A Gambling Man

Chapter 7

The friend’s pickup truck was a rambling, ancient mess of a Plymouth held together by wire, tape, and probably prayer by the gent driving it. That “gent” was a burly fellow dressed in blue overalls, dusty brogans, and a dirty, tan snap-brim hat with a fat cigar stuck in the red band. Howells didn’t provide a name for the man, and the man didn’t volunteer one.

Howells’s friend ogled Callahan as he held open the rusted passenger door for her. She tucked herself primly inside the cab and wouldn’t look at him. The lady didn’t need a magnifying glass to discern the man’s primal desire. Archer noted that Callahan kept a firm hand on her clutch purse, in which the .38 lay like a coiled rattler.

Archer hefted Howells into the back, where he sat next to a passel of tools. Archer rode higher up on the truck bed’s side panel. He buttoned up his jacket and turned up his collar because the air had gone cool. As they headed west, the sky was clear and the stars were stitched to the dark fabric in random patterns of elegance.

They were moving at too brisk a pace for Archer to light up a cigarette, so he just watched the dirt pass by. The land was flat, the vegetation uninteresting, and the occasional animal unremarkable.

“Not much out this way,” Archer commented after a few miles.

“Men came here for gold a long time ago. Now it’s just a stop on the way to somewhere else, unless you’re enamored of desert land.”

“I like the water.”

“You grew up on the ocean?”

“No. But I took a long boat ride home and it was the sweetest ride I’ve ever had.”

“Smooth, was it?”

“No, we actually went through a hurricane. Thought we were going to sink for about three straight days, guys puking and praying all over the place. I’d settled on the fact that I was gonna drown right then and there in the old Atlantic.”

“So why the hell do you like the water then?”

“I survived the war and that boat was taking me home. It affects a man.”

“I can see that,” said Howells thoughtfully. “I fought in the First World War.”

“I’m hoping there won’t be a third.”

“So California, eh?”

Archer shrugged. “Good a place as any, I reckon.”

“I wish I’d done more moving about when I was young.”

“You from here, then?”

“Not exactly. But I call it home now, for better or worse.”

“If you pay those boys off, who’s to say you won’t get back into debt? And you won’t have another car to sell.”

“You make a fair point, Archer, but right now I don’t see another option.”

Archer shrugged. “It’s your funeral, and any man who can’t see that deserves what he gets.”

“That’s a hard line, friend,” Howells replied, frowning.

“No, that’s life. And you’ve seen more of it than me, so you should know better.”

The truck rolled on until they reached an unwieldy conglomeration of buildings. A gas station, an automobile repair garage, and a small bungalow that looked like someone had let the air out. Out front was parked a big sparkling-blue Buick and a smaller dented Ford two-door, Mutt and Jeff in mechanical splendor.

“What is this setup?” asked Archer as he helped Howells down.

“My buddy’s place, like I told you. He has the garage and a filling station. And he lives in that little house there.”

“Your buddy have a name?” asked Callahan, who had gotten out of the cab before the man had stopped the truck fully, probably so he couldn’t hurry around and try to see up her skirt like he had when she’d gotten in.

Howells pointed to the sign above the garage. It read: LESTER’S AUTO REPAIR. “Lester’s had this place a long time.”

The truck shot back onto the road and disappeared quickly from view.

“Why’s your friend in such a hurry?” asked Archer.

“Lester doesn’t like Calvin. And if Lester doesn’t like you, you know it.”

Archer eyed the fleeing Plymouth and then glanced at Howells. “So how do we get back to town then, Bobby H?”

Howells considered this dilemma and said, “Well, that’s a pickle for sure.”

The door to the bungalow opened at Howells’s knocking. In the doorway stood the largest human being Archer had ever seen. About six feet eight, his body was so thick it needed every inch the doorway provided. Archer figured him for 350 or more pounds, if he weighed an ounce. He looked like a statue whose sculptor had gotten carried away.

“Holy Lord,” whispered Callahan. “Is that one man or two?”

“Dunno,” said Archer. “But either way, don’t make him or them mad.”

Howells threw up a hand and said, “Howdy there, Lester.”

Lester did not seem pleased to see him or any of them, thought Archer. He looked like he would prefer to snap their necks like chickens and then pluck and cook them for dinner.

Lester had curly dark hair and a crooked nose that seemed to go on and on. His lips were thick, and his teeth were relative to the size of his wide mouth. He wore a stained, sleeveless undershirt that showed off thick, broad shoulders, arm muscles that seemed too weighty for the bones they were attached to, and matted black chest hair where the fabric dipped low. His stiff dungarees, while enormous, strained to contain his legs. His feet were surprisingly small for his huge frame. His nails were thick with grease, and the smell of gasoline shrouded the man like wrapping paper around a present, a big one. A cigarette was stuck behind one ear like a pale, severed finger lingering.

He looked them over one by one and said nothing.

Callahan took a subtle sniff and wrinkled her nose, taking a step back to allow the man some space and her lungs some reprieve.

Lester once more ran his gaze up and down Archer and Callahan before turning to Howells. “It’s late for a visit, Pops. What are you here for?”

His voice was low, like rumbling thunder. It didn’t quite match his girth, but it still made Archer notice his words with particular care.

“Came to see the car.” He looked at Archer. “Got a prospective buyer in Archer here.”

Lester turned once more to Archer. His gaze went from the hat to the feet and then came back up like an elevator car and stopped at the floor containing Archer’s eyes.

“He doesn’t look like he can afford it.”

“Well, looks can be deceiving,” said Archer.

Lester did not appear to take too kindly to this mild rebuke. He took a few steps toward Archer before Howells said, “So is it in the garage then?”

Lester snapped a glare at him that in the dim light seemed ferocious somehow. “Where else, Pops? Under the cover, like always.”

“Well, let’s get to it,” said Howells hastily. “Don’t want to waste what’s left of your night, Lester.”

To Archer, the old man seemed uneasy at having to deal with the giant, and that uneasiness transferred to Archer like a virus.

Lester took them to the garage, pulled a key from his pocket, unlocked a massive padlock, and slid open the doors with outward thrusts of his two-by-four arms. Inside they saw automobiles and pickup trucks in various stages of disassembly. Large rolling toolboxes stood next to some of these vehicles. Single bulb work lights were strung from the exposed rafters. The smell of grease was predominant but barely winning out over the odor of burned nicotine. Archer saw a Maxwell House coffee can full of cigarette butts. He next eyed a fifty-gallon drum marked GASOLINE with a hose and nozzle attached, and he wondered how the man had not managed to blow or burn himself up.

“Business looks good,” noted Archer in a friendly tone. He really did not want to have to try his luck with the aluminum knuckles against a man the size of this one. He doubted he could reach Lester’s chin to see if, despite his size, it was made of glass.

“Looks can be deceiving.” Lester was the only one to smile at his little joke, and it was a weak, grim effort.

In a separate room behind another set of locked slider doors was a vehicle draped with a brown canvas tarp. Lester flicked on a light and glanced at Howells, who nodded.

Archer stood next to Callahan, who had reached out and clutched his arm, as though what was about to be revealed was a wild animal instead of something you drove on the road.

Lester grabbed one end of the tarp and with one tug pulled it free of what was underneath.

“Damn,” Archer and Callahan said collectively.

Howells stepped forward and rubbed the silver trim on the side of the blood-red car, which also had a red convertible top that was now set in the down position.

“Folks, feast your eyes on a 1939 Delahaye Model One Sixty-Five, Figoni and Falaschi convertible cabriolet.”

Callahan gushed, “It... it looks like it’s floating on air.”

Archer eyed the long hood, which ended in a shiny grille that ran from top to bottom on the front of the vehicle like a knight’s metal vestments. Its front and rear fenders looked like waves crashing on a beach and enormous teardrop-shaped pearls, respectively. There were slashes of chrome trim on the sides and running along the bottom of the chassis. It rode so low that he could see only the bare bottoms of the whitewall tires.

“It looks... more like a dream than a car,” said Archer quietly.

Lester said, “It ain’t no dream, buddy. This baby weighs three thousand pounds, has a twelve-cylinder all-aluminum, four-point-five-liter engine, triple overhead cam, three downdraft Solex carburetors, and a four-speed transmission, with a top speed of around a hundred and fifteen miles an hour.”

“Holy hell,” said Callahan. “Just the car you want if you’re robbing a bank.”

This comment made Howells and Archer exchange a startled look.

“Figoni and Falaschi?” said Archer.

Lester replied, “Figoni and Falaschi were the designers of the car. Delahaye was an engineer and he didn’t have an in-house body shop. He built the mechanics of the car and left the body design to coachbuilders, like Figoni and Falaschi. They make really pretty cars. They’re Italians.”

Howells said, “So what say you, Archer?”

Archer pointed at the front seat. “Well, for starters, the steering wheel’s on the wrong side.”

“No, the steering wheel is on the right side for the simple fact that it was built for an Englishman, and that is where a steering wheel is located over there,” said Howells.

“I’m not English,” said Archer. “And I’m over here, not there.”

“So do you want it or not?” said Howells.

“I can’t decide on buying a car I haven’t driven.”

“Fair enough. Lester, the key?”

Lester slipped a key off a hook on the wall and held it out to Archer. “You ever driven anything like this?”

“Hell, I’ve never seen anything like this, pal. What a sheltered life I’ve led.”

“You want me to drive it out of the garage for you, so you won’t bang nothing up?”

Archer reached out and took the key from him. “I got it.”

Lester held his hand up without the key for longer than was necessary. For a moment, Archer thought the hand would change to a fist and be swung at him. With his free hand he felt for the aluminum knuckles in his pocket. He would have preferred a howitzer.

But Lester shrugged, lowered his arm, and said, “You break it you bought it, mister.”

“Let’s go, Liberty,” said Archer.

“What, me?”

“I don’t see anybody else named Liberty hanging around.”

They climbed into the car, and Lester pushed the other door open, providing a wide space for the Delahaye to roll through.

Archer put the key in the ignition and turned it. Then he hit the starter button, and the car purred to life with suppressed power.

“Sounds like a lion yawning,” said Callahan.

Howells grinned. “This beast hasn’t been out of its cage. It needs to run free.”

Archer worked the clutch and put the car in gear using the tiny gearshift that was mounted on the steering column. The steering wheel was the same color as the car. It was like he was holding a circle of fire in his hands. He was relieved that there was no grinding sound as he geared up, and they pulled through the opening. They passed the other humbled cars, which seemed to bow to the Delahaye like a pride to its king. As they rolled through the double doors, Archer turned on the headlights; they overcame the darkness with stunning visibility.

Howells and Lester followed them out.

“Which way should we go?” Archer asked.

“Well, first things first. Move over, gal,” said Howells to Callahan.

“What?” said Callahan, staring up wide-eyed at the old man.

“You think I’m going to let you ride off into the night all by your lonesome in the most beautiful car ever built before giving me a dime for it?”

“I’m no car thief,” said Archer.

“Glad you think so. I’m not convinced myself.”

“I can ride with them,” said Lester.

“Hell, Lester,” said Howells. “I don’t think you would fit in there if it was just you.”

Callahan slid over tight to Archer, and Howells climbed into the car, crowding the other two. “Now go west, young man,” he said pointing to the left. “That way.”

Archer pulled onto the road and pressed down the gas.

Howells pursed his lips. “Come on, Archer. Let it rip.”

Archer mashed the pedal down.

The acceleration was immediate, popping their heads back and exhilaratingly so.

“My goodness,” exclaimed Callahan. “If this car was a man, I think I’d propose.”