interesting was going to transpire.
“Come on into the office and let’s have a talk he said, then turned away and moved across the floor without even a glance backward. That I would comply was taken for granted. He moved like a ship under full sail, his white shirt billowing, the girth of his hips and backside amazing, improbable. Very fat people always affect me that way, with a feeling of distinct improbability, as if I were looking at a very good optical illusion—but then, I come from a long line of skinny people. For my family I’m a heavyweight.
He paused here and there on his way back to his office, which had a glass wall looking out onto the garage. Darnell reminded me a little bit of Moloch, the god we read about in my Origins of Literature class—he was the one who was supposed to be able to see everywhere with his one red eye. Darnell bawled at one guy to get the hose on his exhaust before he threw him out; yelled something to another guy about how “Nicky’s back was acting up on him again” (this inspired a fuming, ferocious burst of laughter from both of them); hollered at another guy to pick up those fucking Pepsi-Cola cans, was he born in a dump? Apparently Will Darnell didn’t know anything about what my mother always called “a normal tone of voice”.
After a moment’s hesitation, I followed him. Curiosity killed the cat, I suppose.
His office was done in Early American Carburettor—it was every scuzzy garage office from coast to coast in a country that runs on rubber and amber gold. There was a greasy calendar with a pin-up of a blond goddess in short-shorts and an open blouse climbing over a fence in the country. There were unreadable plaques from half a dozen companies which sold auto parts. Stacks of ledgers. An ancient adding machine. There was a photograph, God save us, of Will Darnell wearing a Shriner’s fez and mounted on a miniature motorcycle that looked about to collapse under his bulk. And there was the smell of long-departed cigars and sweat.
Darnell sat down in a swivel chair with wooden arms. The cushion wheezed beneath him. It sounded tired but resigned. He leaned back. He took a match from the hollow head of a ceramic Negro jockey. He struck it on a strip of sandpaper that ran along one edge of his desk and fired up the wet stub of cigar. He coughed long and hard, his big, loose chest heaving up and down. Directly behind him, tacked to the wall, was a picture of Garfield the Cat. “Want a trip to Loose-Tooth City?” Garfield was enquiring over one cocked paw. It seemed to sum up Will Darnell, Wretch in Residence, perfectly.
“Want a Pepsi, kid?”
“No, thank you,” I said, and sat down in the straight chair opposite him.
He looked at me—that cold look of appraisal again and then nodded. “How’s your dad, Dennis? His ticker still okay?”
“He’s fine. When I told him Arnie had his car here, he remembered you right off. He says Bill Upshaw’s doing your figures now.”
“Yeah. Good man. Good man. Not as good as your dad, but good.”
I nodded. A silence fell between us, and I began to feel uneasy. Will Darnell didn’t look uneasy; he didn’t look anything at all. That cold look of appraisal never changed.
“Did your buddy send you to find out if Repperton was really gone?” he asked me, so suddenly that I jumped.
“No,” I said. “Not at all.”
“Well, you tell him he is,” Darnell went on, ignoring what I’d just said. “Little wiseass. I tell em when they run their junk in here: get along or get out. He was working for me, doing a little of this and a little of that, and I guess he thought he had the gold key to the crapper or something. Little wiseass punk.”
He started coughing again and it was a long time before he stopped. It was a sick sound, I was beginning to feel claustrophobic in the office, even with the window looking out on the garage.
“Arnie’s a good boy,” Darnell said presently, still measuring me with his eyes, Even while he was coughing, that expression hadn’t changed. “He’s picked up the slack real good.”
Doing what? I wanted to ask, and just didn’t dare.
Darnell told me anyway. Cold glance aside, he was apparently feeling expansive. “Sweeps the floor, takes the crap out of the garage bays at the end of the day, keeps the tools inventoried, along with Jimmy Sykes. Have to be careful with tools around here, Dennis. They got a way of walkin away when your back’s turned.” He laughed, and the laugh turned into a wheeze. “Got him started strippin parts out back, as well. He’s got good hands. Good hands and bad taste in cars. I ain’t seen such a dog as that ’58 in years.”
“Well, I guess he sees it as a hobby,” I said.
“Sure,” Darnell said expansively. “Sure he does. Just as long as he doesn’t want to ramrod around with it like that punk, that Repperton. But not much chance of that for a while, huh?”
“I guess not. It looks pretty wasted.”
“What the fuck is he doing to it?” Darnell asked. He leaned forward suddenly, his big shoulders going up all the way to his hairline. His brows pulled in, and his eyes disappeared except for small twin gleams. “What the fuck is he up to? I been in this business all my life, and I never seen anyone go at fixing a car up the crazy-ass way he is. Is it a joke? A game?”
“I’m not getting you,” I said, although I was—I was getting him perfectly.
“Then I’ll draw you a pitcher,” Darnell said. “He brings it in, and at first he’s doing all the things I’d expect him to do. What the fuck, he ain’t got money falling out of his asshole, right? If he did, he wouldn’t be here. He changes the oil. He changes the filter. Grease-job, lube, I see one day he’s got two new Firestones for the front to go with the two on the back.”
Two on the back? I wondered, and then decided he’d just bought three new tyres to go with the original new one I’d gotten the night we were bringing it over here.
“Then I come in one day and see he’s replaced the windscreen wipers,” Darnell continued “Not so strange, except that the car’s not going to be going anywhere—rain or shine—for a long time. Then it’s a new aerial for the radio, and I think, He’s gonna listen to the radio while he’s working on it and drain his battery. Now he’s got one new seat cover and half a grille. So what is it? A game?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Did he buy the replacement parts from you?”
“No,” Darnell said, sounding aggravated. “I don’t know where he gets them. That grille—there isn’t a spot of rust on it. He must have ordered it from somewhere. Custom Chrysler in New Jersey or someplace like that, But where’s the other half? Up his ass? I never even heard of a grille that came in two pieces.”
“I don’t know. Honest.”
He jammed the cigar out, “Don’t tell me you’re not curious, though. I saw the way you was lookin at that car.” I shrugged. “Arnie doesn’t talk about it much,” I said.
“No, I bet he doesn’t. He’s a close-mouthed sonofabitch. He’s a fighter, though. That Repperton pushed the wrong button when he started in on Cunningham. If he works out okay this fall, I might find a steady job for him this winter. Jimmy Sykes is a good boy, but he ain’t much in the brains department.” His eyes measured me. “Think he’s a pretty good worker, Dennis?”
“He’s okay.”
“I got lots of irons in the fire,” he said. “Lot of irons. I rent out flatbeds to guys that need to haul their stockers up to Philadelphia City. I haul away the junkets after races. I can always use help. Good, trustworthy help.”
I began to have a horrid suspicion that I was being asked to dance. I got up hurriedly, almost knocking over the straight chair. “I really ought to get going,” I said. “And… Mr Darnell… I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention to Arnie that I was here. He’s… a little touchy about the car. To tell you the truth, his father was curious about how he was coming along.”
“Took a little shit on the home front, did he?” Darnell’s right eye closed shrewdly in something that was not quite a wink, “Folks ate a few pounds of Ex-Lax and then stood over him with their legs spread, did they?”
“Yeah, well, you know.”
“You bet I know.” He was up in one smooth motion and clapped me on the back hard enough to stagger me on my feet. Wheezy respiration and cough or not, he was strong.
“Wouldn’t mention it,” he said, walking me toward the door. His hand was still on my shoulder, and that also made me feet nervous—and a little disgusted.
“I tell you something else that bothers me,” he said. “I must see a hundred thousand cars a year in this place well, not that many, but you know what I mean—and I got an eye for em. You know, I could swear I’ve seen that one before. When it wasn’t such a dog. Where did he get it?”
