Stuff to Spy For

by Don Bruns

  I stuck my head out from under the car and dug my fingers into the asphalt, pulling with all my might. Any second he’d throw the Honda into drive and crush me into the pavement. I threw my arms forward, pulled hard, and only gained inches. Then, maybe a foot, and another. Again, and again. The car jerked forward and I curled my legs with lightning speed as the car lurched from the parking spot and the driver squealed the tires as he left the row of cars. I pulled myself forward, under another car, now getting the hang of it, my raw fingers scratching at the pavement. Under another car, huddling for just a moment, then easing out, my head swiveling this way and that, trying to see if anyone had noticed. I heard and saw nothing.

  I lay on the blistering asphalt for a moment, running my hands over my arms, my legs, my neck, and head. I ached, but everything seemed in one piece.

  And there I was, stretched out on the black surface, thanking God that I’d escaped with my life. Thanking anyone who would listen that I’d escaped with my limbs intact. Thanking my lucky stars that no one had discovered me. Thanking the spirits that protected me that I was protected.

  I wiped my eyes with my left hand and took several long, deep breaths.

  “So. You have one small job to do, and you end up sleeping on the blacktop.”

  James was looking down at me, shaking his head in mock disappointment. I’m telling you, there are times when I’d like to strangle him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Pard, he let us out on a short break. If I’d known we were getting the break, I would have done the job myself.”

  We sat on the solid cement slab behind our apartment in cheap green and white Walgreens lounge chairs, drinking cheap Genny long-neck beers. I’d accepted the beer from him, even though I’d paid for it, but I hadn’t said a word. I was still shook up over the GPS incident. The one that my roommate suggested. The one he was going to handle. Until he conveniently couldn’t do the job.

  James took a deep drag on his Marlboro, letting it drift into the air. I took a deep breath. Secondhand was better than starting up again. And besides the health issue, I couldn’t afford to smoke.

  “Skip, I will admit, I talked to Eden, and she sent me to Sandy’s office. I asked him if he didn’t think we should be allowed to leave the building for even half an hour.”

  “Eden?” I’d never heard the name.

  “Eden Callahan, the cute security guard.”

  Leave it to James. The next thing would be he’d have a date with her.

  “By the way, I asked her out for next Friday.”

  And I hadn’t even considered that. Not asking the guard out on a date, but asking for a break. I’d gone along with Feng’s program. The little soldier rode roughshod over everybody and I’d let him do it to me.

  “Sandy said we could take a break and passed it down the line, and so we did.” He stared at me, waiting for my response. I just took a long swallow of beer. “Anyway, Feng was furious. He was stomping around, just totally pissed off that someone had gone over his head. Of course, as short as he is, just about everything goes over his head.”

  I smiled.

  “See, you can’t stay mad too long.”

  I gazed down the row of apartments, the little cement porches like a board game, one after another. Cracked, pitted, stained concrete, littered with cheap grills, kids’ broken toys, and worn out lawn furniture. Just beyond our pathetic living quarters there was a mud brown ditch, half filled with brackish water that flowed with the runoff from somewhere. I was mad. But only mad because I was settling for this miserable existence. I wanted success as much as James, maybe more. Maybe for different reasons. James wanted success that his father had never achieved. I wanted success to show Em that I could amount to something. James and I both had something to prove.

  And even with this job, even with the nice paycheck at the end, I still felt like success was just beyond my reach. And that almost getting myself killed this day was probably not the way I was going to make a million dollars.

  “Listen, you did a great job, amigo. You got the GPS under his car.”

  “At the risk of killing myself.” I could feel a crick in my back and the soreness of my arms and legs.

  “Yeah, but you’re alive and we can track that little weasel.”

  “James, it was stupid. We did it on our own. Mrs. Conroy didn’t even ask us to do it. We had no business—”

  “Skip,” he stood up, tugged his baggy shorts up high, and walked back into the apartment, returning moments later with two more cold beers, “we did have business. Somebody died in that building a couple of days ago. Could be suicide, could be murder.” James twisted the top and tossed it over his shoulder. Nobody kept up the back of our apartments. Nobody kept up the front either. “And this little guy shows up every time we turn around.”

  “Still—”

  “No still. Carol Conroy comes to you and says there’s some kind of mystery going on there, and I maintain that we have a right to check it out.”

  “Well, what’s done is done. The GPS is on his car. If it hasn’t fallen off yet.”

  “I called Jody. He said that it should stay on. The magnets are strong.”

  I looked back the other way, more apartments stretched out to the road. I saw J.J.’s. rear screen door, hanging from only one hinge. What kind of a handyman lets his own door go unrepaired? What kind of a security guy can’t even put a GPS on a car without nearly sabotaging the entire effort?

  “So, you’re going out with this—what’s her name?”

  “Eden. Eden Callahan. Like, garden of Eden. All the fruits—the delights.”

  “Yeah. James, I don’t know my Bible that well, but I think there was a snake in the garden as well.”

  He thought about that for a moment, leaning back in his webbed chair and sipping on his beer. “That’s fitting, isn’t it?”

  It was.

  “And if you’d just bring the laptop home with you, we can follow this guy. From home and from any mobile location. Pretty cool, eh?”

  I had the laptop in my car.

  “I’ve got his car spotted on the computer inside. He’s at a residential address. I assume it’s his home.”

  Five hundred dollars down the tubes. It was on approval, but if we bought it, we’d have spent that much to prove, without a doubt, that, when not out and about, Em was parked at home. We’d now proved that Feng, after work, was at home.

  “Come on, Skip. You’re still upset that you got stuck putting the GPS under the car. It wasn’t my fault. You know me, pally. I would have done the dirty deed. Relished it.”

  “Did you know that the Honda had a plastic gas tank?”

  “I did. Looked it up on the Internet.”

  It figured. “Did you know that Feng stopped three places yesterday afternoon?” I wanted the element of surprise. I got it.

  “I didn’t install the program until I got home. How could I know that?”

  “I loaded it last night on the laptop. I’ve been following the little guy all day. On the laptop’s screen.”

  “You son of a gun. And you never told me. Leave me out to hang, eh? You’re getting into this aren’t you?”

  “A little.”

  “So where’s he been?”

  “Addresses. That’s what I have. I have no idea if these are businesses, maybe a restaurant.”

  “So we could drive the same route and see where he’s been.”

  I nodded. “We could do the same thing. Take our lunch hour and follow his path. Except that gas costs money and nobody is paying us for these little jaunts.”

  “True.”

  “All right. I’m making enough on this job, let’s do it. Tomorrow for lunch we’ll follow his path, just to see if anything sticks out. Happy?”

  “I am, my man. We’re officially spies.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The work was going slower than we expected.

  “The old system is harder to get out than I thought it would be,” Andy said.r />
  “We’re under a pretty tight deadline.” I didn’t need any more problems than I already had.

  “Skip, when you’re dealing with a building of this size, there are bound to be surprises.”

  One of the surprises was that we still didn’t have our 50 percent down. Michael had called on my cell phone, eating up my minutes, and told me to check into it.

  “Skip, we’ve put you in charge of this project. I’m taking some serious heat from Jaystone. Now, don’t let me down. You just walk into that office and tell them that we can’t work like this. We’re covering all the hardware, software, the labor, and blah blah blah blah blah.” That’s what I heard.

  One crisis after another. As the Person in Charge of the Project, I guess that’s what I was paid for. Putting out fires and finding solutions. So far, I hadn’t done a very good job.

  Sarah was in her office, door number three, right next door to Feng’s door number two. There used to be some show on television where people had to choose a door to see what their prize was. I was starting to believe there weren’t a lot of prizes behind any of these doors.

  “Skip, what can I do for you? More problems with Feng?”

  Damn she looked good. A sleeveless shell top of gauzy white, and a cranberry-colored skirt that hit above the knees. Either she had money, or she knew how to bargain shop. And she wore it very well. Em was a sharp dresser when she needed to be, but this girl was just plain hot.

  “No. No Feng confrontations. Not yet. Michael called today and asked about the down payment on the security system.”

  “Do you mean we haven’t sent that yet?”

  “He says no.”

  “Skip, I apologize. I’ll call bookkeeping, and I’ll let Sandy know. He won’t be happy about this. Don’t you worry about it anymore. Do you understand? I’ll take care of this right away.”

  “Sarah, I’ve got one more money question.”

  She gave me a quizzical look. “Yes?”

  “The bonus.”

  “Bonus?”

  “Yeah, you know, for pretending that you and I—”

  “What about it?”

  “When, you know, when do—”

  She frowned, sitting behind her glass-topped desk, and reached down, tugging her skirt just a little farther down. People who live with glass desks—“I told you that Sandy was getting a big payoff.”

  “You did.”

  “You’ll get paid for your …” she hesitated, “extra services, when he gets paid. Is that a problem, Skip?”

  “No, no, no. I just wondered. We hadn’t really talked much about it, and—”

  “If that isn’t a problem, is there anything else?”

  There wasn’t. I’d gotten nothing. But, I’d been promised everything, so it was all good, right? Sarah motioned with her hand that I should leave, and I had the impression her message was “don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.” The room was about twenty degrees colder than when I’d gone in.

  I walked up to the entranceway and Andy and another installer were pulling cable from the ceiling.

  “Skip, this is what I’m talking about. I think there was another system that someone used a long time ago, before the newer system was installed. So this means two old systems that were up there. We need to clean this out. I’m thinking we’re going to have to tack on a day or two extra.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. Michael would be upset, Michael’s bosses would be upset, and somehow I knew this was going to affect my commission.

  Jim Jobs was on a ladder halfway down the entrance hall. “Hey neighbor.” He smiled at me, taking ceiling tile out and stacking it on top of his ladder. “Andy tell you that there might be two systems up here?”

  “He did.”

  “Not that I’m takin’ credit or anything—”

  “Credit?”

  “Yeah. I found ’em yesterday. Told Andy, we can’t be puttin’ new lines in when we’ve got all these old lines. Not just the last installation, but one from a long time ago.” He gave me a big smile and if those two front teeth weren’t missing, I might have considered punching them out. J.J. reached up and pulled another tile from the ceiling. Damn.

  This guy was supposed to be a runner. Now he was a technical consultant? And he was cutting into my paycheck. The worst part was, I’d hired him. Was there a sign on my back that said “Dumb Ass”?

  “Hey, pard.” James came walking through, carrying a cardboard box under each arm. “I guess we’ve got Feng backed down from that ‘do not leave the building’ crap. Sandy and Sarah say as long as we are checked when we leave, we’re free to go to lunch. Good deal, eh?”

  “You got the permission?”

  “I just asked Sandy, Skip. Hey, no need to get upset. You’re in charge. You’re the man. I just wanted clarification.”

  What happened to Person in Charge of the Project? I think the entire title evaporated that morning. Almost everyone on the project knew more than I did, and had taken more responsibility than I had. I looked at my cheap Timex watch. It was nine thirty in the morning. Nine thirty. The day had just started, and I was ready to go home. For good.

  By noon I’d run into two more problems. The manufacturer had sent the wrong smoke alarms and we were short by twenty motion detectors. Unless we could pull them from another job site, it would be another two or three days from the time they were shipped. My head throbbed and I wanted a beer. Two, no make that three beers, back to back.

  “Ready to rumble, amigo?”

  “What?”

  “Lunch? A little trip to see where the Fengmiester went yesterday?” He stood in the entranceway, pointing to the glass door.

  “I shouldn’t leave, James. There are about a million problems with this project, and—”

  “You need to get away. Come on.” Throwing his arm over my shoulder, James walked me out the door. “We’ll follow up on those addresses, stop at a little bar I know and have a sandwich and a beer. You’ll feel better. Trust me.”

  I get into so much trouble when I trust James Lessor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  We walked to the truck in a drizzle. The only problem with the drizzle was that the truck’s wiper had one speed. Very, very slow. About a month ago, during a heavy cloudburst, James had to stick his head out the driver’s-side window to see where we were going.

  “We can take my Chevy.”

  “No. Let’s use the truck. I mean, it’s a new business venture, this spy thing, and I think we should use it.” The idea seemed to make sense to him.

  James climbed in and started the engine, black smoke from the tailpipe swirling in the wind and rain.

  “I was thinking about a sign. We could stencil it on the side.”

  “What? Spymobile? I tend to think that would give it away, James.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Settle down, pard. Now, tell me what kind of a business everybody needs from a service truck.”

  I thought for a moment. Everybody had to eat, but they bought their food from a grocery store. Or a Schwan’s truck. That didn’t work. Locksmith, auto repair, carpenter—

  “It’s easy, Skip. A couple of years ago they even sent one to the space station to fix the toilet. A plumber.”

  “I remember that.”

  “Well, I’m thinking we open a plumbing business.”

  “That’s your cover?”

  “Lessor and Moore Plumbing. Or maybe Buddy’s Plumbing. Or—”

  “I get it, I get it.” From deep in the back of my brain I remembered a quote from Albert Einstein. Somebody in college shared it with me. “If I had my life to live over again, I’d be a plumber.” I’m sure it was taken out of context. Or, maybe not.

  “We’re good to go anywhere. Nobody’s going to question a plumber. Some poor schlob’s crapper is backed up or the pipes have burst in his kitchen or his drains need to be cleaned out. Everybody needs a plumber sometime in their life. Am I right?” We hit a bump and I thought the bottom of the truck was g
oing to fall out.

  “Do we want the truck permanently decorated with a sign that advertises a business we really don’t have?”

  James lit a cigarette with one hand, clutching the wheel with the other. The steering on this vehicle was tough enough with two hands, and when he hit the next bump in the road the truck veered, almost nicking a car in the other lane.

  “Okay, let’s get a magnetic sign. Take it off when we’re home.”

  “Sure. I guess that works.”

  The rain had become a downpour, beating against the glass, and the windshield was streaked with dirty water, some running off the top of our truck, some splashing up from puddles in the potholes.

  “Pard, check your addresses. I think we’re coming up on one right now.” I was surprised he could see anything.

  I’d written down the three addresses where Feng had gone after work. They were all within a fifteen-square-mile area surrounding Carol City. I pointed out the crossroad, and James took a right onto Palm Breeze Way. Where they came up with these names I have no clue. The romantic name of the street was quickly disproved by the run-down shacks and shanties that lined the street. Pothole after pothole caused splash after splash and bump after bump and two blocks in I thought we were going to blow the entire suspension. What was left of it. And then, like magic, the rain stopped. The sun peeked through the clouds and steam rose from the pavement.

  “Right there. Stop.” A two-story cement-block building, about the size of a convenience store, sat on a solitary lot. Weeds grew up around it, and red and black gang graffiti covered the otherwise colorless structure.

  “This was one of his stops?” A gentle rain had started up, filling the temporary reprieve.

  “Appears to be. According to the computer.”

  James pulled over to the curb into what used to be a small parking lot. He jumped from the truck and ran up to the building, never succeeding in dodging the raindrops. He yanked on the heavy metal door, which refused to open.