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

Jack dropped his hands. “You’re all heart.”

Carruthers scowled. “Even if I wanted to let you go – which I don’t – it’s out of the question.”

“We’re not just talking about me losing my way of life here,” Jack said. “We’re talking about my life . Put me in the spotlight and I’m a dead man. I’ve made a lot of enemies over the years. I can handle them fine by myself out on the street, but put me in the joint and every slimeball and two-bit wise guy with a grudge who’s got a friend inside will be gunning for me. All for helping out a cop.”

Evans barged in the door then, grinning.

“Carella’s out of surgery! Gonna be okay!”

Carruthers leaned back and closed his eyes. “Thank God!”

“And you know what he says? Some citizen saved his life – blew away the guy who was gonna off him.”

The big sergeant looked at Jack and winked.

After a protracted pause, Carruthers opened his eyes, rose from the chair, and went to the window to do his staring routine.

“Our suspect here thinks we should let him go and forget he was ever in custody.”

“What suspect?” Evans said, looking around the room. “I don’t see no suspect. I don’t remember booking anybody tonight. Do you?”

Another long pause, with Jack holding his breath the whole time.

“Check the files,” Carruthers said without turning. “See if there’s any unaccounted-for paperwork or property out there, and bring it in.”

“You got it.”

Evans gave Jack a thumbs-up as he left the room.

Jack sat quietly, watching Carruthers’ back. He said nothing, fearing to break the spell of unreality that had taken control of the room.

Evans returned in no time with a brown folder and a manila envelope.

“Here it is.”

Carruthers joined him at the table. “All of it?”

“Personal property, print cards, booking sheets, photos, and miscellaneous paperwork referring to some suspect I’ve never heard of.”

“Unlock him.”

As Evans keyed the cuffs open, Carruthers scooped up Jack’s array of ID and dropped it in the envelope. He slid the folder and envelope across the table to Jack.

“Sergeant Evans will take you out the back.”

Jack’s legs went Wrigley as he stood. He could barely speak.

“I don’t–”

“Damn right, you don’t,” Carruthers said, looking him in the eyes. “You don’t know me and I don’t know you. And you don’t owe me and I don’t owe you. This is it. We’re even. I don’t want to see or hear of you again. And if I do see you and you’re so much as jaywalking, I’ll pull you in. We clear on that?”

“Yeah. And thanks.”

“No, thanks, dammit! Just evening up. You didn’t have to do what you did but you did; I don’t have to do what I’m doing, but I am. Like you said: Quid pro quo. This for that. Now get out of my sight.”

Jack got. He followed Evans out to the back of the precinct house.

“Not easy for him to do this,” Evans said along the way. “He’s a real straight arrow.”

“So I gather.”

Jack understood what Carruthers was going through in overcoming a career’s worth of conditioning, and he appreciated it. He stopped at the back door and faced Evans.

“He thinks we’re even but we’re not. I owe him. I’ll give you a number. If there’s ever anything I can do for him–”

“Too bad you can’t get his kid brother out of Costin’s.”

The shock pushed Jack back a step into the alley.

“The hostage cop is Carruthers’ brother?”

“Yeah. Patrolman Louis Carruthers. Twenty-two years old. Got any miracles in your pocket?”

Jack remembered something Julio had showed him in the basement of his tavern.

“You never know.”

He turned and hurried toward the street.

3

Downstairs, ten feet below the bar, past the cases of booze and kegs of beer, an old hutch stood against the wall. The glass was long gone, and a thick layer of dust hid the scars in the warped mahogany veneer.

Jack coughed and grunted as he and Julio slid it away from the wall.

“See?” Julio said, pointing to the rectangular opening in the brick. “It din go nowhere.”

Costin’s backed up against Julio’s. Years ago Jack had asked if there was an emergency escape route from the tavern – besides the back door. Julio had brought him down here and shown him the old airshaft that ran up from his basement.

“Refresh me on this. Where does it go?”

Julio handed him the flashlight and smiled.

“Up. After that, I don’ know. Never wanted to find out. You gonna be the first guy in there since I bought the place.”

Jack poked his head and shoulders into the shaft and shone the flash upward. Crumbling brickwork, cobwebs, and an inky blackness that devoured the beam of light. The basement of Costin’s was only a few feet away. Maybe the shaft could get him there.

“If this is an airshaft,” Jack said, “how come I don’t feel any airflow?”

“Because ‘bout fifty years ago, somebody covered the buildings with a single roof. Probably a dead end. You wasting you time, meng. ‘Sides, it’s not like you to get involved in this kinda thing.”

“I owe somebody a try.”

Jack tied a string around the neck of the flashlight, looped the rest of the length around his neck, and let the light dangle over his sternum where the beam splashed up over his face. A miner’s lamp hat would have been better but this would have to do. He pulled on a pair of heavy work gloves.

“Hang around, okay? In case I get stuck.”

Julio seated himself on some cases of Yeungling Lager.

“Don’ worry. I be right here.”

Jack took a deep breath, let it all out, then squeezed through the opening. He hated tight places. Especially dark tight places. He straightened inside the rectangular shaft. The crumbling brick surface was rough and craggy. He braced his hands against the wall along the wide axis of the shaft, dug the side of a sneaker into one of the countless little crevices, and began to climb.

A long climb. A three-story struggle, with a long, maiming impact lurking below, hungering for a slip. And above – the very real possibility of finding the upper end of the shaft sealed.

But it wasn’t. Jack reached the top and found a two-foot gap between the roof and the last of the bricks. Directly to his right, mated side by side to this one, stood another shaft. Hopefully leading to Costin’s.

Jack slid over the top of one and into the other. He had a bad moment when his sneakers began to slip, but he dangled by his hands until his feet found purchase. Then he began the long descent, dragging his denimed butt against the brickwork as an extra brake. The trip down was quicker. He was glad he’d thought of the gloves. Without them his hands would have been raw meat by now.

When he reached bottom he stood perfectly still and let his ears adjust.

Quiet.

He swept the flashlight around and checked out the base of the shaft. The opening was at knee level and blocked with a smooth brown surface. Jack nudged it with his foot and it gave easily. Cardboard.

With the flashlight off, he knelt and inched back the stack of cartons that formed the barrier. He peeked into the basement: empty, cavelike darkness. He listened again. Someone upstairs in the store was talking – shouting – in a high-pitched voice. Even through the floor Jack could feel the hysterical edge on that voice. Only one voice. Probably Khambatta’s partner talking on the phone to the hostage team.

Jack squeezed through the opening and stood. From this angle he could make out a faint sliver of light high up and off to his right. Had to be a doorway. He pulled the flashlight free of the string and flicked it on and off, just long enough to find a clear path through the piles of stock. Straight across the floor lay a set of steps. Jack drew the Semmerling and slid through the dark.