=========================== A Captive Audience by Nancy Kaminski nancykam@comcast.net =========================== "Hey, Nick? Nick?" Schanke turned in the driver's seat and yelled in the direction of the empty back seat of the Caddy. "Nick! What, you die back there?" A muffled voice answered him. It seemed to come from the middle of the back seat cushions. "What?!" The voice sounded annoyed. "Nick, we've got a problem," the portly detective said loudly to his invisible partner. "Really? Could it have something to do with the flat tire?" the voice asked sarcastically. "And you don't have to yell, I can hear you just fine." The two Toronto homicide detectives had spent the night traveling far out into the Ontario countryside in pursuit of a lead on an open case---the lead being a waitress in a truck stop café one hundred and fifty miles from downtown Toronto. She had refused to talk on the phone, and instead had insisted on a face-to-face interview to tell all she knew about the trucker suspected of kidnapping and murdering a young hitchhiker. So after a two-hour drive, three hours spent interviewing the reluctant witness between customers under the eyes of an irate boss, and a two-hour drive back into town which ran into a huge traffic tie-up because of an overturned semi, the detectives faced a bleak and chilly sunrise. Which isn't much of a problem to most people, unless you're Nick Knight. He faced the prospect of spontaneous combustion. Sometimes combining civil service with being a vampire could be a bit, well, dangerous. So when the sun inched its way above the horizon, Nick had reluctantly turned his beloved antique Caddy over to his partner, Don Schanke, and retired to the trunk, which he kept stocked with a comfortable blanket, a small travel pillow, and a hidden stash of cow blood. He planned on staying there until Schanke pulled the Caddy into his safe, windowless garage back in town. Nick was dozing peacefully when the tire blew out. It wasn't the explosive sort of blowout, just a 'pop!' and a gradual tilting as the left rear tire deflated, but it was enough to jar him awake. Unfortunately, he tried to sit up and banged his head on the trunk lid. He was understandably grumpy when his partner called to him through the rear seat. Schanke's voice lowered to a normal speaking volume. "Okay, okay, don't get all riled up. I've got to change the tire, and we'll be on our way." "And exactly how are you going to do that?" Nick asked. "Well, duh, Nick, I'll get the spare out of the…oh." "Yeah. Oh." Schanke asked hesitantly, "Um, are you sure you can't take just a teensy little bit of sun? It's not really up too far yet, and it's sort of partly cloudy." "No! And besides, you have to pry up the floor to get into the spare wheel compartment, and get the jack out, too. That would take at least five minutes. No way are you opening this trunk." Schanke sighed. "Okay, so I'll call and get a tow." "And get towed where?" Nick asked. "I don't know about you, but I'd try to avoid being in the position of explaining why my partner is locked in the trunk of his own car. Call a garage and have them bring out another tire and rim. You can put it on my credit card." "Okay, it's your money." Nick listened as Schanke rummaged around in the glove compartment and finally found the member booklet from the auto club. "Okay, got the number to call. We're sorta in the sticks here, partner, so it may take a while. I knew we shouldn't have tried to take that detour off the main highway." Nick heard the sound of tiny phone keys being pressed, and then the faint ringing on the other end. "I'm not going anywhere," he muttered grumpily. "What?" "Nothing!" Ten minutes later a tow truck with the required tire and rim was requested and hopefully on its way. But just as Schanke had said, they were on a remote stretch of two-lane highway, more a glorified county road, and getting a tire and rim of the correct size would take a while. "Two hours, tops," he reported cheerfully as he settled back in the roomy driver's seat with the bag full of donuts he had bought at the Tim Horton's attached to the truck stop. "Want me to squeeze a TimBit through the trunk lid for you, Nick?" Nick answered that question with his usual eloquent silence. "Thought so," said his partner. "More for me, buddy!" There was the sound of donut munching for a few minutes. "Hey, Nick? Let's not forget to give me your credit card before the two truck gets here, okay? It would look a little weird to have to crack the trunk and have you shove it into my hand with the guy standing right there." "Come and get it now." Nick fished his wallet out of his hip pocket and found his credit card, then cautiously opened the trunk a crack. He wiggled the card in the crack. "Here it is, Schank." The card was removed from his fingers and a worried brown eye appeared in the small opening. "You okay, Nick? I always worry about you when you do this trunk thing. I hope you're not claustrophobic or anything." "Nah, it's no big deal. Don't worry about me," Nick replied. He'd been in worse places to hide from the sun, he thought, and shuddered as he remembered the various occasions he'd had to dig a hole and bury himself to escape its deadly rays. The Caddy's trunk was a thousand times better than those impromptu graves. Time passed. Nick could hear the occasional swish of cars going past, birds chirping in the nearby field, and a herd of cows in a distant pasture. The trunk gradually got warmer as the sun rose in the sky, but it was tolerable. Nick assumed his favorite trunk position (angled diagonally across the trunk on his back, knees slightly drawn up and to the side, hands interlaced behind head) and alternately dozed or thought about their current case. All in all, it was actually rather relaxing. Schanke, on the other hand, was becoming impatient and bored. First there was the drumming of fingers on the steering wheel. Then the seat was slid back and reclined. Then humming, with hands beating a rhythm on stomach like a rather fleshy drum. The door opening and footsteps pacing around the car, into the field a short distance, and then back to the car. More humming. Nick was now no longer concentrating on the case, but rather on what his partner was doing. "Oh, yeah…" Nick heard his partner say. This was followed by the double snap of his briefcase being opened, papers being moved, and finally, "Yeah!" Nick wondered if Schanke had finished all the donuts and remembered he had a candy bar stashed in his briefcase. "Nick? You awake?" "Yeah, Schank, what is it?" "I just remembered I had a cassette in my briefcase. Mind if I listen to it?" Nick was immediately wary. "What is it?" "I dunno. Father Sczymanski gave it to me last week---said it was pretty interesting. It's a home recording from his brother's little parish way down in Australia. Lessee, the box says 'Our Lady of Hope Catholic Church Orchestra, Widgiemooltha, Western Australia'." He snickered. "And I thought we had some funny town names in Canada! Anyway, it's Father Jim's twin brother---and ain't that every Polish mother's dream? Twin boys who become twin priests?---sent a bunch of these up here and Father Jim was giving them out after Mass last Sunday. He said it was 'indigenous music,' whatever that means. What kind of music do you get in Australia? All I know is 'Waltzing Matilda' and Men at Work---what the hell is a Vegemite sandwich, anyway?" Nick sighed. Sometimes his partner's stream-of-consciousness monologs lost him completely, but at least this time he was familiar with Men at Work's song, 'Down Under' and the reference to the traditional Aussie treat, Vegemite. "It's a sort of fermented yeast spread, Schank." "Ick. I'll take peanut butter, thanks very much." Returning to the matter at hand, Nick said, "I don't think that 'indigenous' means Waltzing Matilda. More like aboriginal instruments and music." "Oh, I suppose flutes and drums and stuff, then." "Yeah. And didgeridoos." "Hunh? What's a didgeridoo?" It's a sort of long wooden pipe that you blow into, and it makes really loud tones. It's hard to describe, but once you've heard one, you won't forget it." "Well, let's see if we've got a didgi-mawhatsis on the tape." While Schanke fiddled with the radio and tape, Nick's brain started putting some random thoughts together, and he didn't like where they were going. Bits and pieces of the things Schanke had told him during the last year during all those hours on stakeout floated to the top of his mind. "…You should hear our choir, Nick, man oh man, it's the most unusual one in Toronto…" "…Father Jim, they call him the Polka Padre…" "…Those two guys, Father Jim and Father Jack, are so much alike! They look alike, sound alike, they like the same things…" "Oh, no," Nick muttered. "No, no, nonononono…" Schanke finally mastered the tape deck and pressed the Play button. There was a click, some tape hiss, and then a voice saying, "and a one, and a two, and a three…" With a glorious crash of sound, the opening strains of the "Beer Barrel Polka" poured from the Caddy's speakers. Accordions, clarinets, drums, clapsticks, and…the amazing droning, vibrating honk and pop of a didgeridoo in full voice. "No, you can't do that with a didgeridoo," Nick said faintly. "No. It's just so wrong in so many ways…nooooo." Apparently, no one had told Father Jack, the Polka Padre of Widgiemooltha, that you couldn't use didgeridoos in a polka band. Over the clamor, Schanke shouted, "Hey, Nick, ain't this great?" He turned up the volume and started singing along. "Roll out the barrelllllllll…" Nick ineffectually wrapped his arms around his head and moaned. It was going to be a very long two hours. And this time, as soon as he got the chance, he was definitely going to kill his partner. With a didgeridoo. There wasn't a court in the world that would convict him. THE END