FaceMate

by Steven M. Greenberg

  “Hey, now I do. You can’t just start a thing like that and not finish up.”

  “OK, so fine then; don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Eddie took a long, deep swig of the beer he had opened after take-off. Then he swiped a dab of Roquefort from the cheese tray that Matthew the fill-in pilot had set out for them just after the flight had leveled off, spread it on a cracker, popped it in his mouth, washed the semi-masticated mouthful down with another ample swig of beer, and finally:

  “OK then, Rajiv, here’s the grizzly tale of Bennie’s woe: So—Lizzie and Ben—I might have told you already, they met in high school—tenth grade, I think it was—or maybe eleventh—things get a little hazy after thirty-something years. Anyway, they met at a dance—in the high school gym it was. I was there when they met, I was looking on across the room, but it’s hard to remember the exact circumstances of the thing that long ago. What I remember, though, is how Benny was afterward. He was in love from the moment—from the second, the instant—that he met her…. I mean, she was a gorgeous little thing and all; you can understand his attraction. But this wasn’t just attraction—this was love—I’m telling you, the guy was star-struck, head over heels, as they say, right from the moment that he met her. He asked her on a date and she said OK—I wasn’t right there with him when he asked her, so I’m telling you stuff that Benny told me later—Probably she said more than just OK about the date—Lizzie was just as gaga over Ben as Ben was over her.

  “So there’s the preface to the story in a nutshell—they were in love as much as any two people I’ve ever known have ever been in love. Eleventh grade, twelfth grade, then when Benny went away to college—he finished Princeton in three years and then he got a full-ride scholarship to Wharton in Philly to study business—So from either place, wherever he was, they arranged things so that he came home or she drove out to see him nearly every weekend for the whole school year. They were inseparable, Rajiv—totally inseparable. They spoke alike, they thought alike. You can’t imagine how the two of them kind of blended into one. I’ve never seen anything like it ever since in all my life. It’s hard even to describe. I don’t know—ask any of the kids who knew them back then and they’ll tell you the same as me. Love. You can’t imagine how much the two of them were in love. It was.… I don’t know, it was….”

  Eddie stopped and dug a knuckle into the corner of each eye; then he took another swig of beer to wet his mouth, but kept his silence for a full minute or maybe more, to the point of evident discomfort for Rajiv, until the young man finally prodded:

  “So what happened, then, Eddie? I get it with the relationship between them; I understand—But you said she died. You said she got killed, right? So what happened then? How did Ben’s girlfriend finally die?”

  Too much, too fast. Eddie—poor Eddie—he’d been pushed too much and way too fast. For once, Rajiv had overstepped his bounds without quite realizing how sensitive their conversation had become to the man beside him in the comfy leather seat. Eddie wasn’t angry, just unduly stressed, and thus he blurted out abruptly, with a harshly quaking voice:

  “She got murdered is how she died. Son of a bitch! Some freaky asshole killed her is how she fucking died—OK?”

  That was it. Eddie couldn’t talk anymore for a while—for quite a while, as things turned out—and Rajiv was too polite, too intuitive, and a wee bit overly shell-shocked as well, to dare disturb him. Rajiv turned backward in his seat to see if any of the other ears aboard were tuned-in to the question and the outburst therefrom, but there were none. Vi was sleeping deeply, the sleep of the contented shopper with her coutourier requirements sated utterly for the next few months. Alex was back in his dream world once again, clutching the laptop to his chest, thinking about the next stage of his Great Endeavor: Now that he’d have the cash in hand, he was going to hire a building full of staffers, have them email each of the users of the site who’d logged their photos in, and get personal questionnaires filled out.

  Here was the lucky break he’d dreamed of since the website first was launched: Personalities, interests, hobbies; then health issues as well: Was facial morphology linked to other factors more profound? He’d bought an old book on phrenology from an eBay seller a couple of months ago, and it had got him wondering: dolichocephaly, brachycephaly, nasal shape, aural shape, interpalpebral aperture, width of mouth, fullness of lips—are they related to other factors in a person’s behavior and potential? Could they predict future issues as to length of life and health and intellect?

  From his previous findings, it was probable that sixty-eight percent of the users would respond. And since the site had logged in thirty-six million people to date and—no, scratch that—six-hundred-and-eighty-thousand, five-hundred-fifty-two more just yesterday, so adding three more days since the last full census, that made, right at the moment—as of this morning anyway—thirty-eight million, nearly thirty-nine. So, figuring sixty-eight percent of that, he’d likely get responses from….

  Alex was a quiet one, all right, but his brain was always hard at work.

  9

  “That’s him?”

  “Yeah, the handsome-looking one. The one with the nice, neat uniform. Tommy’s always neat and clean.”

  “Christ, Al, he’s nothing but a little kid!”

  “Yeah? Some kid, though. Wait’ll you see what he can do. He’s amazing, Stan. He’s a phenomenon of nature. I’ve had him here for six years now, every summer when he’s out of school, ever since his father died. He does everything. Better than any of the other guys here—honestly—even the old pros. The kid is…. Just wait, Stan—just wait, my friend—you’ll see.”

  Alan Dworkin of Dworkin Chevrolet-Buick-GMC led Stanley Crane through the Service Department’s swinging double door over to the fifth hoist down, where the kid in question, Thomas J. Mulroy, Certified GM Tech, was just finishing up torqueing the last few lug nuts on a Malibu’s right rear wheel. To look at him, you would have never pegged him for a highly skilled mechanic. He looked more like a college youth—which is precisely what he was just then—with that mop of contoured sandy hair, the wide, blue academic eyes, the male-model nose and mouth, and the leading-man dimple in the chin—super-cute, on his way to super-handsome soon enough. Not too tall, not too short—right around five-foot-ten; slender, with an athlete’s build, firm, wiry; mechanic’s hands as to strength, but clean, for Tommy always wore a pair of gloves to cordon off his nails. As to duration, Mr. Dworkin’s memory had served him right: This was the sixth year Tommy had come in for a summer job; working hard, too; his shift and supplemental coverage for the other men who didn’t want the extra time—as many hours as Mr. Dworkin’s payroll would allow; and that usually came to quite a few.

  “Tommy?—Hey, Tommy—can you stop a bit and meet a friend of mine?”

  Tommy stopped, set the air ratchet down and turned genially toward the two middle-aged men. He pulled off his safety glasses, pulled off his right-hand glove, as though in preparation to extend a friendly hand in greeting, but waited politely for an introduction, this being the proper, courteous thing to do. Tommy had never been like the other guys who worked in the shop—not a bit—He was super-smart, Joe College, a cultured gentleman through and through.

  “Tommy, this is Mr. Crane—Stanley Crane—Mr. Crane and I went to school together, and I was just telling him…. Mr. Crane has a little project, and he was hoping you might help. Now, I’m going to need you here in the service department this summer, full-time as usual, but if you want to take on a little extra work—your college bills and all—I know that’s a factor—Stan and I were talking, and I thought….”

  “Sure, Mr. Dworkin—Heck yeah!—I’d love the extra work—You know I always like the extra time you give me here, and…. Well, we’re done for the day on Saturday at noon, and there’s Sunday all day and evenings after five—So sure, any extra work I can get will help a lot toward my books and expenses, so—sure!—Uh, what would you need me to do, Mr. Crane? If it’s anything to do with a
car, I can usually handle just about anything that comes down the pike, bumper to bumper and wheels to padded roof.”

  “It’s kind of an old car, though, son.” Stanley Crane was dubious; quite naturally he was. The kid was in his early twenties at the most, and clearly didn’t look as old as even that. “None of the other guys who work here know a lot about antique cars, I hear, and as young as you are, I doubt you’ve ever worked on a car as old as mine.”

  Tommy smiled, as did Mr. Dworkin when their eyes met past Stanley Crane’s left shoulder-blade.

  “Well, sir—Mr. Crane—I did a full resto on a 1912 Buick last year, and—let’s see—I’ve done lots of ‘fifties cars, and a couple from the ‘forties, and—what was that Mercer we restored the year I started, Mr. Dworkin? That one was really old.”

  “That’s right, Stan, Tommy did a classic Mercer the first year he was here—1904, single cylinder, chain drive—he rebuilt the engine and drive train and used a metal lathe to fabricate the missing parts. Tommy did everything on that project—paint and wheels and—didn’t you even do the woodwork for the body, Tommy? And the seats? I seem to remember that you even did the seats.”

  “Yeah, that was my first diamond-tufted leather job—My mom has a really good sewing machine, and I just followed the pattern on the bottom cushions after I saw how they came apart—It wasn’t all that hard, truthfully—Usually if I can see how something’s made, I can either fix it or duplicate it—So, Mr. Crane, whatever you’ve got for me to do, I can probably handle it, and I’d sure appreciate the opportunity to make a few extra bucks before I head back to school, so….”

  Stanley Crane, despite his not unreasonable doubts, was pretty nearly sold—Who wouldn’t have been sold after that phenomenal introduction? He pursed his lips, then nodded in acceptance: “OK, sure,” he offered. “I’ll take a shot, young fellow. Umm, what my car is, is a ’70 Toronado—you know, an Olds? My dad had one just like it, and I always wanted to….”

  “You get it locally, sir?—here in Arizona, I mean.”

  “I bought it in an auction—actually Alan—Mr. Dworkin, that is—he found it for me. It was from—where did it originally come from, Al? Wasn’t it from Utah or something?”

  “Denver—Outside of Denver—It’s a clean car, Tommy, just some minor surface rust. It’ll need a full restoration though, paint, mechanical, suspension, the works.”

  “OK, sounds great. When’s a good time to start, Mr. Crane?”

  “Well, how long will it take get it done, son?”

  “A couple of months maybe. Depends on how much it needs and how hard it’ll be to find the parts—I’d say, worst case scenario, three months, but probably less than two.”

  “And how much is it going to cost me—can you give me a ball-park figure, young man?”

  “Well, Mr. Dworkin pays me fifteen an hour, but I’d hate to leave it open and keep you hanging—Why don’t you just pay me for the job—say, fifteen hundred over and above the parts. I’ll have maybe three or four hundred hours in it all told, but it sounds like a fun project and I’ve got nothing much else to do on weekends and evenings. And with another fifteen hundred on top of what I earn from Mr. Dworkin here, and with the scholarship and all….

  “So, Mr. Crane, if it’s a deal, bring me in the Toronado and I’ll get things started today. I’m done here a little after five.”

  “So—Tommy—what was that all about?”

  Leonard Murchison stepped over from the brake job he was in the middle of, ratchet in hand, and tapped Tommy’s shoulder with his gnarly fingers, leaving a circular dab of grease on the Dworkin GM trademark shirt.

  “Moonlighting again, Lenny. Mr. Dworkin has a buddy who wants his car restored. A ‘70 Toronado—Should be lots of fun.”

  “Christ, kid, aintcha workin’ hard enough? You’re gonna kill yerself.”

  “Hey, you don’t kill yourself by working, Lenny; you kill yourself by worrying how you’re gonna get out of doing work.”

  “Come on, Tommy! You don’t get tired of this shit day after day? Bustin’ your knuckles for a couple fuckin’ crumbs?”

  “No, man; I love it. Always did, always will. I used to help my dad when I was just a little kid. He and I—we used to work on cars from the time I was—Jeez, I must have been five or six, maybe even younger than that. I rebuilt my first engine when I was ten; a Chevy big block, which came out great too; the darn thing purred like a kitten once we set it in the car—No, Len—Engines, trannies, everything about a car—I love it, man. Hey, this is fun for me; it’s never seemed the slightest bit like work.”

  “I used to work for your dad, did you know I did?”

  “Yeah? Did you? When?”

  “Prob’bly ‘fore you was born—Yeah, it musta been—How old are you now, kid?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “Yeah, it was before. I musta worked for him nearly thirty years ago. Back when he had that Sunoco shop on Pine—You remember that?”

  “Sunoco? No, that’s before my time. When I was little he had his own garage—On Navajo, remember that one?”

  “Yeah, sure. There’s a bump shop in there now, right?”

  “That’s the one. Listen—Hey, hand me the air hose, will you, Len?” Tommy agreed to talk for politeness’ sake, but he always worked while he was talking. He never wasted time. The other guys respected him for that, although they wouldn’t have respected each other under the same set of circumstances. There was a code of behavior here in the shop: Work hard enough to do your job but not hard enough to show the other fellows up. That applied to everyone but Tommy; Tommy had always been exempt.

  “It was sad about your dad, you know?”

  “Yeah; he died doing what he loved though. He loved cars as much as I do.”

  “So—Tommy—I don’t get it, kid—How come you go to college if you like bein’ a mechanic so much?”

  “I don’t know, Len; I love being a mechanic, but I really want to do something more significant with cars—some new innovation, you know? I figure with an advanced degree in automotive engineering—especially from a great place like Cal-Davis, where I got the free ride—Once I finish, I can maybe get in with the top brass who do the latest research and design the future cars, the guys who one day might just get to take the industry to another level completely—Maybe a whole new technology is out there that no one’s ever dreamed about before. That’s what I want to do. If I had a billion dollars, I’d start a company that made the best damn cars in the world right here in America—maybe even here in Arizona—I’d go out and hire a bunch of totally devoted car guys—you know: guys like me who love the concept more than just the money—Hands-on guys who don’t just want to fix them, but want to make them into something special—to get their hands dirty building the best damn vehicles in the world. Craftsmen, I mean—Guys who work on the line building things they love and can be proud of. Guys like Henry Ford and Ransom Olds and….”

  “Yeah, good luck with that shit, Tommy. Pipe dreams. Ain’t gonna happen, kid. Me, I just wanna put in my eight-to-five during the day, get my check at the end of the week, and get laid on the weekend—Speaking of which,” Lenny snickered, but in a nice way, inquisitive but not unpleasant. “So—What’s up with you and Sandy?”

  “With … Sandy?—Hey, can you hold this fitting up while I get the bolt to start?—Yeah, right there, Len. Thanks. Good—Sandy, you’re asking? Our Sandy? The girl out front who orders all our parts?”

  “Yeah, what’s up with you and her?”

  “Nothing—I mean, why are you asking me that?”

  “Why! Hey, I seen her takin’ your pitcher earlier today. A bunch of pitchers, I mean. You guys got somethin’ goin on the side?”

  “Hey, I’ve got a ‘70 Toronado going on the side and that’s about it for the next two months—or probably three. But Sandy?—No. The picture, that picture—“

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t know; Sandy thinks I’m sort of cute or something—That’s what she s
aid, anyway—And she said if I’m not going to ask her out, she’s going to find somebody who looks like me and go out with him.”

  “Oh yeah? And how’s she gonna do that, huh? Put an ad in the paper or somethin’? Put a want ad with your pitcher in it? In the personals?”

  “Not the paper, no; not the personals. She said there’s some kind of screwy computer website that does it. I don’t know a whole lot more than that, though. But if you’re curious about it, Len—hey—why don’t you go find Sandy out front and ask her yourself?’

  10

  Thirty-something million users of the website right around the time that Atherton anted in—nothing to sneeze at certainly—But once the deal was done, once Ben’s people put their unexampled expertise to work—Good Lord! The FaceMate site was pretty nearly running off the rails.

  Ben had done the heaviest of the heavy lifting all on his own—and why not? After all, he was the fellow with the household name. He was the guy who could make a couple of calls and have the ear of the moneyed public hanging on his every word. Publicity was the key to growth, Ben figured, and once he got to thinking about valuation in the days to come, it occurred to him that the publicity they would need should be directed, not just at the teenies and twenty-somethings who were already deluging the FaceMate servers with photos and questions galore, no—but at an older age group as well, at a grown-up demographic who bought stock and owned companies themselves. If you want to go public with an offering in the future, you need to go public right now with informing the masses about your fantastic new thing. That’s what Ben figured should be done, and that’s just what he did.

  So first of all, first thing Monday morning after the weekend when the contracts had been modified and signed, he picked up the phone and made some calls. He had the numbers in his cell, of course: All the famous names and all their less-known influential bosses who ran the show behind the scenes: Hey, Neil—Hey, Maria—Hey Randall, tell Stuart that I called to say…. What he called to say, in summary, was that he could be in the City on—oh, let’s say tomorrow, or Wednesday, or next Tuesday morning. You guys need me for an interview? Or for a panel? Or…?