Skimm was standing by the stove, watching a battered tin coffee pot. He’d spent so much of his life jungled up he didn’t know how to make coffee any other way but in an old beat-up pot. There were two heavy china mugs on the table, and steel spoons, but no saucers. A pint of Old Mr. Boston stood next to one mug.
“Sit down,” Skimm said, “she’s almost ready.”
Parker sat down at the table and lit a cigarette. “You got an ash tray?”
“Yeah, wait a second.” Skimm looked around and then brought a saucer over to the table. “Here you are.”
“Thanks.” Parker dropped the match onto the saucer.
Skimm went back over to the stove and watched the coffee pot some more. Over his shoulder, he said, “Things comin’ along, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess you were right, Parker. We only needed three men. Even with that Stubbs to louse things up.”
“You want to watch him this afternoon. Yesterday, he started to throw a two-by-four at me.”
Skimm bobbed his head and grinned. “Getting stir-crazy, huh?”
“Just another week,” Parker said. He shrugged. “I’m going south today, be back Monday. Picking up a truck. Come out to the airport with me and take the car. Use it when you go walk Stubbs and then let Handy have it.”
“Okay.” Skimm turned the fire off under the coffee pot and poured them two cups of coffee. He set out milk and sugar for Parker, and poured a belt of Old Mr. Boston in with his coffee. Then he sat down. “You got a truck, huh?”
Parker nodded.
“A good one?”
“How do I know till I see it?”
“That’s right, ain’t it?” Skimm sipped at his coffee, and made a face. “You say it’s down south?”
“North Carolina.”
“North Carolina,” repeated Skimm. “And you going to fly down, huh?”
“Shut up a while,” Parker said.
Skimm blinked rapidly for a few seconds, and then looked down at his coffee cup. He took another sip, and made a face again. Then he coughed, and looked slant-eyed at Parker. Parker just sat there, smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee, waiting for it to be time to go to the airport.
After a while, Skimm coughed again. “You getting nervous about it, Parker?”
Parker focused on him slowly. He’d been miles away. “Nervous about what?”
“You know. The job.”
“No.”
“I thought — you acted jumpy.”
“Irritated,” Parker answered. “The job isn’t clean, there’s too much to watch.”
“You mean Stubbs?”
Parker shrugged.
“Listen,” Skimm said. “I know you don’t like Alma. She’s kind of bitchy sometimes, I know that. But she’s okay, Parker, she really is. You got to get to know her. I wish you’d try to get to know her.”
Parker looked at him, his mouth dragging down at the corners. “You offering her to me?”
Skimm got confused then, and looked at his coffee cup. “No, no, I didn’t mean that, nothing like that. I only meant—” He ran down, not sure how to explain himself.
“Sure,” said Parker. He finished his coffee and got to his feet. “Let’s go out to the airport.”
“What time’s your plane?”
“Two-fifty.”
“We got time, then.”
“I want to go now.”
“Sure. Okay.” Skimm stood up and finished his coffee, gulping it down. He started to put the pint in his pocket, but Parker said, “Leave it. You’re going to be driving.”
“Okay. Sure.”
They went out to the car, and Parker drove to the airport. When he got out of the car, he said, “You let Stubbs get away, I’ll stomp you.”
“Don’t you worry,” said Skimm. “He won’t go nowhere.”
Parker walked away into the terminal.
4
Coldsboro is small and pinch-faced, a backwater town on the Neuse River, surrounded by tobacco fields. There’s an air base nearby, and the State Hospital for Negro Insane. These, and cotton and fertilizer, are what the town lives on.
Parker got off the bus a little after ten, Saturday night. The workers and the airmen filled the streets. He pushed through and went into a diner where he got directions to the Double Ace Garage. It was too far to walk, so he went back to the tiny bus depot and took the only cab, an old black Chevrolet.
The Double Ace Garage was a long, low, shed-like construction of concrete blocks. It was painted a dirty white, with the name in red lettering over the wide doors at the front. Parker went inside to the office cubicle, stuck in the right hand corner up front, and found a hairy florid stout man sitting in a swivel chair at a rolltop desk. He was smoking a cigar, and he left it in his mouth when he talked.
“I’m Flynn. Lawson sent me.”
“Yah,” said the florid man. He turned slightly, and the swivel chair squeaked drily. “He phoned.”
“Let’s see it,” Parker said.
“Yah. You’re in a hurry, hah?”
Parker waited.
The florid man grunted and heaved himself out of the chair. They went around to the side of the building, where there was a gravel lot. The truck was standing there, a nine-year-old Dodge cab and a Fruehauf trailer, lit by a floodlight on the side of the building. The trailer was metal color and covered with grime, and the cab red. Some company name on the doors had been painted out with a darker red. The engine was running.
Parker shook his head. He went over and opened the door on the driver’s side and reached up and turned the ignition key. The engine stopped. The florid man watched him, chewing slowly on his cigar, but Parker ignored him. He looked at the rubber all the way around. It was all lousy but at least there were no threads showing.
The mudguards were gone, and so were most of the safety lights. The window was broken in the righthand door, and there was some sort of jury-rigged rope arrangement keeping cab and trailer together because the original hitch was broken. The floor mats were gone in the cab, showing where part of the metal flooring had rusted through.
Parker opened the trailer doors and saw that most of the wooden inner walls had been ripped out. He shook his head again and went around front to open the left side of the hood. The engine was a greasy mess, the wiring frayed, the radiator hoses cracked. The dip stick was gone, and so was the breather.
Parker closed the hood again, got down, and wiped his hands on the fender. Then he crawled under the cab. There was a large oil stain on the ground, and the lube points were practically covered by caked-on dirt.
He came out from under the cab. “She’s a mess.”
The florid man grinned around his cigar, and spread his hands. “For the price?” he said. “Come on back to the office.”
Parker went with him back to the office. The florid man started to say, “I know she don’t look—” when Parker turned around and went back out again. The florid man looked startled. “Hey! Where you goin’?”
Parker went around to the side of the building again. A kid in a greasy coverall had the hood open. There was a battery on the ground beside the cab, and he was getting set to attach the jumper cables.
The florid man came heavily around the corner. “Now, listen here, buddy.”
Parker turned to him. “I want a new battery,” he said. “And new plugs. And fresh oil. And a lube. And enough lights on the box so I don’t get stopped by state troopers.”
The florid man was shaking his head, chewing more rapidly on the cigar. “That wasn’t the deal. As is, that was the deal, as is.”
“No deal,” Parker said. He walked around the florid man and started toward the street.
“Hey, wait a minute!”