Hush Hush Read Online Free PDF Page A

kid said. “Mort.” He handed the girl the joint, pointed with his wrench. “Dix. And Dave, and Patricio. Rollo’s never here, really. Just as well. He couldn’t fix a car if his life depended on it.”
    “
Woooo
,” the others said again.
    “Like, quality control,” the one called Dave said.
    “You couldn’t either, Mort,” Patricio said. He looked at Quinn. “Don’t think he knows how to use that wrench. Yesterday, he asked me what a head gasket was.”
    “I knew,” Mort said.
    “What about … Lancaster?” Quinn said. “Someone named Lancaster around?” It dawned on him that that was the name on the place.
    “Get Bubbles,” Dave said.
    “Davy,” Mort said. “I told you not to talk like that.”
    “It’s ugly, Davy,” the black-haired girl said, with a studied look away. “Why be ugly?”
    Mort looked suddenly tired, as if he could barely raise his arm to point to the next steel shed. “Next door,” he said. “Stay away from the detailing shop—the last building? They don’t like it when you hang around there.”
    “Thanks,” Quinn said, and started across the hardened mud alley toward the second steel building. Even these children belong here, he thought, wondering at their quirky serenity, recalling his own childhood, its unease. He wondered how old he must look to them, and then he thought about Liz the librarian, wondered how old she thought he was.
    Inside the second shed there were two Hondas, an old Oldsmobile, and a new blue Pontiac in the bays. Lancaster was underneath the Pontiac, a big man in worn shoes and stiff blue coveralls. “With you in a minute,” he said. He sounded black. Quinn looked around.
    The place was uncommonly tidy, even clean. A tall red tool chest, on wheels, stood beside the Pontiac, and a fat black wire ran to the trouble light the guy had under it. The Olds was up on a lift, hovering a foot off the ground. Beside oneHonda, pieces of something were laid out between two red rags like an exploded diagram. A long counter ran three feet high along the corrugated steel rear wall, and above it and above three or four old Pirelli calendars, a string of windows, the glass, amazingly, clear, sparkling.
    “So what can I do you?” the black guy said, standing, wiping his hands on another red rag. He looked past Quinn for a car. “What sort of problem you got?” He was easily six four. His eyes were streaked and red and sagged a little and his arms, his belly, even his cheeks looked heavy and soft, not so much fat, Quinn thought, as uncared for.
    “I’m looking for work,” Quinn said. “That so,” the guy said. “That so.” He was looking at Quinn’s shoes. “Well, you need to talk to Rollo, or a man named Powell.”
    “My name’s Quinn.” He held out his hand.
    Lancaster shook hands. “Well, Mr. Quinn, we’re pretty well fixed right now. I got four kids working next door.” He pointed.
    “Actually, Allen Powell sent me over,” Quinn said. “He said I should talk to you, if Rollo wasn’t around. You’re Mr. Lancaster, aren’t you?”
    The black guy laughed. “I’m Bub. I used to be Mr. Lancaster at one time, sure was. Then I got sent to Viet Nam, and then I got sent to Raiford, that’s in Florida. Since then, I’m Bub.” He looked at Quinn, appraising him. “You know about cars?”
    “Not a whole lot. Been working in a shop for a year in Atlanta.”
    Lancaster laughed. “That so, you’ve been wearing some fine leather gloves.” He laughed again, saw Quinn looking up at him. “Show me your hands,” he said. He motioned for them. “Go on, let me see your hands.”
    Quinn held his hands out. Lancaster took them, turned them palms up, stared at them, looked up at Quinn, smiling, and let them fall.
    “Yeah, okay,” Quinn said. “Yeah. Maybe it was fifteen years ago. It was a while back. All this electronic stuff, I don’t know anything about it.” He looked back toward the first building. “But, you know, I met your help. The