Repairman Jack [05]-Hosts (30 page)

"Think he's got cancer or something?"

Stan didn't remember a sign on the building that said anything about cancer. What was going on in Joe's head?

"How would I know? And what difference does it make?"

"Because if he's got the Big C, maybe we don't do him right away. Maybe we wait and watch him rot for a few months, then do him."

They stood way up toward Sixth near a framing place where they had a long view of the front of the apartment building. Their guy hadn't gone in yet. He hung outside the front door talking to his lady.

"That'd sort of be like putting him out of his misery, don't you think?"

Joe kept staring at their guy. "Maybe, but I don't want no lousy tumor putting him away. We gotta do that. We gotta be the ones that sign his death certificate. Ain't that right?"

Stan wondered if Joe meant 'death sentence' but didn't get to ask because suddenly Joe was grabbing his arm.

"Shit! What're they doin'? They're splittin'!"

Their guy had wrapped his arms around his girl in a clinch that had the look of a good-bye hug.

"Get moving!" Stan said. "Other side of the street. Follow him if he takes off."

Although he worried about Joe losing control while tailing this guy, he couldn't risk going himself. Stan still looked pretty much the same as he had two years ago. This guy would recognize him if he spotted him. Joe, with his extra forty pounds and semi-beard had a better chance of going unnoticed.

Joe was on his way. "What're you gonna do?" he said over his shoulder.

"Follow her inside. See where she lives."

"Excellent!"

Sure enough, the couple disengaged and their guy started walking away. Stan got moving, quick-walking along the street side of the parked cars as the woman turned toward the front door of the apartment building. She keyed the lock, pulled the door open, and stepped inside. Stan dodged to the sidewalk and dashed for the door, catching its edge with barely an inch to spare.

As he stepped into the vestibule he spotted the elevator standing open at the far end, but it was empty. Where the hell…?

Directly to his right he saw a door marked STAIRWAY swinging closed, and heard footfalls echoing. Keeping at least a flight between them, Stan followed her up to the third floor. As he stepped out into the hallway he spotted her to his left, moving. Stan turned right and ambled down the hall in the opposite direction. He fished in his pocket for his keys and dropped them on the carpet. While stooping to pick them up he watched her out of the corner of his eye, saw her disappear into a doorway.

When her door had closed, he reversed and hurried toward it.

Pleased, Stan headed back to the stairway.

Now we know where
she
lives, he thought. Let's hope that's where he lives too.

13

That feeling again.

Jack did a slow turn, giving the small, crowded platform of the Twenty-eighth Street subway station a full inspection.

Somebody watching him. Could feel it. Trouble was, the Friday afternoon rush hour was just getting started and he was surrounded by a horde of possible suspects.

The question was who? Probably some member of Holdstock's cult. Jeanette and Holdstock he'd recognize immediately, and maybe a couple of others, but not all. One of them could be standing beside him right now… or behind him…

That possibility pushed Jack back from the edge of the platform.

Why follow me?

To keep tabs? Or find out where he lived?

The notion jolted him. That was where he was headed now: a stop home to run a few errands, then return to Kate's later with the car, in case they needed to take another trip to the Bronx.

The uptown 9 rattled into the station then, and the crowd pressed forward. Jack held his spot, watching for the slightest hint of undue interest in the commuters eddying around him.

Nothing.

But the watched feeling persisted.

Keeping to the rear of the press, Jack shuffled with the rest toward the nearest open door. He squeezed aboard backward, the tips of his shoes barely inside the door line, and waited. As soon as the doors began to move he stepped back onto the platform. He turned and scanned the length of the train as all the doors slid shut, watching for someone else making a last-second exit. But everyone stayed put as the doors closed, sealing all the passengers within.

The train began to roll, rumbling out of the station. Jack watched the windows, searching the visible faces for signs of surprise or anger. He saw only boredom and fatigue.

Had he let the train go by for nothing? Maybe. He knew he had paranoid tendencies—with good reason, he always insisted—and this wouldn't be the first time he'd expended extra time and effort because of a vague suspicion. He considered it time and effort well spent. Never be too busy to walk that extra mile… just in case.

And he was going to do a little extra walking right now—over to Eighth Avenue to catch a train there.

Started to move, then stopped, noticing something.

The feeling of being watched… gone.

14

Stan had found a spot on Seventh Avenue to wait for Joe. He'd just settled himself onto a shady bench near the Fashion Institute when his cell phone rang.

"Lost the fucker," said Joe's voice.

Even through the tiny speaker Stan could feel the heat of his brother's barely suppressed rage.

"He spot you?"

"Couldn't have. I kept my distance and he never even looked at me. Fucker must have a sixth sense or something. You pin down his apartment?"

"Sure did. Three-C. Checked the mailbox downstairs. Says the place belongs to 'J. Vega.'"

"J. Vega, eh? 'J' as in 'Jack'? I like it. You keep an eye on the door so we know when he comes back. I'm goin' home to put a few things together."

"What few things?"

"I'll show you when I get back. See you soon."

Stan hit the OFF button. If Joe wouldn't discuss the few things on the phone, that meant they weren't legal. But Stan had a pretty good idea of what Joe was going to put together. Something that went
boom
.

15

Kate approached the door cautiously. Who could be knocking? No one had buzzed from the vestibule. She peeked through the keyhole, half-expecting to see Jack. Instead she found a heavyset man in coveralls.

"Yes?"

The voice filtered through the closed door. "Bell Atlantic, ma'am. We got reports of line trouble all through the building. Any problems?"

"No. I don't think so."

"It's with incoming calls."

She wished he'd speak louder. Did he say incoming calls? How would she know if an incoming call hadn't got through? What if Jeanette or Jack—or, dear lord, one of the kids—were trying to get through to her.

Kate reached for the knob, then hesitated. She'd heard horror stories about situations like this—rapists posing as servicemen. She slipped on the chain latch and opened the door a few inches.

He looked convincing with his gray coveralls and toolbox.

"Can I see some ID?"

"Sure."

He unclipped the badge that hung on an elastic tether from his pocket and handed it through. It certainly seemed authentic, and identified the man as Harold Moses, Bell Atlantic employee. But the photo…

Kate looked up again, comparing the picture to the real thing.

"I know, I know," he said with a sheepish grin. "I quit smoking and I'm the size of a house."

The smile did it for Kate—the same as in the photo.

"Is there any way you can come back later? It's not my place and—"

"Well, it's late and if I don't do it today it could be another week. We've got trunk line problems all over the city."

No incoming calls for a week? Kate unlatched the door and handed back the badge.

"Okay. I guess you'd better check it out."

"Only take a couple of minutes," he said, stepping past her and looking around the front area.

Immediately Kate wished she hadn't let him in. She hadn't sensed it when he was in the hall, but now, enclosed in the same room with him, she found him frightening. He seemed so tense and he radiated… something. She couldn't put her finger on what it was but it seemed malevolent, as if his overstuffed coveralls were bursting with rage instead of flesh. And those narrow eyes, darting everywhere, as if searching…

But when he spoke he was all business. "How many phones you got, ma'am?"

"Three," she told him. She wanted to run out into the hall but kept her cool. "One in the kitchen and two more in the bedrooms."

He placed his toolbox on the kitchen counter and she noticed for the first time that he wore an oversized work glove on his left hand—only his left.

"Okay. I'll work through this one; but I'll need you on one of the others."

"Any particular one?"

He shrugged. "Your choice."

He barely looked her way, didn't seem at all interested in her. Kate began to relax. This strange business with Jeanette seemed to have shifted her imagination into high gear.

After an instant's hesitation she started for the bedroom. "Okay. What do I do?"

"Just pick it up and keep talking. Don't dial—just talk. Count from one to a hundred if you want. Anything."

He waved his left hand as he spoke and Kate saw that some of the fingers of the glove looked empty and others looked stretched to the limit.

Wondering if his deformity was congenital or accidental, Kate entered the bedroom; she picked up the receiver and started counting.

She heard the kitchen phone come off the hook. "That's good," the serviceman told her. "Keep it up. Don't stop."

Through her receiver she listened to him whistling softly as he rummaged through his toolbox. She heard tape rip and wondered what he was doing, but the phone cord didn't stretch far enough to reach the door. She looked around for her pocketbook and saw it on the dresser. At least she knew he wasn't pilfering her wallet.

After three minutes or so she heard a series of beeps through the receiver, then the man's voice.

"Okay, ma'am. All set."

Kate hung up and returned to the front room to find the man snapping the clasps on his toolbox.

"That's it?"

He nodded. "Yours was okay. Have a nice day."

"You too. Thanks."

As she closed the door behind him she wondered at her earlier apprehensions. Just now he'd seemed a different man, calm and serene, as if he'd been relieved of a great burden. Almost… happy.

How silly she'd been.

16

Joe opened the rear door of the car, dumped his toolbox on the floor, then dropped into the front passenger seat.

"Done!"

Stan looked at him. "Fine. And now that it's done, you mind telling me just what it is that's done?"

Half an hour ago Joe had arrived in this stolen Taurus and parked it downstream from the apartment building. He'd looked like a new man—showered, shaved, and dressed like a serviceman. He'd been coy, refusing to say what he was up to until he'd done it.

"Left a little gift for our guy. I was afraid I wasn't going to get in, what with that obsolete Bell Atlantic ID from the old days, but she bought it."

"Lucky. How big a gift?"

Joe grinned. "A brick."

"A
whole
brick?"

"Damn right."

Stan closed his eyes. Before the Feds had closed in they'd managed to salvage part of their stash of army-issue C-4—foot-long bricks, two inches wide and an inch thick, neatly wrapped in olive-drab cellophane. Lovely stuff. Stable enough to play catch with, still soft and moldable at minus-seventy degrees, no extrudation even at one-hundred-seventy.

In Nam he'd come up with other uses for it beyond explosions. Starting fires, for instance. Cut an inch-thick slice off a block, put a match to it, and instant fire. Stank but it burned hot enough to ignite wet wood. One thing you had to remember, though, was if you wanted to put out burning C-4, you drowned it. You did not—repeat,
not
—stomp on it. He once saw a guy lose the front end of his foot trying that. Stan even learned the meaning of detonation velocity, and that C-4's was a devastating 8,100 meters per second.

And Joe had set a whole brick of it in that apartment. Shit.

He pressed the buttons that raised the windows and swiveled toward his brother.

"Joe… an old building like that… you just might bring the whole thing down."

A beautiful building… a shame to mess it up.

"Yeah, maybe. But probably not."

"At the very least it'll take out most of the third floor and both apartments above and below his, and blow off the whole front of the building."