The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man by W. Bruce Cameron

looked down at the rifle in my hands and actually heard him draw in a breath, proving my point—none of this made sense. He couldn’t draw in a breath, he had no lungs.
    â€œWhat are you planning to do with that gun?”
    â€œI’m going on a little wild-goose chase,” I explained, starting the truck and heading north to East Jordan.
    â€œYou’re going to shoot Doris? You can’t do that!” he protested indignantly.
    â€œWhat do you want me to do, euphemize her?”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œThe goose bit me and nearly broke my arm.”
    â€œI know, I felt it.”
    â€œWell okay, then. Alan, I need that repo. I’ve already been advanced the money on it. Milt will carry me a bit but soon he’s going to want interest payments at the least—and meanwhile, I have my own expenses. You need to go along with me on this; I know what I’m doing.”
    I parked the tow truck a hundred yards down from Einstein’s place and wandered into the trees, circling so that when I approached his home it was from the rear, where I had a perfect view of his truck—and the open doorway of the shed, where I could barely make out the white form of Doris, sleeping peacefully. I looked at her over the gun sight.
    â€œRuddy! Please,” Alan begged.
    I swung the gun barrel over and sighted down on the three floodlights, squeezing the trigger and taking each bulb out with a satisfying plink. Doris stuck her neck out curiously, but didn’t leave the shed.
    â€œWhy did you do that? Make me think you were going to kill the goose,” Alan demanded as I made my way back to the tow truck.
    â€œJust having fun.”
    â€œWell, I think you’re a horrible person.”
    â€œYou’re welcome to leave anytime, Alan.” I lifted the snarling bear head and set it on me like an ill-fitting hat, holding it up there with one hand and draping the poncho over the whole assembly with the slit in front so I’d be able to see. I grabbed a gallon jug of water and headed back to Einstein’s house.
    I’m not sure what Doris thought she saw coming up the driveway, but it was huge and had the face of a bear in a bad mood and that was enough to keep her quiet. I slipped over to the pickup under cover of uninterrupted darkness, making motion without detection, and poured the contents of the water jug directly into the gas tank. Doris eyed me uneasily the entire time from within the safety of her shed, and didn’t respond when I waved at her as I departed.
    I didn’t know what time my customer left for work in the morning and didn’t want to take a chance of missing him, so I settled in the driver’s seat of the cab and tried to make myself comfortable. From where I sat I could easily see Einstein when he left for his job at PlasMerc, where he probably worked on the line, assembling subatomic particles.
    â€œHey Alan, you awake?”
    â€œYes. Where did you get the bear head? That was a pretty good idea.”
    I told him about my father, how I grew up playing at the feet of Bob the Bear, and how he showed me something no one else in the world knew, that a couple of bolts in the back were all that held Bob’s head on.
    â€œHow about you, Alan, you grow up around here?” I asked carefully.
    â€œWhy do you ask it like it’s a trick question?” he responded.
    I blew out some air in exasperation. “Just answer me, okay?”
    Alan told me he’d moved to East Jordan because that was where his wife Marget lived. He met her on an airplane, sat next to her on a flight to Denver, where he was living at the time, asked her to dinner that night and every night for the next six, and when she left Denver to return home to Michigan he made up his mind to follow. Her father owned a real estate company in East Jordan, and that’s where he found himself working. In Denver he’d managed a movie theater complex in the Cherry Creek area