“How many of them have access to a key?” I asked.
Ross winced and turned his head away.
“How’d you come up with the money for Amiee?” I asked.
“What you mean?”
“She’s a prostitute, right?”
“Man,” Ross said. “You just wanna get your ass kicked, don’t you?”
“She’s your girlfriend?”
“Today,” Ross replied. “Maybe not tomorrow.”
“Lemme see your wallet.”
Ross turned to Saul but only got the shrug.
You could see around Ross’s eyes that he was in his thirties. But in his heart he was still a young man, barely out of his teens. That’s why I treated him like a child.
He took out a black wallet that was maybe ten percent leather and the rest paper. He had a driver’s license, a library card, and three dollars. Under the secret flap he had a two-dollar bill that had the upper right corner torn away to avoid the bad luck associated with that denomination. If he had robbed a safe of thousands of dollars his wallet would have been stuffed with cash—I was sure of that.
“You do much reading?” I asked him.
“So what?” he replied.
I handed him the wallet and asked, “What kind of job could I get if I go down there?”
OLIPHANT’S GARAGE was an ultramodern auto repair and body shop. Everything was chrome and concrete, glass and white paint. The gleaming cylinders for the hydraulic lifts were well oiled and flawless. There was no trash or built-up grease in the corners. The mechanics wore dark-blue coveralls.
There were white men and blacks working together. If I was unemployed this would be the first place I’d look for a job.
“Can I help you?” a red-headed kid asked. He was no more than fifteen, with a big friendly smile on his face. I felt that I’d met him before but put that down to his engaging manner.
“Lookin’ for a job’s all,” I said.
“What kind of job?”
“Mechanic.”
For a frown the young man smiled just a bit less brightly.
“You been a mechanic before?” he asked.
“Sure have.”
“I wanna be a mechanic on racing cars,” he said. “Those guys travel all over the world and make real money.”
“I guess they do,” I said.
“You ever work on race cars?”
“I was in a few drag races when I was a hothead down south. I worked on those cars but I’ve never been a professional.”
The kid was looking right at me but I had no idea what he saw.
“I’m learning everything I can here,” he said. “By the time I get out of high school I’ll know everything I need.”
“I wish you luck,” I said, wondering how to get to applying for the job.
“I’m gonna buy a dirt bike tomorrow,” he said. “That’ll be great. I can start to learn about bikes and bike racing. We don’t fix motorcycles here.”
“Do you know if there’s a job opening?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But it’s not up to me. You see the main office over there?”
He pointed toward a room encased by glass walls. Three men in blue coveralls were sitting around smoking and laughing with a big white guy in a green suit.
“Yeah,” I said.
“That’s Gator’s office,” the boy said. “He’s the one in green.”
“Gator?”
“Mr. Oliphant if you want the job.”
* * *
I KNOCKED ON THE GLASS DOOR. Gator turned his head in my direction. He took me in for a moment and then gestured with his head and lips for me to enter.
It was a good-sized room with two tables and a desk. The mechanics sat at one table. The other one supported a partly deconstructed car engine.
“Mr. Oliphant,” I said as I stuck out my hand. “I’m Larry Burdon.”
It was one of many names that I typed in as dead or missing during my stint as a statistics sergeant during WWII.
“How can I help ya?” he replied.
The other men took this as their notice to leave. They filed out into the unnaturally clean garage and took up various posts.
“Lookin’ for a job,” I said as they were leaving.
Gator was perched at the edge of his desk. He was as tall as Ross, but whereas Saul’s cousin-in-law was burly Oliphant was long and lean. I didn’t think I could get inside his offense and I wouldn’t have wanted to try.
“For what?” he asked.
“My specialty is heating and cooling but I can do anything mechanical.”
“Oh really? Where you from, Larry?”
“Lake Charles.”
“You don’t say? Some good old boys down in Lake Charles. And they can eat.”
“Blue crab gumbo and crawdad pie to die for,” I said. “Put all that on a plate with some dirty rice and red beans and you will be in heaven.”
Oliphant smiled and a rough laugh escaped his lips.
He would have been handsome except for the pits on his cheeks and throat. In one way he was the exact opposite of Saul Lynx. The tall Cajun had brown eyes and green clothes.
“You know your food but do you know engines?”
“Oh yeah,” I said like they did down home. “Poor man got to know how to fix his car ’cause a place like this cost you a week’s wages.”
Again Oliphant laughed. “If you lucky.”
He picked up a slender stick and tapped the bottom of the engine.
“What’s that?” he asked me.
“Oil pan.”
“And that?” he asked tapping the upper region.
“Injector over the intake manifold.”
“What about down here?”
“Flywheel.”
We went on like that for a while. After I’d named twenty parts of the engine he began asking me how I’d fix various problems. I guess he was happy with my answers. I did know about cars.
“You say you’re a hot-and-cold man but you know your cars.”
“I know boiler rooms and air conditioners too,” I said. Working as the building supervisor I had to know how every machine at a school worked.
Oliphant rubbed his ravaged jaw and regarded me.
“I do have a position open,” he said. “But how’d you know about it?”
“Sam Houston,” I said.
“And here I thought the great man had died.” Oliphant’s smile was somewhat sinister.
“Not the original,” I said. “This one’s from Texas too, but he’s black and owns a restaurant in L.A. called Hambones. He found out about it somewhere.”
I doubted that Oliphant would go so far as to check my story but I’d already asked Sam to cover for me.
“Last boy to work here didn’t work out,” Gator said. “Broke my supervisor’s nose and broke into the safe too.”
“Was he from Louisiana?”
That got Gator laughing again. He liked to laugh.
“Okay, Larry,” he said. “We’ll try you out. If you can work as good as you talk you’ll do just fine.”
We smiled into each other’s eyes. He had the kind of eyes that made you feel that he knew what was going on in your mind.
TILLY MONROE was the first man I had to deal with. I knew his name from the moment I saw him—that wasn’t hard. First off he had a bandage over his black-and-blue swollen nose. Then he was short, five-five tops. He also wore red coveralls with the name TILLY stitched over his heart. All he needed was good sense and six inches and he could have been a matinee idol.
“So you the new buck?” he said, and I wondered why Ross had waited so long to bust his face.
“Just a mechanic,” I said.
“This ain’t no penny-ante backyard garage here, son,” he said. “This here’s a first-class operation. You get a job and a time estimate and you better believe that you will finish on time and keep your station clean.”
I inhaled through my nose and held it, trying to keep from saying something angry.
“No personal phone calls,” Tilly added, “except in emergency, and no sick pay. You get paid for hours worked and you work every hour you here. Understand?”
“Yes sir.” I hated myself for saying it.