The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man (40 page)

“Katie, run! Get out of here!” I shouted. My right hand was on the lethal end of the rifle, pushing it away from me, but my left arm was flopping uselessly, blood leaking from my shoulder. I tucked my chin to my chest and put my head to Wexler's chin and tried to keep him pinned, sucking in my breath when he got his right hand free and punched me right where the bullet had gone in.

I was aware of Katie screaming and Marget dragging her up the pitched floor to the door, and then the abrupt change in sound when they plunged outside.
“Ruddy!”
she cried.

Now it was just Wexler and me, and I knew I wasn't going to win. I could keep the rifle pointed away from me but that's all I could manage, and Wexler hit me again in the shoulder and I pulled in air to stay conscious. The floor seemed to be dropping away beneath me.

The pain was so dizzying it took me a moment to realize the floor
was
dropping, that the trailer was in motion. The cable had done its job and then continued to do its job, dragging us relentlessly toward the spool. Once it had pulled the trailer off the flats the steep hill took over and we were bouncing and careening and picking up speed, outrunning the cable as we headed toward the lake.

The cupboard doors flew open and plates and glasses tumbled out and the body of Nathan Burby somersaulted over to where Wexler and I were still clutching the rifle and then in one awful, seasick motion the trailer hit the stairs down to the lake and flipped.

The sum total of the strength in a travel trailer comes from the heavy steel frame underneath it all. The walls and ceiling are relatively flimsy, designed to withstand nothing more than highway-speed wind. Once we rolled over, the walls collapsed, the ceiling came down, and I lost track of Wexler and rifle and of everything else. I saw the night sky and was hit by flying debris as I ducked my head.

With a final, momentum-ending impact we were upside down in the lake. Water rushed to fill the space where the trailer had once been, cold,
cold
water that extinguished all sound. I barely had time to take a breath and then I was under, a searing pain in my leg.

Bubbles streamed all around me. I blinked, trying to get my bearings. Debris was everywhere. Oddly, the ceiling lights, which were directly beneath me, hadn't shorted out, and I could see what was causing all the pain in my leg: the heavy trailer frame, which had been overhead when we hit the water, had crashed down and was jammed against my shin, holding me helplessly in place.

Wexler was worse off—the frame was across his chest, and he was wriggling like a pinned bug. He'd already realized what I was just now figuring out: We were being held underwater by the sheer weight of the steel frame. If we didn't get out, we'd drown.

There was a tremor in the frame as he heaved, trying to push it off of him. The flash of pain as the steel bar bit down harder on my leg was nothing compared to my alarm when I saw the entire assembly slide a few inches. If he managed it, he'd escape and be free to go after Katie.

If I worked with him, we might both get out from underneath the crushing weight that was threatening to end our lives. Instead, I leaned as far forward on the bar as I could, pressing down, squeezing that trailer frame closer to the remnant of the ceiling, tightening it like a vise. When he realized what I was doing he jerked his head around and stared at me, his expression full of disbelief. I gazed back, giving him nothing in return.

Wexler's moves were getting more frantic, his eyes bulging. He must not have had a chance to draw in a last breath.

I knew what he was going through, how his lungs were hurting, how desperate he must be feeling. I'd felt the same way, just a few hours before, when he'd held my head underwater. And now I was doing it to him.

How ironic.

There was a blast of air from his mouth and I stopped pressing, because it didn't matter anymore. I turned away from his eyes, feeling the swelling ache in my own chest. The pain in my shoulder had receded, either from the cold water or because my brain was shifting its focus to the urgent need for air.

What I heard then was bubbles, a relentless stream of them, as if there was an aquarium bubbler going somewhere. I looked around frantically. Right next to me was the upside-down oven, and it was from the back of this that a trail of bubbles danced merrily in the flickering yellow ceiling lights.

What if…?

I reached for the inverted oven, opening it up from the bottom like my garage door. The whole unit was tilted forward, and up in the back was a solid wedge of air. Right there.

I pulled myself into the oven, using the door for leverage, straining with all my might. I ignored the pain in my shin as I rotated my ankle enough to let me thrust my head inside. A little closer, a little closer, and then my face broke the surface and I brought in air, pure delicious air, one gasp and then another.

My whole body was being held by my right arm and I couldn't sustain it. I drank in one more lungful and then relaxed, falling back. Okay.

With my body no longer screaming at me for air I could take stock of my position. I was, I realized, in no more than six feet of water. If I could stand up, I'd be fine. If I could roll my ankle the other way so that the beam pinned me at the crease between ankle and foot, maybe I could raise my head to the surface of the water, call out for help. Breathe. Live.

I went back to the oven for more air and made a horrifying discovery: The air had mostly bubbled away in the half minute or so that I'd been gone. It was all I could do to get my lips to the surface, and I sucked and blew and sucked and blew, pulling in as much air as I could, trying to build oxygen in my blood.

When I withdrew my head I went for Plan B. The trailer frame, though, had other ideas, and it took precious seconds of yanking and kicking and twisting, biting my numb lips against the pain, before I finally got that beam down closer to my foot, my toes pointed toward the sky. I could now rise, and I did, aiming for the surface, my face up and eager.

I didn't make it. I was maybe five inches short but it might as well have been five miles. My foot was pinned and I couldn't get it out, and the water wasn't shallow enough for me to stick my head above the surface.

This was it.

There was no Alan to take over for me this time, no way to do anything but find out what happened when the air left my lungs and the cold waters came for me.

Even though I'd been through pretty much the same experience just a few hours ago, I still ultimately couldn't accept it, couldn't really believe this was happening. I had so much to live for now, it just didn't seem to be possible that I was losing everything. Not
now.

I heard a splash, a big one. I turned and saw Katie swimming toward me. She ducked her head under and took my face in her hands.

I misunderstood, thinking she was trying to give me one last, farewell kiss, and my heart swelled when her lips met mine. But then I felt the blast of air as she blew forcefully into my mouth.

Right, she taught lifesaving at the Y.

It didn't work, because I wasn't ready for it, but I nodded vigorously at her and she nodded back.
Okay. I get it.

Katie raised her head, visibly expanding her lungs, and this time when she came for me I deliberately blew out, and we carefully sealed our lips against each other before I felt bubbles against my face and inhaled.

I didn't get much, just a fraction of what I required. Sensing my growing need, she went back up and came down quickly and did it again. This time I adjusted and got nearly an entire lungful.

She went up, grabbed air, came back down. Every third or fourth breath I would exhale as she returned, and the oxygen debt in my blood was slowly repaid. I didn't feel so urgent, now, and when she came back again and again I tenderly touched her face. I would always love Katie Lottner.

The cold, though, was sapping my strength, making it harder and harder to focus, and I realized it must be doing the same thing to Katie. We couldn't keep this up forever; we might not even be able to do it for five more minutes. Tremors were wracking my body. I tried to tell her this with my eyes. I even pointed, jabbing my finger.

Go for help,
I mouthed.

She shook her head at me.

Come on, Katie!

Then she jerked her head at me, staring. I nodded, and she nodded. She went back up, came down for one last lifesaving breath, and then, in a swirl of bubbles, she swam for shore.

The ceiling lights winked out as she left, the trailer's circuitry finally getting the message that it was underwater and should have shorted out by now. I floated in the black water and willed myself calm, forced my pulse to slow. I needed to conserve energy, save oxygen.

If she ran up the hill it would take her what, twenty, thirty seconds? She could dash into the house, dial 9-1-1. Another thirty seconds, say, to connect, scream at the operator to send the fire department, drop the phone, and race back. They'd have her address on caller ID. I'd need to hold my breath a minute and a half—could I do that?

My pulse was pounding dully in my skull, and the pressure was already building in my lungs. How much time had passed? No more than twenty seconds.

I wasn't going to make it. In my artificially relaxed state, I understood this without panic. I thought about Katie—would she forgive herself for leaving me here? I'd asked her to, but that would be little comfort when they managed to wrestle my cold body out from under the trailer frame.

There was a sudden red flash. What was that? Then the flash went away, but a white light flooded the waters. I could even hear a truck. Milt's truck. Katie had flipped off the repo switch and started the tow truck.

I figured out what she was doing at the same moment I saw the red flash again—brake lights. She had turned the truck around and was now pointing up the hill.

If she drove up the hill she would take up all the slack in the cable and tow the frame right off me. It would work, as long as she didn't drive too fast and snap the cable when it drew taut.
Don't panic, Katie honey, nice and slow,
I urged her in my mind.

Then there was a pain in my shin so hot and searing it felt as if my foot had been torn off. But the frame, and much of the debris still bolted to it, was on the move. I ducked under and ignored the agony as I gripped that steel beam with both hands, the water like a rushing river as I was drawn with the frame toward shore. I thought my leg would break and then I was free, whooping in air in just a few inches of water, while the frame trundled upside down toward the hill. I heard the door slam and looked up as Katie ran down to me in the faint red glare of the running lights.

“Ruddy?” she was screaming. “Ruddy?”

I felt weak, nearly unable to move, but I flopped on my back and breathed. She fell on me, sobbing, frantically kissing my face. I kissed back with lips so numb they felt like they belonged to someone else.

“Ruddy, my God, my God,” she said. “Don't die, don't die, please don't die.”

He's dead.

“No, I'm not,” I said. “I'm not dead.”

“What? What?” She wildly shook her head, pulling her wet hair away from her face.

“I'm not dead, Katie. You saved me. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Ruddy, I was so scared.”

“You did everything right, Katie. Everything.”

This was her. The woman I could trust, the woman I could hold, the woman I could love forever. I looked into those amazing eyes and I wasn't
falling
further in love, I was rising up to it, being lifted.

She helped me stand up. My foot felt utterly destroyed, my leg below the knee bleeding and in terrific pain. My shoulder wound felt safe to come out and play, too, and gave me a jolt as we staggered toward the truck.

“I think I'll let you drive,” I told her.

This actually made her laugh. I took a deep breath. I had a lot to tell her, and wasn't sure how much of it she needed to know, or already knew. But her mom had participated in killing her father, and Marget and Burby and Wexler were mass murderers. That was what I was going to tell Strickland, anyway, so that much she needed to hear from me.

“Okay,” I said. “Let's take a ride.”

 

 

Epilogue

 

I was afraid.

Well, okay, not afraid, but nervous, somehow.

Alan's body was interred underneath the heavy stone with the memorial plaque, and I'd come down a few times before to chat, sitting on the stone bench. His voice might be gone from my head but I still felt his presence, and the urge to talk out loud to him was so strong I'd succumbed to it without thinking a few times before I'd caught people regarding me warily. Now I limited my discussions to this place, to this bench. People did that, right? Came to talk to their dead friends? Normal people?

“So Alan, hey,” I greeted.

I sniffed in the clean air, not expecting an answer or anything, but just giving a normal pause to the conversation. It was early June and Michigan was acting as if it had taken an oath to be Hawaii. The sky was impossibly blue, the leaves had burst out of hiding and were lifting their faces to the sun. Birds were singing, bugs were buzzing, and people were delinquent on their car loans. A perfect day.

“So the reason I'm here is to ask you something. It's been more than a year since that day at the river, the day you saved me. A lot's happened. My sister…” I trailed off. I hadn't realized I was going to talk about Becky. “She's a different person now. You'd hardly know her. The married life, it really agrees with her.

“We've rebuilt the Bear, and Jimmy's sort of managing the place. Not the books, Becky still does that, but you know how people love him. He greets everyone; it's fun.”

I sighed. I was avoiding it.

“Then there's Katie. Mostly, she's doing really well. She and her mom aren't talking, but that's no surprise. The DA declined to prosecute, says there wasn't any evidence, but Katie knows what happened, what Marget did to you, and she's not letting it go. I don't know how you would feel about that.