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

mean it, stop talking now, Alan. Not another word.”
    I kicked ice chunks out of my way as I strode down the sidewalk to the pharmacy. I had a split personality and we didn’t like each other. I peered up at the overcast sky, thinking I was the butt of some cosmic joke. It was not the first time in my life I’d entertained that particular notion.
    I entered the drugstore and started hunting for Kermit. He was reading a Playboy magazine, hunched down by the display so the pharmacist wouldn’t notice him. “You’re not supposed to read them if you’re not going to buy them,” I called out loudly. He fumbled the magazine back into the rack and followed me outside. Soon we were in the truck, headed out to try to find the Ford Credit account.
    â€œThis guy we’re looking for bought himself a brand-new Ford Mustang and stopped paying for it a couple of months ago,” I told Kermit, mostly to prevent him from talking. “A lot of the vehicles I drag in are sports cars. Hardly the most practical vehicles for around here—we’re buried in ice half the year. Young guys fall in love with an image of themselves roaring around in their hot cars and sign papers for payments that are hopelessly out of their reach.”
    â€œI used to own a Trans-Am,” Kermit piped in irrelevantly.
    â€œThat’s nice, Kermit. Anyway, by the time they find out what the insurance is going to cost on their new toys, they start to get a little buyer’s remorse. But they can’t sell the things—the most expensive option on a new car is the depreciation, meaning they’d have to come up with thousands of dollars to undo their mistakes. Most guys wind up turning them back in. The ones who refuse to drop them off at the dealership find themselves dealing with me. Unless they’re like this guy—he went to ground. His car hasn’t been seen around all winter, and he doesn’t seem to have a home, he just sort of drifts from friend to friend’s place. No permanent address.”
    â€œFirst thing we should do is run a background check,” Kermit speculated.
    â€œYeah?” I glanced over at him. He looked completely serious. “What does that mean?”
    â€œYou know, on the computer.”
    â€œYou know how to do something like that?”
    â€œUm, no, not especially.”
    â€œOkay. So I thought the first thing we’d do is check out his place of business.”
    For employment, the customer had listed “logger” on his application. There’s no such thing anymore in northern Michigan; what he did for a living was run a chain saw, cutting down second-growth forest for small-time firewood operations. One of the regulars at the Black Bear did the same kind of thing and told me where our Mustang customer had been working this past winter.
    Kermit had the file open in his lap as we bounced down the rutted two-track deep into the woods, my tires biting at the mud in four-wheel drive. “What are these?” he asked, holding up a set of what were clearly car keys.
    â€œWhen you buy a new car, the dealer retains the key numbers, so you can cut a new set if you lose them. Or if the repo guy needs some,” I explained.
    We came to a halt in a clearing with jumbled stacks of hardwood. It was Saturday, so the place was abandoned. Two hydraulic splitters, a couple of mauls, and an old flatbed truck with dual rear wheels all appeared to be rusting at about the same rate. “No signal,” Kermit pronounced, holding his phone up for me to see. I ignored him.
    â€œHello?” I called out as a formality. There clearly wasn’t anyone around.
    â€œHello! Yo! Anyone here? Hello!” Kermit shouted. “Hey!”
    â€œThat’s enough, Kermit.”
    â€œHello there, hello! Anybody?”
    â€œKermit!” He looked at me, startled. “It’s okay, I don’t think anyone’s