by Tracy Sharp
“Yeah, we were lucky. Anyway, in the meantime, you’ll need to peruse this manual.” He handed me a worn book of photocopied pages bound by a large staple.
“Manual?”
“Believe me. It’ll come in handy. It’s got a lot of tricks and tips for the new repo ma—uh, agent.”
“Like how to break into cars.”
“Yeah. Among other things.”
I handed the manual back to him. “Cal,” I said. “I could’ve written this book myself.” In truth, I could probably have added several things.
He stared at me. “Why am I not surprised?”
I grinned. “Oh, I’ll bet I can surprise you.” I gave myself a mental head-shake. Stop it! Get a hold of yourself, woman! “So when’s our next shift?”
“Tomorrow morning. I’ll pick you up at eight.”
Wow. I’d get to sleep in until seven. It was luxury compared to the usual four a.m. mornings.
“I’ll be ready.” I opened the door and slid out of the truck, and headed to my front door, managing not to look back and give him a giggly wave.
* * *
I awoke to the sounds of bombs going off. Sitting straight up in bed, I realized through a groggy fog that someone was pounding on my door. I looked at the digital clock radio on my bedside table. Five after eight. Shit. A techno sounding song from the eighties came through in between poundings. Usually a mouse fart could rouse me from a dead sleep, but this morning I’d slept right through the clock radio playing.
I pulled on a pair of cut-off shorts and a fresh tank top, and by the time I made my way downstairs, the pounding had stopped. I hoped that Callahan hadn’t given up on me. I really needed this job. I stepped into the kitchen just as Cal was climbing through one of my kitchen windows. As he noticed me, he pulled his leg inside and straightened up.
“I thought you were dead,” he said.
“Nope. I’ve just got a pounding headache thanks to your pounding on the door, and if I don’t take some pain killers right now, I’ll be wishing one of us were dead. Care to venture a guess at which one of us I mean?” Ooh Lord, he looked good in those jeans. They clung to him in all the right places. I resisted the urge to invite him up to my bedroom to see my non-existent stamp collection.
He stood in my kitchen looking at me, a tiny smile playing on his lips. “You should really lock your windows, you know.”
“I wasn’t expecting company to be climbing through one of them.” I could’ve sworn it had been locked. Now I’d have to go through the entire house when I got home, checking each friggin’ window like some kind of paranoid, all because of Callahan. Must be nice to be a man and not have to think about these things.
His smile widened a little. “You never know who can break in.”
“Clearly.”
“Or what they intend to do with you.”
Heat rushed over my body and my mouth felt dry. That non-existent stamp collection was looking better by the second. I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. I was at a loss for words.
Cal laughed softly and shook his head. “Just hurry up and get dressed, would you? We’re running late as it is.” He closed the window and pushed the lock home.
* * *
I yawned as we went through the drive-through at the local donut shop. “So who’s the target this morning?”
Cal paid the girl and handed me a Styrofoam cup and a small box of donut holes. “Cyrus Wilcox. He’s a classic Mustang freak. Specializes in Mustang restoration over in the outskirts of Albany. He’s in the hole for his 2013 Ford pick-up.”
I shook my head. “Why would you buy such an expensive truck if you know you can’t make the payments on them?”
“He could make the payments on it when he bought it. He paid cash to buy his girlfriend, who is twenty by the way, a 1966 Mustang Convertible. Powder blue. Certain parts needed to be replaced on the Mustang. Said parts are not cheap and he saw potential for a lucrative business in parting out Mustangs. So he also paid cash buying several Mustangs to sell the parts from. The problem is, it’s taking a little longer for the business to get off the ground than he’d intended.”
“Sounds like old Cyrus spread himself just a little too thin.” I sipped my coffee, wondering why I hadn’t ordered an iced coffee instead. It was already hotter than Hades out there.
“Oh, but there’s more. Cyrus works for the city, plowing and spreading salt and sand on our icy roads when the weather is bad. In the summer he helps fix potholes so that we may have a smoother, safer ride on our roads.”
“What a peach.”
“So he’d probably be okay if his wages weren’t being garnished for alimony to two ex-wives, one with two kids and the other with three.”
“This guy sounds like a winner.”
At the far end of a road in the middle of nowhere, we finally came to a large lot scattered with car parts and Mustangs in various states and levels of nakedness. It was a little sad to see them that way if you thought of how sharp they would have been in their prime. A trailer sat further back in the lot surrounded by tall grass which had likely never seen a lawn mower. The lot was speckled with wildflowers. Sitting in the driveway was the Ford pick-up.
“So you’re sure nobody’s home?” I eyed the trailer with suspicion.
“Yup. Wilcox is at work, drove one of his restored Mustangs. His girlfriend is at a dance class.”
“Should be a piece of cake.”
“Then go for it.” He nodded toward the pick-up. “You should know what to do.”
“Well, move over and I’ll do it.”
Cal shook his head. “Oh, no. You’re doing this one as if you didn’t have a tow truck. These things need repairing sometimes, just like any other vehicle. Some day your tow will be in the shop when you need to repo a vehicle. So then what do you do?”
“Well, if you don’t have a master key…”
He shook his head, shrugging. “Nope.”
“Then you’d have to break in.”
He nodded. “Yep.”
I looked in the backseat of the tow truck. “Where’re your tools of the trade?”
He reached under my seat and pulled out a Slim Jim. “Here’s one of them, and…” He dug behind my seat and his hand emerged with a dent puller, used by body shops for, anyone could guess, pulling out dents. The dent puller can also be used for slamming out the lock housing in vehicles that don’t have the keys left in the ignition. Which is most of them. A screwdriver, which Cal handed me, can then be placed into the lock housing to start the vehicle.
“So even though we could very easily tow this truck without causing any damage to it, you want me to mar it just for practice sake?”
He nodded, giving me that boyish grin again.
“Okay.” I grabbed the Slim Jim and dent puller from his hands and hopped out of the truck. “No problem.”
I took a deep breath and brushed a lock of hair out of my eyes. It was getting hotter by the minute, and the way Callahan’s eyes lingered on my chest made me aware that my tank top was sticking to my breasts and back.
It was far too bright out there, and I wished I’d grabbed my sunglasses before I’d left the house. The smell of various wildflowers reminded me of my allergy to them, and as if on cue, my nose began to run. Wonderful.
I told myself to stop the inner whining and focus on the task at hand.
As I made my way toward the Ford pick-up, a black shape moved slowly into the line of my peripheral vision. Casually, I glanced in the direction of the movement, thinking of how I needed to do well at my first legal car break-in so as to impress the smart-ass boss, but when I realized what the dark figure was I stopped dead in my tracks.
The Rottweiler bared its teeth and growled low in its throat. It lowered its gigantic head, staring at me with cold eyes. The dog was horribly skinny, and although its muscles were bunching, preparing for attack, its ribs were clearly defined, and its hipbones jutted sharply.
I stood frozen, struggling between
being paralyzed with fear and feeling horror and compassion for this creature. What kind of person did that to an animal? Starvation was probably just one of the many methods of creating a mean dog.
And this was one mean-ass dog.
He took a step toward me and growled.
I glanced back at the tow truck, trying to ascertain the distance between the dog and myself, then looked back at the dog. If I ran like hell before it came at me, I’d make it. The door would have to be open. I turned back to the truck and waved a little at Cal, who’d gotten out of the truck and was about to head in my direction, shaking his head as if thinking “dumb broad”.
Not wanting to set the dog off, I shook my head instead of yelling for Cal to stop. Then I used small tilting motions with my head in the direction of the dog. “Open my door,” I said with as little inflection as possible.
“What?”
I looked back at the dog, which was closer to me than he’d been before. I gritted my teeth. “Open my door.”
Cal came walking toward me, looking irritated. “I can’t hear you.”
I turned back toward him and opened my mouth to repeat myself, but heard the dog’s claws clicking against the pavement and my breath caught in my throat. Without looking behind me to see how close the dog was, I sprinted toward the truck.
Finally Callahan saw what was coming at us and he ran back to the truck, throwing my door open before alternately tripping and running around it to his side. I launched myself onto the seat and slammed the door just as the dog jumped at me. His huge paws hit the side of the truck and he snarled and frothed at the mouth.
“Now that’s a nice picture,” Cal said.
“I hope this isn’t a new paint job,” I murmured as the dog scratched at the side of the truck.
As I watched the dog take a step back and bark at us, I couldn’t believe it was still standing. It was in such bad shape, I doubted if it would last much longer if it wasn’t quickly taken care of. A few days at most. Flakes of skin dotted the dull, black fur, and long strings of drool hung from the sides of his mouth. The dog was very dehydrated, and probably hadn’t had anything to drink in at least a couple of days. I found it incredible that it would defend such an unloving home so ferociously when his master clearly didn’t care if he lived or died. I looked around the truck for something to feed him, and my eyes found the donut hole box.
“Are you nuts?” Cal regarded me with huge, wild eyes. “Please say you’re kidding.”
Without answering, I lowered the window just enough to fit a donut hole through and tossed one out to the dog. He snapped it up easily and swallowed it without chewing. Instantly the expression on his face changed, the cold eyes became pleading, and the snarl turned into a soft whimper. I threw him another donut hole. Then another. I sat there tossing donut holes out the window until they were all gone. When he’d swallowed the last one, he sat back and watched me, all menace gone from him. I reached for the door handle.
“No!” Cal grabbed my arm and my skin tingled beneath his touch.
“It’s okay.” I said.
“That dog would happily have both of us for lunch.”
“Trust me.”
“Famous last words.”
I opened the door just a little. The dog took two steps back and I stepped onto the ground. He looked up at me curiously.
“Hi,” I said to him.
He lifted his ears and tilted his huge head.
“You’re not doing too well, here, are you buddy?”
He grunted.
I held my hand slowly out to him. He stepped forward, sniffed, then licked my fingers. I squatted down and patted his head, wincing at a scar that ran from between his eyes up over to the left side of his head. The tips of his ears were gone, probably from having been frostbitten previous winters.
“You poor guy. I know one thing,” I said. “You’re not staying here a moment longer.”
The dog must’ve liked the tone of my voice because he leaned in and licked my face.
“Yeah, you just like me for my donut holes,” I told him. “That’s okay. Come on, bud.” I stood back up and patted the seat.
“Oh, no. No way.” Callahan shook his head.
“I’m taking this dog home.”
He pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket. “Look, I’ll call information and ask for the nearest animal control. They’ll take care of him.”
“I’m taking him home.”
“We’re not animal rescue, Leah. We’ve got a job to do.”
I stared at him. I didn’t care if I had to walk home. The dog was coming with me.
He sighed and shook his head slowly. “You are a pain in the ass, you know it? Fine. Take the tow.” He grabbed the Slim Jim and the dent puller. “I’ll repo the truck by myself. You can do the next one.”
I smiled at him. “Thanks.”
He grunted, stepping cautiously out of the truck. “Just get that thing in the truck and close the door, will you?”
I patted the seat and the dog jumped into the truck without hesitation. He was going where the grub was.
I petted his head and scratched the back of his ear. “Good boy.”
Sure that he was safe from a dog attack, Callahan made his way to the Ford pick-up which waited to be repossessed.
I clicked the seatbelt home and patted the dog’s head again before starting the truck. It struck me that I’d have to choose a name for him. Of course, there was a slim chance that the dog’s current owner may come looking for him, remembering that the last time he saw his dog was also the last time he saw his truck.
“I guess he should’ve fed his dog, better,” I said out loud as I drove out of the junky lot. “Huh, buddy?”
The dog lifted his head and grunted much as Callahan had done moments before.
* * *
Not wanting the dog to suffer in hunger a moment longer, I drove straight to the pet warehouse which was down the road from my house. I left the window open enough for him to hang his head out while I went in to gather a few basics to tide him over.
It turned out that “tiding him over” was a much heavier and more expensive venture than I thought. I left the store pushing a cart full of various dog toys, a case of canned dog food, a bag of dry dog food which was half my height, a five-gallon sized self-feeding water dish, a dog brush, dog shampoo, de-ticking pills, multi-worm prevention, four rawhide bones which were each at least two feet long, and a book all about Rottweilers. I certainly wasn’t acting like a woman who was close to being homeless for lack of funds. Perhaps the dog and I could share a cardboard box.
Somehow, after ten minutes of struggling, I managed to get my items into the back of the tow truck. Out of breath and sweating, I climbed back onto the seat feeling exhausted. I sat for a moment, trying to catch my breath, and watched as a man approached the car beside us. He looked down at the keys he fiddled with in his hand, and when he reached the space between the tow truck and his car, the dog let out a deep, booming bark. The man’s head snapped up and he plastered his back to his car.
“Oh, my lord,” he said. He was as white as a ghost.
“Sorry!” I called to him, but he ignored me as he climbed into his car and backed out quickly, avoiding the dog’s steady gaze.
“I guess you are my new friend, huh?” I leaned over, scratching the dog behind the ear. He seemed to really like that. He tilted his head in my direction and closed his eyes, thumping his foot against his seat.
Chapter Five
My new friend drank over half the water from the five-gallon jug I’d filled for him. I’d almost given myself a hernia tipping it over into the dish, and I sighed, having to fill it up again so soon. It was a good thing I lifted weights. “Thirsty, huh?” I said as he sat watching me and wagging his tail. “You’re not so tough. It’s all just a bold façade, isn’t it?”
After struggling with the jug freshly re-filled with water, I quickly washed his new food dish and filled it halfway with dry food, which had
been a job to drag to my front door, then mixed in half a can of beef gravy. I’d barely gotten my hand out of the way before he plunged face first into his dinner. He made various snorting noises as he ate and within seconds, he was done.
“We’ve gotta work on your table manners, buddy.”
As I went to work putting away my new roommate’s belongings for him, I wondered again what I’d name him. I couldn’t keep calling him “buddy”, could I? On the other hand, why not? Buddy wasn’t such a bad name, and it beat “Octavio”, which was the name of my aunt’s little mop-like dog.
“Buddy, it is, then.”
I decided I’d better go look for Frank. The minute he laid eyes on Buddy he ran screeching, orange fur standing on end, up the stairs.
I reached the fourth step when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“You like following people?” The voice was gravelly.
“Excuse me? I think you have the wrong number, sir.”
“Excuse you? No, I don’t think so, bitch. I got your number, all right. I got your house number, too.”
My stomach clenched, but I tried to sound unaffected. “Who is this?”
“You’ll find out. You think you’re tough? Let’s see how tough you are.” There was a click and the dial tone.
Shit. Not even two entire days on the job and already I’d pissed someone off enough that they were after me. I didn’t know what to do. Should I call Callahan and tell him about the phone call? Maybe. No. I refused to play helpless heroine in distress to his rescuing hero. Should I call the police? Probably. I wouldn’t. All I knew for certain was that I sure hoped it wasn’t Brent Woodard who was after me. That would be bad. That would be very, very bad.
I felt vulnerable, and I didn’t like it. I thought again of calling Callahan. He’d be at my door within minutes, I was certain. He could stay for a while. I could show him that stamp collection.
“Oh, Jesus. You get threatened by a psycho over the phone and you’re still thinking of jumping Callahan’s bones. Stop it!”