Mr. Canelli’s helplessness unleashed something inside Jack. He had lost his temper before, but the rage he felt within him at that moment bordered on insanity. His jaw was clamped so tightly his teeth ached; his entire body trembled as his muscles bunched into knots. He had a good idea of who had done it and could confirm his suspicions with little difficulty. He had to fight off a wild urge to find them and run the Toro over their faces a few times.
Reason won out. No sense landing himself in jail while they got to play the roles of unfortunate victims.
There was another way. It leaped full-blown into Jack’s head as he stood there.
He walked over to Mr. Canelli and said, “I can fix it for you.”
The old man blotted his face with a handkerchief and glared at him. “Fix it why? So you an’ you friends can destroy it again?”
“I’ll fix it so it never happens again.”
Mr. Canelli looked at him a long time without speaking, then said, “Come inside. You tell me how.”
Jack didn’t give him all the details, just a list of the materials he would need. He added fifty dollars for labor. Mr. Canelli agreed but said he’d hold the fifty until he saw results. They shook hands and had a small glass of barbarone to seal the deal.
Jack began the following day. He bought three dozen small spreading yews and planted them three and a half feet apart along the perimeter of the corner lot while Mr. Canelli started restorative work on his lawn. They talked while they worked. Jack learned that the damage had been done by a smallish, low-riding, light-colored car and a dark van. Mr. Canelli hadn’t been able to get the license plate numbers. He had called the police but the vandals were long gone by the time one of the local cops came by. The police had been called before, but the incidents were so random and, until now, of such little consequence, that they hadn’t taken the complaints too seriously.
The next step was to secure three dozen four-foot lengths of six-inch pipe and hide them in Mr. Canelli’s garage. They used a post-hole digger to open a three-foot hole directly behind each yew. Late one night, Jack and Mr. Canelli mixed up a couple of bags of cement in the garage and filled each of the four-foot iron pipes. Three days later, again under cover of darkness, the cement-filled pipes were inserted into the holes behind the yews and the dirt packed tight around them. Each bush now had twelve to fifteen inches of makeshift lolly column hidden within its branches.
The white picket fence was rebuilt around the yard and Mr. Canelli continued to work at getting his lawn back into shape. The only thing left for Jack to do was sit back and wait.
It took a while. August ended, Labor Day passed, school began again. By the third week of September, Mr. Canelli had the yard graded again. The new grass had sprouted and was filling in nicely.
And that, apparently, was what they had been waiting for.
The sounds of sirens awoke Jack at one-thirty a.m. on a Sunday morning. Red lights were flashing up at the corner by Mr. Canelli’s house. Jack pulled on his jeans and ran to the scene.
Two first aid rigs were pulling away as he approached the top of the block. Straight ahead a black van lay on its side by the curb. The smell of gasoline filled the air. In the wash of light from a street lamp overhead he saw that the undercarriage was damaged beyond repair: The left front lower control arm was torn loose; the floor pan was ripped open, exposing a bent drive shaft; the differential was knocked out of line, and the gas tank was leaking. A fire truck stood by, readying to hose down the area.
He walked on to the front of Mr. Canelli’s house, where a yellow Camaro was stopped nose-on to the yard. The windshield was spider-webbed with cracks and steam plumed around the edges of the sprung hood. A quick glance under the hood revealed a ruptured radiator, bent front axle, and cracked engine block.
Mr. Canelli stood on his front steps. He waved Jack over and stuck a fifty-dollar bill into his hand.
Jack stood beside him and watched until both vehicles were towed away, until the street had been hosed down, until the fire truck and police cars were gone. He was bursting inside. He felt he could leap off the steps and fly around the yard if he wished. He could not remember ever feeling so good. Nothing smokable, ingestible, or injectable would ever give him a high like this.
He was hooked.
5
One hour, three beers, and two kirs later, it dawned upon Jack that he had told much more than he had intended. He had gone on from Mr. Canelli to describe some of his more interesting fix-it jobs. Kolabati seemed to enjoy them all, especially the ones where he had taken special pains to make the punishment fit the crime.
A combination of factors had loosened his tongue. First of all was a feeling of privacy. He and Kolabati seemed to have the far end of this wing of Peacock Alley to themselves. There were dozens of conversations going on in the wing, blending into a susurrant undertone that wound around them, masking their own words and making them indistinguishable from the rest. But most of all, there was Kolabati, so interested, so intent upon what he had to say that he kept talking, saying more than he wished, saying anything to keep that fascinated look in her eyes. He talked to her as he had talked to no one else he could remember—except perhaps Abe. Abe had learned about him over a period of years and had seen much of it happen. Kolabati was getting a big helping in one sitting.
Throughout his narrative, Jack watched for her reaction, fearing she might turn away like Gia had. But Kolabati was obviously not like Gia. Her eyes fairly glowed with enthusiasm and… admiration.
It was, however, time to shut up. He had said enough. They sat for a quiet moment, toying with their empty glasses. Jack was about to ask her if she wanted a refill when she turned to him.
“You don’t pay taxes, do you.”
The statement startled him. Uneasy, he wondered how she knew.
“Why do you say that?”
“I sense you are a self-made outcast. Am I right?”
“’Self-made outcast.’ I like that.”
“Liking it is not the same as answering the question.”
“I consider myself a sort of sovereign state. I don’t recognize other governments within my borders.”
“But you’ve exiled yourself from more than the government. You live and work completely outside society. Why?”
“I’m not an intellectual. I can’t give you a carefully reasoned manifesto. It’s just the way I want to live.”
Her eyes bored into him. “I don’t accept that. Something cut you off. What was it?”
This woman was uncanny! It was as if she could look into his mind and read all his secrets. Yes—there had been an incident that had caused him to withdraw from the rest of “civilized” society. But he couldn’t tell her about it. He felt at ease with Kolabati, but he wasn’t about to confess to murder.
“I’d rather not say.”
She studied him. “Are your parents alive?”
Jack felt his insides tighten. “Only my father.”
“I see. Did your mother die of natural causes?”
She can read minds! That’s the only explanation!
“No. And I don’t want to say any more.”
“Very well. But however you came to be what you are, I’m sure it was by honorable means.”