'Safety' Measure
Gets Whacked
I made a show of holding my head up and taking a long, deliberate gaze around the room before making my way through the smoky half-light toward the bar. "Yeah?" the pox-scarred barman growled as I sat down on a stool.
"Hi-C."
The bartender knew I wasn't ordering fruit juice.
He grunted and nodded toward the darkness against the back wall. I walked over and sat down at a booth, across from a trench coat and slouch hat that said "Talk."
"I got a job for you," I said to the darkness. "Heard you were quick and quiet."
"'S'why they call me Hi-C," the trench coat whispered. I shuddered at the name and the implication -- his "customers" never had time to utter so much as an "amen" in the twinkling that it took their suddenly-liberated heads to hit the floor after Hi-C plied his trademark piano wire. "Who's gettin' the whack?"
"Whack. Good choice of words," I said, suppressing a chuckle. "Yes, I definitely need something whacked."
I could feel two icy cold eyes glaring at me from the black void under the hat. "Some ... THING? Whaddya mean? I do someONES, not someTHINGS."
"Well, then, this will be a new experience," I said. "I need you to whack my car. Hard. On the front bumper. But ..." I looked him in the eye, or at least my best guess as to where that might be. "You can't leave a mark. And you can't be seen"
I heard a startled cough "You want me to do a ... car?" The voice almost rose above a whisper. "What's the deal? Hey, you ain't a cop? You'd have to tell me ... "
"No, no, 'C," I said. "I need my car whacked. Literally. Specifically, I need you to take a rubber-headed sledgehammer, and find EXACTLY the right spot on the bumper to strike it and blow the airbag. Without, as I said, actually damaging the car. I have no quarrel with my Chevy, just the airbag."
"Air ... airbag." The complete lack of expression in the voice demanded an explanation.
"Okay." I stood up, drew myself to full height. "Look at me -- five-two at best, a hundred pounds soaking wet. I can't reach the pedals or the steering wheel without rolling the seat all the way up. I'm inches away from that confounded airbag, and if it ever goes off, I'm a bug on a windshield."
"And you want ME to ... "
" ... Yep. Set it off. It's the only way." I told Hi-C how, after airbags had been blamed for several deaths involving children and small adults who were too close to the devices' explosive inflation, I tried to get my mechanic to disconnect it. He said he needed a note from my doctor stating the medical necessity of disabling the airbag.
I asked my doctor for the note, My doctor said he needed a signed hold-harmless releasing him from any liability, should I be injured in a wreck after the bag was disconnected. But then his malpractice lawyer turned around and said such releases weren't worth the paper they're printed on.
"So," I said, "If I can't get it disconnected, I'll get it ... "
"Whacked." Hi-C actually let out a laugh. "Yeah, whacked."
I opened the duffel bag I had brought along and handed it to him. "Will this cover the job?" It was a lot of money -- a LOT -- but it was worth every penny, not to have to drive down the Interstate at 75 mph with a ticking bomb practically in my lap.
"Keep it." Hi-C said. "I never done a car before. I like a challenge."
"Rubber sledge, remember," I said. "Just one tap, right on the sweet spot. Nice and neat."
"Neat," he said. "D'worry. That's my style. Neat and sweet. Like a Mozart sonata.
"That's why they call me ... Hi-C."
