Jimmy brooded over the truth of my observation for a minute. “You know, Ruddy, you can be a real asshole sometimes.”
I stared at him, shocked. His ridiculously chiseled jaw pulsed, and he glanced at me, his eyes hot, before turning back to the road. “I’m not a kid. I don’t need you trying to explain that what I’m feeling could be because of Vicki. I’ve been with enough women to know that this is different. I came to you because I have a problem. Alice is afraid of her husband’s temper. She’s worried he might hurt her or Vicki. You know how to handle stuff like that. That’s why I want your help. I don’t need you to try to talk me out of Alice.”
I wasn’t sure that Jimmy had ever been this angry at me before. “Sorry, Jimmy,” I finally apologized. “I didn’t understand the situation.”
Jimmy nodded, still staring moodily out at the road in front of us. After a moment I turned my gaze in the same direction.
All right, I believed him: He was in love with a woman who was married to a potentially violent man. They thought they were covering their tracks, but William Blanchard suspected something was going on, and they were afraid of his reaction if he got any actual proof.
That didn’t mean I knew what to do about it though.
* * *
My pickup was where I left it—at Milt’s repo lot. Someone had taken the time to scrape the snow off my windows, and I saw why—there was a small piece of notepaper wedged under the wiper. Please see me in the office. Kermit.
I felt Alan stirring, and I let the note hang loose in my hand as I stared at the gray skies and concentrated on the sensation. It was exactly as I remembered it from the last time I’d had Alan as my brain guest, the odd feeling of a light bulb coming on and growing brighter. But if it were all my imagination, why would it be any different now than before?
“What are we looking at?” he wanted to know.
“I am looking at the sky,” I responded. “You don’t have eyes, so you are looking at nothing.”
“Good old Ruddy McCann,” he observed after a moment. “Always cheerful and friendly.”
“I’m just missing Milt. God, it’s so tragic. I have to believe he was on some sort of medication that got him depressed—otherwise, he was so full of life.”
“So you believe it was deliberate? Suicide?”
“Are you saying you don’t?”
“No, just the opposite. You said the cancer had spread to his liver.”
“Yeah. Probably pretty painful.”
“Not just that. You have liver cancer, you’re not going to sit and drink a bottle of vodka unless you know it’s your last night.”
“I didn’t even think of that,” I admitted. I continued to contemplate the sky. “I only wish he’d said something to me about it,” I said softly. “Instead we just talked about Repo Madness.”
“Not exactly a victimless crime,” Alan agreed. “Leaves behind a lot of guilt, a lot of questions.”
I decided I’d had enough sympathy from the voice in my head. “Have a nice sleep?” I asked him.
“It’s not like you think. I don’t get tired, and I don’t get rest, but I do feel myself slipping into unconsciousness, and it’s exactly what it’s like when I used to doze off for a nap after an open house weekend.”
“And what about when I sleep?” I challenged.
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. When I sleep, if you wake up, what do you do?”
Alan was silent.
“Alan? What do you do, or I guess, absolutely not do, when I’m sleeping?”
He sighed.
“Dr. Schaumburg says I have a choice between having a voice in my head or dissociative personality disorder, which is where I fall asleep and you get up to do the laundry. I can’t have both. So you can’t have both. We clear? This time you must not, not ever, try to do something with my body while I’m sleeping.”
“I don’t understand your problem.”
“I asked if we are clear.”
“Fine.”
I kicked at a chunk of ice, sending it skittering across the lot. “Let’s go see Kermit,” I suggested.
“I can’t believe you still wear those ugly rubber boots. Where do you even buy such things?”
“From the repo menswear catalogue.”
Kermit was in Milt’s office. The effect was jarring—here was short, squat, dark-complexioned Kermit sitting behind the desk where the pale, white-haired Milt had always sat. I felt a flash of annoyance at the sacrilege. The body was still in the morgue; what did Kermit think he was doing? Going through the drawers, reading Milt’s files?
I brandished the note. “What the hell is this, Kermit?”
He blinked at me. “Uh…”
“You don’t summon me, okay? This was like being told I need to go to the principal’s office.”
“Sorry. I mistook my intentions,” he apologized.
“I don’t work for you.”
“I should have done it differently.”
I turned to sit in the big overstuffed chair in the corner, but it was occupied. “Jake?” I demanded.
My dog regarded me mournfully. Please don’t make me get up, his eyes pleaded.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
“He likes it here,” Kermit responded defensively. “Katie asked me to look after him, and I thought it would be easier to just do it here.”
“That makes sense. Jake has someone to watch him all day,” Alan observed in his maddeningly rational voice.
“He doesn’t need someone to watch him all day,” I snapped. Then I caught myself and glanced at Kermit, who didn’t seem to think my statement was odd.
“I know, but I don’t mind it,” Kermit replied. “Kinda nice to have company. I’ll be here every day now—my aunt Trisha put me in charge. That’s why, after he was diagnosed, Uncle Milt wanted me to move here, so I could absorb the operation. My brother, Walt, was pretty pissed off, but all he would have done was sell the business.”
“So that makes Kermit your boss?” Alan speculated, laughing.
“Oh. So in other words, I actually do work for you,” I concluded. If the alternative was being unemployed, I thought I could probably adapt. I tried to shove Jake over so I could sit with him, but he saw my efforts as unwelcome. Eventually I sat on the arm of the chair, my hand unconsciously reaching down to stroke Jake’s velvety basset ears.
“Uh, well, you could still contract with Kramer Recovery if you want. I don’t know—maybe you’re sick of repossessing cars.”
“How would anyone ever grow sick of that?”
Alan snorted.
“So, Kermit, do you suppose that because of the cancer, maybe with medications, that’s why your uncle…?” I trailed off.
Kermit was shaking his head. “No way. This was an accident. My uncle would never commit self-suicide. He just had too much to drink.”
“Do not tell him about how a man with liver cancer wouldn’t drink vodka unless he intended to kill himself,” Alan instructed sternly.
I gritted my teeth. Of course I wouldn’t tell him. “Sorry, Kermit.”
Jake sighed. All this talking was disturbing his nap.
“Well, okay then, we’ll resumption everything,” Kermit continued. “But about your fee, there’s a little problem.”
I held up a hand. “Stop right there, Kermit. I can’t take any less than what I’m already getting.” Kermit looked really uncomfortable, and I bit back my anger. Who else was he going to get to steal cars for him? Why would he try to negotiate this? I was his brother-in-law: He knew I didn’t take any money from Becky during the winter, not even when I tended bar and there was cash in the tip jar. “Seems like you’ve got something to say to me,” I observed coldly.
Kermit squirmed. “Well, what was your deal with my uncle?”
“Half,” I replied curtly. “Fifty bucks for these morons who don’t understand about turning in their cars at the end of the lease. Two fifty for a standa
rd repo. Five hundred for a skip.”
“Yeah, but, Ruddy—”
“Yeah, ‘but, Ruddy’ what?” I interrupted testily.
“We transact two hundred just for opening file.”
I stared at him, not sure what he was saying to me. “Opening file?” I repeated stupidly.
“Two hundred on assignation, plus two hundred for lease early term, a grand for a repo, two grand for a skip, plus expenses.”
“In other words, you haven’t been getting half; you’ve been getting a fourth,” Alan explained helpfully.
“I can do the goddamn math,” I snapped at him.
Kermit nodded resignedly.
“So Uncle Milt has been lying to me?” I stood up, and Jake raised his head, concerned at the emotion in my voice.
“That’s why effectuated immediately, your fee needs to be half,” Kermit said rapidly. “I never knew the numbers, but even Becky says you were supposed to be getting half.”
“It’s still not very much money,” Alan observed.
I stared down at Kermit. He looked afraid, as if I were about to start ripping apart the furniture. I realized then that I felt bad that he would fear me. There was a time, before he married my sister, when I wanted him to be frightened—in fact, I wanted him to run away, leave my sister and me alone. But he stuck it out because he loved Becky. “I would never have known about this if you hadn’t told me,” I pointed out. “You could have made a lot more money.”
Kermit raised his hands, palms up. “Wouldn’t have been right though. You thought you were getting half. You should get half.”
“You’re an honorable man, Kermit. If Milt were here, I’d have a few words I’d want to say to him, but you’re making it right. I appreciate your honesty.” I held out my hand. “Boss.”
He shook it. We grinned at each other. “Well, since there’s been no dissolution,” he said after a moment, handing over a repo folder. “Here’s one from a new client. Bank in Traverse City says their regular agency said to go … now what is it when you petition the court?”
“Writ of replevin,” I responded automatically.
“Right. Replevin. So they’re giving us a shot. Be good business for us, Ruddy; their bank finances a lot of the local car dealers. Customer’s name is Tony Zoppi. You know him?”
“The Zoppi family? They’re practically mafia; everyone knows about them,” Alan whispered worriedly.
Why was he whispering?
“Never heard of the guy. Also, there are no keys,” I pointed out, shaking the empty key packet.
“Yeah. The bank had complete neglection on getting key numbers.”
“All right. But I don’t have a tow truck, remember?”
“Yeah, it was totaled. What a mess. You okay? It’s almost hard to believe you walked away from that one.”
“I didn’t walk; I was taken in an ambulance,” I answered dryly. “Yeah, I’m down to one symptom.” A voice in my head.
“Symptom. So clever,” Alan observed caustically.
“My point is,” I continued, “without a tow truck, and without keys, how am I supposed to bring in Zoppi?”
“I don’t know, but I’d love to land that account. We’re getting plenty of Strickland skip business, but repos are pretty slow.”
Jake and I exchanged a look. There seemed to be a veiled suggestion that perhaps I wasn’t pulling my weight in the operation compared to Barry Strickland. Of course, all Jake was doing was napping.
“Oh, if you get it, call me and I’ll rendezvous you at the bank,” my new boss advised.
“The bank? You don’t want me to bring it here?”
“No, they want it at the bank. You’re supposed to ask for William Blanchard; he’s the bank president. He specifically mentioned you by name, so your reputation predates you.”
“William Blanchard,” I repeated.
“Yeah.” Kermit nodded.
I gave Jake a final pat on the head before I left.
William Blanchard. The man who was married to Alice Blanchard, who was having an affair with my best friend, Jimmy.
* * *
I decided to drive my pickup north to Traverse City and see if Zoppi was at his place of business, which was a furniture-refinishing place south of town. His family owned it and, according to Alan, half a dozen businesses that were supported by some huge crime ring involving drugs and murder and who knew what else.
“Like The Godfather,” I mused.
“What?” Alan responded.
“That’s the plot from Puzo’s novel. I just read it; it was in my mom’s collection. The Corleone family takes their proceeds from their illicit ventures and buys legitimate operations.”
“The book? You mean you never saw The Godfather movies?” he demanded incredulously.
“Of course I’ve seen the movies, Alan,” I retorted. “I’m a guy.”
“Then what’s your point?”
“My point is that everything you’re babbling about is in the book. Which I just read. Pretty coincidental, don’t you think? And there isn’t some huge crime family up here, Alan; everybody’s too cold for that.”
He was silent. “Alan?”
“I don’t babble,” he sniffed.
“Well, hey, the good news is that I still have a job and just doubled my money.” I said it a bit aggressively, waiting for Alan to advise me it wasn’t enough to make me a serious prospect for his daughter, but he was silent. I heard the boop of a siren and looked in my rearview mirror. A sheriff’s department car was following me, its lights flashing. Sighing, I checked the speedometer and pulled over. They had me going five over the limit.
The man who got out of the passenger side was the man who’d replaced Barry Strickland—Grant Porterfield, the new sheriff. He was a little beady-eyed guy, short and fat where Barry was lean and solid.
The deputy driving was Dwight Timms, whose family had owned a bait shop for many years and was known for smelling like their products. Dwight didn’t like me much—he and Katie had been all but engaged when I met her, and he was unhappy she picked a repo man over a heavily jowled, jarhead, sallow-skinned, dull-eyed moron with a mean streak and a badge to back it up.
I guess I didn’t like Dwight much either.
“Sheriff,” I greeted evenly, ignoring his deputy.
“Why don’t you step out of the vehicle so’s we can talk?” Porterfield suggested. Timms walked up on the other side of my pickup, covering me like I was a public menace.
I agreeably opened my door and stepped out, crunching snow under my stylish rubber boots. I rubbed my hands together but kept them out in the open. Cops like to be able to see your hands.
“How fast were you going?” Alan asked.
“Heard about your accident the other day,” Porterfield noted. Timms was peering in through my windows, looking for smuggled AK-47s.
“Black ice.” I shrugged.
“I heard you were chasing Tigg Bloom at the time. Repo man.”
“Chasing? No, not true. I was behind him, sure, but I was just driving down the hill and lost it on the ice.”
“That’s not what Tigg says.”
“How is good old Tigg?”
“His leg’s broke, but he’ll live. He’s thinking of filing a criminal complaint against you.”
“So his statement is that he saw me, thought I was somehow going to tow away his truck with him driving it in front of me, decided to drive off at high speed, went flying down a steep hill coated with ice, lost control, nearly wiped out a school bus full of kids, crashed into the woods, and I’m the criminal?”
Porterfield gave me a look I supposed he thought was hard and scary, but I’d been glared at by Barry Strickland, who was a professional at it. “Well, either way, that’s your last one,” he said, leaning over to spit in the snow.
Timms came over to stand next to his boss, giving me a smirk. His hand was resting on the butt of his weapon. The guy was really starting to piss me off.
“Last one what?”
Alan wondered.
“I’m not sure I understand, sir,” I replied.
“No more repos in my jurisdiction. You want to pick up a car, you file a writ of replevin with the court, get it signed by a judge, and I’ll send my deputies out to pick it up. We’ll call you when it is in impound.”
I stared at the two lawmen. They were both wearing identical challenging grins, loving telling me that I would not be able to make a living anymore.
What Timms wanted more than anything, I knew, was for me to lose my temper and take a swing at him. They’d pull their handguns, get cuffs on me, and book me for being disorderly, and my probation would be revoked. I’d wind up doing a couple years of jail time, just for the satisfaction of breaking his nose.
Might be worth it.
“Understood,” I finally replied woodenly.
“They can’t actually do that,” Alan intoned in an I-was-a-Realtor-so-I’m-an-expert-in-the-law voice. “If it is legal, they can’t stop you from making a living.”
“May I go, Sheriff?” I asked.
He spat in the snow again. He seemed disappointed somehow. “Drive carefully, Mr. McCann. Watch out for black ice.”
I slid into my pickup and watched in my rearview mirror as the two lawmen settled in, said something to each other that made them both laugh, and then pulled a U-turn and sped off.
“Well, that’s just great,” I said.
“I don’t know what to do next. I guess get a lawyer and sue the sheriff’s department,” Alan speculated.
“I don’t have the money to sue anybody.”
“But you just had the sheriff tell you that you can’t do repossessions anymore. What are you going to do?”
“Me?” I started my pickup and put it in gear. “I’m going to go repo a car.”
8
A Job Up Your Alley
I sat in my pickup and regarded Zoppi’s Jeep Grand Cherokee—a pretty blue machine with sprays of frozen Michigan mud splashed out from all four wheel wells. The parking lot of the furniture-refinishing place was small and rutted and contained only a Dumpster, some snow-covered lawn chairs, and a decades-old Honda motorcycle on lifeless tires leaning against the back wall of the shop. I’d driven past the front of the place and looked in through the display windows, and it appeared the same person who had designed the parking lot had also decorated the showroom—furniture was haphazardly arrayed on the cement floor, some of it as dirty as the motorcycle.