Jack_ Secret Vengeance - F. Paul Wilson [54]
He returned all but one of the papers to the top of the closet. He was going to keep the medical bill for a while, at least until he figured out what it was talking about.
His first stop was the dictionary. He was pretty sure he knew what a vasectomy was but he looked it up anyway: Surgical division or resection of all or part of the vas deferens usually to induce sterility.
Yeah. Okay. And the vas deferens was…?
A sperm-carrying duct especially of a higher vertebrate that in the human male is a thick-walled tube about two feet (0.61 meters) long that begins at and is continuous with the tail of the epididymis and eventually joins the duct of the seminal vesicle to form the ejaculatory duct.
Swell. That was a big help.
He went to the encyclopedia and found an illustration that showed a tube coming off the testicle and running up and …
Wait. Dad had that cut?
Jack’s knees locked together of their own accord.
Yow and ow!
So wait … the bill indicated that Dad had had a vasectomy in 1962 … had himself sterilized seven years before Jack was born.
Well then, how had he fathered Jack?
Jack didn’t want to do it, but saw no way around it now. He was going to have to talk to Kate about this.
But first he had to get over to USED.
5
As he guided his bike onto Quakerton Road, Jack spotted a familiar car on the Quaker Lake bridge: A light blue Mustang GLX was heading toward Old Town.
Jack wondered if Toliver was alone, or maybe had another unwitting girl with him. But it was midafternoon, not the usual time for funny business. Maybe a stop at Mrs. Clevenger’s to ask about being haunted again? Because if he suspected he was being haunted before, he had to be thoroughly convinced now.
Jack looked at his watch. He had time for a quick detour before Mr. Rosen’s nap time.
He followed the car over the bridge into Old Town, past the Lodge and Mrs. Clevenger’s house. Well, so much for that idea. He rode past the old graveyard and the supposedly haunted Klenke house to odd-looking Lester Appleton’s truck, parked as usual next to the Lightning Tree.
The Mustang stopped, so Jack stopped. He watched Toliver get out with an empty bottle in his hand. He gave it to Lester, who filled it with clear liquid from a big brown jug. Money changed hands.
Doubly illegal, Jack knew. Still years from twenty-one, Toliver was underage to buy liquor. But that didn’t stop Lester, and when Jack thought about it, why should it? Lester was already breaking a bunch of laws just by distilling his applejack moonshine, so adding one more by selling to a minor was no big deal to him.
But the town wouldn’t feel that way. Nobody reported the applejack trade in Johnson and other Pinelands towns. The cops knew, but it was part of the life cycle of the Pines, a private matter, not subject to the rules and regulations common to the rest of the state or even the country. Nobody would dream of blowing the whistle. That would be like sticking a knife in a dying way of life.
But the quarterback of the high school football team buying applejack … that would make waves. Especially after last night’s performance. People would get upset. They’d blame the applejack and wouldn’t look the other way on that.
Is this my doing too? Jack wondered. Had the locker rigs and the bloody words driven him to drink?
But from the way Toliver and Lester chatted, and the way Lester clapped him on the arm, it seemed pretty clear this wasn’t their first transaction.
As Toliver returned to his car he spotted Jack and froze. Their eyes met and locked for a few heartbeats, then he slipped into the front seat and started the engine. He turned the car around and pulled to a stop beside Jack.
“What did you just see?” he said, giving Jack a hard look. He had circles under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept. His air of superiority seemed less natural and more forced today. And his eyes … definitely haunted.
Jack looked right back. “Nothing.”
He was tempted to add, Nice game last night,