Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 6, June 1999

Mary Pat had admired my brand-new tires and appraised them as the only items of value on my company car. Since they were of no use to her and her Jeep, we drove into an alley to an associate of hers in the automotive parts profession. He looked around furtively, ushered us into a garage, and quickly substituted my tires and wheels for replacements of an earlier vintage. For this consideration Mary Pat received a secondhand carburetor guaranteed to fit in her Jeep.

Everyone was happy. Temporarily, that is. The Hoopsma file and others I handled passed the Quality Team muster, if not with flying colors, with a grudging acceptance. My boss wasn’t as fortunate. In fairness to her, the accumulated bureaucratic snafu was really quite impossible. Nevertheless, she racked up a record number of demerits and was transferred from Management to Production.

They told her not to look at it exactly as a demotion. There was a push on to get as many employees in the field as possible. After all, the corporate mantra of the nineties was “customer service”.

Don’t quote me as saying the transfer was ill-advised. Everyone deserves a chance. Not everyone is as lithe and graceful as they used to be, and one shouldn’t pass premature judgment.

Please permit me to offer a caveat, though. If you see a sputtering object hurtling low in the night sky, don’t jump to the conclusion that it is a killer meteor or comet. And if a child of yours just lost a tooth, open his or her window a crack.

Something Simple

by Rob Kantner

The first Monday of the New Year found us still digging out from the first big storm of the winter. Four days before, an Alberta Clipper had blown through the Great Lakes region, gifting us with twenty-one inches of snow. Behind that, an Arctic air mass depressed highs to twelve at best. All this fouled up the roads, loused up New Year’s Eve, and kept me on the clock all weekend long.

Well, that’s what they pay me the big bucks for. And besides, this being metro Detroit, we expect such events. We welcome them, even. They give us a chance to be as tough as we talk.

Relieved to be back indoors, I trudged into the cosy warmth of the Norwegian Wood maintenance office. My people were deployed on the day’s chores around the complex, dealing with busted pipes, tenants’ gripes, and snow and ice or a combination thereof. Time for a smoke. Time for some coffee. Time for—

“Good morning, Ben,” Shyla said.

She sat in my chair behind the plain, gray steel desk, slumped down so low I hadn’t noticed her. “Morning,” I said, not bothering hiding my surprise as I unbuttoned my peacoat. “You working this week? I thought you were back at school.”

“Classes start tomorrow,” Shyla said, straightening. I noticed that she had poured herself some coffee, smoked two cigarettes already. She had also switched my desk radio from ’ABX over to one of those Ani DiFranco stations. That’s our Shyla, I thought with a smile. “Got a minute?” she asked.

“Sure, kid.” Grabbing a chair, I sat down facing her and dug a short cork-tipped cigar out of my shirt pocket. Shyla Ryan was slight but not short, five seven or so. Her blonde hair was a close-cropped cap around a pretty face graced with high cheekbones and striking bright blue eyes. She wore a light brown jacket over a snug, longsleeved dark brown top. Her lipstick was the color of her top, making her look even paler than usual. Unlike many her age, she had pierced no parts, at least none I could see. She seemed restless and intense, which was typical of her, and worried, which was not. “What’s up?” I asked.

“I need your help,” she said.

“Sure,” I answered. Flaring a wood match, I lighted my cigar. “What’s the story?” I asked, thinking college problems, car problems, maybe boy problems. Here’s the windup and now the pitch, a nice high slow one for old Ben to hit out of the park for her.

“My dad’s disappeared,” she said, fidgeting. “Can you find him for me?”

A few years before, I got asked that a lot. A few years before, the answer was easy. Now the question came rarely, and when it did, it threw up all kinds of red flags. Looking into Shyla’s blue eyes, I realized how troubled she was. Damn, I thought. “I’d like to help,” I said, exhaling smoke. “But that’s really something for the police to deal with.”

Her eyes flashed. “You sound like my mother,” she said. “I already talked to the police, filed a report. They just shrugged at me.” She leaned forward, slender hands knotted. “I’m sure something awful has happened to Daddy. You’ve got to help me.”

Stalling, I asked, “Well, how long has it been since—”