Excerpt From Slow Machine

A selection from Slow Machine, the title story of my new e-book collection of short stories of danger and suspense now for sale at Amazon Kindle:

SLOW MACHINE

“Why don’t you just rip that damn question mark down? You’ve always hated it!” Mindy said.
Nick smiled. “I play by the rules.”
In the years Nick had known her, he’d never seen anything like the smile that passed over Mindy’s lips at that moment, just after noon, as they sat together on the bench at the corner of Sunnyland and Foundry. Her perfect white teeth exposed, her smile so intense it could light up his dark, frozen world fifty times over, or blow it to bits in one flash of happiness disguised as agony.
“You sure? You have your past, Nick, like I have mine.” She clasped her hands behind her head, trying to pull back into a ponytail the unruly mane of black hair that was getting tangled in the hot wind of the muggy July day.
Nick couldn’t take his eyes off her. “Well, you know I won the Good Citizen Award every year from Grade Five to Grade Eight.”
“I remember. You were a great guy back then and you still are.” She kissed him on the cheek.
“Stop messing with your hair. It looks good.”
“I know. Nervous habit I guess.” Her hands fell to her sides as she gave up on making the ponytail.
Nick shoved his shaking hands in his jeans’ pockets. Better not let her see his own nervousness.
Anything to stop himself from staring at her, he glanced again across Foundry Street at the tourist information building with the whitewashed question mark up there on its front wall.
Nick laughed. “Yeah, I’m so hard up for a few bucks, I’m gonna steal that stupid question mark that’s been up there for years and years. It’s like a landstone for people around here, even if we all laugh at it.”
“What?”
“Land stone. A place that stands out, like, a place you tell people about when you tell them where they’re going so they know where they’re going.”
“You mean a landmark?”
“Whatever.”
“Well, I think for you that place is nothing but a land mark for bad memories. And you’ll be doing this job for more than just a few bucks.”
Nick squinted his eyes shut, remembering coming down the driveway of the sweatbox apartment building he lived in on Mary Street, in those childhood days, Mom holding one hand, Dad the other. Mom doing all the talking; Dad quiet like always; Nick grimacing as the heat of the asphalt burned through the worn out soles of his runners like they weren’t even there…
Sudden pressure on his hand made Nick open his eyes to the present day. Mindy’s hand was in his, her skin warm, smooth, not sweaty and rough like his own.
“Don’t go back too far, Nick. Remember, I’m your friend. I can help you.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t drift so bad.”
He looked over at the sports bar on the corner opposite the tourist office, a place called The Checkered Flag Pit Stop, and caught a glimpse of the waitress in the picture window out front.
She stood in yellow t-shirt and form-fitting black slacks, her blonde hair spilling over her shoulders, as she chatted with a trucker at the counter. Even at this distance, he could see the guy eyeing the sinewy body under her tight clothing.
Mindy nudged him in the ribs. “Yeah. Trish’s good looking I guess, a hottie. But she’s a pain in the ass, Nick.”
“Why?”
“I’ve never been good enough for her. Never. Didn’t like the way I dressed, wore my hair, nothing. I’m so sick of her, and after that fight he had with her last night, Grant is too…” Her voice trailed off.
“What about Grant? He knows something?”
“Don’t worry about him, just remember what you have to do. You know that stealing the question mark is just a trick to get people out of the Checkered Flag while I do what I have to do to Trish, okay?”
“A trick? Okay, I guess.”
“Listen to me, this is better than that job I gave you a few weeks back when you entertained all the guys passing by on the street with your yo-yo stunts while we took all those boxes out of that print shop Grant’s friend runs.”
“ It is?”
“You bet. More fun, more exciting, and nobody laughing about the boogers falling out of your nose. Listen, we’ll deal with Trish at one in the morning. Thanks to budget cutbacks, Officer Bill and his Keystone Kops won’t even be out on the beat. The streets will be deserted, there’ll maybe be only two or three jerks in the Checkered Flag on a Wednesday night. …”
“Okay, I’ll do it.”
Something rough pressed into his palm. Five scrunched up fifty-dollar bills.
“You’ll get the rest tonight once we’re through. Remember, I’ll leave a stepladder out for you by my front door. Now, for working on the question mark, you can get a screwdriver at your boarding house, can’t you?”
“I don’t know. Mrs. Merryman keeps an eye on everything.”
“Well, the main thing is to look like you’re up to something so whoever’s in the Checkered Flag will wonder what you’re doing and look away from Trish, maybe even walk out. I’ll drive by the bar about one.”
A squeeze on his leg, no, his thigh. Why couldn’t she touch him where it really counted? How would Grant ever know? He smiled and thought about Mindy running across the vacant lot overgrown with weeds, the one he saw whenever he looked out his bedroom window at Mrs. Merryman’s boarding house on Tupper Way. She was running wild and free, her dark hair streaming behind her; her smile lighting up so bright the sun blinked, just for a moment, sending everything cold and dark.
Nick shivered and glanced up just in time to catch Mindy winking at him as she slipped off the bench and breezed down Sunnyland, past the wall mural on Teasdale’s Dry Goods - a street scene called “Bustling North Ridge, Strathaird County’s Seat of Prosperity, 1867” - where sun-drenched likenesses of well-scrubbed women in long full-skirted dresses and dapper men in top hats and tails, with carefully trimmed beards, went about their daily business.
He looked back at the question mark. The fierce sunlight bouncing off its white paint made it glow so bright, it almost seemed to have a light of its own. Could that light guide him through tonight?