FOUR BARRELS MADE ALL the difference.
Bob Hertler’s GTO, hobbled by a carburetor designed for a family car, had been like a mountain cat stuck with iron shoes. Now, sailing east on Jefferson along the river, playing the pedal to catch all the lights green, Rick felt the Z-28 filling its lungs with clean damp air, Pure premium-leaded hammering in its veins. The pavement skinned underneath like Teflon.
It had taken thirty minutes for the paint crew at the Chevrolet assembly plant in Westland to spray silver over the original yellow, heat-dry and buff it; another ten to put the two thick black racing stripes on the long hood. The bucket seats were upholstered in black Naugahyde, and Rick himself had replaced the lambswool steering wheel cover with perforated leather. The leather smell joined the air off the river and made Rick think of new shoes and fresh-cut grass and the last day of school. For once he felt as young as he looked. He flipped the radio on and punched up WKNR. The Beach Boys were just finishing “Little Deuce Coupe.” He laughed. The announcer came on and identified the frequency: 1300. It reminded Rick of police headquarters and he sobered.
He fished the fold of notepaper out of the pocket of his one good dress shirt and checked the number. He had a 10:30 a.m. appointment with a Miss Kohler at an address on Whittier, base of operations for the Porter Group, or Wendell’s Wonders, as a sardonic press had dubbed the organization of headline-rakers, Chicken Littles, and general pains in the butt of the American automotive industry. Rick knew the Miss Kohlers of this world, rodentlike creatures in University of Michigan sweatshirts with granny glasses and pencils in their hair. Unpaid volunteers were like professional virgins, standing sentry over treasures of questionable value.
The place wasn’t what he’d expected. Porter’s television image, tousled hair and unpressed Ivy League suits, bespoke an office and anteroom in a building with a wheezy elevator or a converted warehouse overlooking a broken streetlamp. Either the image or the address was wrong. Set back from the street with a sign on the lawn bearing only the letters PG, the house was a Colonial of turn-of-the-century vintage, painted rose and white, with gables and shutters and flower boxes under the windows. A huge eucalyptus, shipped in by some long-dead lumber baron or stove manufacturer, overhung the roof. The place had all the fussed-over detail of an infirm child’s dollhouse. Rick took the composition driveway to a little square lot behind the house and parked between a late-model Mercedes and a VW Beetle with mismatched fenders. He figured the VW belonged to Miss Kohler.
A three-by-five card wedged into a corner of the window in the front door urged him in ballpoint pen to please enter. When he closed the door behind him a little brass bell looped over the doorknob jangled.
“One minute,” said a woman’s voice from the back.
The entryway, ten feet by twelve with a staircase leading to the second story, was painted bright yellow, the shade he had just banished from the Camaro, and contained a potted fern, three-drawer file cabinet with a five-volume set of engineering manuals standing on top of it, and a small desk holding up a splash of nasturtiums in a ceramic vase, a low sleek Smith-Corona electric with a powder-blue shell, and a black telephone with a banana-shaped caddy attached to the receiver. The plastic nameplate on one corner read ENID KOHLER. Rick considered the first name and added ten years to his image of Miss Kohler.
The telephone rang and a tall brunette in a red knitted dress cinched with a wide black belt clicked in on high heels through an open door in back, laid a sheaf of blank forms on the desk, unscrewed a diamond from her left earlobe, and picked up the receiver. She was in her late twenties and had the long straight black hair and high coloring of a gypsy. “This is Miss Kohler,” she told the person on the other end.
The Mercedes. Not the VW.
“No, Mr. Porter is in Washington. We don’t expect him back until tomorrow afternoon.”
Rick studied her hands. No ring.
“May I help you?”
She’d hung up and was looking at him. She had brown eyes.
“Rick Amery,” he said. “I’m a little early.”
She took inventory. He’d dressed carefully for his role as a volunteer: blue suit and brown wingtips, freshly polished. His lapels and black knitted tie were a little narrow for the current fashion, but that was all right; dorky lobbyists didn’t go broke on Carnaby Street. He couldn’t tell if she approved.
“Fill out this application, please.” She handed him a form and a Bic pen and pointed to a kidney-shaped school desk in the corner.
He used his real name but put his age down as thirty. When he came to Reason for applying for this position, he hesitated, then wrote, Hoping for a career in politics. He’d decided he couldn’t sustain the altruist dodge he’d been tinkering with all morning. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Enid Kohler screw her earring back on, roll a sheet into the typewriter, turn it on, and begin tapping. She was competent, but no keyboard whiz. He was sure she’d never seen the inside of a secretarial school.
A man fifteen years Rick’s junior came down the stairs on the trot, walked past Rick without a glance in his direction, and stopped by the desk. He was willowy, dressed in a denim workshirt with the sleeves rolled above his elbows and faded jeans stuffed into the fringed tops of brown suede boots. His hair was black and curled over his collar. VW? Rick thought. Enid stopped typing and looked up.
“I just got off the phone with the state police,” he said. “They’re dragging their feet on those accident projections.”
“They can’t refuse to give them to you. They’re public record.”
“You know the bureaucracy.”
“I also know how many people General Motors employs in this state and how many of them vote,” she said. “Keep trying. Tell them we’ll get a court order if we have to.”
“If we can find a judge who doesn’t like his job.”
“Excuse me.”
They looked at Rick, who had approached the desk with his completed form.
“I’ll take that.” Enid plucked the sheet out of his hand and laid it on a shallow stack. “Thank you very much, Mr. Avery. We’ll call you.”
“Amery. I couldn’t help overhearing. State cops giving you grief?”
“Nothing we don’t experience every day in one form or another,” she said. “If you join the Porter Group, you’ll always know which way you’re going. Straight uphill.”
“May I?” He put a hand on her telephone pad.
She nodded, watching him. He picked it up, scribbled a telephone number on the top sheet, tore it off, and held it out toward the long-haired young man. “That’s the state police commander’s home number. It’s unlisted. It helps to talk to the boss.”
The young man looked at the number and grinned.
Enid Kohler sat back. The dress clung to the long firm line of her right thigh. He decided she played tennis. “I’m impressed, Mr. Amery. What’s your source?”
“Reliable.”
“You sound like a newspaperman.”
“I was with the Times two years until it folded.” His subscription had been about to expire anyway. Under cover he told the truth whenever it was convenient.
She looked at his application. “It says here you’re a mechanic.”
“I got tired of journalism. With a wrench you can see what progress you’re making.”
The long-haired young man laughed shortly. “Brother, did you come to the wrong shop.”
“Give that number a try,” Enid told him.
“Yes, ma’am.” He clicked his heels. “We still on for lunch?”
“Unless the commander invites you over to his place.”
He laughed again and thrust his hand at Rick. “Leon Schenck. Call me Lee.”
“Rick Amery.” Rick shook it. No calluses to go with the laborer’s attire.
“Hire this guy.” Lee went upstairs.
“Nice kid,” Rick said.
“He’s twenty. Around here that’s adult.” She took inventory again. “You don’t look like a politician, Mr. Amery.”
“Rick. I’m not.”
Her eyebrows went up. He was glad to see she didn’t pluck them. “On your application—”
“You don’t have to be a politician to be in politics. Behind the scenes is good enough for me. Public office doesn’t interest me so much as the process of putting someone there. Isn’t Lee a little young for you?”
“You’ve got a lot to learn about diplomacy if politics is what you want,” she said after a moment. “But let’s see if we can put your mechanical aptitude to work. How are you on pretext and subterfuge?”
He hesitated. “I’ve been dating since I was twelve.”
“It’s a start. This is a listing of towing services in the metropolitan area.” She opened a drawer and handed him a sheaf neatly razored from the Yellow Pages. “Find out how many GM cars have been towed in for safety-related repairs over the past twenty-four months. Get the nature of the repairs. Concentrate on models made after nineteen sixty-three. Use whatever story you want, only don’t represent yourself as a police officer. That’s illegal.”
“Shouldn’t I be calling the dealerships? Those are warranty jobs.”
“The dealerships are on to us. When the towing services catch on we’ll have to go someplace else, maybe newspaper files. Wendell was getting his information directly from the General Motors Building in the beginning, when he was writing Hell on Wheels and nobody knew him from Hubert Humphrey. Now they call security when he walks past on the other side of Grand.”
“Wendell, is it?”
She colored a little. He liked women who blushed. “We’re very informal here, Rick. In lieu of salaries we get to call the boss by his first name. You’ll find a telephone in the next room.” She tilted her head toward the door in back.
“Why GM?” he asked. “Ford and Chrysler use the same standards.”
“‘Cut off the head and the arms wither.’ Wendell says it so often he ought to have a sampler made for the wall of his office.”
“You do needlepoint?”
A muscle worked in her jaw. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “In there.”
He kicked himself all the way through the door. He was out of practice, letting his opinions show when he was supposed to be Silly Putty for the molding. He’d lost Enid Kohler for the time being.
The room had been a parlor, and Edwardian touches remained in the floral wallpaper and a bow-window looking out on a bird feeder in the yard. The card-table and kitchen-chair furnishings were strictly Johnsonian.
“Hi, I’m Pammie. Wendell’s the only one around here who wears a tie.”
The girl seated at the table sorting three-by-five cards into a recipe box fit his early expectations of Wendell’s Wonders. She wore a gray short-sleeved sweatshirt over white shorts that left her fat thighs exposed and she twinkled at him myopically over the tops of slanty glasses with a Band-Aid on the left bow. She had acne and her brown hair was gathered with a rubber band into a frayed stalk on top of her head like Alice the Goon’s. VW, Rick thought.
“Sorry.” He undid his collar button and loosened the tie. “I’m Rick.”
“I know. I heard. Welcome aboard. That telephone should be cooled down enough by now.”
Pammie was perhaps nineteen. As he took a seat and reached for the instrument, he hoped his bones didn’t creak too loudly.
He worked his way through the listings in order, taking notes on a legal pad Pammie slid his way and scratching out each number when someone answered. Letting a little Oklahoma creep into his voice, he identified himself as an independent surveyor employed by AAA.
Pammie giggled after he hung up the first time. “You’re good.”
“It’s the twang,” he said. “People think hicks are too stupid to be pulling anything.”
“What if a hick answers?”
“Then I talk like a Yankee.” He imitated JFK.
She giggled again. “Now you sound like Wendell.”
It was slow work. At the end of twenty minutes he’d made only three calls and filled a dozen pages with notes in his personal shorthand. It was surprising how many General Motors cars had had safety equipment problems. Pammie, reading and culling old cards from the file box and adding new ones, soon stopped listening. Rick was about to place another call when the telephone rang. Line 2 lit up. He heard Enid answering in the next room.
“Oh, hello, Wendell. How’s the weather?”
Rick glanced at Pammie, studying a card. He picked up the receiver and punched 2.
“… same as yours. I’m at Metro Airport. The meeting was canceled.”
Rick recognized the voice from television press conferences, the Harvard accent softly reminiscent of Kennedy’s.
“That’s the second time,” Enid said.
“I know. They’re ducking me. Can you meet me at American? We’ll have lunch at the Hilton.”
“Is that wise?” Her tone was barely above a whisper.
“I’m tired of being wise. It hasn’t gotten me anywhere. Are you free?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t tell the others I’m here yet. Nothing gets done when everyone’s depressed.”
Rick waited until they both hung up before he punched Line 1. He was busy dialing the next number when Enid leaned in through the door. “Pammie, can you watch the phone? I have to go out.”
“I thought you and Lee were going to lunch.”
“Damn.” She glanced at a tiny gold watch on her wrist. “Apologize, okay? Tell him I’ll explain later.” She clattered away without a glance at Rick. Thirty seconds later the Mercedes swept past the window, startling a bluejay off the feeder.
Rick broke the connection on a busy signal. That explained Miss Kohler. This was going to be easier than he thought.