“Yes. Yes, whatever you say. What else do you want me to do? Just tell me.”
“I ain’t decided yet, Mooo neeer. I’m gonna have to think on that one. But in the meantime, I’m gonna look kindly on you and bestow your request. Yessir, I’m gonna send you proof positive that your wife and kid are still alive.”
Munir’s stomach plummeted. “No! Please! I believe you! I believe!”
“I reckon you do, Mooo neeer. But believin’ just ain’t enough sometimes, is it? I mean, you believe in Allah, don’t you? Don’t you?”
“Yes. Yes, of course I believe in Allah.”
“And look at what you did on Friday. Just think back and meditate on what you did.”
Munir hung his head in shame and said nothing.
“So you can see where I’m comin’ from when I say believin’ ain’t enough. Cause if you believe, you can also have doubt. And I don’t want you havin’ no doubts, Mooo neeer. I don’t want you havin’ the slightest twinge of doubt about how important it is for you to do exactly what I tell you to. ‘Cause if you start thinking it really doesn’t matter to your bitch and little rat faced kid, that they’re probably dead already and you can tell me to shove it, that’s not gonna be good for them. So I’ve gonna have to prove to you just how alive and well they are.”
“No!” He was going to be sick. “Please don’t!”
“Just remember. You asked for proof.”
Munir’s voice edged toward a scream. “PLEASE!”
The line clicked and went dead.
Munir dropped the phone and buried his face in his hands. The caller was mad, crazy, brutally insane, and for some reason he hated Munir with a depth and breadth Munir found incomprehensible and profoundly horrifying. Whoever he was, he seemed capable of anything, and he had Munir’s wife and child hidden away somewhere in the city.
The helplessness overwhelmed Munir and he began to sob. He had allowed only a few to escape when he heard a pounding on his door.
“Hey. What’s going on in there? Munir, you okay?”
Munir stiffened as he recognized his neighbor’s voice. He straightened in his chair but said nothing. Charlie lived in the apartment next door. A retired city worker who had taken a shine to Barbara and Robby. A harmless busybody, Barbara called him. He couldn’t let Charlie know anything was wrong.
“Hey!” Charlie said, banging on the door again. “I know someone’s in there. You don’t open up I’m gonna assume something’s wrong and call the emergency squad. Don’t make a fool out of me.”
The last thing Munir needed was a bunch of EMTs swarming around his apartment. The police would be with them and who knew what the crazy man who held Barbara and Robby would do if he saw them. He cleared his throat.
“I’m all right, Charlie.”
“The hell you are,” Charlie said, rattling the doorknob. “You didn’t sound all right a moment ago when you screamed and you don’t sound all right now. Just open up so I can–”
The door swung open, revealing Charlie Akers – fat, balding, a cigar butt in his mouth, the Sunday comics in his hand, dressed in wrinkled blue pants, a T shirt, and suspenders – looking as shocked as Munir felt.
In his haste to answer the phone, Munir had forgotten to latch the door behind him. Quickly, he wiped his eyes and rose to close it.
“Jesus, Munir,” Charlie said. “You look like hell. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, Charlie.”
“Hey, don’t shit me. I heard you. Sounded like someone was stepping on your soul. Anything I can do?”
“I’m okay. Really.”
“Yeah, right. You in trouble? You need money? Maybe I can help.”
Munir was touched by the offer. He hardly knew Charlie. If only he could help. But no one could help him.
“No. Nothing like that.”
“Is it Barbara and the kid? I ain’t seen them around for a few days. Something happen to–?” Munir realized it must have shown on his face. Charlie stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “Hey, what’s going on? Are they all right?”
“Please, Charlie. I can’t talk about it. And you mustn’t talk about it either. Just let it be. I’m handling it.”
“Is it a police thing? I got friends down the precinct house–”
“No! Not the police! Please don’t say anything to the police. I was warned” – in sickeningly graphic detail–”about going to the police.”
Charlie leaned back against the door and stared at him.
“Jesus… is this as bad as I think it is?”
Munir could do no more than nod.
Charlie jabbed a finger at him. “Wait here.”
He ducked out the door and was back in less than two minutes with a slip of paper in his hand.
“My brother gave me this a couple of years ago. Said if I was ever in a really bad spot and there was no one left to turn to, I should call this guy.”
“No one can help me.”
“My brother says this guy’s good people, but he said make sure it was my last resort because it was gonna cost me. And he said make sure the cops weren’t involved because this guy don’t like cops.”
No police… Munir reached for the slip of paper. And money? What did money matter where Barbara and Robby were concerned?
A telephone number was written on the slip. And below it, two words: Repairman Jack.
3
I’m running out of space, Jack thought as he stood in the front room of his apartment and looked for an empty spot to display his latest treasure.
His Sky King Magni Glow Writing Ring had just arrived from his connection in southeast Missouri. It contained a Mysterious Glo signaler (“Gives a strange green light! You can send blinker signals with it!”). The plastic ruby unfolded into three sections, revealing a Secret Compartment that contained a Flying Crown Brand (“For sealing messages!”); the middle section was a Detecto Scope Magnifying Glass (“For detecting fingerprints or decoding messages!”); and the outermost section was a Secret Stratospheric Pen (“Writes at any altitude, or under water, in red ink!”).
Neat. Incredibly neat. The neatest ring in Jack’s collection. Far more complex than his Buck Rogers Ring of Saturn, or his Shadow ring, or even his Kix Atomic Bomb Ring. It deserved auspicious display. But where? His front room was already jammed with neat stuff. Radio premiums, cereal give aways, comic strip tie ins – crassly commercial junk from a time before he was born. Why did he collect them? After years of accumulating his hoard, Jack still hadn’t found the answer. So he kept buying. And buying.
Old goodies and oddities littered every flat surface on the mismatched array of Victorian golden oak furniture crowding the room. Certificates proclaiming him an official member of The Shadow Society, the Doc Savage Club, the Nick Carter Club, Friends of the Phantom, the Green Hornet G J M Club, and other august organizations papered the walls.
Jack glanced at the Shmoo clock on the wall above the hutch. He had an appointment with a new customer in twenty minutes or so. No time to find a special spot for the Sky King Magni Glo Writing Ring, so he placed it next to his Captain Midnight radio decoder. He pulled a worn red windbreaker over his shirt and jeans and headed for the door.
4
Outside in the growing darkness, Jack hurried through the West Seventies, passing trendy boutiques and eateries that catered to the local yuppies and their affluent subgroup, dinks – double income, no kids. They types who were paying $9.50 for a side dish of the Upper West Side’s newest culinary rage – mashed potatoes.