Tinkerbell on Walkabout (5 page)

It’s Sunday—a night on which we’d once observed activity in Bob’s lot. The
sky is overcast, the streets wet with recent, unseasonable rain. It will be
completely dark around nine, which leaves us very little time to plan.

We dress in black, take cell phones—set to vibrate—and let
only Lee know where we are going. We leave him watching the front of the lot
from a car parked in the brickyard driveway across the street. He has
instructions to ping July’s pager if he sees anything suspicious. I’m skeptical
of this arrangement; God knows what a journalist finds suspicious.

July is armed; I’m not, by her decree. If shots are fired,
she says, they should come from a police weapon. So I enter the junkyard
carrying nothing more deadly than a Nokia and a Saint Boris medallion.

We enter the yard from the far end, hiking around the
perimeter in the dark, slinking through the brush and cutting across a
firebreak that runs along the fence, bridging Highway 49 and the county road.
We find a place where the links have been cut from the bottom of the support
post and refastened with lightweight wire. We easily slip into the lot.

Inside, we expect to see the Chrysler LeBaron, returned from
impound. We are in for a shock. The spot is occupied by a Cutlass Supreme. The
dim glow of the junkyard lights reveals it to be green. I suspect this is the
car that was supposed to be here all along. Question is: how did it get here?

Mom would say I should just ask the car. In her world,
despite the objections of the Church Fathers, inanimate objects have spirits
you can communicate with. In my world, cars don’t talk.

We don’t know what to expect, but we decide the best vantage
point from which to observe the unexpected is the rooftop of the parts shack.
From here we can see all the way from the front gate to the back corner. At
10:47, we hunker down for what may be a long night.

At 12:35, July’s phone vibrates and Lee demands to know
what’s going on and if we intend to stay there all night. July is telling him
to go back to sleep when a flashlight beam slices through the mist from
somewhere beyond the rear corner of the lot. July shushes Lee, flicks off her
phone, and slides forward to peer over the ridgepole, watching the light
wriggle up from Highway 49.

A metallic clatter announces that someone is messing with
the fence along the firebreak. The dogs commence barking. Tonight there’s no
one to let them out.

The section of fence through which we entered the lot is
disappearing, left to right, rolling back from its support post. When the
entire section is gone, the blunt nose of a tow truck pushes into the dimly lit
aisle, pulling up just this side of the rusting Cutlass. It’s towing a second
old junker, also green.

Four guys pop out. In seconds, they’re on the Cutlass like ants on an Oreo. In
the dim light, they strike me as average. Average build; average height;
average clothing. They’re wearing jeans and khakis; camouflage. They push the
car out into the aisle, out of the way of the laden tow truck.

One guy trots back to the tow truck and jockeys the car
they’re towing into the empty spot. The dispossessed Cutlass is then attached to
the tow bar and carted away, the fence rolled neatly back into place behind it.

In less time than I would have thought possible, the car
swappers are gone, leaving behind another green car, two gawping women, and a
pack of frantic, laryngitic mutts.

When the dogs eventually calm down, July figures it’s safe
to move and talk.

“What the hell was that?” she asks.

“A drop off.”

“Of what?”

“I’m just dying to know, aren’t you?” I slither backwards
off the roof of the parts cottage and swing to the ground in its shadow. July
follows.

We approach the wreck cautiously. It’s a LeBaron. A glance at the driver’s side rear quarter panel
indicates it is
the
LeBaron. July slips past it, all the way to the
fence that overlooks the highway.

Since I’m
alone with the car, I take advantage of the opportunity to have a word with it.
In The Mother’s Country, the
spirits of houses are called
domovoi
. I’m not sure what to call the spirit of a car, but I’m game: “
Autovoi
,” I improvise,
“where have you been?”

Predictably, there is no answer. I decide my time is better
spent examining the trunk latch. I’m
absorbed in that when July returns.

“They took off.”

I tap the latch. “Locked.”

“Damn. You any good at picking locks? I suck.”

“Fair to middling if I have a locksmith’s kit. Which I don’t.”

She puts a hand to her hair. “And I had to braid instead of
pin.”

“That hardly ever works anyway. Let’s see if we can get one
of the back doors open. Maybe we can get into the trunk through the back seat.”

The back doors
won’t budge. I mutter
to the
autovoi
that it really could be more helpful, and look around for
something I can use to take out what’s left of the back driver’s side window.

Just then, July’s phone vibrates, making her gasp. She yanks
it out of her pocket. “What?” she asks, while down at the garage, the dogs
start barking again. She turns back to me. “Someone just pulled up out front.”

And that isn’t all. The fence is wiggling again.

I clutch July’s arm, pulling her down behind the rear of the
LeBaron. There’s no way we’re going to make it back to our aerie. We’d have to
cross the aisle in full sight of whoever’s coming in the back door.

As we creep along the back row of cars, I hear the metallic
scrape of the fence being peeled back. Through the empty windows of the Capri
we use for cover, we can just see the gap at the end of the aisle. No tow truck
appears this time, just a big, low slung Cadillac. It’s primer gray with
patches of a darker color—perfectly camouflaged for a dark night with a light
fog.

The car rocks and bumps backward up the aisle and trembles
to a stop in front of the very popular LeBaron. Its headlights wink off,
leaving just the parking lights.

Three guys crawl out. They are not average in any sense of
the word, except possibly among members of the Average White Aryan Brotherhood.
They are young, brawny, and have barely enough hair between them to cover a
peach. It’s downright chilly for June, but two of them are wearing only jeans
and leather vests; the third sports a plaid jacket over his stylish black T—shirt.
What exposed flesh I can see is mottled with tattoos.

The smallest of the guys moves to the rear of the LeBaron
while the other two hover in the aisle, heads swiveling. At about the same
moment I realize someone’s coming up the aisle behind us on foot, Plaid Man
reaches into his jacket and pulls out a gun.

July and I move in unison, edging around the tail of our
Capri and hunkering down.

“What the hell are you doing?” The voice is Perry Dixon’s.

Poking my head up as far as I dare, I can just see the back
of his head through a couple of busted windows. Beside me, July draws her
automatic.

“Picking up,” says Lesser Tattooed Man, putting his own
piece away. “What the hell does it look like?”

Perry makes an explosive noise and comes back with, “You
lame-ass sons-of-bitches. Are you out of your effing minds? This place has been
crawling with cops for weeks and you call for a drop off
now?
”

“We need the goods.”

“Bad enough to go to jail? Jesus, Coop, if you leave here
with that stuff, there’s every chance some local cop is gonna bust your ass.”

“For what, breathing?”

“A cruiser goes by here every half hour. The cops might just
find it interesting to see a punk drive out of here in an old junker that’s
dragging its rear end on the road.”

“Who’re you calling a punk?” asks Coop—rhetorically, I
assume.

“You’re pretty f—ing mouthy,” says Plaid Man. He has yet to
put his weapon away.

“Bob Wray is dead. Me being mouthy is the least of your
worries.”

Plaid Man takes a step back and glances at Coop, who says:
“That wasn’t us. Must’ve been the other guys.”

“Your word against theirs.”

I’m
relieved, to an extent that surprises me, that Perry is not Bob’s murderer.
Just short of real relief, I hesitate, realizing I have no idea what Perry
Dixon is capable of.

“So? Why do you care who shot that old nig—”

“Don’t use that word,” says the man who not that long ago
referred obliquely to Bob as a coon. “Get out of here. Come back tomorrow
during regular hours and take the car off the lot like we planned.”

“Plans have changed,” says Coop. “We’re nervous about
waiting.”

“Why? Car’s
not going anywhere, and nobody but me knows there’s anything in it. I’ll be the one handing it over to you.
Tomorrow
.”

There is a long, chilly moment during which Coop and his
buddies exchange glances. Finally, Coop shrugs.

“Okay. Have it your way. We’ll be back tomorrow.” He jerks
his head toward the Caddie.

The others move in obedient unison, ambling back to the car
and disappearing into it.

Perry turns on his heel and walks off back toward the garage
while Coop watches him in a way that makes the skin between my shoulder blades
crawl. He stands there so long one of his buddies climbs out of the Caddie.

“What’s the hold up?”

“I’m thinking.”

Hence the complete lack of movement.

“We going?”

“Yeah, we’re going, all right. But we’re not waiting till tomorrow. We’ll give Perry a chance to clear
out, then we’ll do this thing.”

“What if Perry’s right about the cops?”

“What if Perry’s full of it?”

They return to the Cadillac and pull out of the yard, not
being awfully careful with the fence. It still hangs slightly askew when they
disappear into the gloom.

My first impulse is to race to the LeBaron and crack it open
like an oyster. To pry out whatever pearl these guys want so badly that it cost
a man’s life. This is a dangerous impulse, and hard to resist.

“We don’t have much time,” I say.

July is already punching a number on her cell phone. “I’m
calling the Sheriff’s Department. You call Lee and tell him what’s happened.”

I obey.

Naturally, Lee orders us out of the yard. “Dammit, Tink,” he
says. “It’s time you turned this over to the police.”

“July’s doing that right now.”

“Fine. Get—” His voice just quits.

My blood chills a few degrees. “What?”

“Perry’s leaving. Should I follow him?”

Tempting. “No. No, stay where you are.” I hang up.

“I don’t
believe
this,” says July, fiercely punching off her phone. “The officer on duty thought
I was a prankster.”

For a moment, all I can do is stare at her. Finally, I say,
“Then call the CHP.”

“Come on, Gina. You know better than that. We don’t have
jurisdiction.”

“Then what do we do? Frankly, I’m not up for one of those
Charlie’s Angels takedowns. We’d probably end up under arrest.”

“Now that’d be a real defining moment in my career.”

“Then again, if we do nothing, Bob’s killers and whatever’s
in that car . . .”

July stares at me in the dim junkyard light. “We don’t have
lock picks.”

“Nope. But I’ve got a little Swiss Army knife.”

I get up and move down the row of cars to the tail of the
LeBaron where I kneel to pull out my handy swivel-head flashlight. I clip this
to the collar of my jacket and aim at the lock, thinking:
O,
autovoi
, give me a break.

Apparently, you have to watch your language around inanimate
spirits. The penknife quite literally breaks off in the lock after a mere five
minutes of abuse.

“Now what?” asks July.

I poke at the broken blade with my fingernail. “We could
shoot it out. That always works on TV.”

“Not funny, Gina. We don’t know what’s in that trunk. It
could be a bomb.”

Or another body—though based on the conversation we just
overheard, it’s more likely to be drugs. “I was kidding. How about a crowbar?”

She glances toward the parts cottage. “I’ll go see if I can
find one.”

“I’ll check the garage.”

“It’ll be locked. And we’ve seen how good you are with
locks, Nancy.”

“Yeah, like
you
’
re
Bernie
Rodhenbarr.”

We split up, July taking off for the parts place and me
sprinting for the garage. The dogs are still going nuts.

I dash across the open area between the yard and the garage,
hoping I’m invisible against the uneven backdrop of shrubbery. Once behind the
garage, I make my way to the rear door of the shop.

Locked.

I slip over to a window and peer in. A tiny, flashing red
light high in one corner of the cavernous room tells me that Bob was as
security conscious as he was neat.

I’m considering options when every light in the yard winks
out. This does not bode well. I slip to the corner of the garage and peer
toward the back of the lot. The mist in the far corner seems to be suffused
with dim and flickering light.

I bolt through the junkyard gate on a rush of adrenaline,
then sprint in the direction of the parts shack, where I hope I’ll find July. I
zigzag, straining to see the bulk of the little building. If Lee isn’t asleep,
he will have seen the lights go out. I pray he doesn’t take it into his head to be a hero.

I’m almost
past the cottage before I see its boxy silhouette in the gloom. July is nowhere
in sight. I hear a car engine and imagine the old Caddie creeping along the
back row to the music from
Jaws
, drawing ever closer to the Le Baron.

Head down, I scurry across the clearing where Perry had been
working on the old Electro-Glide. It’s still there, sitting on his workbench
under a tarpaulin. Diving into the nearest row of cars, I head for the back of
the lot.

Within sight of the drop spot, I dodge behind a crumpled
pickup. The Cadillac is sitting right in front of the old Chrysler, its trunk
wide open.