by Thom Whalen
* * *
Russo was smaller than Wemsley – almost not a town at all – so there was no chance of missing Dino’s Service Station. It was the only place to get gas within a twenty-mile radius.
Randal parked at the pumps. “Fill it with regular,” he told the guy who ambled out of the little office. I could see nothing but dirt through the fly-specked picture windows.
I didn’t want to see what the washrooms looked like.
While the gas jockey was wiping dirt onto Randal’s windshield with a red, greasy rag that had never been anything but a greasy rag, Randal said, “I heard that a guy named Johnny Paul works here.”
“You heard right. What business do you got with him?”
Neither Randal nor I had any doubt that we were already speaking to Johnny. He might or might not be a mechanic like he told his mother, but his main job here was pumping gas. I suspected that he seldom did anything more complex than changing oil or plugging a punctured tire. At least, not for anyone who valued their vehicle. The who-the-hell-cares air that he brought to the simple task of cleaning a windshield would be disastrous when applied to a complex, temperamental, internal combustion engine.
“I’ve got sorry news about his brother, Billy,” Randal said.
“What’s wrong with Billy?”
“Someone killed him the week before last.”
Johnny stopped wiping grease onto the windshield and looked at Randal with an expression that I could not interpret. I didn’t know if he was about to collapse in tears, punch Randal in the face, or run away in horror.
He settled for asking, “You making a sick joke?”
“No. I’m sorry. It should have been the cops who come around, but they’re not exactly on the ball out here.”
In the absence of the authorities, it should have been his mother who was phoning all her children with the grim news. We’d been on the road for almost an hour so she should have had time. But maybe not if she had a lot of calls to make and Johnny was low on her priority list. Especially if she had to call Chief Albertson first and get the details about the release of her son’s body.
Johnny didn’t collapse in tears but he dropped his hands and hung his head. “I guess it was going to happen sooner or later,” he said, “but it’s still a shame. Billy might have got his act together if he’d had more time. Goddamn. It’s a shame. A goddamn shame.”
The pump dinged. Randal topped the tank to five even, then put the nozzle back into its slot and recapped his gas tank himself. I turned my head and watched him to give Johnny a moment of privacy.
“Let’s go inside for a bit,” he said to Johnny and led the way into the office.
I followed.
Randal took a five from his wallet and laid it on the register.
We waited for Johnny to speak first.
“How?”
“Stabbed. In the heart. It was quick. He didn’t suffer any.”
“Where?”
“Wemsley.”
Johnny looked at Randal. “What the hell was he doing in Wemsley?”
“I don’t know. He was staying at a campsite there for a few days.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“They get the guy who did it?”
“No. The cops don’t know who they’re looking for yet.”
There was a long silence, and then Johnny looked up at Randal. “Who are you?”
“I’m Randal,” Randal said. “This is Gunner.” He gestured to me.
That was how I got my nickname. I guess Randal didn’t think that Phil sounded tough enough to be his sidekick.
“What’s Billy to you?”
“An associate. Not a close friend but he had something of mine and I think the people who killed him stole it. I want to find out who did it so I can get my stuff back.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“A watch. A Rolex Oyster. Belonged to my father. It has sentimental value.”
“Billy steal it from you?”
“No. We were square. I let him hold it as collateral on a business deal. The deal was done a while ago so it was time for him to give it back to me.”
I realized that Randal had worked out this story after meeting Billy’s mother. He made it sound like he and Billy were partners in some kind of drug deal. The illicit nature of their implied business kept Johnny from asking dangerous questions. It was a good strategy.
“I don’t know who killed him.”
“I’m sure that you don’t,” Randal said. “But you can tell me who he was tight with. Somebody knows somebody who knows something. We’re just starting to talk to people.”
“I don’t know who he was tight with. Not recently. He… He’d gone… Not gone bad. Not exactly. More like gone wild. He wanted to be wild. Live outside the rules. He wasn’t an outlaw but he wanted to be like an outlaw. You know. Not break the law but live outside the law. He didn’t want anybody telling him what to do and what not to do. I couldn’t talk to him any more. He talked about being free and being his own man and riding a different road than everyone else. It was like he was afraid of being successful and having a house and a family. Afraid of being normal. He thought that I was a fool for working a nine-to-five job here and trying to save enough to buy a house and get married. He tried to get me involved in business with him but I didn’t want to give up my job. He looked down on me for working for the man.” He snorted. “Like old Mr. Jackston is some kind of corporate tycoon. I don’t know what Billy wanted. I don’t think he knew, either, but whatever it was, he was sure that there was an easier way to get it than by buckling down and working hard.”
I remembered how Johnny cleaned Randal’s windshield and wasn’t convinced that he worked all that hard, either. But I’m sure he put in the hours, so that counted for something.
Johnny looked at Randal with sad eyes. “You think the business that he had with you was going to make him rich?”
Randal shook his head. “It was small potatoes. Walking around money. There’s no way to make a lot of money in any business without working at it.”
Johnny nodded his head. “That’s what I always figured.”
The bell dinged.
Johnny twisted his head reflexively toward the pumps.
“It’s all right,” Randal said. “Gunner’ll get it.” He looked at me and waited.
I’d never pumped gas in my life but I wasn’t going to argue with Randal. Nobody ever argued with Randal. It’d be like arguing with a coiled rattlesnake.
I sauntered out to the Buick parked on the other side of the pump from Randal’s little pickup.
A middle-aged man with a cigarette stuck between his teeth rolled down the driver’s window and said, “Johnny here?”
“He’s in the office. He’s busy. I’m filling in.”
The man shrugged. “Fill it with premium. This baby deserves the best.”
“Nice car,” I said to buy myself some time.
“Sixty-five Skylark,” he said. “Great car. Seventy thousand on her and I’ve never had the head off. By now, it’s settled into a single unit with the block. I don’t put in a drop between oil changes.”
“That’s great.” I had no idea what he was talking about. I expect that he didn’t, either. He had a rote delivery that sounded like he was just spouting off something that he’d once heard someone else say and had repeated it a lot ever since.
I wished that I’d watched closer when Johnny had filled Randal’s truck. I took the nozzle out of its slot in the pump. That had to be the first step. It was heavier than I expected.
“Hey, sport, I said premium!” The driver sounded a little angry.
“Oh, right,” I said. “Sorry. I haven’t been doing this for long.”
“This your first day, son?”
“Yes.” I grabbed the nozzle from the other pump and began looking over the car.
“You open the little door at the back.”
I fiddled with it for a moment and it pop
ped open.
There was a steel cap behind it. I unscrewed it and put it on the trunk. Then I stuck the nozzle into the hole.
When I squeezed the handle on the nozzle, nothing happened. I waited. Still nothing.
“You got to turn on the pump, kid.”
I looked at the pump.
“It’s that lever beside where the nozzle goes. Turn it up.”
I pulled and pushed at the big steel lever next to the slot. When it turned, the number wheels on the pump spun to show all zeros. When the lever was in that position, it blocked the slot. Weird. Then I figured it out. It was a safety feature. You couldn’t put the nozzle back without pushing the lever back down and turning the pump off.
This time, I could hear gas flowing into the car when I squeezed the trigger on the nozzle. The wheels kept spinning on the pump.
How would I know when to stop?
“How much do you want?” I called to the driver, hoping that he would specify a number.
“Fill it,” he called back.
That was no help at all. I tried listening to the gas flow, hoping that I would hear a change in the sound as it neared the brim.
Suddenly, the trigger clicked and went limp in my hand. The gas stopped flowing. The nozzle had an automatic cutoff when the tank was full. It must be activated by backpressure. That was clever.
I returned the lever to the off position and returned the nozzle to the slot. Success.
I looked at the pump and told the driver, “Fourteen dollars and thirty cents.” The wheel wasn’t exactly on the three, it was closer to four, but I rounded it down for the driver.
“No, son.”
I looked back at the pump and checked the numbers. “Yes. Fourteen thirty.”
“No, son. That’s the number of gallons that you pumped. The price is the other number.”
“Oh. Right.” I looked at the pump again. I hadn’t noticed the dollar sign that was printed next to the upper numbers. “Six ninety-one.”
He sighed. “You could have topped it up to an even seven, you know.”
“Oh, okay,” I stepped back toward the pump.
“No, kid. It’s too late now. You’ve turned the pump off. You can’t pump another nine cents now.” He handed me a five and two ones. “Don’t bother with the change.”
As soon as I took the money, he turned the key. The engine roared to life. He gunned it and squealed away from the pumps.
I’d successfully pumped my first tank of gas. I hoped that it would be my last.
As I watched him get to the road, I saw his gas cap bounce off the trunk where I’d left it and fall to the road. “Hey!” I yelled, waving my arms, but he wasn’t looking back.
I walked to the road and picked up the man’s gas cap.
Randal was at the truck when I got back to the pumps. “Get in,” he said. “We got to go see a guy in Utica.”
“He lost his gas cap.” I held it up for Randal to see.
Randal shook his head. “Put it on top of the pump and let’s get out of here.”
I put the gas cap on the flat top of the pump and then climbed into Randal’s pickup.
We were halfway to Utica before I remembered that I still had the gas station’s seven dollars in my pocket. I’d kept a lot more than the nine cents change. Not only did Johnny lose a brother, but the pump and register weren’t going to reconcile at the end of his shift.
I didn’t mention that to Randal. I just hoped that Johnny’s boss was a forgiving fellow.
