The Last Christmas: A Repairman Jack Novel

by F. Paul Wilson

  Okay. He admitted he was frustrated.

  Today’s wait had proven fruitless. Madame de Medici hadn’t shown her face, and her car had never left the garage. The only good news was that the Sheep Meadow had remained silent… as it should.

  He’d made his report to the increasingly frustrated Roland who reprimanded him for not being more creative, but really, what else could he do? B&E was a last resort, though hardly feasible considering the Allard’s inaccessibility. All he could do right now was watch and wait.

  Was she even there? Had she somehow sneaked past him, or slipped away during the night in a cab while her car remained in the garage? At a time like this, he could use an extra hand—or set of eyes. But he shuddered at the idea of taking on a partner this late in his game. He worked best alone, at his own pace, using his own methods.

  As a teen, he’d take his rifle and go hunting alone. That was what he liked best about the hunt—he did it alone. Even after he’d filled his grandparents’ larder, he’d go out with his rifle and sneak up on a deer, an elk, or a moose, and dry fire. Killing wasn’t the point back then, nor was the hunt. Solitude was the point.

  In the A, he’d go out hunting Taliban alone, but in that circumstance, the solitude was practical. Alone, he could approach game—human and non-human—without being detected. Having someone else along would ruin that.

  Same with the PI game, to some extent. But he had personal reasons as well. He’d yet to meet anyone, male or female, that he cared to spend any significant time with.

  Take Laurie/Lori’s gathering just below him. The music wasn’t loud, but he could hear the bass notes vibrating through the floor. People hanging out and talking. Ten minutes of that and he’d be casting longing looks toward the door.

  Alone was better, always better.

  9

  “Hello, Jack. This is Madame de Medici calling. We’ve never met but I’ve heard of you. In fact I recommended you to Mister Chastain last spring. I have a simple job for you. Please call me back.”

  After walking back from Abe’s, he’d stowed the three remaining beers in the fridge and called his voicemail service. This was the only message.

  Madame de Medici…Jack vaguely remembered Jules Chastain mentioning the name, but not as someone who’d recommended him.

  Whatever. Chastain had flown him down to New Orleans and proceeded to double-cross him. Not a great reference. However, she had said “simple work,” so maybe she was worth a call back.

  If one fix was good, two might be better. He called her on his current burner and she answered on the second ring.

  “Hello, Jack. Thank you for calling back.”

  She had a soft voice with a vague accent he couldn’t place.

  “More out of curiosity than anything else. As I recall, Jules Chastain told me he’d stolen something from you. The Sydney Necco-wafer or something.”

  A melodic laugh. “Cidsev Nelesso. I’m sure you’ve realized by now that he was lying—just one of the many lies he told you.

  “I heard he lost it along with part of his arm. Know where they might be?”

  “Not a clue. However, I was telling you the truth when I said I recommended you.”

  “And how would you know to do that?”

  “My main residence these days is in New Orleans—its climate is more to my liking—but I own an apartment in Manhattan. I shift between the two. I like the contrast in cultures. Your name came up in a conversation and intrigued me.”

  Her voice sounded young—thirties, maybe?—and yet he sensed age, or at least experience behind it.

  “What conversation might that have been?”

  Another laugh. “Come now. A woman needs her secrets. But to the point: I called because I have an object I wish to give to you for safekeeping.”

  Now here was a new wrinkle. No one had ever asked him to guard an object before.

  “Keeping it safe from whom or what?”

  “I shall explain when we meet.”

  An object she wished to give him…which meant he wouldn’t have to go someplace and stand guard over it…which meant it wouldn’t interfere with his hunt for H3.

  “Okay, I’ll meet you at a place called—”

  “Oh, no. I do not wish to inconvenience you. I shall bring it to your home.”

  “But you don’t know where I live.”

  Only a select few—those very close to him—knew where he lived.

  “Of course I do. I shall arrive at nine a.m. sharp tomorrow. Illa al-liqa.”

  “No, you—hello?”

  Damn. First Abe, and now this gal. Everyone was hanging up on him tonight.

  And how the hell did she know where he lived?

  Sunday—December 21

  1

  Morning found Tier once again leaning on the Central Park wall across from the Allard, pretending to enjoy his cigarette, with his Forza chained a dozen feet away. He’d accessed the GPS monitor on her car and it indicated the Maybach hadn’t budged from the garage. If today were anything like yesterday, he’d have plenty of time to work on his Word of the Day. He’d never heard of this one, so he checked his phone again.

  Spavined

  Adjective—SPAV-ind

  1: affected with swelling

  2: old and decrepit: over-the-hill

  His high school had given him a diploma because they were as sick of him as he was of them. He’d gone straight to the army. But just because he’d practically flunked out didn’t mean he was a dumbass. And the last thing he wanted to do was sound like a dumbass. So, he worked on his vocabulary. Throw out an offbeat word, use it properly, and suddenly you sounded educated. Suddenly people had respect, suddenly they were listening. That was all it took.

  As for this “spavined”…no problem. He had little doubt the passing parade of New Yorkers would produce hundreds if not thousands of spavined people. But he cut off his search before it began.

  Madame de Medici had stepped out of the Allard’s canopied front entrance. She’d outfitted herself for the Arctic cold with an off-white fur coat—real or faux, he couldn’t tell from here—a white fur Cossack hat, and knee-high black leather boots.

  Immediately he began removing the chain from this Forza, but paused when she started walking uptown.

  Well, damn. He’d expected if she traveled anywhere, she’d go via her own car or a taxi. Walking hadn’t been in the plan.

  Oh well…

  He donned his helmet and, sticking to the park side, began walking the Honda along the sidewalk. A bit early for brunch—wasn’t that what One Percenters did on Sundays? Maybe she was just headed for coffee. Whatever, he wasn’t letting her out of his sight.

  But she kept walking, passing the Museum of Natural History and on up until she finally turned into the West Eighties.

  Tier debated his course as he waited for the light then pushed the Forza across CPW. He’d brought the bike along just in case she changed her mind about walking and grabbed a cab.

  She strolled westward along the tree-lined, brownstone-bordered street like she hadn’t a care in the world. Odd attitude for someone who had to know she was in Roland’s sights. Wasn’t she concerned about being followed? Not from what Tier could see. She hadn’t looked back once since leaving the Allard.

  He waited at the corner to give her a half-block lead then followed, keeping to the opposite side of the street. He closed in on her as she waited for the crossing green at Columbus Avenue and noticed how her little triangular shoulder bag bulged as if packed full. The Bagaq would fill it like that. Could she be bopping around the city with a supposedly priceless antique in her pocketbook? Who was this lady?

  She crossed Columbus and kept heading west. Where on Earth was she going?

  Halfway down the new block she climbed the dozen or so steps to the front door of a brownstone and stepped inside. As he passed, he saw her pressing a button on the vestibule wall.

  Tier kept walking.

  Now what? This was a residential street. Th
e cigarette-break ploy wouldn’t work here.

  2

  Jack stood at the bay window of his apartment’s front room and watched for Madame de Medici, or whoever she was.

  So much not to like about this situation: He didn’t know her but she knew him; he didn’t know where she lived but she knew his address—or said she did.

  That was his hope: She was BS-ing him. A vain hope, he figured. She’d sounded pretty damn sure.

  A glance at the Shmoo clock—approaching the witching hour. And now down on the street an elegant looking woman strolling in a cream colored polar bear coat with a matching Zhivago hat, carrying a small shoulder bag. She wasn’t looking at the numbers on the brownstones so maybe—

  Damn. She was climbing the front steps.

  He scanned the street, east and west, checking to see if she’d brought anyone else along or had been followed. Early Sunday morning here on the Upper West Side tended to be quiet. One car passing and three people strolling—two of them walking dogs—and one guy pushing a dead motorbike along the opposite sidewalk. He didn’t like the helmet that obscured his face, but as best he could tell, the guy didn’t seem the least bit interested in Jack’s visitor.

  Okay, no red flags.

  The buzzer from the vestibule sounded. He could ignore it but that would only delay the inevitable.

  He pressed the intercom button and said, “Nobody’s home.”

  That melodic laugh again. “I am here as promised, right on time.”

  “I don’t do business at home. I meet in—”

  “That scruffy bar. Yes, I know. I do not wish to go there. I prefer here.”

  “Sorry. Julio’s opens in an hour. Meet you there then.”

  “I will wait here for as long as it takes. I am a very patient person. I have nothing but time.”

  Jack believed her. And since she was already here…

  Crap.

  He buzzed her in, then looked around the room. Had he left any weapons lying about? No, but the light from the window caught the metallic cover of the Compendium of Srem lying in plain sight on the paw-foot oak table. That would never do. Weezy had left it here for safekeeping while she was painting her apartment. Jack grabbed it and hauled it to the TV room where he tossed it onto the bed and dropped a pillow atop it.

  He pulled his door open just as an attractive woman in her mid-thirties with the most intriguing amber eyes arrived on the third-floor landing. Her straight hair, black as interstellar space, was cut in a chin-length bob. A slim, black triangular bag hung from her shoulder.

  “Mister Jack,” she said, extending a gloved hand. “I am Madame de Medici.”

  “So I gathered. Come in. I guess.”

  “Such a warm welcome,” she said with a smile. “I know this is not your routine, but I did not want to display the Bagaq in a public place.”

  “Bagaq?”

  “The object I wish you to safeguard for me.”

  He pointed to her bag. “In there?”

  “Yes.”

  She made no move to show it.

  “Well, can I see it?”

  “In good time.” She moved past him and began to wander the front room. “Interesting. You appear to be a collector.”

  Was this how the meet was going to go? Was she trying to get a feel for him? Well, all right. Maybe he could use the occasion to get a feel for her. Because… well, he couldn’t exactly pinpoint why, but she intrigued him.

  “I wouldn’t call myself a collector. I don’t have a want list. I see something that interests me, I buy it.”

  She removed her gloves and he noticed a wide gold ring inlaid with onyx in the head of a cat. She dragged her fingers along his Victorian wavy-grained golden oak furniture, inspecting the gingerbread-laden hutch, the secretary, the crystal-ball-and-claw-footed end tables. She smiled at the framed Shadow Fan Club and Doc Savage Fan Club certificates, studied the Daddy Warbucks lamp, and poked a finger into the soil in his Shmoo planter.

  The ring seemed to sparkle as she said, “This needs water.”

  “I give it a good drink every Sunday.”

  He’d tend to that upon her departure—which he hoped would be soon.

  She stopped at the bay window and stared out at the street. The line from Life During Wartime about staying away from the window because somebody might see you ran through his head. Why would he think of that now?

  “You have a nice view here,” she said.

  “I suppose…if you find the sight of Upper West Side brownstones interesting.” Which he did.

  After a long look she turned to him and said, “Unless you are much older than you appear, everything I see in this room is from a time before you were born.”

  “What of it?”

  “That gives all this a theme, which makes you a collector of antiquities—of a sort—which in turn gives us something in common.”

  “You’re a collector?”

  She frowned. “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “‘Unfortunately’?”

  “It is a disease, a mania. I do not collect antiquities for their value, I collect them sometimes for nostalgic value, but mostly just to have them—to be the only one who has them. I can see from your expression that you do not understand.”

  “Well, not the exclusivity part. Much of what I’ve got here—which most folks would label junk—was mass produced.”

  But still it all somehow managed to speak to him down the decades.

  Gia had often quizzed him on his “accumulation,” as she called it, wanting to understand the appeal. He’d never been able to give an answer that satisfied her. In fact, he’d never found an explanation that satisfied himself. Maybe it came down to the personalities of the objects. His hand-carved furniture had personality. The old Bakelite radio with the Art Deco design had it. His utilitarian objects like lamps and furniture and even his fireplace screen had it. All the cars he most admired—like the 1949 Delahaye roadster or the 1925 Rolls Royce Phantom—had been designed with an eye that looked far past mere functionality. They became works of art.

  “Nostalgia then?” she said. “How well I understand that.”

  “Hardly nostalgia. As you said, I wasn’t alive when these things were everyday objects.”

  “That is where we differ.”

  What did that mean? But the sparkle from her ring caught his attention again.

  “Your ring…part of your collection?”

  She held up her hand to admire it. “I suppose. It belonged to an Egyptian princess.”

  “Nefertiti? Cleopatra?”

  “They were queens. This princess was devoted to Bast, and thus the god’s image in the gold. Anyway, my collections are—”

  “Collections—as in more than one?”

  “I have them broken up into subsets here and there around the world. I had a major subcollection in Egypt until the revolution made it impossible for me to keep it safe. After the looting, I moved what was left of it to your country. Most to New Orleans, but I keep some items in my place here in New York.”

  “Care to you tell me where?”

  “The Allard.”

  He felt his eyebrows lift of their own accord. Pricey real estate.

  “Nice.”

  “It has good security and my tower apartment will afford me a front-row seat for Ragnarok.”

  Jack hadn’t expected that. “What do you mean?”

  A weary look. “Let’s leave it at that and suffice it to say that the Allard is protection enough for the pieces I’ve used for decoration. The loves of my life are elsewhere.”

  “You’re talking about things. What about people?”

  “People are transient. They invariably depart. Things, however, are more loyal. Things remain. And speaking of things…”

  She reached into the bag and removed something that looked like a large bronze avocado. Its surface reflected rainbow highlights, like from an oil spill.

  She held it out to him. “The one and only.” When he hesitated to take
it, she thrust it closer. “Here. It won’t bite.”

  Despite its appearance, the surface wasn’t oily; warm and dry, in fact. Its weight surprised him—much heavier than he’d expected. But ugly. Why would anyone want to own this, let alone steal it?

  “This needs to be safeguarded?” he said, rotating it in his hands. “Really? From whom?”

  “When I said ‘the one and only,’ I was not exaggerating. It is unique. There is only one Bagaq.”

  “No offense, but I could go into a mine, pick up a lump of coal, and that too would be one of a kind. I could give it a goofy name and say, ‘There is only one Whatever.’”

  “Ah, yes, but it wouldn’t be one of the Seven Infernals.”

  Jack fumbled and almost dropped the damn thing.

  “What?”

  He quickly placed it on the oak table.

  “I know you had a bad experience with another Infernal but this one won’t harm you.”

  Bad experience? Right up there with the worst experiences of his life. But wait…

  “How do you know about that?”

  “I have this and one other Infernal in my collection.”

  “The Lilitongue wouldn’t be that other, would it?”

  “The Infernal you encountered?” She raised her hands in a stop gesture. “Never would I have anything to do with the Lilitongue of Gefreda. It is monstrously dangerous.”

  He’d learned that the hard way. He’d managed to look up the Seven Infernals in the Compendium of Srem. Before today he’d seen four of them. The Lilitongue, of course; as a kid he’s seen Jacob Prather’s “Mystery Machine,” officially known as the Phedro; the Infernal that looked like a mini Tesla tower in the basement of the Ehler house in Monroe; and the Cidsev Nelesso last spring in New Orleans.

  The Bagaq made five.

  “But how do you know any of this?” he said.

  “The Seven Infernals are interconnected. When you have access to one you can learn things about the others. I know you found the Sombra and recovered the Lilitongue from where it had been safely tucked away from human contact. Inevitably, tragedy ensued.”