"You mean physically uploading it into your machine?" Dr. Marty laughed. "Hardly! This is the twenty-first century! You opened your computer's door and it breezed right in off the Internet."

Well, that was a relief. Sort of.

Dr. Marty then went on to explain something called the HYRTBU virus that causes exactly what had happened to Richie's machine.

"Can you fix it?"

"Of course. I'll install some antivirus software and run a diagnostic."

"How long's that gonna take?"

"Give me a couple of hours. Leave your number and I'll call when it's cleaned up." He shook his head. "Won't be able to retrieve any of your files, though. They're dead and gone. HYRTBU takes no prisoners."

"That's okay. I've got backup."

Dr. Marty gave him a thumbs-up. "My man!"

"Hey, no chance of this HYRTBU thing messing up my backup?"

"Can't. Not if you're backed up on CD. That's ROM and you can't-"

Richie had heard all he needed to hear.

"Great. I'll be waiting for your call."

8.

Jack straightened as Cordova came out. Instead of returning to the office, though, he began walking in the other direction.

A good sign. Jack was pretty sure Cordova's backup wasn't in his office; maybe he was heading for it now.

Keeping to the opposite side of the street, he followed-a whole three blocks to the local Morgan Bank branch. He followed Cordova inside, saw him pick up one of the clerks and follow her back into the rear section.

Jack nodded. Heading for a safety deposit box.

He noted the bank hours: the lobby locked up at three. Great. It would take time for the Computer Doctor to clean up Cordova's machine-too long to allow him to retrieve it, hook it up, restore all his files, and get back to the bank before closing.

So a good chance he'd leave the disk in the office overnight.

And then? Jack would break in again tonight and reintroduce HYRTBU, but what about the backup disk? He could simply steal it, but that would tip Cordova to the fact he'd been invaded.

Jack decided he could live with that if he had to, but he much preferred to leave fatso raging at the G.o.ds, believing it was all due to the dumping of the truckload of bad karma he'd been ama.s.sing.

Which meant another trip to Russ to find out how he could wreck the backup CD with no one the wiser.

But first he had to visit Beekman Place.

9.

"You've seen him? He's well?"

Maria Roselli's dark eyes danced in her puffy face as she beamed at Jack.

Esteban had announced him and Benno the Rottweiler had greeted Jack at the door. She'd offered tea again but he'd declined.

"He looks healthy," Jack said. Couldn't say he'd looked clean, but he hadn't seemed malnourished. "Looks like he's working on a beard."

She frowned. "Really? He tried that once before and said the itching drove him crazy." She waved her hand. "But that's neither here nor there. What did he say when you told him to call his mother?"

"I didn't get to that. It seems he's, um, being punished."

"What?" Her hand fluttered to her mouth. "Whatever do you mean?"

"I don't know what he did, but he's not allowed to talk to other Dormentalists and they're not allowed to talk to him."

"Isn't that silly? I can't believe Johnny allows himself to be humiliated like that. He should just get out of that place."

"That would be up to him. Since I'm pretending to be a Dormentalist wannabe, I can't talk to him in the temple. So I'm working on finding out where he lives. I'll catch up to him outside the temple and give him your message."

"How long do you think that will take? Another day, perhaps?"

Jack shrugged. "I'd like that, but don't count on it."

"But you've accomplished so much so soon."

"Pure luck."

A lucky coincidence. There it was again: the C-word. Was this situation being manipulated? It didn't seem so, but one of those old ladies with a dog had told him there'd be no more coincidences in his life.

He rose and looked down at Maria. "Are you sure sure you don't know Anya Mundy?" you don't know Anya Mundy?"

"That woman you mentioned the other day? I believe I told you no."

"Yeah, you did, didn't you." He sighed. "If I'm lucky again, I'll catch sight of Johnny and follow him home. In case that doesn't happen, I'll work on getting a peek at member records."

Jack liked the former course better. Tomorrow he'd try hanging out on the Communing level at about the same time he'd been there today. If Johnny Roselli was a creature of habit, Jack might be able to create his own coincidence.

Out front, Esteban smiled and held the front door open as Jack exited. As he started walking toward First Avenue he realized he hadn't seen Gia all day. He had a few minutes. Why not pop in?

10.

Gia smiled as she glanced through the peephole. Jack. Just the tonic she needed.

She pulled open the door. "Howdy, stranger." He grinned. "Hey, it hasn't even been twenty-four hours."

"I know." She pulled him inside and threw her arms around him. "But it seems like a week."

As they hugged she felt some of the day-long tension uncoil within her. It had been a long, long morning and she was only partway through the afternoon. She'd intended to work on her latest painting today-a new angle on her Fifty-ninth Street Bridge series-but had found herself too weak to stand at the easel for any length of time. Still feeling that blood loss, she guessed.

But even if her energy had been at its usual high level, she doubted she could have done much. She felt too down in the dumps to paint, and not just because of the blood loss.

She'd almost lost the baby. Dr. Eagleton had rea.s.sured her that everything was fine, but that didn't mean it wouldn't happen again. She'd miscarried her first pregnancy, the one before Vicky. Who said this one wouldn't wind up the same way?

This baby may not have been planned but he was here-she didn't know that he was a "he" but couldn't help thinking of him that way-and she couldn't wait for the day she could hold him in her arms and look into his little face. She'd felt his first quickening two weeks ago and he'd been kicking up a storm ever since. Especially so since the bleeding, which was wonderfully rea.s.suring.

But still she couldn't help feeling that a sword was hanging over her.

"How're you doing?" Jack said.

"Fine. Great."

Truth be told, she was feeling a little dizzy, but she wouldn't tell Jack that. He'd be all over her, hiring a housekeeper, insisting she stay in bed... She didn't want to deal with that.

"You look like a ghost."

"It's going to take me a while to build up my blood count. Dr. Eagleton's got me on extra iron." Which wasn't sitting too well with her intestines.

Concern was writ large on Jack's face. "Why don't we sit down?"

I thought you'd never ask.

"Sure. If you want."

They moved to the cozy living room, decorated in old English aunt style because the townhouse was still listed in the name of Vicky's aunts Grace and Nellie. Those two dear old souls were no longer among the living, but no one but she and Jack knew that.

"Thanks for taking care of Vicky," she said as she sat down.

"First of all, you never have to thank me for doing anything for Vicky. Anything."

"I know. I just-"

"And second, she took care of me. She's one amazing kid."

"That she is."

They snuggled together on the couch, but she sensed the tension in him.

"You've got to go, don't you."

He nodded. "Regrettably, yeah. Gotta see a man about a disk."

She hugged him closer. "Okay, but be careful."

"I'm always careful."

"No you're not. That's why I worry."

And she did. Always.

11.

"You want to wreck a CD?" Russ said. He was wearing the same T-shirt and jeans as on Jack's last two visits. "Easy. Stick it in a microwave and cook till it's all cracked like an old mirror."

Jack had started the digi-head talk as soon as he'd arrived-before Russ could start b.i.t.c.hing about his latest reading a.s.signment. The six-pack of Sam Adams Jack had brought along further distracted him from academic matters.

"But, Russ, the idea is to make it unreadable without the owner knowing it's been tampered with."

"Oh, well, that's a different story." He sipped his beer. "I'm a.s.suming we're dealing with a CD-R here and that's a good thing, because they're more easily ruined than the commercial kind."

"I thought a CD was a CD."

"In a way, yes. They both use a laser beam to read ones and zeroes from the disk, but-"

"What about music?"

"Same thing: ones and zeroes. Binary code, my friend."