Repairman Jack 06 - The Haunted Air

by F. Paul Wilson

  "Jesus didn't have no brother."

  Lyle almost said that some experts thought the apostle James was Jesus' brother, but he wasn't going to get into that now.

  "You know what I mean. Would he?"

  "Who you to talk 'bout Jesus?"

  "Come on, Charlie. Answer me. You know he wouldn't. So how about you putting up with me for two more days?"

  "Why?" Charlie didn't look up. "Why should I risk even one more minute?"

  "Because I'm your brother. Because we're blood and we're the only family we have. How long've we been a team now?"

  He shrugged. "Who knows."

  "You know. Tell me."

  "A'ight." He looked up, his face a mask of resentment. "Fifteen years."

  "Right And how long've we been in this house?"

  "'Bout a year. So what?"

  "So, with all that behind us, why can't you give me two more days?"

  "What for? Where's it go? We on a dead-end street, Lyle."

  "Maybe not. Think for yourself a moment instead of letting the Reverend Sparks do it for you. Help me dig around that cellar."

  "No. Uh-uh. That's the demon's crib."

  "Says who? Some guy who's never been here?"

  "Reverend Sparks knows about these things."

  "But he's not infallible. Only god is infallible, right? So Sparky could be wrong. Go with that a moment. What if he's wrong and what we've experienced here isn't a demon but really the ghost of a murdered child? What if we find her remains and give them back to her folks for a proper burial. Won't that be doing god's work?"

  Charlie snorted and looked away. "Yeah, right. You doing God's work."

  "Take it a step further: What if those remains lead the cops to her killer and bring him to justice? Won't that be a good thing? Won't that be doing god's work too?"

  Lyle wanted to ask Charlie why the hell god would let a child be murdered in the first place, but sensed his brother wavering and didn't want to blow it.

  "Two days, Charlie. I bet if Jesus had a wayward brother he'd give him a couple of days if he asked for them."

  Charlie shook his head as his lips twisted into a reluctant smile. "Dawg, I hear talk 'bout a silver-tongued devil, and now I see I'm related to him. A'ight. Two days and not a minute more. But this gotta be a two-way deal: Nothin' crackin' by Friday night, I'm geese and you with me. Deal?"

  Lyle hesitated. Me too? He hadn't figured on that being part of the deal, but then, he couldn't go on as Ifasen without his brother. And if what had happened this morning was the start of a pattern, he wasn't sure if Ifasen had any future at all, at least in this house. So he could see no downside in agreeing to Charlie's terms.

  But they were going to find Tara Portman, or what was left of her. He could feel it.

  He stuck out his hand.

  "Deal."

  10

  "Mr. Bellitto!" Gertrude cried in her booming voice as Eli stepped through the door. "You should be upstairs resting!"

  She was so right. Barbed wire raked across his groin as he shuffled toward the Carrera marble sales counter. He should have stayed put, but he'd been feeling better after lunch and a nap, and so he'd given in to the urge to see his store, examine his stock, peruse the sales book. By the time he'd reached the sidewalk he realized his mistake but by then he was beyond the point of no return: Unable to face, even with Adrian's help, the prospect of turning and challenging the narrow Everest between him and his bed, he'd pushed on.

  "Nonsense, Gert." He leaned heavily on his cane as he neared the counter. "I'm fine. But do you think you could bring that stool around front?"

  "Of course!" Her tightly pinned-back hair gleamed like polished onyx in the light of the overhead fluorescents. She lifted the stool as if it weighed an ounce or two and bustled her hefty frame out from behind the counter and set it before him. "There."

  She gripped one arm and Adrian the other as he eased himself back onto the seat—not sitting, merely leaning. He wiped the cold sweat from his face with his shirtsleeve. The new clerk—what was his name? Kevin? Yes, Kevin—came over, feather duster in hand, and gawked at him.

  "I'm so sorry about what happened," he said, and sounded as if he meant it.

  But did he really?

  Eli hires Kevin and a few days later Eli is stabbed. A connection?

  Somehow he doubted it, but it never hurt to examine all possibilities.

  Eli suffered through a barrage of questions from his two hirelings about the attack; Adrian gave his spiel about loss of memory, leaving Eli with the task of supplying answers. He tossed off curt, oblique responses until he'd had enough.

  "I realize this is our slow season," he said, "but surely you two must have something better to do."

  Both immediately buzzed off—Kevin to continue dusting the stock, Gert to continue entering new inventory into the computer. Adrian wandered away, browsing the aisles.

  "How are receipts, Gert?" Eli said.

  "About what you'd expect." She picked up the black ledger and extended it toward him. "As you said, it's the slow season."

  August was always sluggish, and sputtered to a dead stop by Labor Day weekend when the city became a ghost town.

  Eli opened the old-fashioned ledger—he preferred seeing handwritten words and numbers on paper rather than a computer screen—and scanned through the day's scant sales. His eyes lit on one item.

  "The sturgeon? We sold it?"

  He'd had that stuffed monstrosity sitting in the window since he'd opened the shop. He'd started to believe it would be there when he closed the place.

  "I not only sold it, I got the tag price for it." Gert beamed proudly. "Can you believe it? After all these years I do believe I'm going to miss that ugly old fish."

  Eli flipped back to Tuesday, the day the green clerk had been here alone, literally and figuratively minding the store.

  He was almost afraid to look. To his surprise he saw a fairly long list of sales. It seemed Kevin had risen to the occasion. Maybe the boy—

  Eli froze as his gaze came to rest on a line that read: Key chain—$10—Jack.

  No! It's not… it can't… it's…

  Gripping the counter for support, Eli levered himself off the stool and began a frantic walk-shuffle toward the rear, toward the display cabinet—his display cabinet.

  "Mr. Bellitto!" Gert cried behind him. "Be careful. Whatever it is you need, I'll get it for you!"

  He ignored Gert, ignored the flashes of pain strobing through his pelvis, and kept moving, leaning on his cane as he rode the desperate edge of panic, trying to stay on this side of it by telling himself that the entry was a mistake, an antique watch fob that that dolt Kevin had mistaken for a key ring.

  But urging him past that edge was the memory of the oddly dressed red-haired man who had come in Sunday night and offered him ridiculous sums for a silly trinket. He hadn't given much thought to the incident, writing the man off as someone killing time and playing the dickering game: If it's for sale, find out how low it will go for; if it's not, find out what it will take to make the owner part with it.

  But now… now the incident loomed large and dark in his brain.

  He rounded a corner. The cabinet was in sight. The lock… he allowed himself a thin smile… the lock, the dear, dear brass padlock was still in place and snapped closed, just like always.

  And the key ring, that cartoon rabbit key ring was—

  Gone!

  Eli sagged against the cabinet, gripping the oak frame, sweat from his palm smearing the glass as he stared at the empty spot on the second shelf.

  No! He had to be dreaming! This had to be a mistake!

  He grabbed the padlock and yanked on it, but it held firm.

  The air seemed full of shattered glass, every breath shredding his lungs.

  How? How could this be? He had the only key. Objects don't move through solid glass. So how—?

  "Mr. Bellitto!" Gert's voice behind him.

  "Eli!" Adrian. "What's wrong?"

/>   And then they had him surrounded, Gert, Adrian, and the silent Kevin. Yes… Kevin, the weasely, sniveling little shit.

  Eli glared at him. "You sold something out of this cabinet, didn't you?"

  "What?" Kevin paled and shook his head. "No, I—"

  "You did! A key ring with a rabbit! Admit it!"

  "Oh, that. Yes. But it couldn't have come from here. I don't have the key."

  "It did!" Eli shouted. "You know damn well it came from here! Tell me how you got it out!"

  "I didn't!" He looked ready to cry. "The man brought it up to the counter. When I saw that it didn't have a price tag—"

  "There!" He raised his cane and shook it in Kevin's face. He wanted to beat his head to a spongy pulp. "Right there that should have told you something! How do you sell something without a price tag? Tell me!"

  "I-I-I called you at the hospital about it."

  "That's a lie!" He raised the cane higher. He'd do it. He'd kill him, right here and now.

  "It's true!" Kevin had tears in his eyes now. "I tried to ask you about it but you said to figure it out for myself and hung up on me."

  Eli lowered the cane. Now he remembered.

  "That was why you called?"

  "Yes!"

  Eli cursed himself for not listening.

  "What did this man look like? Reddish hair, long in the back?"

  Kevin shook his head. "No. He had brown hair. Brown eyes, I think. Very average looking. But he called you by your first name and said you were friends. He even left his name."

  Yes, Eli thought sourly. Jack. Useless. He knew no one named Jack.

  Whoever it was must have picked the lock on the cabinet. But then… why pay for it? Why not just walk out with it in his pocket?

  Unless he wanted to make sure I knew.

  He's taunting me.

  Just as his attacker had taunted him before stabbing him.

  One man tries to buy the key ring Sunday night, another man attacks me and frees the lamb Monday night, a third man virtually steals the key ring the following morning.

  Could they all be the same man?

  Eli felt a sheet of ice begin to form along the back of his neck. Just as he stalked the lambs, was someone stalking him?

  "Get me upstairs," he said to Adrian. "Immediately."

  He had to get to his phone. He had a number he needed to call.

  11

  Jack approached the Menelaus house warily, the Roger Rabbit key chain tight in his fist. He stepped past the dead bushes onto the front porch and stopped, waiting for something to happen.

  After half a minute or so of nothing happening except his feeling a little foolish, he rang the doorbell. When no one answered, he rang it again. Through the screen he heard the faint clank and clatter of banging wood and steel on stone. Sounded like Lyle and Charlie had started without him.

  He pulled open the screen door and hesitated, remembering the first time he'd crossed this threshold—the unearthly scream, the earthly tremor. What would happen this time, now that he was holding something that might have belonged to whatever had invaded this house?

  Better play it safe, he thought.

  He tossed the key chain into the waiting room and stepped back.

  No scream, no tremor. Nothing.

  Jack stood and watched Roger lie spread-eagle on the floor, grinning and staring at the ceiling.

  A little more waiting, accompanied by a lot more nothing.

  Disappointment veered toward anger as Jack stepped through the door and snatched the key chain from the floor. He suppressed the urge to turn and drop kick it onto the front lawn. He'd been so damn sure.

  Ah, well. It was a good try. And he had to admit he was somewhat relieved not to have to face proof that Bellitto was connected to Tara Portman. He'd come to fear coincidences.

  He stuffed Roger into a pocket and followed the work noises into the kitchen and down the cellar stairs. Along the way he heard another sound. Music. Jazz. Miles. Something from Bitches Brew.

  Jack reached the bottom of the steps and stopped to watch the brothers Kenton at work. They'd ditched their shirts and looked surprisingly muscular for a couple of guys in the spook trade. Their black skins glistened from the effort as they pried at the sheets of paneling and hacked at the studs behind them. A ten-or twelve-foot span had been stripped away, exposing dull gray rows of granite block. Neither had any idea he'd arrived.

  "Started without me, I see," Jack said.

  Lyle jumped and turned, raising his pry bar. He huffed out a breath and lowered it when he recognized Jack.

  "Don't do that!" he said. "Not in this house."

  "Yo, Jack," Charlie said, waving. "S'up?"

  "Lots. Gia paid a visit to Tara Portman's father."

  "By herself?" Lyle asked.

  "Without telling me."

  "That girl got game," Charlie said. "She learn anything?"

  Jack gave them a brief rundown of what Joe Portman had told Gia.

  "So," Lyle said slowly, "the riding clothes she was wearing when Gia saw her match the clothes she was wearing when she was snatched."

  "Don't be fooled," Charlie said. "It's not Tara Portman."

  Lyle rolled his eyes. "Not this again."

  "You won't listen, maybe Jack will. You had your doubts too, right, Jack?"

  "Yeah, but…" What was he stepping into here?

  "I spoke to my minister and he says there are no ghosts, only demons pretending to be ghosts to lure the faithful away from God."

  "No worry in my case," Lyle said. "I'm not among the faithful."

  "That's because you don't believe in anything," Charlie said with some heat. "Only thing you believe in is your disbelief. Disbelief is your religion."

  "Maybe it is. I can't help it. I was born with a skeptical mind." He turned to his brother. "Now I ask you, is that fair? If God gives me a skeptical nature and you an accepting one, then you're going to be a believer and I'm not. If belief is a ticket to eternal happiness, I'm definitely handicapped. God gives me a mind capable of asking questions and what?—I'm damned if I use it?"

  Charlie's dark eyes were sad. "You just gotta give your heart to Jesus, bro. 'Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.'"

  "But I can't. That's my point. I'm the type who needs to know. I didn't ask to be this way, but that's how it is. I am simply not capable of adjusting my whole existence to accommodate something that must be accepted on faith, on the word of people I've never met, people who've been dead for thousands of years. I can't live like that. It's not me." He shrugged. "Hell, I'm still not sure I believe in this ghost."

  "Wait a sec," Jack said. "What's this about not believing in your ghost? Why are you doing this demolition work then?"

  He shrugged. "I'm caught between. Certain aspects of this situation don't jibe."

  "Like what?"

  "Well, like that song, for instance. I heard what sounded like a little girl singing. But how can a ghost sing? Or talk, for that matter?"

  "If it can smash mirrors and write in dust, why shouldn't it be able to sing and talk?"

  "It's got no vocal cords, and no lungs to push air past them if it did. So how does it make noise?"

  Jack thought he knew the answer. "Last I heard, noise is nothing more than vibrating air. If this thing can smash a mirror, I'd think it should be able to vibrate air."

  Lyle nodded, grinning. He turned to Charlie. "See? That's what I need. An explanation I can sink my teeth into. Not simply saying 'It's God's will.' That won't cut it."

  "It will, bro," Charlie said. "When that final trumpet blows, it will."

  "So you believe."

  "I know, Lyle."

  "That's just it: You don't know. And neither do I. Neither of us will ever know until we die."

  This was getting a little heavy. Jack walked over to the exposed granite blocks and ran a hand over the stone. Cold. And clammy. He pulled his hand away. For a moment there it felt as if the surface had shifted under h
is touch. He looked at his hand, then at the stone. Nothing had changed. He tried it again and felt that same strange, squirming sensation.

  "Looking for something?" Lyle asked.

  "Just checking out these blocks."

  As he moved to another stone, he glanced back and noticed Lyle staring at him. More than staring—squinting at him, as if trying to bring him into focus.

  "Something wrong?"

  Lyle blinked. "No. Nothing."

  Jack turned back to the stones. He found one with a cross-shaped pocket and noticed scratch marks in the granite around the depression.

  "Didn't the Greek say some of the stones had inlaid crosses?"

  "Right," Lyle said, moving closer. "Brass and nickel."

  Jack ran a finger over the gouges. "Looks like Dmitri was none too gentle in digging them out."

  "Yeah, I noticed those before. I wonder what he did with them?"

  "Maybe he used them as grave markers."

  "Maybe he wanted to make the place more hospitable to demons," Charlie said. "They can't bear the presence of a cross."

  In an effort to head off another argument that wasn't going to settle anything, Jack grabbed a pry bar and held it up.

  "What say we take down the rest of the paneling?"

  "Why bother?" Charlie said. "Probably just more of the same."

  Jack jabbed the straight end of the bar through a section of paneling and felt the tip strike the stone beyond. He reversed the bar, shoved the curved end into the opening, and ripped away a chunk of the laminated wood. Despite the nagging tug of discomfort in his flank, it felt good. Sometimes he liked to break things. Liked it a lot.

  "Maybe not. We look hard enough, we might find that some of these blocks aren't mortared like the others. That they slide out and there's some sort of hidey hole behind them. Who knows what we'll find there? Maybe what's left of Tara Portman."

  Charlie said, "It's not Tara Portman, I tell you, it's a—"

  "Wait." Lyle held up a hand. "Something's happening."

  Jack looked around. He hadn't heard anything.

  "What?"

  "Don't you feel it?"

  Jack glanced at Charlie who looked just as confused.

  "Feel what?"