Time Jacker, Aaron Crash [most important books of all time txt] 📗

been a policeman. Then there was Eli, the last of the Masterson brothers to become a policeman. He’d gotten an infection from yardwork, a freak thing, but it was enough to kill him. Then losing Andy to cancer that September.

Some of the bills on the table were to pay off the funeral.

The silence was hard to bear, especially since their house had been so loud growing up, six boys, with Jack being the youngest.

“I’ll consider plumbing.” Jack raised his beer can. “To our family, Moms. We’re the last of us, but we’re here. We’re here.”

Moms raised her can, as did Aunt Sue, and they toasted the fallen.

Aunt Sue patted her sister’s shoulder. “Helluva thing, losing so many, so young.”

Jack’s mom sighed, but she didn’t cry. She often said she already cried an ocean over their many losses, and that the world didn’t need more water. She was brave and optimistic, if a little dependent on her beers.

Jack figured he could soften the heavy tension in the air. He might as well talk about what was on his mind because it wasn’t like these old women would ever believe he had magical powers. “Hey, Moms, Aunt Sue, what would you do if you could stop time?”

Aunt Sue fell apart in laughter. She had a cigarette in her fingers, and she was toying with it. “Go back in time? I’d go back to right before Eddie’s father cheated on me and kill him and that conniving bitch at the King Soopers.”

Did grocery stores hire people based on their capacity for drama? From dating Mindy, and from his own family’s history, Jack thought so. He set his beer on the table, careful not to get any of the papers wet. “Not go back in time. Just stop time.”

Jack’s mother furrowed her brow. “That’s a strange question to consider.” Then she blushed and put a chubby hand to her mouth.

Jack sighed. “I don’t want to know.”

Sue laughed more. “She’d go into the men’s locker room at the YMCA, wouldn’t you, Rosie?”

His mom downright giggled, and it was adorable, this sixty-plus woman giggling and blushing.

Aunt Sue waved her hand. “That’s perverted. I’d steal money, lots of money, from rich pricks. There’s a shit-ton of rich pricks in this world, Jackie. And I say fuck ’em all! Fuck ’em right up their rich prick asses. Like those Malcolms. We won’t ever forget what they did to you, Jack. Not ever.”

His mom sighed at her sister. “Please, Sue, don’t curse.” Even mentioning the Malcolms made his mom sad.

“It’s okay, Moms,” Jack said quietly. He couldn’t disagree with his aunt, but he also didn’t point out her own son was basically a prick, rich or not. Sometimes, with family, you kept such things to yourself because you had to play the long game.

Moms grew serious. A little too serious. “It’s funny, Jack. Time is the real money of the world. And if you could stop time? You’d get more time, to do any number of things. To enjoy things. To learn things. Maybe to stop bad things from happening. Like a car accident. Stopping time would help you save people.”

Aunt Sue tapped her beer on the table. “That’s all very well and good, but I’m rethinking things. Sure, it’s perverted, but I’d go into that men’s locker room at the YMCA. Just to see a handsome man naked. It’s been a decade or more. Then? I’d go right to that bank you look after, Jack. Go right up and steal the money out of the drawers. They’re insured.”

“But if you took money out of a teller’s drawer, she’d get in trouble.” Jack shook his head, thinking of Annie. Where was she? It was all too convenient. Hugo, Hugo’s mom, Horns, the bank robbery, and the lady in red smelling like spice and sex. If Annie had been kidnapped, it had to be one of them that had done the kidnapping.

Moms didn’t have an opinion on the bank. She did have an opinion on the showers. “You know, Jackie, if you went into the lady’s room at your gym, you’d be a creep. It’s different for women...your aunt and me, for example.”

“That doesn’t seem very fair.” He stood up. “It’s all just pretend, you know? People can’t stop time.”

Jack helped them clean up the papers and the beer and again had to tell them he couldn’t stay for dinner. He’d get some orange chicken from the Señor Chang’s south on Plum Creek Boulevard from the bank and then continue to work on finding Annie.

Though a part of him knew that the most important thing he could do was stop time and test the limits of his powers. The lady in red might be watching, and if he gave her a good show, maybe she’d answer some questions about what happened to Annie.

But at the top of Jack’s list was finding Hugo Mundi. The crazy guy had given him the toy soldier and seemed to be up to his greasy hair in this business. To top it off? Hugo was crazy, and his mental illness might mean any number of things.

So Jack had a to-do list. Find Hugo. Find Annie. Practice his power and keep an eye out for the bitch with the two different-colored eyes. And he had to juggle his various jobs. But now he had more time. Literally.

First, Señor Chang’s. They had some good orange chicken, but their taco waffles—which were really just Navajo tacos—were also really good. At some point, Navajo tacos would take over the world of cuisine and maybe beat out pizza for the most delicious food ever.

He drove over, the headache gone, and he was feeling good.

It was time to test out his powers and see what he could do. He parked and went into the restaurant, which was crowded. Saturday night, people wanted their Mexican Asian fusion cooking. He noticed a foursome of women in the corner booth, eight margaritas on their table, four empty and four halfway gone. They were all