"Whatever they show, you can say they're fake. You wouldn't believe how they can manipulate photos these days. Seeing used to be believing. Not anymore."

"First off," she said, "that would be lying. Secondly, I have been working closely of late with the other person in the photos. What they show would not seem so preposterous to anyone who knew us."

"So what you're saying is even if they were fakes, very good fakes, they'd still mess up your life and the building fund."

She nodded, started to say something, but couldn't get the words past her trembling lips.

Jack felt his jaw clench as he watched tears of helplessness rim her eyes. Sister Maggie seemed like good people. The thought of that slimy, belly-crawling son of a bitch turning the screws on her, and probably enjoying every minute…

Finally she found her voice. "He stole something from me… a very private moment…"

"And you want it back."

She looked up at him. "No. I want it erased." She pointed to her heart. "From here"—then touched her forehead—"and from here. But that can't happen while those pictures are out there."

"Don't worry about it. Ill take care of it. *

She looked into his eyes and didn't seem to like what she saw there.

"But without violence. Please. 1 can't be a party to violence."

Jack only nodded. No promises. If an opportunity to put the hurt on the slob presented itself, he might not be able to resist.

He'd have dinner with his ladies tonight, then he was going to pay a visit to fat Richie Cordova.

7

After a quick shower and a change of clothes, Jack stuck Sister Maggie's hundred-dollar bill into a padded envelope, addressed it to Cordova, and dropped it in a mailbox. Just in time to make the late pickup.

Then he stopped in at the Isher Sports Shop on the way to Gia's. The front doorbell jangled as he pushed through. Jack wound his way toward the rear of the store through the tilting, ready-to-topple shelves overcrowded with basketballs, snowboards, baseball bats, even boxing gloves. He found Abe, proprietor and sole employee, out of his usual spot behind the rear counter and over by the rack of hockey sticks. He was talking to a young woman and a boy who looked maybe ten.

"All right," Abe was saying to the boy in a testy tone. "Stand up straight already. Right. Unstoop those shoulders. No jaded slouch till you're at least twelve—it's a law. There. Now you should look straight ahead while I measure the stick."

Abe with a sporting goods customer—usually a theater-of-the-absurd playlet. Jack stood back and watched the show.

Abe stood five-two or -three and was a little over sixty with a malnourished scalp and an overfed waistline. He wore his customary half-sleeve white shirt and black pants, each a sampling menu of whatever he'd eaten during the course of the day. This being the end of the day, the menu was extensive.

He grabbed a handful of hockey sticks and stood them one at a time in front of the kid. The end of the handle of the first came up to the level of the kid's eyes.

"Nope. Too long. Just the right length it should be, otherwise you'll look like a kalyekeh out there on the ice."

The kid looked at his mom who shrugged. Neither had the faintest idea what Abe was rambling about. Jack was right with them.

The second stick reached the kid's chin.

"Too short. A good match this would be if you were in your skates, but in shoes, no."

The end of the third stick stopped right under the kid's nose.

"Perfect! And it's made of graphite. Such tensile strength. With this you can beat your opponents senseless and never have to worry about breaking it."

The kid's eyes widened. "Really?"

The mother repeated the word but with narrowed eyes and a different tone.

Abe shrugged. "What can I say? It's no longer a sport, hockey. You're equipping your kaddishel to join a tumel on ice. Why put the little fellow in harm's way?"

The mother's lips tightened into a line. "Can we just pay for this and go?"

"I should stop you from paying?" he said, heading for the scarred counter where the cash register sat. "Of course you can pay."

Her credit card was scanned, approved, a slip was signed, and she was on her way. If her expression hinted that she'd never be back, her comment left no doubt.

"Get out while you can," she muttered to Jack as she passed. "This guy is a loon."

"Really?" Jack said.

Abe had settled himself onto his stool and assumed his customary hands-on-thighs posture as Jack reached the counter. Parabellum, his blue parakeet and constant companion, sat in his cage to the right pecking at something that looked like a birdseed popsicle.

"Another highwater mark in Abe Grossman customer relations," Jack said, grinning. "You ever consider advertising yourself as a consultant?"

"Feh," Abe said with a dismissive gesture. "Hockey."

"At least you actually sold something related to a sport."

The street-level sports shop would have folded long ago if not for Abe's real business, locked away in the cellar. He didn't need sports-minded customers, so he did what he could to discourage them.

"Not such a sport. Do you know they're making hockey sticks out of Kevlar now? They're expecting to maybe add handguns to the brawls?"

"Wouldn't know," Jack said. "Never watch. Just stopped by to let you know I won't be needing that transponder I ordered."

"Nu?" Abe's eyebrows lifted toward the memory of his hairline. "So you're maybe not such a customer relations maven yourself?"

"No, she's still onboard. It's just that I've already dealt with the guy who's squeezing her. He's the one the last transponder led me to."

"Cor-bon or something, right?"

"Close. Cordova. Some coincidence, huh?" He waited for Abe's reaction.

"Coincidence…" His eyes narrowed. "You told me no more coincidences for you."

Jack hid his discomfort. "Yeah, I know, but coincidences do happen in real life, right?"

Abe shrugged. "Now and then."

"Watch: I'll probably find out he's a closet Dormentalist."

"Dormentalist? He's a rat, maybe, but is he meshugge?"

Jack told him about Maria Roselli and her missing Johnny, then asked, "You know anything about Dormentalism?"

"Some. Like a magnet it attracts the farblondzhet in the head. That's why the Dormentalists joined the Scientologists in the war against Prozac back in the eighties. Anything that relieves depression and allows a clearer view of life and the world is a threat to them. Shrinks the pool of potential members."

"I need to do a little studying up. What's the best place to start, you think? The Web?"

"Too much tsuris separating fact from opinion there. Go to the source."

He slid off the stool and stepped into the little office behind the counter area. Jack had been in there a few times. It made the rest of the store look neat and spare and orderly. He heard mutters and clatters and thuds and Yiddish curses before Abe reemerged.

"Here," he said as he slapped a slim hardcover on the counter. "What you need is The Book of Hokano, the Torah of Dormentalism. More than you'll ever wish or need to know. But this isn't it. Instead, it's a mystery novel, starring a recurring hero named David Daine, supposedly written by Dormentalism's founder, Cooper Blascoe."

Jack picked it up. The dust jacket cover graphic was a black-and-white melange of disjointed pieces with the title Sundered Lives in blazing red.

"Never heard of it."

Abe's eyebrows rose again in search of the Lost City of Hair. "You should have. It was number one on the Times' bestseller list. I bought it out of curiosity." He rolled his eyes. "Oy, such a waste of good money and paper.

How such a piece of turgid drek could be a bestseller, let alone make number one, makes me dizzy in the head. He wrote six of them, all number ones. Makes one wonder about the public's reading tastes."