Shot Through

The sky changed color. 

Moments before, it had been a rich cobalt blue and now it was more of a pale lavender shot through with splashes of peach. 

Lavender? 

Peach? 

Fuck. 

Could not believe it. No way. 

I checked my watch. 

Where was my watch? 

And why was I so cold? 

Where was I? 

Oh...right. 

I rolled over on my right side to check my six. 

Big mistake. 

I've been all kinds of sore in my life. Comes with the territory, but the day-in-day-out irritation of arthritis get to you. It gets in your head and changes your whole world view. Everything is different, everything starts with a capital letter: Temperature, Humidity, Calendar, Birthday, Doctor, Drug Store. 

Worse still, it changes “why not” into “why.” Why not take the dog for a walk, or climb to the roof of Notre Dame to see the gargoyles becomes a calculation, a risk versus benefit assessment that can destroy you. 

When I rolled over, my whole right side lit up like a Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. 

I was awake now. 

Fuck. 

Slowly, I raised my head above the knoll. 

No Fire Department, no evidence of anything. 

The only constant was the wind and the traffic noise from the expressway. 

Far off, a couple of dogs were barking like characters in a Pinter play. One would bark, there would be a pause, and then the other would seem to answer back. And, like all Pinter characters, it was hard to tell if they were communicating, or just in love with the sound of their own voices. 

I could see a guy running up the street toward the place where the car had crashed. He wasn't really running. It seemed like he was being pulled along by the momentum of his arms as they punched the air in front of him. He was a compact rectangle of a man and reminded me of Popeye the Sailor. 

In one of his tightly clenched fists, Popeye held a well-worn yardstick that was attached to a sign reminding anyone who had the bad luck to be up at this hour that Jesus forgives. 

This hour...? What time was it? 

And where was my watch? 

I checked my pockets. 

What was all this shit...? 

Oh...right. 

I unearthed my phone and turned it back on. 

Risky I know, but I needed to know what time it was. I had to know how far in front of me they were. 

I became more anxious as I waited for the damn thing to power up. We went to the moon on less computing power than is being used to run this launch diagnostic and yet I am ready to throw the fucking thing into the swimming pool it doesn't come alive instantly and be able to intuit my every desire. 

The phone seemed to sense my growing frustration as it began to vibrate in about the same staccato cadence as those two far-off dogs. 

One-by-one, the screen of my phone filled up with messages. And then it was two screens worth before it finally loaded the time. 

Fuck. 

I was out about two hours. 

They could be in another time zone by now. 

Can't chase fly balls. Time to focus on the ground game. 

I headed into the wooded area between the pool and the street to look for any evidence I could find. They may be long gone, but there would be some evidence. I just had to find it. 

I started on the perimeter and worked my way in in ever-smaller concentric circles. I looked for anything out of place, anything added, or taken away. 

I didn't expect to find anything. 

They send a pro, they're paying for no traces. 

And there weren't any. 

This guy was good. 

I corkscrewed my way to the dead center and all I found were some random bits of trash—crushed beer cans and discarded fast food containers—all of which seemed to have been there for more than twenty-four hours. 

That surprised me. A swank place like this, you'd expect they'd do a better job of cleaning up than this. What if a member happened to walk back here? 

Outta sight, outta mind. 

I heard a door slam across the street. 

Time to move. 

Not that I was doing anything wrong, but it wouldn't do for some civilian to remember me standing there staring at the dirt. 

Hospital parking lot. That would be my next chance to find something. 

Slowly, deliberately, I backed out of the wooded area and toward the pool house. 

At the pool house, I turned left and followed the paved golf cart path around the green at Eighteen and off toward the driving range. 

I heard another car door slam and, when I turned my head to see from what direction it had come, I about tripped over a small pine branch that had been laying in the middle of the path. 

What the--? 

That didn't.... 

I quickly scanned the area and, not surprisingly, there wasn't a pine to be found. In fact, the only pines in the area were.... 

I quickened my pace. 

They were still two hours ahead, but now I had something to work with. 

The golf cart path ended abruptly at the driving range. To my right, the indifferently marked distances stood up like fishing shacks on a frozen green lake. To my left, one of the ugly one-storey buildings that made up the Hospital's doctors park. 

In front of me, there was all kinds of activity in the Hospital parking lot. Car after car pulled in and seemed to fill every available spot. It was like an amusement park for seniors and the most popular rides were about to open. 

An airport-style shuttle bus cruised up and down the rows to pick up those who might have had trouble walking to the door. 

One more shambling older person was not going to draw too much attention. 

I was trying to figure out how I was going to find what I was looking for when the shuttle bus purred to a stop next to me and the driver motioned me aboard. And then it came to me. 

I told him some story about not being able to find my car.

 He welcomed me aboard agreeing that it was much harder to tell the cars apart these days. He couldn't abandon his pick-ups, but he felt certain that, in between trips to the door, we would cover most of the lot. 

I thanked him and slumped into a seat across the aisle from him grateful that the heat was on and the seats were upholstered. 

True to his word, up and down, up and down, we covered the whole lot. 

Along the way, we'd stop by cars that were unloading their passengers and offer a ride to the door. It was surprising how often we were greeted with hostility and suspicion. Did we think that these would-be passengers were somehow impaired? How much did it cost? Why was the hospital offering? 

To the driver's credit, he was unfailingly courteous and respectful. 

And then I saw it. 

It was a work car, no question. 

Key feature of a work car is that it's invisible. Not bullshit movie invisible, invisible as in it disappears into the background. You take no notice because there is nothing to notice. 

And, as in most things, context is crucial. Where you are going to work determines what kind of a car you work out of. You can spot the unmarked cop cars because while they don't look exactly like cop cars, they also don't look like any other car parked in the neighborhood. 

What was it still doing here?   That didn't make any sense.   You don't leave stuff like that behind, especially if a job goes sideways. 

We drove past the staff parking area and a line of cars with the Hospital's parking sticker in the lower left corner of the rear window. Blue and white, blue and white, blue and white, green and white, blue and--, wait a minute. 

I told the driver that I thought maybe I had seen my car over in the opposite corner of the lot and he cheerfully offered to take me back over there. 

Along the way, he told me about some diet his wife's sister had told him about that was supposed to help with memory. 

I thanked him for the tip. 

I directed the driver to stop in front of a small pick-up parked in the middle of the very first row, about half-way between the light poles. I needed as much cover as possible. 

I thanked him again and got off the bus. 

I went through an elaborate pantomime looking for my non-existent keys thinking that the bus driver would go on about his business. 

The bus didn't move. 

I thanked him again and said something about not wanting to keep him. 

It was no problem, he assured me. 

A car pulled into the row. A potential passenger. A dilemma for the driver: help me or go for the pick-up. 

I pretended to drop my keys. 

The driver started to get out of the bus. 

I assured him I was okay. 

Reluctantly, he relented and continued on his way. 

I kicked off one of my shoes and pulled the lace. 

I pulled myself back to my feet and, after making certain the bus driver was out of range, I twisted off the gas cap. From the windshield, I removed one of the wiper blades and tied one end of the lace to it. 

I quickly stuffed the wiper blade into the gas tank as far as it would go hoping that the truck's owner had a close to full tank. 

While it wasn't full, it was full enough. 

From another pocket, I pulled out a pair of the gopher bombs I took from the maintenance barn. 

I tied one end of the damp lace around the twin fuses. 

Nobody who got downwind of the truck would believe it was on fire, but I wasn't worried about them, I was playing for the cameras. 

Just in case anyone was watching, I pretended to drop my keys a second time. 

This time, I disappeared under the truck and placed the gopher bombs right at the base of the firewall and lit the fuse. 

Out from under the truck and out of my coat. It was cold and damp, but I needed to have a different look for this next part. 

Keeping low, I moved as quickly as possible between the cars and across the rows. Behind me, I could hear the hiss as a cloud of sulfurous smoke leaked out from around the pick-up. 

I was about half-way across the lot when the first Hospital security vehicle arrived at the truck and all the way across by the time the Fire Department showed up. 

Next stop, the loading dock. 

In their trash compactor, waiting to be run through were several wooden freight pallets. I rescued one of them from certain death. 

Using the narrow space between the compactor and the edge of the dock, I worked the pallet back and forth until I could lever one of its planks free. 

It took some more time to straighten the splayed nails. I only needed one sharp point. 

Back to the staff parking lot. 

The cloud of smoke still lingered in the beam of the parking lot lights. The sulfur made it smell less like a hospital and more like a pulp mill. 

I was running out of time. 

The work car not only had the wrong parking sticker, it also had temporary license plates indicating that it had just been purchased earlier that week. 

From what I could see, the inside was remarkably clean: too clean. 

I used my piece of wood to break the back passenger window.   Fortunately, there was no alarm. 

Reaching in, I unlocked the driver's door and slid in behind the wheel. 

I searched all the obvious places. 

Nothing. 

I had nothing. 

As I slid out of the seat, I felt something scrape across by butt. 

I snapped on my flashlight once I was again outside the car. 

No idea how it got there, but there is was. 

Had this all been some sort of elaborate feint? A test of some kind? Were we still just warming up? 

Out of reflex, I stood up and looked around. I wasn't going to see them, but I knew they would be watching me. 

Definitely time to go. 

Time to get the dog and get lost. 

I turned back to car and picked up my watch.