The robot waved at George through the rearview mirror.
Back then, George fluttered his eyelids, thinking he was hallucinating. He opened his eyes wide, and sure enough, still there. A man, George could tell from the hairy waving hand, with a cardboard-box robot head, was driving, riding up on George’s bumper, as if following.
“I’m pulling off for gas in Poughkeepsie,” George said to Martha.
“Maybe I’ll get us some Combos and Cokes in the store then,” Martha said. “And a bone to bring home to Cope.”
“Sounds good,” George said, distracted and keeping one eye on the still-waving robot behind. He didn’t want to alarm Martha. Didn’t point any of this out, which he might have normally, had he thought this to be some roadway stranger prank. George felt it was something different. He’d tell her once they were safe off the highway.
They pulled into the Poughkeepsie gas station. He remembers pumping the gas and feeling safe, for he didn’t see the robot driver pull off behind them. Martha was in the store. There were no other customers. When done with the gas, George pulled up to the air machine on the side of the station to plump one of the Volvo’s tires. Then, in a snap, as Martha came out and rounded the station’s corner, the gray Ford pulled in fast, drove to the side of the station a half-length beyond George, who was busy with the air nozzle on the driver’s side front tire. The man with a robot head sprung from his car, ran to Martha, stabbed her three deep times in the chest, and, later confirmed, in the heart, returned to his car and, before throwing his body back in to speed off, yelled to George, “Payback, rude boy.”
It was three seconds and done. Martha died of blood loss and body trauma ten minutes later in George’s arms. He cried to police that a man in a robot costume did it, had followed them over the bridge. Had called him “rude boy,” and that this was “payback,” but George had no clue what any of it was about. The police could only confirm, given the strangest angles of two separate exterior cameras at the station, that indeed a gray Ford with no plates pulled in, as George said, and a man, of whom all they could see were his legs and thrusting knife, stabbed Martha. They could see George fully, airing his tires, and caught unaware and in shock the full three seconds the murder took place.
When George got home, after all the official fuss, three days later, Cope sniffed Martha’s dried blood on George’s sweaty undershirt and fled into the Vermont mountains.
In looking through the rearview now, George calms a half fraction to realize he can’t make out the driver behind, as it is too dark between snowfall and the driver’s headlights colliding with George’s taillights, and so, not much can be seen except a blur of black and white. So George cannot confirm, this way or that, whether a man dressed as a robot pursues him again. But he has that same prickling feeling.
Chill the fuck out and get to that asshole Kyle.
George pulls into staff parking at Richard’s Mountain. He wastes not a second in parking, exiting, and shouting to the General Manager of the mountain, who’s waiting on staff in the parking lot, wearing his multi-pocketed managerial coat.
“Where’s Kyle?” George yells.
The General Manager walks up to George, looking up from a shielded clip-board and from under a wide brimmed hat. Snow falls between and on the two men. “Prick’s gone, George. Just left. You seem about as pissed as I for that fucker.”
“He just left the bar. He couldn’t have gotten here more than ten minutes before me.”
“Yeah, that’s right. He got here about five minutes ago, and I was waiting for him. After he parked, I made him give me the keys, and told him to hike his sorry ass with security back to his staff cottage and clear out by 2:00 a.m.”
“Holy shit. What the fuck did he do?”
“He ain’t who he says he is. He started last week, yeah. Promises about referrals, all that shit. Well I let him start, dumb fucking me, while I wait on references and background to clear. His name sure as fuck isn’t Kyle whateverthefuck he said his name was. When I faxed his picture to all the referrals, not a one knew who he was. So I have a cop buddy run his prints. This prick just got out of Rockingham Prison two weeks ago. He ain’t no Kyle, he’s some Brett Brickadick, whatever, asshole, who cares. Did nine years for killing a lady in Keene while robbing her in a home invasion.”
“Well the bastard stole my knife and worse yet, the book I gave Martha to propose.”
“Not the Dickinson?”
“Yeah, the Dickinson.”
“Shit.”
As they were talking, another couple of staff trucks had pulled in. Bob, Eli. A few others. They didn’t interrupt the big boss with George, and quick-stepped to the staff lounge to punch in. Another car arrived as well, a non-descript Bronco that could have been gray or white. That person now walks toward the big boss and George. A parking lot lamp shines a cone of light around the big boss and George; this new man remains in the blackness just beyond. His features are undefined given the snow and shadows.
“Ah, Reeker. Reeker, come on here, come closer. Reeker, this is George, head of engineering. You’ll ride with him tonight. He does cold side of the mountain, so he’ll show you what working a blizzard is all about. We have to be open by 9:00 a.m., no matter what. We got a record to maintain.” From one of ten exterior pockets on his manager’s utility coat, the big boss pulls out and shoves a giant, weather-proof walkie in George’s hands. He does the same to Reeker. “Take him up.”
George hadn’t really focused on Reeker as he approached and the boss said all this. He was fuming so hard in his mind his eyes where clouded, which was doubly easy given the blinding snow. But now, now that Reeker is in the spotlight, George shrinks within himself.
A round-head man, with round neck, round torso, round arms, round legs. He can’t tell if he’s bald, for Reeker wears a thick knit hat.
“Hi there, I’m Reeker,” Reeker says to George.
George outstretches his hand, shaking. Reluctant. He’s speechless.
The big boss is called to address something in the staff lounge and runs off.
“Right, then,” George says to Reeker.
George is not ready to accept that he might be standing in the presence of the Spine Ripper. Nah. That’s nuts. He’s just spun up about Fake-Kyle, he tells himself. I’m spun up. The news sketch could have been any round, white man. I just want to tell Karen tonight.
As if on a mind call, George’s walkie sizzles.
“Karen to George, Karen to George,” Karen calls. She has deep cracks in her voice from frying her vocal cords to an earned brokenness, after spending twenty years of her life as an estate auctioneer and then crying herself voiceless at her husband’s grave — a grief so deep she had mental and physical laryngitis a full year, some years ago. George always smiles to hear the strength in how she owns her scars, as if her grief and her vocal strain are braided with her soul. He gets it. He does. Now, widowed at age fifty-two, and having moved here from sunny California to start over, Karen’s worked as Safety Captain for the past two years.
“George here, Karen. Good night to you, over,” George says. His heart is a pure mixture of excitement to hear her, but outright fright in looking at Reeker who doesn’t blink, staring at George in a way that is not seeing George, but seeing thoughts he has about George. The man has black eyes. The man has dead eyes. George, the lumberjack, feels two feet tall and ten pounds total. He fears Reeker could chew him; literally, eat him alive. George eye-measures Reeker as taller and bulkier than even himself. He’s a large man to a large man.