“Jerry,” she said, “can you give me a minute?”
She wanted to talk to him, explain the situation and ask if he’d found anything in the car, more cash or guns or, well, anything. But when he turned around he had that irritated sneer on his face, ready to argue or mock her or do anything but listen.
“Well?” he said. “You got another problem needs me to fix it?”
“No, Jerry. It’s just . . . I was thinking . . .”
“Hope you didn’t hurt yourself.” That passed for humor to him, real wit.
“I was thinking you can go home early,” she said. “That’s all. It’s Friday, and we got some nice work in today, and you’ve done a good job this afternoon. So go on and get out of here. Enjoy the weekend.”
She walked away as the first flush of gratitude mixed with shame crept onto his cheeks.
6
__________
Getting out a little early on a Friday was no reason to disrupt your normal postwork routine, so Jerry drove directly to Kleindorfer’s Tap Room, had himself a bar stool and a Budweiser before the clock hit five. Carl, the bartender, took one look at him coming through the door and asked if the Stafford girl had finally fired him. Jerry didn’t bother to dignify that with a verbal response, electing instead to go with a simple but clear gesture.
It was early enough that the room was almost empty, a couple of out-of-towners drinking Leinenkugel in a booth, nobody at the bar except Jerry, nothing on the TV except poker. Give it a few minutes, they’d switch over to that show where the black guy and the white guy argued about sports, neither of them knowing a damn thing to start with. Jerry and Carl tended to have better ideas than those two.
Jerry sipped his beer and watched the muted poker game and simmered over Carl’s comment. It had been a joke between friends, no offense meant, but it riled him anyhow. Not so much at Carl for saying at it, more at his own life for the circumstances that produced the line. Jokes about working for Nora were constant. Could hardly get through a day without hearing one. She’d been there almost a year now. Showed up from Madison dressed to the nines, walked into the body shop wearing jewelry and perfume and with her long fingernails polished and told Jerry she was the new boss. Wouldn’t just own the shop, she intended to run the shop.
The afternoon Bud Stafford had his stroke, it had been Jerry who found him slumped under a Honda, his shirt smeared with primer from the fall onto the hood. Jerry knew it was bad; his hands shook while he dialed for the ambulance. At the time, though, he’d seen two possible outcomes—Bud would die, or he wouldn’t. The end result, this half-death, was a twist Jerry hadn’t considered. Nora’d called a few days after the stroke to ask him to keep the shop going while Bud was in the hospital. A week after that, she was in town and in charge. Jerry had tolerated it, because he figured Bud would come back. That’s what she kept telling him, insisting to him. Bud was going to be fixed up, and then he’d be back and she’d be gone, back down to Madison, finish up graduate school in art history, of all things.
He still couldn’t get his mind around that. Bud had been cutting that girl checks for years, putting her through school. Reasonable thing to do, providing the kid would accomplish something, walk out of there with a piece of paper telling the world she was useful, an engineer or an architect or a doctor, but Bud could never say what the hell she was going to do. Most practical man Jerry’d ever seen walk the earth would just shake his head and smile and say, “She’s a damn smart girl. I’ll let her learn, and when she’s done with that, she’ll do something big. Guarantee it, my man. She’ll do something big.”
Well, she wasn’t doing shit that Jerry could see except bitching a blue streak about things she didn’t understand and losing them business. End of every month, Nora would tell him that they’d kept the bill collectors at bay again, like it was something to be proud of. Didn’t realize those bills were paid only through a sort of pie-in-the-sky expectation that Bud would be back eventually. It kept a meager supply of work coming in. And, Jerry had to admit, kept him in the shop. So who was he to criticize the customers who did the same thing?
Ten, maybe fifteen minutes had passed while Jerry brooded—enough for a completed Budweiser and the order of a fresh one—when the door opened and closed behind him. Regulars finally showing up, he thought, until the new arrival sat down beside him. Long, lean guy with a shaved head and a tattoo on the back of his left hand, a weird symbol that meant nothing to Jerry. Had a camouflage jacket on over jeans and a T-shirt. Seventy degrees today, and both this guy and the one who’d come into the shop office to talk with Nora were wearing jackets.
Jerry turned back to the TV, and the new guy didn’t say anything for a few minutes, not till Carl brought his drink—vodka tonic—and returned to the other end of the bar.
“You work down at that body shop, don’t you?” the guy in the jacket said. “Stafford’s?”
Jerry turned and offered his favorite expression for making new acquaintances—sullen, with the lip curled just enough to imply a little disrespect.
“I don’t think I know you, pal.”
“My apologies,” the guy said, making a little bow of his head. “Name’s AJ.”
Jerry didn’t answer, just drank his beer and looked at the TV.
“So you work at the body shop, correct?”
“Uh-huh. And I don’t give free advice on cars, and I don’t look at them after work on a Friday. So you got one that needs fixing, bring it in Monday morning and we’ll—”
“The car I’m interested in is already there,” the guy named AJ said, and Jerry paused with the bottle back on his lips but no beer flowing yet. He lowered it.
“The Lexus?”
AJ smiled. “Either you guys don’t have much business, or you’re a smart son of a bitch, Mr. . . . ?”
“Dolson. Jerry Dolson.” He took another drink and turned all the way around to face AJ. “You want to tell me what the deal is with that car? Who the hell you are, and who’s the fella you’re looking for?”
AJ reached into the front pocket of his jacket and came out with cigarettes, shook one out, and offered the pack to Jerry, who accepted. They lit up and smoked for a minute, neither saying a word. A group of five came into the bar and settled onto stools beside Jerry, talking loud and laughing, yelling drink orders at Carl.
“You work for that girl?” AJ said. “She really run the place?”
Jerry scowled. He had enough headaches over working for Nora without some stranger walking into a bar and pointing it out.
“She doesn’t run shit,” he said. “I worked for her daddy for, hell, a number of years. He had himself a stroke, and for some reason the girl decided not to sell the place. Got this idea of keeping it going till Bud comes back. But you want to know who runs that place, you’re looking at him.”
AJ sucked at his cigarette and nodded, like this was just what he’d expected. “She doesn’t seem like the car-fixing type.”
“She ain’t.”
“Problem is, she also doesn’t seem like the question-answering type. Friend of mine stopped by today, had a few inquiries to make about that Lexus you mention. The girl, she wasn’t too cooperative. Put on a bit of an attitude.”
“That’s Nora, all right,” Jerry said. He finished his beer, and before he could wave for another, AJ did.
“I got this one.”
Jerry didn’t thank him, just accepted the drink and consumed a few swallows of it, feeling a nice light buzz beginning. Beer in his right hand, cigarette in his left, a fine start to the weekend.
“Now, you want to come in here and tell me that Nora gave you a headache, that’s fine,” Jerry said. “But you just said that she, how’d you put it? That she wasn’t the question-answering type.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, seems to me I just asked you a question of my own. Don’t recall it getting answered.”
He felt a smug smile growing as he lifted the cigarette back to his lips. This guy thin
k he was a total idiot? Come in here and bitch and moan about Nora, get Jerry loosened up to the point that he’d just forget about his own questions?
“Fair enough,” AJ said. He was using his thumb to clear a streak of condensation off his vodka glass. Not much of the vodka was gone.
“What I’m saying is, you want me to talk to you, you’re damn well gonna need to talk to me first,” Jerry said. “I don’t know you, I don’t know the son of a bitch drove that Lexus into the tree today, and I don’t have an interest in either one of you. Yet.”
AJ made one more swipe at the glass with his thumb, then lifted it and took a long drink before speaking, his eyes on the bar.
“Man who drove that Lexus, he’s of interest to me, Mr. Dolson. Not to you. Understand?”
“What did he do, steal something? Drugs, or money?”
AJ shook his head.
“What, then? What are you talking about?”
Silence.
“Your problem,” Jerry said, “is that you put that cute little box on the underside of the car instead of sticking it to the fella himself. You found the car all right, but your boy isn’t with it. Tough shit, huh?”
He laughed, and AJ lifted his eyes from the bar and locked them on Jerry’s, and then the laugh went away. This guy talked easy, voice soft and calm, but there was a steel edge inside him. It showed in the way he kept rubbing that glass with his thumb. Some people would do that out of boredom or nervousness. With this guy, it was different. Like with each stroke of his thumb he was tamping down embers in a place nobody else could see.
“You’re an observant man, Mr. Dolson,” AJ said, his voice tighter.
“Wouldn’t have seen it ’cept I had to take the car apart,” Jerry said, and suddenly he was wondering if he should have played this card, let the guy know he’d found the tracking device.
“What did the girl say when you told her?”
“Haven’t told her.”
“So you found it and . . .”
“Threw it in my locker and figured I’d think on it for a day or two.”
Something loosened in AJ’s face.
“You told me you don’t know me, or the guy who drove the Lexus,” he said. “Told me you aren’t interested in us. And I say that’s just right. You shouldn’t be interested in us. We’re about to move right out of your life. But you can make some money before that happens. I expect you understand that’s an opportunity not to let pass by. Easy money, from someone who has nothing to do with you?”
“You want the car?” Jerry said. “I ain’t gonna let you steal that car, man.”
“I don’t give a shit about the car. I want to know where its owner went. His name is Vaughn. I need to find him. Like you said, none of this has anything to do with you. No reason for you to protect him. Am I right?”
Jerry nodded.
“So you’ve got a decision to make, and as it stands now you’ve got no reason to support either option. How about I give you one? A thousand dollars cash. I’ll put it in your hand the minute you tell me where he went.”
There were more people in the bar now, and it felt too hot and too crowded. Jerry sipped his beer and squinted. Had that flushed, dizzy sensation like he’d get about seven or eight beers from now. Wished everyone would lower their damn voices, stop shouting and carrying on. He stared at the floor, trying to steady himself, saw that AJ wore a pair of shiny black boots, one of them tapping off the bottom rung of the bar stool. Tapping, tapping, tapping. Jerry got lost watching them.
“Not interested?” AJ said. “Okay. Then we’ll go on and get out of your life. Just like we would have anyhow. Only you’ll have nothing to show for it.”
“He didn’t tell Nora where he was going,” Jerry said.
“He’s not going to abandon that car. He might not show up for it, not for a while at least, but he’ll check in. He doesn’t want you guys to call the police, run his license plate, anything like that. You’ll hear from him again. When you do, I want to know about it. In exchange for the thousand.”
Jerry drank the rest of his Budweiser fast, some of the beer foaming out of his lips and dribbling down his chin, then slid the bottle away.
“How do I get in touch with you? If I decide to.”
AJ wrote a phone number on a bar napkin and passed it to him. Jerry glanced around, curious if anyone was watching him take this guy’s number on a napkin like he wanted a date.
“All right. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Excellent decision,” AJ said. “How do you feel about five hundred bucks up front?”
“Feel fine about that.”
“Give me the device you took off that car, and I’ll give you the five hundred. Gesture of good faith, on both our parts.”
“Can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Shop’s closed, and, uh, I don’t have keys anymore.”
His face burned when he said it. There were plenty of problems between him and Nora, but losing his keys, that was the most serious one. She’d come down one weekend and found him using the paint booth to put a fresh coat on Steve’s boat. Sort of thing he’d do from time to time, favor for a friend. Bud had known, and hadn’t cared. But Nora, she accused him of undercutting the business, of stealing paint—which was a bold-faced lie, Steve bought the paint—and disrespecting her. Demanded his keys. He’d never been as close to quitting as he was that day.
“You can’t get in all weekend?” AJ said.
“Not without Nora, and it sounded like you didn’t—”
“No.” AJ shook his head. “I don’t want her involved.”
“Well, Monday, then.”
AJ nodded after a long pause, resigned, and got to his feet.
“All right. You get in touch Monday, and I’ll get your wallet stuffed fat, Mr. Dolson. And now I’ll leave you to the rest of your evening.”
“Not till you buy me another beer, you won’t,” Jerry said. He felt good about saying that, pleased with the tone, insistent, demanding. Like he was in control.
AJ settled his tab, left a fresh beer in front of Jerry, and walked out of the bar, his boots loud on the floor. Jerry gave it a few seconds, then got to his feet and went to the window, leaned on the jukebox with a cigarette in hand and studied the cars in the parking lot, looking for AJ. Didn’t see him. How the hell had he gotten out of there so fast? Then his eyes rose from the cars and found him across the street.
It made Jerry frown. The guy wasn’t from town, he was certain of that, so he didn’t arrive in Tomahawk on foot. He had a car, but it wasn’t here now, which meant somebody had dropped him off at Kleindorfer’s Tap Room and gone elsewhere. Now this guy, AJ, he was walking in the direction of the body shop. Rankled Jerry a little. What did he need at the body shop after Jerry’d agreed to help him? He considered driving down there. It held him at the window for a moment, but eventually he shook his head and went back to the bar. The shop was closed, Nora was gone, and if this yahoo had any ideas about breaking in he’d just set off the alarm and draw the cops out. It was Friday evening, and Jerry’s vested interest in Stafford’s Body Shop was on hold till Monday.
7
__________
Nora hung the CLOSED sign on the front door as soon as Jerry left, and turned off the lights in the office with every intention of leaving early herself. The weekend stretched ahead, a chance to relax, get some much-needed Nora time. She’d spend an hour or two with her father and then be free of all responsibilities until Monday at eight. There was a pang of guilt at lumping the visit with her father into the responsibilities category, but she didn’t think anyone would blame her. They were difficult visits.
She was locking the back door of the shop when she remembered Frank. Damn it. She’d told him six. So used to staying late that it had seemed the most appropriate time to suggest. Now, with the shop closed and a sudden yearning for a shower and a change of clothes in her mind, that extra hour was torment. She stayed at the door for a moment before turnin
g the lock back with a sigh and stepping into the shop. There was nothing to do but wait.
It was dark inside, lit by just one emergency lamp above the door. Nora made her way through the room without bothering to turn on the lights, so familiar with the building that it was easy. She knew the placement of every tool by now, and knew their purposes. Navigated around the chain fall in the corner, frame rack beside it, paint booth behind that, toolboxes lining the walls. When she got to the office door, she took her keys out of her pocket but didn’t use them. There was a stool beside the door, and rather than enter the office she just sank onto the stool, pulled her feet up onto the seat and hugged her knees to her chest, sat there smelling the paint and the dust and staring at the shadow-covered room. Instead of building a garage divided into separate bays, her grandfather had simply jammed everything into one large warehouse, a space that cooked you in the summer and chilled you in the winter. Her father had upgraded the equipment over the years but never considered a new building. Though earlier in the day she’d told Jerry she’d been learning about the work that went on in here since she was a girl, she really remembered being inside only a handful of times, usually accompanied by her mother, who stalked around the place with an expression of haughty distaste.
They’d gotten divorced when Nora was six. It had been a marriage of whim and romance: Her mother was from old money in Minneapolis, and her father was third-generation Lincoln County, Wisconsin, son of a body shop owner who also drove a plow in the winter. He’d been bartending at a supper club up near the Willow when twenty-two-year-old Kate Adams arrived for a vacation with her parents and some cousins. The family bored her; Ronald “Bud” Stafford did not. He was tall and good-looking and appealing in a way that only an outdoorsman can be, but also quick with a joke and a compliment. It was supposed to be a summer fling. Only problem was, Kate didn’t realize that until Stafford had replaced Adams at the end of her name and a baby was on the way.
Envy the Night Page 5
