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

9

Munir understood none of this. He sat in a daze, sipping milk to ease a stomach that quaked from fear and burned from too many pills. Jack was on the phone, but his words made no sense.

“Yeah, Pete. It’s me. Jack… Right. That Jack. Look, I need a piece of your wares… small piece. Easy thing… Right. I’ll get that to you in an hour or two. Thing is, I need it by morning. Can you deliver?… Great. Be by later. By the way – how much?… Make that two and you got a deal… All right. See you.”

Then he hung up, consulted a small address book, and dialed another number.

“Hey, Teddy. It’s me. Jack… Yeah, I know, but this can’t wait till morning. How about opening up your store for me? I need about ten minutes inside… That’s no help to me, Teddy. I need to get in now. Now … Okay. Meet you there in twenty.”

Jack hung up and took the glass from Munir’s hands. Munir found himself taken by the upper arm and pulled toward the door.

“Can you get us into your office?”

Munir nodded. “I’ll need my ID card and keys, but yes, they’ll let me in.”

“Get them. There a back way out of here?”

Munir took him down the elevator to the parking garage and out the rear door. From there they caught a late cruising gypsy cab down to a hardware store on Bleecker Street. The lights inside were on but the sign in the window said CLOSED. Jack told the cabby to wait and knocked on the door. A painfully thin man with no hair whatsoever, not even eyebrows, opened the door.

“You coulda broke in, Jack,” he said. “I wouldna minded. I need my rest, y’know.”

“I know, Teddy” Jack said. “But I need the lights on for this and I couldn’t risk attracting that kind of attention.”

Munir followed Jack to the paint department at the rear of the store. They stopped at the display of color cards. Jack pulled a group from the brown section and turned to him.

“Give me your hand.”

Baffled, he watched as Jack placed one of the color cards against the back of Munir’s hand, then tossed it away. And again. One after another until –

“Here we go. Perfect match.”

“We’re buying paint? ”

“No. We’re buying flesh – specifically, flesh with Golden Mocha number 169 skin. Let’s go.”

And then they were moving again, waving good bye to Teddy, and getting back into the cab.

To the East Side now, up First Avenue to Thirty first Street. Jack ran inside with the color card, then came out and jumped back into the cab empty handed.

“Okay. Next stop is your office.”

“My office? Why?”

“Because we’ve got a few hours to kill and we might as well use them to look up everyone you fired in the past year.”

Munir thought this was futile but he had given himself into Jack’s hands. He had to trust him. And as exhausted as he was, sleep was out of the question.

He gave the driver the address of the Saud Petrol offices.

10

“This guy looks promising,” Jack said, handing him a file. “Remember him?”

Until tonight, Munir never had realized how many people he hired and fired – “down-sized” was the current euphemism – in the course of a year. He was amazed.

He opened the file. Richard Hollander. The name didn’t catch until he read the man’s performance report.

“Not him. Anyone but him.”

“Yeah? Why not?”

“Because he was so…” As Munir searched for the right word, he pulled out all he remembered about Hollander, and it wasn’t much. The man hadn’t been with the company long, and had been pretty much a nonentity during his stay. Then he found the word he was looking for. “Ineffectual.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. He never got anything done. Every assignment, every report was either late or incomplete. He had a wonderful academic record – good grades from an Ivy League school, that sort of thing – but he proved incapable of putting any of his learning into practice. That was why he was let go.”

“Any reaction? You know, shouting, yelling, threats?”

“No.” Munir remembered giving Hollander his notice. The man had merely nodded and begun emptying his desk. He hadn’t even asked for an explanation. “He knew he’d been screwing up. I think he was expecting it. Besides, he had no southern accent. It’s not him.”

Munir passed the folder back but instead of putting it away, Jack opened it and glanced through it again.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Accents can be faked. And if I was going to pick the type who’d go nuts for revenge, this guy would be it. Look: He’s unmarried, lives alone–”

“Where does it say he lives alone?”

“It doesn’t. But his emergency contact is his mother in Massachusetts. If he had a lover or even a roomie he’d list them, wouldn’t you think? ‘No moderating influences,’ as the head docs like to say. And look at his favorite sports: swimming and jogging. This guy’s a loner from the git go.”

“That does not make him a psychopath. I imagine you are a loner, too, and you…”

The words dribbled away as Munir’s mind followed the thought to its conclusion.

Jack grinned. “Right, Munir. Think about that.”

He reached for the phone and punched in a number. After a moment he spoke in a deep, authoritative voice: “Please pick up. This is an emergency. Please pick up.” A moment later he hung up and began writing on a note pad. “I’m going to take down this guy’s address for future reference. It’s almost four a.m. and Mr. Hollander isn’t home. His answering machine is on, but even if he’s screening his calls, I think he’d have responded to my little emergency message, don’t you?”

Munir nodded. “Most certainly. But what if he doesn’t live there anymore?”

“Always a possibility.” Jack glanced at his watch. “But right now I’ve got to go pick up a package. You sit tight and stay by the phone here. I’ll call you when I’ve got it.”

Before Munir could protest, Jack was gone, leaving him alone in his office, staring at the gallery family photos arrayed on his desk. He began to sob.

11

The phone startled Munir out of a light doze. Confusion jerked him upright. What was he doing in his office? He should be home…

Then he remembered.

Jack was on the line: “Meet me downstairs.”

Out on the street, in the pale, predawn light, two figures awaited him. One was Jack, the other a stranger – a painfully thin man of Munir’s height with shoulder length hair and a goatee. Jack made no introductions. Instead he led them around a corner to a small deli. He stared through the open window at the lights inside.

“This looks bright enough,” Jack said.

Inside he ordered two coffees and two cheese Danish and carried them to the rearmost booth in the narrow, deserted store. Jack and the stranger slid into one side of the booth, Munir the other, facing them. Still no introductions.

“Okay, Munir,” Jack said. “Put your hand on the table.

Munir complied, placing his left hand palm down, wondering what this was about.

“Now let’s see the merchandise,” Jack said to the stranger.

The thin man pulled a small, oblong package from his pocket. It appeared to be wrapped in brown paper hand towels. He unrolled the towels and placed the object next to Munir’s hand.

A finger. Not Robby’s. Different. Adult size.

Munir pulled his hand back onto his lap and stared.

“Come on, Munir,” Jack said. “We’ve got to do a color check.”

Munir slipped his hand back onto the table next to the grisly object, regarding it obliquely. So real looking.

“It’s too long and that’s only a fair color match,” Jack said.

“It’s close enough,” the stranger said. “Pretty damn good on such short notice, I’d say.”