Bad At Love: A Lyndy Martinez Story, Part-15

Lyndy Life Observations: Go to visit Aunt Rose Martinez for the holidays, spin the wheel of small talk and receive as a prize one of three lectures. 1. You’re too fat. 2. Now you’re too thin. 3. When are you going to stop screwing around as a private investigator and find a real job?

Lyndy wiped her runny nose on her flannel shirt sleeve because her hands were full with heavy stuff. “Damn allergies,” she mumbled to no one in particular.

She hated crying in public. Not only was it embarrassing, but it reminded her when her boss used to yell if she got emotional. Which is why Lyndy didn’t dare allow Miss Thurgood to see her. She’d imagined a future where the older one got, the more cynical or stoic she’d become. So much for that plan. She’d done it four times in the last week—like her own ongoing episode of Oprah.

The Spitfire set down her toolbox, tilted her head back, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. Ravens were circling the junkyard. High clouds had turned the sky wintery grey.

At 08:55 she happened to be the only female in line at Pick-A-Part, wearing her sunhat and gardening gloves, waiting eagerly behind four lanky teenagers—who called each other “Bro”—and a quiet father and son pair. If you didn’t have tattoos and a mullet here in the eighties, used to be they might not let you in. She’d considered dragging Mari along on this half-baked adventure; Mari could talk to young guys for hours about Honda stuff, and video games, and they loved to talk to her. These types of dudes were her crowd, but the threat of casino goons was too real.

The Spitfire could use a hand, so she also pondered calling Ben Cardenas, but wasn’t sure if he was the fix-your-car type of guy. Who knows, maybe he would have said yes—if he could pull himself away from the OTB.

Under one arm she was clutching the rolled-up plastic tarp. Bending over, she lifted the toolkit. Her green box contained penetrating oil, a mis-matched set of box-end wrenches, hex keys, a ratchet, pliers and a handful of the most common socket sizes like 10-mm.

A one-eyed fellow looking like a Mad-Max extra, guarding the turn-styles nodded as she went by. Wild sunflower and weeds were growing everywhere, boosted by the soaking rains. The air smelled moist.

Used to be macho cars like Mustangs, Torinos and Fairlanes were a dime-a-dozen—couldn’t give em away—but after the millennium they were becoming less and less available. And when you spotted one the motors were always gutted by pony car enthusiasts. Luckily the Rancheros and Mercury Meteors had the same style V-8.

Lyndy got her morning exercise tromping up and down the slanted rows, eyeing all the Fords and Mercurys, searching for any which might have come with a 289. Gave her time to think about the puzzling sanction.

At their last meeting Rhonda had been questioning Mrs. Aloyan’s integrity. But whether she realized it or not, Rhonda had introduced a clever wrinkle to the story by offering an alternative sequence of events. Conceivably Mr. Aloyan had still been run off the road, and this altercation became the catalyst to his disappearing act. Given a choice of whether to seek help from law enforcement or keep on running, he’d chosen the latter. To protect his family? To protect their wealth? She had no direct evidence for this, other than a hunch. Except in this business those counted for a lot.

“Ah, here we are,” she mouthed. Up ahead was a square body farm truck with the hood elevated a few inches—an oddball F100 pickup from northern Mexico coming equipped with a 289 car motor. The stamped pattern matched the one on her factory block. Score! Nobody would’ve looked here in the ugly trucks section. She darted over to it. Pressing up the hood, giving her shoulders a workout, the hinges groaned like they were irritated at having been bothered to move. One didn’t need a hood prop as it remained in place by the forces of decay. Though full of spider webs and maybe a few rat droppings, this seemed a promising one.

Lyndy used an old barbecue brush to clean grime off the top of the engine. At first there was so much dirt she couldn’t even see the bolt heads, much less get a wrench on them. Not chrome, but it was the correct style of valve cover. She balanced her toolkit on the radiator, setting a deep socket atop the newly exposed bolt heads.

Building upon her theory, she suspected Mr. Aloyan hadn’t run off too far. Why? Cause she wouldn’t. Realistically his choices were slim. Leave the US and return to eastern Europe? She doubted it. But she needed a good likeness.

What she could not explain was the part where Mrs. Aloyan claimed she consulted Rita Lovelace about her problem. How in the world could that be true? It was a head scratcher. How many Rita Lovelace’s could there be living in Tucson AZ?

With a razor blade Lyndy stripped hardened gasket material from her new treasure. Then she carried it rusty bolts and all to the front to pay. With any luck they’d let her use the blasting chamber to clean it.

---

Later that day …

She snuck several bites from a tuna sandwich on the dash, paired nicely by kettle chips.

With the sprawl of Vegas suburbs expanding all the time, she was used to traffic there. On the other hand, a midday construction zone on I-40 in Arizona slowing traffic to a crawl; that was especially irritating. They were necking the freeway to one lane using k-rails. It was a game the DOT loved to play. Spin a wheel of mile markers, pick the spot to cause a traffic jam today. The I-40 always had random construction somewhere. A bright orange sign read “shoulder closed” next five miles. Eventually she coasted to a halt.

Yawning, Lyndy rolled down the driver’s window, set her sunglasses on the dash next to her lunch. Then she reached over to tune the radio to a rock station, if she could find one. She’d gone through countless hours like this. Did some of her best thinking; used to get the munchies too. Once upon a time on the LA freeway she and Catherine even played strip poker with two guys in another car. Good ol days.

Out the window she watched horses grazing other side of the barbed fences.

Ahead of her was one of those luxury car carriers, the hard-sided kind transporting Porsches for cross-country sales. In her rearview was an aggressive driver in a dually farm truck. It had a giant chrome brush guard. He was hugging her bumper. No license plate.

That’s when things took an abnormal turn; the loading ramp attached to the back of the trailer started to lower. For some reason it amused her. The goof in the cab hadn’t secured it? It took a long time to lower. Like one degree every second.

She took a glance left and right. Traffic had come to a dead stop, most drivers oblivious.

“Oh crud. They’re back and taking the Mustang!”

She adjusted her center mirror, placing her left hand on the door latch. The man driving the farm truck had mirrored wrap-around shades. His brush guard touched her rear bumper. Turning the front wheels and trying to nose out was an impossibility.

Her heart pounding, she watched the car ramp moving below 70 then 60 degrees.  Soon they’d need to edge the trailer forward or else the ramp would land on her hood. Hard to tell but she assumed men would be waiting behind to ambush her. And there was nowhere really to go, with the concrete rails boxing her in.

The dude in the truck had his hand on his own door. This would be a tricky escape. She let out the clutch, killing the motor. Then stretching over the passenger side, caught her hand on the latch, thrusting the door open. Cringing at the sound she was able to get it partway before it slammed on a k-rail. She scrambled over the console, managing to squeeze out, then edged alongside the truck cab.

Sidestepping as rapidly as possible, she heard the tough with the shades kick open his door. Through the window she caught a glimpse of his raised right hand, in it an enormous black taser. He then dropped from view, leaping nearly four feet to the ground

She dropped to the pavement herself, squirming under the bed of the truck out below the bumper. At her side she saw his boots.

“Stop what you’re doing,” he commanded.

Coming on hands and knees by the tailgate, she sprung onto the hood of the next car, a Subaru. The innocent bystander at the wheel looked frightened, as she started crawling onto the roof and the attacker followed.

Getting desperate, she attempted a leap to the roof of the following car, but stumbled. Her body rolled as she fell to the hard ground and she landed on her side.

“Hands where I can see them!” the man shouted from the roof. He had that big plastic gun armed and pointed straight at her.

“Don’t do it, I have a heart condition,” pleaded Lyndy, shrinking to the shaded side of a mini-van. Ten years younger and she knew she would’ve made that jump. Maybe she could keep on running or try to fight him, but the risk of injury was too great.

Lyndy did as she was told, holding up both hands. Then in the blink of an eye, she felt the metal projectile impact her shoulder with the force of a riot beanbag, next the surge of electricity.

---

Lyndy Life Observation: Bought a pack of those gluten free bagels in the hippie health food aisle of a grocery store. Those things were like biting into a sun-bleached nautical rope.

Folks who were on the run for months or years at a stretch used to tell her it was a relief to finally be captured. Because it’s stressful being a fugitive—you lose a lot of sleep. It’s lonely too. You can never really relax out there, always lying awake at night. Having bad dreams when you manage to catch a wink of sleep. Wondering if that noise you heard, the snapping of a twig, could it be the US Marshalls sneaking up on you? Oftentimes she knew how they felt. Sadly, this was one of those times.

Her arm throbbed as though a scorpion stung her multiple times.

She sat crumpled in the corner of a jail cell, legs crossed, head down. The floor was clinical linoleum. The cell had three-quarter-inch diameter iron bars, but they’d still put her in cuffs; the law enforcement ones. The lock was a modern keypad style, not susceptible to picking or any other tricks. If she needed to relieve herself, they had a bucket.

“I still can’t believe grown ass men used ta be scared a you.” A bored young security guard on a swivel stool had been teasing her, smoking an e-cigarette.

Lyndy massaged her temples.

“I heard ‘em talking outside. They’re sending a big shot with the company, former executive who’s retired now; says he wants to meet you.”

She held up both thumbs in lackluster celebration.  

“He was all out begging em to see you,” added the young man.

“Where’s my car,” she groaned.

“At the crushers,” he chuckled.

Well this was discouraging.

Thank goodness Mari wasn’t along. Yet the idea of the Mustang being crushed was almost too much to bear. Such a waste. She prayed it was a falsehood, but even so, it needed rescuing as soon as possible. Maybe they would simply put it into a car auction and sell it off.

“Wait. Who the heck wants to see me?” she whispered. “Do you mean Mr. McNair?”

“Why him? He’s not retired.”

“Who then?”

“Some guy named Winsom.”

“Why does that name sound familiar?” she thought.

More hours passed. Eventually the young man grew tired of talking to himself and she dozed off.

The sound of a door unlatching and creaking open, then footsteps down the hall jarred The Spitfire awake. Another set of florescent lights flickered on but she kept her head pointing down.

The person’s watch bracelet, or something metallic jangled as they walked. The person stopped in front of her cell and she noticed their slacks and nice shoes. She could hear them breathing heavy like a man, accompanied by a puff of air, a large hat being removed and swished back and forth.

“I’ll be damned. It really is you,” said the older fellow, sounding cheery and delighted. He placed a free hand on the bars. “Get lost for a while, kid!” he ordered.

“Me?” she heard the young man ask.

“Yes, genius. Take a walk.”

She heard the younger one grudgingly stand up to leave. The older man didn’t speak again until they were alone together.

“You know back in our day, I fantasized about you many times.”

“Guess I’ll take that as a compliment,” she muttered.

“First off, I know what you’re thinkin. Can I get you out of this mess? The answer I’m afraid, is unequivocally no. I honestly don’t know the code. They wouldn’t give it to me, cause … they probably don’t trust me.” He sighed deeply, voice projecting up and a finger tapping on the lock.

She didn’t know what to say. That tone again. He’d need to be an expert liar, otherwise what he’d admitted was believable.

“Over the years they kept wanting to tear this place down, but my old boss wouldn’t allow em. It even makes decent money, just looks outdated. Now we’re both outta the picture, so I’m sure it’s a matter of time. I always liked it here. The main floor has two-way mirrors and catwalks above it, no cameras; no recording devices of any kind.”

She lifted her chin, glad he’d steered the conversation to the topic of where they were. “Are you suggesting you’re sad about tearing down a casino, or a cheater’s jail like this one?” questioned Lyndy. She couldn’t see his face, the lower half hidden behind a logger beard. The top of his head was bald and he was out of shape. He stuck a fist in his pocket, the other still holding onto the hat.

“I admit, you held up much better than I did,” he added. “You still look great.”

“It’s probably malnutrition.”

The man chuckled. His jovial laugh seemed familiar. It was then that she noticed the eyes. “Graham?” she questioned.

He nodded.

“Sorry I didn’t recognize you at first,” she said, rising to one knee and then standing up. She kept her back pressed to the wall, helping to balance with her bound wrists drooping in front of her. “Don’t take it the wrong way. It’s just been a really long time. I don’t recognize hardly anybody these days.”

“They’re looking for an Italian gun, Lyndy. They couldn’t find it in your car.”

She locked eyes with Graham. “They’ll never find that one. They should give up.”

“I warned them you wouldn’t tell. You’re so stubborn you’d probably resist to the point of actually dying.”

“I dumped it in the Colorado ages ago. Buried in three feet of silt by now.”

“You can tell me the truth,” he said sternly. “It might help.”

Lyndy didn’t respond.

“Fine. So you’ll stay here til you starve. Or until they decide you’re worthless.”

Lyndy scratched the back of her head. “What time is it?” she asked.

“Close to midnight.”

“Do you happen to know where my purse is?”

“Why? What do you think you need?”

“I guess I’m willing to tell you where the gun is, however, in exchange I want my blood pressure medications,” reasoned Lyndy. “And uh … there’s an envelope containing a powdery substance I was going to … you know … consume from a mirror later today.”

Graham smiled, like he wanted to play along with the game. “Serious?”