The Midnight Dog of the Repo Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

decline the brave offer.
    I shook my head. “You got some customers,” I said, gesturing to the vehicles that had shown up over on the Boyne City side. “Better get going.”
    â€œWant me to call the cops?”
    â€œNo, they’d just mess up the repo,” I replied. Police officers take a dim view of self-help repossessions, believing it makes for a far better outcome if the bank hires a lawyer and waits for a court date and then gets a judge to sign a Writ of Replevin and then hires the local sheriff to go out and pick up the car. The police also prefer it when the law is called in to settle a bar fight. I guess the shorthand for it is that police officers take a dim view of
me
.
    I slid into the cockpit of the Caddy and drove slowly over the ramp and onto the land, waving my thanks at Toni, who appeared to be hyperventilating. Her job is to sail back and forth across the same six hundred feet, day in and day out, so I guessed this had all been a little more excitement than she was accustomed to.
    Montgomery was waiting there for me, his weapon cradled in his arms. I could have floored it and blasted past him, but instead I docilely pulled into the parking lot and stopped next to my tow truck. When I got out, I noticed that Montgomery had painted toenails—black-painted toenails, like he was a member of Black Sabbath instead of just some rich deadbeat.
    He was staring at me with hot, beady eyes. “You’re not taking my car anywhere,” he told me. It sounded like a line he had practiced all the way over here.
    â€œAfternoon, Mr. Montgomery,” I greeted civilly. “I need you to clear your personal property out of the vehicle. This is a legal repossession.”
    â€œIt’s a legal nothing,” he snapped back.
    I considered this for a moment. “That doesn’t actually make any sense.”
    â€œYeah? Well, does
this
make sense?” He pointed the rifle at me, curling his finger around the trigger. I looked at the blank, cold eye of the thing, just five feet away from my face.
    â€œYou going to get your stuff out of the car or do you want me to dump it out here?” I asked. “Your choice.”
    â€œAre you stupid?” he demanded, scowling.
    â€œDepends on who you ask.”
    â€œI’m taking my car back and no one’s stopping me.”
    â€œNot exactly.
I’m
stopping you. Here, take your stuff.” I opened the back door, pulled out one of the gleaming red suitcases, and set it on the pavement. The thing was heavy—there had to be a thousand polo shirts in there.
    â€œHey!” Montgomery shouted, his face flushed scarlet.
    â€œSo you’re really going to shoot me. With people watching out the window at you, probably already called 911,” I said skeptically.
    Montgomery didn’t flinch, didn’t turn around to check on the people who were, indeed, standing inside the restaurant staring out the windows, and that’s when I felt a dip in my self-confidence. His face was so full of fury he seemed incapable of rational thought. You see that sometimes, in my line of work. It’s just a
car,
not worth going crazy over, but I guess for some guys it is as if you’ve stormed the village and are making off with all the women. Normally, I just stand there looking unimpressed and eventually the heat breaks.
    I stood there, looking unimpressed.
    Montgomery brought the rifle up, squinting down it as if sighting on a deer.
    He was going to do it.
    And that’s when I realized just how low I’d gotten. Gabriel Montgomery was about to pull the trigger and put an end to me and
I didn’t give a damn
. Nothing flashed before my eyes; no regrets surged through me; I didn’t even reflect on the irony that the full circle had come to this place,
right here,
where I’d committed the crime that sent me to prison, where I’d lost everything. I just stood and waited for it. Hell, I
wanted
it.
    They