Bad Apple by Anthony Bruno Page B

on track before he got off track.
    Slipowitz sucked on his cigarette. “What’s up, Bells?” His eyes darted from Bells to Freshy to Mikey-boy and then back again. He avoided looking at Stanley. He didn’t even want to acknowledge that Stanley was there. No one liked seeing Stanley.
    Bells walked up to him with a smile and scratched the little cat’s lazy head. “This is a cute one, Randy. What’s his name?”
    â€œI call him Pancho. ’Cause it’s always siesta time with this one.” Slipowitz took a long drag off his cigarette, his eyes still darting all over the place.
    Bells took the cat from him and cradled it in one arm. He explored the fur on its belly with his fingers. “Hey, Randy, this cat has teats. How can it be Pancho? It’s a girl.”
    â€œI know, I know. It’s just that she looks like a Pancho to me. You know what I mean?”
    Bells smiled. “Yeah. I do.”
    â€œSo what brings you around here, Bells? Need a new muffler?”
    Bells shook his head and scratched the little cat under the chin. She squeezed her eyes shut and stretched, lounging in the lap of luxury.
    â€œSo, ah . . . so what’s up, Bells?”
    Tozzi noticed that Slipowitz’s hand was shaking. The guy was scared shitless, and he kept flicking ashes on the floor with his thumb even after there were no more ashes to flick.
    Bells looked down at the little cat as he scratched its chin. “So how’re the ponies running these days, Randy? You making out?”
    Slipowitz shrugged. “I dunno. You know how it is, Bells. You got good days—and you got not-so-good days, too . . . sometimes. You know?”
    Tozzi couldn’t tell if little Pancho was all the way asleep or not, but she sure looked it.
    Bells kept scratching her chin. “Tell me something, Randy. How’s business?”
    â€œBusiness?”
    â€œYeah. How many mufflers you sell in an average day? About.”
    â€œWhole mufflers?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œWell, see, you don’t sell a whole system all that often. Usually it’s just pieces that people need. Pipes, condensers, the actual muffler itself, that kind of thing. Very unusual for someone to need a complete exhaust system replaced.”
    â€œInteresting. So how many cars you work on a day? About.”
    Slipowitz glanced out the Plexiglas panels in the garage door. Except for Bells’s BMW and his own Pontiac, there were no other cars out front in the lot, which meant they didn’t have a whole lot of business today. He held the cigarette butt carefully as he took the very last drag, then dropped it on the floor and stepped on it. “Well, that all depends, Bells. Every day is different. See, it’s a little slow now, but that’s to be expected this time of year. Once it snows and the weather gets shitty, this place’ll be hopping. You know the way they salt the roads around here. That really speeds up metal corrosion. Then there’s the slush that builds up in the wheel wells and freezes. You’re driving along and this big chunk of frozen slush breaks off—it can get caught on the muffler. Maybe you drag it for a couple hundred feet. You don’t realize how much damage that can do.”
    Bells was grinning down at the cat, so calm and contented. “Frozen slush, huh? Is this what they taught you out at Maxximum Muffler School? Where was it? Kansas?”
    â€œNo, Omaha.”
    Bells stared at Slipowitz and nodded. “So when did you open up this place? Last April, wasn’t it?”
    â€œYeah, April.”
    â€œSo you haven’t actually been through a winter in the muffler business yet, have you?”
    â€œWell, no, but—”
    â€œAnd how long did you go to that muffler school down there?”
    â€œFive days.”
    Bells nodded. “And not counting what you did down there, how many mufflers have you personally put in,