Repo Madness (11 page)

I slid in behind the wheel as Zoppi went around to the front. “Well, the goddamn battery's disconnected!” he shouted at me.

“Really?”

Zoppi moved the cable, and the second it touched the battery terminal, the interior lights came on and bells started to ping. I turned the key, and the engine caught. “Great!” I enthused. “Shut the hood!”

Zoppi reached up and slammed the hood down, and I had it in reverse and was backing away from him before he could even register what was happening. I kept going until I was twenty yards down the road, then pulled a snow-aided U-Turn and headed north to Traverse City.

“What if the battery cable falls off and the car stops?”
Alan asked worriedly.

I was watching my rearview mirror but saw no signs of pursuit. Maybe Zoppi was trying to start the motorcycle. “It won't stop. Once the engine is running, it keeps going, even if there's
no
battery.”

“I think you made a big mistake, Ruddy. Now Zoppi knows what you look like.”

“Good. Maybe next time he sees me, it will remind him to make his car payments.” I grinned at myself in the mirror, my soul full of the happiness that only making off with a good repo can give somebody.

“I wish just once that you would listen to me.”

“That's funny, because I wish just once that you would stop talking.”

Alan didn't have a retort for that one.

Half an hour later I pulled into the bank parking lot, went in, and asked to speak to Mr. William Blanchard.

*   *   *

William Blanchard was portly, with a neat, graying mustache and very short hair sparsely covering his head. He actually looked like a pretty friendly guy, and his handshake was warm and soft—hard to picture him hurting anyone; he looked like somebody's favorite uncle. He wore a sharp navy suit with a white shirt and a muted tie—a banker outfit, in other words. He blinked his light-brown eyes in surprise when I told him I had Zoppi's Cherokee in the back.

“That fast?” His face lit up in a boyish grin. “I just called it in to your boss yesterday.”

“It was right there at his place of business.”

Blanchard leaned back, his chair springs groaning in alarm as his considerable heft tested their strength. He seemed eager for details, so I walked him through my little ruse, and he laughed so hard, his face turned red. “Well, you are certainly the right man for the job,” he concluded.

I optimistically interpreted that to mean we had just landed the account for Kramer Recovery of Kalkaska. I wondered if Kermit would give me a bonus.

“Do me a favor. Shut the door a minute.”

The bank had locked the outer doors and most of the employees had left, but I did what Blanchard had requested. When I sat back down, his demeanor had changed somehow—less avuncular, more crafty, maybe.

“Something's going on,”
Alan suggested superfluously.

“So, Ruddy, I asked around about you,” Blanchard said, his eyes watching me unwaveringly. “I know you're an ex-con, and I heard some people were threatening your sister's business and you took care of them with, uh, extreme prejudice.”

Since that wasn't my interpretation of events, I opened my mouth to object, but he held up a hand.

“No, that's okay. Don't need to discuss that. Not why I asked you to shut the door. Have another job for you, something up your alley. Interested?” A small smile played at his lips, as if he had a wonderful gift he couldn't wait to give me.

I waited. I had stopped liking our Mr. Blanchard so much.

“All right,” he said decisively. “Here's the deal. Last summer I took a group of guys out on my boat for a weekend cruise. All businessmen, clients of the bank—important clients. Had drinks, had some, uh, female company, played poker, fished. All fun, right? And one of my guests, we'll call him John, wasn't so good at cards the first night. He's not from around here, but after he lost a couple grand at Texas Hold 'em, everyone warmed up to the guy. Liked him so much, in fact, that on the last night, just to give John a chance to get some of his money back, we all decided to raise the table stakes.”

“Let me guess what happened next.”

Blanchard nodded, giving a cold chuckle. “John's luck got better. A
lot
better. After a while I had to issue some markers to a few people, which was okay by me.” He shrugged. “I am a lender, after all.”

“And so now…,” I prompted.

Blanchard slapped his meaty hand on his desk, suddenly furious. “And now those sonofabitches got together and decided they were played. They said John hustled them. And get this: They voted—they
voted
—that they shouldn't have to pay their markers to me. I told them it wasn't my fault, that no one made them keep betting, and that I had to pay their debts to John, but
they don't care
.”

“I don't think this guy had to pay John anything, except maybe a fee to fleece his friends,”
Alan observed.

“Jesus,” Blanchard muttered, bringing himself under control. “So. All right. I've got forty-three thousand bucks outstanding between four guys. I need you to go collect it. By whatever means necessary,
capisci
?”

“He's asking you to go beat up a bunch of local businessmen. Can you believe this guy?”

“I may not be the right man for this particular job, Mr. Blanchard,” I replied slowly.

“I'll cut you in for ten percent of whatever you can squeeze out of those assholes,” Blanchard continued. “You get it all, I'll round it up to five thousand dollars.”

I stared at him for a long moment. “I'm in,” I said.

 

9

The One-in-Five Drop

Blanchard had a bank teller drive me back to the cherry stand where I'd parked. The guy looked like a twelve-year-old in a suit, a nice kid who tried to talk about basketball over Alan's strident insults. According to the voice in my head, I had agreed to become a contract gorilla hired to extort money from innocent businessmen.

“For chrissakes, Alan, all I agreed to is to go talk to a few people who owe some money. That's what I
do,
” I pointed out when we were alone in my vehicle.

“Blanchard said he told them if they didn't pay the money he cheated them out of, he was going to ‘send someone.' That's a pretty obvious threat.”

“Probably he meant he was going to hire Tony Zoppi. Oh no, wait. Tony doesn't even have a car.”

“Not funny.”

“Did you hear the part where I'm going to make five thousand dollars?”

“If you collect every penny.”

“Oh, I'll collect it, all right. Then, I don't know, take Katie on vacation. Maybe we'll go to Hawaii with the Wolfingers.”

“I obviously won't allow my daughter to date a hired thug,”
Alan said icily.

I didn't advise that I couldn't think of any way he could stop me, because I was moodily reflecting on what Katie might think of my new assignment. She might agree with her father's interpretation.

My phone beeped as I was pulling up in front of my house. I looked down and saw a smiley face emoticon, followed by one blowing me a kiss. “Yes!” I exulted.

“What's that? Did my daughter draw that with her phone?”

“Um…”

“She's always been so amazingly gifted.”

“And I'm not arguing with that, but actually the phone can sort of do it for you. They're called emoticons.”

“Really? So you can do one back?”

“Repo men don't send emoticons,” I replied darkly.

“Right, you just send facts. ‘I'm fine.' ‘I have to tend bar Saturday.' But when you send what I tell you to send, she draws a face blowing you a kiss, with a little heart.”

“I did not send what you told me to send,” I said testily. “Those were my words; you just suggested I make the text shorter.”

“Let's send her something back. Can you do a flower?”

Because the buttons were ridiculously tiny, I wound up sending her a heart, a flower, and a cheeseburger.

*   *   *

A slow night at the Black Bear. Buoyed by all the money I was going to make off Blanchard, I sent a couple of beers over to the Wolfingers' table. Claude was wearing a lei fashioned from what looked to be some flower-shaped earrings from Wilma's collection. Since Wilma's tastes ran hot pink and electric blue, the effect was less Hawaiian and more Lady Gaga. They were still in the happy phase of their drinking, and raised their mugs in good cheer. Claude gestured for me to join them, and I nodded that I would, in a minute.

Jimmy was behind the bar, fiddling with a new wine bottle opener Kermit had bought. He stuck a needle in the cork, pushed a button, and then pulled the opener out of the cork to an audible hiss. “I don't get it,” Jimmy muttered.

“It looks like it injects carbon dioxide into the bottle and forces the cork out,”
Alan observed pedantically.

“Here's an idea: Use a corkscrew,” I suggested.

“He should stop pulling the needle out. Just keep pushing the button,”
Alan urged, as if this was the most important issue facing humanity.

“Here.” I reached out, and Jimmy handed me the bottle. I shoved the needle in and put my thumb on the button, and the cork popped out with a champagne noise. “There, technology saves the world,” I pronounced. “So, Jimmy,” I said as I watched him pour a couple glasses of Chardonnay for some customers in the corner. “I met your buddy William Blanchard.”

He glanced up sharply, his dark eyes widening in alarm. “Yeah?”

I shook my head. “You don't have to worry about this guy. He's definitely a jerk, but he doesn't hurt people.”

“No, he hires you to do it for him,”
Alan observed snidely.

“He's as harmless as Tony Zoppi,” I said.

Jimmy frowned. “Who?”

“I still think, though, that being with a married woman is a really bad idea, Jimmy.”

The look he gave me then caught me up short. Jimmy's always been cheerfully black-and-white, shaking off adversity and facing the world with open optimism. It's an untroubled approach to life that I sometimes envy—I'm usually grappling with a little more complexity. But now in his gaze I saw deep conflict, a swirl of doubt and what-ifs.

“I don't know what to do,” he said, putting into words what his expression was already saying.

He headed over to the booth to give our customers their wine, and I pensively watched him go, his tread heavy and burdened. “That's the thing about relationships, isn't it? You want them, but then when you're in the middle of them, they can really mess with your mind,” I said aloud.

“Spoken like a true romantic,”
Alan scoffed.

Becky heard me talking—she was plating a shrimp quesadilla for the Wolfingers. Her look was wary—she knew all about Alan, but as far as she was aware, the voice in my head had gone away a long time ago.

“Just praising the female brain,” I told her.

She stopped on her way to serve the food. “You've got four messages from a Dr. Schaumburg. Who's he?”

“Sheryl was in some sort of skiing accident, I don't know what. He's my new temporary hard-assed doctor from hell.”

“Well”—she gave me a searching smile—“he wants you to call him. He was pretty emphatic.”

“I will, first thing in the morning,” I promised.

“Are you in trouble, Ruddy?”

“Nothing I can't handle.”

She gave me a small sister-to-brother smile. “Oh,” she said, remembering something, “and Kermit wants to talk to you. He said he'd come by, so stick around for a while?”

“Sure.”

“She looks good!”
Alan praised
. “I like her new hair color. That gray skirt fits her perfectly. Is that necklace new? Kermit give it to her?”

“Yeah, she's looking very nice,” I agreed shortly, irritated because he'd noticed things about my own sister that I hadn't.

Jimmy rejoined me. I watched him fool around with a rubber stopper and a pump that sucked the air out of the wine bottle, keeping the contents fresh, somehow. Until Kermit showed up, we never cared if there was any air in or out of our wine bottles—we just screwed the cap back on and let the stuff rot. Next Jimmy went to Kermit's computer system and tapped in the order, which was somehow superior to writing it on a piece of paper. The computer also held our work schedules, which I ignored. “Jimmy. I have a question for you. About … You know Katie is moving out, right? She's renting a place in East Jordan by where she works.”

“Yeah, Ruddy, Becky told me.” He gave me a searching look. “You okay?”

“Yeah, no, I'm fine. It's just that she said she needs some time to think. What does that mean? Got any ideas?”

“What do you mean, what does it mean? She needs time alone,”
Alan answered peevishly.

I blinked once, hard, to send a signal that I needed him to shut up.

“Well, look,” Jimmy replied uncomfortably, “Katie, I mean, she never has talked to me about it or nothing.”

“Right. I'm talking women in general, here. Which you seem to know more about.”

“Okay. Um, did you apologize?” he asked.

“For what?”

“For what?” Jimmy repeated, looking a little amused. “For, you know, everything.”

“I have no idea what you're saying to me.”

“She didn't move out for no reason. You're not listening to her.”

“I do too listen!” I snapped, agitated.

“Okay, sure,” Jimmy agreed soothingly. “Except she probably has been hinting at stuff you missed.”