Body. Surely Jake hadn’t become a mechanic? I edged the car up a few more feet, felt the pull of the flattened tire and knew I had no other option. We were stuck here, Jake or no Jake.
I looked at Lloyd, then reached over and stroked his head. “It’s all right, sweetie,” I said. “We’re home. At least the car had the good sense not to blow until we made it.” I looked out the window at the unfamiliar auto shop and smiled. “Hey, we even broke down in a gas station! Isn’t it great? I told you life would look up!”
I swear Lloyd rolled his eyes at me.
The sign on the door of the shop said Closed in big orange letters. I looked at my watch; it was almost 11:00 a.m. How could it be closed? It wasn’t a holiday. I opened the car door, stepped out onto the tarmac and stretched. No sign of life anywhere. I walked around the front of the car slowly, obviously inspecting the right front tire. It was flat as a pancake.
I walked around to the back of the car, popped the trunk and stared inside at the space where the spare should’ve been, and then remembered I’d taken it out so I could fit my undercover equipment in its place. I shivered, realizing that the outskirts of Philadelphia were a lot colder than the Florida Panhandle in mid-November.
This was so not what I needed. A flat tire, no spare and me wearing shorts and a T-shirt. I stared back up at the darkened auto body shop. Maybe they were all inside drinking coffee and eating bagels. Maybe if I walked up to the door and banged, someone would take pity on me and come fix the flat.
I trotted up to the storefront and cupped my hands to the glass, peering intently into the darkened interior. A bald man wearing a grease-smudged gray uniform was in the room behind the cash register, sitting at the desk and looking intently at a stack of papers sprawled out in front of him. I sighed, relieved that at least he wasn’t Jake Carpenter, and knocked on the glass.
The man froze, looked at me, then away, as if he could erase my presence by ignoring me.
“Oh, come on, please!” I cried.
I saw his shoulders slump. He looked up, squinting with little coffee-bean eyes. “We’re closed,” he called, then turned his attention back to the paperwork in front of him.
“I know,” I said, “but my car’s front tire just blew and…”
He looked up again, frowning, clearly annoyed at the continued intrusion.
“I’m freezing! Come on! Really, it’ll only take a minute. Please, I’ll pay you double, okay?”
“Come back this afternoon and we’ll take a look at it,” he said.
This was not the Glenn Ford I knew. When I’d lived here the people were friendly, always ready to help a woman in distress. What was wrong with this idiot?
“Listen,” I said, pitching my voice as loud as I could without screaming at the fool, “I don’t have anywhere else to go. I’d change the tire myself, but my spare is gone, and…” Words failed me. I felt tears queuing up at the edges of my eyes and knew I was about to completely lose it. “Damn it, I said please, I said I’d pay you double. Hell, if I knew how to plug a tire, I’d offer to fix it myself. Now what more is it going to take? Do I need to flag down a passing motorist and hope they have a spare my size? Do I need to call a tow truck, the police, EMS? What?”
The man’s eyes widened; clearly he thought a maniac was accosting him. He rubbed his oil-stained fingers across his bald skull and gave up.
“All right, all right, keep your shirt on!”
He stood up, walked around the desk and through the leaf in the countertop to unlock the front door. I watched him approach, my cop instincts inspecting him and fitting him into a preliminary category. He was the kind of guy you didn’t turn your back on, short, stocky, muscular build, tattoos and a bad attitude. He was sizing me up, too, in a nasty, see-you-naked way that made me hug my arms closer to my chest.
“Wait in here,” he said before he’d even pulled the door wide enough for me to pass through. He was gone before I could say a word, grabbing tools as he scuttled over to inspect the Camaro’s tire.
Lloyd went crazy, barking like a demon maniac, teeth bared, eyes showing white and pawing at the window in an attempt to protect me from my knight in shining armor.
I opened the door and started across the lot. “Lloyd, stop that!” I yelled. “He won’t hurt you,” I added, praying Lloyd wouldn’t scare the guy off the job.
The mechanic looked back over his shoulder at me and scowled. “I told you wait inside,” he said. “I ain’t scared of no dog!”
That was good, because Lloyd clearly liked the guy about as much as I did, and hadn’t backed off his display of killer instinct one bit.
I ducked back inside the shop. The guy was a fruitcake, probably an ax murderer in his spare time. I looked past the counter into the office. It looked as if a cyclone had blown through, papers mounded on top of the desk, files open and spilling over onto the floor. It was a wonder the place stayed in business.
When he brought the tire into the shop, I walked to the doorway and watched him. His fingers flew across the rubber surface, locating the nail that was responsible for the flat and quickly working to plug it. His shop was as organized and neat as his office was chaotic.
I stepped back into the reception area, not wanting my savior to see me and get any more irritated, and waited for him to finish. I sat in a cold vinyl chair, closed my eyes and rested my head back against the wall. In ten more minutes, I told myself, it would all be better. I’d be sitting in Aunt Lucy and Uncle Benny’s warm, sunny kitchen, eating homemade cinnamon buns and drinking strong black coffee. I’d be home and nothing else mattered after that.
I guess I must’ve drifted off. The next thing I was aware of was the tinkle of the bell over the shop door. I sprang to my feet as the mechanic stepped into the room. “It’s done,” he said. “You can go now.”
“How much do I owe you?” I said, trying to smile, but stopping at the sour look on his face.
“Five bucks,” he said.
I dug into my pockets, pulling out cash and searching for the right bills. “Oh, come on,” I said, “it’s gotta be more than that. You opened up for me.”
“Five is fine,” he said, his voice almost a snarl.
I handed him a ten. “I don’t want any change. I’m sorry I disturbed you. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t…”
“See ya,” he grunted, pushing the door open and waiting expectantly.
Some perverse part of me, seeing his rush to get me out of his hair, made me linger, walking slowly toward him. “You usually closed on Thursdays?” I asked. “I mean, in case I ever need more work done, I can remember not to bother you on Thursday.”
“No,” he said. “Death in the family.”
That took me back. Of course. He wasn’t always like this, he’d lost someone close to him. That explained everything. I looked back at the office. What if his wife had just died? Maybe she was in charge of the office, the bookkeeping and everything, and suddenly, here he was trying to find the papers he needed to arrange for her funeral.
“I’m
