man had issued. The lawn was horrible, but it looked positively great with that Plymouth in the foreground for perspective.
'What if it is?' the old guy demanded.
'I' - Arnie had to swallow - 'I want to buy it.
The old dude's eyes gleamed. The angry took on his face was replaced by a furtive gleam in the eye and a certain hungry sneer around the lips. Then a large resplendent shit-eating grin appeared. That was the moment, I think then, just at that moment - when I felt something cold and blue inside me. There was a moment - just then - when I felt like slugging Arnie and dragging him away. Something came into the old man's eyes. Not just the gleam; it was something behind the gleam.
'Well, you should have said so,' the old guy told Arnie. He stuck out his hand and Arnie took it. 'LeBay's the name. Roland D. LeBay. US Army, retired.'
'Arnie Cunningham.'
The old sport pumped his hand and sort of waved at me. I was out of the play; he had his sucker. Arnie might as well have handed LeBay his wallet.
How much?' Arnie asked. And then he plunged ahead. 'Whatever you want for her, it's not enough.'
I groaned inside instead of sighing. His chequebook had just joined his wallet.
For a moment LeBay's grin faltered a little, and his eyes narrowed down suspiciously. I think he was evaluating the possibility that he was being put on. He studied Arnie's longing face for signs of guile, and then asked the murderously perfect question:
'Son, have you ever owned a car before?'
'He owns a Mustang Mach II,' I said quickly. 'His folks bought it for him. It's got a Hurst gearbox, a supercharger, and it can boil the road in first gear. It - '
'No,' Arnie said quietly. 'I just got my driver's licence this spring.'
LeBay tipped me a brief but crafty gaze and then swung his full attention back to his prime target. He put both hands in the small of his back and stretched. I caught a sour whiff of sweat.
'Got a back problem in the Army,' he said. 'Full disability. Doctors could never put it right. Anyone ever asks you what's wrong with the world, boys, you tell em it's three things: doctors, commies, and nigger radicals. Of the three commies is the worst, closely followed by doctors. And if they want to know who told you, tell em Roland D. LeBay. Yessir.'
He touched the old, scuffed hood of the Plymouth with a kind of bemused love.
'This here is the best car I ever owned. Bought her in September 1957. Back then, that's when you got your new model year, in September. All summer long they'd show you pictures of cars under hoods and cars under tarps until you were fair dyin t'know what they looked like underneath. Not like now.' His voice dripped contempt for the debased times he had lived to see. 'Brand-new, she was. Had the smell of a brand-new car, and that's about the finest smell in the world.'
He considered.
'Except maybe for pussy.'
I looked at Arnie, nibbling the insides of my cheeks madly to keep from braying laughter all over everything. Arnie looked back at me, astounded. The old man appeared to notice neither of us; he was off on his own planet.
'I was in khaki for thirty-four years,' LeBay told us, still touching the hood of the car. 'Went in at sixteen in 1923. 1 et dust in Texas and seen crabs as big as lobsters in some of them Nogales whoredens. I saw men with their guts comin out of their ears during Big Two. In France I saw that. Their guts was comin out their ears. You believe that, son?'
'Yessir,' Arnie said. I don't think he'd heard a word LeBay said. He was shifting from foot to foot as if he had to go to the bathroom bad. 'About the car, though - '
'You go to the University?' LeBay barked suddenly. 'Up there at Horlicks?'
'Nosir, I go to Libertyville High.
'Good,' LeBay said grimly. 'Steer clear of colleges. They're full of niggerlovers that want to give away the Panama Canal. "Think-tanks," they call em. "Assholetanks, " say I.'
He gazed fondly at the car sitting on its flat tyre, its paintwork mellowing rustily in the late afternoon sunlight.
'Hurt my back in the spring of '57,' he said. 'Army was going to rack and ruin even then. I got out just in time. I came on back to Libertyville. Looked over