The Tesla Legacy

by Robert G. Barrett

  ‘Sure, what’s that, Mrs Hedstrom?’

  ‘Don’t you tell anybody how much you paid me for the car.’

  Mick shook his head. ‘I understand, Mrs Hedstrom. My lips are sealed. I won’t say a word.’

  ‘Nnngrhh!’

  Mick sipped his tea and watched Mrs Hedstrom over the cup. She was a horrible, nasty, argumentative, bad-natured old monster. But something about her aroused Mick’s curiosity. He waited a while and put his cup down. ‘So tell me a bit about yourself, Mrs Hedstrom,’ he said. ‘Have you always lived here?’

  ‘Mind your own business,’ she snapped back at him.

  ‘I knew you’d say that,’ smiled Mick.

  Mrs Hedstrom studied Mick for a moment. ‘I lived here with my mother before she died twenty years ago,’ she said quietly.

  Mick let Mrs Hedstrom speak without interrupting. She rambled on and lost track of things, but it appeared she was born in the house, her parents never married and her father left when she was a baby. Uncle Lonsdale was her mother’s brother and a bad man. He left the car in the garage one night, warning them to leave it where it was and not to tell anybody. And even though they never heard from him again after he left, her mother still wouldn’t move the car. Apparently Mrs Hedstrom’s mother was a bit mental. Mick thought the fruit generally doesn’t fall far from the tree and this was probably why Mrs Hedstrom’s father left them. But he still sent them money until they were both eligible for the pension. The house was originally owned by another Uncle—William—who signed the house over to them so Mrs Hedstrom could look after her mother. Which she did until her mother died; never working, never marrying, remaining an old spinster. And that was about it.

  Mick found Mrs Hedstrom’s tale a little sad. Soon the old lady would be going into a home, there were no relatives so the house would go to the government, and apart from some records at the Department of Social Security, few people would have known Mrs Hedstrom and her mother ever existed. Just another two people society had pushed aside and forgotten.

  Mick was down to the last of his tea when the buzzer sounded, followed by a solid knock on the front door.

  ‘Who’s this?’ demanded Mrs Hedstrom. ‘It better not be that bloody Bronwyn.’

  ‘No. That’ll be my mate come to tow the car away,’ said Mick. ‘Stay there, Mrs Hedstrom. I’ll get it.’

  ‘Bloody people coming round to my house,’ complained the old lady. ‘How’s a woman to get any privacy?’

  Mick went to the front door and opened it. Jimmy was standing there in a pair of blue overalls, looking as big and menacing as ever.

  ‘Come in, Jimmy,’ said Mick. ‘The car’s out in the garage.’

  Jimmy stepped inside then stopped and screwed his face up. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he said. ‘What’s that smell? The old sheila hasn’t pissed herself, has she?’

  ‘No. It’s the cat,’ replied Mick. ‘Come out to the kitchen.’

  Mick led Jimmy through to the kitchen and introduced him to Mrs Hedstrom. Mick expected her to be taken back by Jimmy’s size and appearance and to start abusing him. Instead she was all sweetness and light.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Jimmy?’ she asked him.

  Jimmy shook his head. ‘No, that’s all right thanks, Mrs Hedstrom. I have to get back to work.’

  ‘Very well.’

  Jimmy turned to Mick. ‘Come on. Let’s get it on the truck.’

  ‘Righto,’ said Mick.

  Mick thanked Mrs Hedstrom for the cup of tea and put his empty cup in the sink. He told her she didn’t have to come out the back, just sit there and take it easy. She grunted something in reply and Mick led Jimmy out to the garage. Mick turned on the light and Jimmy stepped through the door behind him.

  ‘Holy bloody smoke!’ said Jimmy as soon as he saw the Maxwell. ‘What a ripper of an old car.’

  ‘Not bad, eh?’ Mick smiled at him.

  ‘No. Not bad at all, mate.’

  Mick stood back while Jimmy ran a professional eye over the old car. He opened the bonnet on the passenger side of the motor and propped it up.

  ‘Christ! Check the donk,’ smiled Jimmy. He turned to Mick. ‘Hey. You’d better watch yourself if you’re gonna drive this, mate. Those old pots’ll take you from nought to twenty miles an hour in about ten seconds. No trouble at all.’

  ‘I’ll be extremely careful,’ replied Mick.

  ‘Shit! Look at that. An old Philco Diamond Grid battery.’ Jimmy stared at the motor then shut the bonnet. ‘US Royal Chord tyres, too,’ he said. ‘And there’s still tread on them.’ Jimmy gave the front tyre a tap with his boot then walked round the back.

  ‘Hey, Mick,’ said Jimmy. ‘Come here.’

  Mick walked over and Jimmy pointed out two holes a metre apart, running down beside the back window. ‘What are these? They look like bullet holes.’

  ‘Bullet holes?’ Mick poked his finger in one of the holes. ‘Nahh. The old girl’s probably poked them in there with her walking stick. She wields it like a samurai sword.’

  ‘Whatever,’ shrugged Jimmy. He gave the old Maxwell a last once-over then turned to Mick. ‘Anyway, come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get the show on the road.’

  Mick took Jimmy over to the roller door that had replaced whatever was there before. Jimmy gripped the plastic knob in his powerful hand, gave it a twist, pushed up and the roller door rattled open in a cloud of dust. Once the door was open, Jimmy backed his tow truck down the driveway, got a CO2 bottle from the cabin and pumped the tyres up on the Maxwell. Before long he had the steering wheel secured, a chain under the chassis and the old Maxwell was being dragged up onto the metal tray on the back of the truck. Jimmy lowered the tray and turned to Mick.

  ‘All right, I’ll see you back at the garage.’

  ‘Righto.’

  Mick watched Jimmy drive off with the old Maxwell sitting grandly on the back of the truck, then walked across to the house. Mrs Hedstrom was still seated in the kitchen looking even more rancorous than before. Before Mick could say anything, she attacked.

  ‘My God!’ barked the old lady. ‘Could you have made any more noise out there? You’ve scared the tripe out of the cat. I don’t know where it is.’

  ‘Sorry about that, Mrs Hedstrom,’ apologised Mick. ‘But we couldn’t help it. Would you like me to go and look for her?’

  ‘No. You’ve done enough damage as it is. Bloody great truck. The whole house was shaking.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Mick. ‘Jimmy makes a bit of noise all right.’

  ‘Nnngrhh!’

  ‘Anyway, I have to go, Mrs Hedstrom,’ said Mick, picking his things up from the table. ‘Now will you be all right with all that money? I can drive you down to the bank if you want.’

  ‘All right?’ snapped Mrs Hedstrom. ‘Well of course I’ll be all right. You don’t think I’d trust you with it, do you?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Mick apologised again. ‘I was only trying to help.’

  ‘Trying to help! You already tried to steal it back once. Anyway. The nurse will be along later to bandage my leg,’ grunted Mrs Hedstrom. ‘She’ll take me to the bank.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Despite the old lady being an absolute beast from hell, Mick still gave her a smile. ‘Well, I’ll be on my way, Mrs Hedstrom,’ he said. ‘It’s been lovely to have met you. And thank you for the car. I’ll…I’ll look after it.’

  The old lady gave Mick a sly look. ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’ she said.

  Mick checked his receipt book and looked in his pockets. ‘No. I don’t think so.’

  ‘What about these, you idiot?’ Mrs Hedstrom held up two keys attached to a black leather tab. ‘You won’t get far without the keys.’

  ‘Oh, the car keys.’ Mick snapped his fingers. ‘Gee thanks, Mrs Hedstrom. I forgot all about them.’

  ‘Stupid bloody fool,’ growled Mrs Hedstrom. ‘You’d forget your head if it wasn’t screwed on.’

  ‘I guess something must have distracted me,’ smiled Mick, ta
king the keys from the old lady.

  ‘Nrnngrhh!’

  ‘Well, goodbye, Mrs Hedstrom,’ said Mick. ‘It’s been nice talking to you.’

  ‘Nrngrhh!’

  Mick turned then went over and let himself out the front door, closing it softly behind him. He walked out to the van, got in and drove off.

  After the acrid smell of cat’s piss and Mrs Hedstrom’s non-stop abuse, Mick felt like a drink; a double bourbon with a schooner chaser would have gone down well. Instead, Mick pulled up at a small takeaway food shop two kilometres down the road and got a can of lemonade and the paper. At a plastic table out the front, he found a plastic chair that wasn’t too dirty, sat down and took a long pull on the can until the bubbles hurt his throat and made him belch. Mick had another drink then took the keys to the Maxwell from his pocket. He figured the biggest one would be the ignition key, then turned the leather tab over and found the initials L.O. stamped on the other side in fading silver. Mick smiled as he ruminated on the keys for a moment or two before returning them to his pocket. He sat in the sun and went through the paper while he finished his can of lemonade then, feeling considerably fresher, got back in the van and continued on to the Nise brothers’ garage in Hamilton.

  There were three driveways out the front and the office was on the right with the windows painted over in white and Nise Brothers Mechanical Engineering and Body Shop painted across the front in black. Mick pulled up in the middle driveway behind a silver Holden ute with the back jacked up, and got out of the van. Inside, the garage was the usual clutter of cars and commercial vehicles under repair, spread around three hoists. A radio was playing above a long bench at the back covered in tools; girlie calendars and posters clung to the walls and a grease-stained doorway in a corner on the right led to the lunchroom and toilet. You couldn’t miss Mick’s yellow Buick at the very end of the garage on the left. Jimmy, his four mechanics, two panelbeaters and the two apprentices were gathered around the Maxwell which was already standing with the front jacked up two cars back from the lunchroom. There was no sign of Neville. Mick walked over to a chorus of greetings from the staff:

  ‘Great car, Mick.’

  ‘Where did you get hold of this?’

  ‘How much’d cost you?’

  ‘Bloody genius, Mick.’

  Mick acknowledged their compliments with a friendly grin.

  Then Jimmy’s voice rose above the others. ‘I got some good news for you, Mick,’ he said casually.

  ‘Yeah?’

  Jimmy nodded. ‘The pressure plates are compatible.’

  ‘Fair dinkum? Un-bloody-real,’ replied Mick. ‘I got some good news too.’ He held up the leather tab. ‘The old girl had the keys.’

  ‘Ah-hah!’ said Jimmy. ‘Now that’ll make things a lot easier.’

  ‘You don’t think the battery might need a charge, do you, Mick?’ cackled one of the apprentices, a redhead with a faceful of acne.

  Jimmy gave him and the rest of the staff a sour look. ‘Okay, girls,’ he said. ‘You’ve seen enough. Come on back to work. This is a garage. Not a sheltered bloody workshop.’

  There were a few muted words mixed with smiles for Mick and the staff trooped off. In seconds the garage was once again a cacophany of hammering and spraying over the top of Ben Lee’s ‘Catch My Disease’ playing on the radio.

  ‘I got some more good news for you too, Mick,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘You have?’ said Mick.

  ‘Yeah. Neville knows a Nomad who’s got a Harley chopper shop on the Gold Coast. And he’s a genius welder. There’s a good chance he can weld your other pressure plate back together.’

  ‘Fair dinkum!’ Mick gave Jimmy a pat on the shoulder. ‘That’s fantastic.’

  ‘Anything for you, Mick,’ Jimmy said patronisingly. ‘You know that.’

  ‘So how long will that take?’ asked Mick.

  ‘Ooohh. He’s a busy man. By the time we get it up there and all that. Around three weeks.’

  ‘And how long to get the Maxwell going?’

  ‘This?’ said Jimmy, giving the old car a slap on the roof. ‘Christ! We’ll have to pull the engine and gearbox apart. Flush all the lines. Check the wiring. Shit! Who knows what we’ll find wrong. And have a look around you. I’ve got work stacked up to my Goolwah.’ Jimmy shook his head. ‘Months.’

  And how long to switch the pressure plate with the Buick?’

  ‘We can have it back on the road tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Mick. ‘Get the Buick going.’

  Suddenly the phone rang in the office. Jimmy turned and started to walk off. ‘See me in the office,’ he said.

  ‘Righto.’

  Mick started going over the Maxwell in the bright lights of the workshop. It was in better condition than he thought, and although thick mud was still caked around the mudguards and running board, the duco was good and a decent buff, polish and detail would bring the old car up like new. He opened the door, got behind the wheel and tried the pedals. They were tight and the gearshift was stiff, but that was nothing. The glove box was empty and there was nothing pushed down behind the seats. Mick put the bigger key in the ignition, turned it on and pressed the starter. Yes, he smiled, I think the apprentice was right. The battery probably could do with a charge. He removed the key from the ignition and pondered what the second key was for. The glove box didn’t lock, there was no boot, and it wasn’t a key for the petrol cap. Mick swivelled around and looked in the back. Beneath the passenger seat were two wooden compartments with a keyhole in the centre. Leaving the driver’s side door open, he got out and reached into the rear.

  Mick smiled when the key fitted the lock perfectly. He opened the first compartment, but apart from an old piece of rag it was empty. Mick closed the compartment then walked around and opened the other one. This time Mick got a surprise when he found two briefcases. He took them out and placed them on the back seat. After making sure there was nothing else in the second compartment, Mick locked it, put the keys in his pocket and examined the two briefcases.

  They were both beautifully crafted leather, one black, the other brown. Embossed on the brown one were the initials L.O. On the black one were the initials N.T. Mick gave both briefcases a shake. Inside were what sounded like papers and there was something heavier in the black one. Mick went to open them then had a quick look around and stopped. No, he told himself, I don’t think this is the place. Mick picked up the two briefcases, shut the car door and, feeling like a thief, snuck everything out to his van and put it in the back. Everybody in the garage had been too busy working to notice him. Mick locked the door and walked around to the office.

  Jimmy was seated at a desk full of greasy papers writing something in a ledger when Mick walked in. He put the Biro down and looked up impassively.

  ‘So what’s the story, Mick?’ he said. ‘You want the Buick done, right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ replied Mick. ‘What time tomorrow do you reckon?’

  Jimmy thought for a moment. ‘It’ll be after four.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Mick.

  The phone rang and Jimmy picked it up. Mick placed the keys to the Maxwell on Jimmy’s desk.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ said Mick.

  Jimmy nodded over the phone and Mick left the office for his van. Mick was halfway home before he realised that in all the excitement he’d forgotten to take a look at his Buick.

  Before long, the van was in the driveway and Mick was back in the kitchen making a mug of coffee with the two briefcases sitting on the kitchen bench. He took a sip of coffee and decided to open the brown one first. Expecting he’d have to force the locks, Mick grinned when they flicked straight open.

  As Mick guessed, there were papers inside, including the first four pages of the Newcastle Herald and Miners Advocate dated 15 November 1925. There was also a letter in an opened envelope addressed to Mr Preston Oldfield, 27 Jubilee Road, Coffs Harbour, New South Wales. On the back it said, From Mr L. Oldfield, care of The
Grand Hotel, Scone, New South Wales. On the bottom were several handwritten paysheets with a list of men’s names and the hours they had worked. Mick had a quick look at the names and details and noticed the men mostly had Anglo-Saxon names like Tom Bennett, Harold Green, Arthur McDeed, etc. And their wages were twelve pounds ten shillings a week with two pounds ten accumulated in overtime. Except Arthur McDeed got fifteen pounds a week, and three pounds five shillings in overtime. Mick put the paysheets aside and picked up the pages out of the newspaper.

  The front page was mostly classified ads and sales. At the Hustlers in the city, you could get a lady’s check zephyr frock for two and eleven pence ha’penny. And ladies’ corsets were one shilling a pair. You could also rent a three-bedroom cottage on the water at Toronto for thirty-two shillings and sixpence a week. On the second page A.A. Co. were offering twenty-five choice home sites in the garden suburb of Hamilton. No prices mentioned, but only fifteen per cent deposit required. And the Perpetual Trustee had sixteen exceptionally fine residential sites going under the hammer in Mayfield. The third page was a bit of local gossip and ads for Clements Tonic, Bonds Sylk-Arto hose and Seigals Syrup: ‘Tones Up Stomach and Liver In A Remarkable Manner.’ Also, Rudolph Valentino was starring in Monsieur Beaucaire at the Lyric Theatre. And two big stars, Ben Lyon and Viola Dana, were on stage in The Necessary Evil at the Theatre Royal. Page four was much more interesting. Next to the headlines MOSUL QUESTION, TURKEY’S WARLIKE STEPS and MOROCCO WAR, SPANISH SUCCESS, ADJER IN FLAMES, was another headline:

  TWO MEN SHOT IN DARING

  MUSWELLBROOK BANK ROBBERY

  At around closing time yesterday, a daring thief held up the Muswellbrook branch of the Australian Federated Bank and made off with over three thousand pounds in a car belonging to mining engineer Mr Lander Oldfield. Mr Oldfield was shot in the hand during the robbery and bank teller Mr Horace Stockall was shot in the arm. Police were engaged at an arson attempt some distance away when the robbery took place, but praised gallant bank manager Mr Ewing Birkett who fired several shots at the stolen vehicle as it sped off towards Maitland. Bank staff were too distressed to comment and Mr Oldfield’s gentleman companion, Mr Klaus Slate, declined to be interviewed. However, both injured men are reported to be in a stable condition. The bandit is described as six feet two inches tall and quite powerfully built. The stolen car is a dark blue Maxwell sedan, registration number 17–432. Police have invited the public to help them find the culprit responsible for this heinous crime.