Scenes From the Secret History (The Secret History of the World)

by F. Paul Wilson

  I just don't believe this! Ed told himself for the hundredth time in the last hour.

  This was the kind of thing that happened only in porno movies, in fantasies, not in real life. At least not in Ed Bannion's life. Fifteen years in this town – sixteen in August – and never anything even close to an encounter like this. When he'd got the job with Paramount he'd been a sex-starved law school grad dreaming of starlet sandwiches and orgies. Even if he was in legal and based in New York, Paramount was Paramount, right? Wrong. Nothing! He'd never even seen a starlet, let alone a star. Paramount – hah! He might as well have been working for Exxon for all the poontang he'd got through the company.

  But tonight! Tonight made up for the long wait. He'd carry the memory of this to his grave. Maybe even beyond.

  He felt the pressure growing within the basement of his pelvis, surging outward, building...

  He leaned forward and reached around her, grabbing her breasts.

  ...building...

  He buried his face in her fragrant, wavy hair, and nuzzling the nape of her neck.

  ...building...

  Suddenly he knew he was past the point of no return. He stiffened, cried out, then bit down hard as he exploded within her.

  Ingrid screamed in pain. She straightened up and twisted, pulling free of Ed as she rose to her feet. She stood there, naked but for her garter belt and black stockings, staring at Ed and his brother, her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide with what looked to Ed like shock and horror.

  "What's the matter, babe?" Phil said.

  "Oh, no!" she moaned. There was no passion in the sound, only revulsion and unplumbed misery. "Oh, God, no!"

  Ed turned cold inside. Something was terribly wrong here. What–?

  She turned to run and immediately slammed into the wall. She bounced off it and blindly dashed toward Ed, accelerating as she passed him.

  "Christ, no! The window!" Ed said and tried to grab her leg.

  But she was moving too fast. He missed her and could only watch helplessly as she rammed into the lower pane of the big double-hung window. For an instant it looked as if she might bounce off that, too, but then came a sharp crash like a shot, like an explosion, and suddenly the glass was coming apart all around her and she was still moving outward, taking a million bright dagger shards with her. And then she was gone, a keening wail trailing behind her.

  Ed remained kneeling on the carpet, frozen in shock, shivering in the cold wind pouring through the shattered window, thinking this couldn't be real, this couldn't be happening, listening to the terrified wail that continued long after she was gone from view, much longer than it should have. And then he realized that the sound was coming from him.

  You can find the rest of the story here: Sibs

  A related story, “Menage a Trois,” (along with many others) can be found here: Soft & Others

  Summer

  THE TOMB

  (the covers from the 2-volume Japanese version;

  this artist is the only one to nail the rakoshi)

  Another novel that would not die… featuring a character who would not die.

  The necklaces worn by Kusum and Kolabati are intimately tied to the Secret History and becaome crucial to the outcome of Nightworld.

  Capsule version: Jack is an urban mercenary in Manhattan, a self-made outcast who lives in the interstices of modern society. A ghost in our machine: no official identity, no social security number, pays no taxes. He has a violent streak he sometimes finds hard to control. He hires out for cash to "fix" situations that have no legal remedy.

  The name Repairman Jack comes from his gunrunner pal, Abe. Jack’s not crazy about it, but he lives with it. He’s not a vigilante, not a do-gooder. He’s not out to right wrongs. Nor is he out to change the world or fight crime. (He’s a career criminal, after all, as are many of his friends.) He’s not Batman. He’s just a guy with a devious mind who likes his work best when he can help what goes around come around. If you read him carefully you’ll see he gets a real jolt out of running a scam or setting up someone to be hoisted on his own petard.

  He came from a dream. The scene on the roof in The Tomb was the dream, then I worked backward and forward to create a character who could survive that situation. I’ve been a libertarian forever, so I figured I’d act out my libertarian dreams, you know, make this guy an anarchist with no identity.

  I decided at the outset to make him an anti-Jason Bourne – with no black-ops, SEAL, or Special Forces training, no CIA or police background, no connection to officialdom. In other words, no safety net. No one in the government he could call on. He has to rely on his own wits and his own network.

  He was not intended as a series character. I intended a one-shot, which is kind of obvious at the end of book. As I finished The Tomb, I thought, Well, this character is great – so I gotta make it look like guy is dead or they’ll want more. I had other books planned out and didn’t want to get locked into a series.

  The thing was, The Tomb hit the bestseller lists, won the Porgie Award from The West Coast Review of Books, and never went out of print. It kept selling and creating more and more Repairman Jack fans, clamoring for more Jack. I resisted a second novel for 14 years… until Jack became a way out of a trap I got myself into with a multi-book contract. (More on that when we get to Legacies.)

  Here’s the opening. Very low key. No action. I want you to spend a little time with this guy and realize that he’s different.

  THE TOMB

  (sample)

  Manhattan

  Thursday

  1

  Repairman Jack awoke with light in his eyes, white noise in his ears, and an ache in his back.

  He’d fallen asleep on the couch in the spare bedroom where he kept his DVD player and projection TV. He turned his head toward the set. A nervous tweed pattern buzzed around on the six-foot screen while the air conditioner in the right half of the double window beside it worked full blast to keep the room at seventy.

  He got to his feet with a groan and shut off the TV. The hiss of white noise stopped. He leaned over and touched his toes, then straightened and rotated his lower spine. His back was killing him. That couch was made for sitting, not sleeping.

  He stepped to the player and ejected the disk. He’d fallen asleep during the closing credits of the 1931 Frankenstein, part one of Repairman Jack's unofficial James Whale Festival.

  Poor Henry Frankenstein, he thought, slipping the disk into its box. Despite all evidence to the contrary, despite what everyone around him thought, Henry had been sure he was sane.

  Jack located the proper slot in the rack on the wall, shoved Frankenstein in, and pulled out its neighbor: Bride of Frankenstein, part two of his private James Whale Festival.

  A glance out the window revealed the usual vista of sandy shore, calm blue ocean, and supine sunbathers. He was tired of the view. Especially since some of the bricks had started showing through. Three years since he'd had the scene painted on the blank wall facing the windows of this and the other bedroom. Long enough. The beach scene no longer interested him. Perhaps a rain forest mural would be better. With lots of birds and reptiles and animals hiding in the foliage. Yes... a rain forest. He filed the thought away. He'd have to keep an eye out for someone who could do the job justice.

  The phone began ringing in the front room. Who that could be? He'd changed his number a couple of months ago. Only a few people had it. He didn't bother to lift the receiver. The answering machine would take care of that. He heard a click, heard his own voice start his standard salutation:

  "Pinocchio Productions...I'm not in right now, but if you'll–”

  A woman's voice broke in over his own, her tone impatient. "Pick up if you're there, Jack. Otherwise I'll call back later."

  Gia!

  Jack nearly tripped over his own feet in his rush to the phone.

  "Gia? That you?"

  "Yes, it's me." Her voice sounded flat, almost resentful.

  "God! It's been a
long time!" Two months. Forever. He had to sit down. "I'm so glad you called."

  "It's not what you think, Jack."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I'm not calling for myself. If it were up to me I wouldn't be calling at all. But Nellie asked me to."

  His jubilation faded, but he kept talking. "Who's Nellie?" He drew a blank on the name.

  "Nellie Paton. You must remember Nellie and Grace, the two English ladies?"

  "Oh, yeah. How could I forget? They introduced us."

  "I've managed to forgive them."

  Jack let that go by without comment. "What's the problem?"

  "Grace has disappeared. She hasn't been seen since she went to bed Monday night."

  He remembered Grace Westphalen: a very prim and proper Englishwoman pushing seventy. Not the eloping sort.

  "Have the police–?"

  "Of course. But Nellie wanted me to call you to see if you'd help. So I'm calling."

  "Does she want me to come over?"

  "Yes. If you will."

  "Will you be there?"

  She gave an exasperated sigh. "Yes. Are you coming or not?"

  "I'm on my way."

  "Better wait. The patrolmen who were here said a detective from the department would be coming by this morning. "

  "Oh." That wasn't good.

  "I thought that might slow you up."

  She didn't have to sound so smug about it.

  "I'll be there after lunch."

  "You know the address?"

  "I know it's a yellow townhouse on Sutton Square. There's only one."

  "I'll tell her to expect you."

  And then she hung up.

  Jack tossed the receiver in his hand and cradled it on the base.

  He was going to see Gia today. She’d called him. She hadn't been friendly, and she’d said she was calling for someone else – but she’d called. That was more than she’d done since she’d walked out. He couldn't help feeling good.

  He strolled through the third-floor apartment's front room that served as living room and dining room. He found the room immensely comfortable, but few visitors shared his enthusiasm. His best friend, Abe Grossman, had, in one of his more generous moods, described the room as "claustrophobic." When Abe was feeling grumpy he said it made the Addams Family house look like it had been decorated by Bauhaus.

  Old movie posters covered the walls along with bric-a-brac shelves loaded with the neat stuff Jack picked up in forgotten junk stores during his wanderings through the city. He wound his way through a collection of old Victorian golden oak furniture that left little room for anything else: a seven-foot hutch, intricately carved, a fold-out secretary, a sagging, high-backed sofa, a massive claw-foot dining table, two end tables whose legs each ended in a bird's foot clasping a crystal sphere, and his favorite, a big, wing-back chair.

  He reached the bathroom and started the hated morning ritual of shaving. As he ran the razor over his cheeks and throat he again considered the idea of a beard. He didn't have a bad face. Brown eyes, dark brown hair growing perhaps a little too low on his forehead. A nose neither too big nor too small. He smiled at himself in the mirror. Not an altogether hideous grimace – what they used to call a shit-eating grin. The teeth could have been whiter and straighter, and the lips were on the thin side, but not a bad smile. An inoffensive face. As an added bonus, a wiry, well muscled, five-eleven frame went along with the face at no extra charge.

  So what's not to like?

  His smile faltered.

  Ask Gia. She seems to think she knows what's not to like.

  But all that was going to change starting today.

  After a quick shower, he dressed and downed a couple of bowls of Cocoa Puffs, then strapped on his ankle holster and slipped the world's smallest .45, a Semmerling skeleton model LM-4, into it. He knew the holster was going to be hot against his leg, but he never went out unarmed. His peace of mind would compensate for any physical discomfort.

  He checked the peephole in the front door, then twisted the central knob, retracting the four bolts at the top, bottom, and both sides. The heat in the third floor hall slammed against him at the threshold. He was wearing Levi's and a lightweight short-sleeve shirt. He was glad he’d skipped the undershirt. The humidity in the hall wormed its way into his clothes and oozed over his skin as he headed down to the street.

  Jack stood on the front steps for a moment. Sunlight glared sullenly through the haze over the roof of the Museum of Natural History far down the street to his right. The wet air hung motionless above the pavement. He could see it, smell it, taste it – and it looked, smelled, and tasted dirty. Dust, soot, and lint laced with carbon monoxide, with perhaps a hint of rancid butter from the garbage can around the corner in the alley.

  Ah! The Upper West Side in August.

  He ambled down to the sidewalk and walked west along the row of brownstones that lined his street. Along the way he pulled out his Tracfone and dialed his office number, then a four-digit code. A recorded voice – not Jack's – came over the wire with the familiar message:

  "This is Repairman Jack. I'm out on a call now, but when you hear the tone, leave your name and number and give me a brief idea of the nature of your problem. I'll get back to you as soon as possible."

  After the tone a woman's voice started talking about a problem with the timer on her dryer. Another beep and a man was looking for some free information on how to fix a blender. Jack ignored the numbers they gave; he had no intention of calling them back. But how did they get his number? He’d restricted his name to the white pages – with an incorrect street address, naturally – to cut down on appliance repair calls, but people managed to find him anyway.

  The third and last voice was unique: smooth in tone, the words clipped, rapid, tinged with Britain, but definitely not British. Jack knew a couple of Pakistanis who sounded like that. The man was obviously upset, and stumbled over his words.

  "Mr. Jack...my grandmother – was beaten terribly last night. I must speak to you immediately. It is terribly important."

  He gave his name and a number where he could be reached.

  That was one call Jack would return, even though he was going to have to turn the man down. He intended to devote all his time to Gia's problem. And to Gia. This might be his last chance with her.

  He punched in the number. The clipped voice answered in the middle of the second ring.

  “Yes.”

  "Mr. Bahkti? This is Jack. You called my office during the night and–"

  Mr. Bahkti was suddenly very guarded. "This is not the same voice on the answering machine."

  Sharp, Jack thought. The voice on the machine belonged to Abe Grossman. Jack never used his own voice on the office phone. But most people didn't spot that.

  "An old tape," Jack told him.

  "Ahhh. Well, then. I must see you immediately, Mr. Jack. It is a matter of the utmost importance. A matter of life and death."

  "I don't know, Mr. Bahkti, I–"

  "You must! There can be no refusal!"

  A new note had crept in. This was not a man used to hearing no. The tone had never set well with Jack.

  "You don't understand. My time is already taken up with other–"

  "Mr. Jack! Are the other matters crucial to a woman's life? Can they not be put aside for even a short while? My grandmother was mercilessly beaten on the streets of your city. She needs help that I cannot give her. So I've come to you."

  Jack knew what Mr. Bahkti was up to. He thought he was pushing Jack's buttons. Jack mildly resented it, but he was used to it and decided to hear him out anyway.

  Bahkti had already launched into his narrative.

  "Her car – an American car, I might add – broke down last night. And when she–"

  "Save it for later," Jack told him, happy to be the one doing the cutting-off for a change.

  "You will meet me at the hospital? She is in St. Clare's–"

  "No. Our first meeting will be where I say
. I meet all customers on my home turf. No exceptions."

  "Very well," Bahkti said with a minimum of grace. "But we must meet very soon. There is so little time."

  Jack gave him the address of Julio's bar a few blocks uptown from where he stood. He checked his watch.

  "It's just shy of ten now. Be there at ten-thirty sharp."

  "Half an hour? I do not know if I can be there by then!"

  Fine! Jack liked to give customers as little time as possible to prepare for their first meeting. "Ten-thirty. You've got ten minutes grace. Any later and I'll be gone."

  "Ten-thirty," Mr. Bahkti said, and hung up.

  That annoyed Jack. He’d wanted to hang up first.

  He walked north on Columbus Avenue, keeping to the shade on the right. Some shops were just opening, but most had been going strong for hours.

  Julio's was open. But then, Julio's rarely closed. Jack knew the first customers wandered in minutes after Julio unlocked at six in the morning. Some were just getting off their shift and stopped by for a beer, a hard-boiled egg, and a soft seat; others stood at the bar and downed a quick bracer before starting the day's work. And still others spent the better part of every day in the cool darkness.

  "Jacko!" Julio cried from behind the bar. He was standing but only his head and the top half of his chest were visible.

  They didn't shake hands. They knew each other too well and saw each other too often for that. They’d been friends for many years, ever since the time Julio began to suspect that his sister Rosa was getting punched around by her husband. It had been a delicate matter. Jack had fixed it for him. Since then the little man had screened Jack's customers. For Julio possessed a talent, a nose, a sixth sense of sorts for spotting members of officialdom. Much of Jack's energy was devoted to avoiding such people; his way of life depended on it. Also, in Jack's line of work he often found it necessary to make other people angry in the course of serving a customer's interests. So Julio kept an eye out for angry people.