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 mother—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.
“Mr. Bahkti? This is Repairman 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 being refused. The tone was one that 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 two 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 don’t 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 had wanted to hang up first.
He walked north on Columbus Avenue, keeping to the shade on the right. It was opening time for some of the shops, 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 up 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 had 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. And, too, in Jack’s line of work he very often found it necessary to make other people angry in the course of serving a customer’s interests. Julio also kept an eye out for angry people.
So far, Julio had never failed him.
“Beer or business?”
“Before noon? What do you think?”
The remark earned Jack a brief dirty look from a sweaty old codger nursing a boilermaker.
Julio came out from behind the bar and followed Jack to a rear booth, drying his hands on a towel as he swaggered along. A daily regime with free weights and gymnastics had earned him thickly muscled arms and shoulders. His hair was wavy and heavily oiled, his skin swarthy, his moustache a pencil line along his upper lip.
“How many and when?”
“One. Ten-thirty.” Jack slipped into the last booth and sat with a clear view of the door. The rear exit was two steps away. “Name’s Bahkti. Sounds like he’s from Pakistan or someplace around there.”
“A man of color.”
“More color than you, no doubt.”
“Gotcha. Coffee?”
“Sure.”
Jack thought about seeing Gia later today. A nice thought. They’d meet, they’d touch, and Gia would remember what they’d had, and maybe… just maybe… she’d realize that he wasn’t such a bad guy after all. He began whistling through his teeth. Julio gave him a strange look as he returned with a coffee pot, a cup, and the morning’s Daily News.
“How come you’re in such a good mood?”
“Why not?”
“You been a grouch for months now, man.”
Jack hadn’t realized it had been so obvious. “Personal.”
Julio shrugged and poured him a cup of coffee. Jack sipped it black while he waited. He never liked first meetings with a customer. There was always a chance he wasn’t a customer but somebody with a score to settle. He got up and checked the exit door to make sure it was unlocked.
Two Con Ed workers came in for a coffee break. They took their coffee clear and golden with a foamy cap, poured into pilsner glasses as they watched the tv over the bar. Phil Donahue was interviewing three transvestite grammar school teachers; everyone on the screen, including Donahue, had green hair and pumpkin-colored complexions. Julio served the Con Ed men a second round, then came out from behind the bar and took a seat by the door.
Jack glanced at the paper. “WHERE ARE THE WINOS?” was the headline. The press was getting lots of mileage out of the rapid and mysterious dwindling of the city’s derelict population during the past few months.
At ten-thirty-two, Mr. Bahkti came in. No doubt it was him. He wore a white turban and a navy blue Nehru-type tunic. His dark skin seemed to blend into his clothes. For an instant after the door swung shut behind him, all Jack could see was a turban floating in the air at the other end of the dim tavern.
Julio approached him immediately. Words were exchanged and Jack noted the newcomer flinch away as Julio leaned against him. He seemed angry as Julio walked toward Jack with an elaborate shrug.
“He’s clean,” he said as he came back to Jack’s booth. “Clean but weird.”
“How do you read him?”
“That’s jus’ it—I don’t read him. He’s bottled up real tight. Nothing at all out of that guy. Nothing but creeps.”
“What?”
“Something ’bout him gives me the creeps, man. Wouldn’t want to get on his wrong side. You better be sure you can make him happy before you take him on.”
Jack drummed his fingers on the table. Julio’s reaction made him uneasy. The little man was all macho and braggadocio. He must have sensed something pretty unsettling about Mr. Bahkti to have even mentioned it.
“What’d you do to get him riled up?” Jack asked.
“Nothing special. He jus
t got real ticked off when I gave him my ’accidental frisk.’ Didn’t like that one bit. Do I send him back, or you wanna take off?”
Jack hesitated, toying with the idea of getting out now. After all, he probably was going to have to turn the man down anyway. But he had agreed to meet him, and the guy had arrived on time.
“Send him back and let’s get this over with.”
Julio waved Bahkti toward the booth and headed back to his place behind the bar.
Bahkti strolled toward Jack with a smooth, gliding gait that reeked of confidence and self-assurance. He was halfway down the aisle when Jack realized with a start that his left arm was missing at the shoulder. But there was no pinned-up empty sleeve—the jacket had been tailored without a left sleeve. He was a tall man—six-three, Jack guessed—lean but sturdy. Well into his forties, maybe fifty. The nose was long; he wore a sculpted beard, neatly trimmed to a point at the chin. What could be seen of his mouth was wide and thin-lipped. The whites of his deep walnut eyes almost glowed in the darkness of his face, reminding Jack of John Barrymore in Svengali.
He stopped at the edge of the facing banquette and looked down at Jack, taking his measure just as Jack was taking his.
2
Kusum Bahkti did not like this place called Julio’s, stinking as it did of grilled beef and liquor, and peopled with the lower castes. Certainly one of the foulest locations he had had the misfortune to visit in this foul city. He was probably polluting his karma merely by standing here.
And surely this very average-looking mid-thirtyish man sitting before him was not the one he was looking for. He looked like any American’s brother, anyone’s son, someone you would pass anywhere in this city and never notice. He looked too normal, too ordinary, too everyday to supply the services Kusum had been told about.
If I were home…
Yes. If he were home in Bengal, in Calcutta, he would have everything under control. A thousand men would be combing the city for the transgressor. He would be found, and he would wail and curse the hour of his birth before being sent on to another life. But here in America Kusum was reduced to an impotent supplicant standing before this stranger, asking for help. It made him sick.
“Are you the one?” he asked.
“Depends on who you’re looking for,” the man said.
Kusum noted the difficulty the American was having trying to keep his eyes off his truncated left shoulder.
“He calls himself Repairman Jack.”
The man spread his hands. “Here I am.”
This couldn’t be him. “Perhaps I have made a mistake.”
“Perhaps so,” said the American. He seemed preoccupied, not the least bit interested in Kusum or what problem he might have.
Kusum turned to go, deciding he was constitutionally incapable of asking the help of a stranger, especially this stranger, then changed his mind. By Kali, he had no choice!
He sat down across the table from Repairman Jack. “I am Kusum Bahkti.”
“Jack Nelson.” The American proffered his right hand.
Kusum could not bring himself to grasp it, yet he did not want to insult this man. He needed him.
“Mr. Nelson—”
“Jack, please.”
“Very well… Jack.” He was uncomfortable with such informality upon meeting. “Your pardon. I dislike to be touched. An Eastern prejudice.”
Jack glanced at his hand, as if inspecting it for dirt.
“I do not wish to offend—”
“Forget it. Who gave you my number?”
“Time is short… Jack”—it took conscious effort to use that first name—”and I must insist—”
“I always insist on knowing where the customer came from. Who?”
“Very well: Mr. Burkes at the U.K. Mission to the United Nations.” Burkes had answered Kusum’s frantic call this morning and had told him how well this Jack fellow had handled a very dangerous and delicate problem for the U.K. Mission during the Falklands crisis.
Jack nodded. “I know Burkes. You with the U.N.?”
Kusum knotted his fist and managed to tolerate the interrogation.
“Yes.”
“And I suppose you Pakistani delegates are pretty tight with the British.”
Kusum felt as if he had been slapped in the face. He half-started from his seat. “Do you insult me? I am not one of those Moslem—!” He caught himself. Probably an innocent error. Americans were ignorant of the most basic information. “I am from Bengal, a member of the Indian Delegation. I am a Hindu. Pakistan, which used to be the Punjab region of India, is a Moslem country.”
The distinction appeared to be completely lost on Jack.
“Whatever. Most of what I know about India I learned from watching Gunga Din about a hundred times. So tell me about your grandmother.”
Kusum was momentarily baffled. Wasn’t “Gunga Din” a poem? How did one watch a poem? He set his confusion aside.
“Understand,” he said, absently brushing at a fly that had taken a liking to his face, “that if this were my own country I would resolve the matter in my own fashion.”
“Where is she now?”
“In St. Clare’s hospital on West Fif—”
“I know where it is. What happened to her?”
“Her car broke down in the early hours of this morning. While her driver went to find a taxicab for her, she foolishly got out of the car. She was assaulted and beaten. If a police car hadn’t come by, she would have been killed.”
“Happens all the time, I’m afraid.”
A callous remark, ostensibly that of a city-dweller saving his pity for personal friends who became victims. But in the eyes Kusum detected a flash of emotion that told him perhaps this man could be reached.
“Yes, much to the shame of your city.”
“No one ever gets mugged on the streets of Bombay or Calcutta?”
Kusum shrugged and brushed again at the fly. “What takes place between members of the lower castes is of no importance. In my homeland even the most desperate street hoodlum would think many times before daring to lay a finger on one of my grandmother’s caste.”
Something in this remark seemed to annoy Jack. “Ain’t democracy wonderful,” the American said with a sour expression.
Kusum frowned, concealing his desperation. This was not going to work. There seemed to be instinctive antagonism between him and this Repairman Jack.
“I believe I have made a mistake. Mr. Burkes recommended you very highly, but I do not think you are capable of handling this particular task. Your attitude is most disrespectful—”
“What can you expect from a guy who grew up watching Bugs Bunny cartoons?”
“—and you do not appear to have the physical resources to accomplish what I have in mind.”
Jack smiled, as if used to this reaction. His elbows were on the table, his hands folded in front of him. Without the slightest hint of warning, his right hand blurred across the table towards Kusum’s face. Kusum steeled himself for the blow and prepared to lash out with his feet.
The blow never landed. Jack’s hand passed within a millimeter of Kusum’s face and snatched the fly out of the air in front of his nose. Jack went to a nearby door and released the insect into the fetid air of a back alley.
Fast, Kusum thought. Extremely fast. And what was even more important: He didn’t kill the fly. Perhaps this was the man after all.
3
Jack returned to his seat and studied the Indian. To his credit, Kusum hadn’t flinched. Either his reflexes were extremely slow, or he had something akin to copper wire for nerves. Jack figured Kusum’s reflexes to be pretty good.
Score one for each of us, he thought. He wondered how Kusum had lost that arm.
“The point is probably moot,” Jack said. “Finding a particular mugger in this city is like poking at a hornets’ nest to find the one that bit you. If she saw enough of him to identify a mug shot, she should go to the police and—”
“No police!”
Kusum said quickly.
Those were the very two words Jack was waiting to hear. If the police were involved, Jack would not be.
“They may well be successful eventually,” Kusum went on, “but they take much too long. This is a matter of the utmost urgency. My grandmother is dying. That is why I’ve gone outside official channels.”
“I don’t understand this whole thing.”
“Her necklace was stolen. It’s a priceless heirloom. She must have it back.”
“But you said she’s dying—”
“Before she dies! She must have it back before she dies!”
“Impossible. I can’t…” U.N. diplomat or not, the guy was obviously a nut. No use trying to explain how hard it would be just to find the mugger. After that, to learn the name of his fence, find that fence, and then hope that he hadn’t already removed whatever precious stones were in the necklace and melted down the settings, was simply beyond the wildest possibility. “It can’t be done.”
“You must do it! The man must be found. She scratched him across the eyes. There must be a way he can be traced!”
“That’s police work.”
“The police will take too long! It must be returned tonight!”
“I can’t.”
“You must!”
“The chances against finding that necklace are—”
“Try! Please!”
Kusum’s voice cracked on that last word, as if he had dragged it kicking and screaming from an unused part of his soul. Jack sensed how much it cost the Indian to say it. Here was an inordinately proud man begging him for help. He was moved.
“All right. I’ll do this: Let me talk to your grandmother. Let me see what I’ve got to work with.”
“That will not be necessary.”
“Of course it will be necessary. She’s the only one who knows what he looks like.” Was he trying to keep him away from his grandmother?
Kusum looked uncomfortable. “She’s quite distraught. Incoherent. She raves. I do not wish to expose her to a stranger.”
Jack said nothing. He merely stared at Kusum and waited. Finally the Indian relented.
“I shall take you there immediately.”
The Complete Adversary Cycle: The Keep, the Tomb, the Touch, Reborn, Reprisal, Nightworld (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack) Page 41