Jack & Jill (Alex Cross 3)

“People are still out there crying in the streets,” George said. After the hug, he shucked off his wool Brooks Brothers suit jacket and loosened his tie, but he didn’t go upstairs to change. He was breaking all his usual patterns tonight. Well, good for George.

“I didn’t vote for President Byrnes, but this has really gotten to me anyway, Chris. What a damn shame.” There were tears in his eyes, and that started her up again, too.

George usually kept his feelings to himself, everything all bottled up. Christine was touched by her husband’s emotion. She was touched a great deal.

“I’ve cried a couple of times,” she confided to George. “You know me. I did vote for the President, but that’s not it. It just seems as though we’re losing respect for every institution, everything permanent. We’re losing respect for human life at a very fast rate. I even see it in the eyes of six-year-old schoolchildren. I see it every day at the Truth School.”

George Johnson held his wife again, held her tight. At five eleven, he was exactly her height. Christine rested her head softly against the side of his. She smelled of light citrus fragrance. She’d worn it to school. He loved her so much. She was like no other woman, no other person he’d ever met. He felt incredibly lucky to have her, to be loved by her, to hold her like this.

“Do you know what I’m saying?” she asked, wanting to talk with George tonight, not willing to let him disappear on her, as he so often did.

“Sure I do,” he said. “Everybody feels it, Chrissie. Nobody knows how to begin to make it stop, though.”

“I’ll fix us something to eat. We can watch the dregs on CNN,” she finally said. “Part of me doesn’t want to watch the news, but part of me has to watch this.”

“I’ll help with the grub,” George offered, which was rare. She wished that he could be like this more often and that it didn’t take a national tragedy to get him in touch with his emotions. Well, a lot of men were like that, she knew. There were worse things in a marriage.

They made a vegetarian gumbo together and opened a bottle of Chardonnay. They had barely finished supper in front of the TV when the front doorbell rang. It was a little before nine, and they weren’t expecting anyone, but sometimes neighbors dropped in.

CNN was covering the scene at New York University Hospital, where the President had been rushed after the shooting. Alex Cross had appeared with various other officers who had been at the scene of the shooting, but he wouldn’t say much to the media. Alex looked upset, spent, but also, well—noble. Christine didn’t mention to George that she knew him. She wondered why. She hadn’t told George about Alex’s visit to their house late one night. He had slept right through it; but that was George.

Before he could get up off the couch, the doorbell rang a second time. Then, a third ring. Whoever it was wouldn’t go away.

“I’ll get it, Chrissie,” he said. “Don’t know who in hell that could be, this time of night. Do you?”

“I don’t, either.”

“All right, already,” he snapped. Christine found herself smiling. George the Impatient was back.

“I’m coming for Christmas’ sake. I’m coming. I’m coming. Hold your water, I’m coming,” he said as he hobbled toward the door in his stockinged feet.

He peered through the peephole, then turned to look at Christine with a questioning scowl on his face.

“It’s some white kid.”

CHAPTER

95

DANNY BOUDREAUX stood on the shiny, white-painted porch of the schoolteacher’s house. He was dressed in an oversized army-green rain poncho that made him look bigger than he actually was, somewhat more impressive. The Sojourner Truth School killer in the flesh! He was in his glory now. But even in his megahyper mood, he sensed that something was wrong with him now.

He didn’t feel good, and he was getting sad—kind of depressed as hell, actually. The machine was breaking down. The doctors couldn’t figure whether he was a bipolar disorder or conduct disorder. If they couldn’t, how the hell was he supposed to? So what if he was a little impulsive, had huge mood swings, was a social misfit? The fuse was lit. He was ready to blow. Like, who cared?

He had stopped his dosages of Depakote. Just say no, right? He was humming the “Mmm mm mm” song over and over. Crash Test Dummies. Sad, angry music that just wouldn’t stop playing in his head like MTV Muzak.

His “mad button” seemed to be stuck—permanently.

He was mad at Jack and Jill. Real mad at Alex Cross. Mad at the principal of the Truth School. Mad at just about everybody on the planet. He was even mad at himself now. He was such a goddamn screwup. Always had been, always would be.

I’m a loser, baby.

So why don’t you kill me?

He snapped back to semireality when a black fucker wearing a blue pinstriped shirt, suit trousers, and mellow-yellow suspenders answered the door. Hey, welcome to the Cyburbs!

At first, Danny Boudreaux didn’t understand who the hell the round-faced black dude was. He’d been expecting the big-deal school principal Mrs. Johnson, or maybe even Alex Cross, if Cross hadn’t gone to New York. He had seen Cross and the principal together on three different occasions. He guessed they were getting it on.

He didn’t know why that made him mad, but it did. Cross was just like his goddamn father, his real father. Another fuckup cop who had deserted him, who didn’t think he was worth dogshit. And now Cross was humping this teacher on the side.