Twice Bitten, Once Shy: Confessions of a Fake Psychic Detective #5

Chapter 1

My Kingdom for a Tooth

"Have you ever sold a car you didn't own to someone you didn't know in exchange for three gold teeth?" the young man says when Zandra turns the corner behind the vacant gas station.

Zandra stops in her shuffled tracks, partly because of the directness of the question and partly because of man's expression as he says it. It's as soulless as someone mid-chew in the background of a photograph.

How does he know it isn't my car? I did everything right, didn't I? I slept in it at night while the rest of downtown Stevens Point, Wisconsin, US of A, stumbled between the bars.

"Are you wondering how I know it isn't your car?" the man says. He wears a T-shirt with bold print that reads, "Free Beer Tomorrow," on it.

Ah, so that's why he didn't notice I was sleeping in his car. He was at work. Bartender?

Zandra glances at the man's hands. They're balled into fists.

Manager. Shift lead. Someone like that. He's posturing at the same time as keeping cool. A bartender would've called the police by now. They don't make money if they aren't working, so they wouldn't want a physical confrontation. A bouncer wouldn't ball up the fist like that, because action is always favored over a threat. Server? Maybe, but Stevens Point is too traditional for a male-presenting specimen in his late 20s or early 30s to bother with being emasculated like that.

This needle-dick town.

"You should try locking the doors next time," Zandra says. She stops the urge to hack into her sleeve, and instead lets a droop from her throat wiggle its way to the crust on the old pavement.

"You should try not sleeping in cars that don't belong to you," the man says. His head leans forward, neck outstretched.

Typical alpha male bullshit pose. It's how boys in this town look when they're "talking to the manager."

Zandra pulls the lawnmower knife from the sheath hidden up the sleeve of her purple gown. The blade isn't sharp enough to make a cut unnoticeable.

That's the problem with sharp knives. No one knows you used one until they spot the blood, and even then they think it's someone else's. Ask me how I know.

"If I had a better place to sleep, I would," Zandra says. "Now do you want the car or not?"

"How about I come over there and take the keys from you."

"You think I brought the keys with me?"

"What?"

To answer his question from earlier on, yes, I have sold a car that didn't belong to me before. Not for gold teeth. No, no one in this town carries good enough dental insurance for that. For a fast food gift card and a carton of smokes? You bet.

"I hid the keys," Zandra says.

"You can't be serious."

"I am."

"Then I'm going to tell everyone about this," the man says. He unwinds one of his fists so he can wag a finger at Zandra. "I know who you are. I know the things they say about you. You don't have any friends in this town as it is."

Zandra shrugs as she lights a cigarette with her free hand. "Then why should I care if you tell anyone?"

"Because it's time someone did something about you," the man says.

They already tried. I'm still here, more or less alive.

"Better to have the right enemies than the wrong ones," Zandra says.