Harry Griffin woke up feeling the warm impression Susan had left in his bed. She’d left early, in a hurry, driving to Bemidji. But her words were fresh in his mind, how he should help his friend.
He unsheathed the notion slowly over breakfast, as he filled his work thermos with coffee, made a sandwich. Sort of laid it out on the table, looked at it. There was another layer to this thing. The skiing part kept coming back, didn’t track. Not for Jimmy.
Susan had invoked the subject of Gator Bodine. Another local mystery man, living alone in his spooky woods with his treasure trove of antique tractors. Only came into town to get his groceries, or dicker over machine parts at Shulty’s Implements.
And to ski the trails around the big lake.
He pictured Gator, hard packed with his grease-monkey muscles. Convict pensive. Spiky hair and perpetual two-day beard like a sweaty wire brush. Sporting his famous tattoo. They had never actually spoken, only nodded from a distance at the Last Chance Amoco or Perry’s grocery. Like two big dogs, maybe. Knew of each other by reputation, respected each other’s territory.
Bound to collide eventually.
So instead of driving straight to the job site, he took a run through town, out to Jimmy’s garage. Coming up on Klumpe Sanitation, he saw Jimmy’s brown Ford parked in front. Saw Jimmy through the open garage door, washing down one of his trucks in a billow of steam.
Okay, let’s do a little community outreach.
He parked next to the Ford and walked in through the open door.
Jimmy, hosing down his best Labrie garbage truck, wearing high rubber boots, watched the red Jeep wheel into the yard. Knew it was Griffin. Knew every car and truck in town. Now what’s he want? He turned off the hose and waited for Griffin to approach through the cloud of steam rising off the wet concrete.
They didn’t particularly care for each other.
Like Keith, Griffin was one of the men in town Jimmy couldn’t intimidate. In fact, Griffin could be downright scary. Jimmy’d been in Skeet’s couple years back; the November night a group of drunk hunters, up from the cities, jumped Keith’s deputy, Howie Anderson, brained him out with a cue ball. Keith showed up a few minutes later with Griffin in tow for backup. The drunks unloaded a volley of pool balls, and Jimmy recalled in pins-and-needles detail how Griffin had flashed fast-forward into the drunk-footed crowd. How he had snapped off a pool cue in a corner pocket, butt-stroked two guys to the floor in blinding succession, and then jammed the jagged end of the stick up against this big dude’s throat.
Jimmy clearly remembered the little beads of blood on the guy’s neck, Griffin looking unhappy it was ending, taunting in a voice that had given Jimmy the shivers, “What’s the spirit of the bayonet, motherfucker.”
Happened so fast.
No way Jimmy wanted Harry Griffin speeding up into his life. Not now, especially with the dicey arrangement he and Cassie had going with Gator. Uh-uh.
“Morning, Griffin,” he said in a neutral tone.
“Let’s skip the chitchat. You don’t like me, I don’t like you. But me and Keith had a talk with Phil Broker last night…”
“Yeah?”
“There’s been some petty shit going back and forth. Nothing that can be exactly pinned on anybody. Is that a fair assessment?”
“Fucker dumped his garbage in front of my office. That’s what I know, ’cause Halley, my driver, saw him leaving. So I called Keith. And his sneaky kid sucker-punched Teddy,” Jimmy said slowly, belligerently. Adding a scowl.
Oh-oh, the scowl was a mistake.
Because Griffin stepped in close and stabbed his right hand, stiff fingers tight together, into Jimmy’s chest. Hard, so it hurt. Jimmy’s hands started to come up defensively but stopped when he saw the merry anticipation in Griffin’s eyes, like he’d enjoy seeing Jimmy bleed at eight in the morning. Jimmy backed up. Griffin grinned, a sort of wild, mindless face, like an animal who smells fear. Damn.
“What about you?” Griffin said slowly. “You been doing a little cross-country on the trails back of my place where Broker’s staying, huh? Sneaking around puncturing his tires?” The hand hovered, ready to strike again.
“Not me,” Jimmy said sincerely.
“Don’t bullshit me, Jimmy-”
“No bullshit. I ain’t been on skinny skis since high school,” Jimmy said.
“I thought so,” Griffin said slowly, watching Jimmy’s eyes. When he moved his hand, Jimmy winced, but Griffin only softly rubbed the spot on Jimmy’s chest where he’d poked him.
“I got no quarrel with you,” Jimmy said, indignant. “What do you want, coming in here like this?”
“Keith wants to nip it. Make it stop between you and Broker. So what do you need?”
“No kidding?”
“Hey, Jimmy, I’m losing daylight here. What will get us over this hump?”
Jimmy thought about it. “He’s gotta apologize to me and Teddy in front of people. At the school. How’s that?”
“I’ll talk to him, see what I can do,” Griffin said. “If he meets you halfway, in front of people, you’ll shake on it, okay?”
Jimmy narrowed his eyes. “And he buys Teddy a new shirt to replace the one that got blood on it.”
Griffin held up his hands. “That’s fair. I’ll get back to you.” He turned and started walking back to his Jeep. Then he turned and said, “You ain’t been on skis since high school, is that a fact?”
Jimmy rolled his eyes. It was getting complicated. He shook his head, like a man trying to comprehend an absurd question. As Griffin drove away, Jimmy went immediately to the phone on the wall and called Gator.
“Griffin was just here throwing his weight around.”
Huh? In five seconds flat. Throwing his weight around, how? “What do you mean?” Gator said, going from zero to max exasperation. Fucking dummy. He had his cell phone wedged awkwardly between his shoulder and his ear as he jockeyed the clutch plate on the Moline. Actually hoping it was Sheryl who was calling.
“He was pushing at me. Accused me of messing with Broker’s truck, giving him a flat tire. I didn’t do that,” Jimmy huffed. He was careful to leave out the ski part. The obvious part, because everybody knew he didn’t cross-country. Whereas everybody knew Gator had a wall full of ribbons.
“Anything else?” Gator said.
“Ah, yeah,” Jimmy said, spanning the sins of omission with a hint of relief. “He says him and Keith will get Broker to apologize to me and Teddy. He caved.”
Moron, Gator thought, as he watched the black kitten wolf down the Chef ’s Blend through the open office door. He said, “That’s great, Jimmy. So you got what you wanted.”
“Ah, what about Griffin? Coming around. I don’t really want to mess with him, you know.”
“Aw, he’s probably just sticking up for his buddy. Nothing to it. We’ll just let Keith do his thing, like I said.”
“So everything’s all right?”
“Yeah, Jimmy. Everything’s cool,” Gator said. When he hung up, he didn’t share his brother-in-law’s sense of relief. Griffin showing up as a wild card was far from cool. They’d never crossed paths, and Gator hoped to keep it that way.
Distracted, staring at the clock on the wall, then at the phone on his desk; he didn’t think Griffin was anything to worry about. Yet. It’d blow over, the petty feud part. But the other thing…
He wiped off his hands on a rag and walked into the office. Chided himself. Stop watching the phone. Too early for Sheryl to check in. And she didn’t deal in maybes. She’d wait until she had something definite.
When he reached down to stroke the kitten, she darted away under the desk.
“You’ll come around,” he said. “Because I feed you and give you shelter. You need me.” Just like Jimmy and Cassie came around. He turned back to the tractor in his bay. It took time. Like the Moline. Be months before he could make it whole.
Gator held that the combustion engine resembled the human body; used fuel like food, used air just like lungs.
Then he paused and considered the plan he’d set in motion against Phil Broker’s life. Well, there was one fundamental difference between people and machines: once they turned Broker off, no way he was going to start up again.