Secret Circles yrj-2

by F. Paul Wilson

  belonged to my father. He too was an actuator.”

  After another flash and rumble, Mr. Rosen said, “Looks like we"ll have no power for a while.

  I"m afraid I"ll have to close up.”

  Mr. Drexler nodded. “Very well. Some other time, then.”

  He walked out. As the door closed behind him, Jack peeked into the envelope: four passes to the Taber circus. How did Mr. Drexler come by these? Was there a connection between the circus and the Septimus Order?

  “You can"t ride your bike in this,” Mr. Rosen said. “I"ll drive you home.”

  “Thanks, I—”

  He spotted Weird Walt signaling to him through the front window. Jack stepped out to see what he wanted.

  Walt wore his uniform of jeans, T-shirt, olive-drab fatigue jacket, and black leather gloves. No one Jack knew had ever seen him without those gloves. Word was he even ate dinner with them.

  He had a gray-streaked beard, and today he"d tied his long dark hair back in a ponytail, giving him a definite hippie look. His eyes had their customary semi-glaze from applejack. He"d been a medic in Vietnam and had spent time in a V.A. mental hospital after the war. He"d supposedly starred in a faith-healing tent show until he got kicked out for his drinking. A few years ago he landed at his sister"s house here in Johnson.

  “Hey, Jack.”

  “Hey, Mister Erskine.”

  He smiled through the beard. “It"s Walt—you know that.”

  “Okay.” Jack had trouble calling a guy nearing forty by his first name. “Looking for anything special?”

  “Yeah, in a way. Came to give you a warning—you and Weezy.”

  Uh-oh.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Stay out of the Pines for a while.”

  Jack didn"t know how to take that.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know you and her—especially her—like to go traipsing around in the Barrens, and I heard about you two finding that lost guy, which is all well and good, but not around the equinox.”

  Right. The autumnal equinox was sometime this week. But …

  “Why not?”

  “Things get a little crazy in there with the fall equinox. It"s due on Wednesday, but the hinges start to loosen a few days before, and don"t get back on track until a few days after. I was in there yesterday and I could feel it getting strange. Couldn"t you?”

  Jack shook his head as he shrugged. “No.”

  He wondered if Walt might have been feeling an excess of applejack.

  “Well, anyway, just do yourselves a favor—me too, „cause I like you kids. Haven"t forgot how you took my back last month. Stay outa there till next week, understand?”

  Jack straightened and saluted. “Understood.”

  Walt returned the salute, then said, “You"ll tell Weezy, huh?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Yeah, I was gonna try to catch you guys on the street but Mrs. Clevenger said I should get in here today, right this very minute, and tell you.”

  Jack thought that if Mrs. Clevenger said so, maybe he"d better listen.

  When he went back inside, Mr. Rosen was waiting. Jack spotted Mr. Drexler"s card on the counter and remembered what it said.

  “What exactly is an „actuator"?”

  “In a mechanical sense,” Mr. Rosen said, “it"s a piece of equipment that sets things in motion.

  In a man, who"s to say?”

  “A guy who sets people in motion?”

  He shrugged. “More generally speaking, a man who makes things happen.”

  Jack looked out the window. What was the Septimus Order"s actuator doing in Johnson … with a cane topped with a symbol from the pyramids?

  Too many connections for comfort.

  3

  The first thing Jack did after Mr. Rosen dropped him off was go to his bedroom where he knelt before his dresser and pulled out the bottom drawer. In the space beneath lay the Xerox copies Weezy had made of the symbols on the little pyramid—she"d done rubbings before she"d given it over for analysis. That was the last they"d seen of it. She"d made the copies as a backup—in case something happened to the originals. Good thing too: They"d been stolen as well.

  She"d been searching ever since for clues to their meaning but had come up empty.

  Jack stared at the seven symbols.

  He closed his eyes and tried to picture the one he"d seen on the

  head of Mr. Drexler"s cane. No question: the last one.

  That clinched it: The Septimus Order was connected to both pyramids. Which added

  weight to Weezy"s claim that they"d had a hand in the little pyramid"s disappearance. If he"d really seen a pyramid on the Lodge"s mantel yesterday, it might be a duplicate, but Jack had a feeling in his gut it was the same one.

  Big question: Tell Weezy or don"t?

  Might be better to hold off. No need in setting her off again. But he"d have to tell her about cutting the Lodge"s lawn—she"d find out eventually. He hoped she didn"t insist on an immediate plan. Lots of potential there. Better to wait and see how things developed. Play it by ear. He"d come up with something, but it had to be good, had to be safe, had to be sure-fire or damn near.

  The rain stopped shortly after that. His pent-up energy prompted him to drag his father out to the front yard for a Frisbee toss, which lasted until the disc wound up in one of the trees. His father was about to pull a ladder from the garage when the current came back on. They left the Frisbee and went to watch the game. The Eagles improved to two and one by beating the Broncos.

  “Phone, Jack,” his mother called from the kitchen. “Mister Rosen.”

  Mr. Rosen? he thought as he headed for the kitchen. Did he want to reopen the store?

  “Jack,” Mr. Rosen said. “I can assume you’ll be

  Going down to the store to pick up your bike soon?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Good. When you do, please ride on down to my place. Not only did I forget to tell you that I’ll be away next week, I forgot to pay you.”

  “Oh, yeah. Okay. I"ll see you soon.”

  With a couple of sources of income, especially the

  nice chunk of change he"d be getting from the Lodge, he wouldn"t be hurting if his USED pay was late, but he figured he liked it better in his pocket than Mr. Rosen"s.

  But Mr. Rosen going away … he hadn"t taken time off since Jack had begun working at

  the store.

  He left the house at a loping run and reached USED in no time. He"d broken a good sweat along the way. The sun was out and the air dripped humidity.

  He found his bike right where he"d left it. He supposed in another town you might worry if you left your ride unchained and unwatched on the main drag, but that wasn"t a problem in Johnson.

  Locals here looked out for each other.

  He hopped on and rode up 206 to Mr. Rosen"s place. He lived on the northbound side of the highway in a trailer about halfway between the Quakerton Road blinker and the lot where the circus had set up. Right next door to the Vivino house, as a matter of fact.

  As Jack approached he gave in to an impulse to pay a visit. Their two-story colonial wasn"t part of any development. It sat alone on a big lot that backed up to an orchard, facing the highway but set back a couple of hundred feet. He saw a car sitting in the driveway so he figured they were home.

  He coasted down the long driveway to the front steps where he rang the doorbell. After two tries and no answer, he decided to peek into the backyard in case they were in the pool.

  As he approached the six-foot picket fence he heard Sally crying and Mr. Vivino yelling. He hesitated to reach for the gate handle. Instead he peeked through a gap between a couple of slats.

  He saw Mr. Vivino and Sally standing beside the pool, while Mrs. Vivino waded in the low end.

  Mr. Vivino, his belly bulging above his swim trunks, stood over Sally with his hands on his hips looking down at her.

  “I asked you a question, young lady. Where is it? You wanted
a pink floater tube, I bought you a pink floater tube, I blew it up for you, and now it"s gone. Where did you leave it?”

  “Right heeeeeeeere!” she wailed, rubbing her teary eyes.

  Mr. Vivino made a show of looking around. “Where is it then? Do you see it? I don"t. Show me where it is.”

  “I don"t know!”

  “You don"t? And why—?”

  “For heaven"s sake, Al!” Mrs. Vivino said from the pool. “Stop browbeating her!”

  Mr. Vivino turned and stepped to the edge of the pool. His tone was low and menacing.

  “Where do you get off butting in when—?”

  “She"s only five. Leave her alone.”

  His face reddening with rage, he jumped into the pool and grabbed his wife by the hair.

  “Shut up!” he shouted. “Shut UP!”

  And then he pushed her head underwater and held it there. Sally screamed while her mother thrashed and kicked and splashed, trying to come up for air, but Mr. Vivino wouldn"t let her. She was thin and he had an easy hundred pounds on her.

  The longer he held her under, the more frantic her thrashing became. Jack overcame his shock and was reaching for the gate handle to run in there and shout at him to let her up when he finally released her.

  As she straightened, gasping, choking, and gagging, he said, “Don"t you ever, ever interfere when I"m disciplining my daughter!” He turned and pointed a finger at Sally. “And you stop that crying!”

  But Sally couldn"t stop. All she could do was cry, “Mommeeeeee!”

  Mr. Vivino climbed out of the pool and roughly dragged her by an arm toward the house.

  “Stop it, goddamn it! Stop it now!”

  But of course she didn"t, and so he slapped her on her backside—Jack flinched at the sharp sound of the wet smack! —which only made her wail louder.

  And as Mrs. V crouched in the pool with her hands over her face, dripping, coughing, sobbing, Jack noticed a dozen bruises on her arms.

  Sickened, he forced back a surge of bile as he staggered away from the fence. His knees felt rubbery. He couldn"t have seen what he"d just seen. Tony"s dad … treating Mrs. V and Sally like that. He felt as if he"d just peeked in on someone"s nightmare … It couldn"t be.

  But it was. He"d seen what he"d seen and it made him sick.

  Made him angry too. Treating little Sally like that … the thought of it loosed a cold, raging darkness within him, urging him to hurt, destroy. He wished he were the Hulk—he was sure as hell furious enough to spark the transformation. He imagined himself smashing through the front door and giving Mr. Vivino a mega dose of his own medicine—bouncing him off a few walls and then playing Hacky Sack with him.

  But he wasn"t the Hulk. He was just a skinny kid and he needed to get away from here as quickly as possible so he could blow the whistle on this creep.

  4

  As Jack raced back toward the highway, he had two choices: turn south toward town or north to Mr. Rosen"s. He chose the latter because it was right next door. The sooner he called the cops, the sooner he could put an end to the nightmare in the Vivino house.

  He pulled into Mr. Rosen"s yard. His trailer sat on a foundation so it looked more like a typical ranch house.

  Nothing else about the house or the yard was typical, though. Half a dozen aerials of all different shapes and sizes jutted from his roof, and a huge satellite dish sat in a corner of his front yard, angled toward the sky. Weezy had jokingly said that he must be trying to receive messages from aliens. Well, being Weezy, maybe only half jokingly.

  Mr. Rosen must have seen something in Jack"s expression when he let him in.

  “What"s wrong? What happened?”

  “Nothing,” Jack said as he stepped through the door.

  He"d never been inside Mr. Rosen"s home. The front room was crammed with electronic

  equipment. It could have been a Radio Shack.

  “Nothing, shmo thing. You look like someone stepped on your grave.”

  Jack felt he had to tell him something.

  “I … I heard shouting at the Vivinos.”

  “Oh, them,” Mr. Rosen said, waving a hand as he turned away. “Like cats and dogs they fight.”

  “You mean it happens a lot?”

  “All the time.”

  “Does he beat her?”

  He shrugged. “Who"s to say? I can"t see through walls.”

  “Did you ever think of calling the police?”

  He turned to face Jack. “If she"s not calling, why should I? Maybe she thinks nothing"s wrong.

  Maybe she thinks shouting is the way marriage should be. So if I call the cops, and they come, and she tells them nothing"s wrong, like a crazy old fool I look. No. I mind my business, just as you should mind yours.”

  Probably good advice, but Mr. Rosen hadn"t seen Sally get slapped, or her mother sobbing in the pool. No way Mrs. V thought nothing was wrong.

  He remembered those summer days when she"d always keep drinks and chips and pretzels out by the pool for them, how she"d fix Jack lunch and tousle his hair as he bit into the thick ham-and-cheese sandwiches she made for him. He remembered how thin and hollow-eyed she became when Tony got sick, how she"d never leave his side, how she"d sobbed at his funeral.

  Today"s sobs mixed with the echoes of those from memory.

  Maybe she was too scared to call. Maybe she needed someone to do it for her.

  “Can I use your phone?”

  Mr. Rosen gave him a long, appraising look, then nodded.

  “I warned you, but if you must, don"t give your name.”

  “Don"t worry.”

  Jack had already decided to be invisible in this. He had a number of secrets he was keeping. He figured one more wouldn"t hurt.

  “And don"t say where you"re calling from. Just say you were passing by and heard screams, then hang up.”

  “Won"t they be able to trace it?”

  He shook his head and pointed to an ultramodern, multiline phone on a nearby table.

  “Not if you use that.”

  Then he turned and walked toward the rear of the trailer.

  Jack lifted the receiver and dialed 9-1-1.

  “Emergency services.”

  “I think a woman"s getting beaten in Johnson. I was passing by and

  heard her screaming.” He gave the Vivino address.

  “May I have your name?”

  Jack hung up and turned to find Mr. Rosen returning with a pay envelope in his hand.

  “You made your call already?”

  Jack nodded. “Short and to the point.”

  “No names?”

  “No names.”

  He shook his head. “I applaud your willingness to do something, but it will not turn out as you hope.”

  His cynicism surprised Jack. “How can you be so sure?”

  He gave a sour smile. “Things rarely do.”

  “Look. The deputies will come. They"ll know someone reported a woman being beaten. They"ll ask to speak to Mrs. Vivino. They"ll see all those bruises and ask her about them. All she"s got to do is point a finger.”

  “And press charges.”

  Jack blinked. “Charges?”

  “Simply showing bruises isn"t enough. She"ll have to charge him with battery.”

  “Well, this will be her chance.”

  Mr. Rosen shook his head sadly. “You"re a good kid, Jack, and you mean well, but you"ve got a lot to learn about people and the way the world works.”

  “I know plenty.”

  But did he? When he thought about it, what did he really know? He was a small-town kid who listened to music instead of the news, and limited himself pretty much to the newspaper"s funny pages. He watched sports and science fiction movies or shoot-"em-ups, and read Stephen King or moldy old pulp magazines like The Spider and The Shadow

  Maybe Mr. Rosen was right. Johnson, N.J., was like an island in a quiet pond. Maybe he needed to start tuning in to the world around him.

  “Here"s your week"s pay,” Mr. Rosen
said, handing him the tan envelope. “Not many hours last week, so not much money, I"m afraid. Things wind down after Labor Day. We"ll go into October, then I don"t think I"ll need you till spring. That is, if you want to come back.”

  “Sure. I"ll come back.”

  He would have preferred to be independently wealthy, but if he had to work, USED was a great place, and Mr. Rosen was an easygoing boss. Plus he paid in cash, which saved Jack the hassle of applying for a Social Security number.

  “Good. And as for this week …” He held out a set of keys. “Take these.”

  Jack recognized the keys to the store.

  “Didn"t you say you"ll be away?”

  “That"s right. I"ll be visiting my nephew.” He pointed to the keys. “While I"m out of town, I"d like you to open the store for a few hours a day if you can. I left some change in the till in case you happen to sell anything. And if there"s a day or two when you can"t open up, just swing by and take a look inside.”

  “Okay.” That didn"t seem so hard.

  “Oh, and keep a record of your hours there and I"ll pay you accordingly.”

  Jack stared at the keys and couldn"t help a swell of pride. A big responsibility. But Mr. Rosen must think he was capable enough … and trustworthy enough.

  “Will do.” He looked up at his elderly boss. “Don"t worry. I won"t let you down.”

  He smiled. “If I wasn"t absolutely sure of that, I"d simply shut down for the week.”

  Jack looked around at the roomful of electronic equipment—rows of black boxes with dials and red and green lights and glowing meters.

  “Can I ask what all this is? Are you transmitting to outer space?”

  “No, I"m listening.”

  Weezy"s theory popped into his head. “To aliens?”

  He laughed. “To the world.”

  “Why?”

  His smile faded. “To know what"s going on. So I won"t be surprised again. So events can"t take me unawares as they did back in the day when I assumed everything would work out for the best.”

  Jack frowned. “I don"t under—”

  His gaze abruptly shifted past Jack to the window. “Well, well. It appears your call sparked a quick response.”

  Jack turned and saw a sheriff"s department cruiser turning into the Vivino driveway.