The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man: A Novel

  “There were a couple of stories about the nursing home fire.”

  “Oh, that,” Katie said in disgust. “Right, my dad disappears and then a month later there’s a fire, so he’s a suspect?”

  “Did you know any of the people who were killed?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” She looked sightlessly into the distance. “I remember I was pretty angry. Everyone forgot all about my father; all they wanted to talk about was the bomb and how all these people were killed.” She seemed to catch herself. “I mean yes, it was horrible that people died and everything. I get that. But my dad was still missing, and no one cared anymore. The only person to even mention it was this guy from the ATF or whatever it is called. Oh, and Nathan, of course.”

  I went very still. “Nathan Burby?”

  “Oh, I’ll bet he mentioned it,” Alan fumed.

  “Right, he was always asking how I was doing.” She flipped a wrist as if getting something off her hands. “I’m past that, though. What’s done is done.”

  “Then he sold the land,” I prompted.

  “What?” her eyes regained their focus.

  “For the factory, I mean.”

  “Oh, no.” Katie shook her head. “That was a huge shock.”

  “I guess I don’t understand.”

  “The city didn’t tell him. They didn’t have to; it was in the lease. The city council was working with the company that bought it, but Nathan didn’t find out about it until the deal was already set. I mean, he wasn’t exactly unhappy about it, because he got paid ten thousand dollars for every coffin he had to move, and he’s got a lot more room at the new property, but still, he had no idea.” She gave a sigh. “Why?”

  “Oh. Nothing. I just, you know, was curious.”

  Katie glanced at her watch, and I felt my heart sink. “It’s getting pretty late,” Alan remarked.

  “I had a repo up here the other day,” I blurted, grabbing at something to say just to stay there. She smiled encouragingly so I told her about trying to pick up Einstein Croft, starting with the first try, the encounter with Doris the Attack Goose, and my efforts since then. When I told her about Kermit dropping the pickup off the tow truck, she threw back her head and laughed with delight.

  “Now I just have to hand him the court summons, and my work is done,” I finished.

  “How are you going to do that? It seems like he’s hiding from you.”

  “I haven’t figured that out. It’s not worth it to me to sit in front of his house all day and night, waiting for him to make a run to the grocery store.” Maybe I would make Alan do it while I was asleep.

  “Then the sheriff’s department goes and gets it? How do you feel about that?” she inquired, her eyes twinkling. She laughed again as she saw the implication of her question register on me.

  “Well yeah, but those guys are armed. I mean, they can just see Einstein driving by and pull him over.”

  “I was kidding.”

  “They drive police cars. It’s not a real repo,” I argued.

  “I know.” She shook her head, grinning. “Want another beer?”

  She jumped up before I could reply and went into the kitchen. I watched the rear end of her jeans as she walked away from me.

  “Hey!” Alan shouted.

  I jerked my eyes away.

  “We shouldn’t be drinking and driving,” he admonished.

  Katie was still smiling when she came back from the kitchen. “Let’s go look at the lake,” she suggested, handing me a brown bottle of beer.

  “Sure, okay,” I agreed, pretty much willing to do anything she wanted. I followed her out the back door. The lights were off in her trailer, but the moon glinted off the silver sides and the yellow grass glowed white as I treaded beside her, my breath making foggy swirls.

  “We’re not going in the trailer,” Alan informed me tightly. The trailer, I recalled, was where Katie usually slept.

  He was right; that’s not where we were going. Just past the trailer the backyard, which had been bulldozed flat by the homebuilders, dropped away sharply, a steep hill that became steeper the closer it got to the lake. We stood at the lip of the hill, regarding Patricia Lake—a still, black body of water, a hundred acres or so, glimmering below us.

  “We built the steps,” Katie informed me.

  “Steps?”

  She pointed and I squinted. Where the hill became too steep to walk down, a long flight of stairs took over, leading all the way to a sliver of beach. “The people who lived here before us never went down to the lake, if you can believe it. I mean, trying to get down there would be like falling off a cliff. So Mom hired these guys to put in the steps.”

  We were talking about this, I realized, just to have something to talk about. “They did a nice job,” I noted lamely.

  “They look too steep to me,” Alan complained. “They should have put in a landing.”

  If he were there next to me instead of in my head I would grab Alan and fling him down the hill.

  I saw that Katie was getting aggressive with her beer, tilting the bottle up for long swallows. Something was going on with her, but I was both figuratively and literally in the dark. I snuck glances at her in the night, tilting my own bottle up and ignoring Alan’s puritanical sighs.

  “Okay,” she announced. “I’m cold.”

  The lake-viewing portion of the evening was over. We retreated from the lip of the hill and trooped back into the house. Katie grabbed the empties and I heard them hit the recycling box as she grabbed two more from the kitchen.

  “More beer?” Alan observed sourly.

  When Katie returned she sat down on the couch next to me, hard, bouncing me a little like it was a game. We clinked bottle necks in a gesture that was both silly and fun.

  “It’s probably time for us to go,” Alan observed frostily.

  He repeated variations on this declaration for the next ninety minutes, while I took the tiniest possible sips of that beer, dragging out the experience as long as I could. Being with Katie felt free and easy and natural, so of course I had to screw it up. “I’m glad you’re not going to marry Dwight after all.”

  Her expression sobered. She gazed at me, no longer smiling.

  “I mean…” God, what did I mean?

  “He’s not a bad guy,” she said.

  “Oh, no! Of course not. I didn’t mean that. He’s a great guy.”

  She pushed the hair out of her eyes. “I’m not some sort of prize for you two to compete for, you know.”

  “I agree with her,” Alan said primly.

  “What? No, of course not.”

  Katie shoved herself off the couch and it took all my strength to keep from reaching for her and pulling her back down next to me.

  “Neither one of you are the…” She stopped herself, but her eyes were angry.

  The man my father was, I knew she had been about to say. I felt the truth of it deflate me. How could anyone compete with the memory of the man she had been searching for since she was a little girl?

  “My dad died when I was in prison,” I said haltingly. I didn’t know where I was going with this because I’d never allowed myself to say anything more than that, but now I tried. “He used to be so proud of me, it felt like my life and his life were the same thing, you know? He would throw the football to me until it got so dark I couldn’t see it. When I heard about him dying, I realized I couldn’t picture the world without him in it. I was glad I was inside—in prison, I mean—because it meant I didn’t have to go places where he should be but wasn’t anymore.”

  Katie’s expression was unreadable.

  “And now my sister…” I had to pause for control before I got the rest of it out. “She told me she thinks it was the shame that killed them. I don’t believe that, but I do think, without me playing football, it gave them a little less to live for.” I gave her a crooked smile. “I know what it is like to have your whole life figured out.” I remembered being read my Miranda rights while I was still
in the hospital, feeling like my life had become like a derailed train. “I mean, you were on track to marry Dwight, right? I think sometimes we get angry when we realize our plans aren’t going to work out.” The wisdom of Jimmy Growe. “But then in the end, it turns out to be better. This’ll be better.”

  One moment she was staring at me with hot, weeping eyes, and the next she was on the couch, her warm mouth on mine. My arms went around her as naturally as anything in the world.

  “Ruddy,” Alan gasped.

  I broke from the kiss. Katie blinked, looking a little puzzled. “I think maybe you’ve had too much to drink?” I said weakly, unable to believe what I was doing.

  “Oh no, don’t worry about that,” she assured me. She came back into my arms, searching for me with her mouth.

  “Uh…” I backed away, retreating into the couch. She stood up, smiling.

  “Come on.”

  “Uh, where … where we going?”

  She slid her eyes sideways. “When Mom’s out of town I sleep in the guest room down the hall.”

  “What do you think you’re doing, Ruddy?” Alan demanded furiously.

  What I was doing? I wasn’t doing anything—wasn’t he paying attention?

  Katie held out a hand and I followed, completely unable to prevent myself from taking any other action.

  “I certainly hope you don’t think you’re going to seduce my daughter,” Alan stormed.

  I blew out a shuddering breath. “Katie…”

  Her reply was a sly smile. She began twisting the buttons on the front of her sweater, the material falling away from a silky camisole underneath. Before it was the guest room it must have been Katie’s bedroom, and it was still a little girl’s room, with a canopy bed and stuffed animals on the pillows, all of whom jumped to their deaths to make way for the grown-ups. In contrast to the rest of the house, everything here was neat and orderly, which made it seem all the more wanton when Katie unbuckled her pants and dropped them to the floor, standing before me in all lace, the most desirable woman I’d ever seen.

  “Leave. Now. Get out of this room,” Alan ordered, a note of desperation in his commands.

  I simply could not imagine a worse situation. Katie lit a candle and then coiled on the bed, still smiling, and I moved toward her.

  “Could we…”

  “Yes?” she replied, reaching for me.

  “This is going to sound really weird.”

  That stopped her: “Really weird” is not the most comforting phrase to hear from someone right before you have sex with him the first time. “Yes?” she prompted again, more cautiously.

  “Could we just lie here? Would that be okay?”

  She was so quiet I could hear the sputter of the flame gaining purchase on the candlewick.

  “Are you…” She gestured to my crotch, and I was a little hurt she couldn’t see the obvious answer to that question.

  “No, of course not,” I assured her. “I’m fine there. Better than fine, I mean. Hugely better.”

  She laughed.

  “I would just like to hold you; would that be okay?”

  “You mean you really don’t want to?”

  “Oh,” I nearly sobbed, “oh, I want to, but I just think it would be better. Trust me, okay?”

  With a puzzled look she slid over and I climbed in, lying on my back. She put her head on my chest. “Like this?” she asked, her voice vibrating my heart.

  I touched her hair, wrapped my arms around her, and sighed. “Yes, just like this.”

  We didn’t talk after that. I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, watching the gentle circle of light from the candle dance above me.

  * * *

  When I awoke the birds outside the window were starting to chatter about the possibility of sunrise. I was sitting in a soft stuffed chair by the bed, with no memory of having pulled away from Katie’s embrace. She was huddled in her sleep, her face turned toward me, and I stared at it for several minutes before I stood and went down the hall into the bathroom.

  I flipped on the light and looked in the mirror. “What’s up, Alan?” I asked softly.

  “I wanted to look at her. She’s so beautiful.”

  “Yeah, she really is.” I poured myself some tap water in a small paper cup. “Look, Alan, about last night, I’m really sorry.”

  “Don’t be. After you went to sleep, I got to lie there and hold my daughter against my chest, just like I used to do when she was a very little girl. It was the most wonderful night of my life.”

  I nodded slowly. “Yeah, me too.”

  “I was a lot of things in my life, and if you had asked me then I would have told you the things I thought defined me: Realtor, businessman. But that would have been wrong. Nothing was more important than being a father. Those men, Wexler and Burby, of all the things they took from me, that was the worst.”

  “She’s wonderful, and it’s because of you, Alan. You were there for the most important years of her life. And you’re still there now, I can see it in her.”

  “Let me ask you something, Ruddy.”

  I put my eyes on my reflection, sort of dreading the question, but Alan surprised me. “Why didn’t you play ball after you got out? If you were really that good, you served your time, why not make a couple million dollars while you still could?”

  “A couple million? Yeah, well, that would be just great, wouldn’t it?”

  “Wouldn’t it?”

  “Picture what that would be like for her parents, Alan. One day they turn on their TV and there I am being interviewed by ESPN, having the time of my life. And their daughter was buried when she was seventeen years old, never even got to have her life. I’m making millions and Lisa Marie Walker lost everything. Can you imagine how they’d feel?”

  For a long time Alan didn’t reply, and when he did, his voice was a quiet whisper in my ear. “I thought it might be something like that. You’re a good man, Ruddy.”

  “You’re telling me it would be okay for your daughter to date a repo man from Kalkaska, Michigan.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Great. Got any ideas how that’s going to work? I’m not even comfortable talking about it with you. Can you imagine how it’s going to go with you watching?”

  There was a soft rap on the door. “Ruddy?”

  Katie’s hair was tousled from sleep. She had pulled on a thick robe and looked so cute in it I just had to grab her, though my hug was as G-rated as I could manage.

  “Good morning!” She laughed. She looked over my shoulder into the tiny bathroom. “You always talk to yourself?”

  “Yeah, it’s called Repo Madness.”

  “Okay, good for you. It’s pretty early, are we really getting up?”

  “Sure, why not.”

  “Well…” She drew a finger down the length of my jaw, and I nearly shivered. “Wouldn’t you rather come back to bed?”

  “Yes, I really would.”

  “Well then, why don’t you?”

  I looked into her smiling eyes. “Because there’s something I have to do, and I’m afraid if I don’t go do it right now, I’ll lose my courage, and then I won’t do it at all.”

  24

  Too Subtle for Me

  Jimmy was awake when I walked in my front door. He was eating a donut and frowning at some cartoons on the television. Jake was sitting next to him, giving the donut significant glances. “Cartoons suck now,” Jimmy declared.

  “What?”

  “It’s like all fake, or something.”

  “Jimmy, I don’t understand what you are trying to tell me. Fake cartoons?”

  “He’s right; the animation’s awful,” Alan agreed. “Remember Johnny Quest?”

  “This conversation is making me nauseated,” I said.

  “Oh, sorry, would it help if I changed the channel?” Jimmy asked innocently.

  “That was a great cartoon,” Alan insisted.

  “Jimmy!” I yelled over Alan’s babbling. Jimmy jumped
in surprise. I held out a hand. “Sorry. Jimmy, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

  “Sure, Ruddy.”

  I sat down heavily and regarded my friend Jimmy. He sensed that this was going to be an intimate conversation, so he reacted as I would, turning to the TV and flipping channels. I watched him do that for about five minutes before clearing my throat. “Hey, turn it off a sec, would you?”

  He switched off the TV and held out the remote in submission. I took it from him and set it aside. “Jimmy, there’s no easy way to tell you this.”

  “Ruddy, what are you doing?” Alan asked in alarm.

  Jimmy’s eyes were trusting as he nodded for me to continue. “Remember I was asking if you knew Alice Blanchard? And you said you didn’t.”

  Jimmy looked thoughtful. “Right.”

  “Well, you do know her, Jimmy.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Jimmy shrugged.

  “Maybe we should just leave it at that,” Alan suggested desperately.

  “The thing of it is, Jimmy,” I said sternly, “a friend of mine once told me there is nothing more important than being a father, and that no one in the world has the right to separate someone from his child, you know what I mean?”

  Jimmy’s look was completely blank. “Sure, yeah.”

  “Jimmy, you’ve got a daughter. She lives in Traverse City. I’ve met her. She’s maybe seven or eight years old.”

  Alan gave a sigh of resignation.

  Jimmy blinked at me for what seemed like half a minute, then sat bolt upright as his synapses, straining, finally connected with each other. “What?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jimmy stood up, whirled around, then sat down.

  “Well, I can see that this is even more upsetting than the decline of animation,” Alan observed.

  “Are you sure? I mean, how do you know?”

  “The mother told me. Alice Blanchard? She’s the mother.”

  “I don’t even know an Alice Blanchard,” Jimmy protested.

  “Well that’s her married name, Jimmy. I don’t know what it was before she got married.”

  “Adams, her name was Adams,” Alan prompted.

  “That’s it. Alice Adams.”