But as the road drifted inland, the scenery gradually turned rural and hilly and sweet-smelling. The farther south he drove, the farther his thoughts were pulled into the past. Images streaked by with the mile markers: Mr. Canelli and his lawn… early fix-it jobs around Burlington County during his late teens, usually involving vandals, always contracted sub rosa… starting Rutgers but keeping his repairs business going on the side… the first trips to New York to do fix-it work for relatives of former customers…
Tension began building in him after he passed Exit 7. Jack knew the reason: He was approaching the spot where his mother was killed.
It was also the spot where he had—how had Kolabati put it?—”drawn the line between yourself and the rest of the human race.”
It had happened during his third year at Rutgers. A Sunday night in early January. Jack was on semester break. He and his parents were driving south on the Turnpike after visiting his Aunt Doris in Heightstown; Jack was in the back seat, his parents in the front, his father driving. Jack had offered to take the wheel but his mother said the way he wove in and out of all those trucks made her nervous. As he remembered it, he and his father had been discussing the upcoming Superbowl while his mother watched the speedometer to make sure it didn’t stray too far over sixty. The easy, peaceful feeling that comes with a full stomach after a lazy winter afternoon spent with relatives was shattered as they cruised under an overpass. With a crash like thunder and an impact that shook the car, the right half of the windshield exploded into countless flying, glittering fragments. He heard his father shout with surprise, his mother scream in pain, felt a blast of icy air rip through the car. His mother moaned and vomited.
As his father swerved the car to the side of the road, Jack jumped into the front seat and realized what had happened: A cinderblock had crashed through the windshield and landed against his mother’s lower ribs and upper abdomen. Jack didn’t know what to do. As he watched helplessly, his mother passed out and slumped forward. He shouted to get to the nearest hospital. His father drove like a demon, flooring the pedal, blowing the horn, and blinking the headlights while Jack pushed his mother’s limp body back and pulled the cinderblock off her. Then he removed his coat and wrapped it around her as protection against the cold gale whistling through the hole in the windshield. His mother vomited once more—this time it was all blood and it splattered the dashboard and what was left of the windshield. As he held her, Jack could feel her growing cold, could almost feel the life slipping out of her. He knew she was bleeding internally, but there was nothing he could do about it. He screamed at his father to hurry but he was already driving as fast as he could without risking loss of control of the car.
She was in deep shock by the time they got her to the emergency room. She died in surgery of a lacerated liver and a ruptured spleen. She had exsanguinated into her abdominal cavity.
The incalculable grief. The interminable wake and funeral. And afterwards, questions: Who? Why? The police didn’t know and doubted very much that they would ever find out. It was common for kids to go up on the overpasses at night and drop things through the cyclone fencing onto the cars streaming by below. By the time an incident was reported, the culprits were long gone. The State Police response to any and all appeals from Jack and his father was a helpless shrug.
His father’s response was withdrawal; the senselessness of the tragedy had thrown him into a sort of emotional catatonia in which he appeared to function normally but felt absolutely nothing. Jack’s response was something else: cold, nerveless, consuming rage. He was faced with a new kind of fix-it job. He knew where it had happened. He knew how. All he had to do was find out who.
He would do nothing else, think of nothing else, until that job was done.
And eventually it was done.
It was long over now, a part of the past. Yet as he approached that overpass he felt his throat constrict. He could almost see a cinderblock falling… falling toward the windshield… crashing through in a blizzard of glass fragments… crushing him. Then he was under and in shadow, and for an instant it was nighttime and snowing, and hanging off the other side of the overpass he saw a limp, battered body dangling from a rope tied to its feet, swinging and spinning crazily. Then it was gone and he was back in the August sun again.
He shivered. He hated New Jersey.
4
Jack got off at Exit 5. He took 541 through Mount Holly and continued south on the two-lane blacktop through towns that were little more than groups of buildings clustered along a stretch of road like a crowd around an accident. The spaces between were all open cultivated field. Fresh produce stands advertising Jersey Beefsteak tomatoes “5 lbs/$1” dotted the roadside. He reminded himself to pick up a basketful for Abe on the way back.
He passed through Lumberton, a name that always conjured up ponderous images of morbidly obese people waddling in and out of oversized stores and houses. Next came Fostertown, which should have been populated by a horde of homeless runny-nosed waifs, but wasn’t.
And then he was home, turning the corner by what had been Mr. Canelli’s house; Canelli had died and the new owner must have been trying to save water because the lawn had burnt to a uniform shade of pale brown. He pulled into the driveway of the three-bedroom ranch in which he, his brother, and his sister had all grown up, turned off the car, and sat a moment wishing he were someplace else.
But there was no sense in delaying the inevitable, so he got out and walked up to the door. Dad pushed it open just as he reached it.
“Jack!” He thrust out his hand. “You had me worried. Thought you’d forgotten.”
His father was a tall, thin, balding man tanned a dark brown from daily workouts on the local tennis courts. His beakish nose was pink and peeling from sunburn, and the age spots on his forehead had multiplied and coalesced since the last time Jack had visited. But his grip was firm and his blue eyes bright behind the steel-rimmed glasses as Jack shook hands with him.
“Only a few minutes late.”
Dad reached down and picked up his tennis racquet from where it had been leaning against the door molding. “Yeah, but I reserved a court so we could warm up a little before the match.” He closed the door behind him. “Let’s take your car. You remember where the courts are?”
“Of course.”
As he slid into the front seat, Dad glanced around the interior of the Corvair. He touched the dice, either to see if they were fuzzy or if they were real.
“You really drive around in this?”
“Sure. Why?”
“It’s…”
“Unsafe At Any Speed?”
“Yeah. That, too.”
“Best car I ever owned.” Jack pushed the little lever in the far left of the dashboard into reverse and pulled out of the driveway.
For a couple of blocks they made inconsequential small talk about the weather and how smoothly Jack’s car was running after twenty years and the traffic on the Turnpike. Jack tried to keep the conversation on neutral ground. He and Dad hadn’t had much to say to each other since he’d quit college nearly fifteen years ago.
“How’s business?”
Dad smiled. “Great. You’ve been buying any of those stocks I told you about?”
“I bought two thousand of Arizona Petrol at one-and-an-eighth. It was up to four last time I looked.”
“Closed at four-and-a-quarter on Friday. Hold onto it.”
“Okay. Just let me know when to dump it.”
A lie. Jack couldn’t own stock. He needed a Social Security number for that. No broker would open an account for him without it. So he lied to his father about following his stock tips and looked up the NASDAQ listings every so often to see how his imaginary investments were doing.
They were all doing well. Dad had a knack for finding low-priced, out-of-the-way OTC stocks that were undervalued. He’d buy a few thousand shares, watch the price double, triple, or quadruple, then sell off and find another. He had done so well at it over t
he years that he finally quit his accounting job to see if he could live off his stock market earnings. He had an Apple Lisa with a Wall Street hook-up and spent his days wheeling and dealing. He was happy. He was making as much as he had as an accountant, his hours were his own, and no one could tell him he had to stop when he reached sixty-five. He was living by his wits and seemed to love it, looking more relaxed than Jack could ever remember.
“If I come up with something better, I’ll let you know. Then you can parlay your AriPet earnings into even more. By the way, did you buy the stock through a personal account or your IRA?”
“Uh… the IRA.” Another lie. Jack couldn’t have an IRA account either. Sometimes he wearied of lying to everybody, especially people he should be able to trust.
“Good! When you don’t think you’ll be holding them long enough to qualify for capital gains, use the IRA.”
He knew what his father was up to. Dad figured that as an appliance repairman, Jack would wind up depending on Social Security after he retired, and nobody could live off that. He was trying to help his prodigal son build up a nest egg for his old age.
They pulled into the lot by the two municipal courts. Both were occupied.
“Guess we’re out of luck.”
Dad waved a slip of paper. “No worry. This says court two is reserved for us between 10:00 and 11:00.”
While Jack fished in the back seat for his new racquet and the can of balls, his father went over to the couple who now occupied court two. The fellow was grumpily packing up their gear as Jack arrived. The girl—she looked to be about nineteen—glared at him as she sipped from a half-pint container of chocolate milk.
“Guess it’s who you know instead of who got here first.”
Jack tried a friendly smile. “No. Just who thinks ahead and gets a reservation.”
She shrugged. “It’s a rich man’s sport. Should’ve known better than to try to take it up.”
“Let’s not turn this into a class war, shall we?”
“Who? Me?” she said with an innocent smile. “I wouldn’t think of it.”
With that she poured the rest of her chocolate milk onto the court just behind the baseline.
Jack set his teeth and turned his back on her. What he really wanted to do was see if she could swallow a tennis racquet. He relaxed a little after she and her boyfriend left and he began to rally with his father. Jack’s tennis game had long since stabilized at a level of mediocrity he felt he could live with.
He was feeling fit today; he liked the balance of the racquet, the way the ball came off the strings, but the knowledge that there was a puddle of souring chocolate milk somewhere behind him on the asphalt rippled his concentration.
“You’re taking your eye off the ball!” Dad yelled from the other end of the court after Jack’s third wild shot in a row.
I know!
The last thing he needed now was a tennis lesson. He concentrated fully on the next ball, backpedaling, watching it all the way up to his racquet strings. He threw his body into the forehand shot, giving it as much top spin as he could to make it go low over the net and kick when it bounced. Suddenly his right foot was slipping. He went down in a spray of warm chocolate milk.
Across the net, his father returned the ball with a drop shot that rolled dead two feet from the service line. He looked at Jack and began to laugh.
It was going to be a very long day.
5
Kolabati paced the apartment, clutching the empty bottle that had once held the rakoshi elixir, waiting for Kusum. Again and again her mind ranged over the sequence of events last night: First, her brother disappeared from the reception; then the rakoshi odor at Jack’s apartment and the eyes he said he had seen. There had to be a link between Kusum and the rakoshi. And she was determined to find it. But first she had to find Kusum and keep track of him. Where did he go at night?
The morning wore on. By noon, when she had begun to fear he would not show up at all, there came the sound of his key in the door.
Kusum entered, looking tired and preoccupied. He glanced up and saw her.
“Bati. I thought you’d be with your American lover.”
“I’ve been waiting all morning for you.”
“Why? Have you thought of a new way to torment me since last night?”
This wasn’t going the way Kolabati wanted. She had planned a rational discussion with her brother. To this end, she had dressed in a long-sleeved, high-collared white blouse and baggy white slacks.
“No one has tormented you,” she said with a small smile and a placating tone. “At least not intentionally.”
He made a guttural sound. “I sincerely doubt that.”
“The world is changing. I’ve learned to change with it. So must you.”
“Certain things never change.”
He started toward his room. Kolabati had to stop him before he locked himself away in there.
“That’s true. I have one of those unchanging things in my hand.”
Kusum stopped and looked at her questioningly. She held up the bottle, watching his face closely. His expression registered nothing but puzzlement. If he recognized the bottle, he hid it well.
“I’m in no mood for games, Bati.”
“I assure you, my brother, this is no game.” She removed the top and held the bottle out to him. “Tell me if you recognize the odor.”
Kusum took the bottle and held it under his long nose. His eyes widened. “This cannot be! It’s impossible!”
“You can’t deny the testament of your senses.” He glared at her. “First you embarrass me, now you try to make a fool of me as well!”
“It was in Jack’s apartment last night!” Kusum held it up to his nose again. Shaking his head, he went to an overstuffed couch nearby and sank into it. “I don’t understand this,” he said in a tired voice. Kolabati seated herself opposite him. “Of course you do.” His head snapped up, his eyes challenging her. “Are you calling me a liar?”
Kolabati looked away. There were rakoshi in New York. Kusum was in New York. She possessed a logical mind and could imagine no circumstances under which these two facts could exist independently of each other. Yet she sensed that now was not the right time to let Kusum know how certain she was of his involvement. He was already on guard. Any more signs of suspicion on her part and he would shut her out completely.
“What am I supposed to think?” she told him. “Are we not Keepers? The only Keepers?”
“But you saw the egg. How can you doubt me?” There was a note of pleading in his voice, of a man who wanted very much to be believed. He was so convincing. Kolabati was sorely tempted to take his word. “Then explain to me what you smell in that bottle.” Kusum shrugged. “A hoax. An elaborate, foul hoax.”
“Kusum, they were there! Last night and the night before as well!”
“Listen to me.” He rose and stood over her. “Did you ever actually see a rakosh these last two nights?”
“No, but there was the odor. There was no mistaking that.”
“I don’t doubt there was an odor, but an odor can be faked—”
“There was something there!”
“—and so we’re left with only your impressions. Nothing tangible.”
“Isn’t that bottle in your hand tangible enough?”
Kusum handed it to her. “An interesting imitation. It almost had me fooled, but I’m quite sure it’s not genuine. By the way, what happened to the contents?”
“Poured down a sewer.”
His expression remained bland. “Too bad. I could have had it analyzed and perhaps we could learn who is perpetrating this hoax. I want to know that before I do another thing.”
“Why would someone go to all the trouble?”
His gaze penetrated her. “A political enemy, perhaps. One who has uncovered our secret.”
Kolabati felt the clutch of fear at her throat. She shook it off. This was absurd! It was Kusum behind it all. She was sure of it. But for a momen
t there he almost had her believing him.
“That isn’t possible!”
He pointed to the bottle in her hand. “A few moments ago I would have said the same about that.”
Kolabati continued to play along.
“What do we do?”
“We find out who is behind this.” He started for the door. “And I’ll begin right now.”
“I’ll come with you.”
He paused. “No. You’d better wait here. I’m expecting an important call on Consulate business. That’s why I came home. You’ll have to wait here and take the message for me.”
“All right. But won’t you need me?”
“If I do, I’ll call you. And don’t follow me—you know what happened last time.”
Kolabati allowed him to leave. She watched through the peephole in the apartment door until he entered the elevator. As soon as the doors slid closed behind him, she ran into the hall and pressed the button for the second elevator. It opened a moment later and took her down to the lobby in time to see Kusum stroll out the front entrance of the building.
This will be easy, she thought. There should be no problem trailing a tall, slender, turbaned Indian through midtown Manhattan.
Excitement pushed her on. At last she would find where Kusum spent his time. And there, she was quite sure, she would find what should not be. She still did not see how it was possible, but all the evidence pointed to the existence of rakoshi in New York. And despite all his protests to the contrary, Kusum was involved. She knew it.
Staying half a block behind, she followed Kusum down Fifth Avenue to Central Park South with no trouble. The going became rougher after that. Sunday shoppers were out in force and the sidewalks became congested. Still she managed to keep him in view until he entered Rockefeller Plaza. She had been here once in the winter when the area had been mobbed with ice skaters and Christmas shoppers wandering about the huge Rockefeller Center tree. Today there was a different kind of crowd, but no less dense. A jazz group was playing imitation Coltrane and every few feet there were men with pushcarts selling fruit, candy, or balloons. Instead of ice skating, people were milling about or taking the sun with their shirts off.
The Complete Adversary Cycle: The Keep, the Tomb, the Touch, Reborn, Reprisal, Nightworld (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack) Page 62
