Quick Fixes: Tales of Repairman Jack (26 page)

Because there’d always be one too few fingers on Robby’s left hand, always be that scar along the margin of Barbara’s nipple, always the vagrant thought, sneaking through the night, that Munir hadn’t done all he could, that if he’d only been a little more cooperative, Robby still would have ten fingers.

Sure, they were together now, and they’d been hugging and crying and kissing, but later on Barbara would start asking questions: Couldn’t you have done more? Why
didn’t
you cut your finger off when he told you to?

Even now, Barbara was suggesting that Munir could have been gentler when he’d fired Hollander. The natural progression from that was to: Maybe if you had, none of this would have happened.

The individual members might still be alive, but Munir’s family was already dead. He just didn’t know it yet.

And that saddened Jack. It mean that Hollander had won.

Doc Hargus shuffled out of the back room. He had an aggressively wrinkled face and a Wilford Brimley mustache.

“
He’s sleeping,” Doc said. “Probably sleep through the night.”

“
But his hand,” Barbara said. “You couldn’t–?”

“
No way that finger could be reattached, not even at the Mayo Clinic. Not after spending a night in a Federal Express envelope. I sewed up the stump good and tight. You may want to get a more cosmetic repair in a few years, but it’ll do for now. He’s loaded up with antibiotics and painkillers at the moment.”

“
Thank you, doctor,” Munir said.

“
And how about you?” Doc said to Barbara. “How’re you feeling?”

She cupped a hand over her breast. “Fine… I think.”

“
Good. Your sutures can come out in five days. We’ll leave Robby’s in for about ten.”

“
How can we ever repay you?” Munir said.

“
In cash,” Doc said. “You’ll get my bill.”

As he shuffled back to where Robby was sleeping, Barbara pressed her head against her husband’s shoulder.

“
Oh, Munir. I can’t believe it’s over.”

Jack watched them and knew he hadn’t completely earned his fee.

Save my family
…

Not yet. Hollander hadn’t won yet.

“
It’s not over,” Jack said.

They both turned to look at him.

“
We’ve still got Richard Hollander tied up in that loft. What do we do with him?”

“
I never want to see him again!” Barbara said.

“
So we let him go?”

“
No!” Munir spoke through his teeth. “I want him to hang! I want him to fry! He has to pay for what he did to Robby! To Barbara!”

“
You really think he’ll pay if we turn him in? I mean, how much faith do you have in the courts?”

They looked at him. Their bleak stares told him they felt like everybody else: No faith. No faith at all.

“
So your only other option is to go back there and deal with him yourself.”

Munir was nodding slowly, his mouth a tight line, his eyes angry slits. “Yes… I would like that.” He rose to his feet. “I will go back there. He has… things to answer for. I must be sure this will never happen again.”

Barbara was on her feet too, a feral glint in her eyes.

“
I’m coming with you.”

“
But Robby–”

“
I’ll stay here,” Jack said. “He knows me now. If he wakes up, I’ll be here.”

They hesitated.

Save my family
…

If the Habibs were going to make it they were going to have to face Hollander together and resolve all those as-yet-unasked questions by settling their scores with him. All their scores.

“
Get going,” he said. “I never made it past Tenderfoot in the Boy Scouts. Who knows how long my knots will last?”

Jack watched them hurry out, hand in hand. Maybe this would fix their marriage, maybe it wouldn’t. All he knew for sure was that he was glad he wasn’t Richard Hollander tonight.

He got up and went looking for Doc Hargus. The doc was never without a stock of good beer in his fridge.

introduction to “Interlude at Duane’s”

In January 2005, David Morrell and I were instructors at the Borderlands Bootcamp for Writers. David had helped start the International Thriller Writers organization the previous year and induced me to join. ITW in turn induced me to donate a Repairman Jack story to their anthology (
Thriller
) to raise funds for the organization.

Thus was
"Interlude at Duane’s" born. The
Thriller
table of contents is a Who’s Who of thriller writers. All contributors were limited to a 5K word count. I could have used more. Toward the end I was on fire, burning up the keyboard. I wish I could write with that speed and intensity all the time.

As you’ll see, this one was
fun
.

Thriller
went on to become one of the best if not
the
best selling anthology of all time. And I didn’t get a dime royalty. But I did gain a ton of new readers. Many of the zillion or so people who bought the anthology had never heard of Jack. Since then I regularly run into devoted Jack fans who say their first contact with the character was in
Thriller
. (I’ll bet a fair number of you are reading this collection because of that story.) Doing well while doing good…nothing wrong with that.

Ed Gorman chose it for his anthology
The Deadly Bride and Other Great Mystery and Crime Stories of 2005
.

Interlude at Duane’s

“
Lemme tell you, Jack,” Loretta said, blotting perspiration from her fudgcicle skin, “these changes gots me in a baaaad mood.

They’d just finished playing some real-life Frogger jaywalking 57
^th
and were now chugging west.

“
Real bad. My feets killin me too. Nobody better hassle me afore I’m home and on the outside of a big ol glass of Jimmy.”

Jack nodded, paying just enough attention to be polite. He was more interested in the passersby and was thinking how a day without your carry was like a day without clothes.

He felt naked. Had to leave his trusty Glock and backup home today because of his annual trip to the Empire State Building. He’d designated April 19
^th
King Kong Day. Every year he made a pilgrimage to the observation deck to leave a little wreath in memory of the Big Guy. The major drawback to the outing was the metal detector everyone had to pass through before heading upstairs. That meant no heat.

He didn’t think he was being paranoid. Okay, maybe a little, but he’d pissed off his share of people in this city and didn’t care to run into them naked.

After the wreath-laying ceremony, he ran into Loretta and walked her back toward Hell’s Kitchen. Oh, wait. It was Clinton now.

They went back a dozen or so years to when both waited tables at a now-extinct trattoria on West Fourth. She’d been fresh up from Mississippi then, and he only a few years out of Jersey. Agewise, Loretta had a good decade on Jack, maybe more – might even be knocking on the door to fifty. Had a good hundred pounds on him too. Her Rubenesque days were just a fond, slim memory, but she was solid – no jiggle. She’d dyed her Chia Pet hair orange and sheathed herself in some shapeless, green-and-yellow thing that made her look like a brown manatee in a muumuu.

She stopped and stared at a black cocktail dress in a boutique window.

“
Ain’t that pretty. Course I’ll have to wait till I’m cremated afore I fits into it.”

They continued to Seventh Avenue. As they stopped on the corner and waited for the walking green, two Asian women came up to her.

The taller one said, “You know where Saks Fifth Avenue?”

Loretta scowled. “On Fifth Avenue, fool.” Then she took a breath and jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “That way.”

Jack looked at her. “You weren’t kidding about the bad mood.”

“
You ever know me to kid, Jack?” She glanced around. “Sweet Jesus, I need me some comfort food. Like some chocolate-peanut-butter-swirl ice cream.” She pointed to the Duane Reade on the opposite corner. “There.”

“
That’s a drugstore.”

“
Honey, you know better’n that. Duane’s got everything. Shoot, if mine had a butcher section I wouldn’t have to shop nowheres else. Come on.”

Before he could opt out, she grabbed his arm and started hauling him across the street.

“
I specially like their makeup. Some places just carry Cover Girl, y’know, which is fine if you a Wonder Bread blonde. Don’t know if you noticed, but white ain’t zackly a big color in these parts. Everybody darker. Cept you, a course. I know you don’t like attention, Jack, but if you had a smidge of coffee in your cream you’d be
really
invisible.”

Jack expended a lot of effort on being invisible. He’d inherited a good start with his average height, average build, average brown hair, and nondescript face. Today he’d accessorized with a Mets cap, flannel shirt, worn Levi’s, and battered work boots. Just another guy, maybe a construction worker, ambling along the streets of Zoo York.

Jack slowed as they approached the door.

“
Think I’ll take a raincheck, Lo.”

She tightened her grip on his arm. “Hell you will. I need some company. I’ll even buy you a Dew. Caffeine still your drug of choice?”

“
Guess…till it’s time for a beer.” He eased his arm free. “Okay, I’ll spring for five minutes, but after that, I’m gone. Things to do.”

“
Five minutes ain’t nuthin, but okay.”

“
You go ahead. I’ll be right with you.”

He slowed in her wake so he could check out the entrance. He spotted a camera just inside the door, trained on the comers and goers.

He tugged down the brim of his hat and lowered his head. He was catching up to Loretta when he heard a loud, heavily accented voice.

“
Mira! Mira! Mira!
Look at the fine ass on you!”

Jack hoped that wasn’t meant for him. He raised his head far enough to see a grinning, mustachioed Latino leaning against the wall next to the doorway. A maroon gym bag sat at his feet. He had glossy, slicked-back hair and prison tats on the backs of his hands.

Loretta stopped and stared at him. “You better not be talkin a me!”

His grin widened. “But señorita, in my country it is a privilege for a woman to be praised by someone like me.”

“
And just where is this country of yours?”

“
Ecuador.”

“
Well, you in New York now, honey, and I’m a bitch from the Bronx. Talk to me like that again and I’m gonna Bruce Lee yo ass.”

“
But I know you would like to sit on my face.”

“
Why? Yo nose bigger’n yo dick?”

This cracked up a couple of teenage girls leaving the store. Mr. Ecuador’s face darkened. He didn’t seem to appreciate the joke.

Head down, Jack crowded close behind Loretta as she entered the store.

She said, “Told you I was in a bad mood.”

“
That you did, that you did. Five minutes, Loretta, okay?”

“
I hear you.”

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Mr. Ecuador pick up his gym bag and follow them inside.

Jack paused as Loretta veered off toward one of the cosmetic aisles. He watched to see if Ecuador was going to hassle her, but he kept on going, heading toward the rear.

Duane Reade drugstores are a staple of New York life. The city has hundreds of them. Only the hoity-toitiest Upper East Siders hadn’t visited one. Their most consistent feature was their lack of consistency. No two were the same size or laid out alike. Okay, they all kept the cosmetics near the front, but after that it became anyone’s guess where something might be hiding. Jack could see the method to that madness: The more time people had to spend looking for what they had come for, the greater their chances of picking up things they hadn’t.

This one seemed fairly empty and Jack assigned himself the task of finding the ice cream to speed their departure. He set off through the aisles and quickly became disoriented. The overall space was L-shaped, but instead of running in parallel paths to the rear, the aisles zigged and zagged. Whoever laid out this place was either a devotee of chaos theory or a crop circle designer.

He was wandering among the six-foot-high shelves and passing the hemorrhoid treatments when he heard a harsh voice behind him.

“
Keep movin, yo. Alla way to the back.”

Jack looked and saw a big, steroidal black guy in a red tank top. The overhead fluorescents gleamed off his shaven scalp. He had a fat scar running through his left eyebrow, glassy eyes, and held a snub-nose .38 caliber revolver – the classic Saturday night special.