Hush Hush Read Online Free PDF

boys and girls?”
    Lancaster shook, laughing, tried to stop, couldn’t. “Yeah, Rollo hires them. They’re sort of … trainees,” he said. “Tire needs changing, dope needs smoking, we bring them in.” He laughed again. “Actually ’Tricio is a fair hand and so’s Davy. Other two are strictly Blue Lagoon.”
    Two Porsches, lipstick red, roared up the street and turned in at the third building and stopped. A small, dowdy young woman, in glasses and an old, empire-waisted dress, stepped out of the near car and trudged inside as a garage door went up.
    Lancaster turned back to him. “Let’s see, Mr. Quinn. I wonder if you know anything about fixing cars. Can you do us a brake job, say? On this Olds here?” He petted the rear fender of the big yellow car. “Certainly would save me some trouble. Little hundred dollar job.”
    “Right now?”
    Lancaster looked at him. “You want a job?” He started to rub at the corner of his eye with a finger, then stopped to rub the finger clean on his blue suit. “It’s already up, and there’s an impact wrench on the floor there and all the tools you’ll need in the tower.” He pointed to the fancy red toolbox. “Bottom two drawers.”
    “What’s the matter with it?”
    “It doesn’t stop.”
    Quinn looked at him, trying to remember brakes.
    “Okay, you tell me,” Lancaster said. “Man says the brakes are bad. Car’ll stop but it takes a good long time. Fluid’s low but still okay.”
    “Warning lights?” Quinn said. He crouched down next to the front wheel, wincing, and looked across under the car at the inside of the other front tire, then in around at the near one, checked the back tires. “It’s not leaking at the wheels. Master cylinder leaking?”
    The big man, watching, smiled, shook his head.
    “Just the front pads, then,” Quinn said. He stood up again. “Right?”
    The guy laughed, nodded. “That’s right. Just do the front. I’ll put the shoes on the back later. There’re no leaks. The master’s almost new.”
    “Why are you going to do the back, if it’s just the front?”
    Lancaster looked at him, trying to simplify what he had to say enough to make it comprehensible to a soft-handed, but maybe not hopeless apprentice. “Look here, Shadetree, if the front’s worn a lot the back’s worn a little, you know? They got a metering valve on here, supposed to even up the braking—it only half works. Any time car’s been driven, the wear’s uneven. So we start them over even, it’s a equilibrium thing.” He held out his two pale rough palms, as if weighing something. “And I don’t want the man back a week on with a car I fixed that don’t stop. This used to be my shop. But that ain’t it …” He sighed, shook his big head, and looked out toward the road in front of the place. “Bad work makes me feel bad. You know what I mean?”
    Quinn looked at the big yellow Oldsmobile floating in the oily air of the place. How hard can it be, he thought. Just brakes. He remembered doing brakes in parking lots on cars up on scissor jacks and bleeding them into Coke bottles. Heremembered sitting around in clubs with people from the law office where the bar tab ran to three hundred dollars.
    “What’s the matter?” the black man said.
    “I’m used to doing this on Volkswagens.”
    “ ’bout the same thing,” Lancaster said. “Only these just have one piston. And you take the caliper off to do the work. Two bolts.” He held up two thick fingers.
    Quinn looked past him, at the front wheel. “Doesn’t make sense. How can they do it with one piston? How do they equalize the pads, balance the pressure?”
    “Caliper floats. Whole thing. Piston’s squeezing against itself. Jesus H. You’re sure enough shadetree, aren’t you?”
    “I can fix this.” Quinn pointed across to the Pontiac. “You can go on back under there. Out of my way. I’ll have this sucker finished in an hour.” He walked over to the impact wrench lying on the