Who in Hell Is Wanda Fuca?

by G. M. Ford

  "Okay, you guys have got a point. I'll get you a vehicle this afternoon. Today, though, just this once, we're going to have to take the bus downtown."

  They grumbled but went along with the program.

  The bus driver was no rookie. I hid the crusty quartet in a dark doorway nearby. As the doors hissed open, I inserted myself between them and waved the crew forward. The driver tried to cut me in half with the doors. It took my promise that, if necessary, I'd use my leather jacket to clean up any little surprises the boys might leave, to get us all on board. He opened his little side window and drove with his nose in the breeze like a spaniel.

  As soon as I'd pulled the pictures from the envelope Frankie Ortega had given me, I'd recognized the building. If I remembered correctly, it used to be an old shoe factory. The building squatted midway down a long row of degenerate architecture along the west side of the Kingdome, hard by the side of the viaduct, occupying nearly the same ground as Tim Flood's beloved Hooverville had so many years before. What goes around, comes around.

  This very building had been part of a discussion that Patsy and I had last summer. We'd been taking our seventh-inning stretch on the ramp adjacent to the three-hundred level of the Kingdome. Patsy was sucking down Kools and bemoaning the fact that smoking was no longer permitted in the Dome.

  To the south the gutted hulk of a building, painted bright blue as if to draw attention to itself, stoop gap-toothed among the surrounding rubble. On the two lower floors, each and every window had been systematically stoned out by local rock throwers. Some merely had been holed; others were gone entirely. I commented to Patsy that they weren't making rock throwers like they used to. In our day, we'd have gotten the top floor too. He'd agreed.

  "It's these goddamn Little League programs with all their pussy rules about how many innings the kids can throw and all that shit. The kids never develop any arm strength. They're all like that Blackmore kid in there tonight." The M's were losing big. Patsy had lost his sense of humor.

  "That son of a bitch doesn't' throw hard enough to raise lumps on anybody. M's ought to have a ticket promotion," he sneered. "Buy one, get one free. Buy two, you can pitch."

  Last year's hideous blue had been painted over with a uniform coat of beige. The windows had been replaced. I made a note to call a friend of mine in Planning. It might be interesting to see how Save the Earth had come into possession of such a property.

  The boys and I marched like Caesar and his lesions from the bus stop down to the far side of the south Kingdome parking lot. The building was a good quarter mile away across the lots. Close enough to reconnoiter, but far enough for us to be invisible.

  "All right," I started. "I want one of you hanging around at each corner of the building. I want - "

  The bitching started immediately. They all wanted the viaduct side.

  "I got friends over there by pillar six," Ralph claimed.

  "Me too," chimed George.

  Buddy took over. "Screw you guys. You just want to be able to stay out of the rain, that's all. Harold and George, you guys are the oldest, you get the viaduct side. Try to stay dry. Ralph and I will work from the street." He looked to me.

  "Great," I said. "Take these." I handed each a small spiral notebook and a couple of pencils. Their grimy hands clutched the booty like it was the Holy Grail. It wasn't much, but it was brand-new.

  "I wasn't license numbers for every vehicle of any sort that either enters or leaves." They scribbled away. "I want descriptions, ages, and anything else you can come up with on any foot traffic." More scribbling. "If anybody leaves on foot, I want one of you to see where he goes. But" - I waved a finger in front of their faces - "I want at least one of you to stay out front and out back at all times. At no time is either the front or the back to be completely unattended. Got it?" Ralph raised his hand.

  "Could you go over that again, Leo?"

  "Which part?" I tried to hide my exasperation.

  "All of it," he said sheepishly. I looked over the top of his hand to see what notes he'd been taking. Stick figures. Either Ralph was taking notes in Egyptian hieroglyphics, or he was experiencing a serious shortage of brain cells. I was beginning to worry.

  Buddy jumped in again. "I'll fill him in, Leo." He patted Ralph's arm.

  "Okay," I said. "Everybody pay attention." They stopped scribbling.

  "Here's the important part." I brought out four copies of Caroline's photo that I'd made that morning.

  As Frankie Ortega had promised, she was indeed one slick package. Blond, blue-eyed, high cheekbones, solid chiseled features. Definite cover girl potential. The picture only showed her from the neck up, wearing a square-necked peasant blouse, but, presuming she was still in possession of all of her appendages, the rest of her held great promise. I gave each guy a copy.

  They made noises like a pack of feeding hyenas, elbowing one another and trying lamely to look down the front of the blouse.

  "This is who we're looking for." They weren't paying attention. Ralph was sniffing the picture. "Hey," I shouted. They snapped to. Contrite.

  "This," I said, shaking the picture, "is what we're here about. This young lady is the one exception to the two-guys-have-to-stay-here-at-all-times rule. If any of you see her leaving, follow her. Use as many guys as it takes but keep track of her. Do whatever it takes. Understood?"

  "What if she leaves by car?"

  "Follow on foot as far as you can. As bad as traffic is, you can probably stay ahead of them. Try for a taxi. I'll work on getting you guys a car for this afternoon. In the meantime, fake it. Okay?"

  It was okay. "You've each got the twenty-five I gave you this morning. If you spend any of it in the line of duty, I'll replace it. Get receipts. You hear me? This isn't the honor system. If you want to be reimbursed, get a receipt." En masse scribbling. "I'm going to dig up a car for you now. I don't know how long it'll take. I might be back to pick you guys up this afternoon or I might not. If I miss any of you between now and then, be at my place again at eight A.M. sharp tomorrow." They nodded in unison. I headed off in search of a cab.

  The job had seemed like a natural. I had an extra hundred a day coming in from Tim Flood. Buddy and the boys could blend into the surroundings like so much refuse. It seemed like a hell of a lot better idea than staking the place out myself. Three or four days and we ought to have a pretty good picture of the activities originating at the building.

  In the meantime, I knew a place I could probably come up with a car and some information on Save the Earth all at the same time.

  I had the cabbie drop me in front of the University Bookstore. The Ave was humming. An elderly black man played solo sax in the doorway to the bookstore. A bebop version of "For All We Know" buzz-sawed its way along the street. Across the street in front of Tower Records, a dobro player had attracted a small crowd.

  The sidewalks were jammed with the usual eclectic sampling of life's rich pageant that clung to the belly of any major university. Students, would-be students, used-to-be students, hawkers, hustlers, hangers-on, punkers, and a whole new generation of bums all flowed and eddied about, forming a meandering stream of partially washed plurality.

  I shouldered my way through the melee and headed downhill toward the Cucumber Castle. In its present manifestation, it was a combination head shop, clothing store, and CD exchange. Arnie Robbins had a knack for keeping up with the times.

  Thirty years ago, in the back row of the balcony of the Varsity Theatre, Arnie'd slipped me my first joint. We'd found Charlton Heston's antics in The Ten Commandments so inexplicably funny that we'd eventually been escorted out.

  While for most of us the tribal fantasy of the sixties had been merely a brief respite along life's highway, a welcome excuse to avoid the imagined terrors of responsibility for just one more endless summer, for Arnie it had become a permanent way of life.

  Arnie was on his usual stool behind the counter. A tie-dyed Dorian Gray, seemingly impervious to the ravages of time, he looked exactl
y like he had back in the early seventies. His frizzy red hair and walrus mustache showed no signs of gray. Unlike the rest of us, he seemed to lose a few pounds every year. As one by one we'd trudged off toward serious jobs and serious responsibilities, I'd initially been saddened by what I'd perceived to be Arnie's arrested development. The last few times I'd seen him, however, I'd experienced something a great deal more akin to envy.

  The store was full. He glanced up briefly as I walked in, handed the blue ceramic bong he'd been holding over to a leather-clad kid with an orange Mohawk, and walked down to the display of vintage horror comics at the far end of the counter. I followed.

  We engaged in the old hippie thumbs-only handshake and checked one another out.

  "Looking good, Leo," he said with a smile.

  "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 bo
dy.

  "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.