Quick Fixes: Tales of Repairman Jack (9 page)

One of the workmen came by then, a beefy roustabout with a shaven head, thin lips, and the eyes of a snake. He carried a blunt elephant gaff and rapped it against the bars.

“
So you’re up, ay?” he said to the rakosh in a harsh voice. “Maybe you’ve finally learned your lesson.” He turned to the crowd. “Here he is ladies and gentleman, the one and only Man Shark. The only one of his kind. He’s exclusively on display here at Ozymandias Oddities. Tell your friends, tell your enemies. You’ve never seen anything like him and never will anywhere else. Guaranteed.” He spotted Jack. “Here, you. Get behind the rope. This thing’s dangerous! See those claws? One swipe and you’d be sliced up like a tomato by a Ginsu knife! We don’t want to see our customers get sliced up.” His eyes said otherwise as he none too gently prodded Jack with the pole. “Back now.”

Jack slipped back under the rope, never taking his eyes off Scar lip. Now that it was up front in the light, he saw that the rakosh didn’t look well. Its skin was dull, and relatively pale, nothing like the shiny deep cobalt he remembered. It looked thin, almost wasted. It stared at Jack a moment longer, then it looked down. Its talons retracted, slipping back inside the fingertips, the arms dropped to its sides, the shoulders drooped, then it turned and shuffled back to the rear of the cage where it slumped again in the corner and hung its head.

Drugged. That had to be the answer. They had to keep the rakosh tranquilized to keep it manageable. Even so, it didn’t look too healthy.

But drugged or not, healthy or not, it had remembered Jack, recognized him. Which meant it could remember Vicky. And if it ever got free, it might come after Vicky again, to complete the task its dead master had set for it last summer.

The roustabout had begun banging on the rakoshi’s cage in a fury, screaming at it to get up and face the crowd. Jack turned and headed for the exit. He knew what had to be done.

Scar lip had to die.

Friday

Jack parked his Corvair at the edge of the Monroe meadows at around midnight and waited in the front seat for the circus to bed down for the night. Chilly. An autumn mist had formed, hugging the ground. No moon above, but plenty of stars. Enough light to get him where he wanted to go without a flashlight.

At least Vicky wasn’t frightened anymore. Jack had hated lying to her, but seeing the relief he her eyes when he’d told her the rakosh she’d seen had really been a man in a rubber costume had made it seem like the right thing to do. He’d told her every last rakosh was dead. A lie, but only a temporary lie, just for a couple of hours. By morning it would be true.

Things quieted down by one a.m. Jack waited until two, then went around to the Corvair’s front and removed a pair of gallon cans from the trunk. The gasoline sloshed heavily within as he strode across the uneven ground toward the hulking silhouette of the freak show tent. The performers’ and hands’ trailers stood off to the north by the big eighteen wheel truck.

No guards in sight. If any were about, they were probably concentrated around the menagerie area. Jack slipped under the canvas sidewall and listened. Quiet. A couple of incandescent bulbs had been left on, one hanging from the ceiling every thirty feet or so. Keeping to the shadows along the sidewall, Jack made his way toward Scar lip’s cage.

His plan was simple: flood the floor of the rakosh’s cage and douse the thing itself with the gas, strike a match, then head for the trailers shouting “Fire!” at the top of his lungs. He knew from experience that once a rakosh started to burn, it would be quickly consumed. He just hoped the performers and roustabouts would arrive with their extinguishers in time to keep the whole tent from going up. He didn’t like the plan, didn’t like endangering the tent or anybody nearby, but it was the most efficient and direct plan he could come up with on such short notice. He had to protect Vicky at any cost, and this was the only sure way he knew of killing a rakosh.

He approached the cage warily from the blind end, then made a wide circle around to the front. Scar lip was stretched out on the cage floor, sleeping, its right arm dangling through the bars. It opened its eyes as he neared. Their yellow was even duller than this afternoon. Its talons extended only part way as it made a half hearted, almost perfunctory swipe in Jack’s direction. Then it closed its eyes and let the arm dangle again. It didn’t seem to have strength for anything more.

Jack stopped and stared at the creature. And somehow he knew.

It’s dying.

He stood there a long time and watched Scar lip doze in its cage. Was it sick or had it simply reached the end of its days? What was the life span of a rakosh, anyway? He shifted the gas cans in his hands and realized he couldn’t do it. He could torch a vital, aggressive, healthy rakosh without a qualm, because he knew if positions were reversed it would tear off his head in a second and devour his remains. But there didn’t seem to be any question that Scar lip would be history before too long. So what was the use? Why endanger the carny folk unnecessarily with a fire?

Suddenly he heard voices down the midway. He ducked in the other direction, into the shadows.

“
I tell you, Hank,” said a voice that sounded familiar, “you should’ve seen the big wimp this afternoon. Something got it riled. It had the crowd six deep around its cage while it was up.”

Jack peeked out and recognized the bald headed roustabout who’d prodded him back behind the rope this afternoon. He had another man with him, taller, younger, but just as beefy, with a full head of sandy hair. He carried a bottle of what looked like bourbon while the bald one carried a six foot iron bar, sharpened at one end. Neither of them was walking too steadily.

“
Maybe we taught it a good lesson last night, huh, Bondy?” said Hank.

“
Just lesson number one. The first of many. The first of many.”

They stopped before the cage. Bondy took a swig from the bottle and handed it back to Hank.

“
Look at it,” Bondy said. “The blue wimp. Thinks it can just sit around all day and sleep all night. No way, babe! You got to earn your keep, wimp!” He took the sharp end of the iron bar and jabbed it at the rakosh. “
Earn
it!”

The point pierced Scar lip’s shoulder. The creature, moaned like a cow with laryngitis and rolled away. The bald guy kept jabbing at it, stabbing its back again and again while Hank stood by, grinning.

Jack turned and crept off through the shadows. The two roustabouts had found the only other thing that could harm a rakosh – iron. Fire and iron. The creatures were impervious to everything else. As Jack moved away, he heard Hank’s voice rise over the tortured cries of the dying rakosh.

“
When’s it gonna be my turn, Bondy? Huh? When’s my turn?”

The hoarse moans followed Jack out into the night. He stowed the cans back in the trunk, and got as far as opening the door car door. And then he knew he couldn’t leave.

“
Shit!” he said and pounded the roof of the Corvair. “Shit! Shit!
Shit!
”

He slammed the door closed and ran back to the freak show tent, repeating the word all the way.

No stealth this time. He ran directly to the section he’d just left, pulled up the sidewall, and charged inside. Bondy still had the iron pike – or maybe he had it back again. Jack stepped up beside him just as he was preparing for another jab at the trapped, huddled creature. He snatched the pike from his grasp.

“
That’s enough, asshole.”

Bondy looked at him with a wide eyed, shocked expression, his forehead wrinkling up to and beyond where his hairline should have been. Probably no one had talked to him that way in a long, long time.

“
Who the fuck are you?”

“
Nobody you want to know right now. Maybe you should call it a night.”

Bondy took a swing at Jack’s face. He telegraphed it by baring his teeth. Jack raised the rod between his face and the fist. Bondy screamed as his knuckles smashed against the metal, then did a knock kneed walk in a circle with the hand jammed between his thighs, groaning in pain.

Suddenly a pair of arms wrapped around Jack’s torso, trapping him in a fleshy vise.

“
I got him, Bondy!” Hank’s voice shouted from behind Jack’s left ear. “I got him!”

Bondy stopped his dance, looked up, and grinned. As he charged, Jack rammed his head backward, smashing the back of his skull into Hank’s nose. Abruptly, he was free. He still held the iron bar, so he angled the blunt end toward Bondy and drove it hard into his solar plexus. The air
whooshed
out of him and he dropped to his knees with a groan, his face gray green. Even his scalp looked sick.

Jack glanced up and saw Scar lip crouched at the front of the cage, gripping the bars, its yellow gaze flicking between him and the groaning Bondy, but lingering on Jack, as if it was trying to comprehend what he was doing, and why. Tiny rivulets of dark, almost black blood trailed down its skin.

Jack flipped the pike a hundred and eighty degrees and pressed the point against Bondy’s chest.

“
What kind of noise am I going to hear when I poke you with
this
end?”

Behind him Hank’s voice, very nasal now, started shouting.

“
Hey, Rube! Hey, Rube!”

As Jack was trying to figure out just what that meant, he gave Bondy a poke with the pointed end – not enough to break the skin, but enough to scare him. He howled and fell back on the sawdust, screaming.

“
Don’t! Don’t!”

Meanwhile, Hank had kept up his “Hey, Rube!” shouts. As Jack turned to shut him up, he found out what it meant.

The tent was filling with carny folk. Lots of them, all running his way. In seconds he was surrounded. The workers he could handle, but the freaks, gathered in a crowd like this, in the murky light, in various states of dress, were almost terrifying. Jack was struck by the degree and diversity of their deformities. And none of them looked too friendly.

Hank was holding his bloody nose, wagging his finger at Jack.

“
Now you’re gonna get it! Now you’re gonna get it!”

Bondy seemed to have a sudden infusion of courage. He hauled himself to his feet and started toward Jack.

“
You goddam sonova–”

Jack rapped the end of the iron bar across the side of his bald head, staggering him. With an angry murmur, the circle of carny folk abruptly tightened. Jack whirled, spinning the pike around him.

“
Right,” he said. “Who’s next?”

He hoped it was a convincing show. He didn’t know what else to do at the moment. The circle tightened further, slowly closing in on him like a noose. Jack searched for a weak spot, preparing to make a run for it. As a last resort, there was always the .45 caliber Semmerling strapped to his forearm.

Suddenly a deep voice rose above the angry noise of the crowd.

“
Here, here! What’s going on now?”

The carny folk quieted immediately, but not before Jack heard a few voices whisper about “the boss” and “Oz.” They parted ranks to make way for a tall, ungainly man, six three at least, lank dark hair, sallow complexioned, his pear shaped body swathed in a huge silk robe embroidered with oriental designs. Although he looked doughy about the middle, the hands that protruded from his sleeves were thin and bony at the wrist. He stopped at the edge on the circle and took in the scene. His expression was slack but his eyes were bright, dark, cold, more alive than the rest of him. Those eyes finally settled on Jack.

“
Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“
Protecting your property,” Jack said, gambling.

“
Oh, really?” The smile was sour, almost cruel. “How magnanimous of you.” Abruptly his expression darkened. “Do not insult my intelligence, sir! I can call the police or we can deal with this in our own way.”

“
Fine,” Jack said. He threw the pike at the newcomer’s feet. “Maybe I had it wrong. Maybe you pay baldy here to poke holes in your attractions.”

“
Hey, boss–” Bondy began, but the tall man silenced him with a flick of his hand. He looked down at the pike where sawdust clung the dark fluid coating its point, then up at the rakosh with its dozens of oozing wounds. Color began to darken his cheeks as his head turned slowly toward Bondy.

“
You harmed this creature, Mr. Bond?”

The bald man quailed under the scrutiny. “We was only trying to get it to put on more of a show for the customers.”

“
And you feel you can get more out of it by mistreating it?”

“
We thought–”

“
I know what you thought, Mr. Bond. And many of us know how the Man Shark felt. We’ve all known mistreatment during the course of our lives. We don’t look kindly upon it. You will retire to your quarters immediately and wait for me there.” He gestured to a couple of the freaks – one who looked like an alligator and another who looked like a walking lump of muscle. “See that he gets there and stays there.” Then he returned his attention to Jack. “And what is your interest in this matter?”

“
I don’t like bullies,” Jack said. He didn’t have to fake any sincerity for that statement.

“
No one does. But why should you be interested in this particular creature? Why should you be here at all?”