F. Paul Wilson - Quick Fixes - Tales of Repairman Jack

He pulled the chair from where it was wedged against the closet door. He opened the door a crack.

“I’m leaving now, lady. When I’m gone you can go across the street and call the police. Better call an ambulance too.”

A single sob answered him.

Jack left by the back door. It felt good to get the stocking off his head.

*

When Jack dialed his answering machine the next morning there was only one message. It was from Oscar Schaffer. He sounded out of breath. And upset.

“ You bastard! You sick, perverted bastard! I’m dropping the rest of your money off at that bar this morning and then I don’t want to see or hear or even think of you again!”

Jack was on his second coffee in Julio’s when he spotted Schaffer through the front window. He was moving fast, no doubt as close to a run as his portly frame would allow, clutching a white envelope in his hand. Perspiration gleamed on his pale forehead. His expression was strained. He looked like one frightened man.

Jack had told Julio he was coming so Julio intercepted him at the door as he did all Jack’s customers. But instead of leading him back to the Jack’s table, Julio returned alone. Jack spotted Schaffer hurrying back the way he had come.

Julio smiled as he handed Jack the envelope.

“What you do to spook him like that?”

Jack grabbed the envelope and hurried after Schaffer. He caught the developer as he was opening the door to a dark green Jaguar XJ 12.

“What’s going on?” Jack said.

Schaffer jumped at the sound of Jack’s voice. His already white face went two shades paler.

“Get away from me!”

He jumped into the car but Jack caught the door before he could slam it. He pulled the keys from Schaffer’s trembling fingers.

“I think we’d better talk. Unlock the doors.”

Jack went around to the other side and slipped into the passenger seat. He tossed the keys back to Schaffer.

“All right. What’s going on? The job’s done. The guy’s fixed. You didn’t need an alibi because it was done by a prowler. What’s the problem?”

Schaffer stared straight ahead through the windshield.

“How could you? I was so impressed with you the other day. The rogue with a code: ‘Sometimes I make a mistake. If that happens, I like to be able to go back and fix it.’ I really thought you were something else. I actually envied you. I never dreamed you could do what you did. Gus was a rotten son of a bitch, but you didn’t have to...” His voice trailed off.

Jack was baffled.

“You were the one who wanted him killed. I only broke his legs.”

Schaffer turned to him, the fear in his eyes giving way to fury.

“Don’t give me that shit! Who do you think you’re dealing with? I practically built that town! I’ve got connections!” He pulled a sheaf of papers from his pocket and threw it at Jack. “I’ve read the medical examiner’s report!”

“Medical examiner? He’s dead?” Shit! Jack had heard of people with broken legs throwing a clot to the heart. “How?”

“Aw, don’t play cute! Gus was a scumbag and yes I wanted him dead, but I didn’t want him tortured! I didn’t want him... mutilated! ”

It was time for Jack’s fingers to do a little trembling as he scanned the report. It described a man who’d been pistol whipped, bound by the hands, and had both tibias broken; then he’d been castrated with a Ginsu knife from his own kitchen and gagged with his testicles in his mouth. After that he’d undergone at least two hours of torture before he died of shock due to blood loss from a severed artery in his neck.

“It’ll be in all the afternoon papers,” Schaffer was saying. “You can add the clippings to your collection. I’m sure you’ve got a big one”

“Where was Ceil supposed to be during all this?”

“Locked in the hall closet. She got out after you left. And she had to find Gus like that. No one should have to see something like that. If I could make you pay–”

“When did she phone the cops?”

“Right before calling me – around three a.m.”

Jack shook his head. “Wow. Three hours...she spent three hours on him.”

“‘She’? Who?”

“Ceil.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Gus was trussed up and out cold with two broken legs but very much alive on the living room floor when I left. I opened the door to the closet where I’d put your sister, and took off. That was around midnight.”

“No. You’re lying. You’re saying Ceil–” He swallowed. “She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Besides, she called me at three, from a neighbor’s house, she’d only gotten free–”

“Three hours. Three hours between the time I opened the closet door and the time she called you.”

“No! Not Ceil! She...” Schaffer stared at Jack, and Jack met his gaze evenly. Slowly, like a dark stain seeping through heavy fabric, the truth took hold in his eyes. “Oh...my...God!”

He leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. He looked like he was going to be sick. Jack gave him a few minutes. “The other day you said she needed help. Now she really needs it.”

“Poor Ceil!”

“Yeah. I don’t pretend to understand it, but I guess she was willing to put up with anything from a man who said he loved her. But when she found out he didn’t – and believe me, he let her know in no uncertain terms before he pulled the trigger on her.”

“Trigger? What–?”

“A long story. Ceil can tell you about it. But I guess when she found out how much he hated her, how he’d wanted her dead all these years, when she saw him ready to murder her, something must have snapped inside. When she came out of the closet and found him helpless on the living room floor, she must have gone a little crazy.”

“A little crazy? You call what she did a little crazy?”

Jack shrugged. He handed back the ME’s report and opened the car door.

“Your sister crammed ten years of pay back into three hours. She’s going to need a lot of help to recover from those ten years. And those three hours.”

Schaffer pounded his mahogany steering wheel.

“Shit! It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this!” Then he sighed and turned to Jack. “But I guess things don’t always go according to plan in your business.”

“Hardly ever.”

Jack got out of the car, closed the door, and listened to the Jag roar to life. As it screeched away, he headed back to Julio’s. A new customer was due at noon.

introduction to “The Long Way Home”

Toward the end of May, 1990, Joe Lansdale called, looking for a story for Dark at Heart , an anthology he was editing with his wife Karen. He wanted it dark but without any supernatural. I suggested a New York mean-streets story starring Jack. He loved the idea. “The Long Way Home” was the result. I started it in late May but due to a crowded plate, didn’t finish it until the end of July.

Fifteen years later my agent contacted me about Amazon Shorts, a new feature at Amazon.com that would allow readers to download a short story for a nominal fee. Could I write something for them?

What was on my plate at the time: The tenth Jack novel, an RJ short story for ITW’s Thriller , scripting five issues of The Keep graphic miniseries, adapting four short stories for Doomed , revising the text and writing a foreword to the Infrapress edition of Wheels Within Wheels , revising Reprisal for Borderlands Press, revising The Tery and “The Last Rakosh” for Overlook Connection Press.

No, I couldn’t do a short story.

But I did have a long-lost Repairman Jack piece called “The Long Way Home” from Joe and Karen’s four-hundred-copy anthology that hadn’t been seen since 1992. I showed them that.