"I'll put this away and get your coat."

As soon as she was out of sight Alicia grabbed his arm.

"She's changed, Jack."

"You should have seen her two months ago."

"I can imagine. But inside and out—she's not the same."

Jack didn't want to hear that.

"She will be. She's tough."

"I know she is. But get her back to the center if you can. I think it will be good therapy. Holding a newborn might be tough as hell for her at first, but once she gets past that, I think it will do her a world of good."

"I'll do what I can. Nice of you to visit."

"After all her trips to the center, it was the least I could do. I would have come sooner but I didn't want to intrude."

And then Gia was back. Jack helped Alicia into her coat and together he and Gia waved good-bye as she hurried up to the top of the block for a cab.

Jack hitched Gia closer. "What do you think of her idea?"

"Sounds good, but I don't think I'm ready. I might drop one of those babies." She kissed him on the cheek. "Got to get dinner ready."

As she moved away he searched the street, looking for a homburg-wearing man with a cane. But the street was empty.

WEDNESDAY

1

"You were right," Abe said as Jack approached the store's rear counter. "A stroke. A bad one. He's still in a coma and might not come out."

Jack had called Abe with the bad news yesterday.

"How do you know?"

"From his doctor, who else? Just now, before you came in, I was on the phone already."

"I thought that kind of information was supposed to be privileged."

"It is. But not from a worried son calling all the way from Florida."

"I see. No sign of injury or foul play?"

"Because of what you told me about the missing book I asked just that, and the doctor says no. A spontaneous thing." Abe shook his head. "A good man. A brilliant man. Such a thing shouldn't happen to a dog."

"Here's a weird thought: Do you think the book could have caused it?"

"Your Compendium? How can a book cause a stroke?"

"Maybe he read something that got him so upset or horrified or whatever that he stroked out."

"His doctor—the neurologist who's taking care of him—said it was a brain hemorrhage."

"All right then: Could something in the book have pushed his blood pressure so high he blew out an artery in his head?"

Abe shrugged. "Me? A lowly merchant? I should know?"

Jack held up a white paper bag, darker in spots where grease from the contents had soaked through.

"Figured you'd need some comfort food."

Abe's eyes widened. "From Muller's?"

"Where else?"

Abe wiggled his fingers. "Let me see. Let me see. You brought me an elephant ear? Please say you brought me an elephant ear."

Jack had to smile as he deposited the bag on Abe's pile of morning newspapers. Some people are so easy to please.

"Got two—one for you and one for me."

Abe's fingers fairly trembled as he pulled the sack open and peeked. He pulled out a fiat, oblong donut. Elephant ears from Muller's weren't the sugared fried dough usually associated with the name. These were like a flattened cruller, thick-glazed and dusted with some sulfurous yellow powder.

Abe took a big bite. He closed his eyes and made guttural Muttley noises as he chewed. Parabellum, his parakeet, must have been conditioned to those sounds because a light blue streak swooped out of nowhere and landed on the counter, ready to catch the inevitable crumbs.

Jack pulled out the other elephant ear and tossed a bit to the bird.

"'Splain this to a confused old man," Abe said around a second mouthful. "On some days, rabbit food you bring me; and others—like today—an artery plug. Why?"

He wasn't sure. Maybe the prof's stroke got him thinking that life was too short and too unpredictable to keep denying yourself what you really enjoy. He might feel differently tomorrow, but today had felt like an elephant-ear-for-Abe day.

Jack shrugged. "Don't know. It's a mystery. Like the whereabouts of that damn book."

"You keeping after the museum?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah. Talked to one of the security guys again this morning. They haven't found it. But one of the maintenance crew didn't show up today—the one who'd been working on the prof's floor yesterday. They checked his locker but no book."

"Probably not him. Think of all the curios and artifacts a janitor must see around the museum on a regular basis. He should risk his job and whatever else to steal a book?"

"Not just any book—a one of a kind."

"And a maintenance man's going to know that?"

Good point, Jack thought, but…

"The security guy said a funny thing this morning. Said they found a book in the maintenance guy's locker, but it wasn't mine. Then he said, 'Looks like he's a Kicker.' Any idea what he was talking about?"

"Probably means the book they found was Kick."

"Never heard of it."

Abe's eyebrows rose. "Really? It's something of a phenomenon. 1 saw an article on it in yesterday's Post. Don't you read the papers?"

"Sometimes. A little—usually right here. But I don't study them like you do."

Abe slid off his stool and rummaged under the counter, finally coming up with a tabloid. He thumbed through it, then folded it back and turned it toward Jack.

"There. Big as life."

Jack glanced at the header—Kicking Back with Hank Thompson—and saw a photo of a guy he assumed was the author. Below that was a picture of the book's cover—

He snatched the paper from Abe's hand.

"Christ!"

Ice water trickled down his spine as he stared: The word Kick ran across the top, the author's name along the bottom, and between them… a chillingly familiar insectoid stick figure.

"Nu?"

Jack dropped the paper and dug into his back pocket. He pulled out the sheets he'd found on the prof's desk and unfolded them, then held the figure copied from the Compendium next to the reproduction of the cover.

The same… exactly the same.

And again, that feeling of familiarity, of connection.

"What the hell?"

2

"He's something of a phenomenon," Abe said as Jack skimmed through the article. "He self-published the book two years ago and sold tens of thousands of copies over the Internet. One of the New York houses picked it up and it's become a bestseller."

"But what is it?"

The article wasn't much help. It mentioned the author's "troubled youth" as if everyone knew about it. And Hank Thompson's quotes about searching inside for the true inner you and then breaking down the barriers that blocked you from your real self sounded trite.

"Aldous Huxley said to open the doors of perception." He laughs. "I dropped out of school in the tenth grade. I know about Huxley through the Doors. Jim Morrison—the Lizard King—has always been a personal hero of mine. But I say, don't be satisfied with just opening those doors—KICK THEM DOWN!" he shouts in the oratory style that has packed his speaking engagements across the country.

Jim Morrison was his hero? Jack looked at the picture and figured, Yeah, he must be. With that long, unruly, wavy dark hair, Thompson could be what Morrison would have looked like if he'd survived into his late thirties. Except for the eyes. He lacked Morrison's piercing dark eyes.

"Of all the possible people through human history to look up to, he picks Jim Morrison?"

Abe frowned. "Jim Morrison… who's Jim Morrison? Is he a customer?"

"Never mind. Is this guy for real?"

An Abe shrug. "I should know? Apparently lots of people think so."

"/ tell them to KICK down those doors and let in the light—new light, new air, a new world awaits. The future is calling—ANSWER!"