Please save my family!
Jack wondered if that was possible, if anyone could save Munir’s family now. It had begun to unravel as soon as Barbara and Robby were kidnapped. It still had been salvageable then, up to the point when the cleaver had cut through Robby’s finger. That was probably the deathblow. Even if nothing worse had happened from there on in, that missing finger would be a permanent reminder of the nightmare, and somehow it would be Munir’s fault. If he’d already gone to the police, it would be because of that; since he hadn’t, it would be his fault for not going to the police. Munir would always blame himself; deep in her heart Barbara also would blame him. And later on, maybe years from now, Robby would blame him too.
Because there’d always be one too few fingers on Robby’s left hand, always be that scar along the margin of Barbara’s nipple, always the vagrant thought, sneaking through the night, that Munir hadn’t done all he could, that if he’d only been a little more cooperative, Robby still would have ten fingers.
Sure, they were together now, and they’d been hugging and crying and kissing, but later on Barbara would start asking questions: Couldn’t you have done more? Why didn’t you cut your finger off when he told you to?
Even now, Barbara was suggesting that Munir could have been gentler when he’d fired Hollander. The natural progression from that was to: Maybe if you had, none of this would have happened.
The individual members might still be alive, but Munir’s family was already dead. He just didn’t know it yet.
And that saddened Jack. It mean that Hollander had won.
Doc Hargus shuffled out of the back room. He had an aggressively wrinkled face and a Wilford Brimley mustache.
“He’s sleeping,” Doc said. “Probably sleep through the night.”
“But his hand,” Barbara said. “You couldn’t–?”
“No way that finger could be reattached, not even at the Mayo Clinic. Not after spending a night in a Federal Express envelope. I sewed up the stump good and tight. You may want to get a more cosmetic repair in a few years, but it’ll do for now. He’s loaded up with antibiotics and painkillers at the moment.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Munir said.
“And how about you?” Doc said to Barbara. “How’re you feeling?”
She cupped a hand over her breast. “Fine… I think.”
“Good. Your sutures can come out in five days. We’ll leave Robby’s in for about ten.”
“How can we ever repay you?” Munir said.
“In cash,” Doc said. “You’ll get my bill.”
As he shuffled back to where Robby was sleeping, Barbara pressed her head against her husband’s shoulder.
“Oh, Munir. I can’t believe it’s over.”
Jack watched them and knew he hadn’t completely earned his fee.
Save my family…
Not yet. Hollander hadn’t won yet.
“It’s not over,” Jack said.
They both turned to look at him.
“We’ve still got Richard Hollander tied up in that loft. What do we do with him?”
“I never want to see him again!” Barbara said.
“So we let him go?”
“No!” Munir spoke through his teeth. “I want him to hang! I want him to fry! He has to pay for what he did to Robby! To Barbara!”
“You really think he’ll pay if we turn him in? I mean, how much faith do you have in the courts?”
They looked at him. Their bleak stares told him they felt like everybody else: No faith. No faith at all.
“So your only other option is to go back there and deal with him yourself.”
Munir was nodding slowly, his mouth a tight line, his eyes angry slits. “Yes… I would like that.” He rose to his feet. “I will go back there. He has… things to answer for. I must be sure this will never happen again.”
Barbara was on her feet too, a feral glint in her eyes.
“I’m coming with you.”
“But Robby–”
“I’ll stay here,” Jack said. “He knows me now. If he wakes up, I’ll be here.”
They hesitated.
Save my family…
If the Habibs were going to make it they were going to have to face Hollander together and resolve all those as-yet-unasked questions by settling their scores with him. All their scores.
“Get going,” he said. “I never made it past Tenderfoot in the Boy Scouts. Who knows how long my knots will last?”
Jack watched them hurry out, hand in hand. Maybe this would fix their marriage, maybe it wouldn’t. All he knew for sure was that he was glad he wasn’t Richard Hollander tonight.
He got up and went looking for Doc Hargus. The doc was never without a stock of good beer in his fridge.
introduction to “Interlude at Duane’s”
In January 2005, David Morrell and I were instructors at the Borderlands Bootcamp for Writers. David had helped start the International Thriller Writers organization the previous year and induced me to join. ITW in turn induced me to donate a Repairman Jack story to their anthology (Thriller) to raise funds for the organization.
Thus was "Interlude at Duane’s" born. The Thriller table of contents is a Who’s Who of thriller writers. All contributors were limited to a 5K word count. I could have used more. Toward the end I was on fire, burning up the keyboard. I wish I could write with that speed and intensity all the time.
As you’ll see, this one was fun.
Thriller went on to become one of the best if not the best selling anthology of all time. And I didn’t get a dime royalty. But I did gain a ton of new readers. Many of the zillion or so people who bought the anthology had never heard of Jack. Since then I regularly run into devoted Jack fans who say their first contact with the character was in Thriller. (I’ll bet a fair number of you are reading this collection because of that story.) Doing well while doing good…nothing wrong with that.
Ed Gorman chose it for his anthology The Deadly Bride and Other Great Mystery and Crime Stories of 2005.
Interlude at Duane’s
“Lemme tell you, Jack,” Loretta said, blotting perspiration from her fudgcicle skin, “these changes gots me in a baaaad mood.
They’d just finished playing some real-life Frogger jaywalking 57th and were now chugging west.
“Real bad. My feets killin me too. Nobody better hassle me afore I’m home and on the outside of a big ol glass of Jimmy.”
Jack nodded, paying just enough attention to be polite. He was more interested in the passersby and was thinking how a day without your carry was like a day without clothes.
He felt naked. Had to leave his trusty Glock and backup home today because of his annual trip to the Empire State Building. He’d designated April 19th King Kong Day. Every year he made a pilgrimage to the observation deck to leave a little wreath in memory of the Big Guy. The major drawback to the outing was the metal detector everyone had to pass through before heading upstairs. That meant no heat.
He didn’t think he was being paranoid. Okay, maybe a little, but he’d pissed off his share of people in this city and didn’t care to run into them naked.
After the wreath-laying ceremony, he ran into Loretta and walked her back toward Hell’s Kitchen. Oh, wait. It was Clinton now.