Repo Madness (5 page)

I shook my head. We sat down in chairs in the small waiting area. “It looks like he closed his garage door, started his engine, and then just sat there and drank vodka until the fumes got to him.” Thinking of him dying like that always gave me a stabbing sensation in my gut, and this time was no different.

“Did anybody…” He struggled with how to put his question and then gave up. “This is such a shock.”

“No one had a clue this might be brewing, as far as I know. I can't think of any reason for him to do this, though I guess there's no such thing as a good reason. But business has been good, we're getting more skip tracing work, he was healthy.…” I trailed off as a shadow passed through Tom's eyes. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

It wasn't nothing. I could tell. If Milt was sick, Tom might know—but of course he couldn't tell me. “How's his wife? How's Trisha?” he inquired after a moment.

I shrugged. “I haven't spoken to her, but I guess not well. It's just awful.”

We both sat there quietly for a moment.

“What does this mean for you, then?” he asked finally.

“Besides losing my friend, you mean? I don't know. Milt
was
the business; it was always just him in that office. I've got some repo assignments I guess I'll follow up on and maybe get paid, maybe not. Either way, I feel like I owe it to him, that I'd be dishonoring him somehow if I just gave up. But yeah, I might be out of a job.”

“I'm so sorry, Ruddy.”

“Yeah, well, unemployed beats being in jail,” I responded somewhat pointedly.

Tom's mouth became an unhappy line. “Look, Ruddy, your prescription is way more than six months old. I can't legally fill it.”

“But if Schaumburg calls and you tell him I haven't been taking my meds, he says he'll violate me, and I'll have to do the rest of my probation behind bars.”

Tom spread his hands. “I don't know what I can do.”

“Well,” I reasoned, “when Schaumburg calls you can say, ‘Yes, Ruddy was just in here recently to pick up his meds.' That's not a lie, it
is
why I'm here.”

“What if he asks if you've been taking your medications?”

“You tell him the truth. You don't know. Hell, Tom, how would you know if
anybody
was taking their medications, really?”

“You're asking me to lie to a doctor. I could lose my license.”

“He wants to put me in jail! Just for not taking some antipsychotic medication! Is that fair?”

“Why haven't you been taking them?” Tom asked curiously.

I hesitated. I didn't want to tell him I was trying not to suppress Alan's chances of coming back, because that would sound like I did
need
the meds. “I don't like their effect,” I finally replied evasively.

“Ruddy … I'm sorry,” Tom said mournfully. “If Schaumburg asks, I'm going to have to tell him the truth. That's just how it is.”

*   *   *

We held Milt's memorial service at the funeral parlor owned by Katie's mother, Marget. Katie begged off attending, saying she had to work, but I knew the real reason for her absence was that she did not want to risk having Marget try to talk to her. I didn't press the issue. Katie knew how much Milt meant to me, and I knew what Marget had done to Katie.

I saw her, though, Marget, standing silently in the back of the room. Her white-blond hair, thin and straight, could not have been more different from Katie's curly reddish-brown locks, though they shared the same electric-blue eyes. Marget stared at me in a way I knew meant she was going to try to engage me in conversation, which I dreaded.

I met Kermit's brother, Walt, for the first time. Walt looked a little like Milt, with pale skin and a lean body. Kermit was short and squat, the kind of guy coaches always thought would be tough to tackle but weren't. Where Kermit's darker skin color came from, I did not know. Both men both spoke about their uncle, praising him for his generosity and kindness, and I thought about how good a friend Milt had been to me, splitting the repo fee from the bank fifty-fifty, though it was his truck and his lot and his reputation that we operated on. His wife, Trisha, sat in the front row and sort of sagged against a man I later learned was her brother.

When friends were invited to talk, I stood and told everyone that Milt was the only person who would give me a job when I got out of prison. That he cared about me and if we had a slow period, he would advance me some pay so I didn't starve. Milt would have been disappointed at the way his big tough repo man's voice cracked, the way tears wet my cheeks, and how I had trouble finishing what I started out to say. Milt's kindness and fatherly concern for me had propped me up when I was in danger of going into a dark spiral of my own.

And the money helped, too. Being a bouncer didn't pay well or often—Becky gave me some of the proceeds when she was in the black, but it wasn't as if I had a regular salary. I didn't mention the part about bar bouncer not being a lucrative profession, though I guess a few people might have inferred that from the way I dressed. Nor did I speculate what I was going to do now, since I apparently was no longer a repo man. What I did say is that everyone was welcome to head over to Kalkaska for a wake in Milt's honor at the Black Bear.

Kermit came up to me to thank me for my words. As always with Kermit, there was an awkwardness between us, even under these circumstances. I told him how sorry I was, stumbled a little through the words
untimely, premature accident,
not sure what you're supposed to say to the nephew of a man who likely took his own life.

“Well, not premature,” Kermit murmured sadly. “Uncle Milt had cancer. It had recently metabolized to his liver.”

“I had no idea,” I replied, shocked.

“He wanted it kept a secret.”

I looked involuntarily at the casket, oddly hurt Milt hadn't confided in me about his illness. Kermit followed my gaze. “Is that why it's closed?” I asked him.

I instantly regretted asking such a unfeeling question. Kermit shook his head. “No. Actually, he was impounded. The lid is down because he's not in there.”

“Impounded?” I responded, baffled.

“Yeah. We thought the sheriff wasn't going to be investigatory, so we scheduled this as soon as possible. By the time we found out the law wanted to look into things, the onens were routed.” He saw me go blank at the unfamiliar word. “It's a Jewish thing, it means family of the dead. Uncle Milt's relatives. They're all here. But they don't know that my uncle … isn't.”

“That's got to be really hard, Kermit,” I said inadequately.

I wanted to say more, but Kermit was looking over my shoulder. “I think she wants to talk to you,” he said, withdrawing politely as I turned and saw Marget coming at me. I froze in place, steeling myself. “Hello, Marget,” I said in a tone softened to suit the circumstances.

“Hello, Ruddy. How is my daughter?”

“Katie's doing well. She started a new job as a receptionist in a real estate office. Same one that Alan worked in. And she took the test, the one to get her license to sell property. We haven't yet heard if she passed.”

Marget's eyes fluttered a little. Marget was still married to Alan when he died. “I didn't know that,” she replied quietly. “Well. How are the wedding plans going?”

“Fine,” I said. They weren't fine, actually, but Katie wouldn't want me talking about that with anyone, especially her mother.

“Have you sent invitations?”

“Not yet.”

She nodded. Her eyes wanted to ask me if she would be receiving one, but I knew she dreaded the answer.

“Well, I should get to the Black Bear,” I said formally. “Free drinks, I imagine we'll be busy. Thank you for the way you took care of Milt.”

“Ruddy. Can you talk to her? She won't return my phone calls.”

“She doesn't want to speak to you.”

“She's my daughter,” Marget said in quiet anguish.

“Marget. You murdered her father.”

She blinked at my words. She was the type of person who could look at you with warm sympathy, but I always knew there was something much tougher in there, and I could see it in her icy expression now. “There was an investigation. There were no charges. The D.A. said there was no evidence,” she hissed.

“That doesn't change what happened.”

My soon-to-be mother-in-law glared at me. “I would think that you of all people would understand.”

“No. It's not the same. What I did was an
accident,
Marget.”

“It is the same. I had nothing to do with what happened to Alan.
They
did it.”

I regarded her outraged expression, waiting for the guilt to seep into it, but it didn't happen. Apparently, she had herself convinced of the truth of her words.

“I guess Katie doesn't see it that way, Marget. And I have to be honest: Neither do I.”

“Well, here's the way
I
see it,” she spat in icy fury. “My daughter needs me. When Alan died—”

“When Alan was murdered,” I interrupted rudely.

She gave me a look of utter contempt. “When that happened, I was there for her, and I've always been there for her. Then you come along with your lies, an ex-con
loser
who steals cars from people, and you think you can take her away from me? You think I am going to let you do that? You know nothing about her. You're no good for her. You're no good for anybody.”

*   *   *

I came up with several pointed, devastating things to say to Katie's mother once I was back in my truck. The conversation haunted me on the drive back because it peeled back the covers from my own insecurities. I really wasn't good enough for a woman like Katie, probably, but who would be? And lately, it seemed, I really did know nothing about her—I was having more and more trouble understanding some of the things she was saying. Clearly, I was doing a few things wrong, but I wasn't sure
what
.

I followed a caravan of cars to Kalkaska and hustled into the warmth of the Black Bear, where Jimmy had been standing guard over a mostly empty business. The mourners crammed up to the bar and things flipped pretty quickly into a party. Becky caught my eye and held up two fingers—the Bear would cover two drinks for everyone. I stood behind the bar and made mental note of everyone's tab.

I'd like to think Milt would have wanted this: a big gathering, people laughing and talking. In reality, though, I had trouble picturing him anywhere but behind his desk. He hadn't been in the Black Bear since my sister put in booths and a new kitchen and soft lights. All kinds of people came to the Bear now, not just guys who wanted to argue about snowmobiles or chain saws. Maybe that's why Milt stayed away—the place had lost its charm.

“Hey, Kermit, that was nice, what you said at your uncle's service,” I told my brother-in-law. He regarded me warily, maybe looking for an insult. “No, I mean it,” I insisted.

“Thanks.”

“You think Milt would be glad the funeral ended in a party?” I gestured around the room at all the people.

Kermit gave it some thought, frowning. “I think he would be embracive, yeah.”

“Embracive.” I nodded. “Okay, sure.”

“He may not have been the most conversable convivialist, but he would have enjoyed the festivities.”

“I don't know, Kermit. Sometimes it's like your words come out of a sausage factory.”

He blinked. “Sorry?”

“When I repo a car, I say, ‘I'm here to repo your car.' I don't say, ‘My … My inhabitance on your property is with the cause to, uh, reappropriate the collateral on your defaulted financial instrument.'”

He was back to eyeing me like I was the schoolyard bully getting ready to beat him up for winning the spelling bee, when I had really been trying to just have a little fun with him. Why did it seem that we were always at odds with each other? I might not have been friendly toward him when he started dating my sister, but that's because I didn't think he was good enough for her. And while I still held that view, it had more to do with my love for her than with my opinion of him. That was okay, wasn't it?

This was the sort of thing I used to be able to talk to Alan about.

I switched gears. “Hey, do you know any mediums? Like, local people? I'm thinking it is a lot like those psychics you used to be in business with.”

“Media?” he pondered, his frown deepening. “No, a medium and a psychic are two different things. Media talk to dead people.”

Was the plural of
medium
really
media
in this context? How the hell should I know?

“I
know
what a medium does, Kermit,” I replied a bit peevishly.

He told me he didn't know any media. That's what he said; I'm not endorsing his use of the term.

I glanced at the clock—it was getting late—and lowered my head to my phone. Katie often had to put in evening hours at the real estate office, but she should have arrived by now. Thanks to autocorrect, I wrote:
Are you com get over? Coming!

At that point the Wolfingers, Claude and Wilma, blew into the place like human typhoons. “We won a trip to Hawaii!” Wilma screamed, in a tone and volume of voice normally reserved for people who are being actively murdered.

Claude and Wilma were both sixty-two years old and it seems as if they'd been married a lot longer than that. When Wilma shrieked out her megaphone-level announcement, a baby in the corner started crying. Most people, though, shouted something like, “Yay!” even though we were thinking,
Oh
no
!

You don't just
win a trip to Hawaii
. Not if you live in Kalkaska.

Claude raised what seemed to be a postcard over his head, waving it around like a winning lotto ticket. Everyone congratulated him despite the lack of plausibility. Claude's hands always look like he's been down at the jail, being fingerprinted—he's a mechanic at the local garage. White hairs sprout out of his nose and his spotted arms, and his head is mostly bald. His wife, Wilma, is part Native American, with beautiful dark skin, nearly black eyes, and a temper that flashes lightning quick. She has fifty pounds on her husband and is an inch taller than his five-foot-eight—we always say he's fighting out of his weight class.