Chapter 8: “‘She’s a looker,’…”
Posted by Andrea Benvenuto“Death On The Breeze”
A Danny Stark Mystery
by James Walling
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
“She’s a looker,” teased Bean on the drive back to the garage. The highway skirted around the edges of a clear-cut mountaintop known locally as Mt. Baldy and then straightened out for a long stretch across a wide prairie. Bean pushed the pedal to the floor and let the old Ford open up.
Danny ignored Bean’s jabbering as best he could and tried to imagine how the years might have altered Jillian’s girlish visage. Somehow, he guessed she hadn’t changed much in the decades since he’d last laid eyes on her. Perhaps she’d added a few curves, he considered with a grin.
Bean’s cell phone chirped to life as soon as they had parked and unlocked the office door. Bean scowled when he checked the voice message.
“That’s weird,” he said, sounding puzzled.
“What is it?” Danny asked from down the hall. He was changing into an old T-shirt and a pair of coveralls. Bean brought him the phone and handed it to him after cueing up the message. It was a female voice, but it wasn’t Leslie Schaller.
“I know who you are,” said the voice coldly, “and I know who you work for.”
Then, silence.
Danny replayed the message and handed the phone back.
“What the hell is that about?” Bean wondered aloud.
Danny pulled on a pair of boots and set about tying the laces. “I don’t know,” he said after a minute. “Sounded like she was calling from a pay phone. I don’t suppose we’ll learn much by tracking the call. What the hell,” he added, “it’s worth a shot.”
Bean agreed to call the phone company and request a copy of his records. He made his way toward the office and then fired up the truck and headed out in search of an early lunch at CJ’s Pizza and Sub.
Danny ambled into the sprawling shop that took up most of the front section of the building. He weaved through a maze of spare parts, tire machines, and air compressors and stopped at a wall of shelving at the far end of the room. It contained dozens of volumes of various auto manufacturers’ manuals and indices in Braille. He pulled one from a shelf and carried it over to a late model Jaguar resting in quiet splendor in the middle of the room.
The car belonged to a real estate developer from Battle Ground, and as with most makes of that particular breed, it was lovely to look at but broke down easily and often. Danny knew the car well.
It was in for a scheduled tune-up. He paced around it slowly, running his hand along the contours of its shape. Kneeling, he ran a finger along the underside of a fender to check for grime. His finger came back cleaner than expected and he guessed that it hadn’t been driven much recently.
Out of habit, he shuffled over to a stereo a few feet away and selected a disc from a stack of custom labeled cases next to it. He chose one, placed it in the changer and pressed play. He returned to the Jag and listened with pleasure as the first movement of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony opened with a stately chorus of brass, percussion and strings.
People had often commented that automotive repair was a strange occupation for a blind man. Danny agreed whole-heartedly, but along with the side business in hot cars it provided a pretty good living. Besides, Danny thought to himself, when he bothered to ponder the subject at all, what I am supposed to do—make a go of it as a lumberjack?
Initially, Danny’s blindness had singled him out for sympathy. He’d taken advantage of this by advertising in the local paper and buying up broken down vehicles at cut-rate prices. He’d worked hard and started turning his repair jobs at a sizable profit. Pretty soon people stopped feeling sorry for him and started bringing their business to him instead.
One of Shostakovich’s military themes rose in crescendo as Danny raised the Jag up on a hydraulic lift. He ran his hands along the undercarriage systematically from one end to the other, checking hoses and connections, lengths of pipe, mounting screws, and pad widths. Occasionally, he made reference to the manual he had taken down from the shelf and made a mental note about a part that needed ordering.
Eventually, a battered grandfather clock standing in a corner chimed five times, signaling the lateness of the hour. Shostakovich had long since faded into silence and Danny figured it was about time to knock off.
He wondered where Bean had gotten off to, and guessed the kid had found some way to occupy his evening in order to give Danny and Jillian the run of the apartment.
He lowered the car back to the floor by cranking a handle on the lift and set about putting things away. He had just finished stowing most of his tools when a faint click alerted Danny to the fact that the front door had been closed shut. Someone had opened it without Danny having noticed and was taking great pains to cross the space between them as quietly as possible.
“Bean,” Danny called out, “that you?”
But he knew it wasn’t Bean. The kid would have made his presence known already.
“Come on,” Danny said, hoping he sounded casual, “I’m blind, not deaf.”
The footsteps stopped.
Danny faked an indifferent shrug and turned back to the Jag. He knelt down near one of the wheel wells where a small toolbox was sitting open.
Danny had never kept any weapons around the shop. The only concession to security he had ever made was a canister of mace that he kept next to his bed. Not exactly deadly, Danny knew, but at least it tended to even the odds.
He didn’t have any mace handy at the moment, but he figured a can of WD-40 would meet his needs if it came to that. He set a can aside and made a show of closing the toolbox and wiping his brow with a handkerchief.
The steps advanced. Danny picked up the WD-40 and stood, turning toward a nearby wall where some large tools hung from a row of metal hooks. He had just about reached the wall when a husky male voice behind him said, “What? You gonna hit me with a jack handle?”
Danny didn’t recognize the voice. He expected a blow to fall at once, but instead a large hand pressed down on his right shoulder and the stranger leaned in close.
“Just like that, you understand?” he growled, snapping his fingers next to Danny’s left ear. “And you’re fucking dead.”
Danny whimpered as two quick fists pounded his ribcage. The man grabbed a huge wrench at random from off the wall as Danny struggled to catch his breath.
“You better stick to fixing cars for—” but he didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. Danny raised his foot to where he guessed the man’s knee was and folded it backward with a kick.
He screamed as he fell, but Danny caught him by the arm and pulled him close. He heard the clatter of metal on cement as the wrench fell to the floor. Danny found a handful of greasy hair and jerked the man’s face back. He sprayed the lubricant into his eyes and the man screamed again. He struggled to break free, but Danny held on, raining down punches as fast and as hard as he could.
A blow from a wild roundhouse glanced off Danny’s mouth and the man flailed loose. Danny reached up and touched his lip. He tasted warm blood and braced himself for round two, but to his relief the man crashed from the shop in what sounded to Danny like a very athletic crawl.
Danny threw open the door to the office and slid inside, locking it behind him. Outside, the roar of an engine and the screeching of tires told him his new pal had hit the road. He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a fresh bottle of Talisker. He poured two fingers worth into a coffee cup that was sitting on a nearby shelf and swallowed it.
Steadying himself, he picked up the desk phone and dialed the number Jillian had given him earlier in the day.
“Not canceling on me, I hope?” Jillian said when she came to the phone.
“Oh, no,” Danny said slowly, trying hard to enunciate with a split lip. “But I think we better make it eight…”
September 23rd, 2007 at 6:46 pm
What a meaty chapter! I love the mood set as he works on the Jag. And the suspense! Oy…still reeling.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
i bet danny’s attacker was a jehovah’s witness. they can be really, really persistent.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
I only wish these chapters showed up faster. The descriptions are prescision personified, and all I want is to be told what else surrounds me in this world you’re creating. Not wanting to rush art, but hurry up and tell me what’s NEXT!
September 30th, 2007 at 9:43 am
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