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

and a sympathy beer for me. “Maybe the one who doesn’t get Jimmy will settle,” she teased. I scowled at her and she almost smiled for what would have been the first time in weeks. Jimmy and I raised our beers in thanks to the two girls, who appeared delighted with Jimmy and alarmed that I had somehow become part of the process. When Becky returned they enjoined her in emergency consultation.
    â€œMilton Kramer,” I suggested, making it sound like a toast.
    Jimmy nodded unhappily. “Well, it’s like this. I cashed the checks with Milton.”
    â€œAll five thousand?”
    â€œYeah. Ten points.”
    â€œHe charged you five hundred dollars.”
    â€œRight. I don’t got a checking account anymore because of the mix-up with the bank,” Jimmy explained.
    â€œThat mix-up where you wrote checks with no money in the account to cover them.”
    â€œYeah. Goddamn banks,” Jimmy stated without heat. Jimmy doesn’t really get mad at people, but in his mind there was something unfair about a system that required you to keep track of your checking account when the bank had all the money anyway. It had been up to me to arrange a way for Jimmy to pay off his debts a little at a time.
    Jimmy is three years younger than I and had always been something of a little brother. I’d been protecting him from the world for as long as I could remember. He and Becky were the two people I cared most about in this life.
    I sighed again. “Let me guess what happened with the checks.”
    â€œThey bounced.”
    â€œThat was going to be my guess.”
    â€œSo now…” Jimmy spread his hands.
    â€œSo now Milton wants his money back. Which you probably don’t have anymore.”
    Jimmy stared at his beer.
    â€œSomebody sent you checks and you had no idea why, so you cashed them, Jimmy? Didn’t you wonder what the hell was going on?”
    Jimmy shrugged. “Well, there was no name on the checks. They were the starter kind,” he said, as if that explained it.
    â€œAhh.”
    â€œSo I was wondering, could you like, talk to Milton and get him to see reason here?”
    â€œSee reason? Jimmy, he’s out five thousand dollars.”
    â€œWell yeah, but I didn’t know they were going to bounce. I mean, it’s not my fault or anything.”
    I let that statement lie there for a while.
    â€œSee, I was thinking you could maybe talk to Milton, and then you could, like, find out who was sending the checks and get the money back.”
    â€œGet the money back.”
    â€œYeah, and like, I’d let you have this. Endorse it over, you know.” Jimmy reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, which of course turned out to be a check made out to James Growe in the amount of one thousand dollars. I stared at Jimmy’s clear green eyes and saw no indication of anything approaching irony. I turned to the bear. “Never mind you, where the hell am I ?” I demanded.
    â€œWhat?” Jimmy asked, baffled at my behavior.
    â€œLook, Jimmy. I’ll check into this. And I’ll talk to Milton. But you’re going to have to pay him back the five thousand, you know that, don’t you? What did you buy?”
    â€œUh, a bike. And I gave some money to some friends.”
    â€œCan they pay you back?”
    â€œWell, you know.”
    I sighed. Yes, I did know. “Okay, well first, you’ll have to sell the bike.” Jimmy looked unhappy. “Sell it and give the money to Milt. I’ll work out a payment plan for the rest. And Jimmy, if you get any more checks, don’t cash them, all right? Understand?”
    Jimmy nodded with relief that I was going to help him, but I could see he was lying. He didn’t understand, not really.
    I suddenly became aware of something in my pocket and pulled it out. “Katie,” it said, along with a phone number. For a moment I thought of