After putting the Volkswagen in park and killing the motor, the driver stepped out just as an older man, wiping his hands with a dirty red shop towel, stepped out from a doorway by the big roll-up door. Above the doorway was painted OFFICE.
The older man, olive-skinned and rotund and balding, wore faded blue overalls that had paint splatters. The patch over his shirt’s left breast pocket read MARIANO’S COLLISION CENTER; the one over his right read GABBY.
He approached the Volkwagen, not saying anything to the driver as he circled the car, inspecting it. When he had made a full circle, he took a long moment studying the stickers on the inside of the front windshield on the driver’s side. One was a red parking pass with six numbers under the letters “UMA HS.”
“What’s the story, Ruben?” Gabriel Mariano said to the driver.
“I need to get a thousand for it,” Ruben Mora said, glancing at the silver Volkswagen while trying not to appear nervous. He dropped his cigarette butt to the grimy concrete floor and ground it with his toe. “You’ll get five times that from it.”
“What’s the story?” Mariano repeated. “Where’d you get it? Any papers?”
Mora turned to him, and in a jerky motion pulled out a disposable butane lighter and lit another cigarette.
“That matter?” Mora said. “It’s gonna be parted out anyway.”
He leaned back against a steel worktable that held paint-splattered gallon cans-one was marked TOLUENE; the other, with a few dirty shop towels on top, had a paper label reading ACETONE-and exhaled a cloud of smoke through his nostrils.
“You told me what you needed,” Mora said, “and I put the word out.”
Mariano looked past him, to the back of the shop, then at him.
“I said Volkswagen Passat, Ruben, not Jetta. And do me a favor and don’t be smoking around those cans.”
Mora glanced at the worktable, shrugged, and took two steps away from it.
“This one’s a cherry, not an hour old,” Mora said, then, almost as an afterthought, nodded toward the bumper and added, “I stuck new plates on it just to be safe.”
Mariano looked at the license plate, and immediately saw a problem-the New Jersey plate was screwed on top of another license plate.
Damned lazy kid. He didn’t ditch the old ones. Just left them on it.
If I picked up on that, a cop sure would.
He glanced up at the rear window. The bumper sticker on it read MARION VIKINGS FOOTBALL.
And what’s a Jersey plate doing on a car with a high school sticker from a Philly suburb? Another thing that’d scream to the cops, “Pull me over!”
Stupid bastard.
Couldn’t steal a local plate? Not like they’re not everywhere. .
Mariano sighed and shook his head. He walked to the driver’s door and, using the shop towel, opened it and leaned inside.
“Got low miles,” Mora said. “Under fifty thou.”
“I’ve told you, low miles don’t mean shit for parts. A fender’s a fender.”
Mariano looked over his shoulder. “I’m thinking five hundred.”
“Come on, man. I need the grand.”
“That’s too rich for me. I’ll go six, maybe six-five.”
Mora frowned, then glanced across the garage as he considered the counteroffer. He took a pull on his cigarette, then said, “Okay. Seven.”
Mariano ignored that as he reached down and pulled the release handle for the hood and pushed the button for the trunk. They each opened with a Click! He then went to the front of the car and, again using the red shop towel, raised the hood. He made a cursory inspection of the engine bay, grunted, slammed the hood, then went to the rear of the vehicle.
“It got a full-sized spare or one of those small donut ones?” Mariano said as he reached for the trunk lid.
“I dunno. I didn’t-”
“What the hell!” Mariano suddenly exclaimed from behind the partially raised trunk lid.
He quickly slammed it shut and stared at Mora.
“What?” Mora said, looking at the now furious face of Mariano. “I can get you a tire-”
“You stupid fucking shit,” Mariano said, failing to keep his composure while rapidly wiping his hands with the shop towel. He then nervously wiped where he had lifted the trunk lid. “Someone pay you to bring this here to dump on me?”
“Dump what?”
Mariano walked up to Mora and poked him in the chest.
“Get the hell outta here!” Mariano yelled, his face flushed bright red. “And you listen to me real good, don’t you ever come back! Ever!”
Mariano started walking quickly back toward the office. He pointed at the Hispanic worker, then at the overhead steel door.
“You! Get that damn door opened back up now!” he shouted, then looked at Mora and added, “You were never here, you got it?” then went into the office, slamming the door behind him.
Mora quickly went to the driver’s door and hit the trunk lid release that was on the door panel. He heard the latch click open again, then went and threw up the trunk lid.
“Holy shit!” he said softly, then slammed the trunk shut. “That bastard!”
He felt his heart start racing. He looked around. No one was nearby. The Hispanic male, his back to him, was standing by the overhead door and pressing the control button as the door clunked upward.
Mora started for the driver’s door, passing the worktable with the metal cans and small pile of dirty shop towels. He quickly grabbed them and then tossed them on the floorboard of the front passenger seat, then hopped in and began backing out of the garage.
–
In his shop office, Gabriel Mariano stood with his hands on his hips while looking at the closed door to the garage.
I could kill that little shit for pulling that stunt, he thought.
You know what? Screw him!
Mariano pulled open a desk drawer, reached in, and produced one of the three old cellular telephones that he had inside. He held down the phone’s on button, and when the screen blinked to life, he angrily stabbed at the keypad with his index finger, punching in 911.
The voice of an adult woman, calm and professional, answered, “Philadelphia Police Nine-One-One. What is your emergency?”
“Yeah, some Puerto Rican punk with a gun just carjacked a VW Jetta in Frankford, on Torresdale near the Harding Middle School. Silver four-door with Jersey plates.”
The female voice repeated the information back to him.
“That’s right,” Mariano said.
“Was anyone hurt?” she said.
“Looked like it. But they sped off. You’d better hurry.”
“I need your name and-”
Mariano did not listen to the rest of her reply.
He turned over the cell phone, pulled off its back cover, removed the battery, and tossed all the pieces back in the desk drawer.
–
Ruben Mora’s mind spun as he drove down Torresdale Street. His first thought was that he had to get rid of the car and its contents. And rid of it now. But then he got mad, and thought he should drive to Kensington and get his two hundred dollars back.
That jacked-up bastard! he thought as he slowed for a traffic light that was changing to green. I shoulda known Reggie sold this cheap for a reason!
He hit the turn signal. But just before he made the turn to go back to Somerset, he realized that his first thought was best. He really had to get rid of the car. He had known that right away at the garage without really thinking about it, because that explained why he had automatically grabbed the dirty shop rags and paint thinner.
He made a hard right, then drove slowly, trying not to draw attention while he looked for the right place.