The Diamond Dust on Dragonfly Wings: A Jeffry Claxton Mystery Novel

by Michael Yudov

  In ’67 though, they took one of the small islands just off the edge of the Island of Montreal itself, called St. Helens Island, and expanded it. They just kept putting more rock base and gravel and clay topping into the St. Lawrence River until St. Helen’s Island was the right size for the job. I had a Season Passport for the Fair that summer. So did most of the guys I hung with. So, we spent the summer of ’67, more commonly referred to among our generation as the Summer of Love. We were so busy meeting girls from around the world on a daily basis down at the Fair, that we didn’t have time left over for contemplation of love, we had it in our hands. Everyone who came was blown away by the extravaganza. No expense was spared. There was romance in the air so thick you could cut it with a butter knife, along with fireworks every night, and people from all over the world trailing around town, checking it all out. It was the best summer ever. Even if I did have to take the Metro to get to St. Helen’s Island. The subway ran right under the St. Lawrence River, built for the fair.

  The Metro was the most advanced Subway of its time, with coachwork done by a small company that grew, starting out with a little plant near Kingsbury in the Eastern Townships, turning out a new invention called a Ski-Do. Bombardier. They made the bullet trains that we used inside the Metro. The subway cars were more like train or aircraft designs from the outside. Inside, they were air-conditioned, well-appointed with seats, and the hand-hold rails were high enough that you didn’t always bump your head on them if you were six feet tall. The biggest and most amazing part of the design was the part where the cars touched the ground. No rails, no steel wheels. This wasn’t a standard train setup, modified for underground usage, no this was a subway system, designed from the ground up as one.

  The coach cars and the engine car, which looked exactly the same except for a small conductor’s room at the front and rear of the engine cars, ran on Michelin Tires. There were tires that gave traction, tires at a ninety-degree angle on both sides that ran against a side beam of steel alloy, allowing the cars to run just like a car on a perfectly smooth road. And the noise, well, there was none. Not the way other subways screamed. Most of the time all you could hear from an approaching train was a gentle rumble, and then the wind it was pushing would burst out of the mouth of the tunnel just before the train did. It made you hair fly back, and if you were holding onto anything, which was pretty normal when you traveled around town, you held on tight. Sometimes two trains would enter from opposite sides at the same time. You got a small rage of a windstorm for about thirty seconds, before the trains braked to a halt, silently. What a system. And every station was especially designed to be different from every other station. There had been competitions for the designers for about five years prior to the actual construction. I still remember them building the damn thing. I was just a kid then, and as a kid, I couldn’t resist the temptation to check out the whole deal.

  One night when everything in the city was asleep, I got up and got dressed and headed down to the main station construction site, at the corner of Atwater and St. Catherine streets. It was just a hole in the ground at the time. I worked my way through the loosely fitted two-layer plywood cover and went down. And down. There were single 100 Watt bulbs on a string running along the ceiling, placed about a hundred paces apart. There was a lot of dark down in the bowels of the pit. I braved it, all the way down to the platform, and into the tunnel itself. There were no lights at all in the tunnel, so I didn’t go that far, but I’d been there before they’d even begun the final stages, it was all concrete. Everything. The floors, the walls, the ceilings, the tunnel, everything.

  Bombardier was one step closer to the giant they are today because of the Metro project in Montreal.

  Now they were a multinational, multi-billion-dollar asset Corporation. They helped construct the ‘Chunnel’, the relatively new tunnel under the English Channel, for example. I believe that they had a hand in the design and production of some of the high-speed trains that ran through the Chunnel as well. They were breaking down the barriers in the far east as an ongoing purpose of mission statement, and would one day be in the aerospace industry as well.

  All of that flashed through my mind as I approached the car. It was still dusty, so it must have just been received, or it would be as gleaming inside and out as the other vehicles on the lot.

  Before I reached it, the manager of the lot came exploding out of his little office at the corner of the lot like a human cannonball, swiveling his head this way and that, searching for me no doubt, having just received a telephone call from the boss along the lines of ‘take care of him and give him your wife if he asks’, or whatever.

  He came running my way after he spotted me, making it into a ‘fast walk’, because who looks good running in a suit, right? The first words out of his mouth confirmed my suspicions.

  “Ah, Monsieur Claxton. I am Horst Mueller, the Manager for the previously-owned section of ‘Kleiner Fine Motors’. How may I be of service to you this morning?”

  His English was not without a heavy accent, but he did well. Most people in Zurich spoke several languages, and English was frequently one.

  He was about fifty-five, balding, and he wore a small Tyrolean style hat to cover it. This only drew the eye to his head, where you noticed right away that he was balding. This might have been lessened somewhat by the removal of the eight-inch Ostrich feather in the hat band. People are funny. Like funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha.

  I plunged into my Swiss-German.

  “Well, it’s possible. Did you take this car in yourself?”

  He switched languages like a Rolls Royce automatic transmission, without a hesitation or difference in the meter of his patter.

  “This Corvette? Why yes, I did, and what a beauty. Just last night, before closing. Some young fellow who’s getting married and can’t afford the upkeep on the investment right now, so he traded it in for a very nice Audi sedan, just one-year-old, and took home the change as well. He did me a favour I can tell you. This is the best trade car I’ve ever taken in.”

  In Switzerland, Corvettes are considered investment vehicles. Usually a group of friends gets together to buy one, maybe two or four guys. Then they store it and wait for it to appreciate, then they sell. Buy high, sell higher. Usually, Corvettes in Europe, and especially in Swiss Europe, are hard to find. When you do find them, they’re usually mid-seventies at best. They’re always expensive. The only people who actually drive them are rich sporty types. You find them in Gstaad, and the myriad other winter hot-spot ski slopes. But that’s in the winter. This was the middle of the summer, and traded in by a young man about to get married. Could I be lucky today? I’d see.

  What he got for the car I can’t imagine, but it must have been a fortune. You can’t find this model in Canada without a country-wide search, and then there’s no guarantee that one’s on the market. In California, it was a bit easier, but I had never been to California, and I had no current plans to change that. I knew a lot of people who went to California all the time and very much enjoyed themselves. I don’t like earthquakes. Not so as it interferes with my life. I don’t live in an earthquake zone. Get the picture? When I’m shakin’, rattlin’ & rollin’ I want it to be something that I enjoy, not something that swallows me into the depths of the earth. Some people won’t walk under ladders, I won’t go to California. I’m positive that the moment I go and get settled in to have a good time, the entire western half of the state would slip into the Pacific Ocean. So, we all need some little foible.

  “What sort of condition is it in?”

  “Sir, I can honestly say that this Corvette is the most under-used car I’ve ever seen. For its age, it hasn’t been used at all. This car has been in storage for at least fifteen years from what I can gather. It’s had seven owners, all of which I’m sure drove it at least a few times, but basically, the odometer setting on the car is at fifteen thousand miles, and after our mechanics went over it yesterday, they confirmed that all of the parts are
original, or any changes that were done, happened within the first five years of the car’s life. The wear and tear factor suggests strongly that this car is exactly what it appears to be. A classic in mint condition.”

  I looked at the car, covered in dust except for the windows. It had been driven, if only by the mechanics’ staff. I asked. The conversation was getting to be complicated for me in Swiss-German, so I switched to English.

  “Did the car drive onto the lot, or did the young man have it driven here on a flat-bed truck?”

  Horst switched smoothly into his heavily-accented English.

  “He brought it in here with a truck, yes. Our mechanics replaced all of the fluids in the car and lubricated all of the underside, all of the things that a car needs after long storage, and it was in perfect condition. With only fifteen thousand miles on it!”

  “This car was manufactured in nineteen sixty-six. That makes it thirty-two years old. The owner, at some point, had the hood and front air dam modified. This car was driven. Most likely one hundred and fifteen thousand, maybe two hundred and fifteen.”

  “Not on your life, sir! We have the finest mechanics in Europe at this establishment, and I am quite happy to put that in writing for you. That it’s odometer reading is accurate and exact, I mean.”

  By this time my heart was beginning to pump up the volume. Maybe I had made a fortuitous discovery after all. My eye was drawn over the lines of the car, and aside from the hood modifications, and the addition of a front air dam with fog lamps, and the rear treatment that went with that, the car was in stock shape. The only logo on the car was the crossed flags on the front of the hood, right over the latch. I wanted it, but I wanted to see it, and the dust was obscuring my visual pleasure. Just as I was thinking that, a young fellow with rubber boots on, a pail of soapy water in one hand, and a hose trailing in the other ran up from the rear of the main building.

  A fast Swiss-German exchange occurred, and Horst offered to get the papers on the car and let me go over them. The idea was that when we came back the car would be sparklingly clean. I agreed, on the qualification that the car not be turned on or driven until we came back. That settled, we headed off to the trailer Horst used as his headquarters and office.

  Once Horst got the file out, I could see that it had been kept by several Swiss owners as an investment. None of the new owners had even bothered to change the location of the storage spot for the car. It looked genuine. Looks can be deceiving, especially on paper.

  “Okay. That’s enough of that. Let’s get back to the car. Where are the keys?”

  Horst carefully unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk and removed a key and ring. The ring had the crossed flags of the ‘Vette done in fired ceramic on a round metal base attached by a small hole in the top of the metal. These were the original keys as they came from the dealer. Hmm.

  We got back to the car about ten minutes after we’d left, and the cleanup guy had already finished and left. I tried to open the driver side door, and a voice said clearly and distinctly, “DO NOT ATTEMPT TO OPEN THE DOOR AGAIN. YOU ARE TOO CLOSE. BACK AWAY.”

  I looked at Horst.

  “Now, that ain’t original equipment.”

  “That was put into the car about three years ago by a new owner. If you don’t like it, we can remove it easily.”

  “How fast?”

  “Fifteen minutes?”

  “That’s good. The keys, please.”

  Horst handed me the key ring, but hesitantly.

  “Sir, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but this is a very special car…”

  “Out with it Horst.”

  “Uh, you have had experience with this sort of vehicle before, yes?”

  “Yes. Is that it?”

  “Yes, that was all. See for yourself, this is a serious investor’s vehicle.”

  I unlocked the door, and slipped down into the driver’s seat. It was heaven. Leather interior, all red. The dash was completely original. So was the shifter. The windows were powered as were the door locks. It had air conditioning. All the bells and whistles. Every possible gauge that could be there, was. I checked the tachometer. The redline was at six thousand RPM. Maybe, just maybe.

  The paperwork had specified the smallest detail of the car, but the one detail that I was interested in was whether or not it had the right big block 427. The ’66 ‘Vette Special Edition big block. Four hundred and seventy-five horsepower, right off the production line.

  I swung the door shut, blocking out Horst and his bad English. I admit that I held my breath when I turned the key in the ignition. After I had checked to see if it was in neutral. I put my foot on the clutch and pushed it all the way in, just in case.

  When the ignition caught, about a quarter of a second after the starter motor turned over, I almost knew right away. There were several versions of this car vis-a-vis; the drivetrain setup, but only one that I wanted, and it had them. The four-speed manual transmission, and the big block 427 C.S.E., or more accurately, the Big Block ‘CUSTOM’ Special Edition, engine. It had been a modified and reduced bore 455. Four hundred and fifty-five cubic inches of engine, retooled to four hundred and twenty-seven cubic inches, with a whole different torque and power range. Maximum torque could be achieved from as low as eighteen hundred RPM, and held fairly straight on a power curve chart all the way past the redline on the tachometer. The tach that was in the coupe was the same tach used for all engine/transmission combinations for the Corvette. It was only a vague guide as far as this engine went. The engineers at General Motors were the sole bearers of the realization of what they had done, sending this particular car off the production line able to burn the quarter mile in less than seven and a half seconds.

  Of course, you would need someone like Jackie Stewart, in the old days, or Jacques Villeneuve, in modern terms, to get it over the line in that kind of time. I was interested in seeing how I would do in the quarter mile. But that would have to wait until I returned home.

  That particular engine had been in production for only the first three months of the ’66 coupe production run. Which worked out fine, because about three weeks later they started on the other lines. That was when they switched over to the Hardtop run, and most requested of all, the Convertible Line run, two months after that. Ipso Facto; the Coupe like this exact one I was sitting in were the only Corvettes that even had a chance to have an engine with those specifications.

  The car was rumbling from the tires on up to the roof. I could feel the ponies screaming to be let loose. I stepped ever so slightly on the gas, bringing the engine from idle speed, around eight hundred RPM, to fifteen hundred RPM. The vibrations stopped, and the car felt as smooth and comfortable as a car could. Then I twitched my foot, quick-like and hard. The engine had already hit high revolutions and was on the way back down while the needle followed so closely behind it, and bounced back down to eight hundred.

  The car rumbled ever so gently beneath me, and around me. It was one of the C.S.E.’s, I was sure of it. I had pegged the RPM’s over the redline, and the engine hadn’t even broken a sweat. Even Horst, who was standing right beside the car, hadn’t seen or heard anything that twigged him to the fact that the engine he had on his hands was rarer than the car. Anyway, that was all I needed to know. I turned it off and got out of the car. Throwing the keys to Horst, I smiled.

  “Listen carefully to me now. Have the car plated and registered to me–your boss will have all the paperwork you need–put your best Michelin tires all around. All four tires. I want the interior carefully vacuumed, and the car sitting in front of the main door,” I pointed at the dealer’s showroom. “within twenty minutes.”

  “But, we have not discussed…”

  I cut him off.

  “See you boss for the details. Herr Kleiner.”

  Horst stood there like I’d just hit him on the head with a baseball bat.

  “Horst. If you don’t start, you can’t finish. Let’s go!”

  I clapped my hands sharpl
y, twice. With that Horst went racing off to his office, and I turned and headed back to see how Evie was doing. With Herr Kleiner.

  When I had gotten back to the showroom, Evie was sitting in Kleiner’s office, waiting for something. He wasn’t there, so I walked in and sat down with Evie.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Fine.”

  She was pouring intently over the options list for the car she had chosen. Car-Buy-Fever. I finally asked, since she didn’t seem predisposed to volunteer the information.

  “Did you find a model you like?”

  Her head came up, and she turned to me and said, “Yes. Perfect. It’s expensive though. I wasn’t sure how high you wanted to go, so I’ve been asking a lot of questions, killing time ‘til you got back.”

  Great. Killing time. I wanted out of here, and she was killing time. She passed me a brochure. The A-4 Quattro. Not bad. I’d left her alone for maybe twenty minutes, and she’d zeroed in on the most expensive car Audi makes. It looked nice indeed, though, I had to admit. There was a blue model on the showroom floor, all done up for a trek through the jungles of suburbia in any climate or environment you would care to throw at it.

  “What’s wrong with that blue one in the showroom?”

  “Oh. That’s some Special Edition for off-road week-end warriors. The add-on package is mostly esthetic, and the price for the option is ridiculous.”

  “But, do you like the blue one?”

  “Well, yes. But it’s loaded with things we don’t need.”

  “Buy the blue one. Where’s Kleiner?”

  “He just stepped out to get us more option brochures that cover units he has on the lot.”

  “I see.”

  I picked up the phone on Kleiner’s desk, and waited a few seconds. A female voice came on the line right away.

  “Herr Kleiner will be with you in a few minutes, sir. Would you like to make a phone call in the meantime? We have a phone just outside Herr Kleiner’s office, at one of the sales stations.”