Stone Barrington 27 - Doing Hard Time

Hattie’s idea of buying a gun isn’t such a bad one.”
    “I’ve got my dad’s old .38 Special in my bag,” Ben said.
    They hit a bad pothole in the old two-lane highway, and there was a
pop
, followed by a fluttering noise.
    “Shit!” Ben spat. “I didn’t have time to avoid that one. Now we’ve got a blowout.” He pulled over at a wide place on the shoulder, and they got out of the car.
    Hattie sat up. “What’s going on?” she asked.
    “We’ve got to change a tire,” Peter answered. “Go back to sleep.”
    “Gladly,” she said, and sank back into the seat.
    They had to unload their suitcases to get at the spare, which turned out to be a strange-looking emergency tire.
    “How far do you think we can get on that thing?” Ben asked.
    “I don’t know. I’ll look it up in the manual when we’re done,” Peter replied.
    They changed the tire and put the old one in the U-Haul, then returned their luggage, but not before Ben had taken a long look down the highway behind them, then retrieved the .38 from his suitcase and tucked it into his belt. “The dot is still back there,” he said, “but it stopped when we did.”
    Peter was looking in the driver’s manual.
    “How far is the tire good for?” Ben asked, starting the car.
    “A hundred miles,” Peter replied, “at fifty miles per hour.”
    Ben sighed and pulled back onto the highway. “We’ll try to replace the tire at the first place we come to. We need gas, too,” he said.
    “We just passed a sign for an Esso station.”
    “An
Esso
station?”
    “Yep. We should be able to get some very old gasoline there. It’s five miles ahead.”
    Shortly they passed a sign announcing their entry into Mesa Grande, New Mexico. The Kiwanis Club met at Sally’s Diner on Tuesday evenings, it said.
    “Up ahead, on the right,” Peter said.
    Ben pulled into the service station, which had a sign on the pumps saying, “Independent.” A wiry-looking man in his fifties strode out of the office and walked around to the driver’s window.
    “Yessir?” he said.
    “Fill ’er up,” Ben told him, and they got out of the Cayenne to stretch their legs. Hattie woke up and went to the ladies’ room. The tank full, the man began to clean the bugs off the windshield.
    “You had a flat, did you? We can fix that for you,” he said as he worked.
    “A blowout,” Peter replied. “Can you fix that?”
    “I guess not,” the man said. “Let’s take a look at it.”
    Peter opened the U-Haul and took out the wheel with its ruined tire.
    The man looked at it closely. “That would be from that pothole about five miles back,” he said.
    Peter and Ben laughed aloud. “Must be good for business,” Peter said.
    “I’ve hit it myself,” the man said. “I reported it to the county, but they’re slow to move.” The man pointed across the road. “I suggest you go over to the diner and speak to Sally, who can fix you up with some rooms.”
    “Can you replace the tire?” Peter asked.
    “No, and neither can most tire dealers in the state,” the man replied. “It’s a high-performance Pirelli.” He glanced at his watch. “If I hurry, I can get the Porsche dealer in Albuquerque on the phone before they close at six, and they can put a tire on the Greyhound bus to us tomorrow morning. I can have you out of here by noon.”
    “Sounds good,” Peter said, eyeing the motel across the road with doubt. “Tell me about the motel,” he said.
    “It’s the cleanest, homiest, most comfortable motel in town,” the man said. “It’s also the
only
motel in town, but don’t be put off by that. Sally will take care of you, and she’s a good cook, too.”
    “Great,” Peter said. “You order the tire, and we’ll walk across the road.”
    He followed the man’s directions to pull the car over and unhook the U-Haul, then handed him the keys. “My name is Peter Barrington,” he said, offering his hand.
    The man wiped his palm on his coveralls and shook Peter’s. “My name’s Billy,” he said.
    The three young people each grabbed a suitcase and walked across the road, while Billy phoned the Porsche dealer and ordered the tire.
    •   •   •
    The call made, Billy drove the Cayenne into the garage and onto the hydraulic lift.
Might as well get that wheel taken care of now
, he thought. He hosed it down to wash the dust away, then spun off the studs and set the wheel on the shop floor. There was some mud and dirt caked in the wheel well, and he