Free Repairman Jack [07]-Gateways by F. Paul Wilson

in if I didn’t stop watering.”
    “What did you tell them?”
    “Honey, I said if they catch me with a hose in my hand, they can slap the cuffs on. But until then, they can kiss my wrinkled tuchus !”
    Oyv yipped in seeming agreement as Anya turned and marched off.
    My kind of gal, Jack thought as he watched her go.

13

    Jack unlocked his father’s front door and stepped into the cool, dark interior. The shades were pulled, probably to keep it cooler during the day and cut down on the electric bill. His father had never been cheap, but he hated waste.
    He closed the door behind him and stood in the darkness, listening, feeling the house. Somewhere ahead and to the left a refrigerator kicked on. He sniffed. Onions…a hint of sautéed onions lingered in the air. Dad’s doing? He’d always been something of a chef, probably more so out of necessity after Mom’s death, and had this thing for onions; liked them on just about everything. Jack remembered one Sunday morning as a kid when he’d sautéed a bunch and put them on pancakes. Everyone had started out complaining but they turned out to taste pretty good.
    Jack stepped over to the picture window and pulled the blinds, letting in the fading sunlight. Dust motes gleamed in the air. He pulled up the rest of the shades and started exploring.
    The front area was a large multipurpose living room/dining room angling into a small kitchen. That was what Jack wanted. He opened the fridge and found a six-pack and a half of Havana Red Ale. He checked the label: brewed in Key West. Another local brand. Why not? He popped the top and took a pull. A little bitter, not as good as Ybor Gold, but it would do.
    He spotted a bottle of Rose’s lime juice on a door shelf. On a hunch he opened the freezer and there it was: a frosty bottle of Bombay Sapphire. Looked like Dad still liked a gimlet now and then.
    He wandered through the front room and recognized some of the paintings from the family home in Jersey. He noticed a trophy shelf on the south wall and moved in for a closer look. First place in the men’s doubles in tennis—no surprise there—but what was this? A plaque for second place in the men’s bocce tournament?
    My father, the bocce champ. Jeez.
    He called Gia to give her the medical report on his father. She said how sorry she was that the news wasn’t better. Jack said hello to Vicks, then told them he’d call back later.
    After he hung up he stepped into one of the bedrooms. This looked like a guest room/office: a bed, a dresser, and a desk with a computer and a printer. Jack saw a list of buy-sell confirmations in the printer tray. Looked like Dad was still day trading. He’d started it way before it became the rage in the nineties and had made enough to retire on. He’d tried to get Jack into it once, saying that if you were vigilant and knew the ropes, it didn’t matter if the market was up or down, you could make money every day.
    Not if you don’t have a real Social Security Number, Dad.
    He moved on to the other bedroom, more cluttered and obviously Dad’s. He stopped in the doorway, taken aback by the photos filling the walls. Mostly Mom, Tom, and Kate at various ages, salted with a few of Jack as a kid. Here were the five of them as they embarked on their one and only family camp-out…what a disaster that had been.
    Memories flooded back, especially of Kate—as his teenaged big sister, looking out for him…as an adult, dying in front of him.
    He quickly turned away and checked the closet. There they were: Dad’s ugly Hawaiian shirts. He pulled one out and looked at it: huge bulge-eyed goldfish swimming in a green fluid that could only be bile. Jack tried to imagine himself wearing this and failed. People would…notice him.
    As he replaced the shirt he noticed a gray metal box on the shelf above the rod. He reached for it, hesitated, then took it down. He thumbed the latch but it was locked. He shook it. Papers and other things shuffled and