The Last Open Road Read online

  "What's that, Mr. Baumstein?"

  "Call me Big Ed, willya?"

  And that's how I wound up driving into Manhattan in Big Ed's black Caddy sedan (which, by the way, had real thick glass in all the windows) for my first-ever look at a foreign sports car dealership. Naturally, I'd asked Julie if she wanted to come along, since Big Ed's Sixty Special had by far the widest, softest, most sumptuous front seat you ever saw (I don't even need to mention what the back seat was like!) and thinking about Julie and all that soft, cushy real estate was enough to get my hormones working overtime. But she couldn't make it on account of she had a date to go over to the beauty parlor with one of her girlfriends to get their hair done and nails painted. How that ever compared to visiting a Jaguar dealership in Manhattan was beyond me, but I guess that's just one of the many important differences between women and normal people.

  Anyhow, the next day I followed the directions Big Ed scribbled on the back of an old envelope for me, crossing the George Washington into Manhattan and eventually finding the Jaguar agency on a lumpy little side street near the river, mixed in with a bunch of factories and warehouses and stuff. It was really just an ordinary cinderblock garage that somebody'd dressed up with a fresh coat of whitewash and some brown two-by-four trim to make it look like one of those two-door English houses. There was a small wooden sign over the door done up in that fancy Old English script you see on scotch labels and eye doctor diplomas. It read:

  WESTBRIDGE MOTOR CAR COMPANY, LTD.

  ’Thoroughbred Motorcars for Discriminating Drivers'

  COLIN ST. JOHN, PROPRIETOR

  Just as I pulled up, this tall, natty-looking guy with a tweed cap and a gold-topped cane stepped out the front door, took a long, down-the-nose gander at me, and limped briskly over to one of the MGs. He tossed his cane behind the seat, folded himself inside, pulled the choke out, yanked smartly on the starter, and listened with his head cocked to one side as the engine ground a few times and clattered to life. While it warmed up, the gent gave himself a quick once-over in the little pocket-sized mirror perched on top of the dashboard. He straightened his tie, tweaked the ends of his mustache, realigned his cap, then wet the tip of his finger and ran it delicately over both eyebrows. "Righto," he nodded at last, giving himself an appreciative wink. Then he reached in the door pocket and pulled out the most enormous curlicue smoking pipe you have ever seen. I swear, it looked big as a damn French horn, and the guy spent the better part of five whole minutes getting it packed, tamped, leveled off, and fired up just exactly the way he wanted. Once the pipe was puffing away to his complete satisfaction, he folded his tobacco pouch away, blipped the throttle once or twice, and tootled off down the street, looking jaunty as all getout and trailing an aromatic cloud of burning Cavendish in his wake.

  He was perfect, you know?

  Inside the Westbridge shop were more blessed British automobiles than I'd ever seen in my life. There must've been five or six XK120s and near a dozen MGs, and almost every damn one of them had its hood wide open or was perched up on jack stands with the wheels off. Or both. There were even cars I'd never heard of before. Like this magnificent Jaguar Mk. VII sedan that looked like the Lincoln Monument on wheels. And right next to it was a pudgy little Morris Minor that easily could've belonged to Elmer Fudd. Toward the back was this torpedo-shaped Frazer-Nash two-seater done up in a deep string-bean green. It had cycle fenders and racing numbers painted on the sides, and it sure didn't look like any Nash automobile I'd ever seen. Of course, I didn't know that Frazer-Nash was just one of many pint-sized English sports car companies that nobody on this side of the planet ever heard of, and that it didn't have one single thing do with Nash automobiles here in the States. Over in England, anybody with a gas welder, a pile of steel, and a roof over his head can set himself up in the sports car manufacturing business. All you have to do is hang out a shingle.

  Anyhow, that Frazer-Nash was the first actual racing car I ever stood right next to, and gee whiz, did it ever give me goose bumps. Oh, it was a little beat up and scruffy-looking, what with genuine, hundred-mile-an-hour stone chips and insect splatters on the nose and fenders. There was just this little half-moon racing windscreen in front of the driver and a serious-looking leather strap buckled across the hood to keep it from flying open at top speed and a naked exhaust pipe running right below the driver's elbow. Wow! No question about it, that Frazer-Nash was a real war machine. I didn't see much of anybody around, and I started thinking about maybe unbuckling that leather strap and taking a peek under the hood. In fact, I'd just started unfastening it when an unknown finger tapped me on the shoulder. "Need any 'elp there, guv'nor?" said a voice right out of Piccadilly Circus.

  I wheeled around to find this short, hollow-faced guy in a blue shop coat staring at me through a pair of sad, watery-gray eyes. "Mister St. John?" I asked, real formal-like. A name like Colin St. John does that to you.

  "Naw, Barry Spline's the naime," he wheezed through a nose pointy enough to open oil cans. "Glad t'meetcher." He had one of those rare British accents that never once made you think about royalty. "Yer missed 'is bleedin' 'ighness. That was 'im sportin' off in the TD just now. Bloody supercharged, that one is. Quick as a blink."

  "I saw."

  "But not near s'quick as this little beauty," he grinned, patting the Frazer-Nash on its nose emblem. "She's just got back from Sebring. Florida, y'know. Won the big bloody twelve-hour there. Yer probably read about it in the papers."

  "Sure," I lied, wondering what the hell he was talking about.

  "Any'ow," he continued, extending a hand that obviously worked on cars for a living, "I'm the bloke gets most things done 'ere around the Westbridge shop. 'Ow can we be of service, eh?"

  I explained as how I was looking for a Jaguar XK120 shop manual, and right away the smile melted off his face. "And just why would yer want a Jagyewahr shop manual, eh?" So I told him about the Sinclair and Big Ed's Jaguar and the fouled plugs and clouds of black smoke, and as I did, Barry Spline's lips spread out in a mean little sliver of a smile. "Starting carburetor," he snickered.

  "What?"

  "Thermostatic actuator fr'the starting carburetor. You'll find out."

  "I will?"

  Barry Spline nodded. "As a general practice, we don't h'encourage the h'untrained to h'attempt maintenance or repairs on Jagyewahr au-tomobiles. Company policy, y'know. But seeing as 'ow you're way over in Jersey, and seeing as 'ow it's only one bloody car"—his eyes swept around the shop—"...and seeing as 'ow I've got more flippin' work than I know what to do with, I suppose we might be able to make an h'exception." He leaned in close and whispered, "Just don't let 'is bloody 'ighness know about it, eh?"

  "Mum's the word."

  "Right. Just step yerself over t'the parts counter and ring the bell. Our Spares Consultant will be only too 'appy to 'elp yer out."

  So I went over to the parts counter and rang the little bell and who pops up on the other side but Barry Spline. Only now he's wearing a white shop coat. "'Ow can I 'elp yer, sir?" he says with a perfectly straight face.

  "I want a shop manual for an XK120. You know that."

  "Shop manual for an hex-kay-one-twenty," he says real slow, like he's mulling it over. "I'm h'afraid we're fresh h'out of stock at the moment."

  "All right," I said. "When do you expect you might have one?"

  Barry Spline the Spares Consultant rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Most normally, we don't sell Jagyewahr shop manuals to the public. Matter of general company policy." Then he leaned over the counter and added in a near whisper, "You h'understand, of course...."

  "Oh, of course," I nodded, not exactly sure that I did. "But you said yourself it was just one car, and that it's way over in Jersey...." I was starting to get a little annoyed, you know?

  "Ah, well," he said with an elaborate sigh, "I suppose we could put one on order for yer, seeing as 'ow it is just one bloody car, and also 'ow it's way over in Jersey."

  "Gee," I told him, trying no
t to grind my teeth, "that'd be real swell of you."

  "Takes h'about six weeks...h'unless yer wanter pay air freight, that is."

  "Air freight is fine."

  "Payment in h'advance, of course."

  "Oh, naturally."

  So I handed over a large wad of Big Ed's folding money and, after making a few quick mental calculations, Barry Spline returned to me a quarter, a nickel, and a few pennies in change. Judging from the price, they must write those Jaguar shop manuals on parchment from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Then I asked for a receipt so I could prove I hadn't bought a gold watch or booked myself a private railcar to At-lantic City. Barry Spline seemed offended that I'd ask for such a thing, but then he shrugged one of those homegrown New Yorker shrugs—what can you do? —and dashed one off longhand on an ordinary white paper notepad he had sitting on the counter. "There you are, guv'nor," he cooed through the self-satisfied grin of a man who has really put the screws to a fellow human being. "That oughter do yer up right and proper. And willyer be needin' anything else terday?"

  "Yeah," I growled, doing a slow burn, "can anybody tell me how to keep one of these damn Jaguar shitcans running?"

  Barry Spline stiffened up a couple notches. "If yer 'ave a specific sort of problem, yer might take it up with the Shop Foreman."

  "And just where do I find the Shop Foreman?"

  "One moment, eh?" And Barry Spline the Spares Consultant (white coat) vanished, only to reappear a few seconds later as Barry Spline, the Shop Foreman (blue coat). "What seems ter be the trouble, guv'nor?"

  It took me awhile to get the gist of things, which was that Barry Spline, Spares Consultant, and Barry Spline, Shop Foreman, had to be paid separately. See, you could buy any Jaguar part you wanted from Barry-in-white (as long as you were willing to pay a left nut for it—in advance, of course—and wait until the Twelfth of Never to get it), but then you still had to pay Barry-in-blue for whatever information, advice, or encouragement it took to get the damn thing properly installed. And we're not talking about tips like the fivers Big Ed palmed off, either. Barry-in-blue charged "consultation" fees whenever he could get away with it, and he'd even write you up one of his plain white paper "receipts" if you wanted one. At least if Colin St. John wasn't around to see him do it, anyway.

  But once he'd relieved me of all the loose cash I had on my person, Barry lightened up considerably and actually took me on a tour of the Westbridge shop. One mechanic to another, you know. "Yer've gotter h'understand about sports cars," he explained, waving his hand through the air. "The people who buy them could all drive bleedin' Cadillacs if they wanted. Cars like that great bloody black sedan yer rolled up in." His eyes glazed over just thinking about Big Ed's Sixty Special. "Oh, those are some marvelous smooth cars, Cadillacs are"—you could tell Barry Spline admired Caddies—"but that's not what these flippin' people want. Oh, no! They claim t'like the 'ard ride and the 'eavy steering and enough bloody 'eat through the floorboards to roast bleedin' chestnuts. These people h'enjoy the engine racket and picking insects out of their 'air after every bleedin' run t'market. And believe me," he said, raising an important finger toward the rafters, "they absolutely live for the roadside breakdowns and h'expensive repairs." Barry Spline looked me squarely in the eye. "And do you know why?"

  I shook my head.

  "Because they're all bloody masochists!"

  "They're what?"

  "Masochists."

  "What the hell are masochists?"

  Barry Spline licked his lips and thought for a moment. "Before intercourse, 'ave yer ever been tied down to a bed with fine silk ropes and 'ad somebody go over yer private parts with an eggbeater?"

  I couldn't say as I had.

  "Neither 'ave I," he said wistfully. "But the point is that a masochist h'enjoys such things as pain, suffering, and humiliation."

  I looked it up in my aunt's dictionary when I got home, and Barry Spline was telling the truth.

  Honest he was.

  * * *

  Colin St. John came to these United States in early 1946, carrying a slight limp that was a souvenir of The Big One and deep, empty pockets he intended to fill with Yankee greenbacks. He was a tall, elegant-looking English gent with leather patches at his elbows and the aristocratic bearing of a stiff buggy whip. Colin always wore one of those snappy tweed caps "whilst motoring in an open car," and was forever puffing on this big curlicue Swiss pipe with little silver dangle chains and perforated tin breeze lids. I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. And the way he talked! Like a blessed duke or prime minister or something. Why, it made you feel like some kind of crude, boorish New Jersey Neanderthal just listening to him.

  The disappearing act Colin pulled that first time I drove up to the Westbridge shop was part of a carefully orchestrated scheme he worked on every new prospect. By vanishing the moment you appeared, he set the idea in motion that he was a very busy fellow who really didn't need any additional business—thank you very much—but if you wanted, you could wait around for a chance opening to appear in his frightfully busy schedule (pronounced shedge-yewel).

  You did have an appointment, didn't you?

  I witnessed that performance many times over the next several months, on account of I was forever dropping by for a few odds and ends or some of Barry Spline's "consultation" to keep Big Ed's Jag running right. Or just running, if you want to get technical about it. Not that the XK120 was a bad car. Hell no. It was the most magnificent automobile I'd ever worked on in my life. But it needed to be stroked and petted now and then to keep it purring. And that's the only way Big Ed wanted any of his cars. It got to where Old Man Finzio didn't mind much either, since Big Ed was paying him a small fortune for my time (including those frequent trips into Manhattan) and that's not even counting the fivers Big Ed was palming me every time I passed a wrench over his Jag. Which was often.

  I got to know Barry Spline and Colin St. John pretty well, and spent a lot of company time listening to Colin tell exciting World War II adventure stories in that fancy British accent of his. Once Colin saw I was spending some serious cash in the parts department, he'd flash me a behind-the-hand wink and draw me off to the side for a semi-private snort of scotch. Especially if it was around lunchtime or toward the end of the day. Colin kept a couple souvenir shot glasses from Niagara Falls and a bottle of Glen-Something-or-Other scotch hidden behind the service counter (where everybody and his brother knew exactly where it was) and it was a sign that you had indeed joined the Inner Circle when Colin St. John invited you to "share a swifty" with him. "Care for a swifty, sport?" he'd say, pouring a couple quick shots down Niagara Falls. Personally, I thought Colin's fancy scotch tasted an awful lot like mineral spirits, and suspected he might be topping up the bottle now and then with whatever was on sale at the liquor store down the street. So I put a little pencil mark on the label one day when Colin wasn't looking, and would bet you a double sawbuck he's got that same damn bottle today, still precisely two-thirds full of the cheapest rotgut Scotch, Irish, Rye, Canadian, or Old Kentucky sour mash whiskey he can lay his hands on.

  He doesn't think Americans can tell the difference.

  Like everyone else in England, Colin had a rough time of it during World War II. That's where he got his stiff-legged limp (which some-times—I swear!—seemed to move from one leg to the other) along with the most astounding collection of eyewitness combat stories you ever heard. A couple snorts would get him rolling anytime: Up against Rommel in North Africa! Barely scraping out at Dunkirk! Taking on Goering's finest in a shot-up Spitfire! Cheating death with the bomb disposal lads! They were all true, too. Every single one of them. That's because Colin heard them all firsthand in the hospital ward where he spent the majority of 1943 after falling off the tailgate of a truck in a dark London alley while unloading a shipment of black-market creamed chipped beef. I guess it was touch and go for awhile and there was some question as to whether Colin would ever walk again (at least before the war ended, anyway), but a Luftwaffe bom
bardier brought about a miracle recovery one night when he accidentally dropped a thousand-pound incendiary smack on top of the hospital wing. Colin amazed the entire staff by being first man to the far side of the lawn, handily beating out an Army surgeon who'd been something of a track star at Cambridge.

  After the war, Colin St. John journeyed to America to seek his fortune (or anybody else's that might be available—he wasn't real particular in that respect) and opened a little back-alley foreign car agency on the west side of Manhattan, just off the George Washington Bridge. Colin decided to call it Westbridge (get it?) and the moniker was just perfect for a lah-de-dah British sports car shop, on account of it sounded so upper crust, blue-blooded, and snooty. Jaguar customers expected that sort of thing.

  Colin's foreign car business grew and prospered over the years in spite of high prices, shoddy service, and the business ethics of an Armenian rug merchant. That's because every single playboy, sugar daddy, and black sheep heir in the greater metropolitan New York area just had to have himself one of those sexy new Jaguars. Or at the very least an MG. As Colin explained repeatedly to every virgin sales prospect, "A true sport requires a true sports car," and the rich, fashionable types around town were all ears.