Bagombo Snuff Box (20 page)

“It’s not for me, understand,” the customer was saying. He
looked down in amazement at the low, boxy MG. “It’s for my boy. He’s been talking
about one of these things.”

“A fine young-man’s car,” Daggett said. “And reasonably
priced for a sports car.”

“Now he’s raving about some other car, a Mara-sornething.”

“Marittima-Frascati,” said Kiah.

Daggett and the customer seemed surprised to find him in the
same room.

“Mmmm, yes, that’s the name,” the customer said.

“Have one in the city. I could get it out here early next
week,” said Daggett.

“How much?”

“Fifty-six hundred and fifty-one dollars,” said Kiah.

Daggett gave a flat, unfriendly laugh. “You’ve got a good
memory, Kiah.”

“Fifty-six hundred!” the customer said. “I love my boy, but
love’s got to draw the line somewhere. I’ll take this one.” He took a checkbook
from his pocket.

Kiah’s long shadow fell across the receipt Daggett was
making out.

“Kiah, please. You’re in the light.” Kiah didn’t move. “Kiah,
what is it you want? Why don’t you sweep out the back room or something?”

“I just wanted to say,” Kiah said, his breathing shallow, “that
when this gentleman is through, I’d like to order the Marittima-Frascati.”

“You what?” Daggett stood angrily.

Kiah took out his own checkbook.

“Beat it!” Daggett said.

The customer laughed.

“Do you want my business?” Kiah asked.

“I’ll take care of your business, kid, but good. Now sit
down and wait.”

Kiah sat down until the customer left.

Daggett then walked toward Kiah slowly, his fists clenched. “Now,
young man, your funny business almost lost me a sale.”

“I’ll give you two minutes, Mr. Daggett, to call up the bank
and find out if I’ve got the money, or I’ll get my car someplace else.”

Daggett called the bank. “George, this is Bill Daggett.” He
interjected a supercilious laugh. “Look, George, Kiah Higgins wants to write me
a check for fifty-six hundred dollars. . . . That’s what I said. I swear he
does. . . . Okay, I’ll wait.” He drummed on the desktop and avoided looking at
Kiah.

“Fine, George. Thanks.” He hung up.

“Well?” Kiah said.

“I made that call to satisfy my curiosity,” said Daggett. “Congratulations.
I’m very impressed. Back to work.”

“It’s my money. I earned it,” Kiah said. “I worked and saved
for four years—four lousy, long years. Now I want that car.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“That car is all I can think about, and now it’s going to be
mine, the damnedest car anybody around here ever saw.”

Daggett was exasperated. “The Marittima-Frascati is a plaything
for maharajas and Texas oil barons. Fifty-six hundred dollars, boy! What would
that leave of your savings?”

“Enough for insurance and a few tanks of gas.” Kiah stood. “If
you don’t want my business. . .”

“You must be sick,” said Daggett.

“You’d understand if you’d been brought up here, Mr.
Daggett, and your parents had been dead broke.”

“Baloney! Don’t tell me what it is to be broke till you’ve
been broke in the city. Anyway, what’s the car going to do for you?”

“It’s going to give me one hell of a good time—and about
time. I’m going to do some living, Mr. Daggett. The first of next week, Mr.
Daggett?”

The midafternoon stillness of the village was broken by the
whir of a starter and the well-bred grumble of a splendid engine.

Kiah sat deep in the lemon-yellow leather cushions of the powder-blue
Marittima-Frascati, listening to the sweet thunder that followed each gentle
pressure of his toe. He was scrubbed pink, and his hair was freshly cut.

“No fast stuff, now, for a thousand miles, you hear?”
Daggett said. He was in a holiday mood, resigned to the bizarre wonder Kiah had
wrought. “That’s a piece of fine jewelry under the hood, and you’d better treat
it right. Keep it under sixty for the first thousand miles, under eighty until
three thousand.” He laughed. ‘And don’t try to find out what she can really do
until you’ve put five thousand on her.” He clapped Kiah on the shoulder. “Don’t
get impatient, boy. Don’t worry—she’ll do it!”

Kiah switched on the engine again, seeming indifferent to
the crowd gathered around him.

“How many of these you suppose are in the country?” Kiah
asked

“Ten, twelve.” Daggett winked. “Don’t worry. All the others are
in Dallas and Hollywood.”

Kiah nodded judiciously. He hoped to look like a man who had
made a sensible purchase and, satisfied with his money’s worth, was going to
take it home now. The moment for him was beautiful and funny, but he did not
smile.

He put the car in gear for the first time. It was so easy. “Pardon
me,” he said to those in his way. He raced his engine rather than blow his
brass choir of horns. “Thank you.”

When Kiah got the car onto the six-lane turnpike, he ceased
feeling like an intruder in the universe. He was as much a part of it as the
clouds and the sea. With the mock modesty of a god traveling incognito, he permitted
a Cadillac convertible to pass him. A pretty girl at its wheel smiled down on
him.

Kiah touched the throttle lightly and streaked around her.
He laughed at the speck she became in his rearview mirror. The temperature
gauge climbed, and Kiah slowed the Marittima-Frascati, forgiving himself this
one indulgence. Just this once—it had been worth it. This was the life!

The girl and the Cadillac passed him again. She smiled, and
gestured disparagingly at the expanse of hood before her. She loved his car.
She hated hers.

At the mouth of a hotel’s circular driveway, she signaled
with a flourish and turned in. As though coming home, the Marittima-Frascati
followed, purred beneath the porte cochere and into the parking lot. A
uniformed man waved, smiled, admired, and directed Kiah into the space next to
the Cadillac. Kiah watched the girl disappear into the cocktail lounge, each step
an invitation to follow.

As he crossed the deep white gravel, a cloud crossed the
sun, and in the momentary chill, Kiah’s stride shortened. The universe was
treating him like an intruder again. He paused on the cocktail lounge steps and
looked over his shoulder at the car. There it waited for its master, low, lean,
greedy for miles—Kiah Higgins’s car.

Refreshed, Kiah walked into the cool lounge. The girl sat
alone in a corner booth, her eyes down. She amused herself by picking a wooden
swizzle stick to bits. The only other person in the room was the bartender, who
read a newspaper.

“Looking for somebody, sonny?”

Sonny? Kiah felt like driving the Marittima-Frascati into
the bar. He hoped the girl hadn’t heard. “Give me a gin and tonic,” he said
coldly, “and don’t forget the lime.”

She looked up. Kiah smiled with the camaraderie of
privilege, horsepower, and the open road.

She nodded back, puzzled, and returned her attention to the
swizzle stick.

“Here you are, sonny,” said the bartender, setting the drink
before him. He rattled his newspaper and resumed his reading.

Kiah drank, cleared his throat, and spoke to the girl. “Nice
weather,” he said.

She gave no sign that he’d said anything. Kiah turned to the
bartender, as though it were to him he’d been speaking. “You like to drive?”

“Sometimes,” the bartender said.

“Weather like this makes a man feel like really letting his
car go full-bore.” The bartender turned a page without comment. “But I’m just
breaking her in, and I’ve got to keep her under fifty.”

“I guess.”

“Big temptation, knowing she’s guaranteed to do a hundred
and thirty.”

The bartender put down his paper irritably. “What’s guaranteed?”

“My new car, my Marittima-Frascati.”

The girl looked up, interested.

“Your what?” the bartender said.

“My Marittima-Frascati. It’s an Italian car.”

“It sure don’t sound like an American one. Who you driving
it for?”

“Who’m I driving it for?”

“Yeah. Who owns it?”

“Who you think owns it? I own it.”

The bartender picked up his paper again. “He owns it. He
owns it, and it goes a hundred and thirty. Lucky boy.”

Kiah replied by turning his back. “Hello,” he said to the
girl, with more assurance than he thought possible. “How’s the Cad treating
you?”

She laughed. “My car, my fiance, or my father?”

“Your car,” Kiah said, feeling stupid for not having a
snappier retort.

“Cads always treat me nicely. I remember you now. You were
in that darling little blue thing with yellow seats. I somehow didn’t connect
you with the car. You look different. What did you call it?”

“A Marittima-Frascati.”

“Mmmmmm. I could never learn to say that.”

“It’s a very famous car in Europe,” Kiah said. Everything
was going swimmingly. “Won the Avignon road race two years running, you know.”

She smiled a bewitching smile. “No! I didn’t know that.”

“Guaranteed to go a hundred and thirty.”

“Goodness. 1 didn’t think a car could go that fast.”

“Only about twelve in the country, if that.”

“Certainly isn’t many, is it? Do you mind my asking how much
one of those wonderful cars costs?”

Kiah leaned back against the bar. “No, I don’t mind. Seems
to me it was somewhere between five and six.”

“Oh, between those, is it? Quite something to be between.”

“Oh, I think it’s well worth it. I certainly don’t feel I’ve
thrown any money down a sewer.”

“That’s the important thing.”

Kiah nodded happily, and stared into the wonderful eyes,
whose admiration seemed bottomless. He opened his mouth to say more, to keep
the delightful game going forever and ever, when he realized he had nothing
more to say. “Nice weather.”

A glaze of boredom formed on her eyes. “Have you got the
time?” she asked the bartender.

“Yes, ma’am. Seven after four.”

“What did you say?” asked Kiah.

“Four, sonny.”

A ride, Kiah thought, maybe she’d like to go for a ride.

The door swung open. A handsome young man in tennis shorts
blinked and grinned around the room, poised, vain, and buoyant. “Marion!” he
cried. “Thank heaven you’re still here. What an angel you are for waiting for
me!”

Her face was stunning with adoration. “You’re not very late,
Paul, and I forgive you.”

“Like a fool, I let myself get into a game of doubles, and
it just went on and on. I finally threw the game. I was afraid I’d lose you
forever. What’ve you been up to while you’ve been waiting?”

“Let me see. Well, I tore up a swizzle stick, and I, uh—
Ohhhhhh! I met an extremely interesting gentleman who has a car that will go a
hundred and thirty miles an hour.”

“Well, you’ve been slickered, dear, because the man was
lying about his car.”

“Those are pretty strong words,” Marion said.

Paul looked pleased. “They are?”

“Considering that the man you called a liar is right here in
this room.”

“Oh, my.” Paul looked around the room with a playful expression
of fear. His eyes passed over Kiah and the bartender. “There are only four of
us here.”

She pointed to Kiah. “That boy there. Would you mind telling
Paul about your Vanilla Frappe?”

“Marittima-Frascati,” Kiah said, his voice barely audible.
He repeated it, louder. “Marittima-Frascati.”

“Well,” Paul said, “I must say it sounds like it’d go two hundred
a second. Have you got it here?”

“Outside,” Kiah said.

“That’s what I meant,” Paul said. “I must learn to express myself
with more precision.” He looked out over the parking lot. “Oho, I see. The
little blue jobbie. Ver-ry nice, scary but gorgeous. And that’s yours?”

“I said it was.”

“Might be the second-fastest car in these parts. Probably
is.”

“Is that a fact?” Kiah said sarcastically. “I’d like to see
the first.”

“Would you? It’s right outside, too. There, the green one.”

The car was a British Hampton. Kiah knew the car well. It
was the one he’d begun saving for before Daggett showed him pictures of the
Marittima-Frascati.

“It’ll do,” Kiah said.

“Do, will it?” Paul laughed. “It’ll do yours in, and I’ll
bet anything you like.”

“Listen,” said Kiah, “I’d bet the world on my car against
yours, if mine was broken in.”

“Pity,” said Paul. “Another time, then.” He explained to
Marion, “Not broken in, Marion. Shall we go?”

“I’m ready, Paul,” she said. “I’d better tell the attendant
I’ll be back for the Cadillac, or he’ll think I’ve been kidnapped.”

“Which is exactly what is about to happen,” said Paul. “Be
seeing you, Ralph,” he said to the bartender. They knew each other.

“Always glad to see you, Paul,” said Ralph.

So Kiah now knew the names of all three, but they didn’t
know what his name was. Nobody had asked. Nobody cared. What could matter less
than what his name was?

Kiah watched through a window as Marion spoke to the parking
attendant, and then eased herself down into the passenger seat of the
low-slung Hampton.

Ralph asked the nameless one this: “You a mechanic? Somebody
left that car with you, and you took it out for a road test? Better put the top
up, because it’s gonna rain.”

The rear wheels of the powder-blue dragon with the
lemon-yellow leather bucket seats sprayed gravel at the parking attendant’s
legs. A doorman beneath the porte cochere signaled for it to slow down, then
jumped for his life.

Kiah was encouraging it softly, saying, “That’s good, let’s
go, let’s go. I love yah,” and so on. He steered, and shifted the synchromesh
gears so the car could go ever faster smoothly, but he felt doing all that was
really unnecessary, that the car itself knew better than he did where to go
and how to do what it had been born to do.

The only Marittima-Frascati for thousands of miles swept
past cars and trucks as though they were standing still. The needle of the
temperature gauge on the padded dashboard was soon trembling against the pin at
the extreme end of the red zone.