EQMM, July 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Art by Jason Eckhardt

  * * * *

  Series character Kevin Pulaski has appeared in three previous EQMM stories, and in the novel West on 66, published by St. Martin's Press (paperback ‘01). His creator, James H. Cobb, is also a prolific thriller writer, author of several titles in the Amanda Garrett technothriller series from G.P. Putnam, and of The Arctic Event, the latest book in Robert Ludlum's Covert One series, scheduled for September 2007 release.

  The topic was the evolution of the American hot rod, as seen by my friend and automotive mentor, Kevin Pulaski.

  "Back in the Midwest when I was a kid, the serious speed hounds all ran roadsters: T-bolts, Model A's, or Deuces. The bad gassers, the souped-up, later-model coupes and two-door sedans, didn't start taking over until after I'd moved out to the coast in the ‘fifties."

  "Why'd it change, Kev?"

  "A lot of reasons. More powerful overhead valve engines, better suspension systems. Streamlining started to count, and you had a little more metal around you in a crackup."

  A reminiscent smile crossed his weathered features. “And, man, then there were the backseats, those big ol’ chair car backseats."

  * * * *

  Somewhere a bird twirped sluggishly and you could see the San Gabriel range just outlining against the gray predawn. It was the dying end of a way long night.

  We'd parked a block back so the rumble of the ‘57's beefed-up engine wouldn't telegraph our approach, and the click of Lisette's Italian heels counterpointed the scuff of my boots as we hiked in along the access road. I'd tried to send the Princess home in a cab, but she'd bucked over that trace. She'd been there at the start. She'd be there when it finished.

  The house was space-age circular, all curved glass and pastel tiling, a flying saucer landed in the Hollywood Hills and spying on the city below. It was the perfect pad for a hip young bachelor in a world full of promise. There was a flagstone patio, a view that would stretch out to the Pacific, a barbeque grill, and a two-car garage. No pool yet, but it was probably coming.

  We swung over the low stone wall that circled the compound, Lisette swearing under her breath as she struggled with her tapered skirt. Hunkering in the deeper shadow behind a big bougainvillea bush, we did our best raccoon imitations.

  The pad's bachelor was in residence and scared of the dark. Lamps glowed behind the drawn curtains and the patio lights glared.

  "You find the garbage can,” I whispered. “I want another look at his car."

  "How come I get the glamour job?” she hissed back.

  "Hey, Princess, you wanted in on this posse, remember? And you don't hear Jay Silverheels bitching to Clayton Moore about his job assignments."

  I felt a baleful look aimed at me. “The Lone Ranger doesn't get to make out with Tonto, either!"

  "This is Hollywood. You might be surprised."

  I had pretty much all I needed, but there were a last couple of nails I wanted for the coffin. Keeping low, I crossed to the rear of the garage. The T-handle on the sliding door resisted a moment, then turned. He'd been convenient and hadn't locked up.

  I eased the door up a couple of feet and rolled under. The interior of the garage was stuffy with the waste heat radiating from a big block engine. The car sitting in the darkness matched the pad, a sleek ‘58 Pontiac Bonneville Convertible, fresh off the showroom floor. The top was up, but the driver's window was rolled down. It took only a moment's groping to reach through and find the faint, lingering patch of dampness on the backseat. That was one.

  Outside, Lisette whistled a soft two-tone.

  I rolled under the garage door once more and circled to where the Princess had made her find. A hip young bachelor couldn't have his garbage can just sitting out in front of God and everybody. His was concealed behind a bamboo screen between the garage and the property wall. I shoved the screen aside and, preserving the prints, I eased the lid off the can, using the crooked tip of my little finger. The lid clattered a little as I set it aside. I used a quick flare of my cigarette lighter to examine the can's contents. There was the other.

  "And?” the Princess whisper-demanded.

  "He's dead.” I didn't bother to speak softly. I didn't much care if he heard us now.

  Nearby I heard a sliding glass door rumble open on its tracks. “Is anyone out there?” a voice demanded.

  I unzipped my windcheater, clearing the gun shoved under my belt. I didn't think it would be one for the shooting board, but you never knew.

  * * * *

  It was a notch bulldozer-carved into the flank of the Santa Monica hills, a future home development site for confident folks who didn't believe in brush fires and earthquakes.

  But on the previous evening, it had just been a boss place to go parking.

  The lights of the L.A. basin rolled away from the foot of the Santa Monicas like a Persian carpet of stars and the air was warm, even at half past midnight. Half a dozen couple-occupied cars sat spaced out along the unfenced edge of the overlook and half a dozen low-playing car radios intermingled in a sensual whisper.

  "Earth Angel” by the Crew-Cuts issued from the darkened interior of the ‘46 Ford, and, given the way the old sedan was slow-dancing on its suspension, I was about to put my foot right through one of those “moments to remember.” Too bad, but then my night had been bitched as well.

  I rapped on the rear fender. “Hey, Gilly. I need words with you, man."

  There was a muffled explosion of profanity from the Ford's backseat, a lot of it shrill and feminine. I withdrew politely to the back bumper, giving the involved time to pull down, zip up, and tuck in. A minute or so later Gilly Bristol backed out of the driver's side rear door whispering frantic apologies to the backseat's other occupant.

  He scuffled back to where I was parked on his back bumper, a lean, dark-haired kid fighting the good fight against acne. Like me, he was clad in the uniform of the day, Levis and a white T-shirt. “Jesus, Kev,” he moaned, drooping down on the bumper. “I was on second and slidin’ for third!"

  As a responsible adult I should have lectured him on respecting his young lady's reputation and saving himself for marriage, but then if Gilly had viewed me as a responsible adult, he probably wouldn't be talking to me. Beyond that, if he was old enough to fink for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, he was old enough for a lot of other stuff.

  Bristol owed me. I'd finagled him out of six months in the county youth farm on a joyriding rap and now he was making it even.

  "My heart bleeds, man,” I replied, “but I been chasin’ you around these hills for half the friggin’ night. The word from the bird is you got me a name."

  "Yeah.” I saw his silhouette nod. “Tod Carroll, a senior at my school. He drives a red ‘fifty-four Chevy convert and lives in that new development above Brentwood. I got you somethin’ else, too."

  Gilly dug in his pocket and came up with a twist of Kleenex. Through the tissue I could feel a cluster of capsules and flat, dime-sized tablets. “The goofballs go for a dollar and the bennies are fifty cents a pop,” he reported. “Carroll makes the scene at all the parties around here on the weekends."

  "You got anything on his connection?"

  "Nah, but his old man owns that big drugstore in the shopping center off Stone Canyon."

  "You think his old man could be part of the action?"

  The kid shrugged. “I dunno, daddy-o. I'm only in good enough to buy from the guy. But he's always holding."

  I'd already gotten a bearing on the Carroll kid from another of my high-school stoolies. This nailed it down. “Okay. Now you back way the hell off. From here on, this Carroll guy is strictly radio-active. Stay away from him! Got it?"

  "Got it."

  I stowed the drugs in my jeans and drew the ten bucks I'd had ready. “You did good, man. Go buy your chick a deal for her charm bracelet."

  Gilly absorbed the pair of Lincolns and I could see his grin glint in the dark. Then his grin faded as we felt an angry flounce radiate fro
m the Ford's backseat. “Oh man, I'm gonna be startin’ from home plate again."

  "Then you better get swingin’ before your battery goes dead."

  I circled wide around the other parkers, keeping my footsteps light on the compacted gravel. Car, my bad Black Widow Chev, sat out near the road in a deeper puddle of night beneath a ‘dozer-spared smoke tree. The view was almost as good and the privacy was better. The glowing tip of a Fatima extra-length hovered in the front seat. “And?” a soft voice inquired over the Nat King Cole Trio.

  Lisette wears shadow well. With her glossy brunette ponytail and black sweater and skirt she was a darker patch of dark in the dark, a glint of silver earring marking her place.

  "A bad or a worse.” The Princess materialized for a moment under Car's dome light as I slid in behind the wheel, her shoes kicked off and her feet tucked under her. She disappeared again as I slammed the door and let the night flood back. “The bad's a kid ripping off his old man's drugstore to sell to his classmates. The worse is the old man's supplying."

  I took an envelope and a pencil stub out of the glove compartment. Switching on the dome light again, I sealed the drugs in the envelope and wrote the time, date, and location on the outside. My name and my badge number, L.A. County 748, went over the sealed flap.

  I tossed the envelope back into the glove box. Tomorrow it and my report would go to narcotics detail and I'd be out of it. That's how plainclothes intelligence works. Somebody else makes the busts. You just set ‘em up to be knocked down.

  Killing the dome light, I took a Lucky out of the soft pack crushed under the sun visor. Stealing the butt end of Lisette's Fatima, I lit up from it and slouched lower, staring at the city lights. This was supposed to have been a night out with my girl, but then Gilly had left word at my contact number.

  I was just damn lucky Lisette Kingman wasn't a regular kind of a girl.

  She slid across the seat, flowing around the Tornado floor shifter and demanding an arm be put around her, letting me know she didn't mind her evening being messed up.

  The Princess is my lover, my best friend, my sometimes extremely unofficial partner, and a mystery I've never been able to solve. Why should a true and righteous living doll like her waste her time with a four-hundred-and-fifty-dollar-a-month deputy sheriff when she could do a hell of a lot better by strolling into the bar of the Beverly Hilton and crooking a finger?

  Sure, I'd gotten her out of a jam once, that crazy deal out on Route 66, but it wasn't as if she owed me. As I ran my hand down her warm cashmere-sheathed flank I again decided it was just dumb luck and that I should shut up and ride it while it lasted.

  "You're thinking again,” she murmured, her chin propped on my shoulder.

  "I am?"

  "Yes, and knock it off,” she accused. “When you think too much you always think yourself into the mullygrubbles and you get boring when you get the mullygrubbles."

  "There were two bad habits my folks could never break me of, biting my nails and thinking."

  She snuggled insistently. “What you need is to channel all of that thinking into a more constructive vein."

  "Like what?"

  Turnabout being fair play, she stole my Lucky Strike for a puff, returning it with a hint of lipstick flavoring. “Like all of the intriguing things that must be going on in these other cars."

  There might be something to that, given that these other parkers probably hadn't come up here to discuss the Missile Gap.

  "Well, let's see,” says I. “My buddy, Gilly, down at the far end, is probably still trying to recover from a foul ball."

  "Called Kevin Pulaski!” Lisette chuckled in the dark. “That was cruel!"

  "What can I say, Princess, life's a bitch and then you die. That couple next to him in the ‘fifty-six Dodge ragtop are nonstarters. You can see where their heads are. All they're hugging are the door handles. The girl must have her sweater, a purse, and a coil of barbed wire stacked in the middle of the seat.... The MG-TD, man, I don't even want to think about that. They gotta be contortionists.... They're set up in that big Nash Metro, though. It looks like a bathtub and drives like a cow but the front seat folds flat into the back to make a full-sized double bed. They got it made."

  A set of sharp little teeth lightly nipped through the fabric of my T-shirt. “How does a nineteen fifty-seven Chevrolet compare?"

  As if she didn't know. Another aspect of the Princess's rather exotic personality was that she found the combination of starlight and General Motors upholstery stimulating.

  Maybe this night was only half shot after all.

  Gale Storm was asking “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” when a new set of headlights turned in from the road and gravel crunched under tires. “More customers?” Lisette murmured, her voice kiss-muffled.

  "If it's a sheriff's cruiser, I'll pull rank."

  A low-slung coupe pulled up to a clear spot on the edge of the overlook about fifteen yards ahead of us, its driver possibly not even aware that Car was parked back here. I ran an instinctive automobile ID on the silhouette outlined against the city lights, a Studebaker Golden Hawk, a year or two old.

  "Some other people with the same excellent idea,” the Princess chuckled, brushing back a tousle of hair.

  Then the driver of the Hawk lit a smoke, using a Ronson and not the car lighter. The momentary burst of flame light glinted off upswept blond hair. The driver was a woman and she was alone.

  Lisette straightened a little, her Siamese cat's curiosity kicking in. “That's interesting. I wonder what she's doing up here by her lonesome?"

  "Meeting someone?"

  "Maybe. But from her hairstyle, she's older, at least up in her twenties. Old enough to have her own apartment or at least to be going with a man who has one."

  I mentally added my own car-guy's assessment. You drove a Golden Hawk for style, not just for going places. It was a young sophisticate's car. And a Studebaker is a definite step up from your basic Ford, Chevy, or Plymouth. The blonde would have the dough for her own place or at least for a good motel room.

  "Maybe she's inspired by car seats too?” I mused.

  "Maybe, or maybe we have a genuine illicit rendezvous underway.” Lisette nuzzled into a more comfortable observing position. “What do you want to bet one or the other or both of them will be married? Just not to each other."

  "You've been reading Peyton Place again, haven't you?"

  It had only been a couple of minutes, but the cigarette shot out the Hawk's open driver's window, striking sparks off the ground. But after only a brief pause the lighter snapped once more. This time we caught a glimpse of a classic profile in the flame, the blonde's movements abrupt and angry.

  Lisette giggled. “Somebody is late and somebody isn't happy about it."

  "Yeah, and somebody's gonna catch hell for it,” I replied, playing with the tip of the Princess's ponytail. This was getting as good as the drive-in. All we needed was a bag of popcorn.

  A few moments later another car pulled into the overlook, a big new Pontiac convertible with its top down. It drew in tight alongside the Golden Hawk, flared its brake lights, and shut down.

  You could barely make out the outlines of the two vehicles and the suggestion and sound of someone getting out of the Pontiac. The dome light of the Studebaker flashed on as a man got in the passenger-side door: white male adult, late twenties; dark, carefully combed hair; a blue sports coat. You caught a radiated sense of not happy.

  "You know, I think this isn't exactly a romantic rendezvous,” Lisette commented.

  "No, if it was, she would have got into the Poncho. More room, and the Stude's got bucket seats. This has more of a ‘Honey it's been wonderful but’ kind of a feel."

  "Could be.” Lisette switched off our radio. Even at that, they must have been keeping things low-key. Only once or twice did we hear a hint of a raised voice over the sounds of the other parkers’ music.

  Time passed and the Princess and I lost interest in the couple in the Golden H
awk and resumed it with each other. I was lost in the intricacies of a new-model bra catch when I heard the Studebaker's door open again. I glanced up to see movement between the two darkened cars.

  A moment later the Golden Hawk's engine started and its passenger door slammed. The driver's door on the Bonneville opened and shut as well, then the larger vehicle fired up. The Pontiac shot backward out of its parking place, not quite clipping Car's bumper. Its headlights blazed on as it slued around and tore out onto the highway, spraying a double roostertail of gravel behind it. The smaller Studebaker continued to sit at the edge of the turnout, lights off and its engine muttering disconsolately.

  "I don't think that went too well,” I said.

  "Mmmm, no,” the Princess murmured judgmentally. “That'll be a five-pound-box-of-chocolates-and-a-dozen-roses makeup."

  "At least. Anyway, it looks like the show's over."

  "Are you kidding?” Lisette snapped the radio back on and slipped her bared arms around my neck. “It's just starting, my pet."

  Time and music flowed past: Santos and Johnny's “Sleepwalking,” Patti Page's “Tennessee Waltz,” the theme from Moulin Rouge, and the Four Aces’ “Three Coins in the Fountain.” The final tropical-bird squawk from Martin's Denny's “Quiet Village” faded and the station break for the one o'clock news broke the spell. The first thing I noticed upon returning to Earth was the continuing idle of the Studebaker engine.

  There were only two or three cars left in the turnout, and the Golden Hawk was one of them. Its driver was still just sitting there. My cop's alarm bells, suppressed for a time, started ringing.

  The Princess caught my mood change. “What's wrong?” she asked, coming up to peer over the seat back. With her sweater and skirt lost somewhere in Car's interior, she was a paler shadow against the seat covers.

  "I don't know. The blonde in the Golden Hawk's still out there. She must be thinking awfully hard about something."

  And then the blonde must have made up her mind about whatever it was, because she slowly and deliberately drove her car off the edge of the overlook and into the canyon below, drowning out the night music with the crash and crumple of buckling steel.