Five Days in Summer

AUTOMOBILES, DRIVE AWAY IN A PIECE OF HISTORY. The license plate of the Ford driven by Mr. White #2 had been bolted on in a Ragnatelli frame.
    There were about twenty cars, all classics, most of them from the forties and fifties. Amy wasn’t much of a car buff but she recognized a lot of Fords and Chevys with their long, bulbous noses and curved tops. They were in pristine condition, eye benders done up in candy colors you rarely saw anymore: cherry red, swimming pool blue, cream yellow, bronze, black andwhite like a half-and-half cookie, cool mint green. Not to mention a nifty 1947 Ford, salmon coral reef. It was lined up as innocently as any other car for sale, but this one had a story to tell. Amy supposed they all did.
    A one-room white-shingled office sat at the far end of the lot. Snow couldn’t tear himself away from the cars, so Amy went into the office alone. She was greeted by a woman with short brown hair and lipstick that put up a good fight with the cherry red Chevy.
    “Can I help you?”
    Amy took out her badge. “I’d like some information about one of your cars.”
    “You’re not buying.” The woman sighed.
    “Sorry.”
    “Which car?”
    “The pinkish one out there — a 1947 Ford?”
    “Yes, it’s a beauty.”
    “Has it been driven lately?”
    “Yesterday.”
    “By who?”
    “Whom.” The woman turned her head abruptly, as if to shake off the grammar. “I used to teach English, before I married Sal and got into this.”
    “You’re the owner?”
    “Wife of. Sal had the bug before I met him. I manage the office.”
    A framed photo on the desk showed Mr. and Mrs. Ragnatelli pressed together on a couch, smiling. The man was enormous, must have been three hundred pounds.
    “Who drove the car yesterday, Mrs. Ragnatelli?”
    “I don’t know his name. I wasn’t here yesterday afternoon. Sal said a man took the car for a test drive and brought it back later.”
    “Is that normal, to let people drive off with the cars?”
    “Sure. You have to seduce them. People like to be alone in a car to really get a feel for it. There’s a risk but we’ve never had one stolen. We always hold a credit card and I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t want to come back for their card, do you?”
    “No.” Through the small office window Amy could see Snow sitting in the driver’s seat of a mint green Ford with a front that reminded her of a baboon’s snout. “Do you keep copies of the credit cards?”
    “Maybe we should, but we never have. I’ll tell you what. Sal’s on the road today. There’s a classic car show up in Fall River. You could beep him and he’ll call you back. Just tell him you spoke to Vera.” She wrote her husband’s beeper number on the back of a business card and handed it to Amy.
    “Thanks.” Amy slipped the card into her purse. “Business slow down after Labor Day?”
    “Not usually, but it’s been a slow summer. We’re one of the first businesses to suffer when the economy starts to drift.”
    Snow had developed an attachment to the green 1940 Ford and it took a minute to get him out. While she waited, she stuck her head inside the pink car, looked under the hood, checked out the trunk. The car looked undisturbed. She waited a little longer while Snow went to ask Vera for a price on his green Ford. He fairly glowed all the way back to the station house.
    He pulled into his usual spot in the back lot, turned off the ignition, cranked up the parking brake, and turned a grin on Amy that showed the gap between his two front teeth. For a split second, she thought he looked cute in the slightly sad way of an oversized child.
    “Why don’t you buy yourself that car, Al?”
    “I can see myself in it.” He laughed softly. “Drivingdown Cape on a summer night, picnic on the beach, a glass of wine with someone special.”
    Amy was about to agree with him, maybe even suggest he sign up with a dating service after he got the car. But then he took his hand off the parking brake and landed it right on Amy’s thigh.
    “You must be joking!” She popped open the door, got out as fast as she could and stuck her head through the open window. “Al, what the hell are you thinking?”
    He wouldn’t look at her. “Forget it.” The car revved and he pulled out almost before she had a chance to back away.
    Amy went straight to her desk and tried to calm herself down. Snow’s wasn’t the first unwanted advance she’d ever fended off, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last.