Free The House That Jack Built by Graham Masterton Page A

Hudson Valley deserve. Gilded taps, marble floors. A library pungent with oak shelving and leather-bound books. Swags and curtains and carpets as hushed as sin. A billiard-room.
        The rain lashed against their windscreen harder and faster, just as the line of dark, deformed oak trees rose into view. Craig drove right up to the gates and then slewed to a stop. He forced his way out of the car door against a wind that was gusting up to 50 m.p.h. and shouted at Effie, 'Let's hope this is the right goddamned key!'
        He went up to the gates and lifted the heavy rusted padlock. The wind sounded hollow and threatening, like somebody blowing across the neck of an empty jar. Rain spattered his cheeks and measled his shirt. Lightning danced across the horizon as he twisted the key into the padlock's opening; and he thought, apocalyptic? Yes, I'm going to be apocalyptic. I'm opening up the gates to a whole new life. Thunder bellowed right over his head, just as Norman came running through the rain to help him.
        'That's probably pretty stiff!' Norman shouted. 'It hasn't been opened in years!'
        'I can do it,' Craig told him. 'I didn't do gung-fu wrist-exercises for nothing.'
        'Okay, great. But if gung-fu doesn't work, I have a couple of cans of easing oil in the car.'
        'I can do it, okay?'
        'Okay, sure. But let's get hustling, right?' Norman's trousers were snapping in the wind and he was obviously trying hard not to be panicky. 'It's not such a dazzling idea, you know, standing about on top of a mountain in a full-scale electric storm, holding a pair of iron gates. Well, actually, it could be a very dazzling idea.'
        The padlock was stiff, and gritty with rust, but slowly it yielded. The levers clicked open one by one, and then Craig was able to drag out the rusted hasp.
        'Hey, how about that?' said Norman. 'Eat your heart out, Sylvester Stallone.'
        Together, inch by scraping inch, Craig and Norman forced open the right-hand gate, and fastened it back with a corroded old hook buried in the grass.
        'I guess you know Valhalla pretty well!' shouted Craig against the wind as they did so.
        Norman's glasses were steamed-up and speckled with rain, and his hair was flying everywhere. 'Me and my friends used to play here, when we were kids. Ran around everywhere: sitting rooms, ballroom, kitchen, halfway up the stairs. No further, though. Didn't dare, because of the ghosts.'
        'Ghosts! You and that Walter Van Buren guy, you're as crazy as each other!'
        Norman shouted, 'Who knows? I don't believe in ghosts. I did then, though, when I was eight years old. Didn't you?'
        'Let's get moving,' Craig told him.
        'You're the supremo, supremo.'
        'That's right. I'm the supremo. And, listen, no more crap about ghosts. I don't want you upsetting my wife.' They drove through the gates of Valhalla and into the shadowy avenue of oak trees. The day was already dark, but the trees blotted out so much light that Craig had to switch on his headlamps to see where he was going. Behind him, Norman switched on his headlamps, too, and Craig had to flick his rearview mirror into its night-driving position to prevent himself from being blinded.
        'Jesus, he's all brains, this young pal of ours,' he told Effie sarcastically, his eyes wincing against the bright reflected light.
        'What do you expect? He's a kid. Give him a break.'
        'What? He must be twenty-two, twenty-three, easy.'
        'That's still a kid.'
        'What kind of a kid runs his own house-restoring business?'
        'An enterprising kid, I'd say. And I happen to like him, stupid diet and all.'
        'Maybe you're right.' Then he gripped her hand and unexpectedly kissed it. 'I love you, do you know that? I don't know how you've managed to put up with me, but I do. And, yes, I like Norman, too. He could use a haircut, but I like him.'
        As the