Ed Gorman - Short Stories, Volume 1

Any vague hopes I’d had of starting the car were soon forgotten as I gaped at the motor and realized that I had absolutely no idea what I was looking at.

The mechanic in the shop had made it look very simple. You raised the hood, you leaned in and snatched off the oil filter and then did a couple of quick things to it and put it back. And voila , your car was running again.

I got the hood open all right, and I leaned in just fine, and I even took the oil filter off with no problem.

But when it came to doing a couple of quick things to it, my brain was as dead as the motor. That was the part I hadn’t picked up from the mechanic. Those couple of quick things.

I started shaking the oil filter. Don’t ask me why. I had it under the protection of the hood to keep it dry and shook it left and shook it right and shook it high and shook it low. I figured that maybe some kind of invisible cosmic forces would come into play here and the engine would start as soon as I gave the ignition key a little turn.

I closed the hood and ran back through the slashing rain, opened the door and crawled inside.

“God, it’s incredible out there.”

Only then did I get a real good look at Laura and only then did I see that she looked sick, like the time we both picked up a slight case of ptomaine poisoning at her friend Susan’s wedding.

Except now she looked a lot sicker.

And then I saw the guy.

In the backseat.

“Who the hell are you?”

But he had questions of his own. “Your wife won’t tell me if you’ve got an ATM card.”

So it had finally happened. Our little city turned violent about fifteen years ago, during which time most honest working folks had to take their turns getting mugged, sort of like a rite of passage. But as time wore on, the muggers weren’t satisfied with simply robbing their victims. Now they beat them up. And sometimes, for no reason at all, they killed them.

This guy was white, chunky, with a ragged scar on his left cheek, stupid dark eyes, a dark turtleneck sweater and a large and formidable gun. He smelled of sweat, cigarette smoke, beer and a high sweet unclean tang.

“How much can you get with your card?”

“Couple hundred.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“Couple hundred. I mean, we’re not exactly rich people.

Look at this car.”

He turned to Laura. “How much can he get, babe?”

“He told you. A couple of hundred.” She sounded surprisingly calm.

“One more time.” He had turned back to me. “How much can you get with that card of yours?”

“I told you,” I said.

You know how movie thugs are always slugging people with gun butts? Well, let me tell you something. It hurts. He hit me hard enough to draw blood, hard enough to fill my sight with darkness and blinking stars, like a planetarium ceiling, and hard enough to lay my forehead against the steering wheel.

Laura didn’t scream.

She just leaned over and touched my head with her long, gentle fingers. And you know what? Even then, even suffering from what might be a concussion, I had this image of Laura’s fingers touching Chris Tomlin’s head this way. Ain’t jealousy grand?

“Now,” said the voice in the backseat, “let’s talk.”

Neither of us paid him much attention for a minute or so.

Laura helped me sit back in the seat. She took her handkerchief and daubed it against the back of my head.

“You didn’t have to hit him.”

“Now maybe he’ll tell me the truth.”

“Four or five hundred,” she said. “That’s how much we can get. And don’t hit him again. Don’t lay a finger on him.”

“The mama lion fights for her little cub. That’s nice.” He leaned forward and put the end of the gun directly against my ear. “You’re gonna have to go back out in that nasty ole rain. There’s an ATM machine down at the west end of this block and around the corner. You go down there and get me five hundred dollars and then you haul your ass right back. I’ll be waiting right here with your exceedingly good-looking wife. And with my gun.”

“Where did you ever learn a word like exceedingly?” I said.

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“I was just curious.”

“If it’s any of your goddamned business, my cell-mate had one of them improve your vocabulary books.”

I glanced at Laura. She still looked scared but she also looked a little bit angry. For us, five hundred dollars was a lot of money.

And now a robber who used the word “exceedingly” was going to take every last dime of it.

“Go get it,” he said.

I reached over to touch Laura’s hand as reassuringly as possible, and that was when I noticed it.

The white number ten envelope.

The one Chris had sent her.

I stared at it a long moment and then raised my eyes to meet hers.

“I was going to tell you about it.”

I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have looked in your drawer.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. But I still owe you an explanation.”

“What the hell are you two talking about?”

“Nothing that’s exceedingly interesting,” I said, and opened the door, and dangled a leg out and then had the rest of my body follow the leg.

“You got five minutes, you understand?” the man said.

I nodded and glanced at Laura. “I love you.”

“I’m sorry about the letter.”

“You know the funny thing? I was hiding your present, that’s how I found it. I was going to tuck it in your underwear drawer and have you find them. You know, the pearls.”

“You got me the pearl necklace?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh, honey, that’s so sweet.”

“Go get the goddamned money,” the man said, “and get it fast.”

“I’ll be right back,” I said to Laura and blew her a little kiss.

If I hadn’t been sodden before, I certainly was now.

There were two brick buildings facing each other across a narrow alley. Most people drove up to this particular ATM machine because it was housed in a deep indentation that faced the alley. It could also accommodate foot traffic.

What it didn’t do was give you much protection from the storm.

By now, I was sneezing and feeling a scratchiness in my throat. Bad sinuses. My whole family.

I walked up to the oasis of light and technology in this ancient and wild neighborhood, took out my wallet and inserted my ATM card.

It was all very casual, especially considering the fact that Laura was being held hostage.

The card would go in. The money would come out. The thief would get his loot. Laura and I would dash to the nearest phone and call the police.

Except I couldn’t remember my secret pin number.

If I had to estimate how many times I’d used this card, I’d put it at probably a thousand or so.

So how, after all those times, could I now forget the pin number?

Panic. That’s what was wrong. I was so scared that Laura would be hurt that I couldn’t think clearly.

Deep breaths. There.

Now. Think. Clearly.

Just relax and your pin number will come back to you. No problem.

That was when I noticed the slight black man in the rain parka standing just to the left of me. In the rain. With a gun in his hand.

“You wanna die?”

“Oh, shit. You’ve got to be kidding. You’re a goddamned thief?”

“Yes, and I ain’t ashamed of it, either, man.”

I thought of explaining it to him, explaining that another thief already had first dibs on the proceeds of my bank account — that is, if I could ever remember the pin number but he didn’t seem to be the understanding type at all. In fact, he looked even more desperate and crazy than the man who was holding Laura.

“How much can you take out?”