Page 65 of Steadfast (True North)
2. Where were they going that night?
3. No photos of the car. Why?
4. No mention of drugs found? Yet Jude was charged with possession.
5. Two tox screens?
6. Wrong door/side in notes
Ireadover the list again, certain that this report was fishy. Maybe it was only shoddy work. But seriously? Which employee of my father’s would want to do a lousy job on the most important police report of the year?
Using my phone and a faxing app, I took pictures of every page then emailed them to myself.
Then I tucked the forbidden file away in my bag again, zipping it shut tightly.
Chapter Twenty
Jude
Cravings meter: 4 and holding steady
On the following Wednesday afternoon—after polishing off a sandwich I’d bought for myself—I went back to work on my new customer’s Prius.
His bright green paint had arrived, so I’d had the customer drop the car off yesterday for prep work.
“Can I get you to put the decal on when the paint job is done?” he’d asked.
“Probably,” I said. “I don’t have any experience with those, but if I can get enough information about the process I’ll do it for you.”
The guy nodded. “The nearest dealer of these custom decals is fifty miles away. I couldn’t find anything closer, so I’ll probably need your help.”
“Okay, man.”
That was something I should look into. It wouldn’t hurt to have another line of business to offer. Another skill. Another way out of Dodge.
The first morning with his car I’d primed the panels. Now, with a block of 600-grit sandpaper, I smoothed everything out.
Body work was a strange corner of the auto repair market. Instead of making the car perform better, you’re only making it look nicer on the outside. When I was a teenager it seemed so pointless. Fix the dent in a little roller skate of a car? You’re still stuck with a little roller skate of a car. I would have rather rebuilt engines until they roared like beasts.
These days I was more patient with bodywork. I liked the idea that rough patches could be sanded out and that bumps could be smoothed again. If not in my life, than on a car. I’d set myself up near the window, with a lamp over my other shoulder. The two sources of light helped me to suss out any tiny imperfections in the surface.
The Green Day CD I’d been playing in our old stereo box ended, leaving me in silence. I heard only the sweep of the sanding block and my own breathing.
And a bump against the back wall.
I froze, the sanding block hovering over my work. A bump could be nothing. But I was feeling paranoid these days. Not only were the cops on my ass, but I was worried about the drug dealer who’d stopped by to pay me a visit. My gut told me I wasn’t rid of him yet.
Silently I set the sanding block onto the panel and slid out from behind my workspace. Yanking my goggles off, I set them down.
There was another bump, softer this time. It was possible I was about to bust an alley cat or a kid with his soccer ball. But better safe than sorry.
I slipped out of the front door and walked quickly up the driveway between my father’s house and the garage. When I peered carefully around the corner toward the back, the first thing I saw was the tenting of the tarp over the Porsche.
Someone was fucking with my wreck of a car.
“Hey!” I said loudly, stepping into the alley.
A startled gasp accompanied the perpetrator’s leap away from the car.
