The Wizard's Butler Read online

  This book and parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by the United States of America copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual persons, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  Visit us on the web at: www.solarclipper.com

  Copyright © 2020 by Nathan Lowell

  Cover Art John Ward

  First Printing: March, 2020

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  For Christopher Weibe.

  He had this crazy idea when I needed something crazy.

  Thanks, Chris.

  Chapter 1

  Roger Mulligan stopped in front of the house and stared up at its gabled windows. The wrought-iron gate and fence suited the place but looked completely at odds with the trust-fund-baby gentrification on a street paved with silver spoons. He checked the address on his phone against the number on the house—4185. They matched, and his GPS agreed, so he pushed through the gate, mildly amused that it didn’t squeak like the lid of some mummy’s coffin.

  A fragrant herb grew between the stones of the paved walk, the scent wafting around him as he walked. The grounds seemed well kept, lawn manicured. Looking up at the house, he didn’t see so much as a loose shingle or flake of paint on the ornate, if somewhat monochrome gray, façade. The place gave off an old-money vibe. Very old. He reached for the doorbell and pushed it. Nothing happened. He looked again and realized his mistake. He pulled it. When he let go, he heard a faint tinkling—like an old-time shopkeeper’s bell—from inside. He revised his estimate of the house’s age upward by a couple of decades.

  Tapping heels approached the door a moment before it swung inward on silent hinges. The woman behind the door knew how to dress to impress. She posed, knee bent, head tilted at just the correct angle to be coy without being a come-on. The four-inch red stiletto heels spoiled the effect, but Roger didn’t mind. “Yes?” she said, stretching the word out so he wasn’t sure if it was a question or an answer.

  “Hi. I’m Roger Mulligan?”

  “You don’t sound sure of that,” she said, stepping back and ushering him into a two-story foyer. “Come in, Mr. Mulligan. You’re in the right place.”

  He took in the wainscoted walls, old paintings in heavy frames, and a crystal chandelier hanging a dozen feet over what had to be honest-to-God wood parquet flooring, gleaming with fresh wax. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  She swung the door closed behind him with a solid thump and held out her hand. “Naomi Patching. We spoke on the phone.”

  For a moment he wasn’t sure if he should shake her hand or kiss it. He shook it and nodded. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Patching.”

  “Always nice to put a face with a name,” she said, turning to an open doorway at the foot of the long stairway. “Dealing with people online, one can never be sure.”

  “Nobody knows you’re a dog,” he said.

  “Precisely.” She swept into the room where a tweedy man failed to look trendy in a pair of stacked skinny jeans and a polo shirt. He’d have been better served by shaving the comb-over and losing the pencil-thin mustache.

  He extended the hand that wasn’t holding the rocks glass. “Thomas,” he said. “Thomas Patching.” He glanced at Naomi as if he felt the need to establish that yes, he actually was somehow connected to the vision in tasteful red wool, white linen, and red stilettos.

  Roger gave the twee a solid handshake and a manly nod. “Roger Mulligan.”

  Naomi waved them all into leather chairs around a solid coffee table. “Can I get you a drink, Mr. Mulligan?”

  Roger shook his head. “I’m fine. Finished a bottle in the car and need to let it settle.”

  She blinked at him, as if finally tracking what he was saying.

  He shook his head again. “Sorry. Joke. Poor joke.” He looked back and forth between them, not liking the predatory vibe, similar to what he’d seen before in the field. Village elders thinking they have you where they want you and only looking for the right moment to slip out and—. He choked that thought off by admiring Ms. Patching’s décolletage, so charmingly on display in a white silk frame with just the right hint of lace. He looked up into her eyes. “You were saying?”

  She shared a glance with Tweedy-bird and then leaned forward a few degrees more. “I’m interested in your qualifications, Mr. Mulligan.”

  He shifted in his seat to release a little of the pressure on his qualifications. “What part of them, Ms. Patching? I understand this position is for a caretaker?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” she said. “You were in the military, I understand.”

  Roger nodded. “Three tours in Afghanistan.”

  Her eyebrows rose as her gaze seemed to trace the line of his shoulders. The tip of her tongue swabbed her pouty lips. “That must have been rough.”

  “Not a topic for discussion, ma’am.”

  She nodded. “We can appreciate a man who knows discretion. The situation here is rather ... delicate.” She turned her head slightly and ran a finger down the side of her neck just behind her jaw.

  He shifted again, glancing at the mister, who seemed more interested in his whiskey than his wife. “Perhaps if you could be more specific?”

  She bit her lips together and shrugged. “It’s my uncle, Mr. Mulligan.”

  “Your uncle?” He did not see that coming.

  “Yes, Joseph Perry Shackleford. He owns this property.”

  “You say that like I should know the name,” Roger said.

  Her eyebrows rose and her smile returned with a few extra watts. “No,” she said, drawing the word out. “Not at all.”

  The hairs on the back of Roger’s neck twitched. He glanced back to see if a spider had snuck in behind him or something.

  Tweedy spoke up. “He has a reputation for being somewhat—what’s the word? Eccentric.” He took a sip. “In certain circles.”

  Naomi cast him a glance that—miraculously—failed to shatter the heavy crystal glass in his hand. “We simply want you to meet Uncle Perry without any preconceived notions.”

  “Notions that I might have if I were familiar with the name?” Roger asked.

  She blessed him with another smile. “Precisely.”

  Roger knew what his first online search would be just as soon as he left the house. “What—precisely—is the position?” he asked. “The agency was not particularly forthcoming.” Their description of “personal assistant” had been terse to the point of being overtly cryptic. If he hadn’t been so desperate, he’d probably have given it a pass.

  “We need somebody to care for Uncle Perry,” she said.

  “Is he an invalid?” Roger wasn’t keen on helping anybody dress. Even himself, if he was honest.

  “Nothing like that.” Naomi leaned back and shook her head before leaning forward again, a little further this time. “He’s become a trifle confused.”

  “So
, dementia,” Roger said. “How old is he?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know his exact age,” Naomi said. “Well above eighty, but we don’t actually know his birthday.”

  “So, you need me to what? Babysit?” Roger began to think that the uncle in the belfry wasn’t the only batty one.

  Naomi glanced at Thomas and took a deep breath, which Roger greatly appreciated. “We had something more like butler in mind.”

  Roger looked up into her startlingly green eyes. “Wait. What?”

  “Butler,” she said. “Someone who can stay with him, take care of his correspondence as necessary, oversee the upkeep on the premises. That sort of thing.”

  “Jeeves,” Roger said. “You want me to be Jeeves?”

  “Well, not exactly, but—”

  “Yes.” Thomas leaned forward, his whiskey glass emptied along with his willingness to sit back and shut up, apparently. “Exactly. We’ll provide the uniform. Pay you a stipend. You have quarters here in the house. You can use the vehicles. Just make sure the old boy doesn’t do something foolish like fall down and break his neck or sell the place while he’s still living here.”

  Roger sat back in the sumptuous leather. “Just how bad is he?”

  Naomi made a good show of looking distressed, but Thomas shrugged. “Crazy as they come, I’m afraid. He thinks he’s a wizard.”

  “Thomas,” she said.

  He shrugged. “The man deserves to know, Nay.” He rose and crossed to the sideboard, pulled the plug on a crystal decanter, and splashed another finger or two into his glass.

  “You mentioned a uniform?” Roger asked.

  “Standard service dress,” Naomi said.

  Roger snorted. “You and I don’t use that phrase the same way.”

  “Cutaway. Trousers,” Thomas said sliding back into his chair. “Jeeves.” He shrugged.

  “Stipend?” Roger asked.

  “Five thousand a month with the proviso that you give us one year’s service,” Naomi said, talking quickly as if afraid Thomas would screw the pooch.

  “Why a year?”

  “He’s on a waiting list. Assisted living. A lovely facility in Vail,” she said.

  “Colorado?” Roger asked.

  “Is there another?”

  Roger shrugged. “Not that I know of but that’s a bit of a hike from here, isn’t it?”

  “He grew up out west,” Naomi said. “We thought it would be nice for him to go back in his twilight years.”

  Roger nodded, the dime finally dropping. “And it’s quite a hike from here.”

  Thomas shrugged and Naomi looked at the perfectly polished nails on her left hand.

  “Why me?” Roger asked. “I’m not exactly butler material, am I?”

  “To be honest,” Naomi said, telegraphing her willingness to be anything but, “we need somebody with your precise background. Army medic. Good health. Strong enough to manage him physically, if you need to.”

  “Is he likely to be shot? Hit by shrapnel? Explosive trauma?” Roger asked. “Those are my specialties.”

  “You also worked as a certified EMT for two years and can think on your feet,” Naomi said.

  Roger shrugged. “Yeah. That’s not much use for the average dementia patient either.”

  “We haven’t told you everything,” Thomas said.

  “I figured that much out on my own.”

  “One million dollars,” he said. “If you finish the year.”

  “Thomas!” Naomi said.

  Thomas leaned forward, ignoring her. “Bonus. In writing.”

  Roger blinked. “You’re going to pay me five grand a month to live here and look after the nutty professor in the attic. If I make it to the end of the year, I can walk away with a mill.”

  Thomas nodded. “Room and board, five grand pocket money, and a cool mill at the end.”

  “What’s the catch?” Roger asked because all the “too good to be true” alarms were going off in his head.

  “No catch,” Naomi said.

  “You have to put up with him for a year,” Thomas said. “Wear the monkey suit, keep him fed and watered.”

  “You make him sound like a dog,” Roger said.

  “More like a cat. He won’t care about you unless you’re feeding him and will only let you pet him when he wants it,” Thomas said.

  Roger raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think that came out like you think it should have.”

  Thomas rapped his glass on the expensive table. “You know what I mean.”

  “There must be a thousand suckers in this town who’d jump at this,” Roger said. “Why me?”

  “Not that many men with your qualifications,” Naomi said. “A lot of vets, sure. A lot of burned out EMTs, yes. Surprisingly few men with your qualifications.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Roger said.

  “We’ve interviewed twenty,” Thomas said.

  “And I’m your last choice?”

  Thomas shook his head. “We’ve got them lined up through next month, but I’m getting tired of this pussy-footing around.”

  “You like the scotch well enough,” Naomi said.

  He cast her a side-eyed glance and looked back at Roger. “You’re the guy. If you want it.”

  Roger sat back again and folded his hands in his lap. The scent of real cowhide enveloped him. The angles didn’t add up to a full circle. “What happened with the others?”

  “The other who?” Thomas asked, derailed for the moment.

  “The twenty guys who came before me.”

  “Half were alcoholics,” Thomas said.

  “Takes one to know one,” Naomi said. “Most of the men were unsuitable for one reason or another. Alcohol, drugs. Not the right medical bona fides.” Her gaze caressed his shoulders again.

  “Not strong enough to wrestle the old man down?” Roger asked.

  Thomas shrugged but Naomi got in first. “He can be a handful. Knowing there’s somebody here who could handle him should the need arise would make me feel more secure. More confident that he’d be well cared for.”

  “Gimme the contract,” Roger said.

  Thomas’s eyebrows rose but he reached down beside his chair and pulled up a portfolio.

  “Don’t you want to meet him first?” Naomi asked.

  “No, I want to see if the contract is legit first.”

  “You might not like him,” Naomi said.

  Thomas pulled a single sheet of paper out of the portfolio and spun it around on the table, sliding it toward Roger.

  “That’s it?” Roger said, leaning over to look at it before reaching for it. “There’s nothing here about what being a butler entails. No details about what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Tell you what,” Thomas said. “You take that contract to whatever legal beagle you like. Add the stuff you need on it and bring it back.”

  “Tomorrow,” Naomi said.

  “Day after,” Roger said. “In the morning. Today’s almost over. Gimme a chance to get it done.”

  “Deal,” Thomas said and stuck his hand out before Naomi could do more than draw breath.

  Roger shook it. “Ten a.m. Thursday.”

  Thomas nodded. “See you then.”

  Naomi had that “I’m miffed but I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of showing it” look as she smiled and stood. “In that case, Mr. Mulligan, let me show you out.”

  He followed her to the door, where she gave him another handshake and peek down her blouse before the massive slab thumped closed in his face. “I think I’ve heard lighter vault doors,” he said, looking up at the ancient pile. He shook his head and looked over the one-page contract as he followed the paving stones back to the gate and sidewalk beyond. When he pulled the gate closed behind him, he glanced up again. He half expected to see some creepy dude in a pointy hat staring down at him.

  He had to admit. The house looked to be in great shape. If there was a garage someplace behind it, the lot alone had to be worth way more
than the paltry million Thomas the Tweed Engine was waving under his nose. He looked at the contract again and shook his head. “There’s a catch. I just can’t see it.”

  With a shrug he fished his phone out of his pocket and started down the street toward the bus stop. Vinnie may have flunked out of BU Law, but he’d only cost a six-pack of Sam Adams. It was all he could afford at the moment—but he wasn’t going to let them know that.

  * * *

  Vinnie tilted the bottle back and drained it. He squinted at his computer screen and sat very still for a few seconds before releasing the belch. He nodded. “Anything else?”

  “What are we not seeing?” Roger asked.

  Vinnie shrugged. “We’ve got the list of prescribed duties pretty well, I think. There’s none of that ‘other duties as required’ shit. We specified all the things you’re not going to do.” He reached for the last bottle in the rack, twisted the cap off in one bony paw, and tossed it in the general direction of the wastebasket. “We added the double-indemnity clause for breach of contract. They’ll kill that one, I expect. I would. What else does a butler do?”

  “Combination security guard, house manager, and valet, I assume,” Roger said, reading the document over Vinnie’s shoulder.

  “Just one guy in a big house? They mentioned cars?”

  “Yeah. Free use of the cars.”

  “What d’ya suppose they got? Old Chevy Impala?”

  “I’m torn between a Model-A and a ’27 Silver Phantom.”

  “You have to wear a chauffeur’s uniform?” Vinnie asked.

  “I’ll wear damn near anything they want if I get to drive a Rolls.”

  Vinnie chuckled and took a pull. “I can see it now. Drivin’ Mr. Shacklebuns.”

  “Shackleford,” Roger said. “Joseph Perry Shackleford.” He took a seat at the kitchen table across from Vinnie. “That’s the other thing. Man doesn’t exist.”

  “That’ll make bein’ his butler pretty easy, won’t it?” Vinnie nodded at his screen. “We done with this?”

  Roger nodded. “Can you email it to me and maybe print a couple of copies?”