Who in Hell Is Wanda Fuca? (7 page)

"You too, Arnie. I mean, Jesus Christ, you look great."

"Clean living," he said gravely. " went full fruitarian five
years ago, changed my whole life, Leo. You wouldn't believe - "

Mercifully, two clean-cut coeds had decided on a pair of wild tie-dyed
T-shirts. Arnie hustled down to take their money. I looked around the shop.

Tie-dye was back with a vengeance. I was still shaking my head at the
vagaries of devolution when Arnie came back.

"It's the Age of Aquarius all over again, Leo." God forbid, I
thought.

"Listen, Arnie, have you still got that collection of semi=running
beaters out back of your house?"

"I'm preserving the earth's resources, Leo. Do you have any idea what
our addiction to the automobile is costing this planet? Do you - "

"Any of them big and still in running condition?"

"Well" - stroking his mustache - "there's that Buick station
wagon we used to tool around in. a real gas hog though."

"It still runs?"

"You bet." He headed off to wait on a customer. He was back.

"You'd have to take the battery out of the red Chevy with the camper on
it. Other than that I think it's just fine. Ran okay the last time I fired it
up. Burns a little oil. You want to borrow it?"

I said I did. "Tags current?" I asked.

"Not since sixty-three," he laughed. "Take the plates off the
Opel station wagon; they're good for another couple of months."

The crowd was thinning out. Mostly just wasting time. I jumped on the lull
to pick up a little information.

"Arnie, tell me what you know about an environmental group called Save
the Earth." The question pulled him up short.

"Bad news, brother, bad news," he intoned gravely. "Making
all the legitimate movements look bad. People like that make me wish I was a
CPA, man." I somehow doubted it. He elaborated. "They don't
understand that violence begets violence. They're a bunch of vigilantes. Bought
this big old armored cargo ship. Been tearing up fishing nets. Rammed what they
thought was a Japanese fishing trawler out in the Straits, turned out to be
outgoing, full of machine parts. Shit like that." He trotted over and sold
the kid the blue bong.

We were alone in the store now. For the first time I noticed that the Blues
Project was coming through the ceiling-mounted speakers. Paul Butterfield was
wailing his heart out. It still sounded good. Another hour of this and I was
going to spend the next three days calling everybody man or sister or some such
shit. As the door closed silently behind the kid, Arnie spoke down the length
of the store.

"They see most of the old-time moments as part of the problem.
Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, even Earth First! These kids hate all of them,
think they're a bunch of wussies. Don't' attend any of the symposiums or
anything. I'm telling you brother, they're going to set the movement back
thirty years is what they're going to do."

"What else?" I asked when he stopped.

"That's all I know, Leo. You want more, I know a guy, a writer, who can
maybe help you. He's more tied into that area than I am." I said I did.

Arnie reached beneath the counter and came out with an ornately tooled leather
address book. He copied down a name and number on a blue Post-it and stuck it
on my shirt front. I peeled it off and slipped it in my pocket.

"Is the gate locked?" I asked.

"Nope. You can just waltz in."

"No dogs or anything like that?"

"Just Nadine," he said with a chuckle. "She's my current
squeeze. She's probably not up yet though. Just tell her I said it was
okay."

We repeated the secret handshake, promised to get together more often, which
we both knew to be a lie, and parted company.

I walked the fifteen blocks through the U ghetto to Arnie's place. As
promised, the gate was open. Ten or twelve dilapidated cars filled the
backyard. The famous "No Hope Without Dope" VW van rested like a
piece of sculpture on cement blocks. A family of pigeons was living inside.
They made no move to escape as I peered through the dusty windows.

The Buick was backed up against the fence at the far end of the yard. A true
land yacht. A car for the long-gone nuclear family, its once woody sides faded
white. It had originally been either blue or gray - the level of oxidation made
it hard to tell. I took a tour. The tires were mismatched but looked
serviceable. I opened the passenger door. The interior was filled with more
spare parts. An axle lay across the front seat. Fifteen or twenty old rims,
some with tires, some without, filled the rest of the car, floorboard to
ceiling. I went back around the front to the driver's side, leaned in, and
popped the hood release, leaving that door open too. The rusted parts smelled
decadent and organic, like a roadkill drying in the sun.

The engine was cleaner than the rest of the car. My hopes buoyed, I walked
over to the little shack tacked on the back of the house and found Arnie's
toolbox right where he'd always kept it.

I scrounged the plates from the Opel and the battery from the Chevy. I had
the newer battery bolted into the Buick and was wedged in between the fence and
the back bumper cold-chiseling the last license-plate bolt off when I heard the
screen door squeak.

"That you honey?" Female voice, thick southern drawl. "That
you bangin' around out there?" I gave the rusted bolt three more strokes.
The plate fell into my lap. I butt-bumped my way out from behind the Buick and
stood to dust myself. She was standing on the back steps of the little house
wrapped in a blue bath towel.

I guessed she was slightly less than half Arnie's age. Twenty or so. Fresh
from the shower, her black hair glistened. I set the ball-peen hammer and
chisel on the fender and started over. If all women looked like this one,
makeup and fashion sales would go in the dumpster. She didn't need any help.
Even at a distance, my envy returned.

"Arnie's loaning me the Buick," I said, still walking.

"What's yo name, darlin'?"

"Leo." This was not last-name material.

"Not yo sign, yo name, honey."

"That is my name."

"Well then, Leo the lion, what's yo sign?"

"If I go to my cap, it's a hit and run." She didn't have a clue.

"You're funny, just like Arnie. You a friend of his?"

"We go way back," I said, stopping just in front of the battered
steps. "What about you?" I asked.

"Oh, ahm just staying' here for a bit," she said, slowly peeling
the blue towel from around her body and rubbing it around in her hair. She
seemed totally at ease standing out o the back steps in the nude. She was
perfect. Small pert breasts stood at attention above her flat stomach, a small
trail of dark fuzz led invitingly down into her thick black bush. Not a stretch
mark. Not a blemish. Not a single vein in sight. Not a chance in hell.

She finished working on her hair, draped the towel around her neck, and,
still holding the ends, smiled at me through her hair.

"You just gonna stand there gawkin' or you want to come inside?" I
presumed she meant the house.

"I'd better get the Buick going," I said weakly.

"Whatsamatter, you a queer or something', honey? Or maybe you're just
shy." I was beginning to wonder myself. She moved down a step. I
retreated. I kept my mouth shut. My silence was making her nervous.

She retrieved the towel and wound it quickly back around her body.

"Just a guy that knows his limitations," I said, trying to put her
at ease.

She shrugged. "And here I had a notion you'd be kinda grateful like old
whatshisname that lives here. You been listenin' to too much of that safe-sex
talk, Leo, become a prisoner of the media."

"In my day, safe sex meant a padded headboard."

She shook her pretty head, turned on her heel, and headed back into the
house, slamming the door behind her. My envy returned.

My fingers didn't want to work as I bolted the new plates on. Probably
insufficient blood supply. It took a while, but I got it done. I was better at
the heavy work. I cleaned out the interior in record time, piling the parts
neatly by the side of the fence.

The moment of truth was at hand. The keys were in the ignition. I brushed
the driver's seat, sat, and turned the key. The big V-8 rolled over slowly. I
got out and checked the oil. A quart down, no problem.

I tried again. The Buick shook and rocked as the engine caught, spluttered,
and finally died once again. On the fifth try it ran. For the first thirty
seconds the dry valves sounded as if they were about to come right out of the
block, but gradually, as the oil pump managed to move the sludgelike oil through
the system, things quieted down. I gunned it, looking in the mirror.

It looked like I was crop dusting. Thick blue smoke billowed into the air.
The smoke got blacker as I put the pedal to the metal. I let up. The big boat
idled nicely, if you didn't count the noxious blue smoke. I got out and closed
the hood. I replaced Arnie's tools in the little tool shed, opened the gate,
and drove through. As I reclosed the gate, my peripheral vision said she was
standing above me in the window. I looked the other way. The exhaust from the
Buick had left a two-foot black circle on the cedar fence.

All in all, the Buick drove pretty well, a bit spongy in the turns perhaps,
and the squealing of the brakes would probably open garage doors within a
three-mile radius, but overall, not too bad. I stopped at a BP station on
Eastlake with a do-it-yourself car wash. I hosed her down inside and out,
filled her up, and added a quart of oil. I checked the stick. Burned a little
oil, Arnie'd said. I'd burned half quart since I'd left his yard. I went back
inside and bought a case of oil and a blue plastic funnel and tooled downtown
to check on the crew.

By Thursday morning we'd worked up a preliminary picture of how Save the
Earth spent his day and were formulating a plan for getting a line on the
elusive Caroline Nobel.

The boys had been thrilled by the Buick. A Bentley couldn't have pleased
them more. They'd spent a full twenty minutes kicking the tires, slapping the
roof, and reminiscing about the days when Detroit made real cars like this one.
I led them on a run-through of checking the oil and extracted a promise that
they'd check it twice a day. I'd burned another half quart getting downtown.
They'd christened it "The Drunk Tank." Buddy, by default, had been
appointed designated driver.

Last I'd seen them, Monday afternoon, Buddy, his eyes barely above the
wheel, was tooling up Occidental with George riding shotgun. Harold and Ralph
had appropriated the rear seat and rode facing backward like a pair of those
spring-loaded hula dolls. They disappeared in a carbon monoxide fog as Buddy
eased her away from the light. Tailgaters beware.

"They're just fancy panhandlers, Leo. That's all," said Buddy.
Buddy was holding down my recliner, contentedly flossing with a matchbook cover.
The rest of the crew were lined up on the couch. To George's never-ending
chagrin, Buddy fancied himself management. Harold and Ralph always sided with
whoever was winning at the moment.

"Those vans take them around to whatever events are going on in town.
They stand out front and panhandle with those little cans they carry." He
consulted his notes. "So far, we been to a couple of ball games, the
Opera. They make regular rounds over at the locks and down on the
waterfront."

"How do they do?" I asked.

"No more than twenty a day each," said George, who was deemed to
be the resident on panhandling. "They're too pushy."

"How many of them?"

"Twelve out at a time. Two vans." Buddy again.

"How many people live in the building?"

"We figure twenty total. Give or take a few." Harold.

"It's hard to tell, there's a lot of traffic in and out." George.

"These kids all look alike to me." Ralph.

"What they all look is dumb." Buddy.

"Specially the hairdo on the kid who seems to be I charge." Ralph
laughed. "Leo, you ought to see - " We were getting way off track. I
pulled them back.

"Tell me about Caroline." This produced the usual round of
snorting, elbowing, and rude remarks. Buddy broke it up.

"She don't panhandle, Leo. She's got something else going on."

"Tell me about it." Buddy checked his notes again.

"She keeps meeting this guy down by Pier Fifty-seven. Around two in the
afternoon. They both drive up, find a parking space, and just sit there for a
while, looking all around."

"In the same car?" I asked.

"Nope." Harold.

"In the cars they come in. She drives this little blue Toyota. He
drives this big old Ford pickup. Big tires. Real muddy."

"And they just sit there in their cars?"

"For a while," said Buddy.

"Then what?"

"Well, on Monday he got out and walked over and got in her car. On
Wednesday she go out and went over and sat in his car."

"For how long?"

George fanned his notes. "Half hour or so on Monday. Forty minutes on
Wednesday."

"Boyfriend?" I asked.

"No way," said Buddy quickly.

"Could be," offered George. Harold and Ralph shrugged and waited.

"Looked like they were arguing to me," insisted Buddy.

"They was sitting' right on top of one another, for Chrissake,"
said George. Harold and Ralph nodded in agreement.

"He's an Eskimo," said Harold.

"Mexican," mumbled Ralph.

George held out for some sort of Indian. East, West, American, he wasn't
sure.

"What then?"

"They get back in their own cars and take off." Buddy.

"Where to?" I asked.

"She goes right back to headquarters." Buddy again.

    "What about him?"

They all looked at Buddy. There was a problem.

"You tell him, George," said Buddy. When in doubt, delegate.