Repairman Jack [05]-Hosts by F. Paul Wilson Page A

me, it's him!
    He saw a world, a universe of possibilities bursting open before him.
    But only if he kept it to himself. If anybody else got hold of this he'd lose his exclusive… lose that glorious future.
    Sandy glanced around. No one nearby. He mouse-clicked PRINT, typed a "10" into the COPIES box, then turned off his monitor. He rose, stretched, and made his way as casually as he could to the printer. There he watched the sheets with that face, that wonderful generic face, sliding into the tray.
    When all ten were done, he folded them once and buttoned them inside his shirt, then returned to the workstation.
    Now… what to do with the Identi-Kit file? His first instinct was to delete it. But what if he needed to come back to it, maybe revise it? He didn't want to have to start from scratch all over again. He decided to label it GPM and leave it in the Identi-Kit folder. That way it would have no connection to him, and anyone finding it would think GPM stood for the initials of the guy in the drawing. Gerald P. Mahoney perhaps.
    Sandy grinned as he closed out the program. Sometimes I'm so sneaky I scare myself.
    He headed for the exit, gliding like a dancer through the maze of empty desks. A little shut-eye, then he'd be up early to catch the morning edition with his first byline. Maybe a call to the folks to make sure they picked up The Light so they wouldn't miss seeing how all those years of tuition were finally bearing fruit, even if he was working for a sleazbloid.
    And then later tomorrow… starting the search.
    Only problem was, he wasn't the least bit tired. In fact he was still totally wired. He wished he could drop into a bar where all his friends hung out and hoist a few beers while he blew their minds with his story of the subway ride to hell and back.
    Trouble was, he didn't have a gang of friends. Not even one good friend, to tell the truth. Hell, he didn't even have a roommate. He still lived alone in the co-op his parents had bought in Morningside Heights when he'd entered Columbia. They still owned it and had been letting him live on there rent free since graduation—a great perk for him and a solid investment for them with the relentless rise in West Side property values.
    Most of the time he didn't mind not having close friends. Acquaintances were perfectly adequate. But tonight… tonight he wished he had one person—just one—he could share this with. That film student, for instance. Beth. What was her last name? He could kick himself now for not getting her phone number. And the least he could have done was to have found her and said good-bye before he'd dashed back to The Light .
    Typical me, he thought. A brown thumb with relationships.
    And face it, what did he have to offer? Not as if he was setting the world on fire like some of the guys he'd known in undergrad. A few of his fellow English majors had gone on to brokerage houses and investments banks and mega-bonuses— English majors without a single business course to their names! And don't mention the computer geeks who spent every waking moment of their college years playing Ultima Online and then joined dot-coms in the Flatiron District to haul down six figures plus stock options. The market collapse had stifled their brags, but financially they remained light years ahead of Sandy.
    When's my turn? he'd asked himself.
    Well, he'd got the answer tonight. Sandy Palmer's turn was now . He'd always dreamed of breaking a big story, and now that dream was about to come true.
    He kept flashing back to Woodward and Bernstein. Who were they before they connected with Deep Throat? Nobodies. But afterward they were household names. This story wasn't the caliber of Watergate, but it had the same potential for hooking public interest, and not just locally—nationwide eyeballs could be staring his way.
    He tried to rein in the fantasies—never paid to get your hopes up too high—but he could feel them taking off, soaring in a high, jet-fueled