The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man

by W. Bruce Cameron

  “I hope that doesn’t happen for a while,” I said sincerely. I thought maybe I was pushing too hard, but she just gave me a frank and appraising look.

  “Did we ever meet before?” she finally asked softly.

  “Well, yeah. I saved you from certain doom in downtown East Jordan by using my superpowers to start your car, don’t you remember?”

  “No, I mean…” She shook her head and her hair shimmered and that’s all it took to change everything—the sight of her hair, her curls lightly bouncing on her shoulders. It was like my heart had climbed a wall and then fallen over onto the other side. I barely knew her, but I was in love with Katie Lottner.

  “It’s just that I have this sense from you, like we were friends before, somehow. It’s a feeling.”

  “Well, did you ever hang out with the Kalkaska High School football team?” I asked.

  “No!” she replied, laughing in surprise.

  “Top ranks of government? Upper strata of society? Internationally recognized cultural events?”

  Alan tsk-tsked in my ear.

  “No. Well wait, would the East Jordan fireworks be considered a cultural event?” she asked.

  “Was there a truck pull afterward?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Then no.”

  “She thinks she knows you because she senses me, here inside you,” Alan chided.

  I decided that wasn’t right, because I didn’t want it to be. “Maybe in a former life,” I suggested, “we were together as repo men.”

  She laughed again. “Do you believe in that, though? In reincarnation, of former lives becoming mixed up in current ones?” she asked me.

  “Oh, I do now,” I admitted.

  “Me too. I believe it, too,” she said. We stared into each other’s eyes as if sharing a secret.

  After an hour or so she told me she had to go and I offered to drive her home. “Well, thanks, but that would mean leaving my car here,” she pointed out.

  “Not necessarily. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  I drove Katie Lottner home in the tow truck, dragging her Ford behind us. She kept laughing at the arrangement. “This is the first time I’ve ever done this.”

  To show off, I demonstrated how hitting the repo switch dropped all the lights both in and out of the truck, so that we were humming up M66 in eerie darkness for a moment. I flipped the switch back on before Alan had a chance to start panicking.

  “This is it,” Katie said as I slowed for a long curve, my headlights playing across a nice little place on the steep banks of Lake Patricia. The travel trailer was clearly visible in the backyard, the lights on inside.

  When I unhooked her car in her driveway we stood there in the chill air a little awkwardly. I thought about taking her into my arms and kissing her senseless, but instead just stood there grinning when she said, “Well…,” and briefly touched her lips to my cheek.

  I watched her enter the main house and noticed a woman standing at the window. Corn silk hair, not at all like Katie’s, but the same pretty features. She watched me impassively as I slid behind the wheel and threw the truck into reverse.

  Marget.

  Alan served up one of his frosty silences most of the way back, and I stayed quiet myself, enjoying it.

  “Well, aren’t you going to say anything?” he finally demanded.

  “Nope.”

  “Do you know how hard it was for me to sit there quietly during all that?”

  “No, and neither do you. You talked the whole time.”

  “She’s my daughter!”

  “She’s a grown woman,” I reminded him. “Besides, didn’t you hear her? She’s engaged to marry about three hundred pounds of deputy sheriff.”

  He groaned. “No, that’s not what she said. She said they were talking about it. Nothing’s been decided yet.”

  I decided not to tell Alan how much pleasure it gave me to agree with him.

  Something like a warm breeze hit my face while I was out walking Jake, as if spring was taking a test run. He lifted his nose to it and seemed to drink it in, and for once didn’t drag me back to the house the moment he’d finished lifting his leg. “That’s right, Jakey,” I told him. “Summer will come again, I promise.”

  Jake wagged as if he understood me. I pictured him running through the summer grasses, something he still did, if for much shorter bursts. “Such a good boy,” I told him. He wagged again. I stooped down and looked him in the eyes. “Hey,” I said softly. “I want you to live a long, long time, okay? I need you. You’re my dog.”

  “I don’t get it. Why can’t you treat people the way you treat your dog?” Alan asked.

  I sighed. “Alan, can you just give it a rest sometimes? I get it, I’m not perfect.”

  Alan didn’t answer.

  I plugged in my cell phone to charge it and went through the process of adding some minutes to my account. Who knew, maybe Katie and I would be talking to each other.

  * * *

  The next morning I awoke in an irrepressibly good mood, and then things got even better. Milt had a hot tip for me: A skip was back in the area.

  “A skip is a guy the bank can’t find,” I told Kermit, who was along for the ride at his uncle’s request. I felt like whistling—my fee doubled on skips. I’d make five hundred dollars if I located this guy’s vehicle, which would erase two-thirds of my debt to Milt.

  The customer’s driveway was a long, muddy rut pointing up a hill to a shoddy-looking cabin at the top. Parked right next to the cabin, front end facing us, was the truck we were looking for, a green Toyota. Across the road from the mouth of the driveway a steep bank dropped down to a stream, the water dark and deep from runoff. I didn’t like that: It meant I’d have to slow way down to make the turn out of that driveway to stay in control, and when I’m stealing a vehicle I like to put my foot into it until I’m out of rifle range.

  I looked at my hands and they were not trembling. My heart wasn’t beating any faster than normal, and my stomach felt fine. Repo Madness, my ass.

  “Slide over,” I instructed Kermit. “Drive my truck. Follow me.”

  I grabbed the keys out of the folder and started climbing the muddy driveway, my eyes on the cabin. I was still forty feet from the truck when I saw the customer sitting at his table drinking coffee. His eyes widened.

  “He sees us!” Alan yelled.

  “No, he sees me. I think you’re still safe,” I corrected. I nodded at the guy, raising my hand in greeting. “Okay, fine, just coming to see you,” I muttered, smiling hugely, with an “I’m-not-here-to-steal-your-truck” expression on my face. He jumped to his feet.

  Great.

  I sprinted for the Toyota, which was locked despite the fact that there was no one around for three square miles. “Hurry! Hurry!” Alan was shouting unhelpfully. The key went in as the customer’s cabin door banged open. I jumped inside, locked the doors, and fired up the engine. He started shouting at me but I had it in drive and tromped on the accelerator.

  “What’d he say?” I asked, grinning in triumph.

  “I think he said ‘no brakes’!” Alan replied.

  Frowning, I put my foot on the brake pedal and it went to the floor without resistance. I started pumping it, watching in alarm as the road rushed toward me.

  “Look out!” Alan yelled.

  The driveway dipped where it met the road and the impact was like crashing into a wall. The truck bounced hard, my teeth clicking together, and then I was across the road in a flash. The windshield cracked as a thin tree tried to stop me. The front end of the truck dove toward the river and then I had a face full of air bag.

  “I hate those things,” I muttered. My nose felt like it had been hit by a basketball.

  “Ruddy, we’re sinking, we’re sinking!” Alan shouted, his voice shrill. We were, indeed, sinking. The front bumper was pointing down at a severe angle and water was rushing in around my feet. I looked out the window and saw that the stream was up to the side mirrors. I sear
ched my mind for a sense of déjà vu, but felt nothing. This wasn’t anything like the last time I’d been in a vehicle in the water.

  Alan had become unintelligible with his panic, but he was still shouting at me. “Alan, shut up,” I snapped.

  “Ruddy, I can’t … I’m afraid of drowning. We have to get out!”

  “Well, no one wants to drown, Alan,” I agreed irritably. There was a bump as the front end of the truck gouged the river bottom. We started to slide sideways a little, listing over on the right. I tried to shove open my door, but the rush of water pushed it back shut. “My God, that water’s cold!” I gasped.

  “Ruddy, please.”

  I pushed the electric window stud and, against all expectations, the window slid down. As it dropped into the door, more water gushed in, and there was a sure sense of the truck growing heavier. I grasped the top of the window frame and struggled to climb out, my clothes sodden with frigid water.

  Three heaves and I was free of the truck. I instantly sank, my winter clothes dragging me down. A lot of thrashing and I got my mouth above the river for a quick, choking breath. I groped for and snagged a tree root, pulling myself over to the bank. The cold water sapped my strength, rendering me almost immobile, and my breath came in shallow gasps as I clambered up the soggy slope.

  Kermit stood at the top, his mouth open in wonder. “Hey!” he shouted down at me. “Did you mean to do that?”

  16

  What the Psychic Said

  Within an hour of plunging grill-first into the river we had three state patrol cars hanging around, lights flashing as if there was a bank robbery in progress. No laws had been broken, but the local cops were acting as if they’d never seen anything as exciting as a submerged Japanese pickup truck.

  I had changed into the overalls I kept in the truck for when I needed to crawl under cars, slipping on heavy rubber boots to complete the outfit. Still, I was a long way from warm, and shivered as I watched local people driving up to view the action.

  The Charlevoix Courier showed up to take pictures and I told Kermit to stop trying to get a signal on his cell phone and go represent his uncle’s firm, so he ran down to the riverbank and stood there, frowning at the sunken truck in a condemnatory fashion.

  “So what was that all about when we hit the river?” I asked Alan. “We weren’t going to drown, it was no more than five feet deep.”

  “I’ve just always had a fear of drowning. In fact … well, you’ll think this is stupid.”

  “Everything that has happened to me today has already been stupid, so you might as well go ahead.”

  “A psychic told me one time that I would die drowning.”

  “A psychic?” I mulled this over. “Did you pay with a credit card? Because Becky could use some more numbers.”

  “No, I was a kid. It was at a fair, and this woman supposedly could see our futures. She was a real scary-looking lady, and she told me I should stay away from the water, because someday I would drown. It really frightened me. I’ve had nightmares ever since, and they are all the same—I’m in a river, and someone is holding me under, and I can’t breathe and I know I’m going to drown.”

  “Okay, except no one was holding me under water. We were in a Toyota pickup truck.”

  “I’m not saying it’s rational, Ruddy. It’s just a fear I have.”

  “And anyway, aren’t you forgetting something? The woman was wrong. You didn’t die from drowning, you died from getting shot by a funeral director.”

  “Well, right, except that I’m alive now, through you.”

  “What? What do you mean? You aren’t alive, you’re some sort of stowaway. And when this is over, you’ll go back to … to where you were before you showed up inside my head.”

  Alan was quiet for a minute. “Ruddy, what do you mean, when this is over? When what’s over?”

  “When the curse is lifted, or whatever. You can’t be saying that you think we’re going to be hooked together forever. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I’m not saying anything,” Alan soothed.

  “Don’t talk to me like that!” I shouted. “I’m not crazy!”

  I stopped, suddenly conscious of the fact that everyone’s attention was riveted on me. When a man is dressed like a duck hunter and standing by himself yelling “I’m not crazy,” most people are likely to draw precisely the opposite conclusion. The newspaper shot a picture of Kermit looking gravely concerned at my outburst.

  “Alan, that can’t be. That just can’t be,” I fumed more quietly. Alan didn’t respond.

  Well, what a great way to start the day. I told Kermit to ride with the AAA truck and call his uncle from the Toyota dealership. He could ask the mechanics to work up an estimate on what it would cost to convert the submarine back into a pickup. Meanwhile, it was time for me to have some more conversation with the sheriff of Charlevoix County.

  The drive to the jail was one of those sloppy, sliding journeys with ruts of wet snow grabbing at my tires and slush from passing semis hitting my windshield as if thrown from a bucket.

  “Do you think maybe you should slow down?” Alan asked anxiously. My answer was to put my foot into it until my back end slid a little, and then I eased off, feeling like I’d made my point even if I wasn’t sure what it was.

  Sheriff Strickland came out to the lobby to greet me, offering a cup of coffee, which I gratefully accepted. “So now, Ruddy. I’ve made some calls about you,” he advised as we settled into our chairs.

  I registered the fact that I was “Ruddy” all of a sudden. “You did,” I answered cautiously.

  “Uh-huh. I know now the whole story of what happened to you. Real shame.” His voice was kind, his expression indicating his sympathy for my plight.

  I gave him a look to let him know I wasn’t buying. In Barry Strickland’s view the only victim was a seventeen-year-old girl buried in the cemetery in Suttons Bay, and the fact that I’d had an assured NFL career cut short by a visit to Jackson State Prison wasn’t worth wasting any tears over.

  He read me perfectly and decided we’d had enough warm and fuzzy time together. He stuck a toothpick in his mouth and fixed me with those steely eyes. “So tell me how it was you came to know about the body of Alan Lottner being buried out by the Jordan River.”

  I coughed. “Sheriff, you’re going to think this is really strange.”

  His expression didn’t change.

  “I dreamt it.”

  “I think it’s ‘dreamed,’” Alan advised.

  “Is it dreamed, or dreamt? Anyway, it was a dream.”

  He watched me take a long, stalling sip of coffee, his face hard. “A dream.”

  “Yes, sir. I dreamed about the place, and I dreamt that Alan Lottner was buried right there, under that tree. So I just figured…” I spread my hands, wishing Alan would say something useful.

  “You dreamt he was buried there.”

  “Yes, sir. Dreamed.”

  “Alan Lottner.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “When did you have this dream?”

  “When? Oh, a couple of weeks ago. The night of the big windstorm? It was a very real dream, more like a vision almost. I just couldn’t get it out of my head.”

  “Can’t get me out of your head. Cute.” Alan snickered. I wondered how I might inflict pain on my good friend Alan.

  Strickland leaned forward and stirred his coffee, carefully watching the black liquid swirl around. When he glanced up I could almost hear the steel jaws of the trap closing over me. “How did you know it was Alan Lottner?”

  I took far too long to respond. “What?” I finally answered cleverly.

  “In your dream you saw a body buried under a tree, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How did you know who it was?”

  “Well, I … um. Well, I told you I was a friend of Alan’s long ago.”

  “The body was so badly decomposed we had to use dental records to identify it,” Strickland advised me in
clipped tones. “You could have been Lottner’s twin brother and you wouldn’t have known who it was.”

  I opened my mouth to provide a reasonable explanation, but nothing came out and I shut it again.

  “Let me ask you something, Ruddy.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You seem to have your life back together. You and your sister own the family business in Kalkaska. I know Milton Kramer, you pick up repos for him, nice little income on the side. Off parole, clean start.”

  “Sure.”

  “Why do you want to protect him?”

  “I … Sorry?”

  The sheriff leaned forward and I felt my chair pushing into my back as I unconsciously tried to retreat. “Whoever you talked to in Jackson who told you where the body was buried. Whoever killed Alan Lottner. You’re out now, you’re a citizen. Why the hell do you want to put all that on the line for somebody you met in prison?”

  Wonderful. I’d had more fun when I was in a sinking Toyota.

  Strickland reached into his drawer and pulled something out, tossing it on his desk with a sound like a bouncing coin. It was a golden ring, skittering at me across the desktop so that I automatically caught it.

  “Know what that is?”

  I looked at it. “Kalkaska class ring.”

  “From your graduating year. Ever see it before?”

  “I had one like it,” I admitted faintly.

  “Uh-huh. You said ‘had.’”

  “Lost it.”

  “Look inside. You see any initials?”

  I swallowed. “RJM.”

  “As in Ruddick Jourden McCann?”

  I stared at him, speechless.

  “Want to tell me how you ‘lost’ it?”

  “I was canoeing down the Jordan River after graduation with some buddies. There was a lot of horseplay. Fell in the water a bunch of times. When we got to East Jordan I noticed it was missing. Must have fallen off. You know. Cold water.”

  “We found it in the same hole as Lottner’s skeleton.”