Lunatic's Game

by Margaret Lashley

  I considered computers—especially onboard computers—to be the ruination of life as I knew it.

  About the same time cars became equipped with them, I’d become equipped with boobs. Dad had given me the boot, and my cousin had gotten the benefit of sopping up all my father’s knowledge—and his time.

  With all Dad’s attention on Earl, my mother had finally gotten her chance to make me into a girl. It hadn’t gone so well. I guess by then I was too far gone.

  Mom and Grandma Selma didn’t know what to do with a girl who refused to wear a dress and who tied dolls to fence posts and shot out their eyes for BB-gun practice. After a while, they’d given up on the whole idea of domesticating me. “Don’t bother me and I won’t bother you,” became a routine which lasted until I took off for college.

  Even so, when Dad died and Mom up and ran off with Mr. Applewhite, it really threw me for a loop. I didn’t think she had it in her. Mom left me all alone to run the garage with Earl. I’d have fired the jerk on day one, but I didn’t know anything about those blasted onboard computers.

  So my cousin and I had formed our own sort of weird alliance. He’d remained head mechanic at my dad’s shop, and I’d become “the boss”—in other words, the person responsible for dealing with the bills, the customers, and the paperwork. But it was no “don’t bother me and I won’t bother you” relationship.

  Just the opposite.

  Earl and I bothered the hell out of each other—for sport.

  I stumbled to the bottom of the stairs and caught sight of my reflection in the mirror by the door. Nothing like forgetting you’re a bald cyclops to give you a friendly jolt in the morning. Better than a double shot of espresso.

  I gasped, fumbled back upstairs, and grabbed my wig. No time to fix my face. Thankfully, nobody expected much in the way of appearance from a mechanic. Secretly, I considered it one of the best perks of this whole lousy job.

  The door leading to the parking lot squeaked as I pushed it open. An orange streak of late-morning sun hit me across the face, making me wince like a three-eyed vampire.

  “This here’s the boss man, Bobbie Drex,” Earl said as I tumbled out the door and shuffled over to them. “Or, as we like to call her, ‘the boy with boobs.’”

  So much for establishing myself as the authority figure.

  I sneered at Earl. “Did I mention that you’re fired?”

  Earl grinned, confident in his irreplaceability. He nodded and deadpanned, “Yeah. Just let me go collect my severance package.”

  “It’s hard to find good help nowadays,” I said to the guy with the moustache, extending my hand for a shake.

  He wore an old fedora, which he tipped at me in an old-fashioned gesture of courtesy. As he did, I noticed he also had a knot on his forehead. Unlike mine, however, his was big enough to smuggle a boiled egg inside. His lip was busted as well. I figured he must’ve been in one hell of a bar fight recently.

  “Name’s William Knickerbocker,” he said. He winced slightly when he raised his hand to shake mine. “Or as some folks like to call me, ‘the boy without boobs.’”

  Everybody’s a smartass.

  “How about I call you Bill?” I said dryly.

  “That works, too. My vehicle’s about two and a half miles down the road that way.” Bill winced again as he raised his arm to point south down Obsidian Road. “I need a tow and repairs.”

  “What are you driving?”

  “An RV.”

  “I think we can help you out with that, Bill. But I’m not sure about you.” I took a furtive glance at his bulging forehead. “What are you? Some kind of professional barroom brawler?”

  He grinned. “No. But it’s amazing how often I end up looking like one.” He touched his forehead. “This is just your typical head-against-the-windshield goose egg.”

  My eyebrows ticked up a notch. “You were in an accident?”

  “Yeah. I think I hit a deer or something.”

  “A deer, you say.” I exchanged a knowing glance with Earl. Venison beat an empty stomach any day of the week, even if it was road kill. It was fine, as long as you got there quick enough.

  “What about you?” Knickerbocker asked, his eyes on the red knot between my eyes. “Where’d you get that beaut?”

  “Oh. I, uh ....”

  “She just had her demons exorcized,” Earl quipped.

  Knickerbocker’s left eyebrow shot up. I looked past his shoulder at Earl. He was standing behind Knickerbocker, out of his line of sight. His face was twisted into an idiotic expression aimed at making me lose my composure. I clenched my jaw to squelch the burning desire to kick Earl in the ass.

  “Earl, darling?” I said between my teeth, “When you’re done having a seizure, could you please give Bill here a lift back to his vehicle? Hook it up to Bessie and tow it back.”

  Earl’s face switched to his normal, easy-going grin. I hated how easily he could shift gears.

  “Yes, boss man.” He moseyed toward the garage’s only working service bay.

  Bill blanched. “Bessie? You’re going to pull my RV with a cow?”

  I snorted. “Not exactly.”

  The sound of an angry diesel engine thundered from inside the service bay.

  “That’s Bessie.”

  I nodded toward the garage. Knickerbocker turned around just as a huge, black, four-wheel-drive monster truck emerged from the bay. Equipped with a 540-horsepower Hemi engine and tractor tires taller than me, Bessie could yank Godzilla out of Tokyo.

  Earl steered the massive truck out of the garage and idled it next to Bill and me. “Hop in,” he said to Knickerbocker.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a stepladder, would you?” Bill asked.

  “Fresh out.” I patted my pockets. “Earl, Bill here said he hit a deer. Be sure and check that out.”

  Earl winked. “Yes, boss man.”

  Knickerbocker reached over his head to open Bessie’s passenger door. He grunted as he hauled his tall, lanky body inside the cab. The effort made him wince and lick the seam on his busted lip.

  He closed the door and Earl hit the gas, tearing another pothole in the crumbling asphalt parking lot. The pair disappeared past the flashing yellow light and down Obsidian Road.

  Once they were out of sight, I slipped into the garage, unfastened the padlock on the electrical box, and flipped over a few breakers. A couple of overhead lights blinked on, and an air compressor began to hum.

  I smiled to myself. I didn’t care if Knickerbocker was a tourist, a weirdo, or even an escapee from nearby Stark Prison. With any luck, the repairs on his busted vehicle would generate enough money that I could pay last month’s light bill.

  Chapter Ten

  FROM MY APARTMENT ABOVE the garage, I spotted Bessie passing underneath the flashing yellow light at the intersection. Hitched to the monster truck’s rear was the most dilapidated hunk of junk I’d seen since my last trip to the county dump.

  Crap. So much for hitting the mother lode. I guess I’m gonna need Detective Paulson’s twenty bucks after all.

  As I watched Earl ease the rusty, algae-covered hulk of an RV into the service bay, I punched a number into my cell phone.

  “Paulson? It’s Bobbie Drex here with a case update.”

  “Well, don’t you sound all official-like. Let me guess. Vanderhoff’s got early onset Alzheimer’s?”

  “Good one. No. I think there may be more to it than that. I drove by the A&P last night. There was some weird guy hanging out in the parking lot in a yellow Volkswagen Beetle.”

  It was a lie. There hadn’t been so much as an alley cat roaming the parking lot. But if my mother had taught me anything, it was that if you gave someone enough detail, you could make anything sound plausible. Besides, it was for a good cause. I was flat broke. I needed to keep his twenty bucks in play.

  “Really?” Paulson said. The news seemed to catch him off guard. “Did you get a license plate number?”

  My throat tightened. “No.” />
  “So what’s the possible connection between the Volkswagen and the calls Vanderhoff’s getting?”

  I cringed. “Well, I don’t know. I didn’t say I cracked the case. I just have a gut feeling there’s more to Vanderhoff’s story than your theory that a beauty parlor hairdryer cooked her brains.”

  “Right. Speaking of which, have you gone by Beth-Ann’s to check out the hairdryer?”

  Crap. I should have thought of that when I was at her place yesterday.

  “It’s on my follow-up list for today.”

  “Good. Just do me a favor.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t go chasing strange vehicles around in the dark. At least, not without me.”

  I grinned. “No worries there, I promise.” That wasn’t a lie. I didn’t have money to waste on gas. The Mustang only got fifteen miles to a gallon—on a good day. Downhill.

  “Okay. Call me when you’ve got something,” Paulson said.

  “Roger that.”

  I clicked off the phone and tromped down the stairs and over to the service bay. When I got there, Earl was deep under the hood of the RV, giving Knickerbocker the diagnosis on his raggedy-ass vehicle.

  “Threw a rod,” Earl was saying. “Right through the gear shaft.”

  I wasn’t sure if Earl was being serious or had just delivered the punchline to the joke I’d expressly banned him from telling. I checked Knickerbocker’s face. He seemed unconcerned either way.

  “Can you fix it?” Knickerbocker asked.

  Earl shrugged. “Sure. But do you really think it’s worth spending the money on this old hunk—”

  I kicked Earl in the shin. Hard. His surprised eyes met mine, and I shot him a look that could curdle a fresh paint job. He winced and rubbed his leg.

  “Uh ... this old classic?” Earl fumbled. “I mean, I have to say, sir, she’s a real beauty.”

  Knickerbocker’s battered face sagged a little more. He let out a sigh. “Listen. I know she’s no looker, but she’s got sentimental value. Do what you can for her, would you?”

  “Don’t you want to know the cost first?” Earl asked. He glanced over at me and withered again under my angry glare.

  Bill shook his head. “No. Whatever it costs, it’s okay.” He turned to me. “As long as you take cash, that is.”

  “We definitely take cash,” I blurted before Earl had a chance to say anything else stupid. He might’ve been a mechanical genius, but he was the crappiest salesperson on Earth.

  “We’ll get to work on it right away,” I said. “Earl will figure out the parts you need. You put down a deposit that pays for the parts, and we’ll get them ordered right away.”

  Knickerbocker smiled absently. “That sounds good. How long will it take to fix?”

  “I’d say not more than three to six days,” Earl said, “depending on availability of parts.”

  “You have someplace to stay?” I asked Knickerbocker.

  “I can’t stay in the RV?”

  “No. It’ll be up on the lift.”

  “And maybe in a few pieces, I suspect,” Earl said.

  Knickerbocker shrugged and smiled in a vague, pained kind of way. “Then I guess I’m going to need a place to stay.”

  “I’ve got a small in-law apartment upstairs. I could rent it to you for say, eighty-nine dollars a night?”

  Knickerbocker looked at me strangely, and let out a groan. His eyes rolled up into his head, and he collapsed backward, right into Earl. My cousin caught him by the torso, and laid him out on the floor of the service bay like a side of beef.

  “I’d a passed out, too,” Earl said. “You shouldn’t a gone over fifty-nine bucks, tops.”

  “This isn’t funny, Earl. The guy may have a concussion or something. Help me get him up the stairs.”

  “Shouldn’t we call a doctor?”

  “Who? Dr. Greenblatt? He moved away two months ago.”

  “Oh yeah.” He looked me in the eyes. “Good thing you and me can’t afford to get sick.”

  I didn’t try to argue with Earl’s logic. It made more sense than anything else going on at the moment. I grabbed Knickerbockers legs, Earl his shoulders, and we toted him toward the stairwell. As I wrangled the door open with an elbow, Earl’s stomach growled.

  “Oh. I searched around, but couldn’t find no signs of a deer. This feller here must’a hit something else.”

  I sighed. “So much for venison stew.”

  I STARED AT THE STRANGER sprawled out in Grandma Selma’s old bed. Earl and I had carried Knickerbocker upstairs to her tiny in-law apartment. It was attached to my parent’s place by a short breezeway. I hadn’t been inside it for months and the air inside smelled faintly of her perfume.

  We’d laid Knickerbocker on the bed and pulled his shirt off to assess him for injuries. Between his neck and left shoulder, we’d discovered a large bruise ringed with broken skin. It was sort of oval-shaped, and as big as the bottom of a plastic jug of Castrol Motor Oil.

  I’d figured the injury must’ve come from the shoulder strap on his seatbelt. Knickerbocker’s RV was too old to have airbags to soften the impact. Earl, on the other hand, had insisted the injury was a Sasquatch bite. I’d shot him another choice selection from my repertoire of scathing looks, handed him my life savings, and sent him off to the A&P to fetch some aspirin, rubbing alcohol, and two cans of chicken soup, whatever was cheapest.

  While Earl was away, I’d stayed behind to keep an eye on our unanticipated patient. Equipped with the hospital’s handy-dandy concussion watch list, I sat on an old wicker settee and intermittently glanced over at Knickerbocker, biding my time by scanning articles from a selection of outdated magazines I’d filched from the recycle bin at Beth-Ann’s.

  I was engrossed in a fascinating article on new and exciting ways to reinvent green bean casserole when Knickerbocker groaned. I jumped up and sprinted to his side.

  “Are you okay, Mr. Knickerbocker?”

  He opened his eyes. Either his irises were black, or his pupils had swallowed them whole.

  “Mr. Knickerbocker?”

  His eyes pointed in my direction, but whether he could see me or not, I couldn’t tell. He muttered something that sounded like a foreign language, then shifted his dazed eyes to his left, as if he was searching for something.

  “It’s okay,” I said soothingly. “You’re okay.” I touched his arm. He jerked it away.

  “Mr. Knickerbocker!” I said louder. “You’re okay. Can you hear me?”

  “Huh?” He grunted, and turned back toward me. His dilated pupils were now rimmed with green.

  “You’re safe with me,” I said.

  “Where am I?” he asked.

  “My grandmother’s apartment. You passed out.”

  “Oh.”

  “I sent Earl for supplies,” I began, then heard a rumble. I went to the window. Earl was pulling Bessie into the parking lot. I walked back over to the bedside. “I don’t mean to be crass, but I’ll need money before we can go any further.”

  Knickerbocker’s head lolled on the pillow. He glanced down at his naked chest. “Go any further? Are we ... uh ... did we just—?”

  My back bristled with Southern indignation. “Before we can order parts. For your RV.”

  “My RV?”

  “Yes. You said you hit a deer.”

  “Oh. Deer. Right. Did it survive?”

  My eyebrows inched closer together. “I don’t know. We didn’t see any signs of it around the accident site.”

  “Why am I here ... in this bed?”

  “You fainted. You hit your head in an accident. You walked here. We towed your RV? You don’t remember?”

  “Uh ... sure. But why am I half naked?” Knickerbocker lifted the sheet and took a peek under it. “You didn’t see my ... uh ... lizard, did you?”

  A snort of laughter erupted behind me.

  I turned to see Earl standing there holding a paper grocery sack. He grinned at Knickerbocker, then smirked at me. “Bee
n a long time since this one here’s seen a lizard.”

  Knickerbocker reached up and touched the goose egg on his forehead. His brow furrowed. “So you didn’t see it?”

  “I didn’t,” Earl said. “But I can only speak for myself.”

  I punched Earl’s arm. “Hush. He’s delirious.”

  I turned to Knickerbocker. “Now you lay back and let me disinfect your wounds.”

  “You remember what bit you?” Earl asked as I took the bag, opened the bottle of alcohol, and poured some onto a wad of toilet tissue.

  “Bit me?” Knickerbocker asked.

  “He’s talking about the wound on your shoulder.” I shot Earl some side-eye, then sat on the edge of the bed beside Knickerbocker. I dabbed at the half-circle of bruised, slightly broken flesh.

  Knickerbocker winced. “Feels like a cracked clavicle,” he said. “Must’ve been the seatbelt.”

  I turned and sneered at Earl. He crinkled his nose back at me.

  “I hate to bring this up,” Earl said, “but it’d be good to get some money down on those parts before the supply stores close for the day.”

  “Parts?” Knickerbocker asked.

  “Your RV threw a rod, remember?” I asked.

  “Sure.” Knickerbocker tried to sit up, but fell back onto the pillows. “Sorry. I feel ... uh ....”

  “Should I call a doctor?” I asked. “You don’t look so good.”

  “No doctors!” Knickerbocker said with more energy than I thought he had left in him. He tried to sit up again, but gave up and leaned back on the pillows. “I hate doctors.”

  Earl’s eyebrows raised to his shaggy hairline. “I hear that.”

  “Look. In the glove compartment,” Knickerbocker said. “I keep money in there. Take whatever you need.”

  My right eyebrow arched. “Aren’t you worried we might ... you know ... cheat you?”

  “Yeah. Or rob you blind or something?” Earl added.

  Knickerbocker studied us both through a pair of half-dilated, bloodshot eyes.

  “Don’t take this personally,” he said. “But from the looks of you two, I don’t think you’ve got enough ambition for anything like that.”