Read Online Stuffed by Brian M. Wiprud - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Brian M. Wiprud
Tags: Fiction
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not. Whatever—it made my head hurt working all the permutations. I felt the decision was mine alone to make in the vacuum of my own panic.
They had offered me the job on the spot. It paid roughly what I was making now
plus
the benefits. How could I turn it down? I had a week to let them know.
“Tell me again how they said your stuff ended up in a safety net?” Angie smiled into the sun, the wind whipping her hair. She looks great in sunglasses of all kinds, sort of the way women can look great in all kinds of hats. Sunglasses were her accessory vice, and she owned dozens. Catty black shades with rhinestones had been chosen for this trip.
“Dunno.” I gulped, suppressing thoughts of
the job.
“Someone must have thrown it off the bridge. I figure it wasn’t for safekeeping. Man, I can’t believe the luck of it. Getting all my stuff back. Never thought I’d see it again. Wanna find the E-ZPass?”
“How do you mean?” She opened the glove compartment, found the transponder, and held it up to the windshield.
“How do I mean what?” The tollgate flipped up.
“Throwing it off the bridge.”
“What I meant was, someone was trying to throw my stuff into the Connecticut River and didn’t see the netting. Animal lifers?”
Angie adjusted her sunglasses and made a sour face, the one she makes at a crossword puzzle that doesn’t fully cooperate. “Drove a long way just to dump the goods. Most of those animal lifers want their stunts publicized. No publicity in just dumping it off a bridge. And they usually break into places when nobody is there. These guys were too confrontational. Didn’t seem like PETA types to me.”
I bobbed my head in agreement and gunned the Lincoln onto 9A. “Well, whoever they were, they took a greater risk getting caught by going out on that bridge with all my animals. Why not just bury them in the woods somewhere? Or burn them somewhere publicly so it would make the news?”
“Hmmm.” Angie nodded. “It’s like they just wanted to make the loot disappear, y’know? Say they panicked. Or maybe the bridge was on their way somewhere else, or they were just driving and had this impulse.”
“Why go to all that trouble?” I adjusted the rearview mirror. “And why take the booty so far away?”
“Unless this was near where they live, or, like I said, on the way somewhere.”
“So you’re suggesting they came all the way to New York from Massachusetts to case our apartment and steal my livelihood? Some shiftless Gloucester fishermen happen to be thumbing through the Manhattan yellow pages and say, ‘Hey, let’s rip this guy off.’ Quite a stretch, sweetie.”
“I’m just thinking out loud.” She stuck her tongue out at me. “Did the police say whether anything was damaged?”
“All he said was that it was in plastic garbage bags, except the tusks, of course. Should at least have been kept reasonably dry.”
Our quizzing subsided into mutual perplexity, so Angie set upon the latest
New York Times
crossword book as I took us from the Cross County to the Hutchinson Parkway to 684 to Brewster, then headed east on I-84. It was a gorgeous day, uncommonly dry and warm for late May. Angie besieged me with crossword clues for a couple hours. She answered most of them herself, of course, but I miraculously got three in a row. Across, three-letter word for percentage:
VIG.
Down, beginning with V, a nine-letter word for reprisal:
VENGEANCE.
Across, beginning with G, a six-letter word for a penguin’s nest:
GABLIT.
You could see where my mind was. We passed through Hartford, and once on I-91 we off-ramped for a pit stop. I filled the Lincoln’s tank and Angie emptied hers. Back on the road in a jiffy.
“Y’know,” Angie began, pointing a Slim Jim at me, “it could be that the thieves were on their way to sell the booty, like in Rangely or something.”
I taxied the Lincoln onto an entrance ramp. “Still doesn’t explain why they dumped the stuff.”
“I wonder if
They had offered me the job on the spot. It paid roughly what I was making now
plus
the benefits. How could I turn it down? I had a week to let them know.
“Tell me again how they said your stuff ended up in a safety net?” Angie smiled into the sun, the wind whipping her hair. She looks great in sunglasses of all kinds, sort of the way women can look great in all kinds of hats. Sunglasses were her accessory vice, and she owned dozens. Catty black shades with rhinestones had been chosen for this trip.
“Dunno.” I gulped, suppressing thoughts of
the job.
“Someone must have thrown it off the bridge. I figure it wasn’t for safekeeping. Man, I can’t believe the luck of it. Getting all my stuff back. Never thought I’d see it again. Wanna find the E-ZPass?”
“How do you mean?” She opened the glove compartment, found the transponder, and held it up to the windshield.
“How do I mean what?” The tollgate flipped up.
“Throwing it off the bridge.”
“What I meant was, someone was trying to throw my stuff into the Connecticut River and didn’t see the netting. Animal lifers?”
Angie adjusted her sunglasses and made a sour face, the one she makes at a crossword puzzle that doesn’t fully cooperate. “Drove a long way just to dump the goods. Most of those animal lifers want their stunts publicized. No publicity in just dumping it off a bridge. And they usually break into places when nobody is there. These guys were too confrontational. Didn’t seem like PETA types to me.”
I bobbed my head in agreement and gunned the Lincoln onto 9A. “Well, whoever they were, they took a greater risk getting caught by going out on that bridge with all my animals. Why not just bury them in the woods somewhere? Or burn them somewhere publicly so it would make the news?”
“Hmmm.” Angie nodded. “It’s like they just wanted to make the loot disappear, y’know? Say they panicked. Or maybe the bridge was on their way somewhere else, or they were just driving and had this impulse.”
“Why go to all that trouble?” I adjusted the rearview mirror. “And why take the booty so far away?”
“Unless this was near where they live, or, like I said, on the way somewhere.”
“So you’re suggesting they came all the way to New York from Massachusetts to case our apartment and steal my livelihood? Some shiftless Gloucester fishermen happen to be thumbing through the Manhattan yellow pages and say, ‘Hey, let’s rip this guy off.’ Quite a stretch, sweetie.”
“I’m just thinking out loud.” She stuck her tongue out at me. “Did the police say whether anything was damaged?”
“All he said was that it was in plastic garbage bags, except the tusks, of course. Should at least have been kept reasonably dry.”
Our quizzing subsided into mutual perplexity, so Angie set upon the latest
New York Times
crossword book as I took us from the Cross County to the Hutchinson Parkway to 684 to Brewster, then headed east on I-84. It was a gorgeous day, uncommonly dry and warm for late May. Angie besieged me with crossword clues for a couple hours. She answered most of them herself, of course, but I miraculously got three in a row. Across, three-letter word for percentage:
VIG.
Down, beginning with V, a nine-letter word for reprisal:
VENGEANCE.
Across, beginning with G, a six-letter word for a penguin’s nest:
GABLIT.
You could see where my mind was. We passed through Hartford, and once on I-91 we off-ramped for a pit stop. I filled the Lincoln’s tank and Angie emptied hers. Back on the road in a jiffy.
“Y’know,” Angie began, pointing a Slim Jim at me, “it could be that the thieves were on their way to sell the booty, like in Rangely or something.”
I taxied the Lincoln onto an entrance ramp. “Still doesn’t explain why they dumped the stuff.”
“I wonder if
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