Read Online Some Like It Hot-Buttered by JEFFREY COHEN - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: JEFFREY COHEN
Ads: Link
for the afternoon, and you get someone reliable to test out the cars you repair. It’s a mutual benefit. This way, you don’t lose valuable time from one of your mechanics, and I don’t charge you a dime.”
“ You don’t charge me ? I like that! I should charge you a rental fee. What happens if you smash up the car, Mr. Mutual Benefit? Which, by the way, is the name of the insurance company that’s going to sue my ass.”
“I’m the best driver you ever had, Moe, and you know it. Besides, if the car undergoes any damage at all, I’ll pay to have it repaired. You get paid to fix the same car twice. How’s that?” We had been through this at least once a month for the past six years, and had honed the routine down from twenty minutes to two.
He threw me a set of keys from a pegboard he had on the wall. “The red Mazda,” he said, pointing. “Watch for a shimmy in the front wheels.”
“I’ll report back in excruciating detail, Moe,” I told him.
He closed his eyes and sighed. “I know, I know.”
I had plenty of time to evaluate the ride on the way to Bridgewater. Moe’s employees had done their usual impeccable job, and there was no sensation of shaking in the steering wheel or the front end at all. Once satisfied on that score, I decided to evaluate the stereo system, although Moe hadn’t asked me to do so. I considered it a value-added service for Moe. What are friends for, anyway?
The CDs in the console leaned heavily toward Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash, which would have been fine if I was trying desperately to become depressed. Luckily, the owner of this fine Japanese vehicle was also an aficionado of movie soundtracks, and had an Elmer Bernstein collection I found impressive, especially for carrying around in a car.
If you’re driving with a purpose at all, you can’t beat the music from The Magnificent Seven , even if it does remind a person of Marlboro ads, back when there were Marlboro ads.
I met Marcy Resnick at an Applebee’s on Route 22 West, just beyond the Bridgewater Commons, a fancy name for a fancy mall in a relatively fancy town. And yet, still room for an Applebee’s (and for that matter, room for Route 22, the least fancy road in the state). You have to love Somerset County.
Marcy waved to me from a corner table, and we shook hands. I had brought a small cassette recorder to embellish the fiction of being a newspaper reporter. We had given each other rudimentary physical descriptions to recognize each other by (she had shoulder-length brown hair and was wearing a gray suit, and I looked exactly like me), and I had gone so far as to wear the Split Personality jacket, assuming (correctly) that no one else in the area would have one, or would at least have the good taste not to wear it in public.
I had resigned myself to not finding out anything useful (especially since I had no idea what constituted “useful”) , so I settled down to order a beer—which was what I figured a reporter would drink—and to watch Marcy, an attractive woman in her early thirties, eat a shrimp salad.
It came as something of a surprise when she opened the conversation with, “I didn’t want to say this over the phone, but Vincent was definitely not acting like himself lately.”
Instinct immediately led me to push the record button on the cassette unit. “What do you mean, not acting like himself? Was he depressed?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Although Vincent was usually a happy sort of a guy; not in an annoying way, like one of those chipper little secretaries who is always wearing a pin to commemorate some holiday or another, but just . . . happy. He was glad to be alive. Things were always good for him. He never told jokes—he hated jokes— but he liked banter. He was always using lines from Tracy and Hepburn movies, or the Marx Brothers.” Damn. Now I liked the guy.
“So, what happened?” I asked her.
Again, Marcy shook her head. “I don’t know. He stopped being
“ You don’t charge me ? I like that! I should charge you a rental fee. What happens if you smash up the car, Mr. Mutual Benefit? Which, by the way, is the name of the insurance company that’s going to sue my ass.”
“I’m the best driver you ever had, Moe, and you know it. Besides, if the car undergoes any damage at all, I’ll pay to have it repaired. You get paid to fix the same car twice. How’s that?” We had been through this at least once a month for the past six years, and had honed the routine down from twenty minutes to two.
He threw me a set of keys from a pegboard he had on the wall. “The red Mazda,” he said, pointing. “Watch for a shimmy in the front wheels.”
“I’ll report back in excruciating detail, Moe,” I told him.
He closed his eyes and sighed. “I know, I know.”
I had plenty of time to evaluate the ride on the way to Bridgewater. Moe’s employees had done their usual impeccable job, and there was no sensation of shaking in the steering wheel or the front end at all. Once satisfied on that score, I decided to evaluate the stereo system, although Moe hadn’t asked me to do so. I considered it a value-added service for Moe. What are friends for, anyway?
The CDs in the console leaned heavily toward Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash, which would have been fine if I was trying desperately to become depressed. Luckily, the owner of this fine Japanese vehicle was also an aficionado of movie soundtracks, and had an Elmer Bernstein collection I found impressive, especially for carrying around in a car.
If you’re driving with a purpose at all, you can’t beat the music from The Magnificent Seven , even if it does remind a person of Marlboro ads, back when there were Marlboro ads.
I met Marcy Resnick at an Applebee’s on Route 22 West, just beyond the Bridgewater Commons, a fancy name for a fancy mall in a relatively fancy town. And yet, still room for an Applebee’s (and for that matter, room for Route 22, the least fancy road in the state). You have to love Somerset County.
Marcy waved to me from a corner table, and we shook hands. I had brought a small cassette recorder to embellish the fiction of being a newspaper reporter. We had given each other rudimentary physical descriptions to recognize each other by (she had shoulder-length brown hair and was wearing a gray suit, and I looked exactly like me), and I had gone so far as to wear the Split Personality jacket, assuming (correctly) that no one else in the area would have one, or would at least have the good taste not to wear it in public.
I had resigned myself to not finding out anything useful (especially since I had no idea what constituted “useful”) , so I settled down to order a beer—which was what I figured a reporter would drink—and to watch Marcy, an attractive woman in her early thirties, eat a shrimp salad.
It came as something of a surprise when she opened the conversation with, “I didn’t want to say this over the phone, but Vincent was definitely not acting like himself lately.”
Instinct immediately led me to push the record button on the cassette unit. “What do you mean, not acting like himself? Was he depressed?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Although Vincent was usually a happy sort of a guy; not in an annoying way, like one of those chipper little secretaries who is always wearing a pin to commemorate some holiday or another, but just . . . happy. He was glad to be alive. Things were always good for him. He never told jokes—he hated jokes— but he liked banter. He was always using lines from Tracy and Hepburn movies, or the Marx Brothers.” Damn. Now I liked the guy.
“So, what happened?” I asked her.
Again, Marcy shook her head. “I don’t know. He stopped being
Similar Books
