Jack: Secret Vengeance Read online

  “I guess they look little from here.”

  “They don’t merely look little, they are little. In every sense.”

  Jack glanced at him. “I’m not following.”

  “There are two classes of people in this world: the Movers and the Moved, the High and the Low, the Wheat and the Chaff, the Select and the Hoi Polloi.”

  “Hoi polloi?”

  “It’s Greek for ‘the many.’ It refers to the masses. The low folk.”

  Jack shrugged. “I guess it’s always that way—high and low. Some people are smarter than others or work harder than others, some people want it more, and other folks want it less or don’t want to spend the time and effort chasing it.”

  Mr. Drexler’s eyebrows rose, almost framing his widow’s peak. “My dear boy, I am not talking about ants and grasshoppers, nor about success and endeavor. You can’t earn your way into the Mover class. The proverbial sweat and hard work and stick-to-itiveness will not move you up. Nor can you buy your way in. One must be born to it.”

  “You mean, like royalty?”

  “Royalty is more about prestige, and the perception of power rather than the actual wielding of it. True power is knowledge, and that is what separates the Movers from the Moved: knowledge.”

  Jack nodded. “Yeah. ‘Knowledge is power.’ I’ve heard that before. But anyone who works at it can get knowledge, right?”

  Mr. Drexler tsked. “Do not confuse knowledge with information. Certain knowledge can be trusted to only a few.”

  Jack had no idea where this conversation had come from or where it was going, or why they were even having it. But it seemed important to Mr. Drexler. He was really into it.

  “Why not just spread it around?”

  “Because, as you said, knowledge is power, and if everyone has power, then no one has power.”

  “You mean, no one would have power over anyone else.”

  Mr. Drexler’s eyes lit as he pointed the silver head of his black cane at Jack. Was it really wrapped in rhinoceros hide?

  “Exactly!”

  “But isn’t that the best way?”

  He snickered. “That’s what the Moved—the hoi polloi—and their naïve, egalitarian apologists would have you think, but that’s not the way the world works.”

  “But isn’t knowledge simply truth? Shouldn’t everyone know the truth?”

  “No-no-no,” he said with a vigorous shake of his head. “Absolutely not. Only the Movers can handle certain truths, only they are entitled to share them.”

  “You’re talking about secrets, then. Secret truths.”

  “Of course. Only a select few share them. It’s been that way throughout history.”

  Jack gave him a sidelong look. “Like what’s under the Lodge?”

  “You mean what was under the Lodge.” Mr. Drexler frowned. “It’s lost now, thanks to you.”

  Jack bristled at that. “Wasn’t my fault that the lake—”

  Mr. Drexler waved a hand. “Water under the bridge, so to speak. I was referring to secrets much larger in scope.”

  Weezy’s pet theory leaped into his brain. “The Secret History of the World.”

  “If you mean that certain truths have been kept secret and passed on throughout the history of the world, yes, that is so.”

  “But when Weezy mentioned it you called it a … a…”

  “A ‘wild imagining’? Yes, I did. Because that’s the way the Moved have been conditioned to see that theory, and that’s the way they must go on seeing it. Because the Moved cannot handle the truth. In fact, at the risk of sounding like I’m quoting purple prose, the truth would drive some of them stark raving mad. So in a sense it is for their own good that they remain in the dark.”

  “But what is the truth?”

  Mr. Drexler stared at him. “Do you really want to know?”

  “Of course. Doesn’t everyone?”

  He shook his head. “No. Not really. Your father, for one. He didn’t care to learn.”

  The words rocked Jack.

  “My father?”

  “He was invited into the Septimus Order but declined.”

  Jack had known that, but …

  “Wait … so what you’re saying is that the Septimus Order knows the Secret History of the World.”

  Drexler gave a soft heh-heh, maybe as close to a laugh as he ever got. “No one knows the entire Secret History, but the Order is privileged to be keeper and guardian of some of those truths. I believe you qualify for membership, in fact I believe you would be an asset to the Order, but you’re not eligible at this tender age. In the future, however, should you be invited, do not be so foolish as to turn down access to those secret truths.”

  “But what do you do with them?”

  That pseudosmile again. “Use them, of course. Put them to work. Once you are a member, and progress through the ranks, you will learn how.”

  An inane thought popped into Jack’s head: Would he find the secret to opening Toliver’s lock?

  “Until then,” Mr. Drexler added, “I’m afraid you must remain among the Moved.”

  The conversation was beginning to make Jack uncomfortable. Lots of people thought they had special knowledge. He’d once seen an ad in a comic book for “Secrets of the Rosicrucians” and had looked them up. They thought they had special knowledge, but they let anyone in. Somehow he doubted that people advertising in comic books knew real secret truths.

  But according to Weezy, the Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order was truly ancient. So maybe they did know things no one else knew. Or maybe they just thought they did.

  If they really knew something, did Jack want a piece of it?

  Damn straight.

  But right now he had more immediate, real-life concerns.

  He rose and placed the empty Pepsi can on the chair cushion.

  “Thanks for the drink. I’d better get to the weeds.”

  “The beds can wait until tomorrow,” Mr. Drexler said, standing. “As long as the grass is cut—that is the important thing. Come back then.”

  “But I thought you said—”

  “The gathering I mentioned? They’ll begin to arrive soon, so I want you and your mower gone.”

  “What’s this gathering about?”

  He gave Jack an intense stare. “You ask too many questions. Only members may ask questions, and even they do not always receive an answer. You are not a member. Your concerns about the Lodge are to be limited to the grounds and nothing more. You can finish up your duties tomorrow. Perhaps we can talk a little more then.”

  Jack couldn’t fathom why Mr. Drexler wanted to talk. It wasn’t like he was trying to convince him to join the Order—he’d already said he was too young.

  Was he trying to talk him into something else?

  Without being called, Eggers appeared and picked up one of the chairs. As he returned it to the Lodge, Mr. Drexler moved a few steps closer to the lake, where he stood with his hands on his hips, staring at the “little people.”

  Watching him, Jack had a strange thought about the bombings in Beirut and the trouble in Grenada and all the rest of the turmoil in the world. Could the Septimus Order have something to do with that? Could they be using their secret truths to manipulate events? Were they the method behind the madness?

  Nah. That was Weezy talk. Nobody, not even the Septimus Order, had that kind of power.

  10

  “Sounds like a load of elitist crap to me,” Dad said.

  “Tom,” Mom scolded. “Not at the table.”

  Jack had just related a nutshell version of his conversation with Mr. Drexler. He glanced across the table at Kate, who smiled and winked at him. They always made fun of Mom’s tender ears.

  She’d served what he and Kate called a “Mommy meal”: roasted chicken and potatoes, plus buttered green beans.

  Kate was home for the weekend, and so the dinner table held four tonight. His older sister had started medical school at UMDNJ in Stratford the same week Jack had st
arted high school. Her apartment there was less than twenty miles away, so it was no big deal for her to visit. Jack hoped she came home often. She was one of his favorite people in the world.

  His brother Tom, on the other hand, was finishing law school up north in Jersey City and probably wouldn’t be back until Thanksgiving. Jack could definitely wait to see him again.

  Kate was slim with pale blue eyes and faint freckles. While away she’d cut her long blond hair back to a short, almost boyish length. It gave her an entirely different look, one that would take Jack some getting used to.

  “‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,’” Dad said.

  Jack’s father and Kate shared the same blue eyes. His hair was thinning. He sipped from a can of Carling Black Label beer.

  “They really aren’t, Dad,” Kate said. “Created equal, I mean. Some are mentally retarded or physically defective from the get-go.”

  “I’m well aware of that, but that’s not the point. This Lodge fellow is talking about people who believe they’re entitled to special benefits and privileges and considerations simply because they are who they are. Congress is full of them.”

  “But they must think you’re entitled too,” Jack said. “I mean, the Lodge invited you to join, right?”

  Dad nodded. “Yeah, they did. But something about the place and the people…” He shook his head. “I don’t know. It didn’t smell right.”

  “Smell?”

  He smiled. “In a figurative sense, not…”

  “Olfactory,” Kate said.

  “Right. Anyway, there was this smug undertone running through everything. Rubbed me the wrong way.”

  “Mister Drexler showed me this glob of stuff that changed color when I held it.”

  “Turned blue, right?” his father said.

  Jack hadn’t expected that.

  “How did you know?”

  “Haskins—you know, the freeholder who died—was a VFW member and he brought something like that to one of the meetings and passed it around. Mostly nothing happened till it got to me and then it turned dark blue.”

  “Me too!”

  “Come to think of it, shortly after that I was invited to join the Lodge.”

  “Do you think it’s some kind of test?”

  Dad frowned. “Test of what?”

  Jack couldn’t imagine.

  “I guess it’s secret. You said you blew the Lodge off because ‘Too many secrets can wear you down,’ remember?”

  Dad rubbed his jaw. “Can’t say as I do.”

  Jack waggled his eyebrows, Groucho style. “What other secrets do you have?”

  Dad gave him a look, then turned to Kate. “You know, Kate, I think I’m getting to like your hair short.”

  Talk about changing the subject!

  “Well, thanks, Dad,” she said. “It was kind of necessary, what with my labs and all. Especially the cadaver lab. I couldn’t get the formaldehyde smell out of all that hair.”

  Jack straightened in his seat. “Cadaver? As in dead body?”

  Kate nodded. “Four students to a body. We’re dissecting it.”

  “Kate, really,” Mom said. “At the dinner table?”

  “Can I come see? Have you cut it open?”

  “Just the back of the neck so far. We—”

  Mom tapped her plate with her fork. “I insist we talk about something else. Please.”

  “Okay,” Dad said, focusing on Jack, “let’s get back to this job at the Lodge. You sure you’re not taking on too much? The store, the other lawns … I don’t want your grades to suffer.”

  Jack shrugged. “So far the teachers are taking it slow and the work’s pretty easy. By the time it gets harder, I’ll be freed up. Mister Rosen says after Halloween he won’t need me anymore till spring, and once we get a good frost, I’ll have nothing to mow.”

  “Got it all worked out, eh?” Dad said, nodding.

  Jack sensed his approval and it warmed him.

  He grinned. “Pretty much.”

  Except how to get past Toliver’s lock.

  He suddenly realized that what he’d done to Toliver had made him, for a short time and in a very limited sense, a Mover.

  Then again, no. Not according to Mr. Drexler’s meaning. Everything that had happened around Toliver’s locker had originated with Jack, not from some secret knowledge someone said he was entitled to.

  Jack said, “Maybe some days you’re a Mover, and maybe some days you’re one of the Moved.”

  “Why be either?” Kate said.

  Jack looked at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Why not just opt out and refuse to be part of the game? Step aside and play your own game with your own rules, and screw the rest.”

  Mom frowned. “Kate!”

  Jack sat there, stunned as epiphanies exploded in his brain like a fireworks finale. Neither a Moved nor a Mover be … refuse to play … step off the board and liberate yourself from the game …

  Dad harrumphed and said, “Sounds like anarchy to me.”

  But it sounded wonderful to Jack.

  11

  Jack’s dad dropped him and Eddie off in the parking lot, and they had to walk around the side of the high school to get to the football field. They were about halfway there when Jack spotted Levi standing under a stand of trees, gesturing to him.

  Aw, jeez. Now what?

  He didn’t want to talk to him with Eddie around—who knew what might slip?

  “Catch up to you later,” Jack said.

  Eddie nodded. “Okay. Sure.”

  He didn’t look at Jack. His gaze was fixed on the hot dog stand.

  Levi faded back into the shadows as Jack approached.

  “I checked around,” he said when Jack reached him.

  “About what?”

  “A piney getting bloodied up by Toliver—or someone like Toliver, just in case whoever he beat on didn’t know who he was.”

  “And?”

  “And nothin’.”

  “So Saree was wrong.”

  “Saree ain’t wrong. That feelin’ she got was too strong. We pineys gossip a lot, and we got a grapevine like you wouldn’t believe, but it ain’t perfect. May just be someone who ain’t in contact, or who ain’t talkin’ ’cause they’re shamed. If we knew whose blood it was, there’d be piney justice comin’ Toliver’s way.”

  Jack had heard of pine justice—it was swift and to the point and didn’t involve the legal system.

  But all this confusion looked like good news for Jack.

  “Guess you’ll just have to wait for someone to speak up.”

  “Like hell. If Saree says there’s piney blood on his hands, then there’s gonna be another kinda blood on his head. Or at least on his car.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I brought along some blood.”

  Jack felt his stomach curdle. “Blood? Can I ask—?”

  “Deer.” He gave Jack a look. “We get our meat on the hoof in the Pines.”

  “And you’re going to pour it on him?”

  “If I can find a way.”

  That had to be the dumbest idea Jack had ever heard.

  “You get caught, there’ll definitely be piney blood on his hands.”

  Levi nodded. “I reckon there will. That’s why I was thinking maybe that fancy car of his would be better.”

  “Go with that thought … but include me out.”

  Levi laughed. “Don’t worry. This is a piney matter, and you ain’t a piney.”

  Jack was wishing he’d never brought Saree out to Toliver’s car and was about to say so when he noticed the beat-up binoculars hanging from Levi’s neck.

  “What are those for?”

  “To watch the game. Should be starting soon. Let’s go.”

  12

  Jack and Eddie found spots high and to the right. SBR fans occupied the south stands—naturally—and NBR the north. Levi had drifted off. Jack scanned the crowd, hunting him
. He finally spotted him standing at the lower corner of the SBR stand by himself. Jack didn’t remember ever seeing him at the games before—for the most part, the pineys didn’t seem to take much interest in school sports—but then again, he’d never looked for him.

  The game began and it soon became clear that Toliver wasn’t himself. His strength was his passing game—he threw bullets with pinpoint accuracy—but he was off tonight. The ones that weren’t high or low were late reaching the receiver.

  Jack’s gaze kept drifting from the game to Levi. Blood … how stupid. He could ruin Jack’s whole plan if he got caught. Had to find a way to talk him out of it.

  As he watched, he noticed Levi peering through the binoculars, but only now and again. By the time the second quarter rolled around, Jack realized that he was using them only when South had the ball, and even then, only when Toliver dropped back to pass …

  … which he was doing right now.

  Toliver shot a bullet to his wide receiver. As Jack watched it arc through the air, he swore he saw it lift in midflight—not much, just enough to make it go high over the raised hands of the receiver who jumped and stretched for it. He got his fingertips on it, sending the ball wobbling through the air and into the hands of one of the North defenders.

  Interception! Crap!

  The player ran it back for a touchdown. As NBR celebrated, Jack noticed Toliver screaming at his receiver.

  Temper, temper …

  He had to be frustrated. Not one completion so far in the first half, and time was winding down.

  He shifted his gaze to Levi and … was that a smile?

  Jack stopped watching the game. Instead, he divided his attention between Levi and the game. Levi followed every Toliver pass with his binocs, and each time the ball behaved strangely. Nothing big, just little shifts like the wind might cause.

  But the air was still.

  The half ended with another NBR interception. The teams left the field with the Greyhounds leading seventeen–zip.

  “What’s up with Carson?” Eddie said. “I’ve never seen him like this.”

  A kid in front of them turned around. “It’s gotta be because of somebody messing with his locker. His concentration’s off.”