Death on a Dime by Baer Charlton

Author:Baer Charlton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Baer Charlton

Chapter Twenty-One

“Hey, Hooker!” The fresh-scrubbed kid called down from where he was busying himself by polishing every piece of chrome he could find. “Do you have any fingernail polish?”

Willie froze, and then looked longingly at Hooker. Mouthing the words, “This is the stuff fantasies are made of,” with a huge smile as he batted his eyes.

“Stop!” Hooker mouthed back. Turning toward the front of the truck where both men could see the young man’s spread legs straddling the concrete stairwell, Willie elbowed Hooker and nodded toward the kid as if to say ‘see, see.’

Hooker rolled his eyes closed, then buried his face in his right palm, saying, “No, but I know a nasty old man who should be acting his age. Why?”

The legs straightened and the kid bent down to look at the two men dressed in identical white T-shirts, jeans, and dirty sneakers. He ignored the goofy lascivious moon-dog look on the old man’s face as he blandly explained, “There is a good-sized gouge here in the face of the bumper, and it looks to be down to the steel. I thought maybe some nail polish would keep it from rusting.”

Hooker screwed up his face in askance at Willie muttering incredulously, “A gouge? In the bumper?” The two scrambled out of the dark hole to look with wonder at the custom-made armor-plate steel bumper. Unlike most bendable modern piece-of-shit bumpers Willie and Hooker had considered when they were building Mae West, the chrome beauty gracing the intimidatingly massive front end was made entirely from the same armor-plated steel used to make battleships, courtesy of the local Navy repair yard. The steel had been chrome plated to a military ‘work’ thickness and maybe a squidgy point beyond. As Willie always said, “It pays to know people who know you.”

“Huh?” Hooker looked at a narrow divot no longer than a half-inch where a dime had given up its useful life. Turning to the older and wiser man. “Got any better ideas?”

Willie stared at the dime edge mark. “Heck no, it would have just rusted on me.” Turning to the kid, he gently slugged him in the shoulder. “You’re worth keeping around here, Squirt.” Stepping over the open stairwell, he headed toward his boudoir, stating, “I’ll go get you some nice pearl pink I have been dying to get rid of.”

Hooker shot him a glaring look, knowing full well the man was joking. Taunting the old friend, Hooker shot back as the man reached the door, “Knowing you, if you have wanted to get rid of it, then it must be ‘pussy pink.’” The old man responded by scratching the back of his head with his middle finger. Hooker and the kid laughed as they also heard a car pull up and into the barn.

Rounding the nose of the large truck, Hooker saw the captain standing up out of the California Highway Patrol cruiser. Hooker grabbed a fresh red grease rag off the large commercial bundle and wiped his hands in the cloth as he sauntered across the rest of the 10,000 square foot car barn.

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