“I’ll go back to bed. Wanna come?”
“Don’t tempt me,” Harold said. “Work, work, work, work, work.”
“Well, don’t forget to eat some lunch.”
“Yes, Mother.”
On his way to the garage, Harold spotted a white Malibu in his rearview mirror. It came up on him fast and rode his bumper. He couldn’t make out who it was through the tinted windshield. The driver of the Chevy flashed his lights and blew his horn. Harold pulled into the parking lot of the Tasty Freeze. He got out of his Duster. Keasey got out of the Malibu.
“What’s the problem?” Harold asked.
“Hey, where’s your friend?” Keasey asked. He leaned forward, his posture combative.
“How the fuck should I know? I’m on my way to work.” Harold turned back to his car.
“I’m talking to you,” Keasey said.
“Give me a break, man. You made some arrangement with Donnie. I ain’t his father, his brother, or his guardian.” Harold reached for the door handle.
Keasey grabbed Harold’s arm.
Harold didn’t like that and he liked Keasey’s attitude even less. He pulled back and punched Keasey hard in his left side. The man buckled, held on to the rear fender of the Duster.
“I told you to leave me the fuck alone.”
“Donnie never showed up with my shit.”
“Not my problem,” Harold said.
“He’s still got my truck,” Keasey said, not yet fully erect.
“Again, not my problem.”
Keasey still held his arm against his side. “Sorry I came on so strong.” He seemed suddenly a completely different person. “Did Donnie get in touch with you? Call you?”
“I’m going to work.”
“He didn’t look in the box, did he?”
Harold wasn’t listening, but he heard. He got behind the wheel and closed his door, started the engine, and left Keasey standing there. In his mirror, Keasey looked like a much smaller man. More, he looked scared, really scared. And this made Harold scared.
Harold pulled into his parking spot at the garage and felt his fingers clench the steering wheel more tightly. His mouth went dry. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Keasey’s bronze Silverado was parked behind the garage. Harold was terrified and angry in turns. He got out and walked to the pickup. The bed was empty. Donnie was nowhere to be seen. Harold called his name. He walked around the building, ending up at the door to his office. It was still locked.
Inside, everything appeared in order, just as he’d left it, just as it had looked every morning for the past eight years. He dreaded Keasey coming and finding his truck at his place. He walked into the work bays and rolled open the big doors. He then went back to the Silverado. The bed was empty. The doors were locked. Harold could see inside. There was no box. At least there was no box. Harold told himself that if Donnie survived this mess, he would kill him.
Business went as usual that day. In fact, business was pretty good. People picked up their vehicles, paid in full, and left. Others dropped off their cars and trucks and left without complaint. And not a word from Donnie or Keasey. Still, Keasey’s truck was parked behind the garage.
Harold called Shannon at home and asked her if Donnie had called or come by. He had not. He didn’t have a number for Keasey. He thought about calling the cops and telling them the truck had been left there, but decided that he would sound like a nut or, worse, like somebody trying to cover his ass.
It came time to close up the shop and the truck was still there. He wouldn’t worry about it tonight. He did hope that Donnie was all right, at least alive. He’d just locked the door connecting his office to the service area when he heard a noise. He unlocked the door and looked into the garage. With the big doors down it was pretty dark in there. He reached to the wall beside him and flipped the switch. Nothing happened. He grabbed the flashlight from the bracket by the door. He shined the light past the Land Cruiser in the middle bay and onto the back wall. Nothing. Another sound came from behind him in the office. He tried the light in there as well, but it didn’t come on. He thought he saw someone pass by the window. He got scared. He went to his desk, opened his drawer, and took out his.38. He checked the chamber and saw it was loaded. He picked up the phone and called the cops on speed dial.
“Can you send a car to Harold’s Garage, over on Cypress? I think I have an intruder.”
Harold heard a louder noise from outside, like an empty fuel can falling over. He let himself out the office door. He could see better outside and so he turned off his flashlight. He walked along the wall of the building. He added a new fear to his current one, that the police would show up and shoot the man with the gun. He made his way to the back and the Silverado. He looked around.
It might have been there the whole time and he hadn’t seen it. Regardless, it was there now. The cardboard box was sitting on an oil drum set against the wall of the garage. Suddenly it was hard for him to see, as if the darkness had fallen extra fast. He switched on his light and looked all around.
He looked at the box and stepped closer to it. He opened the flaps and peered inside. He shone the light into the box and could just make out the mass of light brown, maybe blond hair and maybe an eye. The box stank.
And now the police were on the way. His head was swimming. Fucking Donnie, was all he could think. Then he heard footfalls on the gravel around the corner. He hadn’t heard a car, so he didn’t think it was the cops. But if it was and he had the pistol up, they might shoot him. They would shoot him. He saw no beams of flashlights approaching the corner and so he thought it probably wasn’t the police. He was shaking. He looked at the head, trying to figure out what to do.
When he looked up again he saw someone large. Larger than either Donnie or Keasey, but something wasn’t quite right. He shined his light at the figure. The man was wearing a muddy suit, but above the collar of the filthy jacket was nothing. His once-white shirt was red and black, but there was no head.
Harold felt like he wanted to pass out. Was this a joke? The man, the body, was huge, six feet without the head. Harold looked at the box, picked it up, and pushed it toward the suit.
“I take it this is yours.”
The muddy hands reached out and took the box, and the body walked away into the darkness.
When the police arrived, they found Harold sitting with his back against the front tire of the Silverado.
“Sorry, boys, it was a false alarm. The power went off and I’m afraid I got spooked.”
The cops looked around. “Are you all right?” one of them asked. “Yeah.”
“Well, your lights are back on,” the other said.
“Okay,” Harold said.
“Sir, are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m sure.” Harold stood and nodded.
The police left. Harold went back into his office. He switched off the light in the service area and locked the door. His hands were shaking. He walked over to his desk and was about to put away his pistol, but thought better of it. He put the gun in his pocket.
He sat on the sofa and switched on the television. Somewhere on the West Coast somebody was playing baseball. The daylight was startling even on the screen. Harold knew he would never see Donnie again. He knew also that Keasey was gone, along with his pregnant wife. The Silverado? He’d have to figure out what to do with that. He’d claim it was abandoned, maybe. Then he stopped thinking about all of those things, realizing that he was trying to distract himself. What had he just seen? What would he tell Shannon? Would he tell Shannon anything? Would he show up for work the next day? He looked back at the game. It was so sunny in California.
Graham Greene
I had done some work on the reservation nearly ten years earlier, helping to engineer an irrigation ditch that brought water from a dammed high creek down to the pastures of Arapaho Ranch. I slept on a half dozen different sofas during the seven months of the project. The tribe paid me well and I left, thought that was the end of it. Then just a few weeks ago I received a letter from a woman named Roberta Cloud. I was not so much surprised by the call as I was by the fact that she was still alive. She’d actually had a friend write for her as she was blind now, the letter stated. The friend said that Roberta needed my help. It was a short letter, to the point, without many details. The letter ended with an overly formal “Until I see you I am sincerely, Roberta Cloud.”