Read Online Never Street by Loren D. Estleman - Free Book Online Page A

back in January,” he said. “I was on my way to a tow job clear out in Washtenaw County. I passed this pile of junk, up to its knees in weeds in an unplowed field. The farmer’s wife was home. She said she was sick of looking at it and I could have it for nothing if I cleared it out before her husband got back from Lansing. I never did get to the tow job. I hitched on and brought it straight here. I almost fell on my face when I read the serial number.”
    I nodded. Ernst’s memory was where old serial numbers went to die. If he ever forgot one you can bet it never existed. He went on.
    “Engine and transmission were junk, of course. I had a brand-new four-fifty-five Cadillac V-8 engine I traded a Willys Jeep for to a guy in Dearborn, never used. I found the trans in a salvage yard on Ford Road. I applied for a title based on the serial number of the Caddy. It came through last week. It’s as legal as abortion and you don’t have to worry about picketers.”
    “Why just a thousand?”
    His face twitched, another memento he carried around from the last good war. “What?”
    “Any collector worth the name would give you twenty-five hundred for it as it sits. You don’t hate them that much. Where’s the string?”
    “No string.” He twitched again. “Oh, the farmer’s wife called me the next day trying to get it back; something about her husband threatening to divorce her. I already had the engine in. I hung up. The farmer has the original title, but that goes to the number on the old engine. I junked that. It would be better if the car weren’t here when his lawyer comes around.”
    “Ernst, that’s theft.”
    His face went stoic. “Thousand’s the price.”
    I undid the latch and threw up the hood. The 455 wasn’t anywhere near as clean as an operating table at Johns Hopkins. I slammed the hood shut. “Give me two hundred on the Merc. I’ll give you another hundred down and a hundred a month.”
    “I don’t want the Merc. I need half up front. If you’re going to pay the rest on time I’m going to have to make it twelve-fifty.”
    “How’s Eric?”
    “Eric’s good. He’s going to be a monsignor.” He doubled over the tarp another time, his knuckles whitening. “Give me the Merc and the hundred, cash. I expect the first payment first of next month.”
    I’d deposited Gay Catalin’s retainer check the day before and kept out two hundred for walking around. I gave him five twenties. He laid the rolled canvas across the hood of a Monte Carlo with belts and hoses spilling out like entrails and counted the bills. “Don’t you want to take it out for a run first?”
    “Anyone else work on it but you?”
    “You see anyone walking around here with a broken jaw?”
    “Let’s go in and swap titles.”
    He led the way, moving fast on the balls of his feet.
    We completed the transaction in his little monoxide-smelling office in the garage. “Come around after this thing goes away and I’ll bump out the dings and do you a paint job nobody will know wasn’t factory.” He handed me a set of keys attached to a washer.
    “I like it the way it is.”
    “You don’t put up much of a front.”
    “Someone would just push it in if I did.” I gave him the keys to the Mercury.
    Before he went into the Catholic seminary, Ernst’s son Eric had been arrested by the Detroit Police on a charge of Grand Theft Auto. As a favor to my mechanic I’d dug up three witnesses who swore Eric was with them at the Pussycat Theater on Telegraph Road at the time the car was seen barreling out of the dealer’s lot at Seven Mile and Dequindre. The cops didn’t buy their story any more than I did, but the dealer hadn’t wanted to bother with a long trial and withdrew his complaint. And I hadn’t paid a penny for a lube and oil change in five years.

Nine
    O UR DAILY STORM clouds were in place when I came out on the street after lunch, but they provided no insulation from the heat. Instead they sealed in the