Yesterday's News

just had a soothing massage. I expected significant stiffness the next day.
    The parking lot behind the building looked empty without my Fiat 124 in it. I hadn’t liked the way the steering was fading, and the engine was running rough, so I had taken it over to Amie’s Garage that morning.
    Retrieving my mail from the community lockbox in the brownstone’s foyer, I climbed the stairs to the second-floor unit owned by a doctor on a two-year residency in Chicago . The apartment was bright, even in the deflected sunshine, thanks to seven stained-glass windows across its southern wall. My landlord’s teak and burlap furniture lent a classy yet homey touch to the place.
    I put the filet in the refrigerator and tried to straighten things a little. I’m more an Oscar than a Felix, but this was going to be Nancy ’s first time at my place, and I was nervous about her reaction to it. Or, to be honest, my reaction to her staying over.
    The telephone rang. I sank into the couch and answered it. “John Cuddy.”
    “John, this is Amie.”
    “Great. You have my estimate?”
    “Yeah. You sitting down?”
    “Yes.”
    “Better lie down.”
    “Amie...“
    “Fifteen hundred.”
    “What?”
    “A one and a five with—”
    “What the hell can be that wrong with a fourteen-year-old car?”
    “Jesus, John, with a fourteen-year-old car there ain’t much that’s still right. You got a steering column with arthritis, an engine block with the emphysema there...“
    When Doctor Doom finished his list, I said, “What are my options?”
    “None. Scrap the Fiat’s what I’d do.”
    “Amie, where’s your soul?”
    “You want soul, soul costs fifteen hundred. You want brains, bag the coupe and get something that’ll last you.”
    “Any suggestions?”
    “Well... yeah. I got this Honda Prelude, ‘eighty-two. Last year of their earlier model. Silver with red seats, only thirty thousand miles on it. Stockbroker out in Lincoln used it as his station car, but the silly fuck can’t drive a shift anymore on account of he cracked his leg skiing in Utah last month.”
    “Skiing in May?”
    “Yeah. Deserves it, don’t he?”
    “How much for the Fiat?” I said.
    “You mean the Honda?”
    “No, I mean how much will you give me as trade-in on the Fiat?”
    “Trade-in? Tell you what, I won’t charge you a dime for diagnosing this terminally ill shitbox of yours I got standing in the comer of my garage, and I’ll give you the Prelude for three and a half.”
    “Thirty-five hundred dollars?”
    “That’s right. It’s mint, oughta be in a glass case somewheres instead—”
    “I’ll have to get back to you, Arnie.”
    “By tomorrow, okay? I gotta get your Typhoid Mary outta here before it infects the cars around it.”
    “By tomorrow.”
    I took out the checkbook. The infusion of cash from my old apartment being burned was down to six thousand and change. God knew what the jump in insurance might be for the “new” car. The rent due on the condo and the check I’d just given Elie would wipe out the money coming in from existing cases.
    I hoped the potential client at 2:00 p.m. was solvent. If not, I might have to return the filet.

    “John Cuddy?”
    I looked up from my desk at the woman in the doorway. I’d left the door open to encourage crossventilation from the two windows behind me in the office, my air conditioner being on the fritz again. “Ms. Rust, come in.”
    About five-four in low heels, she wore a gray skirt and a blue blazer. Her hair was light brown and would have been long if she didn’t part it in the center and pull it back into a bun. Her eyeglasses were big and round, her shoulder bag the size of a briefcase. As she approached me, I could see she used a little too much makeup, as though she were twenty-five and insecure trying very hard to look thirty-five and confident.
    We shook hands, and she sat across from me. “Professor Katzen said you were a good detective.” It was hard for me to imagine anyone calling Mo Katzen at the Herald anything but a dinosaur reporter, but I said, “I hope I’ll be able to help you.”
    “Did he... did he tell you why I need help?”
    “No. He just telephoned and left a message that a Jane Rust might be contacting me. Other than your call setting up this appointment, I don’t know anything.”
    She nodded, as though the absence of prior information meant she could somehow speak more freely. “I’m a reporter, Mr. Cuddy. On the Nasharbor Beacon. Are