Jack: Secret Histories Read online

  She’d probably wanted to let Carson know they weren’t going out or anything like that. And … well … they weren’t. So why had it bothered him?

  He didn’t know.

  He slowed to let her catch up.

  “What’s the hurry?” she said.

  “Got an errand to run.”

  “Oh. Want me to come along?”

  “That’s okay.”

  No traffic in sight when they came to 206 so they buzzed straight across.

  “Is something wrong?” she said when they reached the other side.

  “No, why?”

  “You’re acting weird.”

  Yeah, he probably was. He needed a cover.

  “My brother’s been hassling me. I want to teach him a lesson and I need a special ingredient for that.”

  “And that’s the errand?”

  He nodded.

  She said, “Anything I can do to help?”

  He glanced at her. “This is gonna be pretty much a one-man show, but if I need a hand, I’ll let you know.”

  She smiled. “If you need me, I’m there.”

  Jack didn’t know why, but suddenly he felt a change. Like a weight had lifted from his shoulders.

  Weird.

  4

  Mr. Vito Canelli lived on a corner up the street from Jack and was known for having the best lawn in town. An older, retired, white-haired widower, he wouldn’t let anyone else touch his lawn. He cut it twice a week, watered it by hand every other day, and trimmed its edges so neatly it looked like he’d used scissors.

  Although his lawn was off-limits, he would hire Jack to shovel his walks and driveway in winter.

  His front yard was open but he kept his back fenced in to protect his vegetable gardens from rabbits and the Pinelands deer that wandered through town. Except for the paths between the beds, almost every square inch of his backyard was planted with tomatoes, zucchini, asparagus, and half a dozen varieties of peppers.

  Toward the end of summer—like now—he’d set up a table in the shade and sell the excess from his garden. Jack’s mom was a regular customer for his huge Jersey beefsteak tomatoes.

  But Jack wasn’t in the market for tomatoes.

  He leaned his bike against a tree and waved to where Mr. Canelli sat in the middle of his lawn pulling crabgrass by hand.

  Jack inspected the peppers on the table. He saw green, red, and yellow bells, and pale green frying peppers. Not what he was looking for.

  “Do you have any hot peppers?” he said, walking up to the old man.

  Mr. Canelli looked up from under a broad-brimmed straw hat.

  “Of course,” he said in his Italian accent. “But I keep for myself. They much too hot for people around here.”

  “I’d like to buy the hottest you’ve got.”

  He shook his head. “You won’t be able to eat. I can eat habañeros like they candy, but my hottest—no-no-no. I use a tiny, tiny amount in soup or gravy.”

  “It’s not for me. This person will eat them.”

  He gave Jack a long stare, then raised his hand. “Help me up and I show you what I got.”

  Jack helped pull him to his feet, then followed him into the backyard.

  “These are jalapeños,” he said, pointing at some dark green oblong peppers maybe two inches long. “They hot.” He moved on and pointed to a shorter orange pepper. “Even more hot habañeros.” And then he stopped at a bushy plant with little berry-size peppers. “And here the king. The smallest of the lot, but the most hot. A special breed of tepin I cross with habañero.”

  “Tay-peen?” Jack had never heard of it. But then, what did he know about peppers? “How much apiece?”

  Mr. Canelli shook his head. “I don’t sell. Too hot.”

  “Please? Just a couple?”

  The old man stared at him, smiling. “You up to no good, eh?”

  Jack fought to keep his expression innocent. How did he know?

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know exactly what I mean. But you a good kid. I see you with the lawn mower, I watch you shovel snow. You work hard. I give you some.”

  “I can pay.”

  “I have dried one inside. You wait.”

  While Mr. Canelli went inside, Jack wandered through the garden, marveling at the size of the tomatoes and zucchinis. The old guy definitely had a green thumb.

  When he returned a few minutes later he handed Jack a small white envelope.

  “You take.”

  Jack peeked inside and saw half a dozen little red peppers.

  “Hey, thanks.”

  “You be careful. You wash you hands after you touch. Never rub you eyes. If you burn you mouth, take milk. Or maybe butter. Water only make worse.”

  “Got it,” Jack said. “Thanks a million.”

  He hopped on his bike and stifled himself until he was well down the street. Then he did the mwah-ha-ha-ha laugh the rest of the way home.

  5

  As Jack was biking to USED at midday, he heard someone call his name. He looked around and saw a long-haired, bearded man waving to him from the front porch of the Bainbridge house.

  Weird Walt.

  “Hey, Jack! Got a minute?”

  Jack had a few. He swung the bike around and coasted into the driveway. Walt was rocking in the shade of the porch. He pointed a gloved hand at an empty rocker beside him.

  “C’mon up and set a spell.”

  “I gotta get to work.”

  “Just a coupla minutes.”

  Jack shrugged. “Okay.”

  He laid his bike down on the dry lawn that badly needed watering. Walt lived here with his sister and her husband. He took care of the yard, but wasn’t very good at it.

  As Jack hopped up the steps to the porch, Walt patted the seat of the rocker again.

  “Here. Sit.”

  He noticed his gloves were leather. His hands had to be majorly hot and sweaty in those. As Jack seated himself, Walt leaned close and stared, his gaze boring into him. It made Jack uncomfortable.

  “What?”

  “Just checking.”

  “Checking what?”

  “I thought you might be him, but you’re not.”

  “What made you think—?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll know him when I meet him.”

  With that Walt scooted his rocker a foot farther away, as if afraid to stay too close.

  Well, he wasn’t called Weird Walt for nothing.

  Jack leaned back and started rocking. Not a bad way to spend a summer afternoon.

  “What’s up, Mister Erskine?”

  He laughed. “They called my father ‘Mister Erskine.’ Call me Walt. I wanna thang you for comin’ to my aid yesterday.”

  Jack gave him a closer look. Barely lunchtime and already he had red eyes and slurred words. Jack felt a mixture of sorrow and distaste. And worry … Steve Brussard could end up like this if he didn’t get a grip.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Jack said. “Mrs. Clevenger did all the work.”

  “Yeah, but you were there and you were on my side. Would’ve been just as easy for you and Weezy to join the crowd against me. But you two aren’t herd members.”

  “Yeah, well …”

  “Don’t minimize it, Jack. Look, I know what people think of me. I know I’m the town weirdo and the town drunk—I know I’m ‘Weird Walt.’ I’m a lot of things, Jack, but I ain’t stupid.”

  “I … I never thought you were.” Where was this going?

  “An’ I’m not crazy. I know I act crazy, but I have very good reasons for what I do. Like these gloves.” He held up his hands. “I wear them so’s I don’t touch anyone.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” This was getting weird.

  “An’ I don’t drink ‘cause I want to, I drink ‘cause I have to. I drink to survive.”

  Jack couldn’t help saying, “I don’t understand.”

  “You wouldn’t. You couldn’t. Nobody can. Not even my buddies in ‘Nam.”

&nb
sp; “Is it something that happened in the war?”

  Walt stared at him with a strange look in his eyes. Jack tried to identify it. The only word he could come up with was … lost.

  “Yeah.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t talk about it. I used to, but I don’t anymore. It landed me in a mental hospital once. I don’t want to go back again.”

  “My dad was in the Korean War. He won’t talk about that either.”

  Walt looked away. “Lotta people like that. War changes you. Sometimes it’s something you did, sometimes it’s something that was done to you. Either way, you don’t come back the same.”

  Jack was thinking his dad seemed pretty normal—except for never talking about it. Jack would have loved to hear some war stories.

  He thought of something he needed to know.

  “You know, um, Walt. If you were a soldier and all, why’d you let a couple of punks like Teddy and his friend push you around?”

  He shrugged. “I’m nonviolent.”

  “But—”

  “When I got drafted I said I wouldn’t fight but I’d be a medic.”

  “So you spent the war fixing people up instead of shooting them down?”

  “I don’t know about the fixing-up part. Mostly I just shot ‘em up with morphine so they could stand the pain and maybe stop screaming until dust-off.”

  “Dust-off?”

  “That was what we called a medevac mission—when a chopper would come in and carry off the wounded.” He shook his head. “The things I saw … the things I saw …” His voice became choked. “Maybe I shouldn’t have been a medic. If I’d been just a grunt back in sixty-eight, my life would be different now. But it got ruined.”

  All this was making Jack a little uncomfortable. He wished he’d worn a watch so he could look at it.

  “Um, I gotta run.”

  Walt swallowed and smiled. “I know you do. Thanks for stoppin’ and listenin’ to me ramble. I just needed to talk to you. You did the right thing yesterday and I wanted you to know that you didn’t do it for some useless, drunken lump of human protoplasm. That the guy you see on the outside is not the same as the guy on the inside. Did I get that across?”

  “Yeah, Walt,” he said, going down the porch steps. “Yeah, you did.”

  He smiled through his beard. “Good. Because I owe you one, man. And don’t you forget it. Because I won’t.”

  Jack hoped he’d never need to collect.

  6

  After putting in his hours at USED, Jack stopped at the Connell house on the way home. He and Eddie were battling for high score in Donkey Kong. Weezy came in just as Jack was handing the joystick back to Eddie.

  “Hey, Weez. I need to borrow the cube tonight.”

  She stopped in midstride and frowned. “Why?”

  “Want to show Steve. He’s handy with gadgets. I want to see if he can open it. I can’t be the only one.”

  “Gee … I don’t know.”

  Jack felt a flash of irritation. “Don’t know what? You think I’m going to lose it or something?”

  “No, I mean I don’t know if it’s a good idea to let it get around too much that we have it.”

  “If that pyramid is as special as you think it is, I’ll bet word of it is all around U of P by now.”

  She sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” She looked deep into his eyes. “You’ll take good care of it, right?”

  Jack put his hand over his heart. “Guard it with my life.”

  “And you won’t tell anybody we found it with the body, right? ‘Cause they’ll take it away.”

  He held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  “I’m serious, Jack.”

  “So am I. You’ll have it back tomorrow.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  “Okay, come upstairs. I need you to open it for me first.”

  He followed her up to her room where he opened the cube and laid it on her desk. He watched her pull out a sheet of paper and trace the design on the inside of the panels.

  “Why are you doing that?”

  “Just in case.”

  “You’re acting like you might not get it back.”

  “You think so?” she said without looking up.

  When she was finished she snapped the cube back together, then wrapped it in a towel and put it in a shopping bag. She handed it to him.

  “Don’t let it out of your sight.”

  Jack shook his head as walked back downstairs. You’d think he was borrowing her first-born child.

  7

  After dinner, Jack took the bag of pistachios to his room but didn’t bother shelling them right away. He needed to do something else first.

  He put on Journey’s Escape—loud—and played a few runs of air bass to “Don’t Stop Believing.” Nodding his head in time, he placed the dried tepin peppers in a cereal bowl and crushed them into flakes. Then, making sure no one was in sight, he crossed to the hall bathroom and added an ounce or two of tap water.

  Back in his room he mixed everything well, then set it aside and started shelling the pistachios. He’d done about ten when he heard a knock. Knowing it wasn’t Tom—he never knocked—Jack placed the latest issue of Cerebus over the pepper bowl and left the pistachios on his desk.

  “C’mon in.”

  He turned down the music as Kate stepped through the door. Her gaze flicked to his desk where she spotted the pistachios.

  She smiled. “Figure it’s safer to eat them in here, huh?”

  “At least tonight. What’s up?”

  Kate’s smile faded and she bit her lip. “I know I promised to find out for you, but I’m not sure I should tell you.”

  “You mean about the murder ritual?” Jack felt his heart rate kick up. He’d been dying to hear this. “Go ahead. You can tell me.”

  “It’s really bizarre.”

  Even better.

  “Tell-me-tell-me-tell-me!”

  “Okay. Well … Jenny told me that it seems whoever killed the man cut off his forearms at the elbows and crudely sewed them into his armpits.”

  “What?”

  Kate nodded. “Truth, I swear.”

  Jack tried to envision it but had trouble. “Oh man, that’s so weird. Was he …?”

  “Alive when they did it?” Kate smiled as she gave him a gentle slap on the back of his head. “Mister Morbid … I knew you’d ask.”

  “Well?”

  “Was he alive when they cut off his forearms? No.”

  That was a relief—in a way.

  “But what does the arm thing mean?” He snapped his fingers as an idea hit. “Maybe it has something to do with stealing.”

  “Traditionally thieves lose their right hand—and it’s not sewn into their armpit. I asked Jenny about it and she says the medical examiner’s going to make some calls, but he’s never heard of anything like it.”

  “Maybe it had nothing to do with the diamond scam.” Jack lowered his voice into an imitation of Weezy’s ooh-spooky tone: “Maybe it’s an ancient, secret cult, living unseen in the Pinelands for thousands of years, killing and mutilating unwary victims who cross their path! Mwah-ha-ha-ha!”

  She laughed and ruffled his brown hair. “Stop it. You read too many of the wrong books and watch too many crummy movies.”

  The crummy part was sure true. He’d seen Jaws 3-D last month and what a waste of money—crummy 3-D and crummier story.

  Kate pointed to the pistachios. “May I have one?”

  He cupped his palm around the pile and pushed it toward her. “You can have them all.”

  And he meant it. Anything Kate wanted she could have, no questions asked.

  She took just one, picking it up between a dainty thumb and forefinger. “This’ll do.” She popped it into her mouth and stepped to the door. “You want this closed?”

  He nodded. “Definitely.”

  “You’re not going to have nightmares tonight about being chased by sho
rt-armed men, are you?”

  He laughed. “As if.”

  On the other hand, that might be kind of cool—as long as it was only a dream.

  As soon as the door closed he went to work shelling another half dozen pistachios. When he was done he dropped the whole pile into the tepin bowl and swirled the mixture around and over them. Satisfied they were all nicely coated, he picked them out one by one and lined them up on his windowsill to dry.

  When he was finished, without thinking, he licked his two wet fingertips and instantly his tongue and lips were on fire. Fire! Like he’d licked the sun.

  He jumped up and dashed across the hall to the bathroom for water, but remembered Mr. Canelli’s words just in time: Water only make worse.

  His mouth was killing him, making his eyes tear. What had the old guy said to use instead? If you burn you mouth, take milk. Or maybe butter.

  Jack dashed for the kitchen, yanked open the refrigerator. On the door he spotted an open stick of Land O’Lakes butter. He gouged a piece off the end and shoved it into his mouth, running it all over the burning area. Slowly, the heat eased—didn’t leave entirely but at least became bearable.

  He hurried back to his room and stared at the drying pistachios. He’d touched just a drop—less than a drop—to his tongue and look what happened. If Tom ate that whole pile …

  Jack didn’t want to think about how that would feel. Might be too much payback, even for Tom.

  But on the other hand, Jack wasn’t handing them to his brother. Tom would have to steal them to taste them.

  The decision would be Tom’s, the outcome entirely up to him.

  8

  Steve couldn’t open the cube either.

  They’d been sitting at the Brussards’ kitchen table where Jack had demonstrated the technique at least a dozen times.

  He wondered if Steve had already been drinking. His fingers seemed kind of clumsy.

  “Hey, Dad!” Steve called. “Come check this out!”

  Mr. Brussard strolled in from the living room where Jack could hear some sort of classical music playing.

  “What’s—?” He froze in the doorway like he’d been hit with a paralyzer ray. His eyes were locked on the cube. “Where did you get that?”