The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man (34 page)

“So they don't pay their bills, that's so what. We have…” I looked at Becky and she mouthed “ten thousand,” which caused my eyes to bulge. “We have ten thousand dollars' worth of bounces we have to refund.”

“Yeah,” Drake grunted. “Happens. Somebody steals a credit card number, first thing they wanna do is call a sex line. Customer sees the charge and denies it but by then it's too late for us. Bane of my freakin' existence.”

“
Your
existence? We're the one getting the bounces!”

“Well come on, McCann. Did you really think you were going to get to keep all that money, just for entering numbers in a little machine? This is a tough racket.”

I decided I didn't care about his business problems. “The point is, we're shutting this down, and you need to send us ten thousand dollars.”

Drake laughed heavily. “That's not going to happen. I've been through this before, friend, and let me tell you, the only way out is to grow through it. I'll get you some more volume to process. I can get some Internet stuff, too.”

“Are you stupid? We can't grow our way out of this, it's a disaster!”

Drake was silent for a long time. “I'm going to ignore that little remark, friend, because we've got a business relationship.”

“Not anymore. We don't want you to send us anything but the money to get out of this.”

“Don't even think that. I've got an operation to run here and you're my source for credit card processing. That's the deal. Period.”

“No, the deal is, send us ten thousand dollars or we call the D.A. Period.”

“Oh, don't even start with that. A deal is a deal. We've got a contract. You want me to come up there and enforce this contract?”

“Sure.”

“I have to tell you, friend, you do not want to see me in that little pissant town of yours.”

“Why, are you as ugly as you sound?”

He breathed into the phone. “Well maybe I
will
be paying you a visit.”

“Good idea. Bring your checkbook.”

“What I'm gonna bring is a world of pain.”

“Looking forward to it.” I hung up. “Kermit!”

“What did they say, Ruddy?” Becky asked anxiously.

“He said he's going to come up here in the pain-mobile. Kermit!”

Kermit came out, looking fearful. Becky put a hand on my arm as if to keep me from hitting him. “Do you know how much this place means to me and my sister?” I seethed. “This is going to ruin us. Ten thousand dollars!”

“Are they going to send us the money?” Becky asked.

I stared at them, their eyes hopeful and frightened, like children. The anger left me and I shook my head wearily. “People like this don't pay what they owe other people, Becky.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I make my living off people like this.” I ran my hands through my hair. “Becky, I need to talk to you a minute.” I pulled her over so that we were standing under the protective arms of Bob the Bear.

“What are we going to do, Ruddy?” I had never seen Becky so frightened. I put an arm on her shoulder.

“It's going to be okay, Becky. I'll talk to Milton. He'll give me the money and take a note on the house.”

She nodded. “I'll pay it back, Ruddy, I swear—”

“I know, of course you will,” I interrupted. “I'm not worried about that. There's just one condition.”

She searched my eyes. “Ruddy,
no
.”

I nodded. “I want Kermit out of here. He's been nothing but trouble for us, can't you see? This whole thing has been a disaster. He's just using us for the credit card account. He wants his
third
.”

“No, he loves me,” Becky whispered in a tiny voice.

“Becky, you don't have to settle for someone like Kermit!”

She made her calculation, standing there, and then straightened, pulling back from my arms. “No, Ruddy. If that's the condition, then no deal.”

She turned from me and strode away, heading back into the kitchen to be with Kermit. I watched her go with my mouth open.

“She sort of called your bluff there, didn't she?”
Alan's dry voice asked.

I walked out into the street so that Alan and I could talk. “I wasn't bluffing.”

“Oh, really. So you're just going to let the Black Bear go out of business, then?”

I didn't answer because I didn't know what I was going to do.

Monday morning I was awake before dawn, agitatedly pulling on clothes and scooping up the court papers for Einstein Croft. Jake, afraid I'd drag him out for a walk at that unholy hour, wouldn't even look at me as I headed out the door. Time to earn my fifty bucks.

Alan came awake on the highway.
“We're headed to East Jordan,”
he noted.

“Yeah.”

“Shouldn't we go up to Traverse City and find Wexler?”

“I think Wexler is doing a pretty good job of finding us. Besides, what do you want to do, just sit and watch him all day?”

“See what he's up to,”
Alan agreed.

“Well, that sounds like a complete waste of time to me. Besides—and this may be difficult for you to comprehend—but occasionally I involve myself with things that have nothing to do with you.”

“Ah, the good mood you were in all weekend continues to make its presence felt,”
Alan observed.

He had no idea. I wanted to punch somebody. I wanted to punch
him
. I felt as if my skin itched, as if I was sitting on the bench while my team lost the game.

The gray overcast sky became gradually lighter, which is how dawn presents itself in a northern Michigan spring. I turned off my headlights and automatically twitched my fingers toward the repo switch, but I didn't flip it—there was no point. I stopped twenty yards away from Einstein Croft's new gate, chewing on my lip.

“So now what, we wait for him to come out and go to work?”
Alan inquired.

“That's the idea.”

“And what, follow him? How do you get him to pull over so you can serve him the papers?”

“I don't know.”

“They probably aren't going to let you back on the PlasMerc lot.”

“Probably not.”

“So how is this going to work?”

A light popped on in Einstein's house. He was awake.

“You can't very well serve him from a moving truck,”
Alan argued.
“He's moving from behind the fence at his house to the fence at the factory.”

I put my truck into gear. “Good point.” I punched the accelerator.

“What are we doing?”
Alan shouted.

“Improving my mood!”

I hit the fence full force with the front bumper of my truck and it popped right off the hinges. I charged up the steep driveway, rocking to a stop behind Einstein's truck.

I got out, tasting blood in my mouth. I must have kissed the steering wheel.

“Are you out of your mind?”
Alan asked.

I walked up the steps toward Einstein's front door, which flew open. He charged out in his bathrobe, holding his rifle out in front of him. His face was full of fury and he pointed the gun at me and I lunged forward and grabbed the thing, twisting it up and to the side, pulling it from his grasp. I spun and threw the rifle over by where Doris lived. Einstein, his expression black, swung his fist at my face. I ducked the punch, then stepped in and slugged him in the chest. He sat down.

“Good morning, Mr. Croft.” I took the court summons and stuffed it in the pocket of his bathrobe. “You've been served.”

He was still sitting there as I backed my pickup down the steep driveway, over the broken gate, and out into the street.

“Can you do that?”
Alan demanded.

“Did it.”

“Destroy property? Hit him?”

“Did you happen to notice the rifle he was pointing at my head, Alan?”

“I think maybe you're upset about what is happening at the Black Bear and decided to take out your anger on Einstein Croft.”

“And I think I'm sick to death of your psychotherapy.”

*   *   *

Milt wasn't particularly pleased to hear that the fence had become defective during my service of Einstein Croft. “I'll call the sheriff, see if the customer filed a complaint,” he told me. “Also, I see in the paper this morning that the cosigner died a couple days ago.”

“Einstein's father?”

“Yeah. I don't know what this means for the account, I'll call the bank today and ask. Maybe if there's an estate, they'll just sue that and won't bother with writ of replevin.”

“So you punch the guy out a couple of days after his father died,”
Alan translated for me after we left Milt's office.

“Well I didn't know that at the time,” I replied peevishly. “Otherwise I would have let him shoot me.”

My afternoon consisted of tailing a guy from his house to the hardware store and driving off in his pickup when he went inside. I wrote up the recovery and called Milt with a certain listlessness—it seemed like somehow the joy had gone out of stealing cars.

I perked up when it occurred to me I was near enough to East Jordan to see Katie. I called her at work and asked her out to dinner, and when she came to the door in a pair of jeans and a dark red sweater I realized that Alan was asleep and grabbed her for a kiss I'd been storing up for forty-eight hours.

“Whoa!” she said with a laugh. “I take it you're glad to see me!”

During dinner in Charlevoix, at the Grey Gables where the whitefish was much better than the Black Bear's, I decided nothing I had ever accomplished in my life was as important as making Katie Lottner smile. I felt better than if I'd crashed into a thousand fences. We lingered over coffee and dessert until the hostess turned up the lights so the cleaning crew could close up.

“Where to?” I asked as I slid behind the wheel of my truck.

Katie was giving me a mischievous grin. “Nathan and my mom are still out of town,” she informed me.

And Alan was still asleep.

“Good,” I said, starting the truck. She slid over next to me like a high school date and I prayed my thumping heart wouldn't wake up her father.

As I hit the East Jordan city limits a patrol car swung out from behind me and then its flashing lights went on. I groaned aloud.

“Were you speeding?” Katie asked.

“Well … yeah,” I admitted. She laughed because she knew exactly why I had been in such a hurry.

I was ready for a confrontation with Deputy Timms, if necessary, but the officer was someone I'd never seen before. He didn't pull out his ticket book. “Mr. McCann?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Sheriff Strickland would like to speak to you. Would you step over to my patrol unit, please?”

The deputy used a cell phone to call the sheriff, which disappointed me—I'd sort of expected that he would use the radio. He handed the phone to me and I awkwardly held it to my ear.

“I've been looking for you all evening, where have you been?” Strickland asked without preamble.

“Charlevoix, sir. We went out to dinner.”

“We. Who's we?”

“Katie Lottner, sir,” I told him, though I really didn't want to.

There was a long pause. “Put her on a minute,” he instructed.

Just great. “He wants to talk to you,” I told her, holding out the phone.

“To me?” Katie took the phone. “Sheriff?” She listened, nodding. “Yes, sir. All evening. Starting at I'd say seven. Yes, sir. The entire time. Okay.”

She handed the phone back, eyes puzzled.

I'd used the time she'd been talking to Strickland to formulate a speech about how I could date anyone I wanted—a
fast
speech, due to her mother being out of town and Alan still asleep—but the sheriff surprised me.

“I need you to come to your house, Mr. McCann,” he said. It didn't sound like a request.

“Um, can't we do this tomorrow, Sheriff?” I asked, trying to keep the pleading out of my voice.

“'Fraid not, son.”

“But why?”

“Ruddy, there's been a homicide in your living room. Occurred around nine o'clock this evening. I'm looking at a male, late twenties, shot in the head. I need you to come down here, help us identify him and figure out what happened.”

I gripped the phone, sucking in a deep breath.

Jimmy
.

 

 

26

Free and Clear

 

The deputy gave Katie a ride back home and I drove through the black night toward Kalkaska, my chest feeling as if I held my breath the whole way. “Alan! Alan!” I kept shouting, trying to wake him up. I had never felt so alone in my life. I reached for my own cell phone, wanting to call my sister, anybody, but I couldn't get a signal and in a fit of irrational rage I chucked the thing out my window. I can't be the only person in the world who has ever done that.

My house was a circus of police tape and patrol cars. Strickland met me at the end of my sidewalk.

“Is it Jimmy?” I blurted.

He shook his head. “I don't know who it is.”

I started to move forward, but he stopped me with a firm hand. “I'm going to take you into your house. You are to touch nothing, understand me, Ruddy? We walk in on the plastic. You look at the victim. We come back out. Got it?”

I nodded.

“You up to this, son?” he asked more softly.

I swallowed. “Yeah.” But I wasn't, not if someone had killed Jimmy.

I followed Strickland into my house. I numbly registered broken glass on the carpet before I saw the sprawled body, his face turned away from me, the back of his head a bloody mess.