Crash Tack

by A. J. Stewart

  I pressed myself against the side of the warehouse and peeked around the corner. A truck beamed its lights across the lot, and someone dropped down out of the cab and unlocked the gate. Then they pulled the gate open and the truck drove into the lot. The truck edged along the fence that I had cut to get under, and there it waited, throbbing and hissing. The figure at the gate ran across the tarmac to the door. I saw them unlock a small door, person-size, and then step inside. Seconds later the main door creaked to life, winding around itself and curling up, like the yawn of a sleepy lion. Only a soft glow came from inside the warehouse, emergency lighting. The person who had gone in stepped just outside, soft light from behind, bright amber light from outside. And I saw Alec Meechan. Alec waved the truck forward. But the truck didn’t move forward. It pulled further into the lot, then stopped and hissed again. Then it shuddered and moved backwards, curling around to point the back of the trailer at the door. It got about half in, and then stopped. The driver killed the engine, leaped out of the cab and ran inside.

  I moved around the side of the warehouse to the front, and then edged along until I was but a few feet from the truck. It was an auto transport, loaded full with cars. Luxury cars. I glanced around the door to the warehouse. The driver of the truck was dropping steel ramps out the back, and before he got the last into place, a sleek black car moved back on the trailer. The ramp gave a hefty thunk as it dropped into place, and the black car raced down the ramp at a pace that implied both practice and confidence at the task. The black car, which I now recognized as a Maserati, zipped backwards, stopped on a dime and then turned and drove deeper into the warehouse.

  I wanted a better look, so while the truck driver was pulling the next car down off the rack, I ran inside and around the edge of the warehouse. There wasn’t a lot of light, but there was plenty enough for me to be seen. The warehouse was heavy with shipping containers and wooden crates, so I hid behind them and followed the throb of the Maserati. It was loud inside the confines of the warehouse, and then it became deeper and more resonant, and then stopped altogether. It was replaced by the sound of another car, also a deep muscular sound, but different. It moved into the warehouse and I pushed further in toward it and caught a silver Ferrari slow and then move inside a shipping container. The engine was doused, and the space again became quiet. I saw the two men stride back toward the truck in silence. Neat rows of pallets loaded with boxes were lined up alongside the empty containers. I watched from behind a shrink-wrapped pallet. As the two men walked away I glanced at the boxes. Fireworks, product of China. One of Will Colfax’s deals. Cheap fireworks from a bankrupt Chinese factory. Heaven help us .

  I stayed behind the boxes while the process was repeated. Another two cars, another shipping container. So Alec Meechan was shifting luxury sports cars in the dead of night. It didn’t make the whole exercise look aboveboard. Quite the opposite. It felt, as Sal Mondavi would say, on the contentious side of legal. Why the cars were going into containers I suspected were headed for China was a mystery. The next two cars slipped into a container, and the two men returned to the truck. I heard the sounds of the ramp being pulled, then the sound of chains being removed and a hydraulic hiss. They were rejigging the trailer to get the cars off the top rack, so I took my chance.

  I slipped into the nearest container. I wanted to know how legal this caper was. Inside the container was a Mercedes that didn’t look like any Mercedes your father would drive. It was shaped like a bullet. I took out my little point-and-shoot camera to take a picture of the license plate but there wasn’t one, so I slipped around the side of the car and looked through the windshield at the vehicle identification number plate. The VIN was a unique number assigned to each and every car produced, detailing in numbers the who, when, where and what of the car’s manufacture. I tapped the flash on, and took a couple of shots.

  The inside of the container lit up like New Year’s Eve, and I stopped and held my breath, listening for Alec and the driver running back to investigate. All I heard was the hydraulics and clanking of the ramps as they were maneuvered into place. I ran further back into the container and repeated the trick on the car there, another sleek piece of work that I couldn’t discern in the darkness of the container. I took a couple shots and edged my way out. I was at the mouth of the container when an M series BMW coupe grumbled toward me. I froze against the wall of the container, and then slipped back into the shadows. The BMW cruised by me and into another container, and another Ferrari followed suit. The two men strode out and back toward the truck, and I breathed again, and then ran out of the container and back down the side of the warehouse.

  I heard another car come down off the ramps, and as I reached the front of the warehouse I saw what might have been an Aston Martin roll back off, turn and head away. I didn’t wait to see any more. I broke for the outside. I figured I had ninety seconds—while Alec and the truck driver got the last two cars in place—before they came back and might see me. I sprinted across the lot, not bothering with the darkness at the fence line. I wanted the gate that was gaping open.

  I’m not a great runner, not in the grand scheme of things. I’d kept up the odd bit of jogging since I retired from baseball, but I hadn’t sprinted hard in eons. It hurt, and combined with my previous dehydration and that day’s diet of beer and hot dogs, I was spent by the time I hit the dark foliage beyond the gate. I bent over to vomit, but it didn’t happen, so I just sucked in as much as moist air as I could.

  I stayed pressed into the trees for what felt like forever, but was probably six or seven minutes. As it was, I could have taken a leisurely stroll across the lot, and I cursed Alec Meechan for that. I wondered what was taking so long, and decided they must have been chaining the cars into their containers, readying them for shipment. Finally the truck roared to life and pulled out, the large door dropped slowly, and then Alec came out of the regular people-sized door and jogged across the lot.

  The truck pulled to a stop just beyond the gate. If the driver had looked down past his left shoulder, and if he had the eyesight of a cat, he would have seen me there, holding my breath in the bushes. Alec pulled the gate closed and locked it, and then jumped up into the cab. The truck gave one last hiss and roared out onto the lonely highway, leaving me with the deafening silence of a million years of life on earth.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I WAS WOKEN by my phone. It was Sally, making sure I was up and ready to come get him. I told him I was, and then I lay back down to go to sleep. But I had slept fitfully and ended up angled across the bed, so I dropped back to a pillow that was actually at my feet and I missed the bed altogether, dropping with a thud onto the floor. I dragged myself up and splashed some water on my face. My mind was a fog, lingering between the previous night at the warehouse and whatever it was I was supposed to do today. I contemplated some week-old strawberries in the fridge, but went with a glass of water. I wasn’t sure how it was possible but it seemed to have gotten more humid. There wasn’t a wisp of wind and the cloud acted as if it had heard bad things about the Bahamas and had no intention of heading that way. I wore my jeans again despite the steaminess, and I was sweating before I even got on the bike. Putting my helmet on was like sticking my head in a pressure cooker, and I felt my ears clog. Then I jumped on the bike and headed up to get Sal.

  He was at the store already, and he left the girl in the cash checking booth in charge, which she seemed excited about, as exhibited by the emphatic nod of her head. I drove Sal’s Caddy down to the courthouse and he saw a spot on the street, but I didn’t fancy reverse parking the huge car, so I drove on to a lot. As we were locking up I told Sal about the cars I had seen the previous night, and he agreed that they were most likely stolen. I showed him one of the photos I had taken, one that clearly showed the VIN of the Mercedes.

  “You know how I can check out that number?” I asked him. I suspected he knew a kid who could access a database or something.

  “Easiest way? Ask the sheriff.”<
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  “They’ll tell me?”

  “Depends who you ask. Surely you know someone you could ask, don’t you?”

  I gave him a look, one he thoroughly deserved.

  There was a small gathering on the courthouse steps, people gathered in tight groups or standing alone, eyes hidden behind Wayfarers that were completely superfluous with the dark clouds overhead. At precisely five minutes to nine the comptroller for the county came down the steps and handed out a sheet with a running order of the auctions. Everyone scanned it, some making notes. A few of the properties had been pulled from the auction, marked as removed by order of the court, I assumed because the owner had made good on his debt to the bank. A couple of people looked at the list and walked away, the property of interest to them having been removed from proceedings. My Singer Island place was listed as being fifth on the block. The comptroller started by telling us that a certified check of approximately ten percent of the purchase price was required immediately to secure the property, with the remainder due before close of business that day. I frowned at Sally but he gave me the palm of his hand and a nod. Don’t worry .

  We watched the first two auctions take place. The whole process took four minutes, most of which was taking down the details of the winning bidder and collecting their check. Sally bid on the third property, a multifamily building in Wellington. One other guy was bidding, a cool-looking customer in aviator sunglasses and more hair product than a Texas debutante. They traded bids, the numbers going up by a thousand each time, the guy eyeing Sally through his shades, Sally returning the favor with a look that one generally reserved for those times when one was scraping dog poop off their shoes. The guy made a bid, and then the comptroller looked back at Sal, who must have grown bored of the whole thing, because he upped the bid by ten thousand and blew the other guy out of the water.

  My place came up fifth. Sal suggested that I not bid straightaway, as there was every possibility the starting price might go down on this one, because the costs of redeveloping it in a falling market were too high.

  “What about me?” I asked.

  “You're not looking to develop, you’re looking to live in it, and there aren’t too many other home buyers who can pay all cash.”

  “I can’t pay all cash.”

  Sal frowned at me. “Yeah, you can.”

  The comptroller called the auction number, residential property, and gave the particulars. He called out the starting offer and got no takers, and as Sally has foreseen, he began backpedaling, until final the price got too good to refuse, and the guy in aviator glasses got in. The comptroller asked if there were any other bids, and Sally gave me nudge and I put my hand up. The guy in the aviators put in another bid, maybe to see if I was serious, and I countered, and he quit. The comptroller called the property sold, and in four bids and forty-five seconds, I was a home owner.

  I signed my name on a sheet and wrote my current address down, then Sally passed me a cashier’s check and the comptroller’s assistant wrote down the amount, the amount still owed plus the outstanding property taxes, and gave me a final amount to be paid that day. It was a much smaller amount than any standing house was worth in my estimate, and a tiny fraction of what a waterfront property would have sold for only six months previously.

  “I don’t have that much money in the bank,” I said to Sally, and he handed me a document. Two sheets of paper, and I read it as we walked down the street to the bank. It was a loan agreement, between Sally and me, for the loan of monies for the purchase of said property. I didn’t read the entire document. I didn’t need to.

  “Sal, I don’t know if I’m comfortable having money come between us.”

  Sal frowned. “Aach. First, I never loan money I can’t afford to lose or aren’t prepared to hurt to get back, and I ain’t planning on hurting you. Second, you will pay me what you currently pay for rent, and at that rate this debt will be done within three years.”

  “I’ll own the house in three years?”

  “Free and clear.”

  “What’s the interest rate? That doesn’t seem long enough.”

  “Prime plus zero point two five, as of yesterday.”

  “Sally, I don’t know what to say.”

  “So shut up and sign.”

  I shut up and signed. Sally got two cashier's checks and we wandered over to the office of the comptroller, where he passed over the checks, and we each signed a document, taking possession of our respective properties, and then the lady at the counter handed us two sets of keys.

  “Have a nice day,” she said, returning to paperwork.

  I looked at Sal. “That’s it?”

  He nodded. “That’s it, kid.”

  “Seems somewhat anticlimactic.”

  “It ain’t nookie, kid. Let’s get back to work.”

  I drove Sally back to the store. The girl looked up at the tinkle of the bell on the door, and seeing us, folded up the magazine she had been reading and returned to the check cashing booth without a word. I thanked Sally again, and he grunted me away, and I made to leave and then noticed something in his store out of the corner of my eye. It was old aluminum baseball bat. I held it up.

  “How much?” I asked him.

  Sally appraised it like it was a Fabergé egg. “You get the hot dogs at the ballpark next time.”

  I smiled. “Deal.”

  I strapped the bat to my bike and headed toward the office, but my radar dragged me off course and I found myself wandering onto Singer Island. I didn’t feel excited, but something in me wanted to see this property, this house that was now my house. My home. I took the bat, and put the key in the front door and opened it. The house was just as I had seen it before, when the contractor from next door had let me in, but now it felt different somehow. It wasn’t a sense of ownership per se, rather a feeling that this house and I had wound our way through the previous three decades always destined to meet. I sat on the edge of the sunken living room and glanced around. It had been a long time since I had called somewhere home. I had lived in many places, places I had loved being. College in Miami, Modesto, Port St. Lucie, Palm Beach. And while I had always felt at home in Florida, right from my first visit as a teenager, there was, I realized, a difference between feeling at home and being at home. I wasn’t sure why I had bought the house. As much as anything it was to stop Sally hassling me about it. But that man knew things that maybe I would learn as an old man, or maybe he held wisdom I would never earn, but he knew. He knew I wasn’t in need of a house. I was in need of a home.

  I patted the bat in the palm of my hand, the soft metallic tink ringing through my bones, and then I stepped over to the sliding door. I dropped the bat into the track of the door, such that it couldn’t be slid open, even if the lock were picked by a palm frond. I wandered into the kitchen and looked at the space where a fridge should have been. I resolved to order a fridge, pronto . I also resolved to call Florida Power and Light and get the power turned on.

  I put my hand in my pocket to check I had both sets of keys, then walked out, locked up and went looking for the state attorney’s wife.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I DROVE OUT to Gun Club Road, to the criminal justice complex that was becoming too familiar. I parked in the large lot and called Lenny.

  “How’d it go, MJ?” asked Lenny, without a hello.

  “I am officially a property tax payer,” I said.

  “Excellent news. I’m sure you got a deal.”

  Of the century, I thought. “What’s Alec doing?”

  “Nothing. He’s in his office, staring at a computer. Not a single customer this morning. The only thing more boring than watching him work would be doing his work.”

  “Sally suggested I speak to someone at the sheriff’s office about the VINs on his cars.”

  “Yeah?” I heard the smile in his voice. “You know anyone at the sheriff’s office?”

  These guys were having too much fun at my expense. “I thought you might.”<
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  “I know a young deputy who might be willing to help.” He was having trouble stopping himself from laughing.

  “You know she’s married, right?”

  “Is that so?”

  “That’s what Sally told me,” I said.

  “That so.”

  “Yes, so you can quit with the jokes. ”

  “Jokes? What jokes? I’ll call if anything happens here.” He hung up on me.

  I looked at the phone, and then got out and walked into the sheriff’s office reception. I asked the civilian at the counter for Deputy Castle, and he made a call and told me to wait. I waited about ten minutes. The door buzzed, and Deputy Castle sauntered through. I was ready. I had practiced. I don’t mess with married women, or other men’s dogs, unless either are in grave danger. She was not in grave danger. I suspected she could handle herself in more situations than I could concoct.

  “Miami, this is a nice surprise.”

  “Yeah, I’m here in a professional capacity.” I was setting the ground rules firmly in place.

  She smiled and broke my heart. “Of course you are. How can I help you?”

  Let me count the ways . . . no, professional, that’s what this is. I outlined the situation with Alec and his cars, and showed her the photos of the vehicle identification numbers.

  She lowered her eyebrows. “How did you get these photos?”

  “The door was open. I walked in.”

  “Trespassing?” Her voice was stern but her eyes were soft, and I really needed her to stop looking at me like that.

  “There was no sign. I was just looking for the guy in charge.”

  “Did you find him?”