The engine gunned, the car dragged him forward, gravel ripping the back of his windbreaker. A stone hit his shoulderblade; he almost cried out, almost lost his grip but he hung on. His forehead glanced off the bottom of the gas tank; he’d have a lump there in the morning. Then the car kept moving and dragging him and for an awful moment he was afraid the driver wasn’t going to stop but then the ride ended and Kendig jackknifed his legs so his feet wouldn’t show.
The driver got out. Kendig rotated the Vise-Grips and now it turned easily; he unsnapped the wrench and turned the nut counterclockwise swiftly with finger pressure. When gasoline began to trickle down his wrist he pushed up against the nut, holding it shut, turning it another full turn to make sure it was free of its threads; he held it that way while he heard the padlock snap shut and the driver’s boots crunch their way back to the car.
The door slammed. The Olds dropped into gear. He straightened his legs out and dropped his head back onto the ground. The car began to move, the tank inches above his nose; he held the drainplug in place as long as he could but then the car was away from him and he just stayed put, lying on his back; gasoline gushed over his extended arm, an overpowering stink of it, soaking his arm and his hair and his shoulder. He lay perfectly still and watched the inverted image of the taillights moving away down the county road.
He let it drive all the way out of sight before he got to his feet and wiped some of the stinking stuff off his face with his handkerchief. Then he started trotting after the car.
He gave it not more than a quarter mile before the high-powered V-8 would use up the fuel in its carburetor and fuel line; sure enough he was just reaching the bend when he heard it cough and die. It freewheeled a bit and he heard it stop. He cut into the woods and walked quickly on the pine-needle carpet, dropping the vital drainplug carefully into his pocket.
When he came in sight of the Olds the driver had the hood up and was playing a flashlight on the engine. Kendig moved down toward the edge of the road, picked up the five-gallon can of gasoline he’d cached there and waited in the trees, not moving, stinking of gasoline.
It took the driver a little while to figure it out. Finally he was down under the car feeling for the hole. He came out cursing audibly. Kendig watched him walk back up the road slowly exploring with the flashlight-looking for the drainplug. It must have been loose, he’d be thinking; vibration must have dislodged it; it’s got to be somewhere around here. He’d walk on up to the yard, looking for the plug along the way; he’d tell the others-they’d have to bring one of the other vehicles down with a chain and tow the tanker back in.
It would take some time. Kendig carried the jerrycan down to the abandoned car, set it down and crawled underneath to put the drainplug back where it belonged. He tightened it in place with the Vise-Grips. He noticed for the first time the three-centimeter pipe that had been welded in place across the back of the car, concealed from above by the massive chrome bumper. It ran the width of the car and there were six jet-type nozzles sticking out of it, pointing down toward the road. That was useful to know about.
He crawled out from under and poured most of the jerrycan’s contents into the tank; he opened the hood and disconnected the fuel line from the carburetor to pour some of the stuff down the hose to prime it. Then he splashed just a little bit into the carburetor-he didn’t want to flood it-and re-connected the fuel line. He put the empty can in the back seat and glanced at the ignition lock but the driver hadn’t favored him by leaving the keys. He had to get down under the dashboard, rip a wire off the clock and feel around for the tab-contacts on the back of the ignition switch. He was no expert at hot-wiring but he knew the drill well enough; he put it in neutral and made sure the emergency brake was set and then he gapped the contacts until the starter meshed.
The car started right up. He twisted the ends of the wire around the ignition tabs and sat up, pulled the door shut and went driving up the road less than six minutes after the driver had left the car.
Pretty soon they’d be down there with their tow car and they’d find the tanker missing. They’d figure out how it had been done but they’d have to conclude it had been a rival bootlegger outfit. They wouldn’t report the theft to the law; they could hardly do that. They’d start banging around their neighbors’ stills and the feudist mentality of the back hills would make things pretty wild for a while. It was what he wanted: the more confusion the better.
He drove the Olds into his barn and closed the barn doors and walked back down the track to repair the cowbell tripwire he’d broken when he’d driven in. Then he went up to the house and got out of his gasoline-soaked clothing, showered and scrubbed thoroughly, got into work clothes and returned to the barn to disguise the Olds.
He carefully applied masking tape to the chrome surfaces and edged the tape with razor-blade cuts. The car was a dark green hardtop with a white roof. He had a dozen aerosol cans of black automobile paint. He taped newspaper over the windshield and windows and went to work with the spray paint: two coats on the roof, one on the rest of the car. He wasn’t an expert painter and the job looked mottled and amateurish but that was all right, it went with the age of the car. The paint wasn’t thick enough to blacken the roof entirely; it ended up more grey than black but again that was good enough. He removed the license plates and threw them into the toolbox of the DeSoto in the yard, and bolted the plate he’d stolen in Birmingham onto the rear bracket of the Olds.
It was quick-drying paint. By dawn even the second coat on the roof was no longer tacky to the touch. He backed the Pontiac up to the Olds and siphoned off the Pontiac’s tank, running fuel into the Olds until it was nearly full. It left him about a quarter of a tank in the Pontiac-enough, in case. He put the Pontiac back in its usual parking space in front of the house and then he went over to the wrecked DeSoto and disconnected the dome-light toggle switch from it. He wired the toggle to the ignition of the Olds and brought a pushbutton switch from the DeSoto to act as a starter switch; there wouldn’t be time to fumble around under the dash trying to hot-wire it. When he had his wiring finished and everything screwed into place he tried it out and it worked fine: switch on the toggle, push the button and it started right up.
Then he inspected the spray pipe under the bumper. The faucet handles of the six spigots had heavy steel cables fixed to them; the cables disappeared through drilled holes into the body of the car. He found the control after a little searching. It was an old hand-brake lever they’d taken off some truck or tractor; it lay down against the floor between the door sill and the driver’s seat. He didn’t touch it; you could only use a cable control once because you couldn’t close it again without going around and closing each of the six faucets separately and by that time you’d have poured all the oil out onto the barn floor. But he did open one of the spigots a little and a hard stream of black oil sprayed out; he twisted the handle shut immediately.
They were guerrilla devices, the oil spigots on moonshiners’ tankers; if you were being pursued by another car all you had to do was pick the right spot and yank the handle and you covered the road behind you with a murderous oil slick. Anybody pursuing you would slither helplessly on the stuff. Pour it out on a steep bend and you’d send pursuit to their deaths.
He didn’t intend to hurt anybody; if he could help it he didn’t even want anybody bruised. But it was a useful bonus-in case.