“This car’s been sitting here,” I said, “ever since they built these apartments. That was in the eighties, and Dr. Palmer probably had it a long time before that. I don’t know.”
Larry kept shaking his head in wonder. “You ever see Bill Cosby’s routine about his Shelby Cobra? Shelby made it special for him. A Supersnake. It’s on YouTube. It’s called ‘Two Hundred MPH.’ There were only two of them. Shelby sold one to Bill Cosby and kept one for himself.”
It was my turn to shake my head as we stood in silence, staring down at a powerful Ford engine that didn’t look anything like the engine in Pa’s Ford pickup. I put my finger on the new battery I’d put in myself. I touched the radiator, the carburetor, and the air intake values, which looked like silver drinking goblets.
“I don’t suppose you want to sell it?” he asked.
“How much?”
“I could probably give you fifty.”
“Fifty dollars?”
“Fifty thousand. It’d take a while to get the money together.”
“Probably not, Larry, but let me do some checking first, okay?”
“Look up Bill Cosby on YouTube,” he said. “‘Two Hundred MPH.’ He makes all the engine sounds. It’s pretty convincing.” Pause. “But it was too much for him. He was afraid to drive it. He took it back. Shelby sold it to another guy who drove it off a cliff into the Pacific Ocean.”
It was three o’clock when Larry left. We watched the Bill Cosby routine on YouTube and then called Tommy for some advice, and then I started calling auction houses: Barrett-Jackson, Gooding, RM—but they were all pretty snooty. Tommy had recommended the Bascomb Summer Classic in Indianapolis as the place for muscle cars. When I told the Bascomb customer rep that I had a 1966 Cobra 427, Mr. Bascomb himself, Lloyd, got on the phone–a rough sounding character, but very helpful—and explained everything I needed to know and everything that needed to be done before the July deadline: VIN, registration, photos, position request. They needed photos right away, and Ruthy spent the rest of the afternoon taking pictures from every angle with a new digital camera.
The insurance office was closed, but I called Connie at home and she told me I couldn’t put a Shelby Cobra on my insurance policy. I’d have to go to Lloyd’s of London or someplace like that.
“Lloyd’s of London,” I said. “Are there other places like that?
She gave me some names—Hagerty, Classic, Voyager—which I wrote down in the back of the phone book. My hand was shaking. She said she’d get the numbers for me on Monday. “Just don’t drive it around tomorrow.”
We put the tarp back on the car so that if thieves broke into the garage, they wouldn’t see it.
And then we celebrated.
I made a big salad and cooked spaghetti alla carbonara using a recipe from a cookbook we’d brought back from Verona. “It’s simplicity itself,” I explained. “I don’t know why Paul always had so much trouble. Some cookbooks tell you to leave some of the cooking water on the spaghetti, so the water will cook the egg, but the water just dilutes the egg and makes it runny. What you’ve got to do is use one medium egg for exactly one hundred ten grams of pasta. That’s a quarter of a pound.”
Ruthy grilled a steak on the deck and we ate the spaghetti while the steak rested. The deck was barren, but on Sunday we were going to bring the flower pots up and look for some geraniums for the window boxes.
We opened the last bottle of Paul’s Barolo—which I’d saved for a special occasion—and stayed up drinking and talking and eating strawberries. We talked about our good fortune, and Stella ragged on me about going to Italy in January. “You’re rich now,” she said, “and you’re retired. You haven’t got any excuses.”
“Is that young woman still coming to see Tommy every Wednesday?”
“Every Wednesday, Ma, and Tommy cooks supper for her.”
“I’ll bet he does,” I said. I wondered if she was beautiful.
“Of course she is, Ma,” Stella said, as if she’d read my mind. “I already told you, she’s a graduate student at Marquette.”
“That’s doesn’t mean she’s beautiful. It just means she’s young.”
“I’ve only seen her once,” Stella said. “She’s definitely beautiful. But what’s your point?”
“What’s my point? You don’t get my point? Let me put it nicely: so why doesn’t he invite her to go to Italy?”
“He could. He could invite anyone he wanted to, but he invited you. Figure it out. I guess he wanted you to go. You don’t have to go, but you don’t have to cold-shoulder him when he comes to dinner. Ma, I don’t understand you. You could come to Italy with us. Why not? It would give you something to look forward to.”
“Enough, Stella. I’ve got plenty to look forward to. I’ve got to auction off a Shelby Cobra four twenty-seven in August and I’ve got a book coming out in September. I’m thinking about taking up the piano again. I’ve still got all my music. Most of it’s in a box in the garage.”
I hadn’t been able to avoid Tommy, of course. He’d taken both the girls to Italy in 2003 and again in 2005 and they’d come back committed opera buffs. Stella insisted on inviting him to dinner when I went up to Milwaukee for a visit, and one night Tommy had brought a DVD of the Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera and had sung along when Harpo inserts the sheet music of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” into the conductor’s score of Il Trovatore.
I hadn’t forgotten Tommy’s invitation, of course. An invitation conveyed through Stella. But what could I do? I’d killed the man’s brother’s son, his heir. I didn’t see how I could sit next to him on a flight to Italy. Not even in a first-class seat. Or at the opera in Naples or Reggio Calabria. Not even in a couple of boxes on the mezzanine. I could see that saying no was the price I’d have to pay for killing Jimmy. I thought I could see God’s hand in this, just as I had seen it in Father Viglietti’s transfer to Rome. Everything had become clear: I’d been outmaneuvered.
I sent the paperwork off to Bascomb on the first of July—Ruthy’s photos and a thousand-dollar payment for the “Star” entry, which gave us special covered parking, individual national ads, a scheduled run time, and Bascomb Web Marketing. I put down five hundred thousand dollars as the expected selling price! Why not? Estimated reserve? Hmm. Would I be willing to settle for—what? Four hundred thousand? Three? Bascomb’s title search revealed that Dr. Palmer had bought the car from a Ford dealer in the Quad Cities in September 1966 for $5,995.00. I settled on four hundred thousand, which sounded pretty good to me. And Larry helped me put together a list of key points.
• Documented in Shelby American World Registry
• Original invoice (in the glove compartment) from A. C. Cars to Shelby American.
• Under 10,000 miles from new.
• Original 427 engine.
• Unrestored.
• No accidents, no “stories.”
• No metal fatigue, no bowing, no cracking.
• Starburst wheels.
• Dash-mounted rear-view mirror.
• Brake fluid and oil have been changed.
• Original dual 4-V manifold and carburetor in original configuration.
• Carburetors and starter checked prior to shipment for sale.
The auction opened on August 10. The Cobra 427 would go on the block at 2:35 on Saturday the twelfth. We—Stella and Ruthy and I—stayed at the Hampton Inn, generic but comfortable. Two double beds, big screen TV, mini-bar. The car had been picked up by a car transport company, Reliable. Another eight hundred dollars with insurance.
I’d never been a car buff, but the cars that we looked at during the preview brought back memories: lots of muscle cars from the sixties and seventies, a host of Chevy Bel Airs from the fifties, a 1946 half-ton Ford pickup like Pa’s, and a 1950 Nash Airflyte with a reclining “airline” seat, the car in which several of my high school classmates had lost their virginity. I wasn’t happy to see a total of three 1966 Shelby Cobras, but two of them were 289s. Min
e was the only 427. In January Barrett-Jackson was going to auction a 1966 Cobra that was expected to bring over three million, but that was Shelby’s personal car, the Supersnake. Like the one that had belonged to Bill Cosby, the one that wound up in the Pacific Ocean.
I enjoyed Car Talk, but my own personal car history was not very exciting. Paul had wanted a Mazda Miata, but we both drove Oldsmobiles. We sold the Alero when Paul couldn’t drive any longer. I was still driving our Cutlass Cruiser when Oldsmobile went out of business in 2004. In fact, I was still driving it.
At the auction, which was held in the Pepsi Coliseum at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, I did a brief television interview, live, in which I managed to conceal my ignorance by focusing on preservation versus restoration. The two other Cobras coming on the block had both been restored. And of course I emphasized the “barn find” aspect of my story, which I’d rehearsed. The car was every collector’s dream: you go into an old barn and there’s a Shelby Cobra, or a 1950s Jaguar, or a 1955 Aston Martin that’s been sitting there forever, preferably covered with a tarp.
The first Cobra, a 289, was pushed down the runway at 10:30, the second, another 289, at 1:00. The bidding for both topped four hundred thousand dollars, but neither met the reserve. When Paul’s Cobra, a more powerful 427, appeared at 2:35, I saw it, really saw it, for the first time. Saw what Paul had seen. Like an Impressionist painting. The original deep red paint had faded, but you could still look through it, like looking through a slight disturbance on the surface of a sunlit pond into the depths. Smooth lines directed the eye from one surface to another without interruption.
As they were pushing the car down the runway the announcer began his spiel: a car is “original” only once. “This is it. Under ten thousand miles. Preserved. Not restored. The history of the car has not been removed. Everything original except the battery.”
The bidding started at 2:40. We had a very good position. Two Cobras had already failed to meet their reserves. A Bascomb rep whose job it was to allay anxiety was at my side. “Those were two eighty-nines,” she said. Yours is a four twenty-seven.”
The Pepsi Coliseum was huge. The cars came down a lane in the front against a background of yellow panels with BASCOMB on them. The bidders sat on folding chairs, but some of them came right up to the front and chatted with the sellers, asking question during the bidding. A big screen on the left of the auctioneer’s podium showed a photo of the car, the lot number, and the current bid. Auctioneer at a platform. Like a big podium, or a pulpit, like the one the high school principal stands behind at commencement.
Mr. Bascomb, Lloyd, was not the auctioneer. But he put on quite a show, mock fighting with his employees, shouting, haranguing the bidders. Guy stuff. Testosterone stuff. “This is a great barn find,” he shouted. “One of the greatest. You take the cookies when the cookies are passed. You’ve got a chance to bid on a dream.”
The bidding on Paul’s car started slowly and stalled at $375,000.
Bascomb started shouting at me to cancel the reserve.
I shook my head.
The bidding moved, but only slightly. If the auctioneer brought his hammer down short of the reserve we’d have to start all over.
I was getting used to the auctioneer’s chant. Steady rhythm. Two-four time. Then three-four when he accepted a bid. He was saying something between the numbers. The numbers rang out clearly, but I couldn’t tell what he was saying in between. There were several bidders at first, mostly in the reserved section in the front.
One of the bidders, however, stood next to me the whole time. A very handsome man—tall, bald, mustachioed. Not a dealer, a bidder’s badge pinned on a black suede jacket.
By the time the bidding got serious he was up against two men in the front row of folding chairs. One of these men looked like Einstein. He was on a telephone, taking instructions from someone over the phone. His wife sat next to him. Another bidder farther down wore a canvas hunting jacket with the collar turned up. Also with wife. The third bidder: Ron, standing right next to me. I knew his name because Bascomb himself had called him by name.
One of the ring men—the auctioneer’s assistants—ran back and forth between the two front-row bidders.
“Drop the reserve,” Ron said.
“What if people stop bidding?”
“They won’t.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “I want you to have it.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“Did you bid on the first ones?”
He shook his head. “This is the one I want,” he said. “No modifications. Nothing. Original tires. Original paint. You can’t drive it on those tires, of course, but . . .”
I was afraid to look at Stella and Ruthy. But of course I did look. They seemed to glow. They were looking at me, encouraging me. “Do it, do it.” I dropped the reserve. Mr. Bascomb started shouting and pounding his arm up in the air. “Somebody’s going to drive this car home,” he shouted. “This is the car that put Corvette in the trailer. This is the car that beat Ferrari at Reims,” which he pronounced rems. “This is the only American car in a class with Ferrari, Bugati, Maserati. This is an American icon. It’s your patriotic duty to keep bidding. What are you afraid of? You’ve let two of them get away. You’re embarrassing me. You should be ashamed. You’re embarrassing your country.”
The auctioneer was going breath breath . . . four hundred, breath breath . . . four fifty, breath breath, four seventy-five, breath breath . . .
“Don’t embarrass your country again,” Bascomb shouted.
“Five hundred . . . five twenty-five . . . five fifty . . .”
“This is a real original. Not restored. Not repainted. Original tires. Original paint,” he said, as if he’d been listening to Ron, next to me.
I had to look at the screen to understand the bid. I could hear the numbers, and I was starting to understand the auctioneer’s filler words, which were like one of those prayers that some monks repeat all day long. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a miserable sinner.”
I started to feel faint. Looking at the car. Seeing it. It was like seeing Paul for the first time, like walking into his classroom for the first time, or like walking along the Janiculum with Sister Teresa and seeing him sitting on a bench feeding the pigeons. Like opening my eyes and seeing him sitting on the couch after the Shakespeare party, touching my hair to wake me up, though in fact I was wide awake, telling me it was time to go home. Or like seeing Stella for the first time, the doctor holding her by her feet.
I started remembering all the times Paul and I had sat in this car, in the cockpit, Paul with his portable oxygen supply. His hands on the wheel.
“I used to sit in the car with my husband,” I said, “when he was dying. He drove it around the parking lot a few times. That was it.”
“Five fifty.”
“I reread almost half the Aeneid in the cockpit of that car. We’d open the garage door so we could look out on the parking lot, people walking by, stopping to wave.”
Ron bid five seventy-five. I shut my mouth.
The auctioneer asked for six hundred. Over and over. Bascomb went into a frenzy and seemed by the strength of his enthusiasm to push it past six hundred thousand. Two ring men huddled with the bidders in the front now, one on Einstein and one on the man in the hunting jacket. Bascomb himself kept hammering away at Ron. Talking to him the way he might talk to an old friend.
After a couple of dramatic pauses the bidding edged up to seven hundred thousand and change ($720,000) before the hammer came down. I wasn’t sure what had happened, but Ron put his arms around me and Lloyd Bascomb was pounding me on the back, pounding Ron too.
The instant the gavel came down, the car was no longer mine. That’s the way it works. It now belonged to a tall bald man with short, straight mustaches that matched his short, straight eyebrows. Ron. We walked out together next to the car, driven by one of the Bascomb agents. By the time we got to the Bascomb office I was c
rying.
“I’m sorry,” Ron said. “I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t stop crying, even though a check for $720,000, less commission, was waiting for me at the Bascomb office.
“Where did the money come from?” I asked.
“They know me here,” he said. “And I have a line of credit.”
“Must be a long one,” I said.
I’d already surrendered the title, along with the car, so all I had to do was show some ID and pick up my check. I folded the check in half and put it in my purse. You’d think a check that size would take up a lot of space, but it fit comfortably between a twenty dollar bill and a little single-use floss envelope that I carried for emergencies.
“Look,” Ron said, “how about a cup of coffee.”
“I’m all right,” I said.
“I know how it is. I sold a four twenty-seven just like this one four years ago and I’ve never gotten over it.”
“You know why I’m crying?” I asked, surprising myself. “I’m crying because I never drove it. All these years it was sitting in our garage. My son-in-law was crazy to drive it. He stole it once, and my husband called the police. He had a pretty serious record—my son-in-law did—and spent some time in jail. After my husband died—I never really saw it after that, maybe two or three times. We kept a tarp over it. But I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be bothering you with this. It doesn’t matter.”
“Would you like to drive it now?” he said.
The Bascomb driver got out and shook Ron’s hand.
Ron held the door. “Get into the cockpit,” he said.
“Do they really call it a ‘cockpit’?” I asked.
“You’ll see when you get it.”
“I couldn’t do that,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, and “Of course you could.” He took my arm and maneuvered me into the cockpit. “Sit tight. I’ll just be a minute. I’ve got to call my insurance agent and tell him to put the car on my policy.”
The Confessions of Frances Godwin Page 19
