Quick Fixes: Tales of Repairman Jack (18 page)

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.”

“
You two don’t seem to be each other’s type.”

“
He protected me.”

Jack nodded. He got the picture.

“
I see.”

“
No, man. You don’t see,” Fat Henry said, his voice rising. “You don’t see
shit!
You don’t know what it was like in there! I was
tail
meat! Guys’d be lined up in the shower to get at me! I wanted to
die!
”

“
And Khambatta saved you.”

Fat Henry let out a tremulous sigh. “Yeah. Sort of. He took me in. Protected me.”

“
Made you his property so he could have you all to himself.”

“
I ain’t like that, man! I just did what I hadda to get through it! Don’t you dump on me if you ain’t been there!”

Jack only shook his head. He didn’t know how many things were worth dying over, but he was pretty sure that was one of them. And he didn’t know what to make of Fat Henry. He was one pathetic son of a bitch, but he wasn’t a killer. He was going to be treated as one, though – a cop killer.

“
So how come you’re still with Khambatta?”

“
I ain’t. He ain’t like that, either – least not outside. We got out about the same time and he call me last week ‘bout picking up some quick cheese.”

“
Swell. What you picked up instead was another trip to Attica.”

“
No way I’m goin’ back inside! I’m getting outta here.”

“
How?”

“
Gettin’ a car from the cops.”

“
You sure about that? What’ve you told them about their dead pal?”

“
Nothin’. Told ‘em he’s safe and sound but I’ll shoot him dead they make a move on me.”

“
You really think they’re going to let you have a car without talking to their man, without making sure he’s all right?”

“
Yeah. Sure.” Fat Henry’s voice faltered. “They gotta. Don’t they?”

Jack shook his head, slowly, deliberately. “Switch places: Would
you
let you have a car?”

“
I ain’t goin’ back.” Tears began to stream down his face. “I’ll off myself first!”

“
You already tried that.”

Fat Henry glared at him. Again he lifted the shotgun. Jack thought he was going to put it under his jaw again; instead he offered it to Jack.

“
Here. You do it.”

Jack took the weapon and sniffed the bore. It hadn’t been fired tonight. He was almost tempted to aim it at Fat Henry’s face to see how serious he was about this, but decided against it. Instead, he worked the pump, sending red-and-brass cylinders tumbling through the gloom one after another until they lay scattered on the floor like party favors. He tossed the empty shotgun back to Fat Henry. Hard.

“
Do your own dirty work.”

“
You fucker!”

Thoroughly fed up, Jack stepped over him toward the airshaft opening.

“
And I’m not hanging around listening to you blubber.”

“
I need help, dog.” He was whining now.

“
No argument there. But there’s only one person here who can help you and he’s sitting on the floor whining.”

“
Fuck you!”

Jack had one leg through the opening. He turned and jabbed a finger at Fat Henry.

“
You’re the one who’s fucked, Fatso. Look at your life! What’ve you ever done with it? You got busted dealing – crack, right? You let yourself be the shower-room bimbo until some tough guy came along and made you his private tool. You went along on this armed robbery bullshit, and now somebody’s dead and you’re bawling because it’s time to pay the piper. You make me sick.”

Another whine. “But what can I
do
?”

“
First of all, you can get off your ass and onto your feet.”

Fat Henry rolled over and struggled to his feet.

“
Good,” Jack said. “That’s a start. Now you’ve got to go upstairs and face the music.”

He stepped back, a caged animal look in his eyes. “Uh-uh.”

“
Either they take you up there, or they come down those stairs, step over the body of their buddy, and take you here.”

“
Told you! I can’t go back to the joint!”

“
You’ve got to stand up, Henry Thompson. For once in your life you’ve got to stand up.”

“
But I
can’t!
”

Jack stared him down in the silence that followed.

“
Then sit here all night and play with yourself until somebody else makes the choice for you. That seems to be the story of your life, Henry.”

Fat Henry looked toward the steps up to the first floor. He stood like a statue, staring.

“
I can choose,” he said in a soft, far-away voice. “I can choose. I’ll show you I can choose.”

“
Sure you can, Henry.”

Jack left him like that.

4

A little while later Jack stood in the street, on the fringe of the crowd around Costin’s. He wanted to tell the vultures to go home, that it was going to be a
long
night. He was about to leave for home himself when Fat Henry came out.

Costin’s front door slammed open and there he was, all three-hundred pounds of him, brandishing his shotgun and screaming like a wild man. He got off one blast that looked like it was aimed at the moon. All around Jack the crowd screamed and dove for cover, leaving him standing alone as the two-dozen cops out front opened up.

The fusillade slammed Fat Henry back against the doorframe, his sawed-off went spinning, and then he was turning and falling and rolling down the steps. It was over in seconds. No Peckinpah slo-mo. No ballet-like turns. Quick, graceless, ugly, and red. He hit the sidewalk face first and never moved again.

Fat Henry Thompson had finally stood up. And he’d got his wish: He wouldn’t be going back to Attica.

Jack turned and walked away, stepping over the prone onlookers as they peeked between their fingers and made horrified noises. As he headed home he tried to put his finger on the feelings massed in his chest like a softball-sized lump of putty –
cold
putty. Not sadness, certainly not glee or satisfaction. More a bleakness. A dark despair for all the hardcore losers in this city, the ones it created and the others it attracted.

He passed a corner litter basket and gave it a hard kick, adding an especially deep dent to its already bruised flanks.

A waste. A damn stupid fruitless futile ass-brained waste.

When he got to his door he realized he didn’t have his beer. The six-pack he’d gone out for earlier in the evening was long gone from where he’d left it sitting on the curb. He could really have used a Rock about now. And he could probably find an all-night deli to where he could buy some.

Nah.

Jack stepped inside and locked the door behind him.

He couldn’t risk it. The way things were going tonight, he might not make it home again.

introduction to “The Wringer”

In August of 1991, Ed Gorman called requesting a story for the third
Stalkers
anthology. I don’t know where I came up with “The Wringer” or its sick villain. The anthology was titled
Night Screams
and wasn’t published until 1996(!) The story was never reprinted and I loved its cat-and-mouse dynamic too much to let it molder forever in an out-of-print paperback, so in 2010 I included it in
Fatal Error
.

The Wringer

1

Munir stood on the curb, unzipped his fly, and tugged his penis free. He felt it shrivel in his hand at the cool caress of the breeze, as if shrinking from the sight of all these passing strangers.

At least he hoped they were strangers.

Please let no one who knows me pass by. Or, Allah forbid, a policeman.

He stretched his flabby, reluctant member and urged his bladder to empty. He’d drunk two quarts of Gatorade in the past two hours to be sure that it would be full to bursting, but he couldn’t go. His sphincters were clamped as tightly shut as his jaw.

Off to his left the light at the corner where 45th Street met Broadway turned red and the traffic slowed to a stop. A woman in a cab glanced at him through her window and started when she saw how he was exposing himself to her. Her lips tightened and she shook her head in disgust as she turned away. He could almost read her mind: A guy in a suit exposing himself on a Sunday afternoon in the theater district – New York’s going to Hell even faster than they say it is.

But it has
become
hell for me, Munir thought.

He closed his eyes to shut out the bright marquees and the line of cars idling before him, tried to block out the tapping, scuffing footsteps of the pedestrians on the sidewalk behind him as they hurried to the matinees, but a child’s voice broke through. “Look, Mommy. What’s that man–?”

“
Don’t look, honey,” said a woman’s voice. “It’s just someone who’s sick.”