Jokers Club

by Gregory Bastianelli

  “I know,” Lonny said. “It’s just, what if they try to trip us up?”

  “It’s not like they suspect we did anything,” Dale explained. “They just want to know what Jason was doing that day and how he ended up in the Tin Man’s yard.”

  “Right,” Oliver agreed. “They won’t be grilling us. They’ll just be asking simple questions.”

  It should be just natural, Lonny thought. Kids were always playing around in the Tin Man’s back yard. Heck, Oliver and he got the screens for the clubhouse windows from the old man’s junk pile.

  Even though the old guy was kind of creepy, it didn’t stop them from rummaging through his junk.

  Lonny remembered one time playing Relievo and it was his turn to be the Shadow. He hid inside the trunk of the junk car that sat on its rims near the base of the pile. He had lain in the dark, stuffy, moldy trunk, biding his time so they could win. It was a pretty big trunk, as most of those old cars had, but it seemed to get more cramped the longer he stayed in there. Lonny squirmed, trying to find a comfortable position, but it was impossible. He couldn’t lay still and it seemed to be getting hotter. Sweat seeped through his t-shirt and he wanted to rip it off, but he could barely move his arms. It seemed like the trunk was shrinking, closing in on him. He wanted to sit up, but there was just no room.

  Finally, he heard movement outside. It must be Oliver and the gang, coming to tell him the game was over, and once again they had won.

  Lonny pushed on the trunk lid and it sprung open.

  Emeric Rust stared down at him with his bulging bug eyes, holding his spade shovel.

  “What the hell you doing in there!” the old man yelled.

  Lonny clambered out of the trunk, dropping to the ground and began running for his life. The old man ran after him, waving the shovel.

  “Keep out of my yard!” he screamed.

  Lonny could barely contain his laughter, but he was also a bit frightened. The old man was crazy, and though he looked weak, one wild swing from that shovel could knock his head off.

  The guy was crazy.

  “What do you think will happen to him?” Lonny asked.

  “Who?” Oliver said.

  “The Tin Man. What do you think they’ll do to him?”

  “Who cares, he’s an old fart.”

  “They won’t be able to prove anything,” Geoff offered. “I mean, come on, he didn’t even do anything, so they can’t really even put him on trial.”

  “But you hear all the time about innocent people being put in jail,” Lonny said. “What if they think he did something?”

  “That only happens in the movies,” Dale said. “Or maybe in one of Geoff’s stories.”

  Geoff laughed. “I would never write about something corny like that.”

  “No?” Dale asked. “The Tin Man’s a pretty freaky character. Look at all that crap they found in his house.”

  Lonny remembered hearing about the search through the Tin Man’s house after they took him away. The house was filled with all kinds of electric appliances and junk. They found dozens of toasters, blenders, stereos, tape recorders, microwaves, televisions, hair dryers, vacuum cleaners and radios. They were crammed all over the house, stacked on countertops, piled on the floor, stuffed into closets. The whole house was filled with electrical gadgets, some dismantled, their components scattered throughout the rooms.

  “Why was he collecting all that junk?” Lonny wondered.

  Geoff smiled at that. “I think I know.”

  “You do?” Dale asked.

  “Yeah,” Geoff laughed. “Maybe he was trying to build killer robots.”

  Lonny started laughing along with him. “Killer robots?”

  “Yeah,” Geoff said, sitting up on his beach towel. “I started thinking about a story idea. That Emeric Rust used to be some kind of scientist, and he collected all these electric gadgets and stuff so he could continue his experiments and build robots that he can program and seek revenge on all the people that bother him.”

  “Like people who trespass on his property?” Oliver asked. “Like Jason Nightingale?”

  Geoff lay back down. “Well it was just an idea.”

  Lonny wished they hadn’t gotten back on this subject. He was happier thinking about Geoff’s killer robots. That’s the kind of stuff kids their age should be thinking about. Not about a twelve-year-old boy dying a horrible gruesome death, but some mechanical monstrosity with circular saw hands tearing apart some burglar who breaks into the Tin Man’s house in the middle of the night to steal televisions.

  Yeah, that’d be cool.

  “Maybe you should build a robot,” Lonny said to Geoff.

  “Why?”

  “So you can build one that looks just like you and you can program it to go over there and talk to Meg Rand, since you don’t have the guts.”

  They all laughed and Geoff blushed.

  Meg Rand was on the beach with a few other girls on a blanket about fifty feet away. Lonny noticed she seemed to look this way a couple of times. Geoff talked nonstop about Meg Rand, and everyone knew he had a big crush on her, but he just didn’t do anything about it.

  “What about it?” Dale said. “Just go over there now. Because if you keep chickening out, I’m going to ask her out.”

  “Now’s not the time,” Geoff said, glancing over at the girls.

  “It’s never time for you, Thorn,” Oliver said. “You can’t wait for the right time. You’ve got to take charge, make things happen.”

  “Everything’s too weird right now, with this whole inquest and stuff.” He looked away from them. “Maybe when everything dies down. Maybe when school starts up. Right now I just want to get this thing over with.”

  Lonny could agree with that. It seemed never ending. He wanted to put Jason Nightingale behind him and forget the bratty kid ever existed.

  And sitting on the stand in the courthouse, Lonny thought that if he could get through this day, everything would be all right. He tried to keep his fingers interlocked, his hands resting on his lap. But his fingers refused to stay clasped, instead pulling apart, thumbs drumming on his thighs.

  The county attorney approached and Lonny looked right into his eyes. He didn’t want to look beyond him to where Emeric Rust sat. Lonny didn’t want to meet the old man’s sad confused face. The old man appeared to have no idea why he was here. Hell, he probably didn’t. It’s because of us, Lonny thought, you stupid old fart.

  Yeah, that made him feel better.

  “So tell me, Lonny,” the county attorney began. “Can I call you Lonny?”

  “Yes sir, that’s me.” There were muffled chuckles in the courtroom. Lonny smiled, but his right hand began grabbing at his tie, twisting it, and then he had to force himself to pull his hand away.

  “You said in your police statement that Jason Nightingale was supposed to spend the night at your house the day he disappeared.”

  “That’s right,” Lonny said, trying to remember what Oliver had told him to say. “I had talked to him earlier in the day and asked him to see if he could sleep over at my house. He checked with his parents and it was okay.” Lonny started touching the tips of his fingers in succession to his left thumb, index, middle, ring, pinky, then back again. It helped calm his nerves, gave his hands something to do while he sat there. “Later, he said they said it was okay.”

  “And did he sleep over your house?” the attorney asked.

  Lonny shook his head, reaching up and scratching at the side of it with his right hand. “After we got done playing Relievo, I couldn’t find him, so I just figured he changed his mind and went home.”

  “And you didn’t see him again.”

  Lonny looked down at his hands as he tried to keep them together. “No sir.”

  “And you didn’t go looking for him? Or call his parents to see where he was?”

  The attorney waited in silence for an answer.

  Once again Lonny shook his head. “No. I guess I should have, but I just tho
ught he didn’t want to sleep over.”

  The attorney stood before him without saying anything, then excused Lonny from the stand. His legs were numb and at first he though he wasn’t going to be able to get up, but he forced himself to move. He wanted to get out of the hot seat and away from this place. He didn’t like everyone looking at him. He was afraid they could tell he was lying.

  Lonny walked slowly back to his seat, trying not to look at the old man, trying to keep his hands at his sides. But he did look, and was glad the old man wasn’t looking up. Keep your head down old man, he thought. Don’t you dare look at me, because if you do, then everyone might know I was lying and that would be bad. Oliver wouldn’t like that.

  But when he came closest to where Emeric Rust sat, the old man’s head tilted upwards and slowly turned, eyes set deep within that wrinkled mass of flesh catching his and burning into them. Lonny tried to look away but couldn’t, as if the old man possessed some hypnotic power and those eyes bore through his retina, burning a hole into his socket and along his optic nerve like a fuse, leading into his brain where he could read Lonny’s thoughts and realize what really happened in the junk pile.

  Lonny’s right hand reached up to his scalp, grabbing a strand of hair in his bangs, twisting and pulling on it.

  When all the testimony was done from whoever had anything to say, which really wasn’t much at all, the grand jury decided there was no evidence to warrant a trial and the case was dismissed and Emeric Rust was free to go.

  Lonny and the others were outside the courthouse when Chief Hooper walked the old man out. It didn’t seem possible that the Tin Man could look any older, but Lonny thought he aged another ten years by the whole process.

  Emeric Rust shuffled slowly down the walkway outside the courthouse. Hooper seemed to move his fat frame gracefully by contrast.

  Oliver was disappointed they let the Tin Man go. He thought it’d be cool if he got sent to the electric chair.

  “They don’t use the electric chair in New Hampshire,” Geoff said.

  “Damn,” Oliver said. “What do they use?”

  “They still have hanging in the state, though it hasn’t been used for over fifty years.”

  Geoff always seemed to know shit like that, Lonny thought. He was always reading about that kind of stuff for his stories: Poisons, executions, vivisections, autopsies, amputations. That kid had one weird mind.

  “Hanging,” Oliver muttered. “That’d be cool too.”

  Geoff shook his head, disgusted, and walked off.

  Hooper led the old man past them on the sidewalk and once again Lonny averted his eyes. In fact he kept his gaze on Oliver, who looked right at the old man and smiled as he shuffled by.

  Cool as a cucumber, Lonny thought. That’s Oliver.

  When the old man passed, Lonny turned and watched him walking away. Hooper was now several steps ahead of him, too impatient to maintain the old man’s turgid pace.

  Lonny saw the Tin Man stop when he got to where Geoff stood. Emeric Rust leaned over and whispered something to Geoff.

  Oh shit, Lonny thought. He knows. He saw something. Lonny tried to swallow, but it felt like his Adams’ apple grew double in size and blockaded his throat. The Tin Man saw something and didn’t say anything. That didn’t make sense. Unless, perhaps, the Tin Man was planning some sort of retribution of his own.

  Lonny began tugging on his bangs.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  Incoherent thoughts ran rampant through my aching mind when I awoke Sunday morning. It took a while for me to even realize what day it was; they all seemed to blur together, none having any more significance than the others. Time had no special meaning for me anymore, not here. It just kept on running. Mine was running out. I could sense it.

  I didn’t even remember coming back to the inn last night. The whole end of the evening was one big black cloud. I had vague recollections of working on the book. I looked down and noticed I had slept in my clothes. One of my first thoughts was to call Dr. Cutler, tell him about what had been happening. Not necessarily about Dale’s murder but about what had been happening to my mind. The hallucinations and tricks it had been playing on me, my trouble distinguishing reality.

  But if I did call him, I know he’d want me to come back to New York, back to the hospital and have the operation, remove the tumor. I couldn’t do that. I still needed the tumor, I think. Things weren’t finished here.

  I thought about Lonny. I had to find him, find out if he was all right.

  I stepped out into the hallway and went to Lonny’s door, putting my ear against it. The room was silent. I knocked, lightly at first, then louder. There was no response, so I reached down to the knob and turned it. (Don’t open the door.) I pushed the door open slightly and cautiously squeezed my head through. I was hoping so much to see him lying on his bed, asleep or more likely passed out. His bed was empty, not even slept in.

  I stepped into the room. It smelled of stale cigarette smoke and alcohol. An empty whiskey bottle sat on his nightstand.

  Had he come back to the inn at all last night? Or was he still roaming the streets out there?

  I looked around the room. Maybe I should go through his drawers, see if I find anything? Like what? A knife?

  If you’re going to do it, do it quickly, I told myself. I went to the bureau and opened the first drawer. Empty. I checked the second, then the third. All empty. I stood there for a moment, not even bothering to check the fourth. I didn’t need to. It just occurred to me, Lonny had been wearing the same set of clothes all weekend. He had only come with one set. But why?

  I heard a door slam somewhere in the inn and decided to get out of the room. I closed the door behind me and went back to my room to grab a fresh set of clothes. I went to the bathroom and showered quickly and changed. Heading downstairs I ran into Professor Bonz on the second-floor landing. He was heading out with an armload of equipment.

  “Morning, Professor,” I said. “How goes the fish hunting?”

  He grunted, giving me a sour look. “Not too good,” he said. “If I don’t come up with something soon, I’m afraid I’ll lose my funding.”

  I wondered how much funds that could be and who was paying it. “What are you using for bait?”

  “Anything vegetable and animal I can get my hands on. Aside from human limbs.”

  I laughed.

  “He must be feeding too low in the lake,” he continued, “beyond the reach of my lines.”

  “Maybe he feeds at night?” I offered.

  The professor stopped on the steps and looked at me. “That hadn’t occurred to me.”

  I began to wonder if he really was a professor of anything. Maybe he was more like an outpatient from Acorn Estates. “Do you need a hand with that stuff?” I asked.

  “No thanks,” he said, continuing down the steps. “Mr. Wolfe said we should keep away from you and your gang.” He gave me a queer look.

  “You don’t think I’m a killer do you?” I said this half in jest, but wondered how I appeared to a total stranger.

  “You don’t look much like one,” he said as we reached the bottom of the stairs. “Not that looks ever counted for anything. But I’d much rather spend time with a carnivorous fish than a carnivorous man.”

  I held the front door for him, and he thanked me as he left.

  The den was empty, so I checked the dining room to see if Lonny might be in there. Oliver sat at one of the tables, a plate of brown sugar covered pancakes before him. How could he possibly eat? My stomach was so twisted in knots, I couldn’t imagine trying to force food down. Death had destroyed my appetite.

  “Have you seen Lonny?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “The idiot’s probably passed out somewhere.”

  The two of us just stared at each other. What have you done with him?

  “I haven’t seen you around,” I said.

  “That makes two of us.”

  I smirked and then turned away.
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br />   I stepped out onto the porch to a warm, sunny autumn morning. There wasn’t even a breeze to stir the leaves discarded across the front lawn. Without thinking, I sat down on the porch swing, in the exact spot I had two nights prior. When it dawned on me, I looked at the seat beside me. There were still a couple of small red stains on the wood. I turned away. I didn’t want to think about it. I gently started to rock the swing but stopped as soon as I heard the creak of the chains that brought back an image of last night’s apparition.

  I looked out at the lake and immersed myself in the peaceful quiet that surrounded the place: warm sun, white friendly clouds dotting the bright blue sky, orange and yellow leaves dropping from the trees to flutter to the green grass beneath. It was all so relaxing.

  My life shouldn’t have turned out like this. It was all supposed to be different. Meg and I were going to be married, and we were going to live in a big house. A house like this one.

  * * *

  Yes. This was our house. And here I was sitting on the porch on a warm sunny day, resting before I went back inside to work on my latest novel. It was so nice to be successful enough to work at my own leisure.

  I could hear the clattering of plates and glasses from inside. Meg must’ve been doing the breakfast dishes.

  But that was the only sound I heard; otherwise it was strangely quiet. The children? Where were the children? I sat up, worried. But then I realized it was October. They must have been in school. That’s why I didn’t hear the familiar screeches and yelps of our kids as they played around the yard. I sat back and smiled. Life had been good to me. Meg, the kids, my writing: everything I’d dreamed about. It made me so happy.

  The screen door opened and closed. Footsteps approached the swing and then there was a hand on my shoulder. A gentle, but trembling hand. Without looking I reached up to touch it. It was soft. I turned my head and looked up into her face, her beautiful smile, her lovely eyes.

  “I love you, Meg.”

  Her hand slowly withdrew. The smile faded as her eyes averted.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, rising from the swing.