The Tomb (Repairman Jack)

by Wilson, F. Paul

  Holstering his pistol, Westphalen went over and gingerly removed the saddlebags from Malleson's shoulder, then looked around him. All remained still. Foul, oily smoke still poured from the pits; a shaft of sunlight breaking through a vent in the vaulted ceiling pierced the spreading cloud. The remaining lamps flickered on their pedestals.

  He went to the two nearest oil urns, sliced open their tops, and kicked them over. Their contents spread over the floor and washed up against the nearest wall. He then took one of the remaining lamps and threw it into the center of the puddle. Flame spread quickly to the wall where the wood began to catch.

  He was turning to leave when a movement over by the dais caught his eye, frightening him and causing him to drop one of the saddlebags as he clawed for his pistol again.

  It was the boy. He had somehow managed to crawl up the dais to where the priest lay. He was reaching for the necklace around the man's throat. As Westphalen watched, the fingers of the right hand closed around the two yellow stones. Then he lay still. The whole of the boy's upper back was soaked a deep crimson. He had left a trail of red from where he had fallen to where he now lay.

  Westphalen returned his pistol to his holster and picked up the fallen saddlebag. There was no one and nothing left in the temple to do him any harm. He remembered that the woman had mentioned "children," but he could not see them as a threat, especially with the way the fire was eating up the ebony. Soon the temple would be a smoldering memory.

  He strode from the smoke-filled interior into the morning sunlight, already planning where he would bury the saddlebags and plotting the story he would tell of how they had become lost in the hills and were ambushed by a superior force of sepoy rebels. And how he alone escaped.

  After that, he would have to find a way to maneuver himself into a trip back to England as soon as possible. Once home, he would just happen to find a large cache of uncut gems behind some stonework in the basement level of Westphalen Hall.

  Already he was blotting the memory of the events of the morning from his mind. No use dwelling on them. Better to let the curse, the demons, and the dead float away with the black smoke rising from the burning temple, a temple that was now a pyre and a tomb for that nameless sect. He had done what he had to do and that was that.

  He felt good as he rode away from the temple. He did not look back. Not once.

  Chapter Seven

  Manhattan

  Sunday

  1.

  Tennis!

  Jack rolled out of bed with a groan. He’d been lying there dreaming of a big brunch at Jake’s Steaks and Cakes down on Seventh Avenue when he remembered the father-son tennis match he'd promised to play in today.

  And he had no racquet. Only one thing to do: Call Abe and tell him it was an emergency.

  After Abe agreed to meet him at the store, Jack showered, shaved, pulled on a pair of shorts, a dark blue jersey, sneakers and socks, and hurried down to the street. The morning sky had lost its week-long humid haze. Looked like a nice day.

  As he neared the Isher Sports Shop, he saw Abe waddling from the other direction. Abe looked him up and down as they met before the folding iron grille that protected the store during off-hours.

  "Tennis balls! You're going to tell me you want a can of tennis balls, are you?"

  Jack shook his head and said, "Naw. I wouldn't get you up early on a Sunday morning for tennis balls."

  "Glad to hear it." He unlocked the grille and pushed it back far enough to expose the door. "Did you see the business section of the Times this morning? Such talk about the economy picking up? Feh! The Titanic we’re on, and the iceberg's dead ahead."

  "It's too nice a day for an economic holocaust, Abe."

  "All right," he said, unlocking the door and pushing it open. "Go ahead, close your eyes to it. But it's coming and the weather has nothing to do with it."

  After disarming the alarm system, Abe headed for the back of the store. Jack didn't follow. He went directly to the tennis racquets and picked out a Wilson Hammer. The grip felt good in his hand, and it was already strung.

  He was about to call out that he'd take this one when he noticed Abe glaring at him from the end of the aisle.

  "For this you took me away from my breakfast? A tennis racquet?”

  "And balls, too. I'll need some balls.”

  "Balls you've got! Too much balls to do such a thing to me! You said it was an emergency!"

  Jack had been expecting this reaction. Sunday was the only morning Abe allowed himself the forbidden foods: lox with his bagels, verboten because of his blood pressure.

  "It is an emergency. I'm supposed to be playing with my father in a couple of hours."

  Abe's eyebrows rose and wrinkled his forehead all the way up to where his hairline once had been.

  "Your father? First Gia, now your father. What is this? They talk of self-hating Jews, but a self-hating goy?"

  "He’s not so bad."

  "Nu? Then why do you avoid him? And why are you in such a black mood every time you return from one of these jaunts into Jersey?"

  "Because he's a good guy who happens to be a pain in the ass."

  They both knew that wasn't the whole story but by tacit agreement neither said any more. Jack paid for the racquet and a couple of cans of Penn balls.

  "I'll bring you back some tomatoes," he said as the grille closed across the storefront again.

  Abe brightened. "That's right. Beefsteaks are in season. Get me some."

  Next stop was Julio's, where Jack picked up Ralph, the car Julio kept for him. It was a '63 Corvair, white with a black convertible top and a rebuilt engine. Not at all Julio's style, but Julio hadn't paid for it. Jack had seen it in the window of a classic car store; he’d given Julio the cash to go make the best deal he could and have it registered in his name. Legally it was Julio's car, but Jack paid the insurance and the garage fee and reserved preemptive right of use for the rare occasions when he needed it.

  Today was such an occasion. Julio had it gassed up and waiting for him. He’d also decorated it a bit since the last time Jack had taken it out: A "Hi!" hand waved from the left rear window, fuzzy dice hung from the mirror, and in the rear window sat a little dog whose head wobbled eyes blinked red in unison with the tail lights.

  Jack gave Julio what he hoped was a withering stare. "You expect me to ride around with those?"

  Julio did his elaborate shrug. "What can I say, meng? 'S in the blood."

  Jack didn't have time to remove the cultural paraphernalia, so he took the car as it was. Armed with the finest New York State driver license money could buy—in the name of Jack Howard—he slipped the Semmerling and its holster into the special compartment under the front seat and began a leisurely drive crosstown.

  Sunday morning is a unique time in Manhattan. Few buses and cabs, no trucks being unloaded, no work crews tearing up the streets, and only a rare pedestrian or two here and there. Quiet. All would change as noon approached, but at the moment Jack found it almost spooky.

  He followed Fifty-eighth Street all the way to its eastern end and pulled in to the curb before 8 Sutton Square.

  2

  Gia answered the doorbell. With Eunice off and Nellie still asleep, the job fell to her. She wrapped her robe more tightly around her and walked slowly, carefully from the kitchen to the front of the house. The inside of her head felt too big for her skull, her tongue thick, her stomach slightly turned. Champagne...why should something that made you feel so good at night leave you feeling so awful the next day?

  A look through the peephole showed Jack standing there in shorts and a dark blue shirt.

  "Tennis, anyone?" he said with a lopsided grin as she opened the door.

  He looked good. Gia had always liked a lean, wiry build on a man. She liked the linear cords of muscle in his forearms, and the curly hair on his legs. Why did he look so healthy when she felt so sick?

  "Well? Can I come in?"

  Gia realized she had been staring at him. S
he’d seen him three times in the past four days and was getting used to having him around again. That wasn't good. But she saw no defense against it until Grace was found—one way or another.

  "Sure." When the door was closed behind him, she said, "Who're you playing? Your Indian lady?"

  She regretted that immediately, remembering his crack last night about jealousy. She wasn't jealous...just curious.

  "No. My father."

  "Oh." Gia knew from the past how painful it was for Jack to spend time with his father.

  "But the reason I'm here…" He paused uncertainly and rubbed a hand over his face. "I'm not sure how to say this, but here goes: Don't drink anything strange."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "No tonics or laxatives or anything new you find around the house."

  Gia was not in the mood for games. "I may have had a little too much champagne last night, but I don't go around swigging from bottles."

  "I'm serious, Gia."

  She could see that, and it made her uneasy. His gaze was steady and concerned.

  "I don't understand."

  "Neither do I. But there was something bad about that laxative of Grace's. Just stay away from anything like it. If you find any more of it, lock it away and save it for me."

  "Do you think it has anything to do—?"

  "I don't know. But I want to play it safe."

  He wasn't telling her everything. Her unease mounted.

  "What do you know?"

  "That's just it—I don't know anything. Just a gut feeling. So play it safe and stay away from anything strange." He gave her a slip of paper with a telephone number on it. It had a 609 area code. "Here's my father's number. Call me there if you need me or there's any word from Grace." He glanced up the stairs and toward the rear of the house. "Where's Vicks?"

  "Still in bed. She had a hard time falling asleep last night, according to Eunice." Gia opened the front door. "Have a good game."

  Jack's expression turned sour. "Sure."

  She watched him drive back to the corner and turn downtown on Sutton Place. She wondered what was going on in his mind; why the odd warning against drinking "anything strange." Just to be sure, Gia went up to the second floor and checked through all the bottles on Grace's vanity and in her bathroom closet. Everything had a brand name. Nothing like the unlabeled bottle Jack had found on Thursday.

  She took two Advils and a long hot shower. The combination worked to ease her headache. By the time she’d dried off and dressed in plaid shorts and a blouse, Vicky was up and looking for breakfast.

  "What do you feel like eating?" she asked as they passed the parlor on their way to the kitchen. She looked cute in her pink nightie and her fuzzy pink Dearfoams.

  "Chocolate!"

  "Vicki!"

  "But it looks so good!" She pointed to where Eunice had set out a candy dish full of the Black Magic pieces.

  "You know what it does to you."

  "But it would be delicious!"

  "All right," Gia said. "Have a piece. If you think a couple of bites in a couple of minutes is worth a whole day of swelling up and itching and feeling sick, go ahead and take one."

  Vicky looked up, at her, and then at the chocolates. Gia held her breath, praying Vicky would make the right choice. If she chose the chocolate, Gia would have to stop her, but there was a chance she would use her head and refuse. Gia wanted to know which it would be. Those chocolates would be sitting there for days, a constant temptation to sneak one behind her mother's back. But if Vicky could overcome the temptation now, on her own, Gia was sure she’d be able to resist for the rest of their stay.

  "I think I'll have an orange, mom."

  Gia swept her up into her arms and swung her around.

  "I'm so proud of you, Vicky! That was a very grown-up decision.”

  "Well, what I'd really like is a chocolate-covered orange."

  Laughing, she led Vicky by the hand to the kitchen, feeling pretty good about her daughter and about herself as a mother.

  3

  Jack had the Lincoln Tunnel pretty much to himself. He passed the stripe that marked the border of New York and New Jersey, remembering how his brother and sister and he used to cheer whenever they crossed the line after spending a day in The City with their parents. It had always been a thrill then to be back in good 0l' New Jersey.

  Those days were gone, along with the two-way toll collections. Now they charged you double to get into Manhattan and let you leave for nothing. And he didn't cheer as he crossed the line.

  He cruised out of the tunnel mouth, squinting into the sudden glare of the morning sun. The ramp made a nearly circular turn up to and through Union City, then down to the meadowlands and the New Jersey Turnpike. Jack pushed his speed to 65 miles per hour and settled into the right lane. He was running a little late, but the last thing he wanted was to be stopped by a state cop.

  The olfactory adventure began as the Turnpike wound its way through the swampy lowlands, past Port Newark and all the surrounding refineries and chemical plants. Smoke poured from stacks and torchlike flames roared from ten-story discharge towers. The odors encountered on the strip between Exits 16 and 12 were varied and uniformly noxious. Even on a Sunday morning.

  But as the road drifted inland, the scenery gradually turned rural and hilly and sweet smelling. The farther south he drove, the further his thoughts were pulled into the past. Images streaked by with the mile markers: strange adventures in the Pine Barrens, Mr. Canelli and his lawn...early fix-it jobs around Burlington County during his late teens, usually involving vandals, always contracted sub rosa...starting Rutgers but keeping his repairs business going on the side...the first trips to New York to do fix-it work for relatives of former customers…

  Tension began building in him after he passed Exit 7. Jack knew the reason: He was approaching the spot where his mother had been killed.

  It was also the spot where he had—how had Kolabati put it?—"drawn the line between yourself and the rest of the human race."

  It had happened during his third year at Rutgers. A Sunday night in early January. Jack was on semester break, he and his parents driving south on the Turnpike after visiting his Aunt Doris in Hightstown; Jack had the back seat, his folks the front, Dad driving. Jack had offered to take the wheel, but his mother said the way he wove in and out of all those trucks made her nervous.

  As he remembered it, he and his father had been discussing the upcoming Super Bowl while his mother watched the speedometer to make sure it didn't stray too far over the limit. The easy, peaceful feeling that comes with a full stomach after a lazy winter afternoon spent with relatives was shattered as they cruised under an overpass.

  With a crash like thunder and an impact that shook the car, the right half of the windshield exploded into countless flying, glittering fragments. He heard his father shout with surprise, his mother scream in pain, felt a blast of icy air rip through the car. His mother moaned and vomited.

  As his father swerved the car to the side of the road, Jack jumped into the front seat and realized what had happened: A cinder block had crashed through the windshield and landed against his mother's lower ribs and upper abdomen.

  Jack didn't know what to do. As he watched helplessly, his mother passed out and slumped forward. He shouted to get to the nearest hospital. His father drove like a demon, flooring the pedal, blowing the horn and blinking the headlights while Jack pushed his mother's limp body back and pulled the cinder block off her. Then he removed his coat and wrapped it around her as protection against the cold gale whistling through the hole in the windshield.

  His mother vomited once more—this time all blood, splattering the dashboard and what was left of the windshield. As he held her, Jack could feel her growing cold, could sense the life slipping out of her. He knew she was bleeding internally, but there was nothing he could do about it. He screamed at his father to hurry, but he was already driving as fast as he could without losing control of the car.


  She was in deep shock by the time they got her to the emergency room. She died on the way to surgery: a lacerated liver and a ruptured spleen. She’d exsanguinated into her abdominal cavity.

  The incalculable grief. The interminable wake and funeral. And afterward, questions: Who? Why? The police didn't know and doubted very much that they would ever find out. It was common for kids to go up on the overpass at night and drop things through the cyclone fencing onto the cars streaming by below. By the time an incident was reported, the culprits were long gone. The State Police response to any and all appeals from Jack and his father was a helpless shrug.

  His father withdrew: the senselessness of the tragedy had thrown him into a sort of emotional catatonia in which he appeared to function normally but felt absolutely nothing.

  Jack's response was something else: cold, nerveless, consuming rage. He was faced with a new kind of fix-it job. He knew where it had happened. He knew how. All he had to do was find out who.

  He would do nothing else, think of nothing else, until that job was done.

  And eventually it was done.

  A lifetime ago. Yet as he approached that overpass he felt his throat constrict. He could almost see a cinder block falling...tumbling toward the windshield...crashing through in a blizzard of glass fragments...crushing him. Then he was under and in shadow, and for an instant it was nighttime and snowing, and hanging off the other side of the overpass he saw a limp, battered body dangling from a rope tied to its feet, swinging and spinning crazily. Then it was gone and he was back in the August sun again.

  He shivered. He hated New Jersey.

  4

  Jack got off at Exit 5. He took 541 through Mount Holly and continued south on the two-lane blacktop through towns that were little more than groups of buildings clustered along a stretch of road like a crowd around an accident. The spaces between were all open cultivated field. Fresh produce stands advertising Jersey Beefsteak tomatoes dotted the roadside. He reminded himself to pick up a basketful for Abe on the way back.

  He passed through Lumberton, a name that always conjured up ponderous images of morbidly obese people waddling in and out of oversized stores and houses. Next came Fostertown, which should have been populated by a horde of homeless runny-nosed waifs, but wasn't.