Repairman Jack [10]-Harbingers by F. Paul Wilson Read Free Book Online Page B

kitchen table. Tears ran down his cheeks. He'd positioned the muzzle of his silenced H-K under his chin. A finger trembled on the trigger.
    Jack leaped into the room and grabbed the barrel, angling it away. The weapon discharged. Plaster puffed and a silver-dollar-size pock appeared in the wall.
    He snatched the pistol from Zeklos's fingers. The little guy looked up at Jack, stunned at first, then recognition dawning in his tequila-glazed eyes.
    "You!"
    Baring his Nutty Professor teeth he leaped at Jack with fingers curved into claws. Jack delivered a hard palm jab to his solar plexus. Zeklos gasped, lost his balance, fell back into his kitchen chair. For an instant Jack thought he was going to come back at him, but instead he doubled over and vomited. Once. Twice.
    Swell.
    The reek of bile and partially digested tequila filling the air was almost as bad as Julio's latest cologne.
    While the guy was dry-heaving, Jack popped the magazine from the H-K and ejected the chambered round.
    Once the heaving stopped, Jack pulled a chair opposite him—not too close—and sat.
    "So, Mister Zeklos. What makes you want to try some do-it-yourself brain surgery?"
    Zeklos raised a sweaty face the color of lemon sorbet and gave him a wide-eyed stare.
    "How do you know my name?"
    This was the first time Jack had heard him speak. The accent jarred him. Some sort of East European thing slipped through the booze slur, but Jack couldn't place it any closer than that.
    "I'm psychic. There, see? I've answered your question, now you answer mine."
    "What have I to live for? I am going to be kicked out of MV because they do not think I deserve to be called yeniçeri."
    "Yeni-whatti?"
    But Zeklos was in his own little world.
    "My life is a cabbage roll. No-no. My life is tripe soup. Last year I lose my fathers and now this. MV is my world, my family. Without it I have nothing. No place to go, nothing to do. Damn Miller! Damn him!"
    Dissension in the ranks… good to know.
    "It is all your fault!" His voice rose as he glared at Jack and rubbed the burn marks on his neck. "I am in disgrace now! I am mowing the grass of life."
    What?
    "All because of you!" Color was returning to his face. "You make me look the fool and now they say I am not yeniçeri!"
    That word again.
    "Yeniceri—what's that?"
    Zeklos leaned back and clammed. He seemed to realize he'd said something he shouldn't have.
    Jack nodded. "Okay. You don't want to explain, fine. But then tell me how you three wound up in that basement tonight."
    Zeklos shook his head.
    Jack raised his Glock. "Hey, I've got a gun and you don't. 1 ask, you answer."
    Zeklos sneered. "You wish to kill me? Be my visitor."
    It took Jack an extra second or two to figure out the "visitor" bit.
    Yeah, kind of hard to threaten to kill a guy who'd been in the process of offing himself. Not much leverage here.
    "How about I not kill you? Like maybe start with a kneecap or two?"
    Zeklos paled but shook his head. Undersized and funny looking, yeah, but the little guy had guts.
    Which left Jack in a bit of a quandary. He could follow through with his threat but didn't think he had the stomach for it. Wouldn't be the first time he'd kneecapped someone, but that had been a mix of personal with business. This was neither. This was…
    What the hell was this?
    Jack wasn't sure. He'd wound up here because Zeklos and his buddies hadn't let matters slide after their downtown dance. Jack's curiosity had been piqued before that, but he could have lived without knowing any more about them. Now he was interested. Very much so.
    But whatever the situation, Jack decided it wouldn't be a bad thing to have this cashiered yeni-something available as a potential resource.
    Rising, Jack grabbed the H-K and stuck it behind his belt. Taking it served a double purpose. It took away Zeklos's suicide tool—of course his backup was somewhere around or he could have a good length of rope stashed anywhere—and gave Jack an excuse for a return