Quick Fixes - tales of Repairman Jack Read online

  Quick Fixes

  Repairman Jack Short Fiction

  © 2011 by F. Paul Wilson

  First Edition

  Kindle edition 2011

  Contents

  1 - A Day in the Life

  2 - The Last Rakosh

  3 - Home Repairs

  4 - The Long Way Home

  5 - The Wringer

  6 - Interlude at Duane’s

  7 - Do-Gooder

  8 - Piney Power

  Publishing History

  The Secret History of the World

  Bibliography

  Foreword

  I compiled this collection at the insistence of Repairman Jack fans, especially the completists. A number of small presses have approached me to do a signed, limited first edition, but I'm not comfortable with charging a premium price for recycled material. Through the years a number of these stories have been incorporated into Repairman Jack novels:

  “Home Repairs ” into Conspiracies

  “The Last Rakosh” into All the Rage

  “The Wringer” into Fatal Error

  If you’ve read those three novels, you have, in effect, read versions of those three stories. For those who are newcomers to the character…

  Who is Repairman Jack?

  He’s an urban mercenary in Manhattan, a self-made outcast who lives in the interstices of modern society. A ghost in our machine: no official identity, no social security number, pays no taxes. He has a violent streak he sometimes finds hard to control. He hires out for cash to "fix" situations that have no legal remedy.

  The name Repairman Jack comes from his gunrunner pal, Abe. Jack’s not crazy about it, but he lives with it. He’s not a vigilante, not a do-gooder. He’s not out to right wrongs. Nor is he out to change the world or fight crime. (He’s a career criminal, after all, as are many of his friends.) He’s not Batman. He’s just a guy with a devious mind who likes his work best when he can see to it that what goes around come around. If you follow him carefully you’ll see he gets a real jolt out of running a scam or setting up someone to be hoisted on his own petard.

  He came from a dream. The scene on the roof in The Tomb was that dream. I worked backward and forward from there to create a character who could survive that situation. I decided on an anti-Jason Bourne – with no black-ops, SEAL, or Special Forces training, no CIA or police background, no connection to officialdom. In other words, no safety net. No one in officialdom he could call on. He has to rely on his own wits and his own network.

  I’ve been a libertarian forever, so I figured I’d act out my libertarian dreams, you know, make this guy an anarchist with no identity. But as I’ve continued his adventures, I’ve learned that it takes a lot of effort to live below the radar, especially since 9/11.

  I intended Jack as a one-shot, which is kind of obvious at the end of The Tomb. As I finished that novel, I thought, “Well, this character is definitely series material, so I gotta make it look like the guy is dead or they’ll want more.” I had books planned out and didn’t want to get locked into a series.

  Then, later on, Jack became a way out of a trap I’d got myself into with a medical thriller contract. I’d become bored with writing them after doing three and I was contracted to do a fourth… but I had this idea for a techy thriller and thought, why don’t I rework this and use Jack again? It’d be great for him. I named it Legacies and made his client a doctor so I could call it a medical thriller. The publisher was happy I was bringing back a character my fans wanted to see again, and I was happy to revisit Jack. A win-win.

  Legacies was fun and sold well, so I had to do another, and then another, and before I knew it, Jack had taken over my writing career.

  But before Legacies, I brought him back in shorter works.

  introduction to “A Day in the Life”

  Sometime in 1988, one of my phone friends, Ed Gorman (with whom I’ve spent countless hours in conversation but have never met) mentioned that he and Marty Greenberg were co editing an anthology called Stalkers for Dark Harvest / NAL. Would I care to contribute? I said I'd been itching to revive Repairman Jack, the lead character from The Tomb – not in a novel (I still didn’t want a series at that time), just a short piece. How about a Jack story? Ed, a Repairman Jack fan since the git-go, told me I had to do it.

  The Tomb had been published four years earlier. It hit the bestseller lists, won the Porgie Award from The West Coast Review of Books, and the mail began pouring in. I’d known right then he was a series character but I didn’t want to do a series. I’d closed the novel with Jack’s life hanging by a thread, and readers wanted to know: What happened to Repairman Jack? When are you going to do another Repairman Jack novel? Never, I thought. But the book kept selling, and the letters kept coming in.

  Hollywood entered the picture. The Tomb has been optioned numerous times. Everyone loves the idea of Repairman Jack as a franchise character; but the rakoshi, the Bengali temple demons who provide the horror, have sunk all attempts to adapt it to film. How do you make them look real? The line between horror and hilarity is a couple of nanometers thick. A rakosh is scary; a guy in a rubber suit is dumb.

  In the late 80s, Roger Corman’s New World Pictures had the novel under option. A combination of low-rent antics by Fred Olen Ray with the title, and a lousy screenplay (they moved the action to Pasadena!), had the project dead in the water. I dashed off a spec script in an eleventh-hour attempt to save it, but too late.

  The Hollywood connection provided extra incentive to write a new Repairman Jack story. I had created a number of original action sequences for the screenplay I’d sent New World, and I wanted to protect them. The best way to do that was to copyright them in a story. They’re all in “A Day in the Life.”

  Stalkers turned out to be a hugely successful anthology, reprinted in book clubs and multiple foreign editions. The result: “A Day in the Life” gained Jack even more fans.

  For those who care, Levinson never appeared again. He was replaced by Ernie to ID guru when I started writing the novels. Tram previously appeared in “Dat-Tay-Vao.” As for Hollywood, as I write this, the novel had been in development hell for over 15 years at Beacon Films.

  A Day in the Life

  When the cockroach made a right turn up the wall, Jack flipped another shuriken across the room. The steel points of the throwing star drove into the wallboard just above the bug’s long antennae. It backed up and found itself hemmed in on all sides now by four of the stars.

  “Did it!” Jack said from where he lay across the still made hotel bed.

  He counted the shuriken protruding from the wall. A dozen of them traveled upward in a gentle arc above and behind the barely functioning TV, ending in a tiny square where the roach was trapped.

  Check that. It was free again. Crawled over one of the shuriken and was now continuing on its journey to wherever. Jack let it go and rolled onto his back on the bedspread.

  Bored.

  And hot. He was dressed in jeans and a loose, heavy sweater under an oversized lightweight jacket, both dark blue; a black-and-orange knitted cap was jammed on the top of his head. He’d turned the thermostat all the way down but the room remained an oven. He didn’t want to risk taking anything off because, when the buzzer sounded, he had to hit the ground running.

  He glanced over at the dusty end table where the little Walkman sized box with the antenna sat in silence.

  “Come on, already,” he mumbled to it. “Let’s do it.”

  Reilly and his sleazos were due to make their move tonight. What was taking them so long to get started? Almost one a.m. already – three hours here in this fleabag. He was starting to itch. He could handle only
so much TV without getting drowsy. Even without the lulling drone of some host interviewing some actor he’d never heard of, the heat was draining him.

  Fresh air. Maybe that would help.

  Jack got up, stretched, and stepped to the window. A clear almost Halloween night out there, with a big moon rising over the city. He gripped the handles and pulled. Nothing. The damn thing wouldn’t budge. He was checking the edges of the sash when he heard the faint crack of a rifle. The bullet came through the glass two inches to the left of his head, peppering his face with tiny sharp fragments as it whistled past his ear.

  Jack collapsed his legs and dropped to the floor. He waited. No more shots. Keeping his head below the level of the windowsill, he rose to a crouch, then leapt for the lamp on the end table at the far side of the bed, grabbed it, and rolled to the floor with it. Another shot spat through the glass and whistled through the room as his back thudded against the floor. He turned off the lamp.

  The other lamp, the one next to the TV, was still on – sixty watts of help for the shooter. And whoever was shooting had to know Jack would be going for it next. He’d be ready.

  On his belly, Jack slid along the industrial grade carpet toward the end of the bed until he had an angle where the bulb was visible under the shade. He pulled out his next to last shuriken and spun it toward the bulb. With an electric pop it flared blue white and left the room dark except for the flickering glow from the TV.

  Immediately Jack popped his head above the bed and looked out the window. Through the spider webbed glass he caught sight of a bundled figure turning and darting away across the neighboring rooftop. Moonlight glinted off the long barrel of a high powered rifle, flashed off the lens of a telescopic sight, then he was gone.

  A high pitched beep made him jump. The red light on the signal box was blinking like mad. Kuropolis wanted help. Which meant Reilly had struck.

  “Swell.”

  *

  Not a bad night,” George Kuropolis thought, wiping down the counter in front of the slim young brunette as she seated herself. Not a great night, but still to have half a dozen customers at this hour was good. And better yet, Reilly and his creeps hadn’t shown up.

  Maybe they’d bother somebody else tonight.

  “What’ll it be?” he asked the brunette.

  “Tea, please,” she said with a smile. A nice smile. She was dressed nice and had decent jewelry on. Not exactly overdressed for the neighborhood, but better than the usual.

  George wished he had more customers of her caliber. And he should have them. Why the hell not? Didn’t the chrome inside and out sparkle? Couldn’t you eat off the floor? Wasn’t everything he served made right here on the premises?

  “Sure. Want some pie?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “It’s good. Blueberry. Made it myself.”

  The smile again. “No, thanks. I’m on a diet.”

  “Sure,” he mumbled as he turned away to get her some hot water. “Everyone’s on a goddamn diet. Diets are gettin’ hazardous to my health.”

  Just then the front door burst open and a white haired man in his mid twenties leaped in with a sawed off shotgun in his hands. He pointed it at the ceiling and let loose a round at the fixture over the cash register. The boom of the blast was deafening as glass showered everything.

  Matt Reilly was here.

  Four more of his gang crowded in behind him. George recognized them: Reece was the black with the white fringe leather jacket; Rafe had the blue Mohican, Tony had the white; and Cheeks was the baby faced skinhead.

  “Awright!” Reilly said, grinning fiercely under his bent nose, mean little eyes, dark brows, and bleached crewcut. “It’s ass kickin’ time!”

  George reached into his pocket and pressed the button on the beeper there, then raised his hands and backed up against the wall.

  “Hey, Matt!” he called. “C’mon! What’s the problem?”

  “You know the problem, George!” Reilly said.

  He tossed the shotgun to Reece and stepped around the counter. Smiling, he closed with George. The smile only heightened the sick knot of fear coiling in George’s belly. He was so fixed on that empty smile that he didn’t see the sucker punch coming. It caught him in the gut. He doubled over in agony. His last cup of coffee heaved but stayed down.

  He groaned. “Christ!”

  “You’re late again, George!” Reilly said through his teeth. “I told you last time what would happen if you didn’t stick to the schedule!”

  George struggled to remember his lines.

  “I can’t pay two protections! I can’t afford it!”

  “You can’t afford not to afford it! And you don’t have to pay two. Just pay me!”

  “Sure! That’s what the other guy says when he wants his! And where are you then?”

  “Don’t worry about the other guy! I’m taking care of him tonight! But you!” Reilly rammed George back against the wall. “I’m gonna hafta make a example outta you, George! People saw what happened to Wolansky when he turned pigeon. Now they’re gonna see what happens to a shit who don’t pay!”

  Just then came a scream from off to George’s right. He looked and saw Reece covering the five male customers in booths two and four, making them empty their pockets onto one of the tables. Further down the counter, Cheeks was waving a big knife with a mean looking curved blade at the girl who’d wanted the tea.

  “The ring, babe,” he was saying. “Let’s have it.”

  “It’s my engagement ring!” she said.

  “You wanna look nice at your wedding, you better give it quick.”

  He reached for it and she slapped his hand away.

  “No!”

  Cheeks straightened up and slipped the knife into a sheath tucked into the small of his back.

  “Ooooh, you shouldna done that, bitch,” said Reece in oily tones.

  George wished he were a twenty five year old with a Schwartzenegger build instead of a wheezy fifty with pencil arms. He’d wipe the floor with these creeps.

  “Stop him,” he said to Reilly. “Please. I’ll pay you.”

  “Couldn’t stop him now if I wanted to,” Reilly said, grinning. “Cheeks likes it when they play rough.”

  In a single smooth motion, the skinhead’s hand snaked out, grabbed the front of the woman’s blouse, and ripped. The whole front came away. Her breasts were visible through a semi transparent bra. She screamed and swatted at him. Cheeks shrugged off the blow and grappled with her, dragging her to the floor.

  One of the men in the booth near Reece leapt to his feet and started toward the pair, yelling, “Hey! Whatta y’think you’re doin’?”

  Reece slammed the shotgun barrel across his face. Blood spurted from the guy’s forehead as he dropped back into his seat.

  “Tony!” Reilly said to the Mohican standing by the cash register. “Where’s Rafe?”

  “Inna back.”

  George suddenly felt his scalp turn to fire as Reilly grabbed him by the hair and shoved him toward Tony.

  “Take George in the back. You and Rafe give him some memory lessons so he won’t be late again.”

  George felt his sphincters loosening. Where was Jack?

  “I’ll pay! I told you I’ll pay!”

  “It’s not the same, George,” Reilly said with a slow shake of his head. “If I gotta come here and kick ass every month just to get what’s mine, well, I got better things to do, y’know?”

  As George watched, Reilly hit the “NO SALE” button on the cash register and started digging into the bills.

  Thick, pincer like fingers closed on the back of George’s neck as he was propelled into the rear of the diner. He saw Rafe off to the side, playing with the electric meat grinder where George mixed his homemade sausage.

  “Rafe!” said Tony. “Matt wants us to teach Mr. Greasyspoon some manners!”

  Rafe didn’t look up. He had a raw chicken leg in his hand. He shoved it into the top of the meat grinder. The sickening cr
unch of bone and cartilage being pulverized rose over the whir of the motor, then ground chicken leg began to extrude through the grate at the bottom.

  “Hey, Tone!” Rafe said, looking up and grinning. “I got a great idea!”

  *

  Jack pounded along the second floor hallway. He double timed down the flight of stairs to the lobby, sprinted across the carpet tiles that spelled out “The Lucky Hotel” in bright yellow on dark blue, and pushed through the smudged glass doors of the entrance. One of the letters on the neon sign above the door was out. The ucky Hotel flashed fitfully in hot red.

  Jack leaped down the three front steps and hit the pavement running. Half a block to the left, then another left down an alley, leaping puddles and dodging garbage cans until he came to the rear of the Highwater Diner. He had his key ready and shoved it into the deadbolt on the delivery door. He paused there long enough to draw his .45 automatic, a Colt Mark IV, and to stretch the knitted cap down over his face. It then became a Halloween decorated ski mask, and he was looking out through a bright orange jack o lantern. He pulled the door open and slipped into the storage area at the rear of the kitchen.

  Up ahead he heard the sound of a scuffle, and George’s terrified voice crying, “No, don’t! Please don’t!”

  He rounded the corner of the meat locker and found Tony and Rafe – he’d know those Mohicans anywhere – from Reilly’s gang forcing George’s hand into a meat grinder and George struggling like all hell to keep it out. But he was losing the battle. His fingers would soon be sausage meat.