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

stroke.”
    “Swell,” Jack said. “As if a coma isn’t bad enough.”
    “Dr. Reston started him on a blood thinner to prevent that. But tell me about his medical history. I’ve been working in the dark, knowing nothing about him beyond the address and date of birth we got off his license. Has he been treated for any illnesses or heart problems in the past? Does he take any medications?”
    “I think he once mentioned taking an aspirin a day, but beyond that…”
    “Do you know if he’s been seeing a doctor down here, for checkups and the like?”
    Jack was embarrassed. He knew no more about what his father had been doing down here than what he’d been doing in Jersey before the move. He knew his father’s new address but had never seen the place. Truth was, he knew nothing about his father’s life down here or anywhere else, and even less about his health.
    But he was getting a crash course this afternoon.
    How to put this…
    “He wasn’t much for talking to me about his health.”
    Dr. Huerta smiled. “That’s a switch. Most people his age talk about nothing but.”
    “Is he going to be okay?”
    “I wish I could say. If his cardiac rhythm stabilizes, I believe he’ll come out of this with little permanent damage. He won’t remember a thing about the accident, but—”
    “What about the accident?” Jack said. “What happened?”
    She shrugged. “I have no idea. All I know is that he was brought in unconscious from head trauma. You’ll have to ask the police.”
    The police…swell. The last people Jack wanted to talk to.
    She fished in her pocket. “I’ll be looking in on him again in the morning. If you learn anything about his medical history, give me a call.” She handed him a card.
    Jack slipped it into his pocket.

11

    After the doctor bustled out of the room, Jack turned back to his father. As he stepped toward the bed—
    “So, you’re one of Thomas’s sons.”
    Jack jumped at the sound of the voice, raspy, like someone who’d been gargling with kerosene. Startled because he hadn’t heard anyone come in, he looked around and found the room empty.
    “Who—?”
    “Over here, honey.”
    The voice came from behind the curtain. Jack reached out and pulled it back. A thin, flat-chested old woman sat in a chair in a shadowed corner. Her black hair was pulled back in a tight bun and her skin was dark, made even darker by the sleeveless canary yellow blouse and bright pink Bermuda shorts she wore, but in the shadows he couldn’t tell her race. A large straw shopping bag sat on the floor beside her.
    “When did you come in?”
    “I’ve been here the whole time.” She pronounced it “Oy’ve been here the whole toym.” The accent was from somewhere on Long Island—Lynn Samuels to the Nth degree. But that cinderblock-dragging-behind-a-truck voice…how many packs of cigarettes had it taken to achieve that tone?
    “Since before I came in?”
    She nodded.
    That bothered Jack. He wasn’t usually so careless. He’d have sworn the room was empty.
    “You know my father?”
    “Thomas and I are next-door neighbors. We moved in the same time and became friends. He’s never mentioned me?”
    “We, um, don’t talk a lot.”
    “He’s mentioned you, many times.”
    “You must be thinking of Tom.”
    She shook her head and spoke at jackhammer speed. “You don’t look old enough to be Tom, Jr. You must be Jack. And he did talk about you. Hell, sometimes I couldn’t get him to shut up about you.” She rose and stepped forward, extending a gnarled hand. “I’m Anya.”
    Jack took her hand. He saw now that she was white—or maybe Caucasian was a better term, because she was anything but white. Her skin was deeply tanned and had that leathery quality that only decades of dedicated sunbathing can give. Her skinny arms and legs had the shape and texture of Slim Jims. Her hair was mostly jet black except for a mist of gray roots hugging her scalp.
    Jack heard a faint yip from behind