Jack: Secret Histories Page 11

  “What happened to him?”

  “Keeled over dead, just like Sumter. Couldn’t bring him back. Seems like his heart just stopped cold.”

  Stopped cold … that was how Jack felt. Could it have been the klazen? Was there really such a thing?

  “Wonder who’ll be next?” Mr. Bainbridge said.

  “What do you mean?” Jack asked.

  “They say deaths come in threes. We’ve had Sumter, and now Haskins. Who’s going to be the third?”

  Jack must have looked as upset as he felt because his dad reached out and gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze.

  “That’s just an old wives’ tale, Jack. And don’t worry, if there’s a third, it won’t be anyone from this house.”

  Jack hadn’t been worrying about that—the idea of anyone in his family dying was, well, unthinkable. He’d been worrying about Mr. Brussard. He didn’t want Steve to lose his father. But he couldn’t say that to Dad. How could he explain something he didn’t understand himself?

  He turned to Mr. Bainbridge. “Can I ask you something?”

  Both Dad and Mr. Bainbridge looked at him expectantly.

  “Go ahead,” Mr. Bainbridge said.

  “Have you ever heard of a klazen?”

  Both frowned. Dad shook his head. “You asked me about that this morning.” He glanced at Mr. Bainbridge. “Kurt?”

  Mr. Bainbridge shrugged. “Doesn’t ring a bell. What is it?”

  “Well … I heard the word and just wanted to know—”

  “Hey, wait,” Mr. Bainbridge added. “I knew a Hans Klazen back in Mizzoo. Dutchman. But that’s the only time I’ve heard the word.” He glanced at his watch. “Oops. Ev’ll have dinner ready. Gotta go.”

  He polished off his beer and handed Jack the empty. “Thanks for the brew, sport.” Turning to Dad, he said, “You coming down to the VFW tonight for the smoker?”

  Jack knew that was a code word for the one night each month the VFW showed dirty movies.

  Dad shook his head. “Not my thing.”

  Mr. Bainbridge laughed. “Deadeye, you amaze me. After all we went through, how can you still be a prude?”

  Dad didn’t smile. “Just the way it is, I guess.”

  Jack barely heard him. Deadeye? Mr. Bainbridge called him Deadeye. Wasn’t that what they called marksmen?

  7

  After their guest was gone, Dad headed upstairs to change out of his suit into something cooler. Jack followed.

  “Why’d he call you ‘Deadeye’?” he asked as his father unbuttoned his shirt.

  “Did he?”

  “Yeah. Does that mean you were a good shot in the army?”

  He slipped out of his suit pants and hung them on a hanger. He was wearing light blue boxer shorts beneath.

  “We don’t discuss the army or the war, remember?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No buts.”

  “Walt told me he was in a mental hospital once.”

  Dad gave him a sharp look. “When?”

  “After the war.”

  “No, I mean, when did he tell you?”

  “Yesterday afternoon. Why was he in?”

  “From what Kurt tells me, he came home from ‘Nam saying he could heal people with a touch. The VA hospital in Northport diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic, but harmless. He joined a faith-healing tent show in the South, and Kurt was told some wild story about him really curing people until his drinking got him kicked off the tour. They say he’s harmless, but still … keep your distance.”

  Heal with a touch … was that why he wore gloves all the time?

  As Jack watched his father hang up his pants, he spotted the metal box on the top shelf of the closet. He’d seen it a million times but now it took on special significance.

  “What’s in the box?” He’d asked before but it never hurt to try again.

  “Nothing important.”

  “You always say that.”

  He pulled off his undershirt and Jack spotted the scar where he’d had his appendix removed.

  “That’s because the contents don’t change.”

  Jack was sure now that Dad kept his marksman medals and other cool army stuff hidden there.

  First chance he got, he was going to sneak a peek.

  8

  After dinner, Jack turned on the living room television and started switching through the channels. Cable TV had arrived in Johnson during the winter, and Jack’s family had signed up the instant their street was wired. For as long as he could remember, Dad had been complaining about the poor reception from their aerial. At last he had a cure.

  The really neat thing about cable TV was the remote that came with the box. Their living room set was an older model where you had to get up and cross the room if you wanted to change the channel. All he had to do now was stand back and press a button. He loved it.

  An all-news channel called CNN was on, showing some comments by President Reagan followed by a story on Hurricane Alicia. Tom stopped to watch on his way out the door. Jack kept an eye on him in case he had some sort of vengeance in mind for the pistachio episode.

  After a few minutes his brother said, “An all-news channel? Whose stupid idea was that? Won’t last a year—I guarantee it.” Then he turned to Jack. “And don’t think you’re home free, numbnuts. I never forget. Reprisal is on the way. It’ll hit when Miracle Boy least expects it.”

  Jack waggled his hand. “Ooooh, I’m shaking.”

  Tom’s mouth tightened into a thin line. He looked like he wanted to throw a punch. Jack readied himself for evasive maneuvers.

  But Tom only pointed a finger and said, “It’s coming. Get ready.”

  As he slammed out the front door, Jack resumed switching channels. He’d decided to skip Steve’s tonight and catch some TV—maybe Cheers and Taxi. They were always good for a laugh.

  “Hold it,” Dad said.

  Jack jumped and looked around. He hadn’t heard him come in.

  His father pointed to the set. “Go back one.”

  Jack did and saw a man in a blue blazer, a light blue shirt, and a patterned yellow tie sitting at a desk and talking to the camera. His hair looked funny: He’d parted it just above his right ear and combed it all the way across the top of his balding scalp to end above his left year.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Ed Toliver,” Dad said, snorting. “Mister Big Shot, telling everyone the surefire way to get rich in real estate.”

  Carson’s father … that was why he looked familiar.

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “According to him, the only sure way is to give him your money and have him invest it for you—and then let him take a hefty cut of the profits.”

  Jack stared at the screen. “Well, he must do pretty well if they’ve got him on TV.”

  Another snort from Dad. “That’s a public access channel run by the local cable company. Toliver gets a weekly slot because he claims his show is educational. My eye.”

  “You want to listen?” Jack prayed his father would say no.

  “You kidding? See what else is on.”

  As Jack’s thumb moved toward the channel button, he heard Mr. Toliver say, “I’d like to close tonight’s installment a little differently than usual—with a few important remarks about the Septimus Lodge.”

  He paused to listen.

  “I know this will sound strange coming from a broadcast about real estate, but I feel it my duty to speak out. This week has presented us with three dead members of the Septimus Lodge. One was murdered years ago, and the past two days have witnessed the sudden deaths of two more.”

  Jack spun to face his father. “Was Mister Haskins in the Lodge?”

  When his dad nodded, Jack turned back to the screen. Haskins was a member too! And he’d visited another Lodger last night—Mr. Brussard.

  “I think we’re long overdue for answers from the Septimus Lodge. Did it or any of its members have anything to do with the murder of Anton Boruff
? Although the cause of death of members Sumter and Haskins appears natural, it seems odd that they coincide so closely with the discovery of Anton Boruff’s corpse. I don’t know about you, but I have questions—questions that will not be answered if I alone ask them. That is why I am calling for a public inquiry into the Septimus Lodge.”

  “He should know better than that,” Dad muttered.

  “Why?” Jack asked.

  “Because he’s not going to get anywhere.”

  “In this day and age of a free and open society, there is no place for exclusive and elitist secret brotherhoods like the Septimus Lodge. Haven’t we learned any lessons from Watergate? Or are we doomed forever to go on repeating the same mistakes? That is why I am calling on the Septimus Lodge to open its records to the public. And if they will not do so voluntarily, then I am calling on the Burlington County DA and the state attorney general to initiate legal action to force them to do so. What have they got to hide?”

  Jack turned to his father. “Do you really think the Lodge has anything to do with—?”

  Dad shrugged. “How can I answer that? Nobody except its members knows anything about the Lodge—and there, I believe, lies the crux of Toliver’s little tirade.”

  “He doesn’t like secrecy?”

  “No. I think he’d love the Lodge’s secrecy if he was in on it, but he’s not. They gave him a thumbs-down when he tried to join and I don’t think he’s ever forgiven them.”

  That surprised Jack. “But, like you said, he’s a big-shot real estate guy. I’d think they’d want him.”

  Dad shrugged again. “Everything about that Lodge crew is odd. Membership is by invitation only. But they’re not like some exclusive country club that admits only folks of a certain religion and a certain color with a bank account of a certain size. They’ve got whites, blacks, yellows, Jews, Catholics—you name it. Rich, poor, and everything between.”

  “Then what was wrong with Mister Toliver?”

  “Who knows?” Dad smiled. “Maybe they don’t like his comb-over.”

  Jack wasn’t sure if asking might embarrass his dad, but he needed to know.

  “Did you ever try to join?”

  “Me? Nah! They tried to rope me in back in the early seventies—used a full-court press—but I wasn’t interested.”

  Jack stared at his father in shock. “They asked you?”

  Dad laughed. “What? You say that like you think there’s something wrong with me.”

  “No … I just … I don’t know … you never said anything.”

  “What for? We went ‘round and ‘round for about a year, them asking, giving me tours of the Lodge—”

  “You’ve been inside? What’s it like?”

  “A lot of old furniture, odd paintings, and that strange sigil everywhere you look.”

  “What’s a sigil?”

  “Their seal—the thing over their front door. They must love it because it’s on everything.”

  Jack shuddered. “Yeah, even its members.”

  “Oh, so you heard about that.”

  “Yeah. That dead body we found had one, and I saw it on Mister Sumter’s back after they gave up trying to revive him. Burned into their backs—ugh!”

  “If that’s part of being a Lodge member, they didn’t mention it to me. But let me tell you, even if I’d wanted in, that would have changed my mind. That would have been a deal-breaker.”

  “I can’t believe you turned them down. They say anybody who’s somebody is a member.”

  Dad smiled. “Well, maybe I’m as much a somebody as I want to be. Besides, it’s easy to say anybody who’s somebody is a Lodger because no one knows their membership. They’re secretive as all hell about that and everything else. I mean, if an individual member wants it known that he belongs, he’s free to tell anybody who’ll listen. But if not, it remains a secret guarded like Fort Knox.”

  Jack shook his head. “But I still don’t see why you didn’t join.”

  Dad shrugged and headed back toward the kitchen.

  “It’s a secret society. Too many secrets can wear you down.”

  Wear you down? Jack thought after he was gone. Did that mean he had secrets? How many?

  9

  “That’s gotta be the suckiest game ever made,” Steve said as they walked through the growing darkness.

  “I thought the Pac-Man I got last year was bad,” Jack said, shaking his head, “but this was even worse.”

  He and Steve had spent the last couple of hours on Eddie’s Atari trying to make sense of his ET: The Extra-Terrestrial game.

  Steve waved his arms. “How do you take such a great movie and make a boring game out of it. Boooooring!”

  This was the Steve Brussard Jack had grown to like over the past few years—funny, kind of loud, and very opinionated.

  “And who designed ET? He looked like a pile of green Legos.”

  Steve shook his head. “Enough to drive you to drink.”

  Uh-oh.

  Jack landed a friendly punch on his shoulder. “Come on. We had laughs without any of that.”

  “Yeah, but we’d’ve had more with a toot or two. But it turns out you were right.”

  “About what?”

  “The booze. My old man asked me today if I’d been ‘sampling’ any of it.”

  “What’d you tell him?”

  He grinned. “‘Who, me?’”

  “Which means you need to stay away from it—unless you’re looking to get busted.”

  Jack hated sounding like Steve’s conscience, but he didn’t mean it that way. He was talking common sense here. When you see someone heading for the edge of a cliff, you warn him.

  “I am staying away. Got no choice. He locked the liquor cabinet.”

  “But what if he hadn’t?”

  Steve grinned. “Well then—different story.”

  “Well, then, maybe it’s a good thing it’s locked.”

  “Wait,” Steve said, stopping and looking at him. “You think I’ve got some kind of drinking problem?”

  Jack hesitated, then went ahead. “Well, you’ve been hitting it pretty hard.”

  “There’s no problem, Jack. I just like it, is all. I can stop anytime I want.”

  Jack decided to back off. He wasn’t getting through anyway.

  They resumed their journey toward Steve’s house—maybe tonight they’d make some real progress on the Heathkit—and were just crossing Quakerton Road when Steve pointed off to their left.

  “You see that?”

  Jack followed his point but saw nothing.

  “What?”

  “A guy walking toward the lake. Looked like my dad.”

  Really …?

  Jack looked again. Streetlights were few and far between in Johnson so it might be a while before whoever it was passed under another.

  “Does he go out for walks much?”

  “Hardly ever.”

  “Probably not him then. But just for the heck of it, why don’t we follow and see?”

  Because if it was Mr. Brussard, Jack wanted to know what he was up to.

  His stomach tingled as they hung a left and hurried along. Tracking an unsuspecting man … kind of cool.

  Then a strolling figure passed under a light ahead.

  “Yeah, that’s him,” Steve said. “Let’s catch up.”

  Jack spotted a light in Steve’s eyes. He seemed to really like his dad.

  Jack felt a growing sense of disappointment. Mr. B wasn’t doing anything other than walking. Looked like he was heading for Old Town, most likely to the Lodge.

  They were getting closer as he came to the Old Town bridge, but instead of crossing over he veered right.

  Interesting.

  Quaker Lake was really a pond, but “lake” sounded better with Quaker. It had a sort of dumbbell shape with the bridge crossing the narrow point. Mr. Brussard stood on the bank of the south section, staring across at the Lodge on the far side.

  As they approached Jack saw him
reach into a pants pocket, pull something out, and throw it into the lake.

  Whoa! What was that all about?

  Jack mentally marked the location of the splash. He might want to come back sometime.

  After another moment or two of staring—watching the ripples fade?—Mr. B turned and looked around and spotted them. He looked surprised and concerned, but his tone was pleasant.

  “Hey! What are you two doing here?”

  “We were on our way home and saw you,” Steve said.

  Before Mr. B could answer, a stocky man with longish black hair strolled up. They shook hands and Mr. B introduced him as Assemblyman Vasquez.

  Vasquez … Mr. B had mentioned him last night. Jack had the impression this was a prearranged meeting because neither seemed surprised to see the other.

  “Mr. Vasquez and I have things to discuss back at the house. What are you boys up to?”

  “We’re gonna work on the computer,” Steve said.

  “I think I’ll take a rain check on that,” Jack blurted. “I’ve got a couple of lawns to do early tomorrow.”

  True, but not why he was begging off.

  “Later,” he said, and trotted away.

  But instead of heading home he began running through the shadows. Sure as night follows day they’d be walking back along Quakerton Road. To avoid it he cut through backyards, setting more than one family dog to barking. Jack wanted to reach the Brussard house first.

  10

  Now I am acting like a boy detective, he thought as he crouched in the shadows of the Brussards’ yard. How lame is this?

  But so what? He had nothing better to do. TV offered only summer reruns anyway.

  The man he’d seen with Mr. Brussard last night had dropped dead, and now this Vasquez guy they’d mentioned shows up. He sensed something going on, but couldn’t say what.

  No way he could talk to his folks about it—they’d think he was crazy.

  Hey, Dad, there’s this thing called a klazen that’s killing members of the Lodge and Mister Brussard thinks he can protect people against it but he’s not doing too well.