“She’s gone, she’s solid gone, that’s what the guy said just before he knocked back a shot of Wild Turkey and walked out of The Four Horsemen into the damn blizzard and got hit by a bus.”
“That’s how it goes sometimes,” said Heavenly Wurtzel, a waitress at The Broken Arrow. “My dad says once your name’s up there on that wall, that’s it, game over.”
Roy and Marvin Varnish were in a booth at the diner drinking Green Rivers. Marvin, a diesel mechanic for the Chicago Fire Department, was six years older than Roy, who was almost sixteen. Roy had met Marvin, who was a friend of Roy’s cousin, Kip, to talk about getting a car from him. Varnish’s side job was buying old cars that didn’t or couldn’t run, fixing them up and selling them. He had a 1955 Buick Century with Dyna-flo about ready to go, he told Roy, that he could let Roy have for three hundred dollars.
“Who’s your dad say puts the names up on that wall?” Marvin Varnish asked the waitress.
Heavenly Wurtzel was twenty-six, a peroxide blonde, decidedly on the portly side. She still lived with her parents. Her father, Barney Wurtzel, owned a plumbing company that he advertised on the radio during White Sox games. Between innings a woman’s voice promised, “Nobody lays pipe like Wurtzel.” Heavenly told Marvin Varnish that her mother told her father that this sounded dirty and Barney Wurtzel said, “Plumbing’s a dirty business, Ruth.”
“God, I guess,” Heavenly said.
“And where’s this wall?” asked Roy. “I’d like to see it to know if my name or the name of anyone I know is on it.”
“Bethlehem, probably,” said Heavenly. “Jerusalem, maybe. Around where the Garden of Eden was.”
Marvin studied Heavenly as she walked away.
“She wouldn’t be too bad lookin’,” he said, “she cut down on the sweets. Some men like ’em big, though. Eugene Kornheiser was that way. He worked hook and ladder out of Station Fifteen ’til he fell off a building and broke his back.”
“Why do you think Heavenly’s not married yet?” Roy asked.
“She had a kid when she was seventeen, gave it away. Pinky French told me.”
“So? What’s that got to do with somebody marryin’ her now?”
Marvin shrugged and drained the remainder of his Green River through the straw.
“Guys find out about her havin’ a kid already, it bugs ’em,” he said. “They want a clean slate. Heavenly’d be better off movin’ away, snaggin’ a guy in another city won’t find out so easy.”
Roy walked with Marvin Varnish over to the firehouse to take a look at the Buick, which was parked in the alley behind the station. Snow was piled up a foot deep around it. The car was burgundy with dark green upholstery. Roy looked in the front passenger side window.
“The seats are pretty ripped up,” he said.
“I’ll throw in a roll of tape,” said Marvin. “It’s got Dyna-flo, like I said. You know what that is?”
“No.”
“You turn the key in the ignition, then step on the starter button before you step on the accelerator pedal, then you goose it. Everything works. You smoke?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Good, ’cause the lighter don’t work.”
Roy agreed to buy the car as soon as he turned sixteen and could get a driver’s license.
“When’s your birthday?” asked Marvin.
“Next month. I’ve got the money,” Roy said. “I’ve been savin’ up. Do you want me to give you somethin’ now?”
Marvin shook his head. “It’s okay, I trust you. I won’t sell it to nobody else.”
It was snowing like crazy as Roy trudged down Minnetonka Street. A red panel truck was parked in front of The Broken Arrow, its motor running. Roy saw Heavenly Wurtzel come running out of the diner, a black scarf covering her head, and climb into the truck on the passenger side. A big man smoking a cigar was in the driver’s seat. Painted on the side of the truck in yellow block letters were the words NOBODY LAYS PIPE LIKE WURTZEL. Under the words was a telephone number, SOUTH SHORE 6-6000. The driver rolled down his window and stuck out his head to see if it was safe to pull out. He was wearing a short-brimmed brown hunter’s cap with earflaps. A hard wind blew snow in his face, causing him to squint. He kept the cigar clenched in his teeth. Roy guessed that the driver was Barney Wurtzel.
Heavenly was only twenty-six, but unless she got out of town soon, like Marvin Varnish said, her life was pretty much over. Roy hated thinking this, so he did his best to imagine himself behind the steering wheel of the ’55 Buick Century. Then he remembered Marvin’s story about a guy stumbling out of The Four Horsemen tavern into the path of a bus. It was probably better, Roy thought, to not know if your name is on the wall.