“There’s forty of them,” Ferde said. “And only eleven of us. If very many of them show up, we’re cooked.”
“We’ll do like we did last time,” Joe said. “Park on the edge, get one of their cars going out. Same deal.”
“In any case,” Grimmelman said, deep in thought, “we could go ahead and activate the Horch.”
In Art’s ears the words fell beautifully. Activation of the Organization’s remote-controlled car, with its speakers and antennae and fantastic straight-eight engine. The Horch, its lights off, speeding down Highway 99, escaping silently from encounter with the enemy as they drove behind, directing it . . . and, in a ditch, the flipped-over carcass of a ‘56 Ford.
On the wall of the loft were trophies, remnants taken from the vanquished. The Horch had gotten away each time. Grimmelman was cautious; each incident was scrupulously planned out.
At his worktables Grimmelman pointed to a relay board with its wiring and tubes and booster circuits. A soldering iron was beside it; he was in the process of working on this part of the Horch’s system. “I have to get it finished. Or the Horch’ll be silent.”
The Horch could not be silent. The taunting voices, magnified and distorted, were vital. Otherwise the Horch, as it sped off, could not announce itself. It could not boom out who and what it was.
Ferde Heinke said suddenly, “Hey, you know? Rachael’s going to have a baby.” He glanced apologetically at Art. “His wife Rachael.”
At his worktable, Grimmelman shivered. He did not look at them; he concentrated on his notebooks. The oily girl, he thought. The outsider. He felt fear.
As she walked, the slow, heavy walk of a woman, she gave forth a spearmint smell, spearmint and soap. And the eyes fixed on him, the judgment; she had seen him, judged him, dismissed him. Dismissed all of them and their various plans.
The room had become silent. They all felt subdued. The woman walked among them, taking away their excitement.
On the sofa Ferde Heinke fussed with his school books and magazines. Joe Mantila stared at the floor. Art Emmanual wandered to the door of the loft, his hands in his pockets. The air was oppressive. Beyond the locked metal door the sounds of the Negro and Mexican children filtered to him faintly, a tinny sound, like the rustling of weeds.
At five o’clock in the afternoon Van Ness Avenue lay under blown bits of paper. Wind had left the scatter in each shop’s doorway. The waning sunlight made the scatter seem white.
The cars in Nat’s Auto Sales were older, prewar. On the side of the bakery by the lot, a sign was painted: CARS THAT WORK FOR PEOPLE THAT WORK
At the fourth car, a 1939 Dodge, Nat Emmanual was opening the hood and connecting the battery charger. Here was his lot. Here was he, in cloth jacket and tan slacks, discovering that the battery cable of this car was eroded and would have to be replaced; at the end of the day he inspected his cars and learned the worst about each of them, the tires that had sagged, the batteries with dead cells, the rear main bearings that leaked oil.
He walked across Van Ness Avenue, stopping for the cars and then running, until he was on the far side and entering Hermann’s Garage, “Specialists in Carburetors Rebuilt.” The entrance was blocked by cars waiting to be fixed. In the back, by the workbench, Hermann had crawled within a Packard to adjust the brake. Nat reached into the litter of parts on the bench, pushing and rooting among the valves, gaskets, discarded fan belts.
“You got such a thing as a battery cable for a prewar Dodge?” he said.
“Let me tell you a story,” Hermann said. He emerged, wiping grease from his face and hands. “You believe in God?”
“No,” Nat said, examining a clutch plate, wondering if he could make use of it in one of his cars.
“You believe it’s wrong to spray over rust?”
“Naturally.”
“So the paint falls off next week. That’s the used car business.” Hermann nodded his head toward the Packard. “You know whose that is?”
“Luke’s.”
“Luke sprays over rust. Luke fills up the dents with putty.”
“I used to work for him,” Nat said. “How about the cable?”
“I don’t care,” he said. He had been in the used car business too long to care about paint over rust; he had done a little of that himself. Bending, he picked up a set of discarded plugs. “Can I have these?”
“For nothing? Or what do I get back? How about fifty cents? Something like that, whatever you want—It’s up to you.”
While Nat was regapping the plugs, Luke Sharpstein walked into the garage to see about the Packard. He wore his usual straw hat, maroon shirt, and flannel slacks. “Fella,” he said genially to Nat. “How’s it go?”
“Fine,” Nat said noncommittally.
Picking at his pale teeth with his toothpick, Luke said, “Moving anything?”
“Not a drop.”
Luke said, “Can you use a couple of Lincolns, ‘49’s, good and clean? Give them to you cheap. Too old for me. Maybe swap a couple of Chevies even.”
“All I have is junk,” Nat said. “You know that. I’m in the yo-yo business.” And it was Luke with his powerful sales techniques that had put him there, had put all the small dealers there.
Luke smiled his false-teeth smile. “I can use a few ‘41 Chevies for my jalopy lot.”
“If you have any Willis Overlands, I might take them,” Nat said with heavy irony.
Without a trace of humor, Luke said, “Well, I have a Willis station wagon. A ‘51. Dark green.”
“No good.”
Herman, at the valve-grinding machine, said to Luke, “I got your Packard. The brakes are up.”
Taking his regapped plugs, Nat Emmanual left the garage and recrossed Van Ness Avenue to his lot. A colored man was kicking the tires of a ‘40 Ford coupe, and Nat nodded to him. In the office, the cramped basalt-block structure which he had built himself, his kid-brother Art was peering at the naked-girl calendar on the wall.
“Hi,” Art said, as Nat carried in the box of plugs. “When did you get this?”
“Month or so ago.”
Art said, “How about lending me a car for a couple of days? We sorta wanted to take a drive, maybe down to Santa Cruz.”
“You shouldn’t be looking at that calendar.” He put his hand over it, half seriously. “You’re a married man.”
“Yeah,” Art said. “Hey, how about that Dodge?”
“The battery cable has to be replaced.”
Art followed him out of the office, onto the lot, his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “Just for a couple of days—a weekend, maybe. So she can sit around on the beach.”
“How’s Rachael?”
“Okay.”
“Why’s she need to sit around on the beach?”
Art said, “She’s going to have a baby.” He did not look directly at his brother, he fooled with the antenna on one of the cars.
“What?” Nat said loudly. “When?”
“January, I guess.”
“How, the hell can you pay for a baby?”
“We’ll be okay.” He scuffed at the ground.
“You’re eighteen years old,” Nat said, his voice rising. When he was angry, he had a mean, loud voice; Art knew it from childhood. “You don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground. You think you’re going to manage on fifty bucks a month? Or—for Christ’s sake, do you think she can keep on working?”
The two of them were mute, and both breathed with difficulty. Gloom hung over them; defeat was in the air, a cloud of it from all directions. Nat thought about his used car lot, his row of old wrecks. He was making no money; he was on the verge of going out of business. How could he support a kid-brother with a wife and baby?