Things are starting to happen faster now, I’d say we’re definately into act two at this point. The hardest part is just figuring out how to keep things moving, and how to bring out everything that needs to be brought out. I’m also nearing the finish line for NaNoWriMo, and I’m looking good.
As for the ending, I figured it was time to drop a real bombshell. Enjoy!
For Idle Hands (working title) - Part 22
I crossed the rest of the campus without drawing much attention to myself. Dressed as I was - all in black, a hood pulled up over my head, and an overstuffed messenger bag slung over my shoulder - I looked like a hundred other people walking around here. No one seemed to notice my mud caked boots, or didn’t care if they did, and no one looked closely enough at my face to see that I was twice the age of anyone else here.
I crossed Main Street at the intersection with half a dozen students, most of whom turned towards the Idle House of Pizza after crossing. I headed up a side street and followed it around behind the town library and a few other shops. Harvey’s Garage was tucked in behind the Hannaford Bros grocery store, well off Main Street, and this little cross street lead right to the side street it was on.
When I walked into Harvey’s, he laughed so hard he had to hold onto the dented and scored counter top to keep from falling over.
“Yeah yeah,” I said, “get it out old man. I’m incognito.”
Harvey was a big man my father’s age. He was bald except for a ring of gray hair that ran from ear to ear behind his head, and that he kept braided into a long pony tail that reached half way down his back. He also had a scraggly white beard that looked as if he cut it using a hedge trimmer. With his eyes shut. His beer gut shook ponderously as he laughed, his grease stained and weather worn face crinkled, making him look even older. His eyes though, were baby blue and younger than mine, and sparkled with the joy of a good joke well told. He was a crazy old man, but damned if he wasn’t a great mechanic, and he’d always treated me right.
“Shamus, you look like them kids come in here with those damned rice burners and cock racers. The hell are you all prettied up like that for? You gonna ask me to put some of them ‘go faster’ neon lights on Bertha now? Ooh, maybe you want a fancy retarded spoiler on the roof too?”
“Are you done now Harvey?”
“Not hardly, but don’t mind me, I’d go on all day if you let me. So what d’you need?”
“I need a loaner, something inconspicuous.”
“What’s wrong with Bertha? She don’t get much more inconspicuous than that.”
“I can’t use Bertha right now. There are some people looking for me and I need something they won’t recognize.”
“What people’re after you? Need me to crack some skulls or anything? I could use the exercise.”
“The less you know the better.”
“Ah, cop trouble, eh? Well, no matter of mine. Come on,” he gestured to follow him as he headed towards a door in the back of the shop, “I’ve got a couple of things out back might suit your need."
The selection Harvey offered me consisted of an old clunker of a Buick Celebrity that I was sure hadn’t moved since Reagan was president, a Chevy Cavalier that was equal parts black, green, and white Bondo, and a rusted out Ford Festiva with three flat tires. I was about ready to give up when I noticed something behind the Buick.
Moving closer I saw that it was an old but otherwise pristine looking dirt bike. It was matte black with red highlights, and it had a legal plate and a headlight. Nothing about it to draw attention, aside from being a dirt bike. It wouldn’t be a comfortable ride, but it would get me there, and if need be I could take it off road. In this type of area, there were off road trails all over, and who knew how handy that might come in if I had to avoid the main roads or make a quick get away.
“What about the bike?”
“What, that stupid thing? Some kid gave it to me because he couldn’t pay and I wouldn’t give him his car back until he did. Damn near killed him to do it, but I don’t let no one stiff me a bill, ‘specially not some kid I don’t even know. Didn’t think you were the type though, Shamus.”
“Once upon a time, Harvey. If you can part with it temporarily, I think that’ll do for what I need.”
“It’s yours, so long as you bring it back in one piece. You break it you bought it, right?”
“Of course.”
The way today was going, this bike would probably end up in the bottom of some ravine somewhere - likely on top of me - but I didn’t have much choice at the moment.
“I’ll take it. Did the kid give you a helmet too?”
As I left Harvey’s Garage in my bright yellow helmet with the reflective lighting bolts on the sides and the bright purple face guard, I questioned the wisdom of riding with a helmet for the first time in my life. I just prayed that if I did crash it would kill me instantly, so I wouldn’t have to be found wearing this thing.
I headed south from the village, into West Idle. I figured it was time to check out Yadira’s house to see if that had anything to tell me, and to see if I could track down Wally.
My shoulder still hurt where I’d been shot, and it hadn’t escaped me that I could just as easily have been killed if I hadn’t reacted when I did. Depending on how my reunion with Wally went, I knew I wouldn’t hesitate to return the favor.
Once I hit the power line run I swung left and took it off road. Yadira had lived to the west of here, and this would be the quickest way there, assuming I didn’t kill myself in the process.
I’d forgotten how much fun it was to do this. I gunned the engine up each rise and shot over the top, touching down with a bang on the other side, holding on for dear life. Moving fast and trusting to the gyroscopic effect of the tires and my own momentum was the best way to keep upright, as terrifying as it is to experience. So I just went with it and had the wildest ride of my life.
As I approached the main road, where Lili and her friends had nearly run me down this morning, I slowed to a stop. I wasn’t going to make their mistake, and besides, there was often steady traffic at this time of day.
I was right, traffic wasn’t heavy today, but it was steady. Looking in either direction I could see that I was going to be here for a few minutes before breaks in both lanes lined up so I could cross. The lane closest to me, heading into town, finally broke, and I could see a large gap after a tow truck coming the other way. I prepared to gun it across the road as the tow truck passed, but caught myself short as I recognized the car being towed.
It was a black Monte Carlo SS with tinted glass and a skull decal in the rear window. Wally’s car. The front end was smashed in, it looked as if whoever had been driving it had lost a dispute with a tree. Judging by the thick layer of caked mud over the car’s bottom half, it had probably happened far off the road and had been sitting there for a while. Maybe the bastard had crashed shortly after outpacing me this morning. It would serve him right.
The break in traffic in the near lane was near to closing when I snapped to attention and gunned the throttle, leaping from the shoulder in a spray of gravel and whipping left to follow Wally’s car.
As I followed I considered the possibilities. The tow truck was the old one that Bob Kifner, who rant the scrap yard in West Idle, owned and used to collect wrecks to add to his yard. The police wouldn’t have called him to take the car away, at least not until they were ready to release it once the investigation had concluded, and only then if the owner didn’t want it back. Bob would take any car for free so long as he didn’t have to leave town to collect it. That meant that either the cops had gotten it and released it already, which didn’t seem likely. More likely they hadn’t been called. Maybe Wally had called Bob to collect it, knowing that he wouldn’t ask questions, so he could get rid of it. Eventually, if they were really looking, the cops would call Bob, but it would’ve bought Wally some time.
All of that meant that I could conceivably see the car before the cops got to it. It wasn’t strictly legal, but then neither was anything I’d done after leaving the scene of Gunn’s shooting. I figured I could take a quick look, and so long as I didn’t touch anything I couldn’t be accused of contaminating any evidence. Well, I could of course, so I would have to see if I could get Bob to watch so he could vouch for me. He was a crotchety old man with a definite disdain for authority, but he was also known for being a plain talker and a straight shooter.
Of course, first I had to talk Bob into letting me in, and into chaining up the twin rottweilers he let run loose in the yard to discourage intruders.
I don’t know why, but dogs didn’t seem to like me, and I didn’t think Bob would be too keen on helping me if I had to shoot his dogs.
Bob pulled up to the gate in front of the yard and I pulled in behind him, killing the engine, dropping the kick stand, and stepping off the bike. Bob jumped out of the truck - if anything an eighty year old with a severe limp and life long asthma does can be called jumping - and pointed a long, ancient shot gun at me.
“What do ya thing yer doing, punk, tryin’ ta sneak up behind me and mug me eh?” He yelled, taking a few halting steps towards me. “I fought the Nazis in dubya dubya two, you don’t scare me!”
“Bob!” I shouted back, raising my hands and hoping he could hear me through the helmet and his own bad ears, “it’s Nick Shamus, you know me!”
“Nick who? Are you on the pot, ya punk?” The gun was quivering, the tip bobbing all around. I had to get him to put to down quickly, before he shot me by accident.
Risking moving, I tore the helmet off and tossed it to the ground so he could see my face. Bob jumped at the sudden move, tracked the helmet, and shot it. It exploded in a shower of plastic and padding. Luckily I’d tossed it away from myself and the bike, so we both escaped unscathed. As the dust settled I closed the fifteen feet between us and yanked the gun from his hands.
“Bob!” I screamed, I was getting really tired of being shot at today. “It’s me, Nick Shamus, the detective, you know me!”
He squinted at me for a moment, then his face lit up.
“Nick, why didn’t you say it was you? I thought you was some punk all hopped up the pot tryin’ to rob me yard.”
I sighed. His rottweilers had come running at the sound and were barking furiously on the other side of the gate, jumping against it generally scaring the shit out of me.
“Sorry ‘bout your helmet, kid, I gets a bit twitchy when I think I’m being jacked.”
The shotgun was a single shot breach barrel type. I cracked it open and the shell popped out. Instinctively I snatched the spent shell out of the air and jammed it into my pocket. I double checked that the barrel was clear, an old Army habit, before I closed it and handed it back.
“Next time,” I said slowly and clearly, “keep your finger off the trigger until you’re sure you’ll need it. Now I need to talk to you about that car you’re towing.”
He nodded absently, “what about it?”
“First, let’s talk about keeping those dogs away from me before I have to shoot them."
Bob told me that he’d gotten a call a couple hours ago to pick this car up off the road in North Idle. The name of the caller, as he’d written it down, was “Dolly”, I figured that was Wally as filtered through Bob’s ancient phone lines and obviously poor hearing. He agreed to let me check the car out, and to watch me as I did so he could back me up if it became an issue.
As I approached the car, a smell started to make itself known. Very faint, but slightly rotten and sweet at the same time. I leaned in through the smashed driver’s side window and fumbled to get the keys out of the ignition without touching anything else. The thick work gloves Bob had insisted I wear didn’t help any, but I finally got them out. The little plastic skull dangling from the ring didn’t surprise me one bit, neither did the skull knob on the stick shift or the chain ring of the steering wheel.
I went to the trunk, the smell was definitely stronger here.
“Bob!” I yelled, though he was only about ten feet behind me, “did you notice the smell when you picked up the car?”
“What? Smell? No, my nose hasn’t worked right since dubya dubya two. Shrapnel in my nasal cavity, you see.”
“Fine, could you come over here and watch this?”
He sidled up and stood next to the trunk, eyeing me suspiciously. I put the key in the lock and turned it slowly, not really wanting to do this but knowing I had to. The latch popped. I said a silent prayer and swung it open.
It was Wally.
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