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

but the work wasn’t portable—not too many theater complexes in a town of twenty-five hundred people. Working out of East Jordan, though, Alan was able to do pretty well for himself selling lakefront property and hunting cabins.
    As he spoke I ticked off the things he was telling me. I’d never even been to Colorado and had never heard of Cherry Creek, but I could look it up and see if such a place existed. He seemed pretty knowledgeable about both movie theaters and real estate sales, competently fielding my questions as I put them to him. If he wasn’t real, how could he know all of this stuff? If I were schizophrenic, wouldn’t my split personality be confined to my own knowledge base?
    I started the tow truck to pump a little heat into the cab. “So, Alan … I’m sorry about when you told me you were dead. I’ve just … I mean, what do you say when someone tells you that? It’s not exactly something that ever gets covered all the time in Dear Abby.”
    â€œI felt completely ignored.”
    â€œWell, okay, but I said I was sorry.”
    â€œYou think this is easy for me?”
    â€œWhat is your problem?” I snapped. “I said I was sorry. What more do you want, a box of candy?”
    He was silent for a bit. “I want you to find the people who did this to me and bring them to justice,” he finally said.
    â€œOh ho, now we’re down to it! You want me to kill somebody, don’t you?”
    â€œNo, of course not!” he sputtered.
    â€œNo? No? Are you sure? Because a second ago it sure sounded like you wanted me to find some people—not just one person, now, but a whole group of people—and do to them what they supposedly did to you.”
    â€œNot a whole group, just two people, two men.”
    â€œAnd then I suppose they’ll be in my head, too,” I raged. “And they’ll want me to kill somebody else, and pretty soon the TV networks will be in my neighborhood, interviewing my friends who’ll be saying, ‘Gee, he seemed like such a nice guy, who knew that he had all those bodies buried in his basement?’”
    â€œYou don’t believe me,” Alan replied, hurt.
    â€œWhich is weird, because this is all so plausible.”
    â€œLook, couldn’t we just … we’re in East Jordan. Won’t you just let me prove it to you? We can go to my house, talk to my wife, see my little girl. Then you’ll know.”
    â€œYour little girl? How old?”
    â€œShe’s sixteen. Her name is Kathy, Kathy Lottner. My wife’s name is Marget Lottner.”
    I mulled it over. “I can’t believe I’m going to do this,” I finally muttered.
    â€œGreat!”
    â€œBut not right now.” I shut the truck off, and it rattled into silence. “Right now, I’m on what we professional repo men call a stakeout.”
    â€œThat’s what cops call it.”
    â€œRight, they stole it from us.”
    It was cold when I lurched awake at dawn. Shivering, I started the tow truck and let the wipers and defroster work on the layer of ice on the windshield. Alan was quiet and I could feel that he was asleep, now that I understood what it meant when I experienced the peculiar sensation of him not being there.
    About half an hour later, just as I was talking myself into abandoning my post for the time it took to get a cup of coffee, Einstein Croft wheeled down his driveway and gunned his truck, his back end sliding as he headed off for work. I gave him a half mile and then unhurriedly crawled off after him; I knew where he was going—PlasMerc, home of the surly gate guard.
    I was close enough behind him on the highway to see him speed up and slow down twice, his tailpipe blowing clouds of black smoke as he tried to clear his engine by stomping on his accelerator. Satisfied that his erratic progress was a sign that the water in his fuel line was doing its job, I