Burning Bright (Peter Ash #2)(26)

“My office is there.” The mechanic pointed to a partitioned corner area. He stood five or six feet behind them and gestured for his guests to walk ahead. He’d scooped up an old-school tire iron and held it low and ready. Al was definitely a serious man.

The office was four steps up, with frame walls and big plate-glass windows looking down onto the shop. One end of the room held an old oak desk with a laptop computer, printer, and neat stacks of paperwork. Behind it stood a tall green steel file cabinet and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves loaded with diagnostic manuals and old Chilton guides. At the other end of the room was a faded brown leather couch, two wooden chairs, and a low table made of a truck rim and a big rough slab of redwood. It looked homey. Comfortable.

The static still didn’t like it. Neither did Peter.

His neck felt like it was caught in a vise.

Al walked behind the old desk, placed the jack handle gently atop the old file cabinet, and dropped himself into a modern office chair that looked like it was made for a space station. Before Peter registered the movement, the mechanic had taken a black automatic handgun out of a side drawer and set it on the desktop with a thump. His eyes were hidden behind the reflecting rounds of his glasses. “So,” he said. “Let’s hear it.”

Peter carefully unslung his pack and laid it on the scarred oak desk, then took several steps back. June stood a step back and to one side, closer to the door.

“Open it,” he said. “There’s a Colt Python .357 on the top. You’re in no danger from us. We need help.”

Al tapped his pistol with two fingers. Glanced at the pack, at June, and back to Peter. “So why the fuck are you sweating like you just ran a four-minute mile?”

“I have a thing,” said Peter. Embarrassed, still. It felt like weakness, although he knew it was biochemical, his brain miswired by the war. But it still felt like weakness. “I can’t be inside,” he said. “I’m claustrophobic.”

“Or what, you sweat to death?”

Peter didn’t want to explain this, but he needed a car. No, he needed a favor. The man had a right to ask. He could feel June beside him, watching. She might as well know, too.

“I sweat, my muscles tense up, I start to hyperventilate. It’s called a panic attack.”

Al gave Peter a long thoughtful look, drumming his fingers on the gun. Finally he said, “I got a nephew with the opposite problem, he doesn’t like to go outside. He was in the war. Overpasses, rooftops, high windows, all the places snipers used to shoot from. They freak him out. He’s a programmer now.”

“Is he getting better?”

The mechanic shrugged. “I think so. He bought a motorcycle. You can’t ride that in your living room.” He watched the sweat bead on Peter’s neck and face. “You were over there, too.”

Peter nodded. “Marines.”

Al sighed again. Then he pushed Peter’s pack back across the desk without opening it. “Bring those chairs over, would you?”

By the time Peter came back with the chairs, the black automatic had disappeared. He held a chair for June, then sat. June was looking at Al’s hands with their faded blue tattoos.

“Some people tried to pull June into their car a few days ago. We don’t know who or why. They told her they were government, but she didn’t believe them. She’s an investigative reporter, writes about technology. She went to hide at a university research station, but they found her again. We just met this morning. I helped her get away, but we totaled her car, rolled it a few times, which is how we got so beat up. She needs a new one. Something very reliable, something that won’t stand out. A small SUV would be good, or a minivan. Something she could sleep in if she had to.”

Al raised his eyebrows, his voice deadpan. He looked at June, at Peter.

“You expect me to believe that story.”

“You can believe it or not,” said Peter. “It’s the truth.”

Al shook his head. “How do you plan to pay? You can understand that I’m reluctant to take a personal check. You carry that kind of cash around?”

“I don’t carry cash, but if I can borrow your phone, I can wire money directly into your account. You can check with your bank before you give her the keys.”

“This would be the young lady’s car, then.”

“Yes,” said Peter. He glanced at June. She was looking directly at him now. Peter was aware of the sweat running down his face. His heart like a hammer in his chest. Soon he’d have trouble catching his breath. “I don’t know what she wants to do next. It’s her show. If she wants my help, she’s got it. But no paperwork, no records of any kind. We think they were tracking her phone.”

“But I could give her the keys and you’d watch her drive away.”

“Yes,” said Peter. “If that was what she wanted.”

June watched him intently. Al leaned back in his chair with his fingers steepled on his chest, invisible calculations going on behind the wire-rimmed glasses.

“My mom owns the grocery store,” he finally said. “She loves that red Mustang out there. Always borrowing it, racing around. Seventy years old, thinks she’s Danica Patrick driving the Indy 500.” He shook his head. “Anyway, she’s got a Honda minivan, forty thousand miles. Maybe that would work?” He was looking at June as he said it. She nodded. He looked back at Peter. “You buy my mom that pony car, we’ll call it an even trade. I’ll give you two weeks before I call it in stolen.”