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Back We Were Killers Once Save as PDF
Chapters (65)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty–one
  25. Twenty–two
  26. Twenty–three
  27. Twenty–four
  28. Twenty–five
  29. Twenty–six
  30. Twenty–seven
  31. Twenty–eight
  32. Twenty–nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty–one
  35. Thirty–two
  36. Thirty–three
  37. Thirty–four
  38. Thirty–five
  39. Thirty–six
  40. Thirty–seven
  41. Thirty–eight
  42. Thirty–nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty–one
  45. Forty–two
  46. Forty–three
  47. Forty–four
  48. Forty–five
  49. Forty–six
  50. Forty–seven
  51. Forty–eight
  52. Forty–nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty–one
  55. Fifty–two
  56. Fifty–three
  57. Fifty–four
  58. Fifty–five
  59. Fifty–six
  60. Fifty–seven
  61. Author’s Note
  62. Acknowledgments
  63. Also by Becky Masterman
  64. About the Author
  65. Newsletter Sign-up

Complicated if Gloria didn’t show up for work.

Thirty

The Miata was still under warranty so I took it in the next day, with Carlo following behind in his old Volvo. The Volvo had lost its AC some years before, and I was grateful this was the winter so he wouldn’t bake all the way down to the dealership near the Tucson Mall and both of us bake all the way back if I had to leave the car there. The brakes didn’t fail again, but tired as he was after being up late on Kitt Peak, he still insisted on coming.

They weren’t busy, so while the mechanics checked out the car we waited in one of those smelly waiting rooms that apologizes with bad coffee and grimy televisions you can’t turn off because they’re mounted high up on the wall as if they fear you’ll run off with them, or worse, change the channel.

When they called my name Carlo and I both went to the repair window, where I anticipated hearing what was wrong, but the guy who managed the customer service desk said the brakes checked out okay. The name on his shirt said HAL.

“But they failed, Hal,” I said.

“They’re fine,” he assured me, his face with the expression of a cabinet nominee at a confirmation hearing.

“I was driving down from Kitt Peak and they went out. Do you understand? No brakes. Nada. I could have been killed.”

Hal gave Carlo a How do we put up with this? look. “Lady, it’s like being a doctor. If you come in and tell me you passed out and I do a brain scan and don’t see anything, what can I do?”

“The brakes failed,” I said.

Carlo added, “False equivalence.” Which made both Hal and me look at him like he wasn’t helping.

“Maybe you just did something wrong,” Hal said thoughtfully, rubbing at his face with the back of his knuckles the way men do when they have facial hair, which Hal did not. “Or maybe you had a plastic water bottle wedged under the brake pedal. That happens sometimes. And then you panic.”

“I don’t panic,” I said. “And I know how to drive very well. And there was no water bottle in the car.”

“That will be eighty-nine dollars for the diagnostic,” he said, having run out of logic.

“Fuck you,” I said, at the same loss.

“Come on, lady,” he said. “I’m not a mechanic, I just do the paperwork. Don’t give me a hard time.”

“Then let me talk to the mechanic.”

He gave Carlo another put-upon look, but Carlo just smiled. So Hal left and brought back a guy wiping his hands on a greasy towel like they always do. He must have been warned, because he didn’t meet my eyes, at least not in a consistent kind of way.