Wu started to look skeptical; or maybe I should say, he started to look even more skeptical. “Maybe it was all a dream,” he said, either taunting me or comforting himself, or both.
“I don’t see P1800s in junkyards, even in dreams,” I said. But in spite of my best efforts to find the Hole, I was going in circles. Finally, I gave up and went to Boulevard Imports. The place was almost empty. I didn’t recognize the counterman. His shirt said he was a Sal.
“Vinnie’s off,” he said. “It’s Saturday.”
“Then maybe you can help me. I’m trying to find a place called Frankie’s. In the Hole.”
People sometimes use the expression “blank look” loosely. Sal’s was the genuine article.
“A Volvo junkyard?” I said. “A pony or so?”
Blank got even blanker. Wu had come in behind me, and I didn’t have to turn around to know he was looking skeptical
“I don’t know about any Volvos, but did somebody mention a pony?” a voice said from in the back. An old man came forward. He must have been doing the books, since he was wearing a tie. “My Pop used to keep a pony in the Hole. We sold it when horseshoes got scarce during the War.”
“Jeez, Vinnie, what war was this?” Sal asked. (So I had found another Vinnie!)
“How many have there been?” the old Vinnie asked. He turned to me. “Now, listen up, kid.” (I couldn’t help smiling; usually only judges call me “kid” and only in chambers.) “I can only tell you once, and I’m not sure I’ll get it right.”
The old Vinnie’s instructions were completely different from the ones I had gotten from the Vinnie the day before. They involved a turn into an abandoned gas station on the Belt Parkway, a used car lot on Conduit, a McDonald’s with a dumpster in the back, plus other flourishes that I have forgotten.
Suffice it to say that, twenty minutes later, after bouncing down a steep bank, Wu and I found ourselves cruising the wide mud streets of the Hole, looking for Frankie’s. I could tell by Wu’s silence that he was impressed. The Hole is pretty impressive if you are not expecting it, and who’s expecting it? There was the non-vertical crane, the subway car (with smoke coming from its makeshift chimney) and the horse grazing in a lot between two shanties. I wondered if it was a descendant of the old Vinnie’s father’s pony. I couldn’t tell if it was shod or not.
The fat lady was still on the phone. The kids must have heard us coming, because they were standing in front of the card table waving hand-lettered signs: MOON ROCKS THIS WAY! and MOON ROCKS R US! When he saw them, Wu put his hand on my arm and said, “Pull over, Irv,”—his first words since we had descended into the Hole.
I pulled over and he got out. He fingered a couple of ashy-looking lumps, and handed the kids a dollar. They giggled and said they had no change.
Wu told them to keep it.
“I hope you don’t behave like that at Frankie’s,” I said, when he got back into the car.
“Like what?”
“You’re supposed to bargain, Wu. People expect it. Even kids. What do you want with phony moon rocks anyway?”
“Supporting free enterprise,” he said. “Plus, I worked on Apollo and I handled some real moon rocks once. They looked just like these.” He sniffed them. “Smelled just like these.” He tossed them out the window into the shallow water as we motored through a puddle.
As impressive as the Hole can be (first time), there is nothing more impressive than a junkyard of all Volvos. I couldn’t wait to see Wu’s face when he saw it. I wasn’t disappointed. I heard him gasp as we slipped through the gate. He looked around, then looked at me and grinned. “Astonishing,” he said. Even the inscrutable, skeptical Wu.
“Told you,” I said. (I could hardly wait till he saw the 1800!) The old man was at the end of the driveway, working on a diesel this time. Another customer, this one white, looked on and kibitzed. The old man seemed to sell entertainment as much as expertise. They were trying to get water out of the injectors.
“I understand you have an 1800,” Wu said. “They’re hard to find.”
I winced. Wu was no businessman. The old man straightened up, and looked us over. There’s nothing like a six-foot Chinaman to get your attention, and Wu is six-two.
“P1800,” the old man said. “Hard to find is hardly the word for it. I’d call it your rare luxury item. But I guess it won’t cost you too much to have a look.” He reached around the diesel’s windshield and honked the horn. Two shorts and a long.
The oversized head with the oversized eyes appeared at the far end of the yard, by the fence.
“Two lawyers coming back,” the old man called out. Then he said to me: “It’s easier to head straight back along the garage till you get to where Frankie is working. Then head to your right, and you’ll find the P1800.”
Frankie was still working on the endless pile (not a stack) of tires by the fence. Each one went through the low door of the shed with a pop.
I nodded, and Frankie nodded back. I turned right and edged between the cars toward the P1800, assuming Wu was right behind me. When I saw it, I was relieved—it had not been a dream after all! I expected an appreciative whistle (at the very least), but when I turned, I saw that I had lost Wu.
He was still back by the garage, looking through a stack (not a pile) of wheels against the wall.
“Hey, Wu!” I said, standing on the bumper of the P1800. “You can get wheels anywhere. Check out the interior on this baby!” Then, afraid I had sounded too enthusiastic, I added: “It’s rough but it might almost do.”
Wu didn’t even bother to answer me. He pulled two wheels from the stack. They weren’t exactly wheels, at least not the kind you mount tires on. They were more like wire mesh tires, with metal chevrons where the tread should have been.
Wu set them upright, side by side. He slapped one and gray dust flew. He slapped the other. “Where’d you get these?” he asked.
Frankie stopped working and lit a cigarette. “Off a dune buggy,” he said.
By this time, I had joined them. “A Volvo dune buggy?”
“Not a Volvo,” Frankie said. “An electric job. Can’t sell you the wheels separately. They’re a set.”
“What about the dune buggy?” Wu asked. “Can I have a look at it?”
Frankie’s eyes narrowed. “It’s on the property. Hey, are you some kind of environment man or something?”
“The very opposite,” said Wu. “I’m a lawyer. I just happen to dig dune buggies. Can I have a look at it? Good ones are hard to find.”
I winced.
“I’ll have to ask Unc,” Frankie said.
“Wu,” I said, as soon as Frankie had left to find his uncle, “there’s something you need to know about junkyard men. If something is hard to find, you don’t have to tell them. And what’s this dune buggy business, anyway? I thought you wanted interior trim for your P1800.”
“Forget the P1800, Irv,” Wu said. “It’s yours. I’m giving it to you.”
“You’re what?”
Wu slapped the wire mesh wheel again and sniffed the cloud of dust. “Do you realize what this is, Irv?”
“Some sort of wire wheel. So what?”
“I worked at Boeing in 1970,” Wu said. “I helped build this baby, Irv. It’s off the LRV.”
“The LR what?”
Before Wu could answer, Frankie was back. “Well, you can look at it,” Frankie said. “But you got to hold your breath. It’s in the cave and there’s no air in there.”