You ‘d think if you paid nearly four thousand dollars for the sonofabitch and it wasn’t even a year old, that you could expect to drive the sonofabitch back and forth to San Diego with all eight cylinders firing and the goddamned roof mechanism working.
Dillon drove a yellow 1942 Packard 120 Victoria-the big-engine and long-wheel-base Packard with a special convertible body by Darrin. The Darrin body meant some pretty details: At the window line, for instance, the doors had a little dip in them, so you could rest your elbow there. All this cost a full thousand, maybe twelve hundred, dollars more than the ordinary “big” Packard convertible. And initially he was very pleased with it.
But today, even before he got to San Diego, it started to miss. And when he tried to put the roof up at the Brig at the Recruit Depot-to keep the seats cool when he was inside getting good ol’ Machine Gun McCoy, that sonofabitch, turned loose-there was a grinding noise, then a screech, and then smoke. And there was the goddamned roof, stuck half up and half down.
He couldn’t drive it that way. So he borrowed tools and dug in the back, behind the backseat, to disconnect the roof from the pump. When he was finishing that, hydraulic fluid squirted all over his shirt and trousers. They were probably ruined.
Though Dillon did not remember Colonel Frazier as being nearly so accommodating when it had been Sergeant Dillon and Major Frazier in the 4th Marines, the Colonel had really come through. There were now, and for the duration of the war bond tour, two gunnery sergeants on temporary duty with the Los Angeles Detachment, Marine Corps Public Affairs Division; they had already done a fine job of providing Staff Sergeant McCoy with a few pointers about the kind of good behavior it was in his own best interests to display. Aside from a few minor scrapes on his face, where the force of the stream from the fire hose had skidded him across the cell floor, there wasn’t a mark on him.
Frazier also arranged for a Marine Green 1941 Plymouth station wagon-normally assigned to Recruiting-to transport the two sergeants and the Hero of Bloody Ridge. That immediately proved useful. For McCoy crapped out in the back all the way to Los Angeles. But, as they followed him up the highway-with the goddamned Packard running on not more than five cylinders, backfiring like a water-cooled.50 caliber Browning, trailing a cloud of white smoke-it looked like the closing credits of Abbott & Costello Join the Marines.
And then he had to walk through the lobby of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, looking like he’d pissed his pants, to arrange for a small suite (instead of the single already reserved) for McCoy and his new buddies.
When he finally drove into his under-the-house, four-car garage, the only car there was the 1941 Ford Super Deluxe wood-sided station wagon he’d bought for Maria-Theresa and Alejandro to use. So as he went up the stairs, it was in the presumption that there wouldn’t be anyone else in the house besides servants.
Except, of course, for the Easterbunny and the Nurse. Whatsername? Dawn.
Oh, Christ! I never called that idiot Stewart!
At the top of the stairs, when he stepped into the kitchen, he bellowed, “Alejandro!” And in a moment Alejandro appeared.
” Se¤or Jake?”
“If you can start the sonofabitch, start the Packard and have Maria-Theresa follow you in the Ford. Take it to the Packard place and tell them I want it fixed now.”
” Senor Jake, is Saturday. Is half past six. They no open.”
“Oh, shit. Do it anyway. Park the sonofabitch right in the middle of the lawn in front of the showroom, and leave the hood open.”
” Se¤or Jake joke, yes?”
” Se¤or Jake joke no. Do it, Alejandro.”
“Si, Se¤or.”
Jake went into his bedroom, took his trousers off, sniffed them, saw how the stain had spread, uttered an obscenity, and threw them across the room.
Then he sat down on the bed, dialing the long-distance operator with one hand and unbuttoning his shirt with the other.
“Person to person, Brigadier General Stewart, Public Relations Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Washington, D.C.,” he said.