A voice from below the cabinet gasped weakly, “Air.”
Whoever was under there, whoever had tried to move this monster alone, was a damn fool. Robert struggled to lift the closest edge of the cabinet and fortunately failed, as had he succeeded he would have just further crushed the victim. Tom waved him off, squatted, back braced against a wall and prepared to lift the thing from the top.
“As soon and I get it up far enough, pull her out,” he told Robert.
The shoulder, banged up when Robert crashed into him, hurt like crazy and he thought his gut would burst and leave his intestines hanging on the cabinet like some festive Christmas sausages. But he lifted it at last, plowing a new path into the plaster as he brought it upward. Robert was quick to pull a medium-sized young woman to safety. Somehow, Tom managed to let the cabinet down again without getting a foot stuck underneath. His back was killing him, masking the pain in the shoulder. It took ten seconds before he could go to Robert and help him with the woman.
She was forty years younger than he’d expected. He checked her leg first. Some of the skin (nice looking skin) was going to bruise. Her arm looked worse, but not broken. They got her into a chair and Tom had a chance to study her further. Beth Kessler was maybe five-six, had a good figure about ten pounds above ideal, natural blonde highlights in light brown hair, and slightly hooked nose maybe a half-size too large. Not movie material, but people would say pretty, and in Houghton, which was pathetically short of nubile females of all kinds, a catch.
“Is anything broken?” She
looked
intact.
“I don’t think so, thanks. You’re pretty strong.” It was not a come-on, just an observation prompted by the rescue.
“I helped him,” Robert reminded her.
“Thank you too, Robert,” she replied patiently, apparently used to humoring this paying guest.
“What were you doing trying to move that thing yourself?” Tom threw his hands in the air.
“I’m re-decorating a big place alone. I’ve had to do things like that before. That’s a very good dolly,” she assured him defensively. “It’s a matter of balance. But this time I think one of the wheels stuck.”
“Beth does all kinds of things herself,” bragged Robert. “She’s like the man of the house. Oh, I didn’t mean man.”
“Why do I put up with you?” she chided, and then turned to Tom. “I’m Beth Kessler. I own this house.”
“Hi. I’m Tom Hawk.”
“I’m happy to meet you, Mr. Hawk. You’re a friend of Robert’s?”
Robert blurted, “We just met. A car accident. I drove into the side of his car.”
“Oh Lord, Robert, were you delivering those stupid pizzas?”
“Yes, but it’s no problem. I’m going to make things right and no one will come here. We’re not making any police report.”
She eyed Tom warily. “That’s nice of you, Mr. Hawk.”
Robert added, “His car is pretty banged up and we need to leave it somewhere until I can arrange to get it fixed. We’d really like to leave it in the garage if it’s copasetic with you?”
“Oh, I don’t think I can do that. I’m trying to get the place looking nice.”
“Please, Beth. A couple days and it’ll go to the body shop. We can park it where the Nash is.”
“A couple days?” She surveyed Tom more closely. “Oh, I suppose, why not.”
“Thanks. He’s going to use the Nash until his car is fixed,” Robert explained.
“Oh really? Good luck with that.” She studied Tom a third time.
He thought she looked worried. Was she wondering why he was willing to hush up the accident, wondering whether he would fit in the Nash or wondering how bright he was if he was willing to drive it? She didn’t seem to like him, or at least she didn’t like having his car sitting around her place. Well, neither did he. With luck it’d be in a repair shop Monday.
****
Beth Kessler helped Robert and Tom Hawk get the Cutlass into her garage. The blue coupe was the expensive muscle car model, the 442, and nearly new. Hawk insisted on pushing it all the way to the back wall so it sat in shadows, barely visible even with the garage door open.
He alleged that he’d just enrolled in Tech’s graduate school, but volunteered no other personal information. The guy looked to be near thirty, so he’d done
something
for a half dozen years after getting his bachelor’s degree, but he had tersely deflected several questions Robert had put to him.
She watched Hawk drive away. The contrast was jarring: a large, good-looking man in a ridiculous little car. Hawk unnerved her. He was clean and polite but cautious as though hiding something. He seemed to be suppressing anger over more than the accident with Robert. He was patient with Robert, which wasn’t always easy. When he’d touched her leg, exploring for broken bones, she’d felt a surprising, inappropriate stirring.
She felt grudgingly indebted to him for wrenching his back while pulling a couple hundred pounds of varnished oak off of her. But not so indebted that she liked storing a damaged car from an unreported accident involving Robert and a scam her cousin Gary ran. If she didn’t owe Gary money herself, if she hadn’t desperately needed the rent income, she would have told Robert to get honest work or move out. She was renting illegally to non-students, although it was unlikely anyone would make a stink about it until Robert got in some other trouble. Or until her other boarder, Dani, did.
Dani wasn’t working any scams for Gary that she knew of. In fact, she was pretty pissed off at him today. But Dani had time on her hands, got around a lot, and it was a matter of time until she got in man-trouble or general trouble. None of it would have really mattered except that Beth was on probation for the Nixon thing and that probation guy didn’t like her. If he came around she didn’t need him being distracted by Dani, Robert, or a smashed Cutlass belonging to a mysterious hunky stranger. It was enough just trying to get this house in shape.
She went to the kitchen, opened a beer and took a deep pull. It was good. Why hadn’t she discovered beer sooner, as an undergrad like everyone else?
****
The Nash was noisy and balky; smaller once you were confronted with the prospect of actually driving in it. Low gear was not synchromesh, requiring some double-clutching, a skill that Tom had largely lost as witnessed by the screaming of the gearbox when he had to downshift to first, a frequent need with the weakling engine. Tom’s personal stuff, paltry as it was, filled the little trunk.
He reached Grant’s Grocery, the place looking deserted, almost mysterious. He pulled the Nash mostly out of sight into a narrow side alley beside the grocery, and struggled out of the low seat. A spasm of pain shot through his shoulder and back. Damn Robert; damn china cabinet.
Gary Grant was at the front hunched close over the telephone, and preoccupied with the call. The store was unchanged—overstuffed and poorly lit. Yet on closer inspection it held an astonishing number of name-brand products, albeit with most items limited to a single shelf row. Any stock boy working here and trying to cope with keeping the shelves full would turn suicidal in a month.
Other than that, it was a rural grocery store caught in some rustic time warp. There was nothing other than his galloping claustrophobia to explain his unease about the place yesterday, or today, for that matter. Tom got the toothpaste he’d started out to buy the day before. He worked his way to the junk food shelves, considering what snack product might most gross out the little Bostonian roommate, and wondering why the snacks weren’t near the check-out for impulse purchase. Then he realized the place was arranged to favor products older, hell,
old
people would want.
He’d pretty well settled on some cheese-coated popcorn so as to leave corn litter all over the Quonset hut room and smear a greasy coating on the Boston kid’s prize possessions when he heard Grant in a tense conversation at the front.
A bovine-looking young man with a New York City accent bleated to Grant, “And you guarantee this will hold up, with my hometown board, I mean?”
“Never fails. I can get you a reference, a satisfied customer.”
“No. I don’t want to talk to anyone else about this. Two fifty?”
“Yup, unless you need help with scheduling classes too?”
“No, I just want the draft documents. You take a check?”
“I’m happy to. My business is based on mutual trust.”
Tom peered over the Cocoa Puffs and saw a chunky youth of average height with a Beatle haircut hand Grant a check and leave the grocery store. What was Grant running here? He looked back at the cheese popcorn. There was dust on the package. How long had it sat on the shelf? No matter, he only planned to trash a student room with it, not eat the stuff.
He carried it and the toothpaste to the check-out counter and laid them before Gary, causing him to look up, nonplussed to realize someone had been in the store.
He recovered quickly. “Hey, you’re back. Great.”
“Hi. Yeah, you mentioned the possibility of a job yesterday.”
“Right. Let’s go to my office in the back.”
“Ah, aren’t you here alone? the cash register, I mean?”
“This isn’t Detroit. There’s a bell on the door. Come on.”
“Sure. Yesterday you had an issue here with this other person. Was she seriously injured?”
“Oh, she’ll be fine. She has a thicker skull than even mine.”
Tom gazed at him, willing him to say more.
“Look, I sold her something that didn’t work out for her and she went completely nuts. I’d never have figured her to carry a gun. I’m fixing things with her. It’s cool.”
“What did the cops say?”
“I didn’t call them. We were able to resolve our issue privately. But you did the right thing at the time. Honest to God, she was so pissed just then she might have shot me. That’s enough about that, all right?”
“All right.” It would have to be, for now. Tom needed work from this guy. “So, about the job?”
“Right. I peg you as more than another engineering student. You’re a research engineer, or some assistant professor. Have I got that right?”
“I’m a new grad student. I did some engineering for a defense company and the Marines.”
“Ah, Marine is good.” They’d reached the rear of the store and a narrow door to the left of the rack that held the vintage cheese popcorn. “You got a name?”
“Tom Hawk.”
“Gary Grant.”
“Yes, I know, your name’s on the building.”
“You wrestle?”
Was Grant gay? “No. I was housed next to a gym. I had time, and I was there a lot.”
“Gym is good.”
That seemed to end his interest in the subject, and he opened the narrow door. Tom had to turn sideways to go through it into an incredibly cluttered office. It was
so
small. His blood pumped fast, urging him to flee. Thankfully, the grocer left the door open.
Grant moved a stack of tattered and well-stuffed file folders from a battered metal straight chair to a little table and ordered, “Have a seat.”
He went to an antique swivel chair in front of a stained and scarred roll top desk. It squealed in protest as he lowered himself into it while Tom eased himself into the guest chair.
Grant ran a hand through his hair. “Did you hurt your back during our episode yesterday?”
“No. It happened later, moving some furniture. I’ll be fine. Look, it’s a long time ago, but I’ve stocked shelves and clerked in a store before.”
“I don’t need a store clerk, Tom. I have several other small, more technical businesses needing an engineer’s inputs. You’d get paid out of the store, though. Five bucks an hour.”
Five dollars an hour was close to a competitive engineering salary. What was the catch? Carefully, he probed, “Don’t misunderstand, but this area is full of engineering types. Why me?”
“Clearly you’re smart. Clearly you can be discreet. If I read you right, you don’t want to call any attention to yourself. I like to operate discreetly. Candidly, your Marine training and physical size won’t hurt either, once the back heals, I mean.”
“I see. Do you have a lot of problems like you did with the tall blonde woman yesterday?”
“Not a lot.”
“I never hit a woman until yesterday, and I don’t plan to again.”
“No, of course not, that was a special situation. You won’t be hitting anyone. It’s just that I’m involved in some competitive businesses. I need you to help me make the right impression. Let’s make it six bucks an hour.” Grant opened a desk drawer, pulled out a black vinyl packet, took five twenties from the packet, and laid them on the table. “Here’s a signing bonus,” he offered, pushing them to Tom.
“What will I be doing, exactly?” Tom, who was suddenly $100 richer, enough to cloud his judgment considering he had no car, no contacts, little money, and a contract out on his life, frowned.
“We’ll go over your work tomorrow. Call the store number on the front window when you can come here. I’ve got to go see some lawyers now.”
“You can’t tell me today what I’ll be doing?” Tom could not disguise his discomfort.
Grant declined pointedly, “You don’t need to know what I need you to do right this minute, do you? Trust me, you won’t be doing anything illegal.”
“Then I guess it’s a deal.” Tom pocketed the money. But he’d noted the pronoun. Grant had asserted, “You won’t be doing anything illegal,” not, “We won’t be doing anything illegal.”
****
The Nash waited for him in the alley like a faithful brown-and-white beagle. It seemed to have shrunk while Tom was with Gary Grant. He’d best not wash the thing until he was done with it lest it disappear altogether. A real beagle dog appeared and started sniffing the car’s tires with marginal interest.
Next to the miniature car was a miniature person. Like the Nash, although sturdy, she seemed to have her best years behind her. Her back was to him as she studied the vehicle intently. He coughed and she turned a head and peered at him over a rather broad shoulder.
He smiled at her. “Excuse me; I need to leave in that car.” He shook the keys as a visual aid to someone wrinkled and possibly senile.
She wheeled on him, and what he’d thought was a cane that she was leaning on was in fact a baseball bat. She put a second hand on the bat, not a good sign, and a slogan popped in his head:
Grant’s Grocery—Violence Daily
.