Thunderhead

33

SKIP PAUSED AT THE METAL DOOR TO ELMO’S Auto Shoppe, pausing a moment to build up a full head of righteous indignation. The metal, quonset-hut garage lay baking in the heat at the long sad end of Cerrillos Road, an ugly strip of fast-food restaurants, used automobile dealerships, and malls south of town. Beyond Elmo’s stretched nothing but bulldozed flat prairie, decorated with billboards, FOR LEASE and WILL BUILD TO SUIT signs—the expanding edge of Santa Fe’s uncontrolled growth.

Skip set the expression on his face and pushed through the door, pulling Teddy Bear behind him on a short, thick leather leash. In the farthest bay, perched high atop the hydraulic lift, sat his Fury, tires drooping mournfully. It was a great deal sandier than it had been the day before.

Beneath it stood the proprietor of Elmo’s Auto Shoppe, a tall, gangly man in faded dungarees and torn T- shirt. The shirt was liberally stained with oil, and it sported an oversized Rolling Stones tongue, jutting salaciously from dewlap lips. The shirt formed an appropriate reflection of Elmo’s own pendulous lips and doleful expression.

“Why’d you have to bring that with you?” Elmo whined, nodding at the dog. “I’m allergic to dog hair.”

Skip opened his mouth to deliver his speech and Elmo raised his clipboard in protest. “Broken rocker assembly,” he began quickly, licking a long, grease-sodden finger and folding the pages on his clipboard back as he spoke. “Emergency brake trashed. Hub bent. You’re looking at, oh, five, six hundred at least. Plus the tow from the third fairway.”

“Like hell I am!” Skip dragged Teddy Bear forward and paced angrily in the shadow of his car, forgetting his carefully crafted speech. “I had this in here for an oil change and tuneup just three weeks ago. Why the hell didn’t you tell me the brakes were going?”

Elmo turned his lachrymose face toward Skip. His droopy eyes always looked on the verge of weeping. “I checked that invoice already. There was nothing wrong with the brakes.”

“That’s bullshit.” Skip glanced at the mechanic in disbelief. He so rarely bothered to pay for car servicing that now, having shelled out fifty-seven dollars just a few weeks before, his righteous indignation knew no bounds. “I tell you, I had zero brakes left. Zero. I might as well have tried to use a kickstand. I could have been killed. And now you want me to pay for the privilege? Yeah, right.”

“The brake system was dry as a bone,” said Elmo, doggedly, looking at the floor.

“See?” Skip slapped a balled fist against his palm. “That proves it. You should have seen that leak when the car was here before. I’m not going to pay for—”

“But there ain’t no leak.”

Skip halted in mid-rant. “Huh?”

Elmo shrugged, his eyes rolling toward Skip. “We pressure-tested the brake system. There’s no leak, no sprung seal, nothing.”

Skip stared at Elmo. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Elmo shrugged again. “Besides, there would have been signs of a leak. Look at that.” He grabbed a basket lamp and pointed it up at the Fury.

“It’s the underside of a car. It’s sandy and greasy. So what?”

“But none of that’s brake fluid. No drips, no spray marks. Nothing to show any leak at all. Where do you park it regularly?”

“In my driveway, of course—”

“You see a big stain on the ground lately?”

“Nothing I noticed.”

Elmo looked down again, nodding sagely, his big ears wagging.

Skip started to retort, then stopped, mouth open. “What are you saying?” he said at last.

“I ain’t saying nothing. Your brakes were drained clean.” Elmo’s rubbery lips twisted into what might have been a smile, and he licked at them with a red tongue. “Got any enemies?”

Skip scoffed. “That’s crazy. No, I . . .” He paused a moment thinking. “You mean, somebody could’ve drained them? Deliberately?”

Elmo nodded again, and inserted a finger into one ear, giving it a few hard twists. “Only problem is the brake fluid cap was rusted shut, so’s how it got drained is kind of problematical.”

But Skip was still thinking. “No,” he repeated at last in a softer voice. “The brakes were working fine one minute, gone the next.” He glanced at his watch, irritation once again welling up within him. “I’m late for work. I’ve got this boss who rips the balls off people who are late. And on top of everything else, you give me this—” He gestured at Elmo’s loaner car, an ancient Volkswagen Beetle with a crumpled rear fender and doors of mismatched colors. “I’d rather drive my own, even without brakes.”

Elmo worked his shoulders through their perpetual shrug. “It’ll be ready by five P.M. Friday.”

“And rework that bill while you’re reworking the car,” Skip replied. “There’s no way I’m paying six hundred for somebody else’s negligence.” With effort, he stuffed Teddy Bear into the Beetle, then lowered himself gingerly into the driver’s seat and cranked the engine.

He eased into first and chugged noisily out into traffic, pointing the car’s snout down the strip that eventually would bring him back to town, the Institute, and the waiting Sonya Rowling. He could feel a headache coming on, faint for the moment but getting stronger. It seemed to encircle his temples, like a headband. Despite his bluster, he felt profoundly disturbed, and his heart raced as he worked his way up through the gears. For a minute, he thought of heading back out to Teresa’s, checking the ground where he’d parked the car for a puddle of fluid. But even as the thought came to him, he knew he never wanted to see the place again.

Then, on impulse, he pulled the car onto the shoulder and slipped the gearshift into neutral. Something about this didn’t seem right, at all. And it wasn’t just the bizarre circumstances, either; the moment Elmo had mentioned enemies, a sudden chill had enveloped Skip.

He sat on the shoulder, thinking. Vaguely, very vaguely, he remembered his father, sitting at the dinner table, drinking coffee and telling him a story. For some reason, Skip couldn’t remember the story. But he remembered his mother frowning, telling Skip’s dad to talk about something else.

Something else . . . there was something else that had happened recently, something that dovetailed with all this in a strange and awful way.

Suddenly, Skip put the Volkswagen into gear and, with a quick glance over his shoulder, urged the car back into traffic. But instead of heading toward the Institute, he peeled off at the next corner and began threading his way through a maze of seedy side streets, urging the old car forward, cursing it, his fingers drumming impatiently on the wheel.

Pulling up at last in front of his apartment, he half ran, half leaped up the flight of stairs, dragging Teddy Bear behind him, fumbling with his keychain and unlocking both locks as quickly as he could.

Inside, the apartment smelled of unwashed socks and ancient half-eaten meals. Jerking the chain of an overhead light, Skip made a beeline to the cinderblock-and-plywood bookshelf that leaned precariously against a far wall. Kneeling in front of the lowest row, his finger traced across the old spines of the books that had been his father’s, the faded titles etched faintly in lines of dust.

Then his finger stopped on a thin, battered gray book. “Skinwalkers, Witches, and Curanderas: Witchcraft and Sorcery Practices of the Southwest,” Skip softly breathed the title aloud.

The urgent rush that had propelled him back to the apartment was now replaced by hesitation and uncertainty. There was terrible and hideous knowledge in this book, he recalled. More than anything, Skip did not want to have that knowledge confirm the fear that was now growing inside him.

He knelt there, by the old books, for what seemed a long time. Then at last he gripped the volume in both hands, carried it to the orange couch, opened it carefully, and began to read.

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