“Hamad?” He shook him. “Come on, Hamad. Stay with me. Don’t crap out on me now.”
Jack grabbed his beard and lifted his head.
Dead dark eyes stared back at him.
“No!” Jack shook him. Hamad moved like an oversized rag doll. “No-no-no!”
He threw him back, jumped up, and kicked the Grand Am’s fender.
“Goddamn it to hell! Shit!”
He kicked the Grand Am again, then stumbled around in a circle wanting to scream his anger and frustration at the night. This had been his last chance. The book was right. He was stuck with the Stain.
He felt as if fate—or something—was plotting against him. Was this all part of a plan? He tried to repress the paranoia that this whole situation was a setup. His father’s death, Tom’s intrusion into his life, the Lilitongue, the Stain… had they all been part of some elaborate plan to take him out of the picture?
Was the Otherness after him?
If not, then who? Or what?
He finished his war dance of kicking the car, kicking stones, kicking at the underbrush, then stood panting, his breath streaming in the cold air. He was bare to the waist but didn’t care. Being cold was the least of his worries.
What now? What was he going to do with Joey?
And how was he going to get home? Couldn’t drive—after the Center shootout every cop in North Jersey would be on the lookout for an old Grand Am. Especially at the bridges and tunnels. Sure as hell couldn’t walk. Couldn’t even hitchhike—sure way to get stopped and asked a lot of questions he couldn’t answer.
He had to get home. Every minute here was a minute subtracted from his time with Gia and Vicky.
Have to do what he’d done at La Guardia: Call Abe.
He looked up at the rumbling roadway overhead. But first he’d have to find out where he was.
He stripped off the bloody coverall and replaced it with the flannel shirt and jeans. He popped the trunk, removed his leather jacket, shrugged into it.
Then he began the steep climb up to the highway, fighting his way through the brush and a thicket of ailanthus trunks.
At the top he crouched behind the guardrail and looked around. Ten feet away he spotted a big red 80 on a blue background.
Okay. He’d figured that. Now… where on 80?
Traffic wasn’t heavy so he risked standing during a gap and looking around. About a quarter mile ahead he saw a green-and-white sign for Exit 60.
Okay.
He crouched again, pulled out his Tracfone, and punched Abe’s number.
“Isher Sports,” said a bored voice.
“Abe, it’s me and I need a ride.”
“Another ride you need? What happened this time?”
“I’ll explain it all when you get here.”
“And this ‘here’ is where?”
“Jersey.”
“Gevalt! You want I should leave civilization and venture into the hinterlands just because your car breaks down?”
With effort Jack stifled a shout and kept his voice even. “Look, Abe. I need your help and I need it now. I haven’t much time left.”
“Oy, you’re right. Where do I find you?”
“Go over the GW and get on Route Eighty west. When you come to exit sixty, take it and wait for me near the bottom of the ramp.”
“Eighty, sixty, got it. How long this should take?”
“Thirty minutes to an hour. All depends on traffic. Call me when you hit the highway.”
“The keys I’m grabbing as we speak.”
“Thanks.”
Jack cut the connection and started back down the slope toward the river. From the look of the traffic, at least here in Jersey, Abe would probably make good time. Which meant Jack had to hurry.
He had some things that needed doing before he fled the scene, as it were.
* * *
-13:59
“I know you can’t hear me, Joey, but I’m going to say this anyway.” Jack had carried Joey’s body from the car and laid it gently on the ground in an open area maybe twenty feet away. Nobody finding the car could miss Joey. Jack had straightened the body, positioning it perpendicular to the river, feet toward the water.
He felt a gnawing guilt about leaving a fellow combatant here like this, but what could he do?
He folded Joey’s arms across his chest in the classic casket pose “Wish I could take you back with me. You know I would if I could, but it’s not in the cards. So I’m leaving you here with as much dignity as I can. You always liked to look good, and this way you’ll look good in the crime scene photos. Almost classy.”
Except for the bloodstains, of course.
“I have to leave you here but you won’t be alone for long. Don’t worry about becoming a buffet for whatever animals are around. None of them will have a chance to get near you, let alone chew on you. I’ll see to that.”
He adjusted Joey’s bloody jacket, straightened his pant legs so that the cuffs reached his ankles, then squatted next to him.
“You weren’t a model citizen, Joey, but you were a good guy. The marks couldn’t believe a word you said but you were always square with your friends. Brave too, risking everything to do right by your brother. You have my respect. If you hadn’t been standing between me and the shooter, our places might be reversed right now.”
An unbidden thought: And if you’d planned this better and been more careful searching the back rooms, we’d both be having a drink at Julio’s right now. Jack pushed it away.
“I need just one thing from you.”
He reached into Joey’s jacket pocket and removed his butane lighter, then he rose to his feet.
“Someone will be coming for you soon.”
He walked back to the Grand Am and picked up his coverall from where he’d dropped it. He used his knife to cut a three-foot strip from the leg, then tossed the rest into the car. He opened the gas tank door, unscrewed the cap, and snaked the cloth down as far as it would go. Then he pulled it out, reversed it, and snaked the other end inside. He left three or four inches of gas-soaked twill hanging from the port.
Firing the car would serve two purposes. First—destroy a lot of evidence. Jack hadn’t taken his gloves off since he’d left his apartment, so he wasn’t worried about prints. But trace evidence was tricky. Couldn’t hurt to incinerate it.
The second was to bring the cops running so they could find Joey’s body before any dogs got to it. No way Joey wouldn’t be tied to the attack on the Center—Jack could already see the Post’s MUSLIM MASSACRE! headline—but this way his body would be returned to his family intact.
He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket: Abe.
“I’m at exit sixty-seven.”
“How’s the traffic?”
“I’m doing sixty-five.”
“Okay. Bottom of the sixty off ramp.”
“You should look for the usual vehicle.”
That meant Abe’s van.
“Will do. See you soon.”
Jack grabbed his backpack, then pulled Joey’s lighter from a pocket.
He flicked it and touched the flame to the free end of the coverall strip. As fire danced up its length and into the port, Jack trotted for the incline to the highway. He was about halfway up when the tank blew. He didn’t look back. He reached the top and, keeping low, followed the guardrail toward the exit ramp.
* * *
10
-13:14
“Keep an eye on them for me?”
Abe shook his head. “I can’t—I won’t believe this is happening. A joke you’re pulling, right? You should be honest with your old friend who’s known you since you were a yungatsh and tell him that you’ve made all this up. Listen to that old friend tell you that if this should be a joke then it’s a terrible one and he’ll never speak to you again.”
They sat in Abe’s van where he’d double-parked outside Jack’s place. After a couple of fitful, abortive attempts at their usual banter, talk had died. Jack found th
e silence awkward. He and Abe always had something to say to each other.
“No joke, Abe.”
“Must be. Has to be. A world without Repairman Jack? Feh!”
How many years since Abe had given him that name? Jack didn’t bother counting. Whatever the number, it wasn’t enough.
“But you will look after my ladies while I’m gone, right?”
“While you’re gone—that I like. It means you’re coming back.”
“Count on it.”
“I will. I won’t sit shiva then.”
Although he didn’t know where he’d be going, even if it was to an alternate reality, Jack had this unreasonable conviction that he’d be able to find his way home. Of course if the Lilitongue dumped him in outer space, that would be a different story: He’d be a flash-frozen fleshsicle in a heartbeat.
“As for watching over Gia and Vicky, I’ll do what I can while you’re away. But the type of woman who wants or needs watching over, Gia isn’t.”
“I know. She’s a self-starter and self-sufficient, but she isn’t quite as tough as she thinks or likes people to think. So look in on them for me, okay?”
“Of course. But who’s going to look in on me? Who’s going to tshepe me about my diet and my waistline while at the very same time bringing me Krispy Kremes? Who am I going to eat breakfast with? Who’s going to worry about me…?”
Abe’s voice trailed off.
Jack heard a sniff and turned toward him. The glow from a street lamp reflected off the moisture puddled on his lower eyelids.
“Abe?”
Nu, this is why you were always utzing me to worry about my heart? This is why you said I should take better care of it? Just so you could break it?”
The words choked off.
Jack felt his own throat constrict. This man had helped him become what he was. It tore Jack up to see Abe this way. He grabbed a pudgy hand and squeezed.
“I’ll be back. I promise.”
Abe shook his head and spoke, his voice thick. “So you say, but I have a feeling this is something even Repairman Jack can’t fix.”
Jack didn’t admit that he had the same feeling.
Abe let out a shaky sigh.
“So, you want I should drop you off at Gia’s?”
“Thanks, no. I’ve got a little something I have to take care of here first.” He squeezed Abe’s hand again. “See you soon. And work on that waistline while I’m gone.”
“Who can eat?”
Feeling like he’d just cut off an arm, Jack grabbed his backpack and jumped out. He slammed the door and slapped the side panel. The truck lurched into motion. He watched it move off and disappear around a corner.
Jack turned and headed up the steps.
* * *
11
-13:06
The sound of the door roused Tom from semislumber. He’d been slumped before the TV, watching the end of the six o’clock news on some local channel and just beginning to nod off when a reporter broke in and started yammering about a bunch of Islamics blown away in New Jersey—as if anyone gave a damn.
Jack walked in with a backpack over one shoulder. He looked like Tom felt.
Tom rose and stepped into the front room.
“Hey, bro. Anything new on the Lilitongue front?”
Jack shook his head and stared at him. “I haven’t been able to turn up a thing. As you can see…”
He undid a few buttons on his plaid shirt and spread the edges. Tom repressed a gasp when he saw how close the Stain’s edges had grown.
“Oh, shit.”
“How about you, bro? Jack said, putting an edge on the word as he redid the buttons. “Been pounding the pavement and scouring the Internet to see how you might undo this?”
Tom knew he hadn’t done shit. But then, what could he do? What could anyone do against a faceless, mindless… thing?
He pointed to the closed door to Jack’s bedroom. “It’s still in there. Hasn’t budged.” He spread his hands. “I’m as helpless as everybody else.”
After a long stare Jack said, “Want to make yourself useful?”
“Sure. Anything.”
“Then follow me.”
First stop was the kitchen where Jack pulled a pistol and a Tupperware container from the backpack and laid them on the counter.
Tom pointed to the container. “Is that the—?”
“Stain remover? Yeah.”
Feeling his brother’s eyes boring into him, Tom kept his head down.
Jack knew neither Tom nor anyone else could trade places with him. So why the look?
Besides, Jack was where he was by choice.
Or was he? Maybe he’d seen no choice, been unable to imagine any other course of action when the Stain moved to Gia. Just as Gia had had no choice when she’d learned she could remove the Stain from her daughter.
And Vicky had acquired the Stain because he’d brought the Lilitongue into her world.
He heard Gia’s voice…
Why couldn’t you have left that thing where you found it?
All his fault…
He wished he could undo it all, but what was done was done. And he’d been relieved to hear that the Stain could be taken only twice. If not, Jack would think it only right that Tom complete the circle.
Not fair. No one had the right to ask that of him or anybody else.
Jack handed him the empty backpack and a flashlight and said, “Follow me.”
Tom did—straight to the closet next to the bathroom.
Taking orders, following a few feet behind… somewhere along the way he’d become Little Brother and Jack Big Brother. How had that happened?
When Jack opened the door a faint odor of cedar wafted out. He watched Jack kneel on the closet floor and pop a piece of molding loose from the base of its left side wall. He slid this back along the floor, then pulled on the cedar plank directly above it. When this came free he slid it back beside the molding.
“Shine that light in here.”
Tom aimed the flashlight over Jack’s shoulder and into the opening. He saw insulated pipes—most likely to the bathroom—but what strange insulation. It looked… decorated. Each pipe was festooned with little cardboard squares.
What the…?
He watched Jack reach in and start plucking them from the pipes like a man picking fruit from a tree. When he’d gathered a fistful he backhanded them to Tom.
“Stick these in the front compartment of the pack.”
Tom inspected them first. The paper squares had round Mylar windows front and back. And inside the windows—
Tom repressed a gasp. Coins. Gold coins.
He squinted at the top one. A new-looking 1925 twenty-dollar gold eagle. Next, a bright twenty-dollar Liberty head from 1907. And then a 1901 ten-dollar gold piece.
“Hey, the light,” Jack said.
“Oh, yeah.”
He’d been so distracted he’d let the beam drift.
Jack handed back more. Tom dropped the first batch into the pack and took the next. He knew nothing about coins but all these were old and gold and beautiful.
“Jack, are these things worth what I think they are?”
“Probably more. I’ve made a point of buying only top-grade stuff—MS-sixty-one or better.”
“I didn’t know you were a collector.”
“I’m not. I’m an investor.”
“But how much—?”
Jack handed back another batch.
“Are they worth? More than I paid for them, but that’s all I can tell you. I don’t keep a list and I don’t keep up on values.”
More rare coins flowing from the closet. The total value must have passed six figures already.
“How many do you have?”
Another handful came back.
“Don’t really know. Like I said, I don’t keep a list.”
“But isn’t it dangerous keeping it here in your apartment?”
“Fire’s my big worry. But it’s worth the ri
sk. This way I can always get to them. Unlike your Bermuda safe-deposit box.”