The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man

by W. Bruce Cameron

  Einstein’s truck was bouncing on the sling, threatening to let go, but Kermit kept accelerating. Cursing, I waved my arms at him as I ran after him through the parking lot.

  In what I could only classify as more bad news, another lunch shift full of workers was emptying out of the big doors to my right and, spotting their buddies in pursuit of me, decided to take up the chase like a second pack of hounds joining a foxhunt.

  Kermit reached the end of the row of cars and turned left, heading for the exit. With nothing to keep it on the sling, Einstein’s truck decided it would rather keep going straight and dropped off the tow truck, gliding forward until it bounced up against a curb and stopped.

  “Look out!” Alan shouted.

  In front of me a couple of guys lunged out from between parked cars and blocked my path. I sized them up as if I had a football tucked in my outside arm and jinked left, cutting between them. Three more workers reached for me, their eyes widening in surprise as they realized I was already flashing past them. They fell in behind me and I heard the sound of their footfalls fading rapidly away as if it were game day at regionals.

  Only one obstacle lay in my path: the security guard, who had stepped out of his booth and stood in the center of the narrow driveway, a bit hunched over, his arms out to his sides as if getting ready to give me a giant hug.

  I suddenly remembered that when he played defensive end for East Jordan High School he was like an open valve; all it took was a little head feint, like this, and he was groping at the empty air. I sailed past him untouched.

  I turned on the road and saw that Kermit was still driving away as if pursued by the hounds of hell. I ran after him, my legs moving up and down in easy cadence. Maybe it was the sunshine getting to me, but I felt better at that moment than I had felt in a long time. I was almost disappointed when Kermit pulled over; my legs wanted to keep going, run to the gym, lift weights, learn Pilates.

  I was barely winded and full of endorphins. Kermit regarded my approach like the accused waiting for the judge to pass sentence. “So Kermit, at what point did you decide to leave me alone at the factory?” I asked, flexing my knees.

  “Uh…,” he responded as eloquently as he could manage.

  “Let me drive. You wait until I get up to fifty-five miles per hour, and then jump out,” I told him pleasantly. He nodded, swallowing.

  “That was just crazy. Those men would have caught you before you could have gotten that truck hooked up,” Alan fretted.

  “Kermit, the voice in my head wants me to take you out in the woods and eat your liver,” I said. Kermit’s eyes bulged.

  “For God’s sake, Ruddy, he’s going to think I’m a lunatic,” Alan complained.

  I called Milt and told him we had to go writ of replevin on Einstein Croft. “I’ll serve the summons, though, Milt,” I said. I’d at least get fifty bucks for throwing some papers at Einstein’s face.

  “And where do we stand with Jimmy?” Milt asked.

  “You know, Milt, your focus on collecting money isn’t nearly as much fun as lending money,” I chided. When he didn’t give me so much as a dry chuckle I cleared my throat. “Why don’t you hold on to fifty bucks out of what I have coming from picking up the Explorer this morning,” I suggested.

  “You sure that’s a good idea?”

  “It’s Jimmy, Milt,” I said simply.

  Between the sunshine and the way the oxygen was coursing through my leg muscles my mood remained nearly euphoric, and I opened the door to the Black Bear for Kermit as if he and I were old friends. Becky gave us a bleak look, waving some papers at us. “Kermit, what are these?”

  Becky held three notices in her hand, the type that bank computers issue when you’ve overoptimized your checking account. Kermit read them, his brow furrowed, while Becky looked over his shoulder at me and shrugged.

  “These are customer inquiries. What it is, is the customers are disputatious on the nonswipe charge.”

  Becky and I looked at him blankly. “English, please,” I requested.

  “See, the psychics are telling the customers that the charge will be the Black Bear Bar and Grille, but the cardholders forget sometimes, so when they see the charge, they don’t know what it is, and they’re like, ‘Black Bear in Kalkaska? But I’m in Omaha or some dumb place,’ so they dispute it with the credit card company. So the bank sends us this notice.”

  “Wouldn’t the psychics know in advance which customers will forget?” I asked cleverly. Both Becky and Alan groaned.

  “They should,” Kermit agreed.

  “What do we do?” Becky asked him.

  “The thing is, you have to protect the integration of the nonswipe account. So we don’t even challenge it. We credit the customer back the full amount. Our thirteen percent plus the psychic’s eighty-seven percent. Take the eighty-seven percent out of today’s receipts from the psychic line. How much did we get today?”

  I found myself irritated over the “we,” but didn’t say anything.

  “We received two thousand two hundred,” Becky stated. I turned a fond gaze upon her and her ability to manage numbers like that.

  “Okay, and these are for a total of six-twenty, so we’re fine,” Kermit pronounced with such confidence I instantly felt apprehensive. “We get any more of these, handle them the same way.”

  It was on my mind to advise Kermit that he was to ask, not tell, Becky what to do, but I knew Alan would chide me later for always busting the guy’s chops, so I bit my lip.

  Becky invited me to step out the back door into the alley, and I followed her, curious. I blinked at a fresh wall of cinder blocks. “What’s this?”

  Becky looked flushed with excitement. “I’ve never laid bricks or blocks or anything before. See how level it is?”

  Okay, well, if it made my sister happy to build a wall in the alley, what did I care? There was still plenty of room for cars to get around. “It’s nice,” I offered.

  “It is level,” Alan agreed.

  She laughed. “Well, it’s not for decoration. Come here, look.” She took my arm and pulled me around the wall. It was actually a three-sided corral, with the trash Dumpster sitting in the middle of it.

  I immediately spotted what she had done wrong, and wondered how to tell her about it. “You made a little house for the Dumpster,” I said, stalling.

  “No, it’s … the county requires it. I told you we had to build one.”

  “But Becky…” I sighed. “The open part should be facing the back door, not away from it. See? Not only is it more of a trip to walk around with a bag of trash, but when the truck comes, it’s one way.” I pointed up the alley, gesturing how when the truck approached it would be facing the closed part of the corral.

  “It’s one way but the truck has to back up to get to the Dumpster.”

  “Oh.” I nodded thoughtfully, hoping to appear to be, well, full of thought. When I glanced at her, she was wearing a neutral expression that somehow looked familiar.

  We went back inside. “Your sister is pretty nice not to point out how stupid you sounded,” Alan advised.

  I went to sit by Bob the Bear and Jimmy came over to take my order, just like it was a real restaurant. “You want to hear the special?” he asked.

  “The what?” I blurted, laughing. I sensed Becky’s eyes on me like gun turrets and choked it back. “Yeah, sure, what is the special?”

  The special was plank whitefish. “Do you eat the plank, or the fish?” I joked. Jimmy shrugged uncomfortably—what the heck was wrong with everyone, how come I was the only person with a sense of humor?

  “What is it with everybody?” I muttered to Alan.

  “They know you’re a little irrational on the subject of the Black Bear. Maybe they’re afraid of your reaction,” Alan suggested.

  “I do not need to be psychoanalyzed by a voice living in my head.”

  “Who better?” Alan retorted.

  The whitefish came and Becky and Kermit watched me eat like parents se
nding their first child off to kindergarten. I gave them a thumbs-up and they heaved visible sighs of relief.

  “You don’t need that much salt,” Alan observed, so I put a little more on. “Aren’t you going to eat your vegetable?”

  “It’s broccoli. Nobody eats broccoli,” I informed him.

  “You have got to eat vegetables!”

  “I did, I ate the fries,” I responded indignantly. I realized a woman I didn’t know was sitting alone at a table and watching me talk to myself over the top of her Cosmo magazine. I gave her a cheery nod and she dove back behind the cover.

  Claude came in and sat down with me and ordered a chicken burrito as if we had been serving them for a hundred years. “Hey, Claude, there’s this weird thing in the sky, you seen it?”

  He gave me a blank look.

  “Real bright? Heat coming off of it? Been up there all day, very strange.”

  “You mean the sun?” he asked.

  “Oh, is that what it is? Been so long since it’s been out, I didn’t recognize it,” I chortled.

  Claude looked absolutely bewildered. Jimmy slid a plate down in front of Claude and asked him if he wanted pico de gallo. No one seemed to think it was an unusual conversation. “Jimmy, Janelle been in?” Claude asked.

  Jimmy’s look darkened. “Janelle?” His tone was so sharp I blinked in surprise.

  Claude didn’t seem to catch it. “Yeah, it’s like she’s avoiding me or something.” He gave us a one-of-the-boys look. “I don’t understand her. You know we’ve never even done it? Closest I got is second base. Women,” he snorted. “Can’t live with ’em, can’t return ’em for a full refund.”

  Jimmy’s face turned red. “What the heck is wrong with you, Claude? You and Wilma have been together my whole life. She loves you, man. You got history together. Are you crazy? Janelle? You know what I would give to have the kind of thing you and Wilma got?” His mouth worked inarticulately for a moment, while Claude just stared at him in astonishment. I don’t think any of us had ever seen Jimmy this angry before.

  Finally he extended an accusing finger. “You are making the biggest mistake I’ve ever seen, Claude. You think Janelle isn’t going to dump you the second someone closer to her age comes along?”

  Claude clearly didn’t appreciate the “closer to her age” part. He opened his mouth.

  “Aw, heck with it. I’ll get you some guacamole with jalapeño garnish,” Jimmy stormed, turning on his heel.

  Claude and I stared at each other as if unsure of what had just happened.

  “Uh-oh, Ruddy, look who just came in,” Alan said.

  It was disconcerting to think that Alan could keep track of things within my vision that I wasn’t focused on. I glanced up to see what he was talking about.

  A Charlevoix County sheriff’s deputy had stepped inside the Black Bear during Jimmy’s lecture. I recognized him as one of the officers who had been out with us the day we dug up Alan’s body. He was staring at me, a smirk on his face. When he was sure he had my attention, he crooked his finger. Gulping, I got up from the table, following the deputy outside. A gray band of clouds drifted in front of the sun as I climbed inside his patrol car.

  Time for my polygraph.

  19

  A Funeral for a Friend

  Strickland left me sitting in the tiny lobby of the sheriff’s department for half an hour in what was probably some psychological, “I’ll show you who’s boss” type of manipulation. I decided I could not be intimidated, though my leg bounced nervously and I gave a start every single time the back door opened. Alan had plenty of one-way advice, to which I felt incapable of responding due to the presence of the desk sergeant sitting four feet from me. “See if you can find out about this Franklin Wexler,” he instructed, clearly forgetting who was driving my body. I was not going to bring up any names—providing the sheriff with information he didn’t already have just seemed to get me in more trouble.

  Finally Barry Strickland was standing there, crooking his finger in what apparently was a departmentally approved gesture. He led me to a small, windowless room with a mirror on one wall.

  “Well this place could not be more bleak,” Alan huffed as I was seated in a wooden chair. “Could they not spare a single painting on the wall?”

  I tried to imagine a person actually believing that an interrogation room should be cheerful.

  I guess I always thought that a polygraph machine was a device that somehow measured brain waves, but what those little jumping needles represented was something much more mundane: pulse, breathing, perspiration, and blood pressure. The examiner who told me to call him Justin looked exactly like Bill Gates. “This doesn’t hurt, doesn’t do any damage of any kind. I’ll ask you a series of establishing questions, and then I have a list of questions here that the sheriff has supplied. He’s already shown you these questions, is that correct?” Justin asked in sort of a nerdy drone.

  “Yes,” I answered, swallowing. One of them, Do you know who killed Alan Lottner, was making me sweat already. I didn’t want to tell Strickland about Burby and Wexler because I didn’t want to tell him about Alan dwelling in my head.

  Alan sensed my nervousness. “Don’t worry, I’m here with you,” he murmured. I didn’t have any way to inform him that his being here with me was why I was worried.

  “First question then. Is your name Ruddick J. McCann?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, good!” Alan praised.

  Justin was frowning. “Mr. McCann, are you feeling well today?”

  “Yes,” I answered formally.

  Justin shook his head. “No, that wasn’t a control question, I’m just asking. Are you currently taking any medication?” He picked up the form I’d filled out a few minutes ago, confirming my answer as I said it.

  “No.”

  Justin pursed his lips. “Let’s try another one. Are you a resident of Kalkaska?”

  “Yes.”

  Justin cocked his head, considering.

  “Something’s not right,” Alan observed.

  “Let’s try this. I will ask you a question, and I want you to deliberately lie. This is called a ‘directed question,’ okay?”

  “Got it.”

  “Mr. McCann, are you a resident of East Jordan?”

  “Yes.”

  Justin’s eyes widened in surprise. He looked up at me. “And you’re not, right?”

  “Pardon?”

  “You list your address as Kalkaska. You’re not from East Jordan.”

  “No. I mean, yes, I’m from Kalkaska.”

  Justin nodded. “Excuse me for a moment.” He stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  “What’s going on?” Alan asked.

  I glanced at the mirror on the wall. “I’m probably being filmed, here,” I stated, sounding like I was announcing it to myself.

  Alan got the message. “Justin’s acting like there’s a problem with the equipment,” he said, using the tone of voice that meant he didn’t expect me to reply.

  A few minutes later Justin was back, unhooking me from his machine. “The sheriff would like to see you now,” he told me, appearing unhappy.

  I, too, was less than joyous. “The sheriff would like to see you now” sounded like “Please report to the principal’s office.” “That’s it?” I asked. “The examination is over?”

  Justin the Bill Gates impersonator gave me a bland, “sorry your computer crashed” type of look.

  I could see as I settled into the chair in front of Strickland’s desk a few minutes later that I was not going to be on a first-name basis during this particular interview. Strickland’s eyes were cold and he didn’t offer me any coffee. His toothpick jabbed out at me from the corner of his mouth. “Grubb says there was a problem with your polygraph,” he told me.

  Grubb, I deduced, was Justin Grubb the Bill Gates impersonator. Apparently he, too, had lost stock with the sheriff today.

  “He didn’t really ask me any questions,” I
responded a bit defensively.

  “He said you’re too jumpy, you responded to the control questions as if you were lying, but then when he directed you to lie, it was as if you were telling the truth.”

  “I think I know why that might be,” Alan mused thoughtfully.

  “Well, I have no idea why that should be. I didn’t do it deliberately,” I protested.

  The sheriff regarded me for a long moment. “You know what I’ve got on the murder of Alan Lottner?” he finally asked me.

  I shook my head.

  “You, that’s what I’ve got. You knew where to find him, you knew who he was before we dug him up. Now, I can spend a lot of resources cross-indexing you with every inmate in the state prison system you might have run into who could have put a bullet in the victim’s head, but that’s four years’ worth of convicts. It would be a lot cheaper and easier if you would just come clean and tell me what you know.”

  Strickland’s eyes were hard and unforgiving. I sighed in frustration.

  “You shouldn’t have told him you dreamed it,” Alan coached.

  “I read about it in the newspaper,” I said.

  Strickland frowned. “Read about what in the newspaper?”

  “About Alan Lottner. I had this dream that someone was buried in the woods, and I wondered who it might be. So I went to the library in East Jordan and started looking through back issues of the newspaper, and when I saw the story about Alan Lottner, I figured that he was the guy. There aren’t that many people who disappear like that, up here.”

  Strickland considered my statement while I shifted uncomfortably under his stare.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Alan noted helpfully.

  The sheriff asked me exactly when it was I had been going through the microfiche at the library, and I told him. “Wait here,” he said curtly, leaving the office.

  “Alan, do you think this is helping?” I demanded as soon as the door was shut.

  “I’m just offering constructive criticism,” he responded defensively.

  “No! Constructive means I can construct something out of it. All you’re doing is sitting there making snide comments. If you’ve got something brilliant to say, then say it, but otherwise shut up, okay?”