The Good Guy

“Yes. Ms. Paquette?”

“Call me Linda.”

In the porch light, her eyes were Egyptian green.

She said, “Your mama must have had a hard nine months carrying all of you around.”

“I was smaller then.”

Stepping back from the door, she said, “Duck your head and come on in.”

He crossed the threshold, and after that nothing was ever the same for him.

Five (#u65e7b131-c2e7-55e0-bb92-b6c31e1b1967)

Golden honey poured wall to wall, a wood floor so lustrous and warm that the humble living room appeared spacious, quietly grand.

Built in the 1930s, the bungalow had either been meticulously maintained or restored. The small fireplace and flanking wall sconces were simple but elegant examples of Art Deco style.

The glossy white tongue-and-groove ceiling lowered over Tim, but not unpleasantly. The place felt cozy instead of claustrophobic.

Linda had a lot of books. With one exception, their spines were the only art in the room, an abstract tapestry of words and colors.

The exception was a six-by-four-foot image of a television with a blank gray screen.

“Modern art baffles me,” Tim said.

“That’s not art. I had it done at a photo shop. To remind me why I don’t own a TV.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Because life is too short.”

Tim gave the photo a chance, then said, “I don’t understand.”

“Eventually you will. A head as big as yours has to have some brains in it.”

He wasn’t sure if her manner indicated a breezy kind of charm or a flippancy bordering on rudeness.

Or she might be a little screwy. Lots of people were these days.

“Linda, the reason I’m here—”

“Come along. I’m working in the kitchen.” Leading him across the living room, she said over her shoulder, “Max assured me you’re not the type to stab me in the back and rape my corpse.”

“I ask him to vouch for me, and that’s what he tells you?”

As he followed her along a hallway, she said, “He told me you were a talented mason and an honest man. I had to squeeze the rest of it out of him. He really didn’t want to commit to an opinion about your possible homicidal and necrophilic tendencies.”

A car was parked in the kitchen.

The wall between the kitchen and the two-car garage had been removed. The wood floor had been extended throughout the garage, as had the glossy white tongue-and-groove ceiling.

Three precisely focused pin spots showcased a black 1939 Ford.

“Your kitchen is in the garage,” he said.

“No, no. My garage is in my kitchen.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Huge. I’m having coffee. You want some? Cream? Sugar?”

“Black, please. Why is your car in your kitchen?”

“I like to look at it while I’m eating. Isn’t it beautiful? The 1939 Ford coupe is the most beautiful car ever made.”

“I’m not going to argue for the Pinto.”

Pouring coffee into a mug, she said, “It’s not a classic. It’s a hot rod. Chopped, channeled, fully sparkled out with cool details.”

“You worked on it yourself?”

“Some. Mostly a guy up in Sacramento, he’s a genius at this.”

“Had to cost a bunch.”

She served the coffee. “Should I be saving for the future?”

“What future did you have in mind?”

“If I could answer that, maybe I’d open a savings account.”

His mug had a ceramic parrot for a handle, and bore the words BALBOA ISLAND. It looked old, like a souvenir from the 1930s.

Her mug was doubly a mug, in that it was also a ceramic head of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt biting on his famous cigarette holder.

She moved to the ’39 Ford. “This is what I live for.”

“You live for a car?”

“It’s a hope machine. Or a time machine that takes you back to an age when people found it easier to hope.”

On the floor, on a drip pan, stood a bottle of chrome polish and a few rags. The bumpers, grill, and trim glimmered like quicksilver.

She opened the driver’s door and, with her coffee, got behind the steering wheel. “Let’s go for a ride.”

“I really need to talk to you about something.”