Killing the dome light, I took a Lucky out of the soft pack crushed under the sun visor. Stealing the butt end of Lisette’s Fatima, I lit up from it and slouched lower, staring at the city lights. This was supposed to have been a night out with my girl, but then Gilly had left word at my contact number.
I was just damn lucky Lisette Kingman wasn’t a regular kind of a girl.
She slid across the seat, flowing around the Tornado floor shifter and demanding an arm be put around her, letting me know she didn’t mind her evening being messed up.
The Princess is my lover, my best friend, my sometimes extremely unofficial partner, and a mystery I’ve never been able to solve. Why should a true and righteous living doll like her waste her time with a four-hundred-and-fifty-dollar-a-month deputy sheriff when she could do a hell of a lot better by strolling into the bar of the Beverly Hilton and crooking a finger?
Sure, I’d gotten her out of a jam once, that crazy deal out on Route 66, but it wasn’t as if she owed me. As I ran my hand down her warm cashmere-sheathed flank I again decided it was just dumb luck and that I should shut up and ride it while it lasted.
“You’re thinking again,” she murmured, her chin propped on my shoulder.
“I am?”
“Yes, and knock it off,” she accused. “When you think too much you always think yourself into the mullygrubbles and you get boring when you get the mullygrubbles.”
“There were two bad habits my folks could never break me of, biting my nails and thinking.”
She snuggled insistently. “What you need is to channel all of that thinking into a more constructive vein.”
“Like what?”
Turnabout being fair play, she stole my Lucky Strike for a puff, returning it with a hint of lipstick flavoring. “Like all of the intriguing things that must be going on in these other cars.”
There might be something to that, given that these other parkers probably hadn’t come up here to discuss the Missile Gap.
“Well, let’s see,” says I. “My buddy, Gilly, down at the far end, is probably still trying to recover from a foul ball.”
“Called Kevin Pulaski!” Lisette chuckled in the dark. “That was cruel!”
“What can I say, Princess, life’s a bitch and then you die. That couple next to him in the ‘fifty-six Dodge ragtop are nonstarters. You can see where their heads are. All they’re hugging are the door handles. The girl must have her sweater, a purse, and a coil of barbed wire stacked in the middle of the seat... The MG-TD, man, I don’t even want to think about that. They gotta be contortionists... They’re set up in that big Nash Metro, though. It looks like a bathtub and drives like a cow but the front seat folds flat into the back to make a full-sized double bed. They got it made.”
A set of sharp little teeth lightly nipped through the fabric of my T-shirt. “How does a nineteen fifty-seven Chevrolet compare?”
As if she didn’t know. Another aspect of the Princess's rather exotic personality was that she found the combination of starlight and General Motors upholstery stimulating.
Maybe this night was only half shot after all.
Gale Storm was asking “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” when a new set of headlights turned in from the road and gravel crunched under tires. “More customers?” Lisette murmured, her voice kiss-muffled.
“If it’s a sheriff's cruiser, I’ll pull rank.”
A low-slung coupe pulled up to a clear spot on the edge of the overlook about fifteen yards ahead of us, its driver possibly not even aware that Car was parked back here. I ran an instinctive automobile ID on the silhouette outlined against the city lights, a Studebaker Golden Hawk, a year or two old.
“Some other people with the same excellent idea,” the Princess chuckled, brushing back a tousle of hair.
Then the driver of the Hawk lit a smoke, using a Ronson and not the car lighter. The momentary burst of flame light glinted off upswept blond hair. The driver was a woman and she was alone.
Lisette straightened a little, her Siamese cat’s curiosity kicking in. “That’s interesting. I wonder what she’s doing up here by her lonesome?”
“Meeting someone?”
“Maybe. But from her hairstyle, she’s older, at least up in her twenties. Old enough to have her own apartment or at least to be going with a man who has one.”
I mentally added my own car-guy’s assessment. You drove a Golden Hawk for style, not just for going places. It was a young sophisticate’s car. And a Studebaker is a definite step up from your basic Ford, Chevy, or Plymouth. The blonde would have the dough for her own place or at least for a good motel room.
“Maybe she’s inspired by car seats too?” I mused.
“Maybe, or maybe we have a genuine illicit rendezvous underway.” Lisette nuzzled into a more comfortable observing position. “What do you want to bet one or the other or both of them will be married? Just not to each other.”
“You’ve been reading Peyton Place again, haven’t you?”
It had only been a couple of minutes, but the cigarette shot out the Hawk’s open driver’s window, striking sparks off the ground. But after only a brief pause the lighter snapped once more. This time we caught a glimpse of a classic profile in the flame, the blonde’s movements abrupt and angry.
Lisette giggled. “Somebody is late and somebody isn’t happy about it.”
“Yeah, and somebody’s gonna catch hell for it,” I replied, playing with the tip of the Princess's ponytail. This was getting as good as the drive-in. All we needed was a bag of popcorn.
A few moments later another car pulled into the overlook, a big new Pontiac convertible with its top down. It drew in tight alongside the Golden Hawk, flared its brake lights, and shut down.
You could barely make out the outlines of the two vehicles and the suggestion and sound of someone getting out of the Pontiac. The dome light of the Studebaker flashed on as a man got in the passenger-side door: white male adult, late twenties; dark, carefully combed hair; a blue sports coat. You caught a radiated sense of not happy.
“You know, I think this isn’t exactly a romantic rendezvous,” Lisette commented.
“No, if it was, she would have got into the Poncho. More room, and the Stude’s got bucket seats. This has more of a ‘Honey it’s been wonderful but’ kind of a feel.”
“Could be.” Lisette switched off our radio. Even at that, they must have been keeping things low-key. Only once or twice did we hear a hint of a raised voice over the sounds of the other parkers’ music.
Time passed and the Princess and I lost interest in the couple in the Golden Hawk and resumed it with each other. I was lost in the intricacies of a new-model bra catch when I heard the Studebaker’s door open again. I glanced up to see movement between the two darkened cars.
A moment later the Golden Hawk’s engine started and its passenger door slammed. The driver’s door on the Bonneville opened and shut as well, then the larger vehicle fired up. The Pontiac shot backward out of its parking place, not quite clipping Car’s bumper. Its headlights blazed on as it slued around and tore out onto the highway, spraying a double roostertail of gravel behind it. The smaller Studebaker continued to sit at the edge of the turnout, lights off and its engine muttering disconsolately.
“I don’t think that went too well,” I said.
“Mmmm, no,” the Princess murmured judgmentally. “That'll be a five-pound-box-of-chocolates-and-a-dozen-roses makeup.”
“At least. Anyway, it looks like the show's over.”
“Are you kidding?” Lisette snapped the radio back on and slipped her bared arms around my neck. “It’s just starting, my pet.”