Timothy Johnston - The Current

“Hey, Ryan.”

“Hey,” said the young man, taking a closer look.

“Tom Wilson.”

“Sure. Hey, Tom.” Brown eyes half-hooded and underslung with blue shadows. Brown hair too, buzzed on the sides and thick on top, tossed and peaked. Sutter gave the young man’s right hand a shake and let go. He described his problem and the young man was happy to follow him out to have a look and a listen. Sutter pulling the hood release and turning over the engine, then stepping out and standing beside the young man, who was aiming his ear toward the whirring pulleys, the snaky blur of the belt.

“I don’t hear it,” he said, and Sutter said, “That figures. Doing it all week long and now it stops.”

“Probably the tensioner rod. They do that on these old Fords. Sounds like somebody dumped a jar of bait crickets under your hood.”

“Yep,” Sutter said. “What do you drive?”

The mechanic’s eyes swung up from the engine. He looked at Sutter, then gave a slight toss of his chin toward a half dozen parked cars and trucks. “That Chevy there.”

“The two-tone?”

“Yep.”

“’Eighty-seven?” said Sutter.

“’Eighty-five.”

“They don’t make ’em like that anymore, do they.”

“No, sir.”

They stood listening to Sutter’s motor.

“Well,” said Sutter. “Looks like I wasted your time, Ryan.”

The young man looked at him again. Trying to place him. He put fingertips lightly to the scab lines on his face, one to each line, as if to make a chord on them. Then he said, “Hell,” and swung down the hood. “It’s the boss’s time, not mine.”

“I hear that.”

They stood there, Sutter holding the young man in place with his eyes.

“That’s some scratch.”

“What?” He raised his hand again but stopped short of touching his face. “That ain’t nothin.”

“Cat?”

“What?”

“Looks like a cat scratch.”

The young man looked at him and looked away. “It ain’t nothin.” And turned to go.

“Well,” said Sutter, his heart thudding. “Thanks anyway.”

“No problem.”

“Say hey to Bud for me.”

The young man paused.

“Bud?”

“Bud. He said go see Ryan at Anderson Auto.”

The young man nodded, sucked at something in his teeth, and when he said nothing more, asked no more questions— How do you know old Bud? —Sutter knew he’d made a mistake, although he wasn’t sure where, which was the worst kind. He saw the young man glance at his Minnesota plate before he moved on. But then after a few steps he turned back to toss Sutter a kind of two-fingered salute and an empty smile. “If those crickets come back,” he said, “you bring her on back and we’ll get her fixed up.”

THE WOMAN PUT him on hold and in those minutes Sutter ordered a coffee from the waitress and received it, stirred milk into it, and drank half of it down. From the booth window he could just see the garage a half block away, the two-tone Chevy in the lot.

At last the doctor came on the line to tell him that Audrey was doing much better today, stronger, her temperature considerably down, and he was taking her off the drugs.

“When can I take her home?”

“Let me have another look at her after lunch, and we’ll see about sending her home this afternoon. But no promises.”

Sutter hung up, then sat staring at the phone’s home screen, at the image of his daughter and himself smiling out at him, that time she got him to go skating with her, both of them red-faced and wearing black knit caps like a father-daughter burglar team. Then he dialed the same number and asked the nurse on duty to let Audrey know he’d called and that he’d be coming in after lunch to see her.

The waitress returned and he found the simplest thing on the menu and she wrote that down on her pad and collected the menu and went away again—unsmiling, no-nonsense; another breed entirely from the one at the café, with the birthmark.

He drank his coffee and watched the garage. He pulled out his wallet and his notebook with the names and numbers of the garages and set them before him, and after a while he opened his wallet and slid the white business card free and held it at its four points between his thumbs and forefingers.

She might remember more when she’s feeling better, Tom. I know you know that .

Keep it, Ed. I’ve got your number in the phone .

Well, take the card anyway. And Tom… I’ve got this. I promise you .

sheriff edward moran, the card said, in raised black. Little sheriff’s star up in the corner that caught the light like gold, that looked damn near like the real deal. One good-looking card, Sheriff.

He looked out the window for a long while. His phone was under his hand and he kept turning it round and round on the tabletop.

You could just take the bastard’s picture and show it to her.

That still wouldn’t prove it.

Be enough to bust him, though.

It’d still be his word against hers. Only one thing can prove he was there.

Hard evidence, pal. I know it.

He took another sip of coffee, then picked up the phone and punched in the number and held the phone to his ear. The woman who answered was the same one he’d spoken to thirty minutes ago, in person, and he said, “Yes, is Ryan working today?”

“Ryan Radner?”

Sutter hesitated. “Is there another Ryan?”

“Not today there’s not.”

“Well, Radner’s the one I want.”

“Did you need to speak to him?”

“No, ma’am. I was just wondering how late he’ll be there today so I don’t miss him.”

“He’ll be here till five today, sir. That’s when we close.”

“Thank you very much,” Sutter said.

“You’re very welcome, sir.”

HE WAS AT the hospital at half past noon and when he looked around the doorjamb she was sitting up with a spoon halfway to her mouth and she looked so much like her mother in that bed, in that place, that his heart went out from under him, and she looked at him, the spoon halted in midair, and said, “—What?”

He corrected his face, his heart, and stepped into the room.

“Nothing,” he said. He held up the white paper bag, and her eyes widened.

“Is that a Portman’s bag?”

“Kept it in the trunk all the way up here.”

“Strawberry?”

“What else?”

She set aside the pudding and pulled the large paper cup with its coat of frost from the bag and fastened her lips on the straw and caved her cheeks and shut her eyes.

The doctor floated in, the wings of his open labcoat riding his currents, greeted Sutter and stepped up to Audrey. “Don’t mind me,” he said, and she went on sucking at the straw while he shone his penlight into her eyes, put his stethoscope on her back and on her chest, held her cast out of view from her and pressed his ballpoint pen to the tips of her fingers, asking her to wiggle each finger when she felt it. He seemed to like all he saw and heard, but at the end of it he said he wanted to keep her one more night just to be on the safe side, and Audrey shook her head at Sutter and Sutter said, “Whatever you say, Doc,” and the doctor floated away again.

She released the straw and pushed her head into the pillow as if for a better view of him, standing there.

“Did you sleep at all last night, Sheriff?”

“I got my share.”

“I think we need to go home.”

“You heard the doctor.”

“I don’t think he sees the big picture.”

“What’s the big picture?”

“That staying here isn’t making me any better and it’s making you worse.”

“It’s not making me worse.”

“It isn’t making you any better.”