by F. Paul
Jack looked at Kolabati's glass. "What's that?"
"Kir."
He wanted a beer, but this was the Waldorf. "I'll have one of those."
She laughed. "Don't be silly! Bring him a beer. They have Bass Ale here."
"I'm not much for ale. But I'll take a Beck's light if you've got it." At least he'd be drinking imported beer. What he really wanted was a Rolling Rock.
"Very good." The maître a" finally went away.
"How'd you know I like beer?" The confidence with which she had said it made him uneasy.
"A lucky guess. I was sure you wouldn't like kir." She studied him. "So… you're the man who retrieved the necklace. It was a seemingly impossible task, yet you did it. I owe you a debt of undying gratitude."
"It was only a necklace."
"A very important necklace."
"Maybe, but it's not as if I saved her life or anything."
"Perhaps you did. Perhaps return of the necklace gave her the strength and the hope to go on living. It was very important to her. Our whole family wears them—every one of us. We're never without it."
"Never?"
"Never."
Full of eccentricities, these Bahktis.
The Beck's arrived, delivered by the maitre a" himself, who poured the first glassful, lingered a moment, then wandered off with obvious reluctance.
"You realize, don't you," Kolabati said as Jack quaffed a few ounces of his beer, "that you have made two lifelong friends in the past twenty-four hours: my brother and myself."
"What about your grandmother?"
Kolabati blinked. "Her, too, of course. Do not take our gratitude lightly, Jack. Not mine. And especially not my brother's—Kusum never forgets a favor or a slight."
"Just what does your brother do at the U.N.?" It was small talk. Jack really wanted to know all about Kolabati, but didn't want to appear too interested.
"I'm not sure. A minor post." She must have noticed Jack's puzzled frown. "Yes, I know—he doesn't seem to be a man who'd be satisfied with any sort of minor post. Believe me, he isn't. Back home his name is known in every province."
"Why?"
"He is the leader of a new Hindu fundamentalist movement. He and many others believe that India and Hinduism have become too Westernized. He wants a return to the old ways. He's been picking up a surprising number of followers over the years and developing considerable political clout."
"Sounds like the Moral Majority over here. What is he—the Jerry Falwell of India?"
Kolabati's expression became grim. "Perhaps more. His singleness of purpose can be frightening at times. Some fear he may become the Ayatolla Khomeini of India. That's why everyone was shocked early last year when he suddenly requested diplomatic assignment at the London Embassy. It was granted immediately—no doubt the government was delighted to have him out of the country. Recently he was transferred here to the U.N.—again at his request. I'm sure his followers and adversaries back home are mystified, but I know my brother. I'll bet he's getting enough international experience under his belt so he can go home and become a credible candidate for a major political office. But enough of Kusum…"
Jack felt Kolabati's hand against his chest, pushing him back against the cushions.
"Get comfortable now," she said, her dark eyes boring into him, "and tell me all about yourself. I want to know everything, especially how you came to be Repairman Jack."
Jack took another swallow of beer and forced himself to pause. He had a sudden urge to tell her everything, to open up his whole past to her. It frightened him. He never opened up to anyone except Abe. Why Kolabati? Perhaps it was because she already knew something about him; perhaps because she was so effusive in her gratitude for achieving the "impossible" and returning her grandmother's necklace. Telling all was out of the question, but pieces of the truth wouldn't hurt. The question was: what to tell, what to edit?
"It just sort of happened."
"There had to be a first time. Start there. Tell me about it."
He settled into the cushions, adjusting his position until the lump of the holstered Mauser .380 sat comfortably in the small of his back, and began telling her about Mr. Canelli, his first fix-it customer.
4
Summer was drawing to a close. He was seventeen, still living in Johnson, New Jersey, a small, semi-rural town in Burlington County. His father was working as a C.P.A. then, and his mother was still alive. His brother was in the New Jersey State College of Medicine and his sister was in Rutgers pre-law.
On the corner down the street from his house lived Mr. Vito Canelli, a retired widower. From the time the ground thawed until the time it froze again, he worked in his yard. Especially on his lawn. He seeded and fertilized every couple of weeks, watered it daily. Mr. Canelli had the greenest lawn in the county. It was usually flawless. The only times it wasn't was when someone cut the corner turning right off 541 onto Jack's street. The first few times were probably accidents, but then some of the more vandalism-prone kids in the area started making a habit of it. Driving across "the old wop's" lawn became a Friday and Saturday night ritual. Finally, old Mr. Canelli put up a three-foot white picket fence and that seemed to put an end to it. Or so he thought.
It was early. Jack was walking up to the highway towing the family Toro behind him. For the past few summers he had made his money doing gardening chores and cutting grass around town. He liked the work and liked even better the fact that he could adjust his hours almost any way he wished.
When he came into view of Mr. Canelli's yard he stopped and gaped.
The picket fence was down—smashed and scattered all over the lawn in countless white splinters. The small flowering ornamental trees that blossomed in varied colors each spring-dwarf crabapples, dogwoods—had been broken off a foot above the ground. Yews and junipers were flattened and ground into the dirt. The plaster pink flamingos that everybody laughed about were shattered and crushed to powder. And the lawn… there weren't just tire tracks across it, there were long, wide gouges up to six inches deep. Whoever had done it hadn't been satisfied with simply driving across the lawn and flattening some grass; they had skidded and slewed their car or cars around until the entire yard had been ripped to pieces.
As Jack approached for a closer look, he saw a figure standing at the corner of the house looking out at the ruins. It was Mr. Canelli. His shoulders were slumped and quaking. Sunlight glistened off the tears on his cheeks. Jack knew little about Mr. Canelli. He was a quiet man who bothered no one. He had no wife, no children or grandchildren around. All he had was his yard: his hobby, his work of art, the focus of what was left of his life. Jack knew from his own small-time landscaping jobs around town how much sweat was invested in a yard like that. No man should have to see that kind of effort wantonly destroyed. No man that age should be reduced to standing in his own yard and crying.
Mr. Canelli's helplessness unleashed something inside Jack. He had lost his temper before, but the rage he felt within him at that moment bordered on insanity. His jaw was clamped so tightly his teeth ached; his entire body trembled as his muscles bunched into knots. He had a good idea of who had done it and could confirm his suspicions with little difficulty. He had to fight off a wild urge to find them and run the Toro over their faces a few times.
Reason won out. No sense landing himself in jail while they got to play the roles of unfortunate victims.
There was another way. It leaped full-blown into Jack's head as he stood there.
He walked over to Mr. Canelli and said, "I can fix it for you."
The old man blotted his face with a handkerchief and glared at him. "Fix it why? So you an' you friends can destroy it again?"
"I'll fix it so it never happens again."
Mr. Canelli looked at him a long time without speaking, then said, "Come inside. You tell me how."
Jack didn't give him all the details, just a list of the materials he would need. He added fifty dollars for labor. Mr. Canelli agreed but said h
e'd hold the fifty until he saw results. They shook hands and had a small glass of barbarone to seal the deal.
Jack began the following day. He bought three dozen small spreading yews and planted them three and a half feet apart along the perimeter of the corner lot while Mr. Canelli started restorative work on his lawn. They talked while they worked. Jack learned that the damage had been done by a smallish, low-riding, light-colored car and a dark van. Mr. Canelli hadn't been able to get the license plate numbers. He had called the police but the vandals were long gone by the time one of the local cops came by. The police had been called before, but the incidents were so random and, until now, of such little consequence, that they hadn't taken the complaints too seriously.
The next step was to secure three dozen four-foot lengths of six-inch pipe and hide them in Mr. Canelli's garage. They used a post-hole digger to open a three-foot hole directly behind each yew. Late one night, Jack and Mr. Canelli mixed up a couple of bags of cement in the garage and filled each of the four-foot iron pipes. Three days later, again under cover of darkness, the cement-filled pipes were inserted into the holes behind the yews and the dirt packed tight around them. Each bush now had twelve to fifteen inches of makeshift lolly column hidden within its branches.
The white picket fence was rebuilt around the yard and Mr. Canelli continued to work at getting his lawn back into shape. The only thing left for Jack to do was sit back and wait.
It took a while. August ended, Labor Day passed, school began again. By the third week of September, Mr. Canelli had the yard graded again. The new grass had sprouted and was filling in nicely.
And that, apparently, was what they had been waiting for.
The sounds of sirens awoke Jack at one-thirty a.m. on a Sunday morning. Red lights were flashing up at the corner by Mr. Canelli's house. Jack pulled on his jeans and ran to the scene.
Two first aid rigs were pulling away as he approached the top of the block. Straight ahead a black van lay on its side by the curb. The smell of gasoline filled the air. In the wash of light from a street lamp overhead he saw that the undercarriage was damaged beyond repair: The left front lower control arm was torn loose; the floor pan was ripped open, exposing a bent drive shaft; the differential was knocked out of line, and the gas tank was leaking. A fire truck stood by, readying to hose down the area.
He walked on to the front of Mr. Canelli's house, where a yellow Camaro was stopped nose-on to the yard. The windshield was spider-webbed with cracks and steam plumed around the edges of the sprung hood. A quick glance under the hood revealed a ruptured radiator, bent front axle, and cracked engine block.
Mr. Canelli stood on his front steps. He waved Jack over and stuck a fifty-dollar bill into his hand.
Jack stood beside him and watched until both vehicles were towed away, until the street had been hosed down, until the fire truck and police cars were gone. He was bursting inside. He felt he could leap off the steps and fly around the yard if he wished. He could not remember ever feeling so good. Nothing smokable, ingestible, or injectable would ever give him a high like this.
He was hooked.
5
One hour, three beers, and two kirs later, it dawned upon Jack that he had told much more than he had intended. He had gone on from Mr. Canelli to describe some of his more interesting fix-it jobs. Kolabati seemed to enjoy them all, especially the ones where he had taken special pains to make the punishment fit the crime.
A combination of factors had loosened his tongue. First of all was a feeling of privacy. He and Kolabati seemed to have the far end of this wing of Peacock Alley to themselves. There were dozens of conversations going on in the wing, blending into a susurrant undertone that wound around them, masking their own words and making them indistinguishable from the rest. But most of all, there was Kolabati, so interested, so intent upon what he had to say that he kept talking, saying more than he wished, saying anything to keep that fascinated look in her eyes. He talked to her as he had talked to no one else he could remember—except perhaps Abe. Abe had learned about him over a period of years and had seen much of it happen. Kolabati was getting a big helping in one sitting.
Throughout his narrative, Jack watched for her reaction, fearing she might turn away like Gia had. But Kolabati was obviously not like Gia. Her eyes fairly glowed with enthusiasm and… admiration.
It was, however, time to shut up. He had said enough. They sat for a quiet moment, toying with their empty glasses. Jack was about to ask her if she wanted a refill when she turned to him.
"You don't pay taxes, do you."
The statement startled him. Uneasy, he wondered how she knew.
"Why do you say that?"
"I sense you are a self-made outcast. Am I right?"
" 'Self-made outcast.' I like that."
"Liking it is not the same as answering the question."
"I consider myself a sort of sovereign state. I don't recognize other governments within my borders."
"But you've exiled yourself from more than the government. You live and work completely outside society. Why?"
"I'm not an intellectual. I can't give you a carefully reasoned manifesto. It's just the way I want to live."
Her eyes bored into him. "I don't accept that. Something cut you off. What was it?"
This woman was uncanny! It was as if she could look into his mind and read all his secrets. Yes—there had been an incident that had caused him to withdraw from the rest of "civilized" society. But he couldn't tell her about it. He felt at ease with Kolabati, but he wasn't about to confess to murder.
"I'd rather not say."
She studied him. "Are your parents alive?"
Jack felt his insides tighten. "Only my father."
"I see. Did your mother die of natural causes?"
She can read minds! That's the only explanation!
"No. And I don't want to say any more."
"Very well. But however you came to be what you are, I'm sure it was by honorable means."
Her confidence in him simultaneously warmed and discomfitted him. He wanted to change the subject.
"Hungry?"
"Famished!"
"Any place in particular you'd like to go? There are some Indian restaurants—"
Her eyebrows arched. "If I were Chinese, would you offer me egg rolls? Am I dressed in a sari?"
No. That clinging white dress looked like it came straight from a designer's shop in Paris.
"French, then?"
"I lived in France a while. Please: I live in America now. I want American food. "
"Well, I like to eat where I can relax."
"I want to go to Beefsteak Charlie's."
Jack burst out laughing. "There's one near where I live! I go there all the time! Mainly because when it comes to food, I tend to be impressed more by quantity than by quality."
"Good. Then you know the way?"
He half-rose, then sat down again. "Wait a minute. They serve ribs there. Indians don't eat pork, do they?"
"No. You're thinking of Pakistanis. They're Moslems and Moslems don't eat pork. I'm Hindu. We don't eat beef."
"Then why Beefsteak—?"
"I hear they have a good salad bar, with lots of shrimp. And 'all the beer, wine, or sangria you can drink.' "
"Then let's go," Jack said, rising and presenting his arm.
She slipped into her shoes and was up and close beside him in a single liquid motion. Jack threw a ten and a twenty on the table and started to walk away.
"No receipt?" Kolabati asked with a sly smile. "I'm sure you can make tonight deductible."
"I use the short form."
She laughed. A delightful sound.
On their way toward the front of Peacock Alley, Jack was very much aware of the warm pressure of Kolabati's hand on the inside of his arm and around his biceps, just as he was aware of the veiled attention they drew from all sides as they passed.
From Peacock Alley in the Waldorf on Park Avenue to Beefsteak Charlie'
s on the West Side—culture shock. But Kolabati moved from one stratum to the other as easily as she moved from garnish to garnish at the crowded salad bar, where the attention she attracted was much more openly admiring than at the Waldorf. She seemed infinitely adaptable, and Jack found that fascinating. In fact, he found everything about her fascinating.
He had begun probing her past during the cab ride uptown, learning that she and her brother were from a wealthy family in the Bengal region of India, that Kusum had lost his arm as a boy in a train wreck that had killed both of their parents, after which they had been raised by the grandmother Jack had met the night before. That explained their devotion to her. Kolabati was currently teaching in Washington at the Georgetown University School of Linguistics and now and again consulting for the School of Foreign Service.
Jack watched her eat the cold shrimp piled before her. Her fingers were nimble, her movements delicate but sure as she peeled the carapaces, dipped the pink bodies in either cocktail sauce or the little plate of Russian dressing she had brought to the table, then popped them into her mouth. She ate with a gusto he found exciting. It was rare these days to find a woman who so relished a big meal. He was sick to death of talk about calories and pounds and waistlines. Calorie-counting was for during the week. When he was out to eat with a woman, he wanted to see her relish the food as much as he did. It became a shared vice. It linked them in the sin of enjoying a full belly and reveling in the tasting, chewing, swallowing, and washing down that led up to it. They became partners in crime. It was erotic as all hell.
The meal was over.
Kolabati leaned back in her chair and stared at him. Between them lay the remains of a number of salads, two steak bones, an empty pitcher of sangria for her, an empty beer pitcher for him, and the casings of at least a hundred shrimp.
"We have met the enemy," Jack said, "and he is in us. Just as well you don't like steak, though. They were on the tough side."
"Oh, I like steak. It's just that beef is supposed to be bad for your karma."
As she spoke her hand crept across the table and found his. Her touch was electrifying—a shock literally ran up his arm. Jack swallowed and tried to keep the conversation going. No point in letting her see how she was getting to him.