`What can I do you for, mister?' Ringo said.
`I want to look at a car.'
He waved his hand toward the yard. `I got hundreds of them. But there isn't a one of them you could drive away. You want one to cannibalize?'
`This is a particular car I want to examine.'
I produced my adjuster's card. `It's a fairly new Dodge, I think, belonged to a Mrs. Carlson, wrecked a week or so ago.'
`Yeah. I'll show it to you.'
He put on a black rubber raincoat. Lion and I followed him down a narrow aisle between two lines of wrecked cars. With their crumpled grilles and hoods, shattered windshields, torn fenders, collapsed roofs, disemboweled seats, and blown-out tires, they made me think of some ultimate freeway disaster. Somebody with an eye for detail should make a study of automobile graveyards, I thought, the way they study the ruins and potsherds of vanished civilizations. It could provide a clue as to why our civilization is vanishing.
`All the ones in this line are totaled out,' Ringo said. `This is the Carlson job, second from the end. That Pontiac came in since. Head-on collision, two dead.'
He shuddered. `I never go on the highway when I can help it.'
`What caused the accident to the Carlson car?'
`It was taken for a joy ride by one of the neighbors' kids, a boy name of Hillman. You know how these young squirts are - if it isn't theirs, they don't care what happens to it. According to the traffic detail, he missed a curve and went off the road and probably turned it over trying to get back on. He must of rolled over several times and ended up against a tree.'
I walked around the end of the line and looked over the Dart from all sides. There were deep dents in the roof and hood and all four fenders, as if it had been hit with random sledgehammers. The windshield was gone. The doors were sprung.
Leaning in through the left-hand door, I noticed an oval piece of white plastic, stamped with printing, protruding from the space between the driver's seat and the back. I reached in and pulled it out. It was a brass door key. The printing on the plastic tab said: DACK'S AUTO COURT 7.
`Watch the glass in there,' Ringo said behind me. `What are you looking for?'
I put the key in my pocket before I turned around. `I can't figure out why the boy didn't get hurt.'
`He had the wheel to hang on to, remember. Lucky for him it didn't break.'
`Is there any chance he wrecked the car on purpose?'
'Naw. He'd have to be off his rocker to do that. Course you can't put anything past these kids nowadays. Can you, Lion?'
He stooped to touch the dog's head and went on talking, either to it or to me. `My own son that I brought up in the business went off to college and now he don't even come home for Christmas some years. I got nobody to take over the business.'
He straightened up and looked around at his wrecks with stern affection, like the emperor of a wasteland.
`Could there have been anybody with him in the car?'
`Naw. They would of been really banged up, with no seat belts and nothing to hang on to.'
He looked at the sky, and added impatiently: `I don't mind standing around answering your questions, mister. But if you really want the dope on the accident, talk to the traffic detail. I'm closing up.'
It was ten minutes to five. I made my way back to The Barroom Floor. Somebody had turned on a few lights inside. The front door was still locked. I went back to my car and waited. I took out the Dack's Auto Court key and looked at it, wondering if it meant anything. It could have meant, among other farfetched possibilities, that the handsome Mrs. Carlson was unfaithful to her husband.
Shortly after five a short dark man in a red jacket unlocked the front door of The Barroom Floor and took up his position behind the bar. I went in and sat down on a stool opposite him. He seemed much taller behind the bar. I looked over it and saw that he was standing on a wooden platform about a foot off the floor.
`Yeah,' he said `it keeps me on the level. Without it I can barely see over the bar.'
He grinned. `My wife, now, is five foot six and built in proportion. She ought to be here now,' he added in a disciplinary tone, and looked at the wristwatch on his miniature wrist. `What will you have?'
`Whisky sour. You own this place?'
`Me and the wife, we have an interest in it.'
`Nice place,' I said, though it wasn't particularly nice. It was no cleaner and no more cheerful than the average bar and grill with cabaret pretensions. The old waiter leaning against the wall beside the kitchen door seemed to be sleeping on his feet.
`Thank you. We have plans for it.'
As he talked, he made my drink with expert fingers. `You haven't been in before. I don't remember your face.'
`I'm from Hollywood. I hear you have a pretty fair jazz combo.'
`Yeah.'
`Will they be playing tonight?'
`They only play Friday and Saturday nights. We don't get the weekday trade to justify 'em.'
