F. Wilson - Secret Histories

the Lodge … did this have anything to do with the Lodge? Or the corpse? The freeholder had mentioned Mr. Sumter.

Jack burned with curiosity. He didn’t know what was going on, but things were

connecting in the strangest ways, and Steve’s dad seemed to be in the middle of it al .

He even could open the cube.

9

When they reached the basement, Steve put down the cube and produced two little bottles from his pocket.

“Look what I found.” He grinned as he waggled them in the air. “Airline bottles. My dad’s got a drawer ful of them.”

Jack took a closer look. Booze. The labels said one was Jack Daniel’s and the other Dewar’s Scotch.

Swel .

“Which one you want?”

Jack shook his head. “Maybe later. Hey, your father know Mister Sumter, the guy who died?”

“Sure. Didn’t everybody? Matter of fact, he was here last night, right after you left.”

“Here? What for?”

Steve shrugged and Jack realized he probably hadn’t been very alert at the time.

He could contain his curiosity no longer.

“Hey, I gotta go tap a kidney. Be right back.”

“Hurry up.” He twisted off the cap on the Jack Daniel’s and started pouring it into a Pepsi. “You’l miss al the fun.”

Jack padded up the basement stairs and paused at the top. The kitchen looked empty so he stepped out and peeked down the hal . He heard voices

coming from the den. The guest bathroom lay halfway between the kitchen and the den. Holding his breath, he made it to the bathroom and closed the

door behind him without latching it. Leaving the light off, he stood with his ear to the opening and listened.

Mr. Haskins was talking.

“Damn it, Gordon, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Wel , it is and it did. So we deal with it.”

Jack wished he’d arrived sooner. Then he might know what “it” was.

Mr. Haskins sighed. “Poor Sumter. Why now? What lousy timing.”

“Timing had nothing to do with it,” Mr. Brussard said. “He was brought down.”

“Brought down by whom? No … the High Council can’t know.”

“They don’t have to. I’m certain they’ve sent out a klazen.”

A klazen? Jack thought as he heard Mr. Haskins gasp. What’s that?

“That’s a myth,” the freeholder said. “An old wives’ tale. There’s no such thing.”

“You’re so sure? I’m the Lodge lore master, remember, and I’m tel ing you a klazen can sniff out those responsible. And when it finds them … wel ,

Sumter was healthy as a horse but now where is he?”

Responsible? For what?

“B-but he had a heart attack.”

“Did he? Maybe his heart simply stopped. That’s not a heart attack, but it’s the way a klazen works.”

“Oh, God!” Haskins moaned. “What do we do?”

“The Compendium offers protection.”

“The Compendium? But that’s a myth too.”

Mr. B sounded ticked off. “This is getting tiring, Winston. We have partial transcripts in the vault.”

“What do they say?”

“To use this. Not now … tomorrow at dawn, face your back to the sun, and use it.”

“‘Back to the sun’? Oh, come on!”

Jack could imagine Mr. Brussard shrugging. “It’s up to you, Winston. I did it. I’m protected. If you want to risk going without it, be my guest. I’ve

discharged my responsibility. What happens now is on your own head.”

“Al right, al right. God, I’m scared. This had better work.”

“It wil . A klazen can run for only a week. At the end of that time, it wil vanish and the Council wil assume it’s done what needed to be done. We’l be

home free.”

“Five more days … if we can just last …”

“The key to doing that rests in your palm.”

“What about Chal is?”

“Out in L.A.—some insurance brokers’ convention, his wife said. But who knows? I don’t know about you, but Bert Chal is worries me.”

Bert Chal is? Jack thought. The insurance guy?

He had his office up in Marlton but insured most of the houses and people in Johnson. Jack remembered him coming to the house last year with a life

insurance policy for Dad to sign.

Mr. Haskins nodded. “I know what you mean. He’s a loose cannon. No tel ing what he’l do.”

“Wel , if you see Bert or hear from him, tel him to get in touch wil me immediately. His life wil depend on it. Same with Vasquez.”

“Yes. Sure. Of course.”

Jack heard footsteps enter the hal way and felt a flicker of panic. What if they caught him in here? If he’d put the light on it would look like he’d simply

been using the bathroom. But standing here with the light off … how would he explain that?

He didn’t see much choice but to stay hidden and hope neither of them needed a bathroom break.

He peeked through the slit opening and saw Mr. Haskins standing by the front door. In his left hand he held a funny-shaped red box, maybe two inches

across. Mr. B stood there holding something that looked like a cross between a cookie jar and a cigar humidor. Since Jack had never seen a black

ceramic cookie jar, he assumed it was a humidor.

“Good luck to us both, Gordon.”

Mr. B nodded. “We’l need it.”

They shared that strange handshake again, and then the freeholder left.

Mr. Brussard looked unhappy as he closed the door. With a sigh he returned to his den.

As soon as he was out of sight, Jack darted from the bathroom and headed back to the basement.

His mind whirled as he descended the stairs. What was this “klazen” they’d been talking about? From what he’d just heard, it kil ed people. But not just

any people … “those responsible.”

Responsible for what?

It sounded crazy, but here were two grown men, one of them a freeholder, both frightened by this thing Jack had never heard of.

Despite previous worries about NineteenEighty-Four’s Big Brother, Weezy’s idea about a two-way TV that could search al the libraries in the world was starting to sound pretty good to Jack.

No one in his family had heard of a “klazen” and, try as he might, he couldn’t find a word about it anywhere. The big problem was not knowing how to spel it. So he’d tried every variation he could think of: clazen,klazen,clayzen, klazin, and on and on, but found nothing in the family’s Encyclopedia Britannica or its unabridged dictionary.

So he cal ed up the source of al weird knowledge—at least in his world.

“Please tel me the cube’s al right,” Weezy said as soon as she came on the phone. “It is, isn’t it? You didn’t lose it or anything, did you?”

“And a good morning to you too,” he said.

“Please, Jack. I’m serious. You’re not cal ing me to tel me—”

“Everything’s fine, Weez. I’ve got it right here. And guess what? Mister Brussard can open it too. But Steve can’t. Isn’t that weird?”

A pause, then, “Yeah, I guess so. Is that what you cal ed to tel me?”

“No. I heard a strange word last night: klazen. Ring a bel ?”

“No. How do you spel it?”

He read off al the variations he’d written down.

“Nope,” she said. “Never heard of it. What’s it supposed to be?”

“I’l tel you later. I’m going to ask Mister Rosen if he’s ever heard of it. Want to come along? I can explain on the way.”

“Okay. But stop here first. And bring the cube.”

He laughed. “You sound like Linus and his blanket.”