He shook his head.
For a moment all three of them remained still. Then Beverley nodded at Rich and he took Waterhouse’s arm.
Framed
by James H. Cobb
Copyright © 2006 James H. Cobb
Art by Laurie Harden
James Cobb writes both science fiction and mystery fiction. Science fiction fans know him as the author of the Amanda Garrett techno-thriller series from G.P. Putnam, and more recently for “The First Cup of Coffee War” in the Joe Haldeman anthology Future Weapons. In the crime field, the Tacoma author has one published novel, West on 66 (St.Martin’s), which features the protagonist of this new story, Kevin Pulaski.
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The little man in the cheap blue suit crouched in the dark under the sycamore tree, fingering the gun in his pocket. The roadside diner was located on an isolated stretch of Indiana State 22 and the only light he had to fear issued from its glowing strip of windows. It glinted off the chrome and glass of the scattered cars in the graveled parking lot. The little man gathered himself to move...
It had been the 1948 season opener at the Gas City dirt track, and I had killed the universe.
I’d won my four-lap trophy dash, picking up the trophy, the five-buck pot, and a kiss from the cute cheerleader doing duty as trophy girl. I’d nailed a second in my heat race, blowing Nick Tompkins and his lead sled ’34 out of the water. And I’d run solid in the big twenty-lap final.
I never had any real chance in that one. A street rod like mine just couldn’t run against dedicated racing roadsters. The A-bomb and I started in the middle of the pack and we stayed there, but we’d had a lot of fun doing it. I also had the consolation of knowing that everything finishing ahead of me had come in on a trailer or a tow-bar.
Afterwards, our usual crowd descended on the checkerboard-tiled environs of the Route 22 diner. Martin Luther Snustaad and Johnny Roy Tardell were there, and Lee Curtis and his girlfriend Estelle Archer. A station-wagon load of teenaged Fairmont females had shown up as well, running in a pack to avoid trouble while hoping they’d still get into some anyway. Between standing for Cokes and malts and keeping the jukebox primed, my five bucks’ worth of trophy money didn’t last long.
As for me, man, I was a violent collision between Duke Nalon and Juan Fangio with an order of Clark Gable on the side. I was wearing my genuine Navy surplus ponyhide jacket and my genuine Army surplus silk aviator’s scarf and I’d been careful not to smear the oily dust I’d accumulated on my face so you could see the outline of my driving goggles. Given the giggles and glances being cut in my direction from the ponytailed and poodle-skirted gang in the back booth, I, Kevin no-middle-initial Pulaski, was destined for greatness that night.
Then Lee and Estelle said they’d be heading home early.
Yeah, sure, tell me another one, guys. It was one of our first really good springtime parking nights outside — starry, clear, and just cool enough to encourage cuddling.
Lee was a fellow hot rodder, a tall, lanky, slightly homely farm boy who met all of the qualifications for “damn nice guy,” while Estelle was a sweet little pretty-plain brunette who could see the value in the damn nice guys of the world. As they headed for the diner’s door, holding hands and dreamy eyed, I silently wished them good times.
So inspired, I headed for the back booth to see if any of the ladies might be interested in driving over to the river to see if the water still ran downhill. I’d just started to unreel my line when somebody screamed out in the parking lot.
I was the one on my feet, so I was the first one out the door.
A second scream guided me toward a pale blur at the far side of the lot. The blur was Lee Curtis’s gray-primered A-V8 coupe. Lee was sprawled on the ground beside the open driver’s door with Estelle kneeling beside him. For a second I thought I heard the sound of running footsteps crunching on the gravel, then I had other things to worry about. Reaching past Estelle to the dashboard of Lee’s rod, I pulled on the headlight switch. In the back-glare from the sealed beams I could see blood smearing Lee’s face and soaking his T-shirt. I put my hand on his chest, trying to ignore the sticky wetness. He was breathing.
“ ’Stelle, what the hell happened?”
“He hit Lee,” she blubbered. “Over and over!”
“Who did, ’Stelle?”
“The old man trying to steal Lee’s car.”
Sure enough, by the dash light I could see a couple of wires torn loose from the ignition switch.
The gang gathered around us, stunned and goggling. Fairmont wasn’t a place where you got to see a lot of people beaten into a fair imitation of a cube steak. With nobody else around to do it, I started giving orders.
“Marty, go inside and call the doctor and Lee’s folks! Hey, Johnny Roy, I got a blanket behind the seat in my rod. Bring it here!”
I peeled off my jacket and wadded it up under Lee’s head. Then I used my driving scarf to sop off some of the blood. After a minute Lee started to moan.
“Take it easy, man.” I said.
“Wha...” he started to mush, then his swelling eyes snapped open. “My car!”
“Still here. He didn’t get it.”
“ ’Stelle...”
“He didn’t get her, either.”
Lee groped for his girl and she caught his hand, pressing it against her teary cheek.
“He was hot-wiring my rod, Kevin. He had a gun... Swear to God... He busted me with it... Moved faster’n a snake... Never had a chance.”
A bulky shadow fell across me, blocking out the lights of the diner. “The doc and Lee’s folks are on their way,” Marty Snustaad reported.
Eddie, the counter man from the Route 22, came hustling up as well. “I called the night marshal, too.”
I looked up at him sourly. “Jeez, Eddie! Aren’t things bad enough as is?”
Night Marshal Hiram Dooley was a redoubtable and fearless foe of Fairmont township’s most dangerous criminal elements, like anyone under twenty who wears a leather jacket and drives a hot rod. Broad-shouldered, bullet-headed, and bristle-skulled, he scribbled in his little black notebook between glowers at my gang and me.
Dooley and I go way back. Mostly it’s for laughs (on my part, anyway) but tonight, with a friend of mine beaten to a pulp and his girl crying, with his blood on her skirt, the Dewlap was beginning to bug me.
Lee’s folks had him propped up in the end booth while Doc Jorgenson, our sawed-off local sawbones, worked on him. The doc was worried about a possible concussion. That only left ’Stelle for Dooley to pick on.
“All right, Miss Archer, let’s have it again,” the Dewlap demanded. “You left the diner and then what happened?”
Estelle sat perched on one of the maroon Naugahyde counter stools, shivering hard. “We left the diner,” she repeated, fighting to keep her voice steady, “and we were about halfway across the parking lot when we saw the door on Lee’s car was open. Somebody was kneeling on the ground beside it.
“Lee yelled that someone was trying to steal his car and he ran over to stop him. There was a fight. The man... the thief, had a gun, and he hit Lee with it... he kept hitting him, as hard as he could! I saw Lee fall and all I could do was scream and then everyone was coming out of the diner and the thief ran off. That’s all.”
The girl took a shuddering breath and Dooley scowled, checking her words against his notes. “What did this car thief look like, Miss Archer?”
“I couldn’t really see, Marshal. There was hardly any light. He wasn’t very big, but he moved fast, really fast. He was wearing a suit, a dark suit. I remember I could see a white shirt and a dark necktie. And he had gloves on. And his hair was light-colored; I think he had gray hair, so he must have been older. And he had that gun... and he hit Lee with it!”
’Stelle gritted her teeth and screwed up her eyes, trying to hold it together.
Dooley sighed like a deflating truck tire and deliberately flipped his notebook shut, stowing it in the pocket of his unif
orm shirt. “All right, Miss Archer. Let’s quit the fun and games. Now how about telling me the truth!”
Estelle’s head snapped up, her dark eyes wide and startled. “But I am, Marshal! I am! That’s what happened!”
“You can get yourself and your boyfriend into a lot of trouble lying to the police, Miss Archer. Who are you covering up for and why?”
I’d been leaning against the counter a couple of stools down, feeling my temperature gauge kicking into the red. “You’re way off the beam, man!” I snapped. “Everyone here’s giving you a square count, especially ’Stelle.”
Like a teed-off Durham bull, Dooley swung to face me. “Come off it, Pulaski! A pistol-packing grandpa coming out here to steal one of your gang’s jalopies? Not likely!”
“Then whaddya think did happen?” I demanded.
“That the Curtis boy got into a beef with somebody out here and you worked him over. Now either he doesn’t want to squeal or he’s afraid to!”
The Dewlap wasn’t going to be satisfied until he had a juvenile delinquency problem to call his own, just like the big-city cops.
“Jeez, Dooley! Hang a wreath around your neck! Your brain just died and your head’s in mourning!”
“Watch that smart mouth, Pulaski!”
“Go check out Lee’s rod,” I said patiently, trying to gear myself down. “You can see where somebody hot-wired it.”
“Maybe so, but who’d want to steal one of those junk heaps except another member of your gang?”
I reminded myself that the momentary pleasure of busting our friendly neighborhood justice merchant in the chops would not make up for six months at the county youth farm. “Look! Nobody here stole anything or beat up anybody! Ask Eddie!”
“Well, maybe so,” the Dewlap grudged, “but this whole crazy yarn just doesn’t make any sense.”
“Neither did Mr. Kennedy robbing his own jewelry store, but that happened, too.”
Dooley winced. Awhile back, the night marshal had tried to run another Fairmont hot rodder in for a burglary he hadn’t done, and he still hadn’t entirely forgiven me for proving him wrong.
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Dooley muttered.
“Maybe not, Hiram.” Doc Jorgensen came waddling up to join us. “But these kids are certainly telling the truth about one thing. This wasn’t any common beating. That boy was pistol-whipped, and savagely. The cuts from the trigger guard and gunsights are unmistakable.”
“Are you sure, Doc?” the marshal asked.
Doc Jorgensen lifted one bushy eyebrow. “I interned in a Chicago receiving hospital back in the good old days, Hiram. I know what a Joliet facial looks like.”
Lee’s folks took him into the hospital in Indianapolis for X-rays and Sally Tremain and her girlfriends drove Estelle home. Me, I patched up Lee’s ignition and drove his car back to the Curtis farm.
Lee stowed his rod in a shed off their big barn and as I got out to open the doors, Race, the Curtis’s sheepdog, yapped out to meet me. Race and I are old buddies. He planted his forepaws on my chest and panted dog breath into my face as I gave his ears a good scratch.
I backed Lee’s rod into the shed/workshop and shut it down. Then I snapped on the overhead light and did a slow walk-around on the car, checking it out.
Lee and I had both been building Model a’s but we’d produced two radically different machines. The A-Bomb was a fenderless roadster powered by a Model B straight-four. Lee, on the other hand, had put together a full-fendered A-V8 coupe. That is, a Model A with a V-8 engine swapped in from a later-model Ford.
Lee’s car was still sort of a work in progress. The body had been sanded down and primered but it hadn’t been painted yet, and the cuts and welds of the chop job done on the top still showed as raw, blackened scars. The interior had been gutted to bare metal as well, with nothing replaced but the cut-down ’40 Ford dashboard and steering wheel and some fake leopard-skin covers on the bench seat.
Like most of us who’d gowed up a Model A, Lee had Deuce-nosed his car, replacing the stock radiator shell, radiator, and hood with parts taken from a ’32 Ford, both for the better cooling and for the sharper look. I lifted the side panel of the hood and studied the inside of the neat engine compartment.
The dirt-common twenty-one-bolt Flathead had been lifted from the same wrecked sedan that had donated Lee’s steering wheel, dashboard, and hydraulic brakes. The mill had been rebuilt with Denver heads, an Almquist dual-intake manifold, and a pair of reconditioned Stromberg 97 carburetors, a mild soup job put together by a decent mechanic who didn’t have a whole lot of money to spend.
I leaned back against the rough plank wall of the shed and crossed my arms. I had to admit the Dewlap was right about one thing. Something wacky was going on here. To me, or to any other rodney, Lee’s beast was a thing of great beauty, a cool machine getting cooler. But to your average suit-wearing square, this car would be about as appealing as a cow pie.
I heard Race barking out in the barn lot and I saw a set of headlights turning in from the road. I recognized the anemic grumble of Marty Snustaad’s ’38 DeSoto sedan. I’d asked Marty and Johnny Roy to pick me up and take me back to where I’d left the A-Bomb.
I ducked under Lee’s hood for another second before buttoning it up. Then I turned out the light and closed the shed doors. I was also careful to snap on the heavy padlock I found hanging from the hasp.
I knew I’d be coming back out to the Curtis farm the next day. Somehow I also knew I’d be coming back to trouble.
Early on the following morning I tore out county road 11A to the Curtis place. Sure enough, Marshal Dooley’s black Plymouth was parked in the barn lot. Dooley was standing beside the shed where I’d left Lee’s rod. Lee was out there, too, in his bathrobe and pajamas and with a bandage on his head, as was Mr. Curtis, with his inevitable old felt hat tugged down over his eyes. Another tall, lanky, handsome-homely man, Mr. Curtis had been the model they’d built his son on.
Somebody wasn’t there, though. Race didn’t come out to meet me as I turned in from the road.
“Hey, Lee,” I said, hoisting myself over the A-Bomb’s welded door. “What’s goin’ on, man?”
“He came back, Kev.” Lee’s voice was tight. “The son of a bitch tried to steal my car again and he shot Race!”
Lee’s rod still stood inside the shed, but the doors had been forced open, the hasp and padlock dangling from splintered wood.
“You brought this car back here last night, Pulaski,” Dooley challenged me. “What time was it?”
“About eleven-thirty — twelve o’clock, I guess. Race was alive then.”
“We got back from the city about two-thirty, Marshal,” Lee’s father added. “Race didn’t come out to meet us. That was kind of funny, but Lee’s mother and I were worried about gettin’ him to bed. We didn’t think much about it at the time.”
“Did you see anything funny out here, Pulaski?”
I tried to remember. Had there been a set of headlights trailing behind me as I’d driven out to the farm?
I shook my head. “I dunno. Nothing I can really say.”
The driver’s door of Lee’s rod was standing half open. I stepped around it and hunkered down to study the dashboard. Yeah, the ignition wires I’d fixed last night had been torn loose again and a hot-wire installed.
Lee came up behind me. “Whoever he is, he sure wants my car bad.”
“Or something in that car,” the Dewlap said, eyeing us suspiciously.
I shook my head. “Nah. He’s after the car.”
“How do you figure that, Pulaski?”
“By using the common sense God gave a gearshift knob, Dooley. The tools and junk under the seat and the stuff in the glove box are all like I left them. Nothing’s been scattered around. This guy went straight to the hot-wire job. He wasn’t searching, he was stealing.”
“Jeez,” Lee breathed, “I’m sure lucky he wasn’t able to get her started.”
“No luck to it,
man.” I stood up, digging into my jacket pocket. “Here are your keys and your distributor rotor.”
“Damn! Thanks, Kev! I owe you! You saved my tail again.”
I shrugged. “So stand me a malt next time we hit the diner. Make it a double and we’ll be evens.”
Lee had to get back to bed — the doc wanted him to take it easy for a few days — and his dad had a sad chore to do. Dooley made all the right noises about notifying the county sheriff and keeping his eyes open and we got out of there. As we headed back to our cars, Dooley gave me that old look again.
“All right, Pulaski. What made you pull the rotor on that car the way you did?”
“Hell, Dooley, I dunno.” I lit up from my soft pack of Luckys and offered the night marshal one. “It just sort of seemed like a good idea.”
As Dooley drove off, I sat in the A-Bomb and smoked my smoke right down to the butt, just thinking.
What the heck was it about Lee’s rod that made it so important to somebody? I mean, car thieves might clip a set of wheels for a joyride or to strip down for parts, but if they botched the first grab, they’d just move on to the next one. They wouldn’t stay after that one specific car unless there was something extra-special about it. And there wasn’t anything extra-special about Lee Curtis’s A-V8.
I was certain of that. Lee and I had swapped tools, parts, and help working on our cars and I knew Lee’s rod as well as I knew my own. There just wasn’t anything there.
That we could see, anyway.
I fired up and headed out, hunting for the guy who had sold Lee his wheels.
Lee had bought his Model A from another of the local farmers. Mr. Wright had been using the coupe for a field car until the rear end had gone out on it and he’d been happy to sell the remains to Lee for five dollars. Luckily for me, Mr. Wright was an adult I was in good with. He didn’t have a teenaged daughter, and I’d resuscitated his old Farmall tractor after every other mechanic in the county had given it up as a lost cause.
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 127, No. 6. Whole No. 778, June 2006 Page 13