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

As he neared the other end he flicked the flash on and off again. And froze.

Someone on the steps to the door.

Jack waited, listening for movement, for breathing. Noth­ing. Just an occasional squeak of the floorboards above. And something else. Whoever was up there had stopped talking and was making another sound. Jack cocked an ear toward the ceiling. It sounded almost like… sobbing.

But who was on the stairs?

Jack turned on the flashlight and trained it straight ahead. A man lay sprawled, head down, one arm flung out, the other under him, legs splayed, eyes wide, staring. Very still. And wet. The front of his uniform glistened a deeper blue where a thick, dark fluid had soaked through it. His throat was a ruin and half of his lower jaw had been torn away. But deathly white and upside down though it was, enough of the face was left undamaged for Jack to catch the resemblance to Lieutenant Carruthers.

“The kid.” Louis.

“Son of a bitch!”

Another throat shot. Same style as Khambatta’s: Aim high in case the cop was wearing a vest.

Jack slipped the Semmerling into his pocket and stretched a hand toward Louis’s forehead. No question that he was dead, but Jack needed to touch him. To be absolutely sure.

The skin felt dry and thick and cold. “The kid” was very dead.

Cold black anger surged. Twenty-something years old, stopping by Costin’s for a late-night snack, and getting blown away.

“Son of a bitch! ”

Jack straightened and turned off the flashlight.

What next? He’d come here as a payback, to see if he could get Carruthers’ brother out of this jam. But the kid was beyond help. So there was nothing left for him to do.

Except maybe settle a score on the lieutenant’s behalf.

But old man Costin was upstairs somewhere. Jack had known Costin since moving to the city. He didn’t like to think of the old guy held hostage, maybe face down on the floor, shivering with terror. But he could back away from that. He didn’t owe Costin – not enough to risk exposure by making a move on the remaining gunman. Better all around to leave old Costin’s fate in the hands of the hostage team.

Time to fade away. Time to head back to the air shaft.

But he didn’t move.

Just then the door above slammed open and a wide shaft of fluorescent light pinned him like a frog on a log. A high male voice began screeching at him.

“Hold it, muthafucka! Hold it or I’ll blow you away just like I did him!”

Jack turned slowly and saw a wide silhouette in the doorway. He showed his flashlight and his empty right hand.

“I’m not armed.”

Jack was glad he’d brought only the tiny Semmerling. It lay flat in his pocket.

“Yeah, right. An’ I’m Fiddy Cent. You a cop, fucka. An’ you was tryin’ to sneak up on me.”

“I’m no cop. And I was just leaving.”

“The fuck you was. There ain’t no door down here. I checked already.”

“If you say so.” Jack waved his empty hand. “Bye!”

Jack dove into the darkness to his right, rolled to his feet, and ducked behind a stack of canned goods. As a stream of curses erupted from the stairwell, he pulled out the Semmerling and crept toward the rear. Behind him he heard some fumbling against the wall, then a click and the cellar lights lit up – a few dim, widely spaced naked incandescent bulbs set among the ceiling beams. Jack got his first look at the guy as he rushed down the steps, nearly tripping over his feet in his haste.

He had a buzz-cut head and he was fat. No more than five-eight, but at least three-hundred pounds. Baby-faced with huge cheeks and tiny dark eyes barely visible above them. His skin was black as a bible and glistened with sweat. Fat . Not brawny fat, not hard fat. Jell-O fat that lurched and rolled around his middle as he moved. The sawed-off shotgun he carried looked like a toy in his pudgy fingers.

“Ain’t no use in hiding, fucka. Ain’t no way outta here.”

Then how’d I get in? Jack thought, wondering when that notion would strike Fatso.

He stayed low, listening as the guy moved through the dimly lit cellar like a bull, knocking over stacks of cans, smashing cases of bottles. The odor of gherkins began to filter through the air. Jack wondered how long it would take Fatso to find the opening.

From the rear of the cellar: “Shee- it !”

He’d found it.

And then as Jack crouched and waited, he heard a frantic scratching, scrabbling sound, like Fred Astaire on speed doing a softshoe to Motorhead. Coming from the airshaft entry. Jack crawled over to investigate.

Fatso was there. He had his head and one shoulder rammed into the airshaft opening and was trying to squeeze the rest of his body through. He grunted and groaned as his Pumas scraped madly on the dusty floor in a desperate effort to force his way in. But it wasn’t happening. He was a bowling ball trying to drop into a billiard pocket. No way.

Finally, he gave up. Panting, gasping, retching with the exertion, he pulled himself free and slumped to the floor where he cradled his sawed-off shotgun in his lap and began to cry.

Jack was standing over him by now, but for a moment or so he could only stare and listen to the guy sob. Pitiful. He’d wanted to pop the guy. But now…

When he’d heard all he could stand, he raised the Semmerling.

“Okay, Fatso. Cut the blubbering and get up – without the shotgun.”

Fatso started and looked up at Jack, at the Semmerling, and got to his feet. But the shotgun still hung from his hand.

“I said drop the sawed-off or you’re dead.”

“Go ‘head,” he said, sniffling but still clutching the stock grip. “Good as dead already.”

“For blowing away a cop – yeah, I guess you are.”

“Didn’t kill no cop.” He was sulky now.

“That’s not what you told me a couple of minutes ago. And by the way, how’s old man Costin – the owner? He okay?”

Fatso nodded. “Locked him in the crapper.”

“At least somebody’s still alive.”

“Ain’t never killed nobody! That was Abdul. He done the cop. Didn’t have to, neither. Had the drop on the guy but he just pulled the trigger and liked to took his head off.”

That jibed with Jack’s take on young Carruthers’ neck wound. He tasted his saliva turning bitter.

“Swell. He was only twenty-two. A little younger than you, I figure.”

“I didn’t do it, man!”

“Doesn’t matter who pulled the trigger. You’re a part of a felony where a killing’s gone down. Automatic murder-one for you.”

“I knew you was a cop.”

“Already told you – not a cop. Don’t have to be a cop to know you’re heading for a major jolt in the joint.”

His fat lips quivered. “Already done that.”

He lifted the shotgun and Jack ducked to his right, his finger tightening on the Semmerling’s trigger. But the sawed-off barrel kept on rising till the bore was snug against the underside of Fatso’s chin.

Jack cringed, waiting for the boom and brain splatter.

It never came. A sob burst through Fatso’s lips as he dropped the weapon back to his side and slumped to the floor again.

“I can’t do it!” he screeched through clenched teeth.

Jack, speechless before this utterly miserable creature, said nothing.

“Can’t hack the joint again, man,” Fatso moaned. “I can’t! ”

“What’d you go in for?”

“Got a dime for dealin’. Out early.”

“What’s your name?”

“Henry. Henry Thompson. They call me Fat Henry.”

Can’t imagine why,” Jack thought

“The joint – is that where you met Khambatta?”

Fat Henry nodded again. “He on the back end of three-to-five when I got in. We became… friends.”