Repairman Jack [03]-Conspiracies (28 page)

"But he was hurting you. I made him stop. I—"

"I said
shut up
!"

Her lower lip trembled. "I ... I thought you'd be glad."

"Why should I be glad? If you hadn't got me so mad tonight I might've noticed he was here when we came in. Then he wouldn't have took me by surprise." He pointed to his swelling nose. "This is
your
fault, Ceil."

Ceil's shoulders slumped; she stared dully at the floor.

Jack didn't know what to make of Ceil. He'd interrupted her brutal beating at the hands of her husband, yet she'd come to the creep's aid. And valiantly, at that. But the gutsy little scrapper who'd wielded that poker seemed miles away from the cowed, beaten creature now standing in the middle of the room.

I don't get it.

Which was why he'd made a policy of refusing home repairs in the first place. From now on, no more exceptions.

"I'll go over to the Ferrises'," Ceil said.

"What for?"

"To call the police."

"Hold on a minute."

"Why?"

Jack glanced at Gus and saw how his eyes were flicking back and forth between Ceil and him.

"Because I'm thinking, that's why."

"Yeah," Jack said. "I can smell the wood burning."

"Hey!" Gus stepped toward Jack and raised the pistol as if to club him. "Another word out of you and—"

"You don't really want to get that close to me, do you?" Jack said softly.

Gus stepped back.

"Gus, I've got to call the police!" Ceil said as she replaced the poker by the fireplace, far out of Jack's reach.

"You're not going anywhere," Gus said. "Get over here."

Ceil meekly moved to his side.

"Not here!" he said, grabbing her shoulder and shoving her toward Jack. "Over there!"

She cried out with the pain in her back as she stumbled forward.

"Gus! What are you doing?"

Jack decided to stay in character. He grabbed Ceil's shoulders and—as gently as he could—turned her around. She struggled weakly as he held her between Gus and himself.

Gus laughed. "You'd better think of something else, fella. That skinny little broad's not gonna protect you from a forty-five."

"Gus!"

"Shut
up
! God, I'm sick of your voice! I'm sick of your face, I'm sick of—shit, I'm so sick of everything about you!"

Under his hands, Jack could feel Ceil's thin shoulders jerk with the impact of the words as if they were blows from a fist. A fist probably would have hurt less.

"B-but Gus, I thought you loved me."

He sneered. "Are you kidding? I
hate
you, Ceil! It drives me up a wall just to be in the same room with you! Why the hell do you think I beat the shit out of you every chance I get? It's all I can do to keep myself from killing you!"

"But all those times you said—"

"How I loved you?" he said, his face shifting to a contrite, hangdog expression. "How I didn't know what came over me, but I really, truly
loooove
you with all my heart?" The snarl returned. "And you believed it! God, you're such a pathetic wimp you fell for it every time."

"But why?" She was sobbing now. "
Why
?"

"You mean, why play games? Why not dump you and find a real woman—one who's got tits and can have kids? The answer should be pretty clear: your brother. He got me into Gorland 'cause he's one of their biggest customers. And if you and me go kaput, he'll see to it I'm out of there before the ink's dry on our divorce papers. I've put too many years into that job to blow it because of a sack of shit like you."

Ceil almost seemed to shrivel under Jack's hands.

He glared at Gus. "Big man."

"Yeah. I'm the big man. I've got the gun. And I want to thank you for it, fella, whoever you are. Because it's going to solve all my problems."

"What? My gun?"

He wanted to tell Gus to hurry up and use it, but Gus wanted to talk. The words spewed out like maggots from a ripe corpse.

"Yep. I've got a shitload of insurance on my dear wife here. I bought loads of term on her years ago and kept praying she'd have an accident. I was never so stupid as to try and set her up for something fatal—I know what happened to that Marshall guy in Jersey—but I figured, what the hell, with all the road fatalities around here, the odds of collecting on old Ceil were better than Lotto."

"Oh, Gus," she sobbed. An utterly miserable sound.

Her head sank until her chin touched her chest. She would have fan-folded to the floor if Jack hadn't been holding her up. He knew this was killing her, but he wanted her to hear it. Maybe it was the alarm she needed to wake her up.

Gus mimicked her. "'Oh, Gus!' Do you have any idea how many rainy nights you got my hopes up when you were late coming home from your card group? How I prayed—actually
prayed
—that you'd skidded off the road and wrapped your car around a utility pole, or that a big semi had run a light and plowed you under? Do you have any
idea
? But no. You'd come bouncing in as carefree as you please, and I'd be so disappointed I'd almost cry. That was when I really wanted to wring your scrawny neck!"

"That's just about enough, don't you think?" Jack said.

Gus sighed. "Yeah. I guess it is. But at least all those premiums weren't wasted. Tonight I collect."

Ceil's head lifted.

"What?"

"That's right. An armed robber broke in. During the struggle, I managed to get the gun away from him but he pulled you between us as I fired. You took the first bullet—right in the heart. In a berserk rage, I emptied the rest of the clip into his head. Such a tragedy." He raised the pistol and sighted it on Ceil's chest. "Goodbye, my dear sweet wife."

The metallic click of the hammer was barely audible over Ceil's wail of terror.

Her voice cut off as both she and Gus stared at the pistol.

"That could have been a dud," Jack said. "Man, I
hate
when that happens." He pointed to the top of the pistol. "Pull that slide back to chamber a fresh round."

Gus stared at him a second, then worked the slide. An unspent round popped out.

"There you go," Jack said. "Now, give it another shot, if you'll pardon the expression."

Looking confused, he aimed at Ceil again, and Jack detected a definite tremor in the barrel now. Gus pulled the trigger but this time Ceil didn't scream. She merely flinched at the sound of the hammer falling on another dud.

"Aw,
maaaan?
Jack said, drawing out the word into a whine. "You think you're buying good ammo and someone rips you off! Can't trust nobody these days!"

Gus quickly worked the slide and pulled the trigger again. Jack allowed two more misfires, then he stepped around Ceil and approached Gus.

Frantically Gus worked the slide and pulled the trigger again, aiming for Jack's face. Another impotent click. He began backing away when he saw Jack's smile.

"That's my dummy pistol, Gus. Actually, a genuine government-issue Mark IV, but the bullets are dummies—just like the guys I let get hold of it."

Jack brought it along when he wanted to see what somebody was really made of. In the right situation, it tended to draw the worst to the surface.

He bent and picked up the ejected rounds. He held one up for Gus to see.

"The slug is real," Jack said, "but there's no powder in the shell. It's an old rule: Never let an asshole near a loaded gun."

Gus charged, swinging the .45 at Jack's head. Jack caught his wrist and twisted the weapon from his fingers. Then he slammed it hard against the side of Gus's face, opening a gash. Gus tried to turn and run but Jack still had his arm. He hit him again, on the back of the head this time. Gus sagged to his knees and Jack put a lot of upper body behind the pistol as he brought it down once more on the top of his head. Gus stiffened, then toppled face first onto the floor.

Only seconds had passed. Jack spun to check on Ceil's whereabouts. She wasn't going to catch him twice. But no worry. She was right where he'd left her, standing in the corner, eyes closed, tears leaking out between the lids. Poor woman.

Nothing Jack wanted more than to be out of this crazy house. He'd been here too long already, but he had to finish this job now, get it done and over with.

He took Ceil's arm and gently led her from the living room.

"Nothing personal, lady, but I've got to put you in a safe place, okay? Someplace where you can't get near a fire poker. Understand?"

"He didn't love me," she said to no one in particular. "He stayed with me because of his job. He was lying all those times he said he loved me."

"I guess he was."

"Lying ... "

He guided her to a closet in the hall and stood her inside among the winter coats.

"I'm just going to leave you here for a few minutes, okay?"

She was staring straight ahead. "All those years ... lying ... "

Jack closed her in the closet and wedged a ladder-back chair between the door and the wall on the other side of the hall. No way she could get out until he removed the chair.

Back in the living room, Gus was still out cold. Jack turned him over and tied his wrists to the stout wooden legs of the coffee table. He took two four-by-four wooden blocks from his gym bag and placed them under Gus's left lower leg, one just below the knee and the other just above the ankle. Then he removed a short-handled five-pound iron maul from the duffel.

He hesitated as he lifted the hammer.

"Consider this a life saving injury, Gus, old scout," he said in a low voice. "If you're not laid up, your brother-in-law will kill you."

Still Jack hesitated, then recalled Ceil's eyes as Gus methodically battered her kidneys—the pain, the resignation, the despair.

Jack broke Gus's left shin with one sharp blow. Gus groaned and writhed on the floor, but didn't regain consciousness. Jack repeated the process on the right leg. Then he packed up all his gear and returned to the hall.

He pulled the chair from where it was wedged against the closet door, and opened the door a crack.

"I'm leaving now, lady. When I'm gone you can go next door or wherever and call the police. Better call an ambulance too."

A single sob answered him.

Jack left by the back door. It felt good to get the stocking off his head. He'd feel even better to be far away from this house.

23

Jack took the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge back into Manhattan. Since that would drop him right in Gia's neighborhood, he figured he'd pop in on his way back to the hotel. Vicky would be asleep, but he hoped Gia would be up. After the grimness of the Castlemans, he needed a little sweetness and light.

He was about halfway across when he spotted the black sedan. He'd scanned the street when he'd left the Castlemans, but had seen no sign of it then. They must have been waiting somewhere along his return route.

Or ... it simply could be a couple of guys who just happened to be heading into the city behind him, and just happened to be driving a black sedan.

Could be. But Jack wanted to know for sure.

When he reached the Manhattan side he took the downtown ramp, then made a full three-sixty loop around a single block. The black sedan stayed with him all the way, right behind him, not even bothering to hide its presence.

That did it. He'd been sucker punched on a stairwell, damn near killed by some sort of dog monkey, and clocked on the back of his head with a fireplace poker. It had been a bad day and he'd had it.

At the next red light, Jack slammed on the brakes, rammed the gearshift into park and jumped out of the car. Bursting with anger, he strode back to the Lincoln and yanked on the handle of the driver's door—locked. He pounded against the window.

"Open up, dammit!"

The window slid down and Jack found himself staring into the black lenses of a pair of sunglasses. He couldn't tell if this was the guy he'd chased or the one who'd punched him earlier today. They both looked alike and he could pick out no distinguishing marks on what little of their faces was visible.

Traffic was light on the street, but just then a red pickup truck pulled to a stop behind the black sedan. Jack waved him around—he didn't want any witnesses to the altercation he was sure was about to ensue, but the truck stayed put.

That bothered Jack a little. He thought he remembered seeing a red pickup in his rearview a couple of times since leaving the Castleman house, but couldn't be sure—he'd been concentrating on the black sedan. Who was it ... backup for the jokers in the sedan, or just another late night traveler?

If it were a black pickup he'd definitely be worried but since it wasn't, he turned his attention back to the sedan.

"What's the story, guys?" he said, crouching slightly to look into the open window. "Who the hell are you and why're you following me? Is my life that much more interesting than yours?"

The driver merely stared up at him through his shades, saying nothing, his lips a straight line, his pale face expressionless, as if he were deciding whether this man was worthy of reply.

That expression plus the memory of Olive's mutilated body stoked Jack's already topped-off anger.

"Didn't your mothers ever teach you to take off your hats in a car? And what's with the shades at night? Don't you know that's dangerous?"

Jack shot his left hand into the car, aiming to knock off the jerk's hat and grab his sunglasses, but before his fingers were through the opening, the driver's black-gloved hand grabbed Jack's wrist and stopped him.

Jack tried to push farther in, but could not. And when he tried to pull free, he found his wrist imprisoned in a steely grip. Alarmed, he struggled but couldn't break free.

The light had changed to green. A horn sounded, not from the pickup truck, but from some car behind it. The black-gloved grip on his left wrist remained tight as a manacle. The fourth car, a battered old Toyota hatchback, chirped its tires and squeezed through the narrow, barely passable space on the far side of the pickup, the sedan, and Jack's rental, honking angrily all the way. The pickup didn't honk, didn't budge. Maybe the driver didn't think it could fit.