A Short Story

Chapter 5

Eric rang up two bell-shaped bottles of Moscato and a bottle of off-brand honey whiskey. He double-bagged them, then gave Suzanne the green light to insert her chip into the credit card reader. “Despite everything else, we really do appreciate your business, ma’am. Any day someone chooses us over a big box store is a good day to me.”

Suzanne ran the tip of her pinky across the digital signature box. A single line with a sharp incline at the end. Visually, it reminded her of the AMC and GameStop stock explosion of ’21 when a horde of Reddit trolls exposed how easy the stock market could be manipulated. She pressed Accept, glanced at Nia—who wasn’t smiling—and slipped her wallet into her purse. “It’s not polite to stare, you know?”

Nia’s stare remained, holding her hypnotically.

“What?!”

“You didn’t delete the videos.”

Suzanne’s stomach dropped. “Yes, I did.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Sweetheart, if I said I did it, then I probably did it.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Why would I lie about something as ridiculous as this?”

“Because that’s what psychos do. They lie to get what they want.”

“Nia, relax,” Eric chimed in, then pointed her gaze to Suzanne. “Apologize.”

Nia didn’t respond, nor did she lower her stare.

Eric turned to Suzanne, apprehensively. Nia wasn’t one to just make up a story. When they watched stand-up comedy together, she’d point out the improbabilities of the comedian’s true, yet obviously embellished stories. Her favorite television show, for Christ’s sake, was Law and Order. “I hate to rehash old wounds, but is there any truth to what my daughter’s saying?”

Suzanne forced a smile, then took her bag of booze. “It was nice meeting you.”

Nia broke her silence. “It’s at six-thousand views.”

Suzanne stopped. “Currently?” She set the black bag next to her feet, pulled up her account and dropped her jaw at what the analytics said. Her two-minute rant had been shared three-hundred and twelve times in the last ninety minutes with a gradually increasing total of 6,032 views. “Holy shit, I’m gonna be famous.”

“Told you, Dad,” Nia said, pulling his gaze, “she’s a monster.”

Suzanne checked her idle car through the front window, then faced the duo. “No, I didn’t.” She turned the camera on them, then pressed Record. “And, and I’ll tell you why.” Her mouth was ready but her mind was empty. She had nothing to say. Nothing positive, nothing organically negative either. The only thing she could do was babble. “It’s because, uh, because this place is the worst. Like the absolute worst. The bathrooms are disgusting, the food and pantry selection is ridiculous, they’ve been caught price gouging gas, and—”

Eric held a hand up. “We don’t sell gas, lady.”

“No, no, sir,” Suzanne snapped, her heartbeat now pounding in her throat. She took a step back, noting the placement of her bag on the floor, “do not, I repeat, do NOT come any closer! DO NOT come any closer!”

Nia gripped her edge of the counter and looked back at her dad’s blank face. He was beyond confused, silently horrified after having done nothing to this lady. She studied Suzanne, then yelled “I see you, bitch! You slut psycho—!” Her lips were stopped by her father’s palm, but she pulled it away. “We can all see who you truly are!”

Suzanne dropped her phone. The ten-dollar plastic case she had found on a Dollar General discount shelf popped on impact, cracking the camera lens into thirds. She picked it up and angled the camera at the floor, then yelled “Stay back! Stay back!”

Nia crawled onto the counter, but Eric pulled her back with a bear hug. “Stop this, Nia,” he whispered, “you’ll only make it worse.”

“Dad! She’s spouting lies.”

“I know, now let her destroy herself.”

“But Dad, she’s—”

He pulled her into him. “This will not end well for her, trust me.”

“How do you know?”

“Look at the back room.”

Nia did, and saw a black camera with a tiny green light above the top door panel. “When?”

“Swapped it out a few days ago.”

Suzanne charged the counter, stopped a few tiles shy of it, then jumped back as if she had been forcibly pushed. “Sir, wait, what are you—?” She tripped back into a shelf filled with cream-filled pastries and bags of powdered donuts. The fall wasn’t intentional, but she used it the way actors use real-life experiences to fuel a performance. “Sir, stop, please take your hands off me. Please take—” She crawled to her feet, then punched herself in the right cheek. The first strike was light. The second was harder. The third one was too hard. She held back the following strikes, but sold it with her screams. She hurled herself into the candy aisle, dropped to her knees, flopped forward on her stomach, then skid the phone across the floor like a shuffleboard puck. She grunted, “just let me go home…” then picked herself up and retrieved it.

“Are you done yet, Ms. Price?” Eric asked. “Finished trashing my store?”

“How do you know my name?” Suzanne asked offended, scrambling to her feet.

“Your ID. From the alcohol sale.”

“No! No! You stole my purse, didn’t you?”

“Your purse is around your arm, Ms—”

“No, no, no, please don’t!” Suzanne charged the counter again, but this time slipped on a box of theater candy and crashed face-first into the floor, legitimately knocking the phone out of her hand. She rolled on her back, then slowly sat up.

“Dad?” Nia asked, “should we call the police?”

Eric left his post, said “call an ambulance,” then offered a hand to Suzanne. 

Suzanne slapped his hand away. “Fuck…me alone.” She had started to yell ‘fuck off,’ but midway through, the wires in her brain got twisted and were redirected to ‘leave me alone.’ What ultimately came out of her mouth was a combination of the two. She slapped the air where Eric’s hand had been, then rose to her feet, clutching her forehead and heading toward the door. A wave of nausea gripped her by the ears and pulled her face forward, slowing her down.

“Miss,” Eric said, his hand still out. “I think you may have given yourself a concussion.”

“Fuck you!” she lashed back, slapping at his hand again only to realize that he had obeyed her the first time, and never actually moved. He was still by the counter. “Stay the fuck away from me!” She swiped her bag of booze from the floor and ran to the door, fumbling with her phone and making sure it was still recording.

It was, and she grinned, but only the right side of her mouth followed suit.

When the door chimed open and the night air hit her face, she started screaming.

She aimed the lens at her new black slip-on shoes as she galloped to the minivan, hopped inside and jammed the phone into the dash mount, the switched the view to herself and the empty back seat. “Oh my god, oh my god,” she spouted, double-checking the phone and setting the black bag in the passenger seat. “This isn’t real, this isn’t happening.”

She pressed down on the pedal, drove off the curb, and barged into the street. She took a sharp right at the stop sign and plowed ahead. A block later, she stopped at a red light and leaned into the camera. She started to speak, but it all came out slurred.

A multi-colored parade of college-aged kids crossed the street. The men, dressed as popular fairytale characters, walked arm-in-arm with their feminine counterparts. Kinda like watching a storybook unfold in real life, but with a whorish flair.

One of the girls dropped something on the crosswalk, then bend down to pick it up. Suzanne smiled, recalling a similar experience during her own college years, then covered her mouth as the memory flooded into her consciousness. It embarrassed and tickled her at the same time.

The truck behind her honked, and Suzanne sped through the intersection.

She passed an empty Dollar General, then felt the nausea in her system resurface. And then her eyelids turned heavy. She slapped herself in the face to keep from falling asleep, losing count after the fourth strike, then gripped the steering wheel with both hands. She took a deep breath, expelled it loudly and drove until she couldn’t drive anymore.

Six minutes later, she pulled into the side parking lot of the Brew Bunny, an independent brewery, and closed her eyes for, what was supposed to be, a moment.

Eighty-seven minutes later, Suzanne awoke with a splitting headache.

She checked her gas gauge. It was low, about thirty miles left in the tank. If her memory served her correctly, her hotel was back the other way two miles. It was close enough, but then she remembered her corroded battery. She retrieved her phone from the dash mount, but it was dead. It had stopped recording and shut off eighteen minutes into her nap. And to make things worse, the external charger in her purse had gone uncharged for weeks.

She checked her purse, then whispered “thank you, thank you, thank you,” when she found a charging cord. She shoved the USB end into the adapter, then the charging port. Suzanne took a few calming breaths—staring through the misty windshield—until her phone sprung back to life, then plugged in the auto shop address.

O’Malley’s Auto Parts was a bit further down the road, a few yards-shy of a mile. Suzanne gripped the steering wheel with both hands, checked herself in the rearview mirror, then continued her trek. Moments later, she pulled into the parking lot, audibly sighed, and shut off the engine.

“Thank you, God,” she mumbled, then left the minivan. She clipped her heel on the rocker panel and tripped forward, but caught the handle and steadied herself.

The building was dark. And the Open sign was off.   

11:02 pm. The place was closed.

“Oh, no, no,” she slurred, feeling her stomach turn inside out as she climbed back into the driver’s seat. She pulled the door closed, jammed the key in the ignition, and turned it.

Click.

She turned it again, but held it down.

Click. Click. Click. Click.

The console behind the wheel flashed sporadically, then shut off completely.

The phone on the dash mount was at two percent. Enough for a call. Two if she was lucky. She called Damien, but her call was declined after the third ring. She called him again but it went straight to voicemail. Her third call was interrupted by a text from the same number.

Busy with the Boys. Don’t call me. We’ve discussed this.

                                                                                                — D. G.

Suzanne opened the chat and frantically started typing.

She typed out My car battery is dead, but forgot to put a space between ‘car’ and ‘battery,’ and the autocorrect function changed it to ‘carbamazepine.’ Her mind didn’t register the mistake until after she had sent it off.

“No, no, no, not that, not that,” she mumbled, frantically typing Sorry, not that, followed by the original message. Carbamazepine came up again, but she caught it this time and added a space. She double-checked the message, then added to it.

I’m stranded at the auto shop on—

The screen froze and the phone shut down.  

Chapter 6

A little after 7:25 am, Fletcher Langston pulled his Audi into his employee parking spot, and marveled momentarily at the reflection of the rising sun in the spotless glass-door entrance of Rust-Wick Capital Bank. He coughed hard into his elbow, then stared at himself in the rearview mirror. His hazel-green eyes were bloodshot, his thick brown hair stood up in the back, and his white dress shirt was riddled with sweat stains. He didn’t go home last night, and he needed a good excuse for his wife, whom he promised to meet for lunch.

Explaining away his absence would be easy. He’d just tell Maisey that drinks with the boys went longer than expected and was far too drunk to drive, so he slept in his car. That part was true, which comforted him in a weird way. He was a natural salesman, like his father. All he needed was a morsel of truth to sell anything, which is how he was able to rise from an entry-level banking associate to management so quickly.

The four-hundred-and-seventy-five-dollar ATM withdrawal at 12:36 am, however, would require a little extra finesse.

He retrieved a bottle of Clear Eyes from his glove compartment and doused his eyes until they appeared somewhat presentable. Next was the Binaca peppermint spray. Two squirts on his tongue, and three on the roof of his mouth. He slipped both bottles into the pocket of his dress shirt, then ran a hand over his chin. It was prickly, just shy of a five o’clock shadow. If necessary, he could dry shave it with a cheap Bic razor like he did in college, but it was only noticeable if you were looking for it.

That and his wife enjoyed it when he had a little scruff.

He took a swig of the half-empty water bottle in his passenger seat, gargled, swallowed, then checked himself in the rearview mirror one last time.

And that was when he saw the glitter.

“Goddammit,” Fletcher snapped, kicking himself. The microscopic shards of silver paint started out patchy under his left ear, and grew down his jaw like a metallic sideburn. It grape-vined down his chin, exploded across his neck and spilled out onto his white dress shirt. The brunt of it clung to the collar and the left front pocket, then petered out just shy of the torso. “I swear, I told that whore to—”

Fletcher bit his tongue, convinced himself that ravishing the twenty-six-year-old dancer with the yellow lip ring in the champagne room was a really intense dream, then grabbed the black dress shirt that hung in the backseat and stepped out into the parking lot.

A green minivan, with the driver-side door slightly ajar, sat in front of the entrance.

He glanced around the empty parking lot but saw no one.

Jack drove a silver Bentley and wouldn’t show up for another hour. Sheila drove a blue Mazda and rarely got in before 9. Also, at last year’s Christmas party, she’d made it abundantly and drunkenly clear that, to her, minivans were for poor people and sexual predators. O’Malley’s Auto Parts across the street was also deserted, and wouldn’t open until 9:30.

Fletcher studied the van, then unlocked the front door, and cleaned himself in the employee restroom. Most of the face glitter had came off with soap and water, but trace amounts still sparkled behind his left ear and along his jawline when the light hit it just right. His white shirt could be saved after a few loads of laundry, but tossed it in the blue dumpster out back.

The green minivan was still there when Fletcher started his opening chores at 7:48 am. He left the bank and inspected the vehicle. The passenger seat held a clear plastic bag of snacks and a black bag. Two bottles of wine and a bottle of honey whiskey were inside. The backseat was clean except for some empty paper coffee cups and fast food wrappers. He opened the driver-side door and, without thinking, crawled inside.

The key was still in the ignition.

He checked the glove compartment for identification, but found only registration papers, the vehicle handbook, and an unopened sleeve of white tissues. He saw a flash of pink and leather squashed between the bags. He glanced around the parking lot, just to be safe, then set the bag of booze in the passenger floorboard.

A purse.

Inside, he found an up-to-date passport, a blue wallet with seven credit cards, a thick wad of cash—a little more than three hundred dollars—wrapped in a rubber band, a red-cased mobile phone with a cracked screen, and an orange-tinted Nevada driver’s license.

Suzanne Price. Forty-one years old.

He stashed the cash inside the pocket of his black dress shirt.

This would make lunch with the missus much easier. Explaining away a hundred and fifty dollars was nothing. He took the black bag into the bank, slipped inside his office. He unloaded the bottles of booze into his bottom desk drawer, locked it, then tossed the bag.

He returned to the minivan and set the purse in the passenger floorboard, slipped the keys into the ignition, and shut the door. On his way back inside the bank, a thought came to him.

Suzanne Price, there’s something familiar about that name.

He stepped in the lobby, shoved his hands into his slacks, then turned his gaze to the rising sun in the side window.

Where have I heard that name before?

Six long minutes later, he gave up and called Skylar’s Junkyard.

“Skylar’s Junkyard,” said the gruff voice on the other end.

“Bert?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Fletcher Langston with Rust-Wick Capital Bank.”

“Hey Fletcher,” Bert cheered, “what’s going on? How’s the SQ8?”

“Excuse me?”

“The Audi SQ8 e-tron?” Bert asked, then explained. “One of my part-timers said he towed you to his shop on Sunny Hill after a deer took out the grill and the radiator. Said it drove real nice after fixing it up.”

Bert was right, but Fletcher was unsure how the dots connected. “Who’s your guy again?”

“Calvin Jones, but everyone calls him, Opie.”

“Oh, yeah, Opie, that guy.” The nickname sounded familiar, but Fletcher didn’t care to go further into it. “The SQ8 is good, thanks. Anyways, I’m calling because someone left a greenish-blue minivan in front of the bank and, uh, I was hoping one of your guys could tow it.”

“Where is it?”

“It’s right smack dab in front of the entrance—”

A new thought immerged, blinding him.

He saw a tiny red brick motel surrounded by bright white streetlights. The image cut away like a slide in an old school projector to a light brown door with the numbers 213 painted in gold under the peep hole. The image cut away, then pulled back to show the surroundings. To the left of door 213 sat a shadowy vehicle with a blurry blue license plate. He recognized the motel, it was his secret getaway destination. He couldn’t place the vehicle. The projector in his mind jumped again, this time zooming in on the license plate. It was still blurry and blue, but the color of the vehicle had brightened from black to grey.

Another slide popped up. The grey brightened and the haze over the plate cleared. The next slide was brighter, bluer, clearer. Four slides later, the image was crystal clear.  

The vehicle was a greenish-blue van. And the license plate read H7T-GR3.

Fletcher’s gaze instinctually moved to the glass entrance and the van out front. “Fuck…” he mumbled, the phone still on his ear.

“Excuse me?” Bert asked on the other end. “Everything alright, Fletcher?”

“Uh, yeah, yeah, everything’s fine,” he paused, then swallowed hard. “Yeah, actually…” he trailed off, then said, “never mind, the owner just showed up,” and hung up the phone.

END OF PART 3