Paul Wilson - Cold City (Repairman Jack - Early Years Trilogy)

He realized the middle of a recession had not been the best time to drop off the map. But he hadn’t thought about that in June when he’d packed up his stuff, emptied his bank account, and hopped on his Harley. He’d left a note saying he’d be on the road and not to worry.

Impulse had nothing to do with it.

Whoever Jack had been during the first twenty-one years of his life had begun to fade months earlier when, on a snowy night back in February, he’d let the darkness take over. But instead of today’s blinding black heat, he’d fallen under the sway of a fury as icy as the wind ripping along the turnpike that night. He’d hung a man by his feet from an overpass, made him a human piñata that the racing southbound traffic battered to an unrecognizable pulp.

After that, the world changed – or at least the way it looked to him. Maybe cold-blooded murder does that. Killing Ed hadn’t eased the rage. Instead, it seemed to become a part of him, coloring all his perceptions. His grades at Rutgers plummeted. He was going to fail out so he dropped out. School, grades, they didn’t seem to matter.

Nothing mattered and everything – every goddamn thing – annoyed the hell out of him. His older brother Tom had always been an ass, and good thing he wasn’t around much because he might have ended up like Rico, or worse. Much as he loved his sister Kate, her marital bliss set his teeth on edge. And Dad… Dad was the worst. He hadn’t done anything about Mom’s murder beyond bugging the cops about finding her killer. Couldn’t he see she was just another statistic to them? He kept waiting for someone else to handle it. So many times Jack had wanted to grab him and shake him and scream in his face that he’d be waiting forever because the cops weren’t going to find the guy because Jack had already found him and fixed it so the fucker would never again throw another cinder block off another overpass. Ever. In fact he’d never do anything again. EVER!

Finally he couldn’t take it any more. He couldn’t stand being Jack from Johnson another day. He needed to be Jack from nowhere. No family, no history, no last name except the one he’d chosen for the day or the week or the month or maybe just the moment.

And why the hell not? He was fed up with belonging , had it up to here with participating . He wanted out and goddammit he was getting out. No woman in his life – Karina had left for Berkeley and no one knew what she was into these days, probably Kristin least of all. He had no one new he cared about or who cared about him. With Weezy and Eddie off to their respective schools and out of touch, he had no close friends. He was born before a Social Security number was mandatory and had never bothered to apply for one. No one had ever paid him on the books so officialdom had no tax records on him. Didn’t even have a driver’s license. He’d bought the Harley used from a newspaper ad and had never bothered to register it.

Beyond a name on the Rutgers University class of ’91 student rolls, he had no official existence.

Why not keep it that way?

So he dropped out.

Probably caused a lot of consternation and confusion at home, but he’d spent his whole life being the good son. No more. He was now a killer. And not by accident. He’d murdered someone in cold blood. That case was still open. The cops had expended tons more effort trying to solve Ed’s murder than his mother’s. After all, Ed’s death had made the national press, blurry photos of his battered body swinging from the overpass appeared in every major paper, while Mom had never been more than a footnote.

Earlier today on the turnpike, some lady riding along with her husband and son had the life crushed out of her by a cinder block dropped from an overpass. And in other news…

Subsequent details of Ed’s unsavory past had dimmed the hue and cry for justice. Eight months now and no announcement of a suspect. That didn’t mean they couldn’t get a break. Jack didn’t want to be around if they did.

Committing cold-blooded murder, even if no one else knew about it, seemed to have drawn a line in the sand between him and everyone he knew.

So far, so good. The building owner didn’t care who he was, only that he paid his rent on time. The rent included utilities. Jack paid cash. He worked for cash. The only tax he paid – at least knowingly – was sales tax.

The invisible man.

Well, not really. If truly invisible he wouldn’t need a gun.

Again…where to find one? No clue. But he had an idea of a guy who might point him in the right direction.

5

Jack was relieved to see the OPEN sign in the door to the Isher Sports Shop. A bell dinged as he opened it.

Down a narrow aisle a heavyset man looked up from behind the rear counter where he perched next to a dusty cash register. His eyes fixed Jack over the wire rims of his half-frame reading glasses.

“It’s the boychick from Jersey. I find him an apartment and what does he do? Does he call? Does he write? Never. Deaf, mute, and illiterate he becomes.”

Jack felt bad about that. He’d first met Abraham Grossman maybe seven or eight years ago as a kid while working at Mr. Rosen’s store. He’d come into USED one day and – without saying he was the owner’s nephew – tried to game Jack into gypping his boss. When that didn’t work, he’d left his card, saying anytime Jack was in town to look him up: “You got a friend in the big city, kid.” He never visited USED again but Jack kept the card and took him up on the offer as soon as he’d found a garage for his Harley.

The man he’d found had less hair and a bigger waistline than he remembered, but the staccato patter was the same. Jack visited the Isher Sports Shop maybe a half dozen times in the first month he’d been here, and each time Abe was dressed the same: a half-sleeve white shirt with a black tie over black pants, sometimes belted, sometimes not. He stood maybe five-five or –six; he had twenty or so years and at least twice that many pounds on Jack.

He needed either a bigger store or lots less stock. Bicycles hung upside down from the ceiling like bats; floor level was a post-tornado rat’s nest of rods and reels and clubs and racquets, hoops and nets and bats and balls of every imaginable size, color, and consistency.

“Hey, sorry, Mister Grossman,” he said, approaching through the maze. “I got this job and–”

“Job, schmob. And it’s Abe . I told you that. Mister Grossman was my father, alev ha-sholem .”

Abe was always throwing weird expressions about.

“What’s that mean?” Jack said as he arrived safely at the scarred counter.

Close up now he could see that today was a not day for a belt. But Abe had accessorized instead with a rainbow of stains. Jack had seen the yellow of mustard and the red of catsup before, and those were in evidence today, but he’d somehow added green to the mix. Guacamole? The white specks that dusted his black pants might have been dandruff, but dandruff didn’t smear. Powdered sugar, no doubt.

“What’s what mean?” Abe said.

“ Alev …something.”

“ Alev ha-sholem . If you grew up in Brooklyn you’d know already. But you had a deprived childhood in the wilds of New Jersey, so you’re forgiven. I know my uncle Jake had a tough life, but what made him settle there I’ll never know.”

“I think he liked being alone. And I still don’t know what that alev thing means.”

“It’s the Yiddish equivalent of ‘rest in peace.’”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. He’s long gone.” He fixed Jack again with a hard stare. “Nu? You got no phone?”

“No.”

He looked genuinely shocked. “Who doesn’t have a phone?”