Jack: Secret Histories

by F. Paul Wilson

  Right. That would fly—right out the window. They’d be rubberizing his bedroom.

  He knew he should mind his own business, but he couldn’t. He told himself he wasn’t out to solve a crime or anything—wasn’t trying to be the Hardy Boys—he simply wanted to know.

  He had a good view of the front of the house from here. He’d watched the three of them enter, and now he saw the two men step into the den. After a moment or two of hesitation—what if he got caught?—he steeled himself and crept forward to peek through the open window.

  Mr. B and Vasquez stood facing each other. Steve’s father cradled an open humidor in one arm and was placing a little red box in Vasquez’s hand.

  He heard Mr. B saying, “Well, here it is, Julio. I tried to help Sumter and Haskins, but I don’t think they believed the klazen was such a real threat. Don’t you make the same mistake.”

  Some of what followed was garbled as they turned away from the window—then he heard him say, “… tomorrow at dawn, face your back to the sun, and use it.”

  Use what? Was the “it” in one of those little red boxes? Jack was dying to know.

  The rest was garbled as well. Next thing he knew, Mr. Brussard was leading the assemblyman out of the room. Jack darted back into the shadows and watched the front door. He saw that strange handshake followed by good-luck wishes, and then they parted.

  When Vasquez was gone, Jack crept back to the window and stared at the humidor.

  What was in it? More little red boxes? And what was in them?

  Not knowing was making him crazy.

  11

  When Jack got home he found his folks sitting side by side on the couch watching Hill Street Blues. After a little small talk, he pretended to head to the kitchen for a snack, but instead he sneaked upstairs to their bedroom. He went straight to his father’s closet, stood on tiptoe, and grabbed the box. As he pulled it down he heard things clink and thunk within.

  Marksmanship medals and what else? Maybe some bullets or other souvenirs from Korea. He reached for the latch, but stopped.

  This didn’t feel right.

  Since when was he so nosy, he wondered, feeling the cool metal against his palms. He’d gone from eavesdropping on Mr. Brussard to poking through his father’s private belongings.

  No … the reason this didn’t feel right was because it wasn’t right.

  But something inside was pushing him, egging him on to pop the lid and take a look. Just one look—how much could it hurt? He pressed the lid release and—

  Nothing happened.

  He pressed again but the lid wouldn’t budge. He fingered the tiny keyhole: locked.

  Just his luck.

  But the key had to be somewhere. He went to Dad’s dresser and searched the top. No luck. He pulled open the top drawer, the sock drawer, where Dad kept a shallow bowl for odds and ends. Jack found spare change and rubber bands and paper clips, but no key.

  And then an idea hit—he knew exactly what to do.

  Replacing the box on the shelf, he closed the closet door and padded downstairs to the kitchen. He went straight to the cutlery drawer and pulled out one of the black-handled steak knives. It had a slim blade and a sharp point.

  Perfect.

  He slipped it into his pocket and sneaked upstairs again. Kneeling by the closet with the box cradled in his lap, he worked the knife point into the keyhole, twisting it this way and that. He did it gently to avoid scratching the metal, but no matter how he angled or wiggled or twisted the blade, the lock refused to turn. He fought the temptation to give a quick, hard twist—that might bend the blade or, even worse, break the lock. How would he explain that?

  Disappointed, he stared at the knife, then at the lock. They made it look so easy on TV.

  Well, no use in sitting here like he was waiting to get caught.

  Quickly he replaced the box, angling it just the way he’d found it, then made his way back downstairs as quietly as possible.

  Two boxes—Mr. Brussard’s and his father’s—and no idea of what they held. Maybe he’d never know.

  Bummer.

  12

  He didn’t feel like watching Hill Street Blues—for a cop show it was mostly talk—so he headed for his bedroom. He still had that issue of The Spider to finish. He passed Kate’s room—empty. Same with Tom’s. Both were out. He didn’t know where they’d gone, but he knew it had to be far from Johnson. Nothing happening here. Ever.

  He stopped when he came to his room and noticed the closed door. He always closed it when he was in it, but left it open when he was out. Could have blown shut, but it was a heavy old hunk of wood and he hadn’t noticed much of a breeze tonight, if any.

  Only one possibility: Tom.

  And don’t think you’re home free, numbnuts. I never forget. Reprisal is on the way. It’ll hit when Miracle Boy least expects it.

  Well, Jack hadn’t been expecting anything tonight. Was this it? Had Tom left a booby trap of some sort before going out?

  Jack inspected the doorknob. Nothing on it. He turned it and eased the door open an inch or so. He checked the space above the inside of the door just in case Tom had set that corny old bucket-of-water-over-the-door trick. He couldn’t see Tom coming up with anything original.

  But no—no bucket poised above. He pushed the door open the rest of the way and stood on the threshold, examining his room from a distance. Finding nothing obvious, he stepped in and looked around.

  At first everything seemed fine, but then a strange sensation began to creep over him, a feeling that something was wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly why or how, but he was sure someone had been in here, poking through his stuff.

  Things weren’t quite as he’d left them. At first glance The Spider magazine looked right, but then he noticed how its back cover was partially bent under it. He’d never leave it like that—not after Mr. Rosen’s warning. He picked it up and smoothed it out. A least it hadn’t left a crease.

  He took another look around. He was sure it hadn’t been his mom. Because if she’d messed with The Spider she’d have left it in a nice neat pile with his comic books. She was a neatnik. When she came into his room—or any room, for that matter—she couldn’t help straightening and neatening things up. Nothing here had been straightened. Touched, yes, but not straightened.

  That left Tom.

  Carefully, Jack opened his closet door. No problem. He pulled the string to light the bulb in the ceiling. He was wearing his Vans today, and his black Converse All-Stars lay where he’d kicked them off Monday. Or did they? He couldn’t be sure. He picked them up and looked inside to see if Tom had left him a little surprise. They were still damp from Monday’s rain, and didn’t smell all that great, but he found nothing hidden inside. The clothes on the hangers looked pretty much the same, but the top shelf …

  Someone definitely had been messing around up there.

  He stepped out and dragged his desk chair over for a better look. His comic book collection was arranged in the usual way, but he could swear he’d left his Hulks stacked against the left wall. They angled out now. He checked for his jar of leftover pepper juice. Yep. Still sealed and as red as he’d left it. If Tom had been up here he’d have taken it for sure and tried to figure out a way to use it on Jack.

  But if it hadn’t been Tom, then who?

  No. Had to be Tom.

  He jumped down and pulled the chair back. But why hadn’t he taken anything, or left anything?

  Maybe whatever he was up to was still in the planning stage.

  As Jack pushed his chair into the desk’s knee hole he noticed how the screen in the window to the right wasn’t seated square in the frame. Never noticed that before.

  Why not?

  Because I’m paranoid now, that’s why.

  Maybe that was what Tom was up to. What did they call it? Gaslighting. Right. Do weird little things to someone to make them think they’re crazy, like in that movie.

  But that wasn’t Tom’s style
. A bucket of water over the door was more his speed.

  Well then, what was the story with the screen?

  Jack stepped over to it and saw that the old-fashioned hook-and-eye latch had popped free. He grabbed the hook, pulled the screen all the way in, then latched it.

  He looked out into the darkened yard. Their property lay on the north flank of Johnson and backed up to a neighboring cornfield. He couldn’t see the moon itself, but its light played off the stalks.

  Had somebody come in through the window? That somebody could be out there now, watching him. In fact he almost felt as if someone was.

  He shook off a chill. Nah. Nothing like that. He was just reading too many weird books and magazines. Why on Earth would any stranger want to sneak into his room? Not as if he kept a fortune in his desk.

  Desk—his money from USED and mowing.

  He pulled open his middle drawer and found his neat stack of bills.

  Whew!

  Get a grip, Jack.

  13

  A little later he flopped back on his bed and stared at the ceiling.

  Somebody—a somebody named Tom—had been in his closet tonight. And the only reason for that would be that he was planning something.

  Since the best defense was a good offense, Jack figured it might be smart to do some planning of his own. But not something completely different. He didn’t want to waste a second idea on Tom. Besides, he had all that pepper juice left.

  He lay there thinking, scheming, and after a while he felt a smile stretching his lips: the exact same trick, only this time with a new wrinkle.

  He went to the kitchen and searched through Mom’s junk drawer—where she kept everything she had no other place for—and found an old eyedropper he’d seen some time ago. He grabbed that and the pistachios and headed back to his room.

  He set up at his desk with the pepper juice and the eyedropper. This time he wouldn’t shell the nuts. Instead, he’d dose them while they were still inside. He picked out fifteen good-size nuts with wide-open shells. Using the dropper, he added a generous amount of juice into each opening. When he was finished, he placed the nuts on the windowsill to dry—and couldn’t resist taking a quick look outside to make sure no one was there.

  Back in the kitchen he replaced the bag of pistachios in the cabinet. Then he wrapped a paper towel around the eyedropper, crushed it under his heel, and threw the pieces into the trash. No way he wanted anyone—not even Tom—to use that on their eyes.

  He returned to his room and dropped back on his bed, thinking about Tom sneaking through his room, just as he’d been in Dad’s. He didn’t like the idea, just as Dad wouldn’t.

  Maybe he should just forget about that box. He couldn’t get it open anyway.

  Then he remembered something he’d seen at USED and suddenly the world seemed a little brighter.

  1

  “Hi, Mister Rosen!” he called as he strolled into USED. “It’s me, Jack.”

  “I can hear you,” the old man said as he ambled from the rear. “In China they can hear you.” He glanced at the clock. “And it’s just after nine. What are you doing here three hours early?”

  Jack held up the issue of The Spider he’d finished last night. “I wanted to bring this back.” He gently and reverently laid it on the counter. “See? The same condition as when I took it.”

  “So it is,” he said as he inspected it, turning it over and back again. “And this couldn’t wait until noon?”

  Jack had thought he could wait but found it impossible. He’d been so anxious to get here he’d had trouble concentrating on the Spider’s exploits last night.

  “I want to buy something.”

  Mr. Rosen stared at him over his reading glasses. “Again—it couldn’t wait till later?”

  “I suppose it could’ve but I wasn’t sure you still had it.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Let me get it and show you.”

  Jack hurried all the way to the very rear of the store to where a beat-up old dresser sat in a corner. He’d been dusting it off last month when he’d pulled open the top drawer and found a folded piece of felt containing an assortment of metal doohickeys of varying shapes, all odd. Some of them reminded him of the picks his dentist used when he was looking for cavities, others were half cylinders made of thin metal and flanged along the top.

  Folded within was a small booklet titled Lock Picking Made Easy.

  He remembered thinking at the time how cool it would be to know how to pick a lock, but a quick look through the booklet had convinced him it was too complicated to learn without spending more time than he cared to.

  Last night had changed his mind.

  He pulled the kit from the drawer and brought it to the front where he slapped it on the counter in front of Mr. Rosen.

  “How much?”

  The old man picked it up, looked it over, then shook his head.

  “Not for sale.”

  Jack stiffened. “But—”

  “If it was for sale it would be in one of the display cases already. You did not find this in a display case, did you.”

  “Well, no—”

  “Then it’s not for sale. Put it back.”

  Jack had trouble hiding his disappointment. “Then why do you keep it around?”

  “Because often—too often, if you ask me, and even though you didn’t, I’m telling you anyway—I get locked trunks and furniture and the owners have lost the key. Now, if the piece is old enough to have a warded lock, no problem—I have a set of skeleton keys that will take care of those.”

  Skeleton key … Jack liked the sound of that.

  “But,” Mr. Rosen went on, “if it has a pin-tumbler lock—like that curved-glass china cabinet I’ve got sitting back there—I have to call a locksmith.” He frowned. “After a while, that runs into money, so I decided I’d learn how to pick locks myself.”

  Jack’s spirits leaped. “You know how?”

  Mr. Rosen shrugged. “It took a while, but I learned. Lot of good it does me now.” He raised his hand and held it palm side down. Jack noticed how the fingers trembled. “A steady hand, you need, and I haven’t got that any longer.”

  Jack’s mind shifted into high gear.

  “Can you teach me?”

  “Why should I do that?”

  “So I can open locks for you.”

  Mr. Rosen stared at him. “Am I detecting possibly another reason for wanting to be so helpful?”

  Jack wasn’t about to admit to that.

  “I just think it would be cool to be able to say I know how to pick a lock.”

  True—every word.

  “I don’t know.” Mr. Rosen put his hand on Jack’s shoulder as he continued to stare. It made him a little uncomfortable, as if the old guy was trying to do a Vulcan mind meld. “Teaching a teenager to pick locks … that doesn’t strike me as the wisest thing.”

  Jack didn’t have to fake feeling offended.

  “If you think I’m going to rob somebody, then forget it. You can call a locksmith instead.”

  Jack gathered up the kit and started back toward the rear of the store.

  “Wait-wait-wait. You shouldn’t get yourself in a dither already. I didn’t mean that. I meant …” He paused, obviously searching for something to say. “I’m not sure what I meant. I know you’re a good boy.”

  Jack wasn’t so sure he liked the “good boy” bit. He tended to think of himself as kind of cool and detached. He didn’t know if he really was, but that was how he wanted to be. At times he feared he was a nerd and didn’t know it. Nerds never knew they were nerdy. Not knowing was a major component of nerdiness.

  Mr. Rosen added, “And I know you’re honest too.”

  That puzzled Jack. “How? I could be a master thief.”

  He smiled. “I doubt that.”

  And then Jack knew, or at least thought he did.

  “The money I found!”

  Mr. Rosen was nodding. “I may be many things,
but careless with my cash I’m not.”

  On three separate occasions since he’d started working here, Jack had found bills lying around. First a single, then a five, and just last week a tenner.

  “You were testing me?”

  “Of course. Who knows when I might have to leave you in charge? When I return I’d like to find at least the same amount in the till as when I left.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “I do now. I didn’t know you when I hired you. This is your first real job, so it’s not like I could ask for references. So I tested you and you passed. Others before you have failed.”

  “Didn’t Teddy Bishop work here a few years ago?”

  Mr. Rosen’s expression never changed. “Not for long. And don’t ask me any more because that’s all I’ll say.”

  Jack had found the bills, known they weren’t his, and given them to Mr. Rosen. That was a test? He hadn’t given it a second thought: They didn’t belong to him.

  He’d learned that lesson back when he was eight.

  He’d been out on a trip with his folks—couldn’t remember where—and they’d come to an unattended tollbooth on an off-ramp from the Parkway. The toll was twenty-five cents at the time and drivers were supposed to drop the exact change into a basket, which then funneled it down into the coin machine. Whether by accident or someone’s design, the coin slot had become blocked, allowing the basket to fill with change.

  Jack remembered his excitement when he’d seen the overflowing coins and how he’d starting rolling down the rear window, yelling, Free money! Let me grab some! But his excitement had died when his father turned to stare back at him with a disgusted expression. Jack couldn’t recall what he’d said—something like, Are you kidding? That’s not yours … or maybe, You’d take something that doesn’t belong to you? But that withering look … he’d never forgotten that look.

  Jack smiled up at Mr. Rosen. “So, I guess that means you’ll teach me, right?”

  2