Jack-in-the-Box

by William W. Johnstone

  “Twenty,” the girl corrected. “The Master’s choice.”

  “When was it doubled?”

  “That’s my option,” the girl giggled. “And so what?” she shrugged that away. “You pays your money, you takes your chances.” She giggled obscenely and brazenly hunched her slender hips at the woman.

  “You are beyond redemption!” Morgan said, disgust in her voice. “You are no more than offal on a slaughterhouse floor.”

  “Happy days are here again!” the girl sang, spinning around and around on the floor. As she spun madly, her eyes caught movement outside the huge old home. A car was being parked across the street.

  Nora stopped her spinning. Her body was facing Morgan, but her head remained grotesquely, impossibly twisted, the back of her head toward the woman. Nora’s eyes watched a man get out of the car. He walked across the street, carrying a briefcase.

  Her head turned slowly, her dark eyes staring once more at Morgan. “Your time is here, old Christian woman,” she said. “How does it feel knowing you are about to die?”

  “I don’t know any such thing, girl.” But Morgan did know. Fear touched her. But also hope; not for herself, but hope nevertheless. She had found Nora’s weakness at last. One of them. The girl was too sure of herself. Too much in love with self. She must get that information to Sam. Armed with that, he might have a fighting chance. A slim one at best, with Otto’s people after him, but still a chance.

  “You are an arrogant little slut, aren’t you?” Morgan asked.

  “Slut? My, what an apt choice of words. Yes. That is what I am about to become, auntie dear. And you are going to play a very active part in your own demise. Isn’t that amusing, you old hag?”

  Morgan was confused. She could no longer read the child’s mind. A fog seemed to cover Nora’s thoughts. A sick feeling centered itself in the pit of Morgan’s stomach. Her fear became stronger.

  Nora sensed it, and laughed. The girl spun around, racing toward the front door, skipping happily along.

  “Wait!” Morgan cried. “Where are you going? What are you doing?”

  “I’m about to get raped, auntie hag. Isn’t that delightful?”

  “You’re not only evil—you’re going mad!”

  “No, auntie baby,” the girl called over her shoulder. “You heard me. I’m going to get raped!” Nora paused long enough to freeze Morgan with one glance. Her powers were growing stronger with every passing moment; she rooted the woman to the carpet. Morgan could move only her eyes.

  Nora flung open the door, startling the man standing on the cold, windy porch.

  “Hi!” she said. “My name is Nora. What’s your name?”

  “Uh . . . Herb Peery. I’m looking for the Carson house. Could you help me?”

  “No. But you can certainly help me, Mr. Peery.” She opened the door wider. “Won’t you please come in?”

  Weird kid, Herb thought. He could see an elderly woman standing in the room off to his right. The woman stood motionless. Rock-still.

  Nora followed his eyes. “Oh, that’s my auntie,” she said. “She lives here. I’m just visiting. She can tell you where the Carson house is, I’m sure. Please come in.”

  “Well,” Herb said. “Sure. Why not?”

  And Herb stepped into his own private little hell.

  21

  Herb followed the pretty little girl toward the elderly woman. He couldn’t figure out what was the matter with the old gal. She just stood there like a piece of carved granite.

  It was her eyes that held Herb’s attention. The woman seemed to be trying to say something through her eyes.

  Then Herb stopped. Not of his own volition. He tried to move. He could not. He could not move any part of his body. He was paralyzed. Herb panicked, his heart rate quickening and his blood pressure soaring. He tried to speak. No words would form on his tongue. His eyes followed the pretty little girl. They widened in disbelief as she smiled at him.

  “Enjoying yourself, Mr. Peery?” she asked.

  Herb grunted in fear.

  “Not very articulate today, huh, Mr. Peery?”

  Herb grunted.

  Nora ripped open her shirt, the buttons popping and flying about the room.

  Herb tried to scream at her to stop. All he could do was grunt and gurgle, the words a mass of incomprehensible noises.

  Nora tugged and jerked at her expensive jeans, breaking the button and ripping apart the zipper.

  Herb started sweating. He grunted in panic. Spittle oozed from his mouth to dribble down his chin.

  Nora stepped out of her jeans and walked toward him.

  Herb wanted desperately to twist away from the child, but he could not move. He knew what she was going to do. But the why of it baffled him.

  He raised his eyes and looked over at the old woman. Her eyes shifted, touching his from across the room. She seemed to be struggling. But against what? Herb wondered.

  A small patch of fire erupted from the girl’s shoulder, the bare flesh burning. She screamed in pain and whirled around, her eyes darkening in fury. She slapped out the tiny blaze. Her hair started to smoke. Then her eyes glowed, and the old woman dropped her hard gaze. The smoke ceased. Nora turned around once more to face the man.

  Clad only in panties, she unbuckled Herb’s belt and unzipped his trousers. His pants fell around his ankles.

  Nora’s hands ripped open his boxer shorts, tossing them aside. He heard her laugh—a strange-sounding laugh, more like a man’s—as her fingers touched his nakedness.

  Herb experienced a few seconds of weightlessness as his body was lifted off the floor and laid stretched out on the carpet on his back.

  Nora knelt beside him, her fingers touching and stroking him. Herb mentally fought away the touch of her fingers. He tried to think of everything he could except the touch of this crazy little girl, but despite himself, Herb found himself responding. Something was wrong with his mind. Nothing seemed to be right or logical. He felt all will to control his actions leave him. He lay on his back on the floor, helpless to do anything.

  Morgan watched in disgust as the girl impaled herself on the helpless man’s stiffness. Nora fought back a scream as blood stained her inner thighs. She worked herself up and down until she felt the man involuntarily ejaculate. She pulled away from him and ran upstairs to her aunt’s bedroom. She jerked open a drawer and took out a little pearl-handled stainless steel .25-caliber pistol. She jacked a round into the chamber and ran back downstairs.

  Calmly and systematically she turned over a chair, a small writing desk, a lamp. She mussed a throw rug in the hall. Then she coolly stood over the man and shot him twice in the face. The second slug entered his right eye and penetrated the brain. The sound of gunshots did not leave the confines of the house.

  Nora wiped the pistol free of her fingerprints and put it in Morgan’s hand. She closed the fingers around the butt and pointed the gun at a wall. She pulled the trigger twice, the slugs banging into the dark paneling of the room.

  “Drop it,” Nora commanded.

  The gun fell to the floor and went off with a cracking, spiteful sound.

  “Run in place,” Nora commanded.

  Morgan’s feet began moving up and down. “Faster, faster!” Nora said.

  Morgan had no choice but to comply. She no longer had any will left to fight. She was flushed and her chest heaved for breath.

  Nora knew the old woman had already had two heart attacks. This shouldn’t take too long. To hasten matters, Nora began prodding her with a poker, jabbing at her buttocks, but not hard enough to leave any bruises.

  Morgan ran in place for five minutes, much longer than Nora had anticipated. “Die, you old bag!” Nora said. “Hurry up and drop dead.”

  Morgan ran in place. Even when the phone rang, she continued running. Nora picked up the phone, standing naked, dried blood staining her thighs. It was her mother.

  “Yes, mother,” Nora said. “Everything is fine. Aunt Morgan is asleep. Yes, I’m fin
e. Oh, I have to go now, mother. There is a man at the door. Oh, mother! I’m sure it’s just a salesman or someone like that. Yes. I’ll see you soon. Goodbye, mummy.”

  Nora hung up and laughed and laughed.

  She looked at Morgan. “You old bitch. Die, goddammit.”

  Morgan began staggering in place. She clutched at her chest and cried out once. She fell to the floor and was still.

  Nora bent over her, checking her pulse. The goddammed old bag was still alive!

  Then the girl smiled as Morgan attempted to speak. Her words were a babbled mass of nothing. She had suffered a stroke. Nora smiled and picked up the poker she had been tormenting the old woman with. She turned the woman over on her face and savagely struck her on the back of the head with the poker.

  Wiping the poker clean of her prints, Nora fitted the poker into Herb’s hand and tossed it to one side. She straightened up and looked around her. She smiled in satisfaction. Then she forced herself to cry, the tears running in tiny silver rivers down her face. She became hysterical. She walked to the phone and dialed the police emergency number.

  “Please help me!” she told the person answering the call. “I’ve just been raped!”

  * * *

  Sam slowly replaced the receiver and turned to the others. “That was Jeanne. It seems a man came into the Vincinci home in Bridgeport and knocked Morgan out. He then raped Nora and was killed by Morgan. She shot him, then suffered a stroke. She is completed paralyzed and unable to speak.”

  “Everybody present who believes that will please stand up and whistle Dixie,” Weaver said drily.

  Nobody jumped up and started whistling.

  Weaver sighed and stood up. “I’ll get on up to Bridgeport and do some snooping on the dead man’s background.”

  “No need to,” Sam said. “We all know Nora set him up.”

  “Let’s be sure.” Paul started for the door.

  “Paul?” Sam stopped him. “When Nora is released from the hospital, I’d like a couple of your men to tail her. I’d also like to know everyone Nora and Jeanne and Phil talk with.”

  “Good idea,” Paul agreed. “I’ll get on it.” Then he was gone into the gathering dusk of approaching night.

  Early Sunday morning, Paul called in.

  “Herb Peery was a solid, straight, no-nonsense guy. Big church worker. Very, very happily married. Four kids. Never been in trouble in his life. Married his college sweetheart twenty-two years ago. As far as I can find out, the guy’s never even looked at another woman.”

  “How are the police handling this?” Sam asked.

  “Rape and attempted murder. Nothing there to point anywhere else.”

  “Morgan?”

  “Not good. The doctors say she’s just barely hanging on. They say it was a quote-unquote ‘miracle’ she managed to get to her pistol after being struck on the head.”

  “Yeah. I’ll just bet it was. OK, Paul. Thanks.”

  “I’ll be in town all day.” He gave Sam a phone number. “That’s my mobile number. Call if you need me.”

  Sam had just hung up and turned around to speak to Debeau when the phone rang again.

  “My son is dead,” a woman’s voice rasped. “And you are in extreme danger. You are being watched by those who worship Satan. You must be very careful.”

  Sam clicked on his phone-side cassette recorder. “Would you repeat that, please.” She repeated her warning. “Who is this?” Sam asked.

  Silence came mutely down the line.

  “Mrs. Baxter. Is that you?”

  Debeau stood quietly.

  Sam heard the woman catch her breath. She remained silent.

  “Mrs. Baxter?”

  “Burn the house,” she finally spoke. She sounded as if she had a very bad cold. Sam heard her cough for a full fifteen seconds. He heard her painfully spit out phlegm and fight for breath.

  “Mrs. Baxter, have you seen a doctor?”

  “No time for that.” She did not deny her name. “I don’t have long left me. Nora has a weakness. She has a fatal flaw. She is too cocky, too sure of herself, and too much in love with herself. Use those imperfections against her, and you might have a chance of defeating her. Please . . . I stress might have a chance.”

  “I understand, Mrs. Baxter. Do you know where your daughter is hiding?”

  “Jane will not be far from Nora. Jane is more mad than evil. But she is nevertheless very dangerous.”

  Sam recalled Phillip telling him how Jane had tried to kill her mother with a knife. “The Gunther family, Mrs. Baxter—tell me, is their real name Gunsche?”

  “A very long time ago. But they have no connection with Otto. Other than to despise the evil creature.”

  “Then Otto is alive?”

  “Oh yes. Spewing his evil philosophy to anyone who will listen. He is living in the city under an assumed name. I don’t know what it is. But he has a large following. I say large; several hundred men and women. They are responsible for the bombing of several synagogues and the kidnapping, torture, and rape of several young Jewish girls. The girls were eventually sacrificed to Satan. Otto is quite insane, and is in league with the devil. He is attempting a Nazi comeback.”

  Sam felt sick to his stomach. Would the madness never stop? “Why have you remained in hiding all these years, Mrs. Baxter?”

  “I . . . had my reasons. I have told you all I know. Now I must go. Good luck, and goodbye.” She broke the connection.

  “Phillip’s mother?” Debeau asked.

  “I’m sure of it.” Sam rewound the tape and played it for Debeau.

  The priest listened to the tape. “The woman sounds as though she has pneumonia.”

  “She’s very sick, that’s for sure. We’ll want to play this for Paul.” He paused. “I think the woman knows more than she’s admitting.”

  “Yes. And obviously she is very frightened. And the house keeps coming to the fore. My initial impression was correct.”

  Sam walked across the large living room of the apartment and looked out the window to the street below. The snow had stopped about dawn and traffic had been very light. The scene below was picture-perfect: winter holiday time in the city. He shifted his gaze, his eyes finding the man leaning against a street lamp post. The man’s eyes were raised upward, looking straight at Sam’s apartment.

  Arrogantly he gave the Nazi straight-arm salute.

  “Son of a bitch!” Sam cursed him. He jerked the drapes closed, paused, and then opened them again.

  The man was gone. But in the snow by the post, he had marked his position by dragging the toe of his shoe in the snow, leaving behind a large swastika.

  Sam cursed again.

  “Calm yourself, Sam,” Debeau said. “That’s what they want, for you to go off half-cocked. You’d be much easier prey then.”

  Sam took several deep breaths. He said, “I’ve got to get things straight in my mind. All the ducks in a row, so to speak. Who comes first, Nora or Otto?”

  “Nora,” the priest quickly replied.

  “That’s what I think. For the time being, Otto must be shelved.” It was a hard thing for Sam to say. He had lost family in Hitler’s concentration camps. He would very much like to see any remaining war criminals brought to justice, put to death. But Otto was not the head of this particular snake. Nora was. And that damnable jack-in-the-box. Destroy them, and the snake might die.

  “I’ve got to go to Phillip’s house,” Sam said.

  “I thought you would.”

  “Joe, how could a house possibly hurt me? It’s just a . . . a thing. Wood and brick and concrete and tile. It isn’t alive.”

  “Don’t bet on that,” the priest said.

  “All right. You’re going to stay here?”

  “Yes. Take your time. I’ll monitor your answering machine and intercept any calls I feel might be important. You’re driving up?”

  “Yes. I rented a car for a month.” Sam pointed toward a small radio. “They said the roads were clear.”r />
  “Be careful, Sam.”

  Sam smiled grimly and reached into his attaché case. There was a pistol in his hand. A big nine-mm Colt Commander. Two extra clips lay in the briefcase.

  “Nice pistol,” Joe said. “But I prefer a forty-five. When was the last time you fired that, Sam?”

  Sam laughed. “Last month. I belong to a shooting club.”

  A note of warning leaped into Joe’s brain. “Just to be on the safe side, Sam, why not take my car? I’ll have Paul check yours out when he gets back.”

  “You think Otto’s people . . . ?”

  “I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Now that I know for certain you—we—are being watched.”

  There was very little traffic and the roads and parkways were almost totally clear of snow. Before leaving, Sam had called Morgan’s house. Jeanne and Phil were there. Sam had told her he was going to their home to collect all of Phillip’s casework. That would be fine, Jeanne said. Yes, Sam still had a key. Sure, he’d see them all very soon.

  He headed for the Baxter house, all senses working overtime. As a Ranger-trained LRRP, Sam had spent a lot of time working with the enemy all around him. Under the most dangerous conditions possible for a combat soldier. That hones the senses fine. Blocks before he had left the city, Sam knew he had picked up a tail.

  Four men in a dark Ford.

  Sam opened the attaché case and touched the Pachmayred grips of the Colt. He hoped the men following him were members of Otto Gunsche’s slimy little group. For if they were, he would take one alive and find out where Otto was hiding.

  He would take one alive.

  If they were members of the Nazi Party, he planned to kill the others.

  22

  The dark Ford stayed well behind Sam, but remained persistently on his tail. As he drove, Sam reviewed matters in his mind, worrying them like a dog with a bone.

  He reached the conclusion that the whole thing was mind-boggling. His entire organized, structured life had suddenly turned topsy-turvy, and when it stopped whirling about like a top out of control, he had found himself face to face with unreality. The supernatural. The devil. “Unreality” sure sums it all up, he thought.