The Last JoyRide

Part 6

TUESDAY 9:50 AM

It wasn't even ten o'clock, and I already had a mental boner! That hadn't happened in a while. I never once had a job that I liked as much on the first day. I still had no idea what I was going to get paid, and at that point, I didn't even really care. Whatever it was, it would be well worth it to be with a girl that exciting every day. I was trusting in nature and perseverance to true my course.

Joy took the freeway back to Marietta, and I was right behind her. I followed as best I could anyway. She peeled off at our exit, and we weaved our way through the side streets toward the old square. Just as I thought I knew where we were going, Joy made a quick and un-signaled right turn. I followed, and two streets back, we were in a small section of town where I had never once been. We pulled the cars down a narrow one-way alley behind a row of old brick warehouse buildings adjacent to some railroad tracks.

She got out, motioned for me to wait, then disappeared inside. A rusty green garage door rolled up in only a moment more, allowing us entry with the cars.

It was dim and smelled of motor oil and rubber. A few aged buzzing florescent lights hung from the wood-beamed ceiling providing the only source of visibility. Joy closed the garage door behind us, and it became even a little darker. She moved the Navigator carefully to the back of the building, directly under a light and out of sight of the door. The only glass in the building that I noticed had not been spray-painted green, preventing anyone from seeing out or in.

"Whew!" She said, shrugging her shoulders as if trying to release tension.

"That baby's a pig."

"You could have fooled me!"

"What?" She mocked.

"You just can't keep up, and it wasn't the Jeep either."

She walked past me by the roll-up door, opened a large vulgar graffitied power panel, and flipped a circuit breaker with force. It snapped loudly, and more fluorescent lights flickered to life and gave the warehouse a faint blueish glow.

Several cars were parked in a neat line against the far wall nearest to the railroad tracks. Among them were a Mercedes, BMW M4, what looked to be a new Landcruiser, and several other SUVs of various sizes and colors. Joy went to her Jeep and removed her laptop and backpack from the backseat while I inspected the Landcruiser. She whistled to get my attention and motioned for me to follow her.

We walked to a small office on the east wall, separated from the rest of the warehouse by corrugated tin walls and crude wood-framed plexiglass windows. Joy walked in ahead of me and lit a cigarette before sitting behind her desk and plugging in her laptop. She opened it and began typing furiously, holding her smoke between her index and middle finger. She would pause, waiting, her fingers tapping nervously.

"I'm removing the Lincoln from the database, which means we'll have to turn it in soon, probably tomorrow."

She looked up at me and motioned for me to sit. I complied, taking the only other chair in the room, and she continued.

"That sucks, but I'm a little low on cash. I'll get a grand for it easy, but it would have gone up in a couple of days."

The laptop made a monkey screech sound. Joy looked back and tapped the keyboard.

"Yep, tomorrow morning, nine o'clock, bring your honey and bring your money. The collections office isn't too far from here, up to seventy-five a few minutes."

I raised my eyebrows at the prospect of such quick cash.

"It'll also look good for me," she continued.