Buch lesen: «An Ice Cream For Henry»

Chapter 3

I t was nine thirty, and the sun filtering through the gaps in the auto repair shop shutters was already a problem for Jim, a guy who could sweat for America.

The Howards’ Mercedes was a genuine antique: a 1954 300 SL with gull-wing doors. It had taken Jim weeks to find an original replacement muffler, and on top of that he’d had to make several secondary repairs. The car parked in his repair shop was worth more than four million dollars, and the job was set to earn him a cool ten thousand. The Howards were filthy rich and Jim had been lucky enough to befriend Ronald Howard at college, long before he married Carol Spencer, a woman who somehow managed to be even uglier than she was rich. Carol was probably one of the ugliest women in the entire United States, her looks irredeemable even with the most advanced plastic surgery, but for Ronald it was always about the money: ‘ There ain’ t no piece of ass can compete with a private jet!’ he’d always say when one of his friends asked how on earth he managed to sleep with that woman.

At Ronald’s request and expense, Jim had taken his business to ‘ Frankie’ s Luxury Car Parts’, whose owner could get his hands on anything and charged accordingly. Frankie had friends and collectors of all ages as clients, and he counted many of the country’s car thieves and junkyard workers among his loyal associates. Frankie actually was the nickname of his great-grandfather Franco, the son of Italian immigrants who came to the United States in 1882. Franco built up his business alone, using methods that were effective if not always legal and ensuring that luxury car parts would provide a life of luxury for all his descendants, including Tommy, who now ran the company and was known to everyone as Frankie, after his great-grandfather.

‘ I don’ t know how much you paid for this muffler, Ronald, but it’s been a real bitch to fit,’ thought Jim, dripping with sweat as he lay under the car.

He could really use those ten thousand big ones. Jim couldn’t afford to take on any employees because he needed to save to put his son through college and to pay his mortgage, which had becoming crippling after the financial crisis.

His was a small repair shop and most of what business he did get came in the form of repairing old clunkers. Clients like the Howards were as rare as hens’ teeth. People with new or luxury cars took their business to authorized repair shops, leaving Jim to deal with his friends or people even worse off than him who would haggle over a twenty-dollar job. Ted Burton’s aging Wrangler, which was what kept Jim busy most of the time, was another story. The Jeep spent at least two months every year in Jim’s repair shop, not because there was anything wrong with it in particular, but because Ted was an old friend and now that he’d retired, he had nothing better to do than stop by once or twice a week to have the engine serviced and chew the fat with Jim.

Just like its owner, the Wrangler was rough and ready, good for another fifty thousand miles in the toughest conditions, even though it had rumbled in complaint ever since the time Ted forgot to top up the antifreeze and it blew up on Ocean Drive, an incident that resulted in Ted always carrying bottles of antifreeze in the trunk and bringing the car in for regular checks.

It was unbearably hot as Jim wheeled himself out from under the Mercedes where he had been working on the damned muffler. His face and hands were covered in oil. Jim had never managed to break the habit of using the palm of his hands to wipe the sweat from his brow rather than his wrists,which would have been the only way to keep his face clean because he didn’t wear gloves.

He got to his feet and went to check his paperwork in the tiny room at the back of the repair shop that doubled up as an office and chill-out zone. It was the only distraction in his place of work, apart from the tiny adjoining john.

‘ Bills, bills, bills. For Christ’ s sake!’ Jim said to himself as he put the papers back in order. He picked up the phone from the tiny square desk fixed to the wall and dialed the number of his sister Jasmine.

He informed her Henry would be coming over at lunchtime, asked her how she was and told her that, sooner or later, he wanted to take a trip to Ireland so he could once again take in the emerald-green hills and introduce his son to the clean, fresh air of his homeland. Jim Lewis was no poet, but behind his knitted brow and hardened expression lay a fairly sensitive and melancholy soul.

He had changed a great deal since Bet died, losing some of that sparkle that had enabled him to see things in a very different, positive light. He was very close to Jasmine, even though they were fifteen years apart. Jim was nearly forty-eight and Jasmine over sixty, the other difference being that Jim was in perfect health while his sister had been breathing with just one lung for several years.

Jim came to the United States first, having spent the first ten years of his life in Cork, Ireland. His American dad had married a beautiful Irish girl and gone on to have two children with her, those fifteen years apart. When Jim’s mom died when he was ten years old, his father returned to live in the States and brought Jim with him, while Jasmine stayed behind in her job and crossed the Atlantic only as she approached forty, with her own health already suffering and her father coming to the end of his life. Morgan Lewis died a slow death, eventually succumbing to Alzheimer’s at sixty-two. He had little to leave his two children, apart from the opportunity to embrace the American dream.

Jim used most of the money he got from selling his father’s house to pay for his sister’s health care. This made him, in spite of his numerous character flaws that included stubbornness and a lack of education, appear worthy of people’s respect.

He switched on the radio and tuned in to a country music station. He liked country music, especially since learning to dance to it at the Road to Hell on Saturday nights.

He got to work on the engine of Ted’s Wrangler. As usual, he just needed to give it a once over and then top up the oil and antifreeze.

All his focus really was on Ronald Howard’s Mercedes-Benz. Now the muffler was done, he had to make sure the driver’s door opened smoothly.

After a couple hours work, the gull-wing door once again opened effortlessly as if it had just rolled off the production line back in the days when the world was full of hope after a decade spent recovering from the horrors of the Second World War.

No sooner had he finished the job than Ted Burton entered the repair shop with two bags of fried chicken and a four-pack of beer.

“Jeez, Jim, that baby’s gotta be worth more than your house and mine put together! What happened? Did it have a run-in with a Rockefeller?” Ted said in his baritone voice.

Jim smiled: “It’s the jewel in Ronald Howard’s collection.”

“Is that your pal who’s married to the Loch Ness monster?”

“Yep, that’s the one.”

“And he leaves this Fort-Knox-on-wheels in your repair shop? If I were you, I might have found a way to make it disappear by now!” said Ted, laughing heartily.

“I can’t deny I’ve given it some thought, Ted, but here, let me show you something. Look over there, across the street...” replied Jim, pointing to an armored car with two men inside.

“I’d spotted that car. Who are those two guys?” asked Ted curiously.

“They’re private security guards hired by the Howards. They’ve been out there three days and nights. They change shifts with another two guards every eight hours. But that’s not it; come look out the bathroom window. There’s another armored car keeping watch over the back.”

“Jeez! Money talks, huh?” muttered Ted as he followed Jim into the bathroom.

“Maybe marrying that brute wasn’t such a dumb idea after all, huh Ted?” Jim said, taking one of the bags of fried chicken from his friend.

“You’d better believe it, even if it’s meant having to get Viagra on prescription refill, the old dog!”

“Maybe he likes it...”

“Jim, that’s gotta be worse than going with a guy. He can’t possibly enjoy it. He’s just thinking of the interest in his bank account!” exclaimed Ted knowingly.

“There’s nothing worse than going with a guy. I’d rather fuck a sheep, as long as it was female!” replied Jim with a look of disgust.

“Bud, my ex-wife used to say that homophobes were actually repressed homosexuals...” replied Ted, snickering as he bit into a piece of chicken.

“Not in my case. Look, I’ve got nothing against them...it’s just that I’d rather keep them at arm’s length. Whatever they get up to in their own time is fine, but I don’t wanna know about it and I don’t want them anywhere near me. Thanks for the chicken and beer, by the way. Make sure you don’t choke on it!” said Jim, before tucking in to his first piece of meat as he watched Ted spluttering because his had gone down the wrong way.

“Wash it down, my friend. I don’t want a dead body lying in my repair shop!” he added, as Ted recovered from his episode by downing half his can of beer.

“How’s my Jeep?” asked Ted, having finished his beer and thrown the can in the trash.

“Oh she’s doing great, Ted. She’s like a tank!”

“They don’t make ‘em like they used to, bud. They’re just heaps of junk nowadays!” said Ted, cracking open another beer and taking a big mouthful.

“Ain’t that the truth...” replied Jim, looking down at his watch. It was nearly twelve.

Ted Burton let out a huge belch of such volume it caught the attention of the two guards hired by Ronald Howard to watch over his Mercedes.