The Detonator Page 7

  “You’re okay with her transporting your family back home?”

  I bite down on my bottom lip.

  “Sure,” I say. Fucking choice do I have?

  Trooper’s eyebrows perk up then as he gets a better look inside the car. A closer look at Henry who, no doubt, is staring back at him, a big smile plastered on his face, as if to say, “Yup, I’m young, but I look really, really old. You wanna make something out of it?”

  He turns back to me. “Your boy has special needs? Maybe it’s better your family sticks together.”

  “Nonsense,” Alison says, stepping forward. “We’re all very close. Our families used to work together. Isn’t that right, Ike?”

  “Yeah,” I say, deadpan. Not happy. “She’s right.”

  Trooper nodding again. “Okay then, it’s settled. I’m going to wait in the car for the tow truck. State law requires a trooper on site for the duration of the breakdown.”

  He steals one last look at Henry, nods, touches the brim of his hat like he’s a cowboy, then excuses himself and walks back to his cruiser.

  “Singer, honey, you mind transferring our bags into Alison’s car, assuming there’s room?” Ellen says.

  “I have plenty of room,” she says. “I only take an overnight bag when I visit my boyfriend. The trunk is empty.”

  Alison raises up her hand, her keys set in her palm.

  “Time for you to go to work, Ike,” she says. “As if you don’t already have enough on your plate. But then, a Master Blaster thrives under pressure. Don’t you…Ike?”

  I snatch the keys from her hand, a lit stick of dynamite settling itself in my stomach.

  Chapter 13

  It’s all going according to plan. The tire blowout, the severe damage not only to the tire rim but the entire wheel base, the splitting up of the shiny happy family. How nice it will be to get some good old-fashioned quality time alone with Ellen and Henry. Time to get to know one another better. They haven’t laid eyes on her since she was a little girl. A little girl who used to follow her dad to every one of the Master Blasters implosions. How she wished to follow in his footsteps one day. How she wished to make Master Blasters world famous.

  Even as a youngster of eight or nine years old, she knew Henry didn’t have a future in the business. Henry didn’t have a future at all. She remembers so vividly watching the four-year-old boy who, in her eyes, resembled a character from out of The Lord of the Rings. A miniature old man with a receding hair line, wrinkled skin, pointy nose, beady eyes, and lips so thin you swore you could just peel them off his mouth like chewing gum from the foil.

  Master Blasters was going to be hers and hers alone. Rather, she would get one half of it, while Ike Singer got the other. But then, that was okay too. She liked Ike. That is, she liked him until she found out the truth about him and her mother. Until her father found out the hard truth and what had seemed like a happy, healthy family unit blew up in their faces.

  Ike Singer owed her mother for the way he fucked her and dropped her like a bad habit. He owed her father for cheating on him in so many ways and causing his self-destruction. Ike owed her for killing off her family. Killing off her future. Subjecting her to unspeakable abuse, unspeakable neglect inside a cold, city system.

  Now it’s time to pay for his sins. But the reimbursement will start small, like the first, basement stage of a detonation sequence.

  It will start with Ike’s very foundation. His wife and child.

  Chapter 14

  Pulling Henry’s and Ellen’s suitcases from the Suburban, I lug them the fifteen or so feet to the BMW’s trunk, set them on the gravel-covered soft shoulder. I thumb the electronic key device, spring the latch on the trunk. It opens.

  Like Alison said, it’s empty, other than a half-filled gallon of blue windshield wiper cleaner and gear for changing a flat tire. Lifting the suitcases, I set them inside, lay them one atop the other. I’m about to close the trunk when I spot something in the far corner.

  A slip of white paper.

  I’m not sure why I would be concerned with a piece of paper, but my explosive disposal specialist’s gut speaks to me, tells me to at least take a look.

  I pull the slip of paper from the depths of the trunk and immediately discover that it’s a sales receipt. A quick glance at it reveals the items of purchase. A plastic bucket. Five sheets of packing Styrofoam. A roll of duct tape. I stare at the date on the receipt. June 13. Three years ago.

  There’s nothing in the receipt or the date in which it was produced that tells me to hang onto it. Obviously, Alison was packaging something. Maybe something to send somewhere far away. But again, I listen to my gut. I shove it into my jeans pocket, close the trunk.

  Back at the Suburban, I attempt to plant a smile on face.

  “All set,” I say.

  Just then, the flatbed tow truck turns off the highway, pulls up in front of the Suburban, comes to a stop. The driver jumps out and approaches the vehicle. I go to him.

  “I’m Ike Singer,” I say. “The one who called.”

  “Back wheel?” the short, black-haired, t-shirted young man says.

  “That’s right.”

  He approaches the disabled vehicle’s rear passenger wheel, drops down to one knee, takes a good look. Reaching out with his hand, he gently touches the rim and some of the blasted-apart carnage inside the rim. When he shakes his head like a medical technician who can’t get a pulse from a hopeless case, I know I’m in for a world of hurt. Financial hurt.

  He looks up at me. “A blowout caused all that shit? Calipers are shredded, brake drum punctured and busted up, brake bracket is probably still sitting on the highway somewhere. Looks like you ran over an IED.” He laughs, stands up straight. “Sorry, did two tours in Iraq. Lots of things to fuck up your wheels out there, not to mention your head.” Then, “Oops, my apologies, ladies.”

  “No need to apologize,” Ellen says. “Just glad you can help us out.”

  “And thank you for your service to our country,” a gleeful Alison interjects.

  He backsteps to the flatbed, reaches inside the driver’s side door, comes back out with a clipboard. Hands it to me.

  “Need you to sign here and here,” he says, index finger pressing down on the form attached to the clipboard. “It’s all about the insurance these days.”

  I pat my chest, as if I have any chest pockets on my old Master Blasters T-shirt and a pen stuffed inside one of them. That’s when I see that Alison has that same pen I noticed during lunch stored inside her left chest pocket.

  “You mind?” I say, holding out my hand.

  She glances down at the pen, quickly. As if I’ve startled her.

  “Oh, sorry,” she says, taking a step back, like she’s afraid I’m about to snatch the pen right out of her pocket. “There’s no ink in it. Remember? I told you that already.”

  “Guess I kind of forgot. So why carry it?”

  “I know, I know.” She grins. “I’m such a geeky scientist. But the pen is an expensive Mont Blanc. When I get home I’m going to buy another ink cartridge for it.”

  “That’s something your dad would have done,” I say.

  She grins. “You did know my dad so very well. You were his best friend. He loved you like a brother.” Suddenly her smile fades. The smirk that follows speaks loud and clear.

  The mechanic finds another pen in his truck, hands it to me. I sign off on the documents. He tears out the pink carbon copy, hands it to me. I stuff it into my jeans pocket.

  “Okay,” he says, slapping the clipboard against his hip, “I’m gonna put her up on the truck. I guess you’ll be coming with me, Mr. Singer?”

  I nod. Turning to Ellen, I kiss her on the mouth.

  “Be careful, El.”

  “Of course, I will be,” she says. She opens the door for Henry, reaches in with her
arms to help him out. But the ever stubborn boy brushes her off.

  “I can do it, Mom,” he insists.

  I see his eyes focused on Alison, and I know he’s trying to impress her. Or, at the very least, not look like a helpless case. Can’t say I blame him.

  I walk Henry and Ellen to the BMW, watch them get in. I close the doors for them, then place my hand to my mouth, blow them both a kiss apiece. They each blow kisses back my way.

  Turning to Alison, as she sets her hand on the driver’s side door opener. “Mass Pike can be dangerous this time of year. I’d hate to hear of anything bad happening to my family.”

  She laughs, bites down on her bottom lip.

  “I’ll take extra special care, Ike. Don’t you worry about your family. Oh, and don’t call them every five minutes. I wouldn’t want to be coerced into revealing our little secret to the wifey.”

  I can’t see her eyes, but I know she’s throwing me a wink. Pulse soars, blood speeds through the veins. For a quick moment, I see myself shoving her into oncoming traffic. Even a compact car doing seventy mph would crush her flesh and bones on impact. It would be an accident. Plain and simple. A tragic accident.

  Alison opens the car door.

  “Let’s get some AC going,” she says, closing the door behind her.

  I stand and watch as she fires up the BMW, pulls up to the highway and then, seeing an opening, spins her wheels and pulls out. That’s when I hear the tow truck engine revving and the black Suburban being pulled by a heavy duty cable onto the now angled flatbed. I turn to the state trooper, who is still parked behind me, his blue flashers flashing, engine idling. I toss him a wave goodbye.

  He nods like, Roger that.

  As I make the short walk to the tow truck, open the passenger’s side door, hop up inside, I can’t help but feel like my world, however humble, is collapsing all around me.

  Chapter 15

  The Suburban is unloaded off the flatbed and mounted on the mechanical lift inside the garage. The mechanic is so impressed with the damage done to the rear wheel, he invites the other mechanic on duty to give it a look.

  “Thought you didn’t work on Sundays,” I say, nodding in the direction of the second mechanic.

  “We don’t,” the mechanic says. “Sundays are for catching up with the overload, which just got more overloaded, thanks to you, friend.”

  Gasoline and oil vapor might pervade the air, but he lights a cigarette anyway, and gathers around the damaged wheel base with the other grease monkey like they’re watching the last few minutes of a tied up Red Sox-Yankees game. But after a few beats, the second mechanic—a heavyset, tan-skinned man with long black hair pulled into a tight ponytail—raises up his hand, touches the exterior of the damaged brake drum with his fingertips.

  “Feel this right here, Tian,” he says, to the mechanic who rescued me. “You recognize that?” He pronounces Tian like Chin. As in Christian.

  Tian reaches out with his hand, touches the same spot Ponytail just touched. He nods, as if the two men are conversing not with words but their thoughts. Their combined automotive experience.

  “I’ll be a dumb son of bitch, Billy,” he says. “I should have gone with my gut on this one.” He turns to me. “Hey, mister, what’d you say your name was?”

  I tell him yet again.

  “Well, Mr. Singer. Looks to me like your tire wasn’t the problem here.”

  I feel a coldness envelope me. It’s like I know what the mechanic is going to tell me before he says it. And I do. I’m a man whose life revolves around explosives. I should have a sixth sense about these things.

  I place my fingers against the shattered drum, exactly where his fingers and the fingers of Ponytail Billy placed his. My entire body goes stiff, like a jolt of electricity has just passed through it.

  “Explosive,” I say. “Somebody booby-trapped the wheel with explosive. At least, that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not what we’re thinking,” Billy says in a low, baritone voice.

  “It’s what we know,” Tian confirms.

  Leaning down, I press my fingers against the severely damaged tire rim, bring them to my nose. Sniff. Then I do the same with the brake drum. Touch the spot that looks like it was seared with a great heat. There’s no particular odor on either of them other than old oil and gas.

  “But if this were an explosive,” I say, “it would leave behind a residue. And the residue would possess a distinct odor. Acrid and toxic.”

  Unless it was liquid thermite. Unless it was a super liquid nano-thermite that came directly from Alison. Maybe she booby-trapped the Suburban. Maybe she caused the wheel blowout. A blowout that might have killed my whole family. She works with the shit. It’s not a farfetched idea to believe she had something directly to do with it.

  Tian looks at me with squinty eyes. “You know something about explosives, Mr. Singer?”

  I tell him what I used to do for a living and what I do now.

  “You should know what you’re talking about then,” he points out.

  “Apparently not enough to realize my wheel was blown up,” I say. “I thought I was better than that.”

  “Who wants to believe that someone or something sabotaged their ride?”

  “Good point,” I say. “Not that that makes me feel any better.”

  “What I can tell you for sure is that a blowout didn’t cause this kind of damage. Somebody fucked with you and did it with something that could explode without leaving much trace of itself. Or much of a smell anyway. That’s my humble opinion. Like I said, I saw a lot of busted rims just like this one on Humvees in Iraq.”

  I’ve seen steel twisted, bent, sheared, and even melted steel that resembled candle wax back when I was shooting buildings. But I’ve never seen a wheel so wrecked due to a simple tire blowout.

  Alison. It was you…

  Tian just looks at me with a stone face, like I’m from another planet.

  “You got any enemies to speak of, Mr. Singer?” He steals a drag of his cigarette. “You, being a cop and all.”

  I shake my head. But the gesture is just for show.

  “Not that I know of,” I say. “And I’m not a cop. I’m a subcontractor for the cops. Basically I sit around and wait for nothing to happen.”

  “Maybe that’s why you didn’t recognize the obvious,” Ponytail Billy says.

  But Alison’s young, grin-filled face fills my head and I know I’m lying to myself and the grease monkey when I claim to have no enemies. But would she really go out of her way to put my entire family in danger by planting what amounts to a bomb under my Suburban? Would she take a chance on incriminating herself in a court of law should I find out she is directly responsible? Or is she so confident that one, the bomb would only blow out the wheel? And two, that I would never alert the police to the matter since the only thing I fear more than her, is her letting my wife in on the secrets of my past?

  My eyes locked on the misshapen rim and the damaged drum.

  “What the hell kind of explosive does that kind of damage but leaves no residue?” Tian whispers, more to himself than anyone else.

  “Experimental blaster,” I say. But that’s as far as I take it. As far I want to take it.

  “Something small, but powerful,” Ponytail Billy adds. Then, turning to me. “I’d watch my back I were you. Somebody out there doesn’t like you very much.” He turns, heads back to the racked car he was working on.

  “Listen, Mr. Singer,” Tian says, exhaling a cloud of blue cigarette smoke, “you want I should call in the local cops? Or maybe you can handle it on your own once you get back to Albany. Seeing as you’re a sort-of-cop.”

  His face is painted with genuine concern.

  Maybe I should grab hold of somebody’s car. Maybe Tian’s. Get back on the road as fast as I can. Go after Al
ison. But then I tell myself to hold on. If I confront Alison in front of my family, there’s no telling what she’ll do. What she’ll reveal to Ellen. My only choice is to find a way to neutralize her before she says anything at all. And that could mean shutting her up forever. My God, what the hell is it I’m saying here? Am I contemplating physically assaulting Alison?

  “Hello, Mr. Singer. You hear me?” Tian presses.

  I turn to the chief mechanic.

  “Sorry,” I say, bringing my finger to my right ear lobe. “Sometimes my hearing’s not so great. Price of one too many detonations.”

  In my head, I see my family riding with Alison back to Albany. I try and work up some moisture in my mouth.

  “I just want to get it fixed and be on my way.” Pulling my smartphone from my pocket. “You going to start on her today? Even though it’s Sunday?”

  “I had to call for a new tire rim, new tire, new brake drum, and a half dozen other assorted components. I can put the whole thing together in about an hour, believe it or not. But the parts won’t be here until the morning even if they are in stock. It’s late and it’s Sunday. But I’ll have you back on the road by noon tomorrow.” Glancing at the smashed rim set on the floor. “For now I’ll set the damaged rim in the back for you to deal with however you wish. Sound fair?”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Let me know you need a ride anywhere like a hotel.”

  “Can you suggest one?”

  “Motel 6 right down the road. Be honest, you can walk to it. Hook a right once you leave the garage and you’ll spot it within five minutes.” Dropping his cigarette, stamping it out with the tip of his boot. I can’t help but imagine a spark flying free from one of those lit cigarettes one day, and lighting the entire joint up. “Need anything out of the Suburban? I can drop her back down.”

  I shake my head. Not worth him going to the trouble just for a toothbrush. Besides, I’m not sure how much sleep I can look forward to tonight, knowing now what I know.

  “I’m good.”

  “Well then see you tomorrow, Mr. Singer.”

  Exiting the garage, I go right, and walk alone in the opposite direction of my hometown.