Jokers Wild Page 0,95

carefully.

"You two doubtless have much of mutual interest to discuss and there is work for me to accomplish as well, so I shall leave you." He gave Jennifer a long, kindly look."Good luck, my child. Perhaps one day you will come to visit us again."

"I shall, Father."

He nodded once at the man he called Yeoman and left the room with ponderous dignity, closing the door behind himself. Jennifer decided that if she didn't have to return the stamps to Kien that the father would find a sizable donation in his poor box. She owed him that much, even if his attempt to help her didn't fully work out.

Jennifer felt Yeoman's eyes on her and she turned and met the weight of their steady gaze.

"Kien's diary," he said. His voice was low and powerful. Jennifer sensed a quivering tenseness about him, as if he was barely holding himself in check. "Do you have it?"

So that's what the third book was. A diary. She opened her mouth, then shut it, wondering if she could afford to tell him the truth.

Yeoman's intensity frightened Jennifer a little, but the fear combined with her hunger and weariness and resentfulness at being pushed around all day made her answer back in a hard voice that surprised even her, "I know what you look like, so you might as well take off that mask. I don't like talking to people who look like they have something to hide."

The man sat back in his chair and scowled. "I'll keep it on for now"

His features, as Jennifer remembered, were sharp and harsh, with frown lines on his forehead and around his mouth, and there was a vibrating tenseness about him that his mask couldn't conceal.

"You're called Wraith?" he asked unexpectedly. Jennifer nodded. "You're a thief. A good one, from what I've heard. You broke into the apartment of a man named Kien early this morning and removed some valuable items from a wall safe."

"How do you know all that?"

"A crystal lady told me," he said, looking a little pleased by Jennifer's look of irritated incomprehension. "A lot of people are looking for you, you know. They want the things you stole."

"Well," Jennifer said noncommittally, "the stamps are very valuable."

Yeoman leaned forward in his chair and rested his chin in the palm of a large, strong-looking hand. He stared at her intently. Jennifer looked back defiantly, until he sighed and spoke again.

"You really don't know, do you?" She shook her head, trying to hide a rising excitement. Yeoman evidently knew the answers to some of her most pressing questions. "To hell with the stamps. No one gives a damn about them. Everyone's after the other book you took, Kien's personal diary. It details all the corruption and rot he's had his filthy hands in since he's come to New York."

"I thought he was a businessman. Owns restaurants and laundromats and things."

"He does," Yeoman said, "but only as a masquerade, and to explain his wealth. He's into everything thats dirty-drugs, prostitution, protection, gambling. He's into it all. The infor mation contained in that diary would probably put him away for a very long time."

"Are you trying to recover it for him?"

Yeoman's lips were pressed into a hard, tight line. Knots of muscle ,jumped in his jaw. "No." The word that escaped from between his clenched lips was hard, flat, and cold enough to make Jennifer suppress a shiver.

"And you don't care about the stamps?"

He shook his head. His eyes had captured hers. She felt as if she were a sparrow held in the grip of a massive, now calm, but potentially destructive giant. It was a frightening yet somehow exhilarating feeling.

"Okayyy," she said slowly. "You don't care about the stamps. I don't care about this diary. I think that we can come to an understanding."

Yeoman smiled and again Jennifer suppressed a shiver. "Then you do have it."

"Well, I know where it is." She fell silent for a moment, considering. She didn't know this Yeoman from Adam. She knew that he was behind the recent spate of bow and arrow killings, since notes signed Yeoman had been scrawled on many of the crime scenes. Father Squid said he could be trusted, but then she didn't know Father Squid, either. He waited patiently as this all ran through her mind, as if aware that she was trying to resolve an internal dilemma. He wasn't acting like a murderous maniac. He was manifestly a dangerous man, but the dangerous aura that hung about him