The Lincoln purred as I put my foot down and flew past the Welcome to Chamberlain sign on the outskirts of the town. Ace made me drive because he said I needed the practice. Before we left, he spent an hour teaching me how to park, and I put a decent sized dent in the right-rear fender of the Lincoln by backing into the old Willys coupe in his front yard. After that, I couldn't argue that some practice would do me good.
The 40-mile drive helped me build some confidence, but just the thought of driving through a busy town like Chamberlain scared me. I pulled up at the first red traffic light and opened my door.
"Where are you going?" Ace asked.
"You can take it from here." I got out and walked around to his side.
"Cass, don't be a pussy," he said through the open window as I battled him to get his door open. "You're doing OK."
"I don't even have my license! What if a cop pulls us up?"
Ace raised his eyebrows. "Get back in the fucking car and drive."
By this time, the lights had turned green and cars were honking at us from behind. I huffed and then did as I was told before continuing to crawl along the main drag that was Summerland Drive.
Chamberlain far exceeds Castle Rock in size. Restaurants, diners and other food joints lavish the town center, and many of them are open until late, even in the middle of the week. It has a drive-in theater, a bowling alley, and the dance halls are the most popular in the region.
We cruised the strip for a while, and I noticed Ace looking intently into every parking lot and side street as if he was searching for something or someone.
"Pull in here," he said suddenly. He was pointing to a shopping center that had a long row of seven or eight shops, three of which were open food bars.
"Oh good. I'm starving," I replied. I turned off the main street and into the shopping center's parking lot that was out front, stretching end to end.
"Park right here, close to the exit."
There was a perpendicular park right in front of me, and I drove straight into it, thankful that I didn't have to try any tricky maneuvers. I turned off the ignition and looked out at the food bars. "It's not pizza, but a burger will do. You're paying."
Ace seemed to ignore me and opened the glove box to pull out a flathead screwdriver that was small enough to conceal in the palm of his hand.
"What's that for?" I asked warily.
"Come with me. Leave the car unlocked."
He got out and I followed suit, taking the keys with me.
"What are we doing?" I asked... or more like, demanded.
He walked around to me, took my hand and briskly led me out towards the left side of the parking lot. A strip of bush ran along the left edge, and I was dragged straight into it.
"Ace, this is a brand new dress!"
"Shut up and get down," he said, pulling me down to crouch on the dirty leaf litter.
"Are you gonna tell me what the hell you're up to?"
Ace looked out across the parking lot which had a bunch of vehicles clustered in the center where the food places were, and a few more sparsely scattered around them.
"You see that Chevy at the end of the line?" He pointed to a dark blue '55 with whitewalls and fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. It was in mint condition and so polished that it gleamed under the streetlights.
"Yeah..." I said, giving him the sideways eye.
"I could get fifteen hundred bucks for that, easy."
I gaped at him dumbfounded. "Shit. So, this is your plan?"
"Four cars a night – that's six grand to split."
"You wanna take four cars a night? Ace, that's crazy! Taking any is crazy."
Ace looked at me with a determined glint in his eyes. "Not if you know what you're doing." From the inner pocket of his jacket, he whipped out the leather gloves he used on the liquor store job and pulled them on. "Don't come out 'til I'm gone."
"Wait," I said, grabbing him by the arm to hold him back. "Can't we talk about this?"
"Why? You think you're gonna come up with a better idea?"
My stomach sunk, and I let my hand slip from his arm.
"Get the Lincoln and meet me at the welcome sign just outta town. I'll wait for you there."
Ace emerged from the bushes and took one swift glance at the open food bars before strolling over to the Chevy. My heart was banging against my sternum. I prayed to the stars above that nobody would suddenly walk out of there and over to our side of the lot.
I stayed low and chewed my thumb as I watched Ace tuck his hand into his jeans pocket and pull out the small screwdriver. He pushed the tip into the lock and turned it, wrenching it with force. With my knowledge of locks, I guessed he'd just snapped the pins.
My eyes frantically darted between the stores and the Chevy as he slipped into the driver's seat and gently closed the door before bending down and disappearing.
The car suddenly roared to life, breaking the silence of the lot and making my heart leap into my throat. Ace's head popped up again, and he gave a thumbs up in my direction before casually reversing out the park. He headed down and out of the exit and onto Summerland drive. He didn't speed, he didn't rush. He did nothing out of the ordinary that would arouse any suspicion.
"Hey, that's my car!"
My eyes darted towards the row of stores, and I saw two young guys standing on the sidewalk, wide-mouthed and pointing as they watched the gleaming red taillights of the Chevy heading down Summerland.
"Shit!" yelled the other guy. "Let's get my car. We can still catch the asshole!"
I had to stop them. That's all that went through my mind. I emerged from the bushes and headed to the Lincoln, sticking to a brisk stride so I wouldn't look suspicious. Meanwhile, the two guys were sprinting in the opposite direction to their vehicle. They reached it fast, faster than I could reach the Lincoln. But I was parked right next to the exit, and knew it would take them a few seconds to get there. I ran the last few steps and yanked my door open thanking Ace for telling me to leave it unlocked. I jammed the keys in the ignition, fired the engine and then hastily reversed the big beast out in a 90-degree turn.
I killed the engine just as their white '54 Ford pulled up to my rear bumper. The entry/exit was two lanes wide, but I cunningly parked right in the middle with my huge behind blocking them from using either.
"Hey, get outta the way!" the driver shouted out the window as he leaned on his horn.
"Someone's got my car!" screamed his passenger. "Get the fuck outta the way!"
By now, the Chevy had disappeared from view, but I decided to hold the guys up for as long as possible to make doubly sure Ace had made it out.
The owner of the Chevy gave up on yelling at me, and I saw his door swing open in my rearview mirror. He was coming my way. Just as he reached my tail, I fired the ignition again and put my foot on the gas.
"Stupid bitch!" he cursed. He sprinted back to the Ford, and his friend hit the gas before he had even closed the door.
I drove out very slowly, doing my best to hold them up some more, but they managed to nip around the side of me and drive out through the entry lane. Middle fingers waved at me as they tore up Summerland Drive in a now hopeless pursuit of their prized possession.
If I had known my way around, I would have picked a different route. But, regrettably, following them along Summerland was the only road out of town I knew. I drove slowly, keeping my distance, and after a while I lost sight of them. I felt some relief thinking they were miles ahead and gone when the sound of tires screeching on the road behind me caught my attention.
My eyes shot to my rear-view mirror, and I saw the white Ford pulling out of a side street. They raced right up to my bumper, headlights flashing and horn honking. The next set of traffic lights were red. I wanted to shut my eyes and floor it, but the traffic coming through the intersection was too thick. I stopped at the lights, first in the line, and the guys pulled up beside me. I dared not look at them – I didn't want them to get a proper look at my face. I pushed the locks down on all of the doors and then peered at the roads ahead to figure out how the hell I could get away from them.
Just then, knuckles rapped on my window and my door was ripped open, giving me the shock of my life. It was the owner of the Chevy. I got my best look at him then. His chin protruded out with a dimple in the middle and his jet-black ducktail shone under the street lights from grease overload. He'd obviously been drinking quite heavily because my car quickly filled with alcohol fumes as he leaned in, seething at me. He was huffing and puffing like he was about to blow my house down.
"You just lost me my car, bitch!"
I just gaped at him, surprised that the damn lock didn't work. That explained where Ace got the Lincoln.
"What you got to say about that?" he added.
I reached for the door and tried to yank it closed, but he stiffly held it open and wedged his whole body in the way. He grabbed me by the arm, near crushing it in his rage, and tried to pull me out of the car. I'm a lightweight, and if I didn't have a such a stern grip on the wheel, he would have yanked me out of there easy.
"Get your hands of me!" I screamed at him, feeling totally invaded and assaulted. He battled to get me out for a few seconds, and I gripped that wheel like my life depended on it and put my foot down on the gas. Hard.
My wheels skidded on the road as the heavy beast got moving. The guy ran a couple of steps with the car and then cursed as he finally had to let go of my arm. The traffic lights were still red, and I held the wheel tight as I shot through the intersection, diving in front of a honking car and just missing out on being T-boned by it.
I glanced at my mirrors to see the Ford fly through the lights after me. They were hot on my tail. They drove up beside me, their faces snarling like wild dogs. Their car was far faster than mine, and there was no way I could outrun them, so I slammed on the brakes. They sped ahead of me, and I put my foot back on the gas and hastily turned into the nearest street. I sunk my foot to the floor and flew through the suburbs, winding and turning down different roads while keeping a general idea of where I was in relation to Summerland so I wouldn't get lost. There were no headlights in my mirrors now, and so I picked a driveway and pulled into it, turning off the car and shutting down the lights.
Adrenaline pumped through me so hard my fingertips prickled.
I stayed there for about twenty minutes, but it felt like two hours. I doubted Ace would still be waiting for me – I hoped he wouldn't be. It was far too risky for him to stay on the open road for so long.
When I thought I'd been hiding for long enough, I crept back to Summerland Drive while constantly scouting out for the white Ford. I was incredibly nervous and double-checked every white car on the road, but I never saw them again. I made it out to the highway, and just as I passed the You are leaving Chamberlain sign, I saw something in my headlights, further up the ahead. It was Ace's new blue Chevy.
I pulled up behind it just as Ace got out and slammed his door. I got out of the car too, feeling just as furious as he looked.
"Where the fuck've you been?" he asked.
"Saving your ass, that's where! Some pro you are – you nearly got caught!"
"Bullshit."
"Bulltrue! Now, hurry up and get this off the road. They'll still be looking for it."
He gave me a kind of surprised snicker before jogging back to the Chevy. My heart was beating triple-time as I got into the Lincoln and followed him home, keeping a watchful eye on my mirrors for any sign of a white Ford... or flashing red police lights.
-2-
Ace drove like a bat outta hell the whole way back. I mean, he very rarely sticks to the speed limit in any case, but he tore up the road with me holding on for dear life behind him. He sped past his place, and I tooted my horn at him, thinking he'd accidentally missed it in his haste. Then his indicator came on, and I followed his turn into a narrow country road. We wound and twisted through several back roads, and I wondered where on earth he was taking us. We were in the middle of absolute nowhere when he finally slowed down and turned into the entrance of a dirt driveway. He stopped and opened a gate for us before continuing down the long, bumpy dirt path with me bounding along at his tail.
Eventually, we came to, what appeared to be, a large trailer home that had a huge corrugated iron shed connected to the back of it. Ace drove around to the back of the shed, and I stopped alongside him as he got out and opened two padlocked double garage doors. He waved me in and I drove the big beast inside with Ace soon parking his new prize next to it.
"You kept up alright," he said as we both got out.
"I think I got all the practice I needed tonight."
I gazed around in both awe and fear. We were standing in, what I could only describe as, a fully kitted-out car workshop. There were work benches covered in tools and an abundance of equipment like air compressors, welders, blow torches – that type of thing. Our two cars took up about a third of the shed, but there was room for three times more.
"What is this place?" I asked.
"It's a die-out garage. Been setting it up for a couple of months now. We do everything from changing license plates to serial and engine numbers, we do paint jobs, replace ignitions and locks, clean 'em out - the lot. Everything except the papers. We leave that to the sales yards."
"Wow... you're really serious about this."
"Course I am," he shrugged. "It's gonna make me rich." He walked past me, over to one of the benches and started rummaging through a pile of tools.
"Don't you feel the least bit guilty about stealing thousands of dollars' worth of somebody else's stuff? I mean, the guy tonight seemed like an asshole, but he's probably crying right now. I know I would be."
Ace found a squashed pack of cigarettes at the bottom of the pile and opened the box to pull one out that was still good. "Look," he said, sticking it in his mouth. He flipped open his zippo and held the flame to the tip. "It's just a car. I didn't steal his goddammed mother."
I simply shook my head at him.
"I hope you were paying attention tonight," he continued, "because tomorrow, it's your turn."
I'd been expecting that was coming, but that didn't make hearing it any easier to hear. I took a moment to think it through, to get used to the idea. I looked at the Chevy and tried to picture myself doing what Ace had done. Apart from the whole guilt factor and the fact that I was a new driver, I thought the rest was probably doable. It was hard not to despise myself for thinking like that, but it was the preferred option over looking into Diego's black and unforgiving eyes to confess that I didn't have his money. That scenario scared me so much that forsaking a few morals seemed worth it.
-3-
"Wanna drink?" Ace said through his cigarette, spinning the top off a bottle.
"I think I deserve one."
I had followed Ace into the trailer home part of the compound, and we stood in the kitchen as he fixed us a neat drink. There were two rooms. The main room was very long with the kitchen at the end and the living room part in the center. I could see the foot of a double bed in a separate room way down the end, so I guessed it was a bedroom. The living room was minimal with a sofa against each wall and a Hi-Fi system in the corner.
I took a seat and Ace handed me a glass of straight something before briefly lifting my arm to take a look. "You didn't have that before," he said, dropping it again.
"The guy, the owner of the chevy caught up to me," I answered, gently grazing my hand over the bruising.
"He saw you?"
"He didn't know I knew you. He thought I was some dumb girl with car troubles." I rubbed my bare arms, feeling the little goosebumps that covered my skin. In all the madness, I hadn't noticed how cold I was.
Ace shucked off his leather jacket and held it out for me to take.
"I'm alright," I said.
He opened the jacket and dropped it over my shoulders. It was warm with his body heat and felt too snug to shrug off again, so I left it there. I took a sip of my drink, and the spicy liquid ran down my throat, warming me as if someone had lit a little fire in my stomach.
"Who owns this place?" I asked.
Ace took a swig from his glass and leaned against the kitchen bench. "Me. But, it's under another name - throws the cops off."
I cocked a smile. "Whose name did you put it under?"
"Some guy who only exists on paper."
"How is that possible?"
"It's possible," he shrugged.
"You could still get busted, though. If the cops come out while you're here... while we're here..."
"And where's here? We're in the middle of fucking nowhere. The place has barely got an address."
"I guess."
"And anyway. I got people watching out for me. If the cops were even a little bit suspicious about this place, I'd soon know about it."
I chuckled to myself. "How are you so damn..."
"Smart?"
"Slippery."
Ace stifled a laugh. "I just know how to watch my back and cover my ass."
"Hmm. That's admirable."
I noticed Ace's eyes do a slight downward flick as he looked at me.
"Boy, it's getting late," I said. I guzzled down the rest of my drink and then shot over the kitchen sink to rinse my glass. "Are you done?" I asked him, holding out his jacket for him to take.
Ace swirled his drink in his glass and then tossed the rest back. "If you were seen in the Lincoln, it's no good to us now. We'll have to ship it out with the rest in a few days. 'Course, we'll need to buff out that big ding you put in the rear fender first," he smiled.
"It's not that big," I chuckled, playfully shoving him in the arm. "And I think I did some great driving to get away from those assholes tonight. So that makes up for it."
"Yeah, you must have," he grinned.
Suddenly, a vehicle came roaring towards the trailer, its headlights glaring through the kitchen windows. It came up so loud and fast that I thought it might drive straight through the wall, but it passed by and headed around the back to the shed. A moment later, another car whipped by and followed the first, around to the back.
"What the hell was that?" I asked.
"Our ride."
---
Vince's Studebaker and a crimson Chrysler parked up next to the '55 Chevy that Ace had acquired.
"Fuck!" yelled Eyeball, slamming his door.
"Hand it over," Vince smirked, holding out his palm as he walked around his car to Eyeball who protectively put his hand over the wallet that bulged in the back pocket of his jeans.
"Let's do best of three."
"Just gimme the money," Vince said, screwing up his face. "You won't beat me tomorrow night or any other night. Why? 'Cause you're a fucking loooser."
"Oh yeah?" Eyeball stepped up so close to Vince that they nearly bumped chests. "I bet you double I can!"
Vince cocked an eyebrow. "Double?"
"Double!"
"Deal!" Vince slapped Eyeball's palm as the two shook on it.
"I thought I told you two, no more racing," Ace stepped in.
"Oh, come on, Ace, it was just a bit of fun," Vince said.
"Yeah, there weren't no one around," Eyeball chimed in.
Vince caught sight of me standing in the doorway, and his eyes grew as big as his mouth. "What the fuck is she doing here?"
Eyeball, on the other hand, stood back looking pleasantly surprised, and his eyes took me in with a lengthy stare before he looked at Ace and smirked.
Ace took one last deep drag on the stump of his cigarette before stubbing it out on the workbench. "Cassie's joining the team."
"What?" Vince choked.
"Like I told you, I can't boost anymore. And I need someone to take my place."
"Well, what about Billy? Or Charlie?"
Ace scoffed. "Those two couldn't keep a secret if their lives depended on it."
"What about Jack or Fuzzy?"
"They're amateurs. I need someone solid and reliable that can do the job every time without a hitch."
Vince folded his arms and stared at me with a patronizing glare. "And that's her?"
"Are you questioning me, Vince?"
"Yeah, lighten up, man," Eyeball cut in. "If Ace says she can do it then she can do it!"
Vince looked me up and down, still with that cynical look like someone had just told him man was about to set foot on the moon. I hated Vince with a vengeance, but he put fire in my belly. I felt it glow like a red-hot furnace, burning up any last doubts and driving me forward to prove him wrong.
------
Just wanted to add a note to say that I try my best to give realistic figures in this story. The characters do deal with thousands of dollars, and I know that's a lot of money back in the 50's-60's, but I'm not just pulling figures out of the sky. I've done my research on prices to see what the average stolen cars would fetch and sell for in that time; I've checked the prices on coke back then and everything. So, yes, the money they earn might sound too good to be true, but believe it or not, it's realistic. I know - crazy, huh?