Repairman Jack [02]-Legacies

"No. Just Thomas. He's enough, thanks. So Thomas is on the phone saying that if I don't want the house, can he have it. I tell him no. I say I've changed my mind. I do want it. I tell him I'm going to donate it to the AIDS Center for use as a satellite facility. So forget about it."

"Got along with your brother about as well as your father, I take it?"

"Worse, if that's possible. The next day Thomas is back on the phone offering me two million for the house."

Jack's eyebrow's jumped. "Where is this place?"

"Murray Hill."

He smiled. "No kidding. That might be cheap for Murray Hill."

"It's a three-story brownstone. Worth every penny."

"So far, I don't see why you think you need me. Take the money and run."

Now came the touchy part. Now he'd start wondering why. But Alicia had evaded the hard questions—the impossible questions—with poor Leo Weinstein, and she could evade them with Jack.

"But I didn't. I turned him down."

"You knew the price would go up."

"No way. But it did. Thomas came back and offered me four million. And I gave him the same answer. And then he told me he was tired of bidding against himself and that I should 'name a fucking price'—his words—and I hung up on him."

"Turned him down again… sort of like winning the lottery and not cashing in your ticket, isn't it?"

"Not exactly. You see, Thomas hardly has a dime to his name."

Jack leaned forward and stared at her. Now he looked interested.

"You know that for sure?"

"I suspected it. I mean, he's been in a low-level research job at AT&T since he graduated college. Where would he get approval for a mortgage that size? So I checked him out: His credit rating is the pits, and he quit his job about the time he started calling me."

"So… a guy with no money and no job offers you four mil. I don't blame you for hanging up on him."

"No," Alicia said, "you don't understand. I think he does have the money—in cash."

"In cash?"

"That's what he offered me—said I can take it or he can donate it all to the charity of my choice. How do you explain that?"

"Either he's crazy or somebody's backing him."

"Exactly, but who? And why not approach me directly? Why go through Thomas?"

"Does it matter?" Jack said, leaning back again. "A valuable piece of real estate lands in your lap. You can either live in it or sell it. You don't need me, you need a tax attorney."

Alicia sensed him withdrawing, losing interest. She rushed forward with the rest of her story.

"But I can't live in it, and I can't sell it. When I turned him down, Thomas hired some high-priced attorneys to challenge the will. I can't take possession until this is resolved. They even got a court order to board up the place, so I can't even take a look around inside." Not that I'd ever want to.

"Why board it up?"

"Apparently it's been broken into since it's been empty. Thomas says he wants to protect what he expects to be his property once his challenge to the will is upheld. He's even hired a security firm to guard the property."

Jack smiled. "All this from a guy with no income. Your half brother is very resourceful."

"That's not the word I'd use for Thomas."

"Still, you don't need me—you need a lawyer." Alicia bit her lip. No, she needed Jack for what she wanted. But how would he react when she asked?

Sometimes it's good to deviate from routine, Jack thought, trying to look interested. And sometimes it isn't.

This meeting, never would have happened if he'd followed his usual MO. He always talked to prospective customers before setting up a face-to-face. That way he avoided the Dr. Claytons of the city—people with problems that could be remedied by more orthodox methods.

But because he'd already met Alicia, he'd set up the meeting without the usual preliminaries.

Not a complete waste of time, he thought, but pretty damn close. The only thing that saved it was the good doctor herself.

Something about Alicia Clayton intrigued him. He met lots of people with secrets. Virtually all of his customers were hiding something. He was used to not hearing the whole story on the first pass. And he'd become adept at spotting the holes. He couldn't tell what they'd skipped, but he knew when they were holding back.

Alicia Clayton was different. He couldn't get a read on her. Either she was hiding nothing, or she was so good at hiding that she could hide everything, even the fact that she was hiding something.

Jack chose the latter. Because looking at her sitting here across the table from him, he sensed that she had a good figure under that coat and bulky cable-knit sweater, but she was hiding it. In fact, she could have been a striking woman with those fine features and dark, dark hair. Attractive in a steely way. But she chose not to be. She chose to downplay her looks. Hide them.

Well, how he looked was her call. And she wasn't exactly in the glamour business.

Didn't pay to read too much into these things, he supposed.

But she was so utterly composed. Too composed. Almost… wooden.