Bloodline by F. Paul Wilson Read Free Book Online Page B

up with a fat one, and dropped it with a thud on the counter.
    "You're looking up Muller's to order a delivery, right?"
    "They don't deliver. I need info on a PI named Gerhard."
    Abe shook his head as if to clear it. "He knows about the Compendium? "
    "No, this is another matter. Although, the way things have been going lately, he just might."
    He had contact information from Christy but wanted a look himself. Under Private Investigators and Detectives he found the Gerhard Agency, and listed under that was Michael P. Gerhard. The address was a "suite 624" on West 20th here in Manhattan, but the 718 area code of the phone number was the same Brooklyn number Christy had given him.
    He pointed to the computer on the counter.
    "Do me a favor and look up Michael P. Gerhard in Brooklyn."
    Abe's pudgy fingers flew over the keyboard, then he adjusted his glasses and squinted at the screen.
    "Plenty of Gerhards. No Michael P. but there's a Gerhard MP on Avenue M."
    Avenue M ran through a number of Brooklyn neighborhoods.
    "Can we narrow that down a bit?"
    Abe pushed out his lower lip. "Can't say for sure, but I got a feeling that's a Flatlands address."
    "How can you tell?"
    "Old uncles I had used to live out there when it was predominantly Jewish. Now it's predominantly not Jewish."
    Jack pulled out his cell phone and called the number Abe gave him. After four rings he was shunted to voice mail. He listened to the standard message—' 'Hi, this is Mike, blah-blah-blah" —and hung up. Then he called the office number and got voice mail again. A more formal message this time: " Hello. You have reached the Gerhard Agency …"
    No question: Same voice both times.
    Jack left a message: "Mister Gerhard, this is Jack—"
    He needed a last name. He glanced around, saw Nike on a shoebox. No. Saw Prince on a racket.
    "—Prince and T wish to engage your services. Please call me as soon as possible. It's an urgent matter." He left his Tracfone number.
    There. All he had to do now was wait for his callback, arrange a meet, and convince him to square his accounts with Christy Pickering.
    But while he was waiting, why not check out his "office."

3

    Jack hopped the A train down to 23rd, then walked over to the address of the Gerhard Agency. As Christy had said, a mail drop. Jack used a number of them himself, in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, but this one was new to him.
    He peeked through the window of box 624—Gerhard's "suite" number—and found it crammed with mail. Too bad this wasn't the drop Jack used a few blocks from here. He was sure he could wheedle a look at Gerhard's mail from Kevin, the guy who ran that place. But here, knowing nobody, he wouldn't even try.
    His cell started to ring. He smiled as he pulled it from his pocket.
    Mr. Gerhard, I presume.
    But no. Abe's voice came through instead.
    "I just called the hospital. Doctor Buhmann is awake and speaking. Shall we pay a visit?"
    Oh, yeah. He had a few questions he wanted to ask the good professor.

4

    "One-sixty-one."
    Jack stared down at Doc Buhmann. He seemed to be fading into his pillowcase. The right side of his face drooped. The thin fingers of his left hand plucked absently at the bedsheet while the right lay limp at his side. Once he'd come to they'd moved him out of intensive care to this semiprivate room. Jack was glad for that. If he never saw the inside of an ICU again it would be too soon.
    "I said, it's good to see you awake," Abe repeated.
    The prof gave him a weak, lopsided smile. "Three-twenty-nine." The words slurred like someone at the end of a long bender.
    Abe looked at Jack across the bed and muttered. "Three-twenty-nine? What's with these numbers already? I ask him a question, he gives me a number."
    "Numbers are all he's said since he came to," said an accented female voice.
    Jack looked toward the door and saw a heavyset nurse with coffee-colored skin approaching. She stopped at the foot of the bed.
    "Is this usual after a stroke?" Abe said.
    She