The Last Open Road

by Burt Levy

  "Hmm," I said, pretending to mull it over. I mean, I didn't want Barry to think he was dealing with some wet-behind-the-ears high school pushover who didn't know the score. I knew better than to just snap at it like some yahoo who just fell off a turnip truck, so I made sure to roll the idea around in my head for three or four whole seconds before telling him I'd take it. And I wasn't the least bit shy about staring him squarely in the eye when I finally got up the nerve to ask, "Ahh, say, Barry, d'ya think you could maybe tell me what this job, er, you know, how much it pays?"

  "How's that?"

  "This race mechanic job, Barry. Whazzit pay?"

  "Oh, well," Barry shrugged, waving his fingers through the air like he was scattering stardust, "most usually our racing mechanics start out at ten dollars a day—that's a full day, mind you—and five dollars the half-day. Complete race weekends are twenty-five dollars each. That's expenses included, of course."

  "Oh, of course," I nodded. But I wasn't real sure I knew what he meant. So I asked, "You mean I get extra money to cover expenses on race weekends?"

  Barry looked at me like I'd just attempted to lop off his foot. "Certainly not!" he snapped. "A race mechanic's expense money is always considered to be h'included in the twenty-five-dollar weekend fee."

  "Oh."

  "But it never costs much to stay at the races. And there's always plenty of free food and drink about."

  That I already knew.

  "And you'll be doing most of yer bleedin' work 'ere in the shop, so I wouldn't worry much about it."

  "And how many days would I be working, exactly?"

  "Two, maybe three days a week. Sometimes more. You 'ave to understand, race mechanicin' is a bloody part-time position on a strictly as-needed basis."

  "Uh-huh," I said, rolling the numbers around in my head like loose marbles. Far as I could tell, the sum total I'd be earning as a race mechanic figured to be roughly half of what I'd been making full-time at the Old Man's gas station (at least if you didn't count Big Ed's five-buck tips and the cost of daily public transportation into Manhattan), but on the other hand, it represented an opportunity to work on MGs and Jaguars and Allards all the time instead of the broken-down Fords, Plymouths, and Chevrolets I got at the Sinclair. Not to mention actually getting paid (albeit not much) to go to the races. "Well, Barry," I told him, trying to sound real casual about it, "that sounds pretty darn interesting. When exactly would I start?"

  "Oh, I suppose we'd be needing yer t'come in afternoons and evenings each and every race week. Let's 'ave us a look at the schedule" (pronounced shedge-yewel, of course). He rummaged around in the drawer of Colin's desk until he found a dog-eared copy of the S.C.M.A. calendar. "Ah, 'ere it is. We've got ourselves a race at Grand Island—that's up by Niagara Falls, y'see—come the end of August. Then h'nother one at Elkhart Lake the following weekend. That's in Wisconsin. Mark my words, that'll be one damn busy five days in between. I reckon yer'll 'ave t'start comin' in, oh, say, the week before Grand Island. Our racing mechanics most usually start in right after lunch, and should always be prepared t'stay late as necessary t'get the bleedin' work done. . . ."

  "Oh, naturally," I said, my toes quietly doing jumping jacks inside my shoes. "So tell me, Barry, which cars will I be working on?"

  "Why, whichever ones need attention, of course."

  "Oh, of course, of course."

  "Why, on some of the more 'ectic race weekends, yer'll probably have t'baby-sit the whole bloody lot."

  I could hardly wait. But I had one more question. "Tell me something, Barry. Which car will I ride in? Up to the races, I mean." I was kind of hoping to get in with Tommy Edwards in that wicked Cad-Allard. Why, maybe he'd even let me drive it once or twice. . . .

  Barry looked at me like I had concrete setting up between my ears. "Actually, our race mechanics don't generally get to ride anywhere with the paying customers. That's what bloody wives and girlfriends are for."

  "Oh," I said. "But then how the heck am I gonna get to Grand Island?"

  "Why, that's h'entirely up to you!" Barry exclaimed like it was some kind of exciting Special Bonus you got with a position as a Westbridge Race Mechanic. "See, yer've got to h'understand. There's a lot of freedom and h'independent thought h'involved in a situation like this. Not just any bloke can do it."

  I could see why. "Ah . . . um . . . well . . . y'see, Barry, the truth of it is, I'm not real sure I can find a way up there."

  Barry rubbed his chin and stared off into space like he was planning the invasion of Normandy. "Weeell," he mused, "I reckon yer might catch a lift with me in the parts truck . . . if yer pay shares on the bleedin' petrol, that is."

  I hadn't even started working there, and I was already beginning to understand the high turnover of wrenching personnel at Westbridge. Then something else occurred to me. "Y'know, Barry," I said, "August 30th is almost a whole month from now. What am I supposed to do in the meantime?"

  "Well, if it was me," he advised through a cheery smile, "I believe I'd start looking for a real job."

  Big Ed Baumstein called my aunt's house a few days later, and he was pretty bent out of shape about me not being around the Old Man's Sinclair to take care of his Jag and Caddies anymore. "Whaddam I gonna do now?" he groused, chewing his stogie into the receiver. "My damn Jaguar won't start an' I'll be damned if I'll let that butcher Finzio anywheres near it. Why'dja quit, anyway?"

  "Quit? I got fired. Who the hell told you I quit?"

  "Old Man Finzio."

  "Figures." Then I told Big Ed about my newly acquired part-time race mechanic job at Westbridge.

  "Jee-zus , Buddy, why you wanna work for that shyster sonofabitch Colin St. John for? Why, he'd steal the pennies off a dead man's eyes."

  "Maybe so," I allowed, "but I get to be around sports cars all the time. I guess I'm kind of addicted, y'know?"

  "Humph," Big Ed grunted at the other end of the line.

  "In fact," I oh-so-casually continued, "we got a race coming up at Grand Island at the end of August. Maybe you oughta think about coming up yourself."

  "Hell, that's all the way across the whole friggin' state," he snorted. "And besides, the damn thing ain't even running right now."

  "Aw, I can fix it. No problem. And I hear they got a really great entry lined up. Ought to be a real swell time." As you can see, I had visions of riding up to Grand Island in Big Ed's XK120 rather than bouncing along in the parts truck with prizewinning British Tightwad Barry Spline. Not to mention picking up shares on gas.

  But Big Ed wasn't real receptive on account of he was having one hell of a time getting his name put up for membership in the S.C.M.A., and he'd be damned if he was gonna drive all the way across the state just to hang on the fences with the rank-and-file rubberneckers. After all, he owned a damn Jaguar 120 and by God, he wanted to participate. And who could blame him? Truth is, I didn't reckon Big Ed would ever be much of a racing driver, even if he got the chance. I mean, he wasn't exactly real arty with a stick shift or calm and smooth behind the wheel. Not hardly. But Big Ed figured he could at least drive as good as Skippy Welcher, and I had to admit there was a better than even chance he could be right.

  The problem was getting in.

  Big Ed had telephoned, written letters, bought drinks, and even asked a few of the S.C.M.A. heavyweights to fancy lunches and dinners. In Manhattan, no less. But none of them ever made it on account of they were always "booked up" or "too busy," no matter how many weeks in advance Big Ed called to invite them. You could tell it was pissing him off no end. And why shouldn't it? He sure didn't appreciate getting the Official Brush-Off routine from a bunch of ivy-covered, old-money Protestants just because he had a Jewish last name and traded scrap machinery for a living. Hell, his cash was as green as anybody's, wasn't it? And he was a lousy Jew. You could ask anybody. He never went to temple or fasted on the big hebe holidays or wore one of those black silk beanies or anything. Not to mention that three of his wives (including the reigning Mrs. B.) were s
hiksas . But somehow the S.C.M.A. membership committee was real damn particular about what church you went to. Even if you never went to church.

  Anyhow, I told Big Ed I'd be happy to check out his dead Jaguar, and it wasn't twenty minutes later he pulled up front in the black Caddy sedan. That seemed odd, since it was exactly the sort of sunny summer day when you'd expect Big Ed to tool up in his white Caddy convert if for any reason his Jag was on the fritz. So I asked Big Ed about it, and a black scowl rolled down his face like the corrugated steel curtains that come down over the store windows at closing time in Sylvester Jones's neighborhood. "Oh, I guess you could say I had a little, er, problem with one a'my em-ploy-ees over at the new yard we took over in Monmouth County."

  "What happened?"

  "Well, I had t'fire the guy, see, because he was showing up drunk alia time."

  "And?"

  "Aw, he got all pissed off. Hell, it wasn't nine in the morning and he'd already had himself a snootful."

  "So?"

  "So the bastid rammed one a'my trucks—my own damn trucks!— into that poor caddy convert at damn near forty miles an hour. Smashed the living shit out of it."

  "Geez, that's a real shame."

  "That's nothing! Then the asshole pulled the friggin' lever and dumped the whole goddam load on top of it." Big Ed's voice went down to a mumble. "It was fresh off the farm route, too."

  "Really?" I said, trying not to laugh. I mean, I just couldn't help it.

  "Oh sure," Big Ed snarled, "laugh it up. Real goddam funny. . . ." But you could see his eyes were starting to sparkle a little, too, and pretty soon we were both laughing so hard he had to pull over because he couldn't see to drive.

  "Gee whiz," I told him when we could finally talk again, "that's really too bad. Whaddaya gonna do?"

  "Well, one thing I'm damn sure not gonna do is go driving around in a pile of pig shit and chicken heads. I mean, you'd never get rid of a smell like that."

  "So whad'ja do?"

  "Aw, we just kinda pushed that Caddy around the yard with a couple Caterpillar earthmovers. Like we was playin' field hockey with it, y'know? Didn't want to take a chance that the insurance company might not total it. Not the way it smelled." He flipped me one of his patented Big Ed winks. But then a melancholy mist drifted over his eyes. "It's a damn shame though," he sighed. "I mean, I really loved that car. Almost as much as my Jag. . . ."

  "You can always get yourself another one," I told him. "Heck, the new ones'll be coming out in a couple months, and I hear there's gonna be a brand-new convertible model from Cadillac."

  "Yeah, I heard about it from my salesman at the agency," Big Ed allowed, peeling the cellophane off a fresh dollar cigar. "He says they're gonna call it 'the Eldorado.'"

  "That's the one. I heard you'll even be able to get it with air-conditioning."

  "Yeah," he sighed. "I s'pose I can always buy me one a'them. But there was something, I dunno, something special about that white car. . . ." His eyes went all soft-focus on him. "The leather always felt, I dunno, sort of warm when you touched it. An' Jesus Christ, it had the strongest, sweetest-running engine of any Cadillac I ever owned."

  "Yeah, it sure did," I agreed, feeling my own eyes mist up as I remembered the night Big Ed let Julie and me borrow it to cruise over by Palisades Park.

  "Gee," Big Ed whispered, his voice cracking a little around the edges, "was it ever fast and smooth for a big, heavy car."

  "Yeah, it sure was. And gorgeous, too."

  "Uh-huh," Big Ed nodded. "Anybody tells you all cars are the same just doesn't know shit from shinola about automobiles." You could say what you want about Big Ed Baumstein, but no question he understood how things are with cars.

  Turns out Big Ed's Jag wouldn't start because the fuel pump crapped out (hardly front-page news where S.U. electric fuel pumps are concerned!) but getting it fixed was something else again since Big Ed didn't have much in the way of tools at his monstrous house back in Teaneck. In fact, all I could find was a claw hammer, a pair of pliers and some screwdrivers that looked like they'd been used mostly to stir paint and pry up nails. Then again, Big Ed didn't spend much time at home (and virtually none puttering around with your typical homeowner/handyman-type projects) so all the various Mrs. Big Eds were in the habit of calling local tradesmen when anything around the Baumstein household required attention. "Jeez, Ed," I told him, "I could really use a socket set to get that thing out of there. Or at least a couple open-end wrenches. . . ."

  "This won't help?" He passed me a monkey wrench that looked like it went down on the Titanic.

  "No, I don't believe it will. See, you really need a proper tool set to get a job handled the right way. I mean, you wouldn't want me ripping your Jag apart with a claw hammer and a set of garden shears, would you?"

  Big Ed mulled it over. "You're sure that fuel pump is the trouble?"

  "No question about it."

  "Well, why don't we run in to Westbridge and pick us up another one, huh?"

  "Oh, I could probably fix this one if I can just get it apart."

  "Nah, let's get us a new one, Buddy. We can always fix the old one up later and keep it for a spare." And just that quickly, Big Ed had put his finger on the reason why so many sports car owners have garages packed to the rafters with so-called spare parts that are rarely (if ever) in fully operational condition.

  We rode over to Westbridge in the black Caddy to pick up Big Ed's new fuel pump, and on the way back he casually stopped at a Sears store and bought a complete set of Craftsman tools. And I mean complete! I'd never been shopping with anybody like Big Ed before. He strolled up and down the aisles, pointing every which way at tool cabinets and socket sets and box-end combination wrenches and double-jointed flex knucklers and Phillips and flat-blade screwdrivers in eight different sizes and Lord only knows what else. "Y'need one a'these?" he'd ask, pointing at a set of channel locks or a rubber mallet or a rotary bench grinder.

  "Yeah," I'd nod, "it might come in handy some day." And just that quick, Big Ed would own it. He even had to have a bunch of stuff delivered, on account of we couldn't fit it in the trunk of the black Caddy. And a Cadillac Sixty Special has one whale of a huge trunk, ask anyone. Fact is, I got Big Ed's Jag running in less time than it took us to unload the damn tools, and it ran like a champ all the way back to Passaic.

  So I was kind of surprised when Big Ed rang me up the next afternoon and asked if I wanted to take another trip into Manhattan. I feared the worst (could I already be picking up the Westbridge method of sports car repair?) but was relieved to see him tool up in his XK120 with a big smile wrapped around his stogie. "Naw, she's purrin' like a kitten t'day. I got something else in mind. . . ."

  "Yeah? Like what?"

  "You'll see," he said, and you couldn't miss how his grin spread out another inch or two toward his ears.

  We crossed over the George Washington Bridge and headed down toward the shipping docks, twisting through a tangle of narrow, uneven streets lined with firebrick warehouse buildings and double-parked delivery trucks and huge stacks of crates and cardboard boxes bringing every kind of stuff you can imagine in and out of Manhattan. Finally, we located what we were looking for: a nondescript cinderblock garage with no sign in front—not even a street address!—and a heavy steel fire door that was locked tighter than a bank vault. Big Ed knocked a couple times, but there was no answer. So he knocked again, only this time a little louder. Still nothing. So he hauled off and beat on it so hard it sent off vibrations like a cast-iron church bell. That got some muffled shuffling and cursing going on inside, and finally the door opened a crack and a large, familiar Italian nose stuck itself out and sniffed us. "Aay, whaddaya want?" the nose asked. I was sure I'd heard that voice before, but I couldn't quite place it.

  "I'm lookin' for Carlo Sebastian," Big Ed told the nose.

  "Yeah? An' who is it wants to know?"

  "Ed Baumstein."

  "Who?"

  "Ed Baumstein. From over in Jersey. I'm a
friend of Jimmy Lazzarro and Tony Cicci. I wanna see Carlo Sebastian."

  "What about?"

  I could see the color starting to creep up Big Ed's neck. "About a car, that's what! Now lemme in before I rip this friggin' door right off its goddam hinges."

  The nose looked us up and down again. "Justa minute, ay?" it said as the door closed again, followed by more shuffling and mumbling and light, quick footsteps with maybe a set of steel taps on the heels. Then the door swung open, revealing a dark, perfectly chisled little wop with an elegant mane of silvery-white hair, flashing eyes, and a smile that reflected light like a gold dessert plate. At least when he wanted it to anyway. He was wearing a white silk shirt under a butterscotch leather vest, and had an extralarge shop coat draped over his shoulders like an opera cape. Real dramatic, you know?

  "How may I help you?" he asked in a voice that resonated with Continental class and style, like the guys who sell women's perfume on the radio. I thought I'd maybe seen him someplace before, and for sure the other guy was one of the three mechanics attending to Creighton Pendleton's Ferrari at Bridgehampton.