The Fate Merchant

Chapter 21

     “Open the fuckin’ door.”

     The teen spun Jasper around and held him by the back of the neck. The dirty glass reflected the three of them and, in the waning light, it looked to Jasper as though he had a head growing out of each shoulder. He considered mentioning this to lighten the mood, but decided against it as a man stepped into view behind them, a man with two guns.

     “Let him go,” the man said, pressing the guns into the backs of the teens’ heads.
     The teens scattered, one to the left, one to the right: pasty-faced rodents who knew their place in the food chain.

     “Turn around,” the man said.

     Jasper turned. The man wore a crisp blue button down shirt, tan slacks, and brown loafers. The light wind that had been toying with the discarded newspaper pounced on the man’s expertly gelled blond hair, and realizing it was engaged in a fight it would never win, swirled off to torment a gum wrapper.

     “Thanks,” Jasper said.

     The man smiled and flashed two rows of white teeth. “Neighborhood watch. We’re taking back the streets.” The man nodded toward the door. “I’ll wait until you get inside.”

     Jasper turned back to the door and tried the second key. The deadbolt slid back with a loud metallic clank. “Thanks again.”

     The man raised his right hand, touched the tip of his gun to his forehead, and saluted. “Stay safe.”

     Jasper returned the salute, and then ducked inside the building. The door closed behind him, plunging him into semi-darkness. The air smelled of grease and rubber, and dust drifted in and out of the dying light fighting its way through a grime-encrusted window near the ceiling to his left.

     The door opened behind him and the man entered. “Sorry. Forgot to ask you something.” Dusky light nipped at the shadows on the left side of his face. His smile was gone, the rows of white teeth tucked safely behind thin lips. “Where’s Doyle?”

     Jasper retreated into the shadows and bumped against a counter, the pride he’d felt at making it from the Revival to Ray’s Tires without being followed evaporating. Then again, he’d been on the looking for bald guy with a sledgehammer, not what appeared to be a dentist with a serious gun fetish.

     “I don’t know where Doyle is. I’m just borrowing his car.”

     The man stuffed the gun in his left hand into the waistband of his pants, and pointed the gun in his right hand at Jasper.

     “I think you should know,” Jasper said, “that I’m scheduled to donate a kidney next week.”

     “Yeah?” the man said. He kept his eyes on Jasper as he slid his left hand along the wall near the door.

     “My cousin. He has five kids, and his wife died last year.”

     “Oh man, that sucks. I’ll try not to shoot you in the kidneys, then.”

     The overhead fluorescents clicked on and flooded the garage with flickering white light.

     “That’s better,” the man said. “Looks like Ray took his tires and fucked off.”

     With the exception of Doyle’s car, a vintage red sports car that Jasper thought might be a Ford Mustang, the garage stood empty, a concrete shell, the cash register on the counter and the torn Goodyear poster on the wall beneath the window the only signs that business had once been conducted here.