Switcheroo (17 page)

Chapter
30

I felt really good.  I saw the sky
and the clouds moved slowly and kind of winked at me.  Then they flowed past
like an inverted river made of cotton balls.  I turned my head and the trees on
the side of the road did their own version of the wave, but without yelling and
cheering like a football crowd.  The only sounds I heard was the light breeze
blowing in my dizzy ears and a few birds chirping away the afternoon.

This dreamlike like state lasted
for a few minutes, then I began to realize that while the azure sky was
beautiful, I was cold.  And then there was a distant feeling.  It started like
that nagging feeling that one has forgotten something, like maybe leaving the
iron on or not taking your multi-vitamin. The feeling grew; bigger than
forgetting to pay a monthly bill or a forgetting a loved one’s birthday.

Then it landed full in the lap of
my mind, the mental equivalent of wetting one’s pants while standing in front
of a classroom chalkboard trying to spell phenomenon.  It was a realization. I
was sure that I had told Slink where the truck was.  I tried to rub my eyes,
but my hands were taking their sweet time on the way to my face.  I settled for
closing my eyes tightly and opening them again. I repeated this several times.
When I opened them there was a blurry head in my view.

“Man, he’s gone now. Try to sit
up.”  I latched on to his arm.  It was in a cast.  Sitting up took me a minute.
Mental clouds were clearing.

“Fred Smithey, right?” I slurred.

“Right, Fred Smithey,” he sounded
reassuring. “Mr. Chandler hired me to follow you. I’m sure you know this now so
there is no harm in telling you. Pinkerton wouldn’t like it though, you know,
interfering with the subject of the investigation.”

I looked up at Fred.  He looked a
little less pasty-faced but he had a huge cast on his right elbow. He still had
his shabby old dude look. He had on a loose sweater with a shirt and tie. His
suit would not fit over the cast. I sat there, rubbing my temples.

“Okay, I won’t tell anybody you
saved me. How long has Slink been gone?”

“Ten minutes.”

“Not very long.”

“Yeah, whatever he hit you with
wore off pretty fast.”

I clutched my coat pocket. No
phone.

“You gotta car, right?”

Fred nodded.

“Good. And a cell phone?”

“Yeah.”

“Good, because it is all starting
to come back to me now.”

Riding in Fred Smithey’s rented
Chrysler, I was formulating a plan.  I used Smithey’s cell phone and holding it
to what was left of my head.  Trees and power lines passed by.  I had rolled my
window down. I needed a drink. I needed something to smoke. I needed the most
expensive picture from the Waffle Hut menu.  What would that be, about $6.99,
maybe? None of these things were available and I had no time.

“Handy Self Storage, Can I help
you?” A woman answered.

“Wysinski, please.”

“This is Mrs. Wysinski.  The
mister is not feeling well today.”

“I need to talk to him. It’s an
emergency.”

“Call 911 then, he is laid up.”

“I know he is there Mrs. Wysinski,
I just need him for ten minutes.  Will you put him on the phone?”

“Okay.  I didn’t want to say it,
but he is a little drunk.  He started drinking again after he thought he saw a
truck that was wrecked but it was not really wrecked. He says the truck
repaired itself. He’s worthless right now.”  She blurted. Her Jersey accent
sounded like a chainsaw on a chalkboard to my southern ear.

“Is he conscious?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Put him on!”

There was a pause and rude
comments could be heard as Mrs. Wysinski did a poor job of covering up the
receiver. After some scuffling sounds I hear him answer.

“Wysinski.”

“Hi, this is Rust Stover.  I’m the
one whose unit got broken into.  The one with the truck.”

“The truck that was wrecked and
then it wasn’t. Yeah?”

“Right.  I need you to go to the
new unit and connect the battery on the truck.  Can you do that?”

“That truck spooks me. I don’t
like it.” He whined.

“There is nothing wrong with my
truck.  Look, I’ll be there soon, but I need you to do this. Please.  I’ll give
you fifty bucks when I get there.”

“All right, it’s not that damn
spooky. It’ll cost you a hundred,” He hung up.

Fred Smithey slowed down. I looked
at him.

“You want your car?”

We were about to pass Slink’s
place. A clearing in the line of fall trees on the left revealed my Crown Vic
parked in front of Slink’s double wide.

“No time.  Keep going to the next
trailer on the left.”

When I regained consciousness by
the side of the road, I realized I had told Slink the location of Tammy’s truck
at the Handy Self Storage. I remembered Slink accidently telling me that Partee
lived next door. Slink had a bad habit of answering questions without
thinking.  He had tried to call Partee but could not reach him by phone. Now, I
just knew, or at least hoped, that the truck was hidden on Partee’s property.

I should have known, nothing could
be that easy.  We passed Slink’s trailer and after a few seconds the trees
cleared again revealing Partee’s compound.

On a bent pole there was a crooked
mailbox that read ‘Partee’ in hand-painted letters. The short drive ended
abruptly in a ten foot razor wire fence. A quick glance around showed that the
fence surrounded the whole half-acre property.

Inside the fence were several
sheds, a very small barn and a 1970's era mobile home that was three different
colors: dirty white, rust red and mildew.

There were also several Camaros
and a Mustang.  All were in various states of decomposition, sort of an
automobile body farm. The height of the underbrush growing out of the fender
wells indicated the length of time each one had been sitting.

“There. The big shed. That is
where I will find the truck,” I said without looking at Fred.

“How you gonna get in? I see a
lock.”

“You ever seen the movie ‘Fight
Club’?”

“No, I like comedies.”

“Well, Ed Norton throws a rug over
a razor wire fence to go in and steal pork fat to make soap.”

“Great. But you don’t have a rug.”

“No?  But you do. There’s one
covering the spare tire in the trunk of every rental car.”

Feeling better now, I leaped from
the car, and slapped the trunk lid twice. Fred reluctantly popped the hatch and
I removed the carpet from the trunk.

Holding the rug, I walked toward
the fence, thinking about how to get my two hundred pounds over it.  I snapped
out of it when I saw a mongrel come running up from the back of the property. 
This brown and white dog was of no particular breed, but he did look hungry. 
He was not as big as Slink’s dog, but was showing teeth and growling in a
familiar way.

“I really shouldn’t be helping
you. The agency does not want us interfering with subjects of investigations,” 
Fred said, walking up behind me.

“Whatcha got?” He had something in
his hand.

“Half a bag of Krispee Creme
Crullers,” he handed me the bag. “Great for stake outs and distracting dogs.”

“Thanks.” I took the bag, laid the
rug down and checked for my key ring. “This truck has been wrecked.  Tammy gave
me a key to both of them. I am gonna try to drive it through the gate so we can
move it to another location.  Then I will teleport to Knoxville as long as
Wysinski got the battery on the other truck hooked up.

I had Fred back the rental car up
to the gate and I stood balanced on the trunk lid while I put the carpet over
the razor wire.  Partee’s uppity pooch was growling and barking the whole time
I was doing this. I took a deep breath and threw the first cruller. The dog
trotted to it and the cruller disappeared in one gulp and turned back to me.
Damn donuts were too starchy.  A slab of meat would have been better.  I had
been playing around for twenty minutes; soon the enemy would have the other
truck.

In rapid fire, I threw four
crullers about ten feet apart. Then I flipped my body over the fence, tearing
my pant leg as I slid down the rug to the ground and ran for the small barn. I
could see the damaged front clip of the truck.  The dog had snapped up the last
cruller and I could hear him coming after me.  I dropped more crullers and kept
running.  I got to the barn and jumped into the truck bed landing with a thud.

A fleshy smack hitting the side of
the truck bed followed my thud. The dog hopped and barked but could not quite
jump into the truck bed. I tossed the rest of the crullers into the yard and
the pooch split for a moment.

That moment gave me time to hop
out of the bed and into the driver’s seat. I stretched my leg straight as I
fished for my keys.  The first key I chose turned and I prayed to truck would
run.  I turned the key and the engine turned over but wouldn’t catch.  I tried
two more times. No dice. I rolled down the window a crack.

“Fred, the truck won’t start.  You
can leave now.  It’s been nice knowing you!”

Using the cheap pen I found in the
dash, I changed the digital clock on the dash to three seventeen and waited.

Chapter
31

I realized that I was beginning to
disintegrate.  It was really upsetting until the disintegrating got to the part
of my brain that does the worrying. Then all that was left for a second was the
part of my brain that digs roller coasters and it said ‘Whoopee!’ as my mind,
body and spirit broke into their most basic particles and were flushed down an
interspatial quantum drain toward Knoxville.

Recounting the teleportation
journey is not possible because my memory was not intact.  I do not recall
arriving at the other end of the journey. When I regained consciousness, I was
sitting in a stalled Ford truck in the dark drooling on myself.  I closed my
mouth and wiped my lip, feeling foolish, even though no one was looking and no
one could see me.

I sat forward a little and looked
out through the windshield.  I could see a line of light in front of the
truck.  My vision adjusted and I realized that the truck was now in my stock
and lock garage at Handy Self Storage.  It worked!  It still worked.  I had
teleported. I was okay.  Arms, legs toes, family jewels, mind, soul.  All
there.  Adrenaline was flowing the way it does when you have swerved and
avoided a head-on collision with a semi truck.

One thing occurred to me as my
heart beat slowly tapered to normal.  Andrew Chandler had told me that many
theories stated that if a person could be teleported, the original person would
be destroyed in the process and the person that came out on the other side
would be like a clone.  It also occurred to me that this was silly.  Of course
I was me sitting here thinking these thoughts. If I was someone else I would
know it.  Then it came to me that if I as an exact duplicate, I wouldn’t know
the difference. I wouldn’t even know I was a clone.  I wanted to turn my brain
off before it turned inside out with pretzel thoughts.

Before I could untwist my brain
the garage door rolled up loudly and both my retinas were burnt silly.

My vision began to clear.  I could
make out two people, one bigger than the other.   As I squinted through the
glare I could see that the smaller person was Slink.

The other I guy I knew I had not
met before.  He was tall and had shoulders that spelled farm strength.  Below
each of his T-shirt sleeves was a slab of beef.  Above his Cotton Eyed Joe
T-shirt was a bald head with two-day stubble.  The lines of his nose, cheek
bones and jaw all met in a way that was the opposite of handsome.  He had
bulging veins in his temples and piercing eyes that hoped for mayhem.  He
reminded me of James Carville on horse steroids. He leered as he saw me and the
truck, the way a cat leers at an insect before he chews its legs off, eats it
and then chucks it up. I thought maybe that his face might be the last one I
would ever see, since he was about to shoot me.  Then I looked closer, and I
did not see a gun drawn.

I fumbled with the door locks and
was wishing for a hiding place, when a shower of glass exploded into the
truck’s interior.  There was no time for surprise on my part as I was dragged
by my shirt collar through the truck’s window. Bleeding from tiny glass cuts, I
found myself on the ground coughing and choking.  My neck was still in vise
grip, he had not let go of my collar.

“Partee?” I blurted. I was close
to vomiting.

“In the flesh.  Now let’s see how
you like spending time in a stock and lock.”

He lifted me off the ground and
administered two body punches to my gut, making me question my willingness to
live.  He dropped me in a wheezing heap and hopped in the truck.  I heard the
crunch as he sat on the broken glass.  He popped the truck into neutral, got
out, and held the steering wheel as he effortlessly pushed the truck out of the
garage.

“Welcome to solitary, you dumb
mother.”

With that, the garage door came
down.  Lying on the concrete, I heard various noises outside the stock and
lock.  I tried to guess what was happening.  It sounded like a lock or
screwdriver had been run through the latch on the door. There was the sound of
a diesel engine, probably Partee’s truck and as the revs increased and then
faded I figured they had towed Tammy’s Ford Ranger truck away.

This had not been a good day. 
Both trucks were gone. Bad guys - two, Rust - zero. I would have to explain it
all to Tammy and she would be crushed.  I would have to explain it to my small
intestine, who was also feeling crushed right now.

Maybe it was the darkness -circus
tents were dark.  Or maybe it was the smell of elephant poop which I imagined
coming from the center of the tent that this garage had turned into (later I
saw that it was rodent pellets that I had smelled).  I felt I was lying in the
middle of a three ring circus. A spot light was shining into one eye.  I could
vaguely make out the crowd waiting quietly for the next act.  I began to look
around and saw the ring master and the lion tamer had entered the spot light.
The crowd began cheering loudly.  The ringmaster was praising the feats of
greatness that we were about to witness.  I could not make out the details
though due to the roar of the crowd.  The ringmaster stepped up, a silhouette
against a bright spotlight.

“They’re gone,” Said the ringmaster,
leaning over me.

“The lions?  That’s too bad.  I’ve
got an excellent seat.”

“Are you okay?” Said the ring
master.

“I’m fine.  Don’t you have twenty
clowns in a VW bug or trapeze dare-devils you can show me?”

“No.  You must be sick or hurt.
Sit up.” The ringmaster grabbed my hand while the lion tamer watched.

I sat up and realized where I was.
I was in the Handy Self Storage garage. Without Tammy’s truck.  Smelling
rat-poop smell.  My ribs and abdomen were killing me.  I looked at the
ringmaster and was embarrassed when I realized it was Fred Smithey.

“I got punched.  In the gut.  I’m
dying,”  I groaned, slumping back to the garage floor.

“You aren’t dying. You just got
beat up.  Help me get him out of here, this shit stinks.”  Smithey said to the
lion tamer, who turned out to be Wysinski. I was messed up.

They lifted me and walked me out
of the garage and up toward the office.  One of them on each side, I was like
an injured football player being walked off the field only without the sympathy
applause.

“They stole the truck.  I’ve got
to act fast if I’m going to get it back.”

“Mr. Stover.  It’s over now.  They
got both trucks and now they’re gonna disappear with them,” Fred Smithey said.

“No,” I was still trying to
breathe properly.

“Look, you’re out of danger now. 
This is a good thing.  You need to go back to doing your inspections and drop
this Tammy girl’s case before you really do die.  Right now you just feel like
death, but you’ll be fine.”

Wysinski opened the office door
and I collapsed on the vinyl couch in the lobby.