The Siege Read Free Page B

Hocker’s silent signal, they started to creep slowly and quietly toward him from behind.
    The jack made a loud ratcheting sound as the old man worked it up and down. He was just standing up to place the jack under the rear fender when Hocker spoke up. “G’morning,” he said. “See you got a flat.”
    With a loud grunt, the old man spun completely around. At the same moment, his hand let go of the jack, and it fell to the street. The top end hit the lip of the hubcap, and before he could react, the lug nuts catapulted into the air. If the shot had been planned, it probably never would have worked, but with the perversity of fate, the lug nuts bounced off the curb, and then all four of them disappeared through the iron grating of a storm drain. There was a loud splash as they hit the black, subterranean water and sank to the bottom.
    “Jumped-up, bald-headed Christ !” the old man shouted, shaking his gnarled fist inches beneath Hocker’s chin. “Why’d you go ’n spook me like that? Damn yah!” His eyes flashed past Hocker to Tasha, standing several steps behind him.
    Hocker, unblinking, took one step back, spit to one side, and said softly, “Sorry… didn’t know you were so jumpy.”
    The old man scowled deeply. The lines in his face looked like cracks in old granite. “Well, Christ! I can’t ’xactly say I was expectin’ anyone to be sneakin’ up on me from behind. Not at this hour.”
    Hocker squinted one eye, regarding the old man as though measuring him. “I said I was sorry,” he said, but there was a sarcastic edge in his voice that Tasha didn’t like.
    “Well now what in the Christ am I gonna do?” he said. He slapped his hands on his thighs, raising little puffs of dust, then shoved his gnarled hands into the front of his bib coveralls. “I ain’t gonna be able to change the tire without lug nuts.” He eyed the iron grate of the storm drain as if he expected to see his missing lug nuts suddenly, miraculously return.
    “Here,” Hocker said, bending to pick up the tire iron from where it had fallen. It was slick with dew, so he wiped it on his pants leg before going over to the truck and kneeling down. Working quickly, he removed one lug nut from each of the three good tires and, with a smirk curling one side of his mouth, handed the three lug nuts to the old man.
    “What the—?” the old man said. He couldn’t refrain from smiling at the obvious brilliance of Hocker’s idea.
    “Now each tire will be missing only one,” Hocker said. “It’ll get you by until you can pick up four new ones. I can give you the money for ’em,” he added, reaching for the wallet in his hip pocket. He was still smiling his wide, friendly smile, but, to Tasha at least, it had a vicious undercurrent.
    “Well I’ll be,” the old man said. The lug nuts rattled like dice in his hand.
    “My name’s Roy,” Hocker said, extending his hand and firmly shaking the old man’s hand.
    “Pleased to meet yah,” the old man said. “M’name’s Buddy. Buddy Conners.”
    “Look, I’ve caused you enough aggravation for one day,” Hocker said. “Let me finish getting that spare on for yah. Maybe you can give us a lift out of town.”
    The old man handed the lug nuts back to Hocker and stepped back to the curb to give him plenty of room to work. “I would ’preciate the help,” he said, casting a questioning glance at Tasha. “My rheumatiz been actin’ up some. The old bones don’t feel quite right ’til sometime ’round noon.”
    “No problem,” Hocker said.
    He dropped the three lug nuts into the upturned hubcap and started to whistle as he fit the jack under the bumper and began cranking away. The ratcheting sound echoed in the early morning stillness, and the truck’s rusting springs groaned as the chassis slowly rose higher and higher. Each crank got harder as the jack took more and more of the weight of the truck.
    “The emergency brake’s on, I hope,” he said.
    “A-yuh.”
    Hocker