Jack smiled. Because of John L. Tyleski's excellent credit record, a Maryland bank had preapproved him for a Visa card.

Damn nice of you people.

Credit cards…Jack hated them. Plastic money left a trail of electronic footprints, a detailed record of every purchase—books, theater tickets, clothing, plane tickets—a diagram of your lifestyle, a map of your existence. The very things he wanted most to avoid.

He'd held out as long as he could, but with each passing year it had become increasingly difficult to get by without them. A man with no credit cards raised eyebrows, and the last thing Jack wanted to attract was a second look. He'd found himself in an odd position: in order to remain invisible, he'd have to become a part of the national credit databases.

So he jumped into Plastic Moneyland with both feet. He now kept four credit card accounts running at once, each under a different name, each attached to a different mail drop. He paid his monthly bills promptly with USPS money orders. He could have used another money order service with equal anonymity, but the idea of using a wing of the very government he was hiding from appealed to him.

Early last year he'd added John L. Tyleski as an additional cardholder to the Amex account of John J. O'Mara.

Tyleski's record of payment since then had been so sterling that a competitor was offering him his own account.

"On behalf of Mr. Tyleski," Jack said, "I wish to thank you very much. We will sign him up first thing tomorrow."

Something deeply satisfying in the predictability of large financial organizations.

And in a few months, John J. O'Mara would request that John L. Tyleski's name be removed from his Amex account, leaving Tyleski as a free and independent entity in the Visa databank.

The timing was perfect. He'd been planning to visit Ernie tomorrow and start legitimizing a new identity anyway. He'd eventually attach that to the Tyleski Visa account.

He smiled as he paid the toll at the Midtown Tunnel. This was shaping up to be a busy week.

Salvatore Roma stood at the window of his suite on the top floor of the Clinton Regent Hotel and gazed at the blazing skyline.

6

He had been staying at the hotel since Monday, preparing for the SESOUP conference. A few of the attendees had arrived today to get in some sightseeing before the conference began. Tomorrow the rest would arrive, filling the hotel. Every room was booked by an attendee, just as he'd planned.

Anticipation bubbled through him, making him almost giddy. All the pieces were falling together perfectly. By this time tomorrow night, the building would be packed with those special, chosen people.

And then it would begin.

After endless waiting, after repeated reverses at the hands of lesser beings, his time had come at last. He'd earned his reward, paid for it with blood and lives—his own—and now he was due to collect. Past due.

All he needed were the proper tools. The people packing this building over the next few days would help provide those. After that, nothing could stop him. And he would grind to pulp anyone who got in his way.

Mine, he thought, gazing at the city and beyond. Mine at last.

THURSDAY

THE 1ST ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE EXPOSURE OF SECRET ORGANIZATIONS AND UNACKNOWLEDGED PHENOMENA

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

THURSDAY

Registration Desk Open: Noon-8:00 P.M.

Exhibits Open: Noon-8:00 P.M.

3:00-5:00 P.M. : Special Screening of the new independent film, We Are Not Alone

5:00-5:30 P.M.: Welcome Address—Prof. Salvatore Roma, founder of SESOUP

5:30-7:00 P.M.: Cocktail Reception—meet the panelists

9:00 P.M.-??? Films: The Late Great Planet Earth, Seven Days in May, The Day the Earth Stood Still

1

Jack had time, so he walked down to Midtown. It had rained last night as a front pushed through, and the temperature had dropped a good ten or twelve degrees below yesterday's. The breeze had a raw edge to it. Coats were back on, legs were hidden again. Spring seemed an empty dream—

He'd decided to dress like a Midtown tourist today, so he was wearing Nikes and a black-and-purple nylon warm-up over a Planet Hollywood T-shirt. The indispensable fanny pack completed the look. The nylon made an annoying rhythmic swishing sound as he quick-walked down Columbus, which magically became Ninth Avenue once he crossed Fifty-ninth Street. He paused to check out the trays of used paperbacks in the concrete plaza on the southeast corner of Fifty-seventh, then moved on. From there the avenue began its downward slope toward Hell's Kitchen.

At least that was what they used to call it. The presence of the Intrepid Museum and the Javits Convention Center had somewhat revitalized the area, but even so, real estate folks had found a neighborhood called Hell's Kitchen a tough sell. So they'd started calling it "Clinton"—not after the president, but the former governor whose carriage house was still around here somewhere, a leftover from the old, old days when the area was a summer retreat for Manhattan's wealthier folk.

Then the Irish moved in. When the tenements rose, people started calling it Hell's Kitchen. Italians and Greeks and Puerto Ricans followed, successive immigrant waves moving through the same apartments.

The buildings tended to average about five stories in height with brick fronts, some decorative, most just plain red clay, thinly veiled with a steel lace of fire escapes clinging to their faces. Most of the streets, sloping upward on his left and down to the Hudson on his right, were lined with budding trees—Jack had forgotten how many trees grew in Hell's Kitchen. Reminded him in some ways of his own neighborhood before the great gentrification of the eighties.

Many of the doorways he passed were occupied, either by sleeping men or smoking women.

Ahead of Jack a guy was peeking in the windows of all the parked cars he passed. He was trying to be coy about it, but no question: an hour from now, one of those cars would be missing.

Jack remembered the Clinton Regent as being somewhere in the lower Fifties or upper Forties. He should have looked up the address before starting out. No matter. He'd find it.

He thought about swinging down by the docks and grabbing a cup of coffee at the Highwater Diner. He'd done a job for the owner, George Kuropolis, a while ago, and had been impressed with how clean he kept the place. He glanced at his watch. No time. Maybe later.

No shortage of restaurants in the area, and just about every ethnic group that had passed through the neighborhood was represented—lots of bodegas, a Greek bakery, Italian delis, Irish pubs, an Afghan kabob place, Caribbean, Thai, Chinese, Senegalese, even an Ethiopian restaurant.

What do they serve in an Ethiopian restaurant?

He'd have to check it out. If nothing else, meals would not be boring on this gig.

The overcast sky threatened rain, but that didn't seem to faze the tourists. The West Side was full of foreigners. He was stopped by a group of Japanese women who seemed to know only one word.

"Gucci? Gucci?" they said.

He pointed them toward Fifth Avenue. "Gucci."

Then a dapper elderly gent with a British accent stopped him at a corner and wanted to know which way to Grand Central. Jack pointed him toward Forty-second and told him to walk left—couldn't miss it.