the rolling iron. I took my time. Then I walked into Norman Cobb's Plymouth dealership - where the bowling alley is now on outer Main Street - and I ordered this here car. I said you get it in red and white, next year's model. Red as a fire-engine on the inside. And they did. When I got her, she had a total of six miles on the mileometer. Yessir.'
He spat.
I glanced over Arnie's shoulder at the mileometer. The glass was cloudy, but I could read the damage all the same: 97,432. And six-tenths. Jesus wept.
'If you love the car so much, why are you selling it?' I asked.
He turned a milky, rather frightening gaze on me. 'Are you cracking wise on me, son?'
I didn't answer, but I didn't drop my gaze either.
After a few moments of eye-to-eye duelling (which Arnie totally ignored; he was running a slow and loving hand over one of the back fins), he said, 'Can't drive anymore. Back's gotten too bad. Eyes are going the same way.'
Suddenly I got it - or thought I did. If he had given us the correct dates, he was seventy-one. And at seventy, this state makes you start taking compulsory eye exams every year before they'll renew your driver's licence. LeBay had either failed his eye exam or was afraid of failing. Either way, it came to the same thing. Rather than submit to that indignity, he had put the Plymouth up. And after that, the, car had gotten old fast.
'How much do you want for it?' Arnie asked again. Oh he just couldn't wait to be slaughtered.
LeBay turned his face up to the sky, appearing to consider it for rain. Then he looked down at Arnie again and gave him a large, kindly smile that was far too much like the previous shit-eating grin for me.
'I've been asking three hundred,' he said. 'But you seem a likely enough lad. I'll make it two-fifty for you.'
'Oh my Christ,' I said.
But he knew who his sucker was, and he knew exactly how to drive the wedge in between us. In the words of my grandfather, he hadn't fallen off a haytruck yesterday.
'Okay,' he said brusquely. 'If that's how you want it. I got my four-thirty story to watch. Edge of Night. Never miss it if I can help it. Nice chinning with you boys. So long.'
Arnie threw me such a smoking look of pain and anger that I backed off a step. He went after the old man and took his elbow. They talked. I couldn't hear it all, but I could see more than enough. The old man's pride was wounded. Arnie was earnest and apologetic. The old man just hoped Arnie understood that he couldn't stand to see the car that had brought him through safe to his golden years insulted. Arnie agreed. Little by little, the old man allowed himself to be led back. And again I felt something consciously dreadful about him . . . it was as if a cold November wind could think. I can't, put it any better than that.
'If he says one more word, I wash my hands of the whole thing,' LeBay said, and cocked a horny, calloused thumb at me.
'He won't, he won't,' Arnie said hastily. 'Three hundred, did you say?'
'Yes, I believe that was - '
'Two-fifty was the quoted price,' I said loudly.
Arnie looked stricken, afraid the old man would walk away again, but LeBay was taking no chances. The fish was almost out of the pond now
'Two-fifty would do it, I guess,' LeBay allowed. He glanced my way again, and I saw that we had an understanding - he didn't like me and I didn't like him.
To my ever-increasing horror, Arnie pulled his wallet out and began thumbing through it. There was silence among the three of us. LeBay looked on. I looked away at a little kid who was trying to kill himself on a puke-green skateboard. Somewhere a dog barked. Two girls who looked like eighth- or ninth-graders went past, giggling and holding clutches of library books to their blooming chests. I had only one hope left for getting Arnie out of this; it was the day before payday. Given time, even twenty-four hours, this wild fever might pass. Arnie was beginning to remind me of Toad, of Toad Hall.
When I looked back, Arnie and LeBay were looking at two fives and six ones - all that had been in his wallet, apparently.