Damaged Goods Read Online Free PDF Page B

intact and new. The roof had caved in and the windows had blown out, leaving ragged chunks of glass along the edges. Clods of dirt and dead grass were lodged into the crevices around the hood and the windshield. No doubt the driver was dead, she thought. The car’s broken body seemed frozen in a scream of horror—unable to let go its last terrified breath.
    The stout man whistled in amazement. “I’d say Mr. Dickhead is one lucky son of a bitch.”
    Another man came and stood next to the deformed car. He gazed up at it with a sense of awe.
    “He ain’t even here to witness its homecoming, the dumb fuck,” the stout man commented.
    The second man, a skinny, aging hippie with graying hair pulled back in a braid, turned and gave him a withering glare.
    “Has he thanked you for taking care of things for him?” the stout man said, and proceeded to loosen the straps that had cinched the car in place. He looked at the hippie, waiting for an answer. “Bet he hasn’t even paid you,” he said, turning his attention back to his task. “You can’t fucking trust him. That ain’t changed. Besides, he screwed us both over. That recording unit was exactly what I needed—been looking for one for eight months, and he damn well knew it. Asshole calls Kuykendahl down here to run the price up on me.”
    “You’re still working for him,” the hippie pointed out as he collected the cinch straps and rolled them into neat circles for the driver.
    The stout man shrugged. “All I’m saying is that he’s lucky to be alive, and more than a few people wish he wasn’t.”

    Hershel sipped his coffee and thumbed through the
Oregonian
, not reading it but simply giving his fingers something to do. TheCharger would already be there when he got to the auction barn today. He folded the business section and set it aside for later, then turned the corners back on the classified pages, reminding himself to read through them for prices. He didn’t really want to see the car. But it had salvageable parts, and they were worth money. He couldn’t let the prospect of making a buck, however small, pass him by. He blew across the surface of his coffee. His business was built on small profits. He would have to set his feelings aside, something he’d long ago become proficient at doing. He just needed to get through tonight, get the car sold, and he could forget about it forever.
    Carl had called to find out where he wanted them to put the car. The conversation had sent Hershel on a deeper, but still futile, search of his memory for what sort of man Carl was. The tenor of his voice denoted concern—something Hershel hadn’t felt from anyone else. But his only recollections of Carl were mere impressions of the man, like postcard snapshots. A derelict who lacked ambition or purpose. Old enough to be retiring and not a damn thing to show for himself. Hershel kept a folder for each of his employees. Carl’s folder included a handwritten note about Campo Rojo, the migrant village tucked along the Tualatin River, far off the road—out of sight of the chartered limos carrying rich wine connoisseurs through the valley. Who would rent a single-room cabin for five dollars a week, including electricity? White people didn’t live down there, except for Carl. Hershel didn’t begrudge the migrants anything, because they slaved for what they got, but a white man could do better in this place without having to put a lot of effort into it. He guessed Carl had to work at being so destitute, and he had no idea why the man did it. If he’d ever known the reason, it was among those facts—significant and not—that were lost to him now. Hershel returned to his paper, imagining dark-headed Mexican children playing King of the Hill on rickety donated picnic tables and chasing after chickens and stray dogs. Was that a memory or an idea of the migrant camp?
    These past weeks Hershel was coming to see that Carl minded the little things, though. When he called that