The Complete Adversary Cycle: The Keep, the Tomb, the Touch, Reborn, Reprisal, Nightworld (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack)

by F. Paul Wilson

  “You’re right, Dad. No argument there.”

  “I know houses are ridiculously expensive these days, and a guy in your position really doesn’t need one, but how about a condo? Get ahold of something you can build up equity in.”

  It was an oft-held discussion, one they had whenever they got together. Dad would go on about the tax benefits of owning your own home while Jack lied and hedged, unable to say that tax deductions were irrelevant to a man who didn’t pay taxes.

  “I don’t know why you stay in that city, Jack. Not only’ve you got federal and state taxes, but the goddamn city sticks its hand in your pocket, too.”

  “My business is there.”

  His father stood up and took both glasses into the dining room for refills. When they had returned to the house after dinner, he hadn’t asked Jack what he wanted; he’d simply poured a couple of fingers on the rocks and handed him one. Jack Daniels wasn’t something he ordered much, but by the end of the first glass he found himself enjoying it. He didn’t know how many glasses they had had since the first.

  Jack closed his eyes and absorbed the feel of the house. He had grown up here. He knew every crack in the walls, every squeaky step, every hiding place. This living room had been so big then; now it seemed tiny. He could still remember that man in the next room carrying him around the house on his shoulders when he was about five. And when he was older they had played catch out in the backyard. Jack had been the youngest of the three kids. There had been something special between his father and him. They used to go everywhere together on weekends, and whenever he had the chance, his father would float a little propaganda toward him. Not lectures really, but a pitch on getting into a profession when he grew up. He worked on all the kids that way, telling them how much better it was to be your own boss rather than be like him and have to work for somebody else. They had been close then. Not anymore. Now they were like acquaintances… near-friends… almost-relatives.

  His father handed him the glass of fresh ice and sour mash, then returned to his seat.

  “Why don’t you move down here?”

  “Dad—”

  “Hear me out. I’m doing better than I ever dreamed. I could take you in with me and show you how it’s done. You could take some business courses and learn the ropes. And while you’re going to school I could manage a portfolio for you to pay your expenses. ’Earn while you learn,’ as the saying goes.”

  Jack was silent. His body felt leaden, his mind sluggish. Too much Jack Daniels? Or the weight of all those years of lying? He knew Dad’s bottom line: He wanted his youngest to finish college and establish himself in some sort of respectable field. Jack’s brother was a judge, his sister a pediatrician. What was Jack? In his father’s eyes he was a college drop-out with no drive, no goals, no ambition, no wife, no children; he was somebody who was going to drift through life putting very little in and getting very little out, leaving no trace or evidence that he had even passed through. In short: a failure.

  That hurt. He wanted more than almost anything else for his father to be proud of him. Dad’s disappointment in him was like a festering sore. It altered their entire relationship, making Jack want to avoid a man he loved and respected.

  He was tempted to lay it out for him—put all the lies aside and tell him what his son really did for a living.

  Alarmed at the trend of his thoughts, Jack straightened up in his chair and got a grip on himself. That was the Jack Daniels talking. Leveling with his father would accomplish nothing. First off, he wouldn’t believe it; and if he believed it, he wouldn’t understand; and if he believed and understood, he’d be horrified… just like Gia.

  “You like what you’re doing, don’t you, Dad?” he said finally.

  “Yes. Very much. And you would, too, if—”

  “I don’t think so.” After all, what was his father making besides money? He was buying and selling, but he wasn’t producing anything. Jack didn’t mention this to his father—it would only start an argument. The guy was happy, and the only thing that kept him from being completely at peace with himself was his youngest son. If Jack could have helped him there he would have. But he couldn’t. So he only said, “I like what I’m doing. Can’t we leave it at that?”

  Dad said nothing.

  The phone rang. He went into the kitchen to answer it. A moment later he came out again.

  “It’s for you. A woman. She sounds upset.”

  The lethargy that had been slipping over Jack suddenly dropped away. Only Gia had this number. He pushed himself out of the chair and hurried to the phone.

  “Nellie’s gone, Jack!”

  “Where?”

  “Gone! Disappeared! Just like Grace! Remember Grace? She was the one you were supposed to find instead of going to diplomatic receptions with your Indian lady friend.”

  “Calm down, will you? Did you call the cops?”

  “They’re on their way.”

  “I’ll see you after they leave.”

  “Don’t bother. I just wanted you to know what a good job you’ve done!”

  She hung up.

  “Something the matter?” his father asked.

  “Yeah. A friend’s been hurt.” Another lie. But what was one more added to the mountain of lies he had told people over the years? “Gotta get back to the city.” They shook hands. “Thanks. It’s been great. Let’s do it again soon.”

  He had his racquet and was out to his car before Dad could warn him about driving after all those drinks. He was fully alert now. Gia’s call had evaporated all effects of the alcohol.

  Jack was in a foul mood as he drove up the Turnpike. He’d really blown this one. It hadn’t even occurred to him that if one sister disappeared, the other might do the same. He wanted to push the car to eighty but didn’t dare. He turned on the Fuzzbuster and set the cruise control at fifty-nine. The best radar detector in the world wouldn’t protect you from the cop driving behind you at night and clocking you on his speedometer. Jack figured no one would bother him if he kept it just under 60.

  At least the traffic was light. No trucks. The night was clear. The near-full moon hanging over the road was flat on one edge, like a grapefruit someone had dropped and left on the floor too long.

  As he passed Exit 6 and approached the spot where his mother had been killed, his thoughts began to flow backwards in time. He rarely permitted that. He preferred to keep them focused on the present and the future; the past was dead and gone. But in his present state of mind he allowed himself to remember a snowy winter night almost a month after his mother’s death…

  13

  He had been watching the fatal overpass every night, sometimes in the open, sometimes in the bushes. The January wind ate at his face, chapped his lips, numbed his fingers and toes. Still he waited. Cars passed, people passed, time passed, but no one threw anything off.

  February came. A few days after the official groundhog had supposedly seen its shadow and returned to its burrow for another six weeks of winter, it snowed. An inch was on the ground already and at least half a dozen more predicted. Jack stood on the overpass looking at the thinning southbound traffic slushing along beneath him. He was cold, tired, and ready to call it a night.

  As he turned to go, he saw a figure hesitantly approaching through the snow. Continuing his turning motion, Jack bent, scooped up some wet snow, packed it into a ball, and lobbed it over the cyclone fencing to drop on a car below. After two more snowballs, he glanced again at the figure and saw that it was approaching more confidently now. Jack stopped his bombardment and stared at the traffic as if waiting for the newcomer to pass. But he didn’t. He stopped next to Jack.

  “Whatcha putting in them?”

  Jack looked at him. “Putting in what?”

  “The snowballs.”

  “Get lost.”

  The guy laughed. “Hey, it’s all right. Help yourself.” He held out a handful of walnut-sized rocks.

  Jack sneered. “If I wanted to throw rocks I coul
d sure as hell do better’n those.”

  “This is just for starters.”

  The newcomer, who said his name was Ed, laid his stones atop the guard rail, and together they formed new snowballs with rocky cores. Then Ed showed him a spot where the fencing could be stretched out over the road to allow room for a more direct shot… a space big enough to slip a cinderblock through. Jack managed to hit the tops of trucks with his rock-centered snowballs or miss completely. But Ed landed a good share of his dead center on oncoming windshields.

  Jack watched his face as he threw. Not much was visible under the knitted cap pulled down to his pale eyebrows and above the navy peacoat collar turned up around his fuzzy cheeks, but there was a wild light in Ed’s eyes as he threw his snowballs, and a smile as he saw them smash against the windshields. He was getting a real thrill out of this.

  That didn’t mean Ed was the one who had dropped the cinderblock that killed his mother. He could be just another one of a million petty terrorists who got their jollies destroying or disfiguring something that belonged to someone else. But what he was doing was dangerous. The road below was slippery. The impact of one of his special snowballs—even if it didn’t shatter the windshield—could cause a driver to swerve or slam on his breaks. And that could be lethal under the present conditions.

  Either that had never crossed Ed’s mind, or it was what had brought him out tonight.

  It could be him.

  Jack fought to think clearly. He had to find out. And he had to be absolutely sure.

  Jack made a disgusted noise. “Fucking waste of time. I don’t think we even cracked one.” He turned to go. “See ya.”

  “Hey!” Ed said, grabbing his arm. “I said we’re just getting started.”

  “This is diddley-shit.”

  “Follow me. I’m a pro at this.”

  Ed led him down the road to where a 280-Z was parked. He opened the trunk and pointed to an icy cinderblock wedged up against the spare tire.

  “You call that diddley-shit?”

  It took all of Jack’s will to keep from leaping upon Ed and tearing his throat out with his teeth. He had to be sure. What Jack was planning left no room for error. There could be no going back and apologizing for making a mistake.

  “I call that big trouble,” Jack managed to say. “You’ll get the heat down on you somethin’ awful.”

  “Naw! I dropped one of these bombs last month. You shoulda seen it—perfect shot! Right in somebody’s lap!”

  Jack felt himself begin to shake. “Hurt bad?”

  Ed shrugged. “Who knows? I didn’t hang around to find out.” He barked a laugh. “I just wish I coulda been there to see the look on their faces when that thing came through the windshield. Blam! Can you see it?”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “Let’s do it.”

  As Ed leaned over to grab the block, Jack slammed the trunk lid down on his head. Ed yelled and tried to straighten up, but Jack slammed it down again. And again. He kept on slamming it down until Ed stopped moving. Then he ran to the bushes, where twenty feet of heavy duty rope had lain hidden for the past month.

  “WAKE UP!”

  Jack had tied Ed’s hands behind his back. He had cut a large opening in the cyclone wire and now held him seated on the top rung of the guard rail. A rope ran from Ed’s ankles to the base of one of the guard rail supports. They were on the south side of the overpass; Ed’s legs dangled over the southbound lanes.

  Jack rubbed snow in Ed’s face.

  “Wake up!”

  Ed sputtered and shook his head. His eyes opened. He looked dully at Jack, then around him. He looked down and stiffened. Panic flashed in his eyes.

  “Hey! What—?”

  “You’re dead, Ed. Ed is dead. It rhymes, Ed. That’s ’cause it’s meant to be.”

  Jack was barely in control. He would look back in later years and know what he had done was crazy. A car could have come down the road and along the overpass at any time, or someone in the northbound lanes could have looked up and spotted them through the heavy snow. But good sense had fled along with mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.

  This man had to die. Jack had decided that after talking to the State Police before his mother’s funeral. It had been clear then that even if they learned the name of whoever had dropped the cinderblock, there was no way to convict him short of an eyewitness to the incident or a full confession freely given in the presence of the defendant’s attorney.

  Jack refused to accept that. The killer had to die—not just any way, but Jack’s way. He had to know he was going to die. And why.

  Jack’s voice sounded flat in his ears, and as cold as the snow drifting out of the featureless night sky.

  “You know who’s lap your ’bomb’ landed in last month, Ed? My mother’s. You know what? She’s dead. A lady who never hurt anyone in her whole life was riding along minding her own business and you killed her. Now she’s dead and you’re alive. That’s not fair, Ed.”

  He took bleak satisfaction from the growing horror in Ed’s face.

  “Hey, look! It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me!”

  “Too late, Ed. You already told me it was.”

  Ed let out a scream as he slid off the guard rail, but Jack held him by the back of his coat until his tied feet found purchase on the ledge.

  “Please don’t do this! I’m sorry! It was an accident! I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt! I’ll do anything to make it up! Anything!”

  “Anything? Good. Don’t move.”

  Together they stood over the right southbound lane, Jack inside the guard rail, Ed outside. Both watched the traffic roar out from beneath the overpass and flee down the Turnpike away from them. With his hand gripping the collar of Ed’s peacoat to steady him, Jack glanced over his shoulder at the oncoming traffic.

  As the snow had continued to fall, the traffic had slowed and thinned. The left lane had built up an accumulation of slush and no one was using it, but there were still plenty of cars and trucks in the middle and right lanes, most doing forty-five or fifty. Jack saw the headlights and clearance lights of a tractor-semitrailer approaching down the right lane. As it neared the overpass he gave a gentle shove.

  Ed toppled forward slowly, gracefully, his bleat of terror rising briefly above the noise of the traffic echoing from below. Jack had measured the rope carefully. Ed fell feet first until the rope ran out of slack, then his feet were jerked up as the rest of his body snapped downward. Ed’s head and upper torso swung over the cab of the oncoming truck and smashed against the leading edge of the trailer with a solid thunk, then his body bounced and dragged limply along the length of the trailer top, then swung into the air, spinning and swaying crazily from the rope around its feet.

  The truck kept going, its driver undoubtedly aware that something had struck his trailer but probably blaming it on a clump of wet snow that had shaken loose from the overpass and landed on him. There was another truck rolling down the lane but Jack didn’t wait for the second impact. He walked to Ed’s car and removed the cinderblock from the trunk. He threw it into a field as he walked the mile farther down the road to his own car. There would be no connection to his mother’s death, no connection to him.

  It was over.

  He went home and put himself to bed, secure in the belief that starting tomorrow he could pick up his life again where he had left off.

  He was wrong.

  He slept into the afternoon of the following day. When he awoke, the enormity of what he had done descended on him with the weight of the earth itself. He had killed. More than that: He had executed another man.

  He was tempted to cop an insanity plea, say it hadn’t been him up there on the overpass but a monster wearing his skin. Someone else had been in control.

  It wouldn’t wash. It hadn’t been someone else. It had been him. Jack. No one else. And he hadn’t been in a fog or a fugue or consumed by a red haze of rage. He remembered every detail, every word, every move with crystal clarity.

&nb
sp; No guilt. No remorse. That was the truly frightening part: The realization that if he could go back and relive those moments he wouldn’t change a thing.

  He knew that afternoon as he sat hunched on the edge of the bed that his life would never be the same. The young man in the mirror today was not the same one he had seen there yesterday. Everything looked subtly different. The angles and curves of his surroundings hadn’t changed; faces and architecture and geography all stayed the same topographically. But someone had shifted the lighting. There were shadows where there had been light before.

  Jack went back to Rutgers, but college no longer seemed to make any sense. He could sit and laugh and drink with his friends but he no longer felt a part of them. He was one step removed. He could still see and hear them, but could no longer touch them, as if a glass wall had risen between him and everyone he thought he knew.

  He searched for a way to make some sense of it all. He went through the existentialist canon, devouring Camus and Sartre and Kierkegaard. Camus seemed to know the questions Jack was asking, but he gave no answers.

  Jack flunked most of his second semester courses. He drifted away from his friends. When summer came he took all his savings and moved to New York, where the fix-it work continued with a gradually escalating level of danger and violence. He learned how to pick locks and pick the right gun and ammo for any given situation, how to break into a house and break an arm. He had been there ever since.

  Everyone, including his father, blamed the change on the death of his mother. In a very roundabout way, they were right.

  14

  The overpass receded in his rear-view mirror, and with it the memory of that night. Jack wiped his sweaty palms against his slacks. He wondered where he’d be and what he’d be doing now if Ed had dropped that cinderblock a half-second earlier or later, letting it bounce relatively harmlessly off the hood or roof of his folks’ car. Half a second would have meant the difference between life and death for his mother—and for Ed. Jack would have finished school, had a regular job with regular hours by now, a wife, kids, stability, identity, security. He’d be able to go through a whole conversation without lying. He’d be able to drive under that overpass without reliving two deaths.