Page 17 of Enzo
“He’s not trying to staple an open wound closed, is he?” Rio asked, wide-eyed.
The thought hit me like a truck. My stomach flipped. Shit. I hadn’t considered that. I bolted toward the side room, heart thudding. I knocked on the door.
“Robbie,” I called, trying to keep my voice even.
“What?”
“Why do you need a stapler?”
“To staple things.” Thedohwas implied, and kinda sassy for a man who’d been dying only a week earlier. I liked that. It made me feel warm inside.
Behind me, Rio made a face and mimed, asking more. Of course, he did.
“Not to, uh…. staple yourself?” I asked, wincing at how stupid it sounded out loud.
Silence stretched between us, and I was about ready to break down the damn door.
Finally, Robbie said, “Paper.”.
Relief washed over me so fast I almost swayed. I snapped my fingers. “Jamie, get me a stapler.”
Jamie tore off toward Logan’s office and crashed through the door as if he were hunting treasure. A second later, he came out with the stapler and a fresh box of staples, victorious.
Logan followed him, clearly unimpressed. “That’s my stapler!”
“Robbie wants it,” I said, grabbing it from Jamie and heading back toward the room.
Logan was baffled. “Okay then… don’t lose it. I like that one. Also, why? No, I don’t want to know. He okay?”
“Better,” I murmured. He was far from okay, but he’d kept a small amount of food down, and he’d taken the vitamins I’d added to the tray—or at least they weren’t on the tray now. For all I knew he’d tossed them in the corner of the room. I hated this so much. I wanted control, and Robbie being in there wasn’t in my control at all.
I knocked, the sound dull against the heavy door. A beat passed. Then another. The lock clicked, and the door cracked open enough for Robbie to peer out, his eyes wary. The knife was still in his hand, gripped tight—not raised, but not lowered either.
“I’ve got it,” I said softly, holding out the stapler. I let the staples follow in a gentle arc, tossing them low so they landed near his feet without alarm.
His eyes flicked to the items, then back to my face. A cautious half-smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, tentative, as if it hadn’t been used in a while and wasn’t sure it would be welcome. And then, the door closed again—not slammed, simply shut. Firm, but not final.
It occurred to me then that Robbie had asked earlier about a crankshaft sensor and whether we’d been paid for it, though he hadn’t said which one. I had no idea what he meant—only that it mattered to him. So I gestured for Jamie to keep an eye on the door and stepped into Logan’s office.
“Hey,” I said. “Robbie wants to know if we’ve been paid for a crankshaft sensor.”
Logan blinked at me from behind his desk, looking as if I’d asked him to solve a nuclear physics calculation.
“A what… who… um… which one?” he asked.
I shrugged. “No idea. Just... a crankshaft sensor.”
“Why?” Logan said, rubbing at the back of his neck. His desk was a disaster—piles of paperwork, open folders, and old invoices held down by cups of cold coffee. None of us were numbers guys, least of all Logan. But as the new owner of Redcars it all fell on him to make sense of the accounts.
“I have no fucking idea,” he muttered, dragging his laptop toward him. He opened a spreadsheet, stared at it for a solid thirty seconds, then huffed and slammed it shut again. “I don’t fucking know.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long sigh. “I don’t fucking know anything.”
I peeked into Robbie’s room. “Which crankshaft sensor?” I asked.
Robbie didn’t glance up. “Quote 765-slash-2,” he said, same as before. But this time, his voice carried more weight. He flipped open the notebook without even glancing at the page. “That one came from the blue Civic with the snapped timing belt. See here?” He pointed to the stack of invoices on the desk. “I matched it to the order we got from Jasper Auto—green form, top right corner torn, but it still shows the last three digits of the VIN.”
He moved as though he’d rehearsed this, each connection crisp, precise. “We logged the part under internal reference code JN92—linked to vehicle ID 4CXM227, the blue Civic with the snapped timing belt. The original sensor failed during ignition testing—Rio flagged it in the diagnostic. I matched that to invoice #04498 from Jasper Auto, subtotal $72.83—green form, top right corner torn but the VIN ending in 227 is still legible.”
He tapped the notebook, still not checking it—as if he had the whole thing memorized. “A replacement sensor came in two days later under UPS tracking 1Z37748E9031021740—it was bundled with the valve covers for the old Chevy and a serpentine belt we didn’t order but got credited for on invoice #04511. I matched up the shipment discrepancies with the intake logs from Receiving—Rio had initialed the manifest but flagged two inconsistencies. The serpentine belt wasn’t part of our original request, and the packing list marked it as a bonus part, but the system tried to bill us anyway. I filed a claim with Jasper’s distributor interface and found their refund confirmation in the recycling box, which is stapled to the back of invoice #04511. Then I piled everything the other shipment trackers—on the Non-Match Deliveries pile.”
