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

on the same road as me. You’re taking me and Oyv home.”

12

    As soon as Anya got in the car she placed Oyv on her lap and lit up an unfiltered Pall Mall.
    “Mind if I smoke?”
    A little late to object now, Jack thought.
    “Nah. Go ahead.” He lowered all the windows.
    “Want one?”
    “Thanks, no. Tried it a few times but never picked up the habit.”
    “Too bad,” Anya said, blowing a stream out the window. “And if you’re going to tell me to stop, save your breath.”
    “Wouldn’t think of it. It’s your life.”
    “Damn right. Over the years I’ve had five doctors tell me to stop. I’ve outlived every one of them.”
    “Now I definitely won’t say a word.”
    She smiled and nodded and directed Jack onto a road leading west of town.
    The sinking sun knifed through his dark glasses and stabbed at his eyes as he drove westward. He watched what passed for civilization in these parts fall away behind them. The land became progressively swampier, yet somehow managed to retain that burnt-out look.
    They passed a freshly tilled field of rich brown earth and wondered what had been growing there all summer. Most of the cultivation seemed given over to palm tree nurseries. Odd to pass successive acre plots, each packed with successively larger palms, all of equal height within their own acre.
    Anya pointed a crooked finger at a twin-engine outboard motorboat in someone’s front yard.
    “‘For Sale By Owner’?” she said. “I should hope so. Who else would be selling it? Do they make ‘For Sale By Thief’ signs?”
    A few turns later, past stands of scrub pines, they came to a block of concrete with a blue-and-white-tiled mosaic across its front.

    GATEWAYS SOUTH
    GATEWAY TO THE FINEST IN MATURE LIFESTYLES

    The droopy plants and palms framing the sign looked like they were on their last legs.
    “Here we are,” Anya said. “Home sweet home.”
    “This is it? This is where he lives?”
    “Where I live too. Turn already or you’ll miss it.”
    Jack complied and followed a winding path past a muddy pit with a metal pipe standing in its center.
    “That used to be a pond with a fountain,” Anya said. “It was beautiful.”
    All of Gateways South must have been beautiful when it was green, but it looked like it had been particularly hard hit by the drought. All the grass lining the road had been burned to a uniform beige. Only the pines— which probably pre-dated the community—seemed to be holding their own.
    They came to a checkpoint divided into VISITORS and RESIDENT arches, each blocked with a red-and-white-striped crossarm. Jack began to angle left toward the visitor gate where a guard sat in an air-conditioned kiosk.
    “No,” Anya said, handing him a plastic card. “Use this at the other gate. Just wave it in front of the whatchamacall it.”
    The whatchamacall it turned out to be a little metal box atop a curved pole. Jack waved the card before the sensor and the striped crossarm went up.
    “I feel like I’m entering some sort of CIA installation,” he said. “Or crossing a border.”
    “Welcome to one of the retirement Balkans. Seriously though, as we all get on in our years, and become more frail than we like to admit, sometimes this is what it takes to let us feel secure when we turn out the lights.”
    “Well, as the song says, whatever gets you through the night. But I can’t see this place as much of a crime risk. It’s in the middle of nowhere.”
    “Which is exactly why we like a security force guarding the gate and patrolling the grounds.” She pointed straight ahead. “Just take this road to its end.”
    Jack shook his head as he followed the asphalt path that wound past what looked like a par-three golf course. The grass was sparse and brown and the ground looked rock hard. That wasn’t deterring the hardcore hackers; he spotted half a dozen golf carts bouncing along the fairways.
    “Can’t they even water the greens?”
    Anya shook her head. “Drought emergency