Right up until then it had been a really, really smooth night. The kind we got a lot of back in the summertime Midwest. A couple of gajillion stars overhead and warm enough to let you cruise till dawn with the top down. It was a little past midnight when I wheeled my black Deuce-nosed ’29 into the empty parking strip in front of the Route 22 diner, spraying gravel and feeling easy.
I gave the little fenderless Ford a friendly pat on her hood, because she had been a very good girl that evening, then ambled on in through the stainless art-deco doors of the Route 22. Parking myself on one of the stools, I slapped my palm on the Monel countertop. “Innkeeper, a malt of the chocolate persuasion, if you please. Make it an extra-thick.”
Eddie, the night counterman, rolled his eyes toward the tin ceiling and reached for a malt tumbler. “You’re happy and rich tonight, Pulaski. Somebody must have been suckered.”
I dipped into the pocket of my leather jacket and flashed the trio of Lincolns. “Five dollars a gear with a college guy from Indy. He and his buddies were out cruising in Daddy’s new Cadillac convertible, feeling really impressed with themselves. You’d figure that somebody bright enough to go to college would know there ain’t no way a big chair-car Caddy could out-drag a stripped-down and gowed-up Model A.”
“Yeah, but he should have busted you once you hit the top end,” Eddie replied, dumping a scoop of vanilla into the blender can. “That little track roadster of yours is faster’n spit off the line but the V-8s will still kill you in high gear.”
While Eddie isn’t a rodney himself, our pack of local hop-up hounds have hung around his joint enough for him to dig our jive.
“That is the truth,” I agreed. “But you see, I sort of organized for this race to take place over on that little side road near the county airport. It’s prime for dragging, all paved and straight and no traffic and everything. There just isn’t very much of it.”
I dug out my half-crushed pack of Lucky Strikes. “I was out in front all the way until we got into high and that college boy finally got that big ‘ol Caddy crankin’. But then, just as he was starting to make his move on me, dang, wouldn’t you know it but we ran clean out of road.”
I chuckled and struck a light to my smoke. “You’d figure somebody smart enough to go to college would also be smart enough to scout his racing ground before laying his money down.”
The counterman sighed and dusted a pinch of dry malt across the top of my shake. “Pulaski, unless you manage to wrap yourself around a telephone pole first, somebody is going to shoot you one of these days.”
“Either way, my man, I hope I go out grinning.” I reached over and flipped a nickel into the counter Play-O-Matic.
I was taking the first pull from my malt when the sound of a distant car engine leaked past Peggy Lee’s latest.
“You got two customers coming in,” I said. “Steve Roccardi and Julie Kennedy will be walking through that door inside of a minute.”
Eddie cocked a sceptical eyebrow. “Did you see ’em coming over?”
“Nope, but it’ll still be them.” I tapped the side of the shake tumbler. “Bet you the tab for this malt. Double or nothing.”
“You’re on.”
For the second time that night, it was no contest. The two-toned rippling snarl grew in intensity and swung off the highway. I didn’t need to look out the window to know that a T-bolt roadster, channeled, Indy-nosed, and fire-engine red, was parking beside the A-Bomb. I also didn’t need to look to know that my buddy Steve would be driving it. The tricky part was Julie, but these days the odds favored her sitting at Steve’s side.
“I don’t know how you do it,” Eddie grumbled, filling a couple of water glasses and setting them on the counter.
The thing was, when I did get around to looking at my friends, I could see that we had grief. Steve had those dark Greek sailor kind of good looks and generally is a pretty mellow kind of guy. Tonight, though, he looked mad enough to spit lug nuts. Julie’s pretty blue eyes were also red from a lot of crying.
It was time to make with the inquiries.
Steve and me were what you’d call muy simpatico, even though he was a senior classman in high school to my junior. Both of our dads worked for the railroad. Both of us were outsiders who’d come to Fairmont at about the same time, and both of us lived and breathed hot-rodding. We’d swapped car parts and speed tips and had stood pit crew for each other at about half of the circle tracks in Indiana.
Julie, on the other hand, was a local girl who came from the good side of our fathers’ tracks. A rare dish of a sweet little blonde, she and Steve had been spending a lot of time staring deep into each other’s eyes lately.
And therein rested the hitch. Julie’s father owned Fairmount’s only jewelry store. The glorified watchmaker’s shop wasn’t exactly Tiffany’s but you’d never know it from the way Mr. Kennedy carried on. His one-man consensus was that his daughter was way too good for the son of a GM & O section man. Of late, whenever Steve looked honked and Julie had tears, it was generally due to some beef with Daddy-O.
“What’s tickin’, gang?” I asked as they claimed the stools beside me. “Why the bring-down?”
“The usual, Kev,” Steve replied grimly. “Only more of it. Static with Julie’s dad. Big-time.”
I outed the Luckys again and offered him a smoke. “So what else is new?”
Julie gave a kind of shuddery sigh and brushed road dust from the front of her swing skirt. “This is different, Kevin. This time Dad put his foot down. He says I can’t see Steve anymore, ever.”
“Like I’m talking to a mirage here?”
My friends grinned in spite of themselves. “Nope,” Steve replied, reaching over to squeeze Julie’s hand. “But I guess it’s time for a showdown. Julie and me have to make some decisions. And we’re not exactly sure what we’re going to do.”
Heck, I knew what they needed to do. So did most everyone else in town who’d ever seen them walking around totally gone over each other. Steve and Julie just needed a chance to talk themselves into it.
“Okay,” I said, “so give me the word from the bird. Maybe ol’ Uncle Kev can help.”
They hit Eddie up for a couple of Cokes and started the yarn.
“I’ve been helping Dad out in the store this summer,” Julie began, “and late this afternoon, yesterday afternoon now, I guess, Steve dropped in for a minute to see me. Dad doesn’t like it when Steve hangs around, but I couldn’t see how it could hurt for just a little while. Anyway, Dad had been called down to the bank and I always feel kind of nervous minding the place by myself.”
She gave another shuddery kind of sigh and took a disinterested sip of her Coke. “We were just standing at the counter, talking, when my father came storming out of the back room. I mean, he just tore into Steve right there and then. I don’t think it would have made any difference even if we’d had any customers. He just started threatening Steve and yelling these awful things.”
“Yeah,” Steve scowled, “I could have taken it if he’d just kept it to me, but he starts in on my family. He called my father a damn dirty dago and a bunch of other stuff. Then he said some things about Julie. I’m telling you, Kev, I almost decked him on the spot. As it was, I said some things back and walked out before I totally blew a gasket.”
“Smart move, kid,” Eddie commented.
And it was. Given what folks were saying about teenagers these days, if Steve had hung a fat lip on Julie’s old man, no matter how well deserved, he’d have caught hell for it.
“So then?” says I.
Steve shrugged. “So nothing. I was so steamed that I couldn’t stand being still. I got in the T-bolt and started cruising. Man, I burned a whole tank of gas just driving around the county, trying to cool off. Once I did, I came back to town and picked Julie up. We have to start getting some things straight.”