Quick Fixes: Tales of Repairman Jack Read Free Page A

pocket. “You that ugly? Or do you think you’re Spiderman or something?”
    “ No, I’m Pumpkinman. And this way I know you but you don’t know me. You see, Matt, I’ve been keeping close tabs on you. I know all your haunts. I stand in plain view and watch you. I’ve watched you play pool at Gus’s. I’ve walked up behind you in a crowd and bumped you as I passed. I could have slipped an ice pick between your ribs a dozen times by now. But don’t try to spot me. You won’t. While you’re trying to hard to look like Billy Idol, I’m trying even harder to look like nobody.”
    “ You are nobody, man!” His voice was as tough as ever, but a haunted look had crept into his eyes.
    Jack laughed. “Surprised to see me?”
    “ Not really,” Reilly said, recovering. “I figured you’d show up.”
    “ Yeah? What’s the matter? No faith in your hit squad?”
    “ Hit squad?” There was genuine bafflement in his eyes. “What the fuck you talkin’ about?”
    Jack sensed that Reilly wasn’t faking it. He was as baffled as Jack.
    He let his mind wander an instant. If not Reilly’s bunch, then who?
    No time for that now. Especially with the muffled screams coming from the front. He turned Reilly around and shoved him back through the swinging doors to the front of the diner. Once there, he bellied Reilly up against the counter and put the .45 to his temple. He saw Reece covering half a dozen customers with a sawed off shotgun. But where was that psycho, Cheeks?
    “ Okay, turkeys!” Jack yelled. “Fun’s over! Drop the hardware!”
    Reece spun and faced them. His eyes widened and he raised the scattergun in their direction. Jack felt Reilly cringe back against him.
    “ Go ahead,” Jack said, placing himself almost completely behind Reilly. “You can’t make him any uglier.”
    “ Don’t, man!” Reilly said in a low voice.
    Reece didn’t move. He didn’t seem to know what to do. So Jack told him.
    “ Put the piece on the counter or I’ll blow his head off.”
    “ No way,” Reece said.
    “ Don’t try me, pal. I’ll do it just for fun.”
    Jack hoped Reece didn’t think he was bluffing, because he wasn’t. He’d already been shot at twice tonight and he was in a foul mood.
    “ Do what he says, man,” Reilly told him.
    “ No way! ” Reece said. “I’ll get outta here, but no way I’m givin’ that suckuh my piece!”
    Jack wasn’t going to allow that. As soon as Reece got outside he’d start peppering the big windows with shot. He was about to move Reilly out from behind the counter to block the aisle when one of the customers Reece had been covering stood up behind him and grabbed the pump handle of the scattergun. A second man leapt to his side to help. One round blasted into the ceiling, and then the gun was useless – with all those hands on it, Reece couldn’t pump another round into the chamber. Two more customers jumped up and overpowered him. The shotgun came free as a fifth man with a deep cut in his forehead shoved Reece back onto the seat of the booth and began pounding at his face. More fists began to fly. These were very angry men.
    Jack guided Reilly toward the group. He saw two pairs of legs – male and female, struggling on the floor around the far end of the counter. He shoved Reilly toward the cluster of male customers.
    “ Here’s another one for you. Have fun. Just don’t do anything to them they wouldn’t do to you.”
    Two of the men smiled and slammed Reilly down face first on the booth’s table. They began pummeling his kidneys as Jack hurried down to where Cheeks was doing his dirty work.
    He looked over the edge of the counter and saw that the skinhead held the woman’s arms pinned between them with his left hand and had his right thrust up under her bra, twisting her nipple, oblivious to everything else. Her right eye was bruised and swollen. She was crying and writhing under him, even snapping at him with her teeth. A real fighter. She must have put up