Tomorrow Wendell (White Dragon Black) (13 page)

When he pulled into the large gravel parking lot out front of Madden Auto Salvage, Jonathan took a deep breath. Then he took a fortifying drink from his flask and, finally, lit a smoke.

He achieved a neutral expression while looking in the rearview mirror, and then got out.

One of the Rottweillers guarding the lot had gotten out from the back and trotted over to greet him.

Jonathan had been a friend of Ralph’s since high school and so he had grown up around these dogs. Even if he hadn’t, a Rottweiller, though he respected their capabilities, wasn’t really daunting if you’d tangled with something like a Harpy.

Also, it had been Jonathan who had taught all the dogs not to be afraid of the gremlins living—and thriving—in the rusted steel hive which comprised the back lot of Madden Auto Salvage.

Gremlins are a problem for any place that collected metal in quantity, especially iron-based metals. They were about as harmless as a raccoon with rabies and a crowbar.

Nothing more than nuisances, most of the time, gremlins could turn nasty if abused, cornered, or if their nests were threatened. A gremlin infestation could get out of hand. If that happened, then something akin to tribe wars occurred and all hell would break loose.

Generally, they simply meant a loss of stock as they dissolved the metal with their saliva and ingested it for food.

Jonathan patted the dog, rubbed him behind the ears, and half-heartedly scolded him for being out of the back lot. He started for the office and slapped his thigh so the canine would follow.

Pulling open the heavy front door, Jonathan allowed the dog to enter first and saw his friend sitting behind the counter working on invoices and inventory lists.

Ralph had inherited the place from his father and had helped out since he had been twelve. The years of hard work had made a big kid into a mountain of a man.

“Caught a stray out front; thought you could use him.”

Ralph looked up from one of the overfilled, tattered binders and down at the dog who sat and gazed up at him.

“Taft. Again? Really? You keep this up, I’m going to have to chain you, and we know how much we both don’t want that.” Ralph shook his head.

Pointing to the rear door that lead out to the yard, he said, “Get. Go on, you stupid mutt.”

The dog barked once and made its way to the back door, shouldering it open to walk through.

“Ralph, I need a favor.”

“Really? Because usually when you need a favor, you arrive with a twelve pack.”

“Yeah, I’ve been a bit distracted. New case, and it’s proving to be a real bitch. Giving me a headache.”

“Poor boy,” Ralph said with no real concern. “All right, what do you need?”

“I need another set of eyes, someone to tail my client—discreetly.”

“Thinking double cross?”

“No. But there may be someone already following him and I need to be certain.”

“Okay,” Ralph said with a shrug of his Herculean shoulders. “Doesn’t sound like the most enjoyable thing I’ve done for you, but I think we both know it won’t rank as the worst.”

“You just won’t let that go, will you?”

“You left me in a sewer drain for twelve hours,” Ralph pointed out bitterly. “With rats. Big ones.”

“You can be such a baby. Aren’t you going to offer me some coffee?”

“You want some coffee?”

“That would be nice.”

“Great, you know where the machine is. Knock yourself out.” Ralph wrote down something from the binder on a notepad. “Do I need to bring a gun?”

“Pardon?” Jonathan asked, pouring some bourbon from his flask to top up his coffee mug.

“Gun—do you think I should be packing for this assignment?”

“It’s so adorable when you say things like ‘packing.’”

“May I remind you that you’re the one who needs me and not the other way around?”

“Somebody’s Mister Grumpy this morning. Did you wake up again to the realization that your first name is slang for the act of regurgitation?”

Ralph shook his head. “Remind me why I put up with you?”

“I keep coming back?”

“So do hemorrhoids.”

“Wouldn’t know,” Jonathan said, pouring some of his bourbon into Ralph’s mug.

“I’ll call for Frank, let him know he’s going to be running the place without me for the day.”

“Um,” Jonathan said, and took a sip of his coffee.

“Um, what?”

“Actually, Ralph, I was hoping I could borrow Frank for this one.”

“What? But we always do these things together,” Ralph griped. “Frank doesn’t even really know anything about this stuff. I mean he’s not ignorant, what with the ghosts, gremlins, and you. He couldn’t work here and not know, but still—it’s not like he’s got the experience I do.”

“Stop whining. I’m not looking for a replacement for the role of sidekick here.”

“Hey!”

“I just need to be sure whoever I put on my client as tail isn’t recognized. Sorry, Ralph, but this is the one time when your previous experience helping me out is a determent.”

“But, Frank—”

“Look, it’s not a dangerous thing at all. I just need someone to casually hang about a block away from my client for a day or two. He just needs to watch and see if there is anyone else doing the same.

“Frank is an average Joe; he blends in. He’s anyone. No one will suspect him of following my client. If he thinks there might be trouble, all he has to do is high tail it out of there.”

“I don’t know, Jonathan.”

“Look, I’ll go back and ask him. If he’s hesitant about it, then I’ll risk you being recognized. But my client may be running out of time while I’m running into brick walls. This could give me the leg up I need.”

“Fine, I’ll call him.”

“No. Just let me talk to him privately. I don’t want him to feel pressured, or like he owes you or anything.”

“Fine, but next time—”

“Next time I’ll be trusting my back to you, buddy. Count on it.”

He finished off his coffee and set the mug down on the counter beside Ralph’s.

“He’s running the compacter,” Ralph said.

With a nod, Jonathan followed the same route that Taft, the Rottweiller, had taken out the back door.

T
he back lot resembled a huge labyrinth of dead cars. The first of the vehicles were still essentially intact, placed side by side. However, like an encroaching jungle of steel, rust, and broken glass, the vehicles became more damaged, crushed, and mangled.

The farther back you went, the higher the wreck piles. Corridors, dead ends, and even caverns had formed by the storage of discarded automobiles.

Jonathan knew the place, though, and headed towards the compactor—a large machine that transformed cars with no further worth into compacted cubes of metal for recycling.

Jonathan passed a few ghosts wandering through the wrecks. Those who had been manifested in the yard for years nodded at him. The newer entities flung themselves at him with the hope of getting his attention, as they had yet to adapt to their new state of being.

Some went so far as to try and attack him. They hoped to elicit a reaction of fear, for it was a strong emotion, and one the incorporeal could sip at to gain strength.

In most cases, such activity became cyclical and worthless. The energy used to interact with the physical plane to obtain a response they could feed off, drained as much, or more, than they could absorb.

Jonathan saw a grey-brown shape slip from the edge of a car’s empty back window into the crumpled metal forming a wall beside him. A moment later, and a few cars over, the same gremlin watched his passing. Only its eyes, reflecting a red-orange, were visible.

Jonathan could hear the compactor working, though it still remained out of sight. The machine itself, running off a large diesel engine, caused a fair amount of noise. When in operation, actively reducing a full-sized vehicle into a cube, the sound was unmistakable.

The screech of metal being forced against itself rent the air. The pops and cracks of welds breaking and plastic splintering punctuated the cacophony.

The sound stopped and only the rumble of the engine disturbed the back lot. A loud thud followed a moment later, signifying that the cube had been ejected from the machine.

Jonathan turned the corner and yelled for Frank. He hoped to get the man’s attention before he loaded the next car into the compactor.

Frank turned at the sound of the voice and, seeing Jonathan, held up a finger and locked out the controls. The engine became just a little quieter as it slid into idle.

Frank verged on the thin side of average, but had hard and lean muscles from the years working the yard. He had thin, brown hair that fell without enthusiasm to his shoulders and a neat moustache. Frank always looked a little disheveled, with eyes which seemed to hold a capacity for mischief.

“Hey, Mr. Alvey. What’s up?”

“Frank, please call me Jonathan. I think it’s way past time.”

“Sure, just habit, I guess.”

“Look, I got a favor to ask you, but I don’t want you to feel obligated in any way to say yes, all right?”

Frank nodded and seemed to be thinking about what Jonathan had said. “Okay, what’s the favor?”

“I have a client who might—I really don’t know—but might, have someone following him. I was kind of hoping you would follow my client yourself. See if you could confirm or deny my suspicions.”

“Right.” He nodded and stuffed his work gloves in the back pocket of his overalls. “Can I ask why you aren’t just having Ralph do it?”

Frank asked as though afraid of treading on toes by making such a request.

“Well, see, here’s the thing. If there is someone following my client, then they are probably a practitioner of some sort. Or it could even be that they’re not human.

“Ralph is quite capable of trailing someone, but I need a tail unlikely to be spotted by someone else . . . if there even is a ‘someone else.’ I’ll be honest with you, I’m just grasping at straws here.”

“Okay,” Frank nodded, clearly running what he had just been told over again slowly in his head. “I still don’t see how I’m better than Ralph,” he admitted.

“Look,” Jonathan hedged, “I wouldn’t be asking if I could think of any other way, but my client may be in serious danger. I’m at my wit’s end finding out from whom, Frank. I need you because . . . well, you have a specific skill that Ralph doesn’t. I need you because of what you can do.”

“So, you don’t really want me, you want . . .”

“That is you, Frank. I know you’re still coming to terms over it, but you are indiscernible from the dog.

“It’s why I’m not worried about Ralph’s safety; it doesn’t matter what form you’re in, it’s still you. And as long as you keep your head, that will always be true.”

“I—oh. I just . . .”

“Look, Frank, it’s your call. I will understand if you don’t want to, but you need to make sure you’re in control of the condition. You can’t be afraid of the other side of yourself.”

Jonathan opened his cigarette case and took out two.

“If you were the sort of guy who constantly got in bar fights, or even arguments, then I’d be telling you to stay in this form no matter what.”

He passed Frank one of the smokes and then lit both.

“But you aren’t that guy, Frank. You’re a humble, conscientious, kind man. You still will be, even if you walk on four feet and wag a tail when you are pleased with yourself.”

Frank looked around the yard. Jonathan knew he was making sure no one else was around, like they would hear the conversation over the compactor’s motor. He also knew Frank found it hard to meet his eyes on the rare occasion they talked about his condition.

Frank’s change had happened a while ago now. Jonathan had been the only person he’d confided in about his condition. In large, because Jonathan had begun to suspect something and Frank had decided coming clean was his best option.

He had been worried about the safety of those around him and had a lot of questions. Knowing Jonathan would have the answers to his concerns and needing an ear he could bend about the condition, Frank had finally confessed to being a cynanthrope.

“Look,” Jonathan said, not wanting to make Frank feel uncomfortable, “I’m going to go back inside and help myself to another cup of coffee. You take a few minutes to think about it. When you decide what you want to do, then come up front and let me know.

“It’s your call, Frank, and I’ll understand—completely—if you don’t want to deal with it just yet.”

Jonathan slapped Frank on his shoulder and started back to the warmth of the office. He really did want another cup of the always delicious coffee they somehow brewed in their beat up Braun coffee machine.

“Mr.—Jonathan?” Frank called after him.

Jonathan turned back. “Yeah, Frank?”

“What did you tell Ralph?”

“That I was afraid he’d be recognized from our previous adventures together.”

“Oh,” Franked nodded absently.

Jonathan waited a moment. When Frank just looked at his feet and didn’t say anything else, Jonathan started walking once more.

Ralph asked if Frank had agreed or not as soon as Jonathan came back in.

“I’m giving him a minute to decide. Either way, he’ll be coming up here. If he doesn’t want to come along,” Jonathan shrugged, “then you and I make it work somehow and he can run the office.”