Parker shook his head. Over the skinny man’s head, he called to the woman, “You want to keep that dog right there next to you.” Then he started walking towards the garage. The skinny man hollered and made as if it come after him, but then he stopped. The woman rested her hand on the dog’s head and watched Parker cross the yard.
The side door of the garage opened again, and a man came out with a shotgun cradled on his arm. He was short and skinny, like the other one, with the same kind of narrow face and dead hair. He was similarly dressed in faded blue, bibbed overalls. They were obviously brothers, but what was petulance in Kent’s face became strength in Chemy’s. He came out, closed the door after him, and said, “Stop right there, friend.”
Parker stopped. “Hello, Chemy,” he said.
Chemy looked past him at Kent. “Well? Is he Parker or ain’t he Parker?”
Kent didn’t answer at first. Parker half-turned and looked back at him. “Am I, Kent?”
“Yuh,” said Kent. He said it reluctantly, and glared at the woman, as though daring her to laugh again. But she was silent, her face carefully blank as she watched them, her fingers scratching the top of the dog’s head between its ears.
To his brother, Chemy said, “Get us a drink. Come on in, Parker.” He led the way back into the garage, and set the shotgun against the wall beside the door.
The garage was big enough to hold four cars. At the moment, there was a fifteen-year-old, red Ford pickup truck parked down by the far wall, and an orange Volkswagen next to it. The Volkswagen’s rear lid was open and the engine had been removed and was lying on two-by-fours behind the car. The back seat had been taken out, too, and was leaning against the side of the pickup truck. All along the back wall was a workbench, littered with tools, small parts, lengths of wire, and pieces of metal. Automobile body parts were stacked here and there in the remaining space, and two engines hung by chain and pulley from the roof beams. A small plastic radio on the workbench was blaring country and western music; a girl singer with a twang as bad as a harelip was singing about unrequited love.
“Well, now,” said Chemy. “You sure changed your face around. But you’re still just as mean as ever.”
“That brother of yours needs a talking to.”
Chemy shrugged, and grinned faintly. “If you were Parker, you’d do what you done. If you weren’t, you’d let him chase you off the place.”
Parker shrugged. It didn’t matter one way or the other. He was just hot from the walk.
Chemy said, “Take a look down here at this VW. What do you think of this? A ‘57 Ford straight-six engine in there in back, and re-did Chevy brakes. Think she’ll move?”
Parker frowned at the Volkswagen. “No,” he said.
“No? Why in hell not?”
“Where’s your cooling system?”
“Right where the back seat used to be, with scoops down through the floor. ‘51 Plymouth radiator assembly that fits real nice.”
Parker knew he was supposed to think of every objection he could, so Chemy could show him how smart he was. He said, “Not enough weight for the power. She’ll go like a motorboat with her nose up in the air. You’d have to take corners at ten miles an hour.”
“No, sir. I’ve weighted down that front end, so your centre of gravity is right here.” He touched a spot low on the side just behind the door.
“That’s pretty far back.”
“Oh, she’ll jounce, I know she will. But the weight is just far enough up so you can take corners just about any damn speed you like.”
Parker shook his head. “She’ll jounce apart,” he said. “She won’t last a year.”
“I know damn well she won’t. But she’ll last a month, and that’s all she’s wanted for. A car that looks slow but does like a bat out of hell. That’s what this girl is. A special order.”
“So everything’s worked out then.”
“No, it ain’t.” Chemy frowned at the car. “One damn thing you know what that is?”
“What?”
“I can’t make her soundlike a VW. I’ve tried all sorts of mufflers; I’ve run pipe back and forth underneath there till she looked like a plate of spaghetti; but she never does sound like a VW. You know that little ‘cough-cough’ sounds the VW’s got? Your VW fires slow, is what it is, and I be damned if I can get the effect.” He glared at the car again, shaking his head. “I’ll get it,” he said.
“Sure.” Parker knew he would. Chemy made cars do whatever he wanted them to do.
“Sure,” agreed Chemy. He turned away from the Volkswagen. “So what do you want? A car? Anything special?”
“Just a car. With clean papers.”
“How clean? To sell?”
“No. To show if I’m stopped for speeding.”
“Takin’ her out of the state?”
“Up north.”
“All right then.”
The garage door opened and Kent came in, carrying three glasses and a bottle of corn liquor as colourless as water. He glanced sullenly at his brother and Parker, then went over to the workbench, set the glasses down, and poured three drinks.
Chemy and Parker went over and they all drank. It was good liquor, leaving a harsh wood-smoke taste on the tongue and a bright burning at the back of the throat.
Chemy set his glass down and cleared his throat. “How new?” he asked.
“Doesn’t matter. But I’ll be going maybe a couple thousand miles in it, so I don’t want one ready to fall apart.”
Chemy nodded. “When?”
“Now.”
“Always in a hurry.” Chemy grinned at his brother. “This Parker,” he said. “Always in a hurry, huh?”
“Huh,” said Kent. He was being surly, staring into his empty glass.
Chemy winked at Parker, finished his own drink, and said, “I got two in the barn right now, but not what you got to have. Both hot, both no good. I got to take a ride. How much you want to pay?”
“I’ll go a thousand if I have to.”
“Well, maybe you won’t have to. You go set on the porch a while. Come on, Kent.”
They went outside and Parker strolled over to the house while the two brothers went around behind the garage. He went up on the porch and sat on the other chair. The woman grinned at him, showing spaces where she’d lost teeth, and said, “I guess I must of heard about you.”
“Maybe,” said Parker.
A six-year-old Pontiac station wagon with Chemy at the wheel and his brother beside him appeared from behind the garage and went off down the rutted road. Parker sat and smoked, waiting. The woman tried to start a conversation with him once or twice, but he didn’t encourage her, so she quit. The dog got up again after a while, went down off the porch, and loped away around the house. A while later Parker got to his feet, went into the house, and walked through rooms of sagging furniture to the kitchen, where he got himself a drink of water. He didn’t see the boy. The woman followed him in, and stood in the kitchen doorway, smiling hesitantly at him, but not saying anything. When he started out of the kitchen, she murmured, “We got time.”
He shook his head, and went back out on the porch. She stayed inside the house.
He waited three hours, and the sun was turning red way off near the western horizon when Chemy and Kent came back. Kent was driving the Pontiac this time, and Chemy was following him in a four-year-old blue Oldsmobile with Alabama plates. Kent took the Pontiac around behind the garage, and Chemy stopped the Oldsmobile in front of the house. He got out and patted the hood and said, “Well? What do you think?”
“What do youthink?”
Chemy grinned, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t know yet. I figure maybe. The car’s hot in Florida, and the plates are hot in Alabama, but the plates are off a LaSalle, so you got nothing to worry about.”
“LaSalle? There’s still some of them around?”
“Give me three days around here, Parker, I’ll find you a Marmon.”
“I don’t want a Marmon.”