Trent Reedy - Divided We Fall

“Danny!” said the sheriff when he first appeared on-screen. He was in his squad car. “How you holding up? The phone at the station is ringing nonstop with all these reporters. I went out on patrol to get away from it.”

“I’m fine. A little sore from the game last night. They really had it in for me after they heard the news.”

He pressed his lips together. “I’m sorry about that. Wish I knew how the Fed found out about you. Anyway, how can I help you?”

“It’s like you said, with these reporters. The street in front of my house is almost completely choked with news vans. I need to get to work, but I don’t think they’ll let me through.”

“Right. Don’t you worry about it. I’ve been working on getting the mayor and council to change your street to no parking either side so we can start towing their vehicles, but until then, I’ll take care of the press.” He reached for something offscreen, and I heard a siren wail. “I’m on my way.”

A short time later, four squad cars pulled up.

“Danny, what’s going on?” Mom shouted.

“It’s okay, Mom. I called the sheriff asking for some help getting away from the press. Everything’s fine. Safe, even. You can relax.”

At the front door, I put my hand on the doorknob to head out, but Mom stopped me, pulling me into a warm hug. Neither of us spoke for a long time, and when she finally let me go, she locked her gaze with mine. I nodded, took a deep breath, then pushed open the door and headed out to the Beast.

“Daniel Wright! Can I ask you a few questions?” said a woman.

“Can I get you to make one statement?” said another.

As much as I hurt from the punishment of last night’s game, I kicked my pace up to a jog. The reporters followed, but were stopped by a wall of police officers who rushed up to block their way. When I reached my truck, I smiled. He’d done it. Nathan Crow and his men had the press all boxed in. I was free to go.

Then a two-foot-square black box with a small propeller spinning above it rose up into the air from one of the news vans and flew over to my truck, hovering twenty feet in the air. Another camera drone. Great. Crow could never stop that.

“Someone want to land that flying robot, please?” the sheriff called out to the news crowd.

“We have every right to fly our camera,” said a reporter. “The people deserve the news!”

Crow spun around and pulled his.45 from his holster. He aimed and fired eight heavy rounds into the drone. Sparks and smoke burst from it before it crashed to the street. He holstered his weapon and then faced the crowd. “And this boy deserves his privacy.”

He waved me on my way. I took my cue, climbed up into the Beast, called Mom to let her know what the gunshots were, and drove off to work. News vans were following me in seconds.

The street in front of the shop was almost as packed as the one outside my house. If only we could get this much traffic from people who needed car repairs. As I approached, leading the line of other news vehicles, reporters and cameramen stirred to life. I slowed down. The junky old school bus that had been sitting at the side of the shop for years had been driven or towed across the driveway to block the street view of the bay doors. I drove up the first part of the driveway to the sidewalk and honked at the reporters who blocked my way, pulling very slowly forward until they moved. Then I parked in the space between the bus and the shop.

“Daniel, can we please have a quick word with you?” “Does the National Rifle Association sticker in the front window of your shop office mean that you or David Schmidt are members of the NRA, and was the shooting a statement for gun rights?” “Can you describe your relationship with JoBell Linder?”

I stopped for a moment and almost confronted the reporter who’d asked about JoBell. They better leave her out of this. But I thought if I said anything, it would be like dumping gas on a fire.

I entered the shop by the office door. The bay doors were closed, which was unusual in good weather. The radio was playing Best of This Week on the Buzz Ellison Show . “Schmidty?” I called out. No one answered. The crusty old coffeemaker that he used every day but never cleaned had a full hot pot on. His coffee mug with the phrase “How About a Nice Cup of Shut the Hell Up” on the side sat half empty on his desk.

I touched the cup. Still warm. Where was he? Sometimes on a Saturday morning he’d go to the Coffee Corner to eat way too much bacon and eggs. But as psycho as he was about the electric bill, he wouldn’t take off and leave the radio and all the lights on.

“Schmidty?” I checked in the parts room. Nothing.

Back in the corner of the shop, I sat on his desk. Where was he?

Outside, the reporters kept shouting questions from the sidewalk. One asked something about the federal government.

That’s when it hit me. I stood up and went to the wall to grab a heavy wrench. What if the Fed had come looking for Schmidty? Would they use him to get to me? Why not? If the reporters had figured out I worked here, the government easily could. There had to be half a dozen safety and environmental regulation violations in this place. That would be all they needed to bring him in.

If federal agents were still in the area, maybe they were watching the shop. They could be coming for me any second. Standing there in the middle of the bay, I tightened my grip on the big wrench, ready for anything.

“What the hell are you doing?” a gravelly voice came from behind me.

I spun around with the wrench in both hands, cocked back like a baseball bat. “Schmidty.” I sighed. He scratched his stubbled chin and flicked ash from his cigarette into the rusted coffee can on his desk. “Where were you?”

“You gonna hit me?” he asked.

“What? Oh! No… I…” I lowered the wrench and tried to act casual, like it was no big deal that I was getting ready for a fight in the middle of the shop. “I’ll put this back.”

He rolled his eyes. “Bad enough I got all these pricks from the media up my ass, now I almost get brained in my own shop. Come on. I’ll show you where I was.” He led me toward the back of the building. A brand-new closet had been built over the floor hatch that led to the basement. It was finished with drywall and painted and everything. There were even brownish grease stains in various places.

“You built this?” I said. “How did it get dirty so fast?”

“No, it built itself.” He coughed and then cleared his throat. “I smeared on some grease so it would blend in. Don’t want it to look brand-new. It would stand out too much.” He opened the heavy metal closet door. Inside, several old one-piece overalls and a few coats hung from a bar. Tools and some junk parts littered a high shelf.

“I don’t get it. Why would we need a new closet?”

“Damn it, but you are pretty stupid sometimes.” He shook the clothes on their hangers. “This shit’s all just camouflage. See?” He bent down — too quickly to spare me the sight of his nasty ass crack, unfortunately — and pulled up on a metal ring in the front corner of the floor, opening the hatch to reveal the steps down into the basement. “It won’t look like a trapdoor if it’s the entire floor of the closet. Now come on.” He breathed heavily as he walked down the stairs.

“What?” I followed him. “Why’d you have to do all that to hide this gross—” I stopped.

The dank old basement that all my life had been filled with junk, spilled automotive fluids, and wastepaper was gone. Instead, the place was totally clean. The floor had been swept, mopped even, and the cobwebs had been brushed away. The stained, dented cardboard boxes and oily car parts that had been stored down here on metal shelves had disappeared. In their place at the other end of the basement were six green Army cots complete with fresh bedrolls. In a corner near that, a cookstove with its own propane tank and four reserve tanks was set up next to a small wooden table. A big black safe stood in the corner of the room.