot, hard work, but Jack had always enjoyed it. He'd done it as a summer job in college so he didn't come to Giovanni as a complete newbie. The major benefit was getting paid off the books. The major drawback was finding something else to do in the winter. He'd been the only American in Giovanni's crew and had learned along the way to swear fluently in Spanish.

"How about past the tennis club, then you can take me to the station on Sixty-third. I've got to get back on the train pretty soon and that'll put me two stops closer to the city."

And two stops away from this one.

"You into tennis?"

Jack had done some landscaping at the famous West Side Tennis Club, but that wasn't the reason.

"When I was a kid my dad used to sit me down in front of the TV and we'd watch the US Open when it was played here." A mantle of melancholy settled over him. "He really loved tennis."

She pulled into the traffic.

"He's gone?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry."

"So am I."

All those years spent ducking his calls, and now he'd never call again.

Christy sighed and ran a quick hand through her ash blond hair. "Never knew my father."

Jack glanced into the back seat and saw a stack of sheet music.

"You're into musicals?"

"Literally—but strictly community-theater level."

"And Promises! Promises! is the latest?"

She smiled and nodded. "I landed the part of Jill."

"Ever dream of Broadway?"

"When I was young." Her eyes shone. "And who knows? After Dawn's off in college I might give it a try. But right now I'm delighted to get the lead in this little show. I love the music, but the musicians are having trouble with the shifting time signatures."

"Espeeiall} llie Lille song, I'll bet."

She was staring at him. "You know musical theater?"

"Some."

"More than some. Not many people remember that kind of detail from Promises! Promises/"

Jack shrugged. "I don't know if it's much of a detail, but I do know I never liked the late, great Jerry Orbach's voice."

She smiled. "Do you mind my asking if you're gay—not that it matters."

He laughed. "No. Why?"

"Just wondering." She gave him a sidelong glance. "Let's talk about another Jerry. What have you got for me?"

"Let's wait till we're at the other station."

She gave him a strange look but he said nothing. He had a reason: He didn't think it was a good idea for her foot to be on the gas pedal when she heard what he had to tell her.

They passed the huge Tudor-style tennis club, set on the edge of one of the nicest neighborhoods in all of Queens.

"You live in one of these?" he asked as they cruised Exeter Street.

"I wish. But I've got a nice place on the other side of the boulevard in the upper Sixties near Peartree."

A few minutes later they pulled into a parking spot near the station. She turned off the engine and angled to face him. Her smile looked forced.

"Okay. Shoot. Don't forget—bad news can be considered good news in this case."

"Don't count on that."

The smiled faded. "Okay. Hit me."

"I'll tell you what I know for sure. First off, Gerhard is dead. Murdered."

She paled. "What? You're sure?"

He told her what he'd found.

"Oh, my God! Do you think Jerry did it?"

"I don't know, but even if he did I doubt there's a shred of evidence to prove it. Not even a body."

He went on to explain his 911 calls.

"But he might be involved?"

She'd wanted bad news about Bethlehem, but Jack could tell by her expression that she hadn't wanted it to be this bad.

"Yeah. Because he's violent."

Without mentioning Levy's name, he told her about witnessing his abduction.

"And this guy's not pressing charges?"

"He refused."

"For God's sake, why?"

"Not sure. He gave some lame excuse about working on a sensitive government project, but there's got to be more to it than that. He knows Bethlehem… but seems to know him by another name."

"Jerry's leading a double life? Poor Dawnie!" Christy slumped against the seat, head back, staring to the roof. "I had a feeling something was off with him, but never in my wildest dreams… I've got to get her away from him."

"Tread carefully here. Again, I can't be sure, but his MO for dealing with threats might be to eliminate them."

She looked at Jack, fear alive in her eyes. "You don't think he'd do anything to me, do you?"

"I don't think so—at least not as long as he wants to stay on Dawn's good side—but I'd play it cool for now anyway. Instead of you trying to break them up, let me see if I can arrange for the legal system to do the job for you."

"What do you mean?"

"During my first twenty-four hours of digging into this clown I found one man murdered and witnessed the abduction of another. I don't know if Bethlehem did the former, but there's no doubt about the latter, which I doubt very much was an aberrant event in an otherwise blemish-free life. Jerry Bethlehem—or whoever he really is—probably has a closet crammed with skeletons. I'll try to sniff out one of them. When I find one, I'll drop a dime. And then, as he's cuffed and led away to the hoosegow, you can be on hand to comfort Dawn."

"I don't think I can handle knowing she's with that kind of man… monster."

"Remember, we don't know he's a monster. And so far he's done nothing to harm her. So just hang in there. Come on too strong with nothing to back you up and you may only push her closer to him."