First Daughter - Eric van Lustbader [80]
Jack was sorely tempted to describe in detail Hugh Garner's manhandling of Peter Link, but decided against it. Instead, he said, "I have a hunch. If it doesn't pan out, I'll drop it and we'll be back to square one."
He knew he was on edge. Why would any of the four order him tailed and attacked? Was it Armitage they wanted silenced? The state of unknowing was not a pleasant one for him. He resisted the urge to call Bennett; he knew the chief would contact him as soon as he had dug up anything of substance.
A bell sounded as they entered the bakery. The place was much as he remembered, full of the delicious swirl of butter, sugar, yeast, baking bread. He remembered in vivid detail the first time Gus had taken him here. In his mind's eye, he could see Cyril's goons standing around, reading the racing forms, waiting for their orders to dispense drugs or weapons, pick up payments, and if the envelope was a little light, to deliver a bloody payment of their own. He remembered the balding man behind the counter who gave him a chocolate-chip cookie. And Cyril himself, with his dark, olive eyes, his Slavic cheekbones, and his sinister air. Today, however, there were only a couple of elderly ladies buying their daily bread. They smiled at him as they walked out with their sweet-smelling purchases.
"Name's Oscar. Can I help you?"
A short, squat man in a baker's apron, with a monkish fringe of hair around the circumference of his milk chocolate scalp and a wide flat nose that must once have been broken regarded them with curious eyes and a welcoming smile. The current All Around Town bakery was a couple of light-years from the shop Cyril Tolkan had presided over.
"I'll take a square of crumb cake." Jack turned to Nina. "And you, sweetheart?"
Nina, unfazed, shook her head.
Jack grinned at Oscar. "The missus is a bit shy in this neighborhood."
"I understand completely." Oscar had a spray of freckles over the flattened bridge of his nose. He placed Jack's crumb cake in a square of paper on the top of the glass case. Addressing Nina, he said, "How about a chocolate-chip cookie?" He picked one out of the pile, held it out. "No one can resist one of our chocolate-chip cookies."
Jack remembered. Even stale it was good.
Nina gave a tight smile, took the cookie.
Jack took out his wallet.
"The cookie's on the house," Oscar said.
Jack thanked him as he paid. He bit into the crumb cake, said, "Delicious." As he chewed, he said, "I wonder if Joachim is around."
Oscar busied himself arranging a tray of linzer tortes. "Friend or business?"
"A little of both."
Oscar seemed to take this nonanswer in stride. "The boss'll be back tomorrow. He's in Miami Beach, for his mother's funeral."
Jack looked around the room, munched on his crumb cake. "You know what time he'll be in?"
"First thing in the morning," Oscar said. "I just got off the phone with him." He took a tray of butter cookies from a thin lad who'd appeared from the oven room. "Any message?"
"No." Jack finished off the crumb cake, brushed his fingertips together. "We'll be back."
Oscar held aloft a couple of cookies. "Something for the road?"
Jack took them.
TWENTY - SEVEN
THE RENAISSANCE Mission Church is more than a place of worship for Jack; it's his schoolhouse. It doesn't take long for Reverend Taske to unearth the root of Jack's reading difficulties. As it happens, he's studied a bit about dyslexia, but now he studies more. Every evening when Jack arrives after work at the Hi-Line, Taske has another idea he's found in some book or other pulled from libraries all over the District.
One evening Jack is particularly frustrated by trying to read a book—this one is of poems by Emily Dickinson. He lashes out, breaks a glass on Reverend Taske's desk. Immediately ashamed, he too-quickly picks up the shards, cuts the edge of his hand. After throwing the glass into the wastepaper basket, he goes over to the armoire, takes out the first aid kit. As he does so, his eye is caught by