CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Sarah’s team of three stole a garbage truck in thirty minutes flat. A little less if you started timing after they cut the lock on the chain-link security fence. Did the Guinness Book of World Records have a section devoted to sanitation crimes? Surely that must be some kind of record.
“Keys are left in the ignitions,” Big Shorty promised. “Tanks are full of gasoline. If somebody is supposed to be around to watch, he’ll probably be sleeping.” Big Shorty had known a garbage man or two in his time.
“Sanitation workers, that’s what they call them now. Pay is better, but the job is still the same. Nobody wants to steal a garbage truck, so they don’t worry much about security.”
It took them longer to find coveralls, a necessity according to Big Shorty, even though sanitation workers mostly eschewed uniforms.
“No way for a pretty white girl to pass for an authentic garbage man unless she’s wearing coveralls.”
Sarah blushed at the compliment. Too pretty to be a garbage man. Shorty certainly had a way with words.
“Robert might pass, if he put enough dirt on his face, but one in street clothes and one in uniform won’t look right.” Big Shorty had learned the art of deception from his grandpa. “You won’t ever look exactly right, so you settle on a few strong details.” It would work if people didn’t look too closely. No one ever looked too closely at a garbage man.
“Like a duck decoy,” Big Shorty said. “Those things would never work if the ducks paid close attention.”
Shorty’s explanation sounded logical to Sarah, and that worried her. “Our success depends on armed guards having powers of observation roughly equivalent to ducks.” That sounded about right. “What do you think our chances are?”
“The plan is barely crazy enough to work,” Big Shorty said. “Needs to be a little crazier.” He thought two distractions would do the trick.
“One to get you in, and one to get you out.” He wouldn’t elaborate. According to Shorty, distractions worked best if they took almost everyone by surprise, and almost everyone included Sarah Bible.
The stolen garbage truck had an automatic transmission. That was a stroke of luck Sarah hadn’t counted on, but the vehicle was big and cumbersome, with numerous controls mysterious to the uninitiated. Lucky for her it was big trash day in Mesta Park. While the morning was still young, Sarah navigated the tree-lined streets of the historic subdivision, mastering the finer points of turning corners without knocking over mail boxes. Only three minor casualties, and she was already getting the hang of it.
The truck was a marvel of automation. By 9:00 a. m. Sarah mastered the intricacies of the compactor. By 11:00 she could make the robotic arm snatch plastic mini-dumpsters from driveways and empty them into the trash collection chute. A few mishaps left the streets of the affluent subdivision littered with imported wine bottles and empty caviar containers.
“Serves them right,” Sarah complained, already getting into the proper sanitation worker’s frame of mind. “Those items belong in the recycling tubs.”
By noon, she’d mastered the art of driving forward and understood most of the interior controls. She wanted to share her newfound knowledge with Robert, but his mind was opaque to all things mechanical.
“I never learned to ride a bicycle,” he offered in his defense. “I never learned to drive a car, operate a computer, or set a digital alarm clock.” Growing up in foster care and then going crazy in his teenage years had a definite downside.
“But I understand the wind. Not many people can do that.”
“Thank God, the mental hospitals couldn’t stand the strain.” Sarah pulled the garbage truck into the entryway of Riverside Gardens Cemetery. She had at least two hours to practice backing up.
“The guards won’t care if you scrape a few things,” Big Shorty said. “Nobody expects a girl to be good at driving a Garbage truck.” Sarah took a break while he glued inflated air mattresses to the top of the compactor.
“Sure Grip Lock Tight,” Shorty told her. “Best adhesive ever made. Sets in seconds, holds like iron. I use it to repair broken angels.”
Sarah’s mouth dropped open.
“Cement angels. You know, cemetery sculpture.” He layered the mattresses three deep, enough to cushion a full-grown Apache falling at forty-five mph.
No one at Ace hardware had asked Shorty the purpose of his purchase, but then people hardly ever asked Big Shorty anything. Double amputees were always noticed, hardly ever acknowledged, and never confronted. Such was the power of a highly visible handicap.
Sarah remembered something from the 100-level philosophy course she took at the University of New Mexico. Friedrich Nietzsche said, “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” No question about it. Big Shorty was as strong as Sure Grip Lock Tight adhesive.
Owl Dreams Page 28