Christine - Stephen King [130]
The static cleared. The Marvelettes were singing 'Please Mr Postman'.
And then a voice said in his car, 'Arnold Cunningham?' He jumped and snapped off the radio. He turned around. A small, dapper little man was leaning in Christine's window. His eyes were a dark brown, and his colour was high - from the cold outside, Arnie guessed.
'Yes?'
'Rudolph Junkins. State Police, Detective Division.' Junkins stuck his hand in through the open window.
Arnie looked at it for a moment. So his father had been right.
He grinned his most charming grin, took the hand, shook it firmly, and said, 'Don't shoot, copper, I'll throw out my guns.'
Junkins returned Arnie's grin, but Arnie noticed that the grin did no more than touch his eyes, which were exploring the car in a quick, thorough fashion that Arnie didn't like. Not at all.
'Whoo! I got the feeling from the local police that the guys who worked over your rolling iron had really tattooed it. It sure doesn't look like it.'
Arnie shrugged and got out of the car. Friday nights were slow at the garage; Will himself rarely came in, and he wasn't in tonight. Across the way, in stall ten, a fellow named Gabbs was putting a new silencer on his old Valiant, and down at the far end of the garage there was the periodic burr on an air wrench as some fellow put on his snow tyres. Otherwise, he and Junkins had the place to themselves.
'It wasn't anywhere near as bad as it looked,' Arnie said. He thought that this smiling, dapper little man might be extremely clever. As if it was a natural outgrowth of the thought, he rested his hand easily on Christine's roof and immediately felt better. He could cope with this man, clever or not. After all, what was there to worry about? 'There was no structural damage.'
'Oh? I understood they punched holes in the body with some sharp instrument,' Junkins said, looking closely at Christine's flank. 'I'll be damned if I can see the fill. You must be a bodywork genius, Arnie. The way my wife drives, maybe I ought to put you on retainer,' He smiled disarmingly, but his eyes went on running back and forth over the car. They would dart momentarily to Arnie's face and then go back to the car again. Arnie liked it less and less.
'I'm good but not God,' Arnie said. 'You can see the bodywork if you really look for it.' He pointed at a minute ripple in Christine's back deck. And there. 'He pointed at another. 'I was lucky enough to find some original Plymouth body parts up in Ruggles, I replaced the entire back door on this side. You see the way the paint doesn't quite match?' He knocked his knuckles on the door.
'Nope,' Junkins said. 'I might be able to tell with a microscope, Arnie, but it looks like a perfect match to me.'
He also knocked his knuckles on the door. Arnie frowned.
'Hell of a job ' Junkins said. He walked slowly around to the front of the car. 'Hell of a job, Arnie. You're to be congratulated.'
'Thanks.' He watched as Junkins, in the guise of the sincere admirer, used his sharp brown eyes to look for suspicious dents, flaked paint, maybe a spot of blood or a snarl of matted hair. Looking for signs of Moochie Welch. Arnie was suddenly sure that was just what the shitter was doing. 'What exactly can I do for you, Detective Junkins?'
Junkins laughed. 'Man, that's formal! I can't take that! Make it Rudy, okay?'
'Sure,' Arnie said, smiling. 'What can I do for you, Rudy?'
'You know, it's funny,' Junkins said, squatting to look at the driver's side headlights. He tapped one of them reflectively with his knuckles and then, with seeming absent-mindedness, he ran his forefinger along the headlight's semicircular metal hood. His overcoat pooled on the oilstained cement floor for a moment; then he stood up. 'We get reports on anything of this nature - the trashin of your car, I mean - '
'Oh, hey, they didn't really trash it,' Arnie said. He