Read Online Cold City (Repairman Jack - the Early Years Trilogy) by F. Paul Wilson - Free Book Online Page A

late thirties with spiky black hair and a sniffle.  He photographed Jack, took his phone number, and said he’d call when “it” was ready.  Jack figured he didn’t mean a portrait. 
    Yesterday morning the call had come and Jack returned.  Levinson waited till the store was empty – not a long wait – then handed Jack an envelope.
    “Check it out,” he said.
    Jack pulled out a laminated card and frowned.  His own face stared back at him, but…
    “Doesn’t look like a driver’s license.”
    “It’s not,” Levinson said.  “Your boss has the license.  This here’s an NC State student ID.  The license is in the system, the library card isn’t.”
    “Then what good is it?”
    “It’s a photo ID.  Never hurts.  When the name agrees with the license – which, as you will learn, has no photo – it reassures the cop or whoever stops you that you’re you.”
    “But when they check with the school they’ll–”
    Levinson smirked.  “Trust me, when it comes to a choice between verifying a college library ID and a state-issued license, they go with the license every time.”
    Jack checked the name.  “Lonnie Buechner?  Jeez.”
    “Yeah, sorry about that.”
    “Couldn’t you come up with something simpler?”
    “You want simple or safe?  This guy’s safe because he’s real – or at least he was.  Died a few years ago.”
    “What of?” 
    Jack didn’t want to hear that he used to drive for Bertel.
    “The big C.  North Carolina DMV’s got no dead file so, as long as your boss keeps renewing Lonnie’s license, he’s still alive… in a way.”
    Swell, I’ll be a driving dead man.  George Romero images followed him out of the store.
    When he called Bertel to let him know he was now licensed, he was instructed to wait at the corner of Sixth Avenue and King Street, a few blocks away.  Bertel showed up in a U-Haul truck.  He slid over to the passenger seat and handed Jack a laminated card – the second in less than an hour.
    “There’s your driver’s license.”
    “You mean Lonnie Buechner’s.”
    “Yeah.  Some name, huh?”
    Jack shook his head.  “Tell me about it.”
    “Really, who names their boy Lonnie?”
    “Mrs. Mack did.”
    “Who?”
    “Never mind.”
    Bertel said, “Well, when I hear ‘Lonnie’ I think of big blond hair and big boobs – you know, the gal on that WKRP show.”
    “Loni Anderson.”
    “Right.  And Anderson’s a lot easier to spell than Buechner.  Make sure you know how to spell it like your own.”  He pointed ahead.  “Drive.”   
    “Where?”
    “Anywhere.  I know you can handle a motorcycle, but I want to see how you handle four wheels.”
    Jack hadn’t driven a truck before, but this rig, with its automatic shift, wasn’t much different from a car.  Its extra width, though, made handling the narrow West Village streets a little hairy at times.
    “All right,” Bertel said after half an hour.  “You pass.  Go home and take a nap.  I’ll pick you up at six.  We drive all night.”
    “ ‘We’?”
    “I’ll drive down with you the first time – make sure you get where you’re supposed to be when you’re supposed to be there.  You’ll come back on your own.”
    “How’ll you get back?”
    He grinned.  “Fly.”
    Well, the nap didn’t happen. 
    Bertel showed up right on time, put Jack behind the wheel, and off they went.  Out the Holland Tunnel and down the NJ Turnpike.  After they crossed the Delaware Memorial Bridge, Bertel handed him a sheet of directions that took him down the DelMarVa peninsula to a town he’d never heard of: Elizabeth City, North Carolina.
    “Gotta be a quicker way,” Jack told him.
    “I know.  But you’ll be taking this route back and I want you familiar with it.”  He leaned back. “Wake me when we hit the NC line.”
    Then he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
    The instructions were simple enough: south through DelMarVa to the tip of Cape Charles, over the Chesapeake Bay